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b.1865-d.1908
Preface
In researching these stories, we have to work backwards from whatever family information we can glean from the individual’s medical notes. Sometimes the information is very sparse and this can be challenging. The death certificate can sometimes help. In this case the death was registered by the patient’s widow and revealed that she knew him as Robert Charles Howard. From this we were able to trace his marriage in 1891, and that record gave us a signature, which matched an earlier army record.
It also gave an address for the bride which in the 1891 Census was the address of Charles’ mother and his siblings. This was a clincher that we had the right family. Also, the names of two marriage witnesses matched those of his brother and sister.
Even then there remained some confusion: in his army record his next of kin is named as his father Robert Howard, address unknown; on his marriage record he named his father as Robert Charles Howard, a cooper; while as far as we can ascertain his father was known as Charles or Charles William, Howard, variously a packer, a traveller, a porter, and a tea sampler, who seems to have deserted the family by 1881. With that slight element of doubt, here is the story as far as we have been able to piece it together.
Childhood
Charles Robert Howard was born in Bethnal Green in London’s East End on 6 September 1865 and baptised at St Matthias’ church on 1 October. His parents were Charles William Howard and his wife Caroline Parker, who had married in Shoreditch a year before. The father’s occupation on marriage was “packer”; on the baptism record it was “traveller”.
In the 1871 Census, the family is recorded at 2 Bacon Street, Bethnal Green. Charles (aged 5) now had a brother Joseph (aged 3) and a sister Mary Ann (aged 1). Charles, the father, was now a tea sampler (at the time of Mary Ann’s baptism in 1870 he was a porter), while Caroline was working as a bonnet shape maker. Caroline’s mother Sarah is in a separate household at the same address with her second husband Robert Houghton (a “Trapper of pigeons”) and son William.
The 1881 Census records the family at 45 Bacon Street, now living with Caroline’s widowed mother Sarah “Horton”. Charles the father is not with them, and Caroline is listed as a widow (but ten years later, in the 1891 Census, she is recorded as married). Brother Joseph is not there either – we think he may be the Joseph Howard aged 12 from Bethnal Green who was enumerated as an inmate at the Industrial School in Feltham.
A Cavalryman
In September 1884 Charles, who was already a part time militia volunteer, joined the regular army as a private in the 5th Dragoon Guards. Over the next 6 years much of his service was spent in Ireland. His army medical records reveal that he was treated for primary stage syphilis in Dublin in 1889, and it seems likely that this infection ultimately caused his death some 19 years later.
Charles returned to England in 1890 and was enumerated at Aldershot with his regiment in the 1891 Census. Shortly after this, Charles was transferred to the army reserve and returned to civilian life. He found employment; first as a groom, then as a book binder, and later as a warehouseman.
Marriage and children
In October 1891, Charles married Sarah Ann Agnes Cambell at St Mathias church in Bethnal Green.
Charles and Sarah went on to have 8 children:
| Charles Robert | 1892 |
| Florence Beatrice | 1894 |
| Joseph Albert | 1896 |
| Caroline | 1898 |
| Sidney Joseph | 1899 |
| Lilian Louisa | 1902 |
| George John | 1903 |
| William James | 1907 |
Sadly, most of their children died in infancy. Only Charles, Florence and George survived to adulthood.
At the time of the 1901 Census, Charles and Sarah were living at 14 Pedro Street in Bethnal Green, with son Charles, 8, and daughter Florence, 6.
Madness
In August 1907, Charles began to act strangely and he was taken into Shoreditch infirmary at Hoxton, seemingly at his wife’s request. She said that he had suddenly become indecent in his behaviour, and fancied that he had been left a lot of money. The medical officer noted that “he behaves foolishly, and laughs without apparent cause; he exposes himself, is quarrelsome with the patients & is dirty in his habits”. After two weeks in the infirmary, he was admitted to Horton Asylum, where he was diagnosed as suffering from general paralysis of the insane . The physical examination revealed extensive syphilitic psoriasis.
Death
Charles died at Horton on 3 August 1908 and was buried three days later in grave 193a.
Copyright
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