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b.1851 – d.1908
Thomas Lines, a plasterer died in Long Grove having lost contact with his family
Thomas Lines died on 15th December 1908 at Long Grove Asylum. His death certificate gives his age as 57 years old, implying a birth year of 1851, and his occupation as Plasterer. His previous address was Hammersmith Infirmary. The cause of death was certified as Arterio Sclerosis – hardening of the arteries. Thomas was buried in grave 267b on the 19th December.
The Lunacy Patients Register records that Thomas had been admitted to Long Grove on the 8th October and this is confirmed by an entry in the Hammersmith and Fulham Guardians Register of Lunatics, which also tells us that he is married but that his wife’s whereabouts are unknown, and that he has no other known relatives.
When was Thomas born and who were his parents?
Establishing when and where Thomas was born and who his parents were was a challenge because the records we could firmly link to him gave ages that implied different birth years.
Working backwards from his death, the next record we found was the 1901 Census where Thomas was an inmate in the Fulham Infirmary. He is again described as a married plasterer. His age is given as 46, which would suggest a birth year of 1855. His place of birth is given as Marylebone – a new piece of information – and the note ‘Feeble minded’ is entered by his name.
Stepping back further, in the 1891 census we find some of the details of his family that were not available to the Poor Law Guardians. Thomas, 39, is recorded living with his wife Clara (age illegible) and two daughters, Helena (age illegible) and Georgina 4 at 33 St Ann’s Road, St James Norlands, Kensington. Thomas’s occupation is plasterer and Clara’s is charwoman. The Lines share the address with two other families totalling 15 adults and children. Thomas’s age implies a birth year of 1851 or 2. Thomas’s birth place is recorded as London, Clara’s as Bognor, Helena’s as Kensington and Georgina’s as Hammersmith.
The next record we came to was the marriage on 25th December 1883 at St John’s Church, Hammersmith of Thomas aged 30, a plasterer, to Clara Allen aged 22. Thomas’s father is recorded as Thomas Lines, a smith, and Clara’s is George Allen, a fisherman. If Thomas was 30 that would suggest his birth year was 1853.
No census record has been found for Thomas in 1881 but there is a record for 1871. This has Thomas as a 19-year-old plasterer living with his mother Elizabeth Lines who is a 35-year-old widow, at 26 Hereford Street, London. Elizabeth is a laundress. They are sharing with three other families – eighteen adults and children in all. Thomas’s birthplace is recorded as Marylebone and Elizabeth’s as Paddington. If Thomas was 19 in 1871 his birth year would have been 1851 or 2.
The next two pieces of information to consider were a birth registration and a baptism record.
The birth registration is for a Thomas Lines born on 10th March 1850 to Thomas Lines, a carter, and his wife Elizabeth formerly Graves who was the informant. The address given was 21 Burnes Street, Sisson Grove. 1850 as a birth year is difficult to reconcile with Elizabeth being 35 in 1871, which would make her birth year 1836. It is also earlier than any of the birth years implied from the other records we have seen.
The baptism record is from 30th December 1866 when a Thomas Lines was christened at St Barnabas, Bell Street, St Marylebone. His birth date is given as 10th March but in 1851 not 1850. His parents are recorded as Thomas, a blacksmith, and Elizabeth. Their address is 5 Manning Street. Baptism as a teenager is unusual but sometimes encountered.
We spent some time trying to trace other records for Thomas Lines senior and Elizabeth Graves and possible connections between them without success. There were a number of Thomas Lines but none were good matches for Thomas jnr’s father. We drew a blank with Elizabeth Graves as well.
Then we saw that according to the register two other children, Hannah and Robert, were baptised just before Thomas and that their parents, Thomas and Charlotte Ball, gave the same address, 5 Manning Street.
Investigating further we found that Charlotte’s maiden name was Lines. We looked to find a link between Thomas Lines senior and Charlotte without success.
What we did notice was that Charlotte’s eldest sister was Elizabeth Maria born in 1832 in Paddington. This seemed more than a coincidence.
Although we cannot be sure, we strongly suspect that Elizabeth Graves was in fact Elizabeth Maria Lines and that Thomas Lines, carter and/or blacksmith, may not have existed.
Birth registration and baptism records tell us that Elizabeth and Charlotte had five siblings. Their father was George Thomas Lines, whose occupation is given sometimes as plasterer and at other times as bricklayer, and Charlotte nee Dyckhoff.
George was born in Warwickshire and Charlotte was born in Isleworth. From around 1830 the family lived at addresses near the Paddington Basin, close to the junction of the Paddington branch of the Grand Union Canal and the Regent’s Canal. The addresses on the birth certificate, the baptism register and the 1871 census are just north- east of there, close together between Edgware Road and Lisson Grove, north of Marylebone Road.
1860 map theundergroundmap.com
Thomas and Clara’s family
Clara was born in Bognor, Sussex where she was baptised in November 1859. Her parents were George Allen, a fisherman, and Eliza nee Gibbons. She had seven siblings. Clara appears with her family in Bognor in the 1861 and 1871 censuses and then in 1881 still in Bognor as a housemaid to a widow and her sister.
As we have seen, in 1883 she married Thomas Lines in Hammersmith.
Their first child, Helena Edith, was born on 16th July 1884 at 78 Princes Road, Kensington. Unusually, the birth registration does not include a father’s name. Charlotte is the informant and is described as Lines formerly Allen. The birth was not registered until 26th August.
A second daughter, Georgina Laura Eliza, was born on 11th May 1887 at 9 Latimer Road, Hammersmith. This time the registration does name Thomas as her father.
Both Helena and Georgina were baptised at the church of St James Norlands on June 8th 1887. Georgina’s birth was not registered until 22nd June. Clara was the informant.
