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b.1861-d.1913
Alfred was born in London in 1861, to John William Klesendorf, a waiter, and his wife Mary Willgoose.
History of the Klesendorfs:
Great-grandfather Joakim
The origins of the Klesendorf (or Klessendorf or Klessendorff) family are not known exactly. They were of German origin. The first that we can trace in London is Alfred’s great grandfather Joakim Nicolas Klessendorf who married Ann Sharplin in 1768, and he first appears in Westminster Rate Books in 1770. He was at one time a prosperous pastry cook and had premises in the Piccadilly area. He and Ann jointly held £150 of treasury stock at the time of her death circa 1779. The death of his second wife Sarah (née Mills) was mentioned in the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1790 (“of Piccadilly”).
Joakim disappears from London tax records after 1784, and is said to have returned to Germany.
Grandfather George
Alfred’s grandfather George Bolton Klessendorf was born to Joakim and Sarah in 1784. He married Nancy Dick at St James Piccadilly in 1818. They had two children that survived infancy: Sarah Ann (known as Caroline ) (c.1818) and John William (c.1824). George died in 1824 and his widow (now using the name Ann) first appears in Poor Law records with her two children shortly after his death.
Grandmother Ann’s testimony
In March 1858 Ann gave the following details to the overseers at Newington Workhouse:
“Klessendorff Ann 64 the 14th of next June, maiden name Dick. Was married to John (sic) Bolton K. her late husband, in Parish of St James.. about 40 years ago. Issue:
- Caroline aged about 38 born at Colville Court, Charlotte Street, christened at Tottenham Chapel, in service at Islington, Trinidad Place
- John 34 born same place, christened together, married, a waiter.
Her husband a cabinet maker died about 32 years ago..aged about 40. Born at the bakers in the Haymarket..the father was a German… her husband went to Germany with his father when 9 years old.”
Parents John and Mary, and Alfred’s siblings
John William Klesendorf and Mary Willgoose were married at St Pancras church in 1848. The register shows John’s occupation then as “map colourer”.
A son, Thomas William, was born in March 1850 at Great Mays Buildings, Saint Martin’s Lane. Father John was now a shell fishmonger. Thomas died in 1855.
By the time of their daughter Caroline’s birth in January 1852, John Klesendorf was working as a waiter, and they were living at 69 Theobalds Road in Holborn.
A second daughter, Ann, was born in February 1854.
Another son, William Henry was born in 1858. He appears on the 1861 census as Thomas William (the name of his deceased brother).
Father imprisoned
In 1859 John was working as a waiter in the refreshment rooms at Crystal Palace where he was found to be engaging in a fraud against his employer. He was jailed for 4 months.
Alfred’s birth
Alfred George Klesendorf was born on 6th January 1861 at 2, Catherine Place, Westminster. The family were still at that address 3 months later when the 1861 census was taken.
Deaths in the family
At some point in the early 1860s, Alfred’s brother William Henry went to stay with his Willgoose grandparents in Tickhill, Doncaster, where they ran the “Tarrare Inn” in Market Place. William died there from TB in December 1863, aged 5.
In the 1871 census, the family was at 34 Aylesford Street, Pimlico. John was unemployed at this time but the two daughters Caroline (19) and Ann (17) were both working, as a mantle maker and a dressmaker respectively.
Caroline married John Thomas Wilkes, a hatter, in December 1871, and they had three children together before her husband died in early 1881.
Ann died aged 26 in July 1880.
Alfred’s father John William Klesendorf died in February 1881.
Alfred and his mother Mary were still at 34 Aylesford Street in April 1881 when the census was taken: by this time Alfred was 20 and working as a clerk to a petroleum merchant. His sister Caroline Wilkes, recently widowed, and one of her daughters were also there on census night.
Alfred’s descent into dementia
Records for Alfred’s adult life are quite sparse. We know that he was employed in the 1880s as a mercantile clerk. We know that the family moved to Fulham (7 Langford Flats), and that something happened in early 1887 that caused him to appear before the Police Court at Hammersmith. The court ordered him to be committed to Hanwell Lunatic Asylum on 12 March 1887. He appears in the 1891 census as a patient at Hanwell.
Alfred remained in mental institutions for the rest of his life. His mother Mary Klesendorf died in Pimlico in 1897, aged 76, and was buried at Hanwell cemetery – not far from the asylum.
In 1902 Alfred was moved from Hanwell to Horton, where the medical reports note that he was “profoundly demented”. He died at Horton just after midnight on 3 September 1913, aged 52.