We saw that the 1891 census records Thomas, Clara, Helena and Georgina together at 33 St Ann’s Road, St James Norlands, Kensington.
A third child, George William Harold, was born to the couple at Queen Charlotte’s Hospital, Marylebone Road on 24th January 1893. Thomas was named as his father and the birth was registered by Clara on the 28th January. She gave her address as 32 Richmond Gardens, Shepherds Bush.
Tragically the young boy was to die only 3 and a half months later on the 11th May. As reported at a coroner’s inquest, he had been left by Clara at a nursery in St James’s Terrace, Notting Dale in the morning in order that she might go out to work. She had been called to the nursery in the afternoon and found her child dead. A doctor deposed that the cause of death was convulsions due to natural causes. Clara said that had her infant been the Queen’s child; it could not have had more attention. A verdict was returned in accordance with the medical evidence.
A fourth child was born to the couple on 13th June 1897 at 9 Flora Gardens, Hammersmith. Sadly, he was to die unnamed only 50 hours later on the 15th June. His birth and death were registered on the 16th June by a neighbour, A A Berry from number 7, who we have identified as Agnes Anne Berry a 25-year-old mother of four who had been present at both. The certified cause of death was debility.
Further sad news was to follow
Thomas and Clara’s eldest child Helena died on 27th June 1900 aged 15. The cause of death was given as Lymphadenoma, 10 months. Exhaustion. It is possible that this is what would now be called Lymphoma of which Lymphadenoma, the swelling of glands, can be a symptom. Clara was the informant on the death certificate and was present at the death. The address given was 130 Askew Road, Shepherd’s Bush.
We have seen that Thomas was in the Fulham Infirmary when the census was taken in 1901. The 1901 Census entry for Clara, 44, and Georgina, 14, finds them at 18 Bassein Park Rd, Hammersmith. Clara is a laundress and Georgina is a collar machinist. The household also includes Harry Lee aged 7 who is described as a visitor. The address is shared by three families totalling 13 adults and children.
A desperate action
The next event we have a record of is a newspaper report from the 21st January 1902. The previous night at 9:30 Clara Lines, a married woman aged 45 living at 99 Becklow Road, Shepherd’s Bush, had jumped from Hammersmith Bridge into the Thames. A policeman who happened to be close by jumped in after her and managed to get her to shore. She was taken to the West London Hospital in a serious condition. The report concluded by noting that her husband was an inmate of Fulham Workhouse and that there were several children. We have to conclude that this was Thomas’s wife driven to desperate measures by her circumstances.
Clara, Georgina, Ellen and Eliza
We would have had difficulty in tracing Clara any further had it not been for a clue left in 1911 by her mother Eliza who was still living in Bognor, now aged 77 and a widow. She had added to her census return the names of the four of her children who were still alive.
The fourth listed, Helen Lea, was in fact her daughter Ellen who had married John Lee, a basket maker, in 1885. They had lived initially in Kent before moving to south London and then in about 1895 to Shepherd’s Bush near to Clara. Clara’s visitor in 1901, Harry Lee, was her nephew Henry Allen Lee.
The third listed was Clara with the surname Brown. This implied that she might have remarried after Thomas’s death. We couldn’t find any evidence for that but we did find her in 1911 at 29 Reckitt Road, Chiswick in the household of William Brown, a restaurant waiter, listed as his wife of eight years, which would be from 1903. The household included William’s two daughters Hettie and Kathleen. All three women had Laundry as their occupation. The 1911 census entry is the latest record we have been able to find for Clara.
On 4th December 1904 Thomas and Clara’s surviving daughter Georgina aged just 17 had married William George Gigg aged 24, an Engineer’s fitter and turner at St Simon’s Church, Rockley Road, Shepherds Bush. She gave birth to one son in 1907 who died in infancy and then a second son in 1912 who lived until 1997. He married but we don’t know if he had any children. Georgina remarried after her first husband died. Her death was registered in Marylebone in 1955.
Ellen gave birth to at least ten children between 1885 and 1906 of whom three died in infancy between 1900 and 1906. Her husband John Lee was recorded as a lodger at The Black Horse in Berkhamstead in 1901 and again as a lodger in St Olave’s Chambers, Great Dover Street in Southwark in 1911. It is possible that as a basket maker he travelled around to sell his wares. The last record we have for Ellen is the 1921 Census when she was living at 50 Coningham Road, W6, with her son Henry, a factory hand, and her daughter May, who was part-time at school and undertaking home duties in the afternoon. Ellen was a baths attendant for Hammersmith Borough Council. She is described as married rather than widowed which suggests that John was still alive, but we haven’t been able to trace him after 1911.
Eliza Allen died in Chichester Workhouse aged 82 in 1917.
Elizabeth Maria Lines
Very little further can be found about Elizabeth Maria Lines, Thomas’s assumed mother. She is by far the most elusive of her siblings who otherwise are all well documented.
There is a record of banns being called in 1860 for a marriage between an Elizabeth Maria Lines and a William Ward at Christ Church, St Marylebone. This is very close to where George Thomas Lines was living with his family in 1861. There is no record of a marriage.Banns were called for a marriage between Elizabeth Maria Lines and a George Baker in September 1873. There is a record of a marriage in this case, at St Peters, Black Lion Lane, Hammersmith. The address they both gave was 2 New Road [now Goldhawk Road]. George Lines is named as her father and is shown as dead; we have been unable to find a death registration for him. George Baker was a plasterer.
There is a census entry in Shoreditch in 1881 for an Elizabeth Baker, a widow aged 50 who is a laundress, that just possibly could be her.
Special thanks are due to Linda Monk who spotted that Charlotte Ball nee Lines had an elder sister called Elizabeth and also found the two newspaper articles.
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