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stacey family history

dorothy kate read

winifred rose tucker

Can You Find my Mother?
 

I’m Pat Tritton, and this is the story of my search for my maternal grandmother. I never even knew of her existence until the early 1960s, when Nan, the lady I thought was my grandmother, died.

When I began searching all I knew was my real  grandmother’s name, and although I had helped trace my husband’s family back to the mid 1500s, I found it much more difficult to come forward in time, and with little to go on the search was very frustrating at times. 

However, with my daughter Carole’s help we did eventually manage to discover our roots, and this has opened up some new lines of research into other branches of our family. We have visited many places where our ancestors were born, lived and died; found  new cousins; and even made new friends.
 

Right, Mum with Nan, Christmas 1919
 

A few details....

Mum was born in 1918, and until she was eight she thought her surname was Stacey. It was quite by chance that she discovered her real name was Dorothy Kate Read.  

Her ‘foster’ mother (Nan) then gave her a few bare facts about her real mother - that her name was Winifred Read and that she had come from Richmond; that she had married a postman named Tucker and had a daughter who was killed on the railway; and that she had a sister who was a nun.  

She went on to explain how it was that Mum came to be living in Canterbury. Mum was born in the Salvation Army Mothers’ Hospital in Clapton, London. Winifred was unmarried at the time and, as I was later to find out, had no-one to turn to who could help her look after her baby.

The Salvation Army Mothers’ Hospital mainly looked after unmarried mothers, but they also took in married women. The Army’s aim was to enable mothers to have their babies safely in the Hospital, and stay there until they felt able to go out to ‘situations’ (i.e. work) or face the world again.  The mothers were taught how to look after their babies and Winifred stayed at the Hospital for about six weeks, after which she left to go to Canterbury, where the Salvation Army had found her a ‘situation’ as a domestic servant. 

I believe it was a condition of the help she received that Winifred had to report regularly to the local Salvation Army Temple. While attending one of the meetings she met Nan, Agnes Stacey. Nan was passionately fond of children but did not have any of her own. She was captivated by Mum and struck up a friendship with Winifred. 

When Winifred apparently could not cope with her job and a toddler, Nan offered to ‘take’ Mum (this sort of fostering seemed to be quite a common practice before 1927, when legal adoption came into force). Mum remembers Winifred visiting her occasionally, but when she was about three the visits stopped. 

Mum had a good life with the Staceys, and, while curious about her origins, didn’t have any inclination to delve further. She married my father in 1938. I was born a year later and my brother was born in 1947.  Nan died in 1962; but it wasn’t until about 1967, just before my brother married, that Mum wanted to try and find out more about her real mother.

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My search begins....

We went up to Somerset House and bought Mum’s birth certificate which confirmed that she had been born at the Mothers’ Hospital. It gave her mother’s name as Winifred Dora Read, ironmonger’s assistant of 29 Nicholas Street, Mile End, London. No father’s name was recorded on the certificate.

This was, I think, the first time we knew that Winifred had a second Christian name. This seemed to satisfy mum because no more was done until much later when I decided I wanted to know more about my maternal grandmother. 

All I had to go on were her name, and the story about her marriage to Mr Tucker. I first searched through the General Register Office (GRO) indexes to try and find Winifred’s birth. I found two people named Winifred Dora Read – one in Nottingham in 1890; the other in London in 1888.

I was hoping mine would prove to be the Nottingham Winifred, as I knew I was in for a long and difficult search if my Winifred came from London. Unfortunately, however, I quickly managed to prove that the Nottingham Winifred wasn’t mine, so I knew I had to concentrate on the London one.

I sent for a copy of her birth certificate and found that she had been born at 6 Lordship Lane, Edmonton, on 19 March 1888, and that her parents were Edward and Kate (née Ball) Read. Edward was a grocer.  Edward and Kate’s marriage certificate told me that they had been married at Holy Trinity Church, Milton-next-Gravesend, Kent in 1887, but despite a search of the parish records there, no children were baptised for Edward and Kate. 

I then searched the 1891 Census return for 6 Lordship Lane, which would have given me more details about the family, and possibly list other brothers or sisters, but the property was uninhabited on the day the Census was taken. 

I contacted the Salvation Army to ask if they had any records of admissions to the Mothers’ Hospital. They directed me to St Bartholmew’s Hospital in London (which had taken over the Mothers’ Hospital records) and they found Winifred’s admission card, which gave her age as 26 (a difference of four years from the ‘London’ Winifred). The card also gave me the exciting news that Winifred had a sister! But it only referred to her as ‘Sis’, and gave her address as c/o Messrs. Shoolbred, Tottenham Court Road. (I found out that Schoolbred’s was a large furniture store, later taken over by Heals). 

I decided to do a ‘sideways’ search and see if I could find Winifred’s ‘Sis’. My theory was that she might have married and had children, who in turn might be able to tell me something about Winifred. But to do this I needed to find out her name. But I couldn’t find out her name until I found out where she had been born, and I couldn’t find out where she had been born because I didn’t know her name. 

So I moved ‘sideways’ again, to see if Winifred’s mother Kate had had any brothers or sisters. I quickly compiled a family tree for Kate Ball, and found she had been born in 1858; had two sisters (Margaret Jane and Clara Elizabeth; and a brother, Frederick Richard); her father and mother were Frederick and Mary (née Southerden) Ball and Frederick was the licensee of The Three Daws, Gravesend. Kate’s mother Mary had died when Kate was only nine years old. Frederick had married again to Catherine Wood, and they had a daughter, Edith Mary Ball, in 1872.  

I was not able, however, to find any record of the deaths of Kate or Edward Read in Gravesend, or anything about Kate’s sister Clara Elizabeth Ball or her brother Frederick Richard Ball. Kate’s elder sister, Margaret Jane Ball, did not appear to have lived with the family at all, but lived with her maternal grandmother, Jane Southerden, in Prospect House, Lydd, Kent. 

I decided to visit the Probate Registry in London, to see if Kate and Edward Read had written Wills. They hadn’t, but quite by chance I found that Kate’s sister, Margaret Jane Ball, had. She died at Lydd on 11 January 1928. 

Someone once told me that Wills written by maiden aunts can give a surprising amount of information and when Margaret’s Will arrived in the post I found that she had left some money to her four nieces, the daughters of her late sister Kate Read. What’s more, she had mentioned one of them by name - Margaret Southerden Read, her goddaughter. 

So now I knew two more facts: that Kate Read had died before 1927 (when the Will was written) and the name of one of Winifred’s sisters - Margaret. As she was Margaret Jane’s goddaughter, I wondered if she could have been baptised at Lydd, so I searched the parish registers and found the entry - baptised: 7 September 1890, address: 63 Buxton Road, Stratford, London; parents: Edward (a grocer) and Kate Read. 

I later sent for Margaret Jane Ball’s death certificate and found that the informant was an E.D. Read, niece, of 189 Haverstock Hill, Hampstead, London NW3. So now I had the initials of the third sister. I then went back to the GRO to search for Kate and Edward Read’s death entries. 

I had always assumed the family stayed in London, so when I found an death entry for a Kate Read at Clacton, Essex, I could not believe that this had anything to do with me, although the age given at death fitted in with Kate’s birth date. However, when I sent for the death certificate, I found that she was the wife of an Edward Read, mineral water maker, of 6 Coastguard Cottages, Clacton.   I also found an entry for an Edward Read at Gravesend, and sent for his death certificate. This was the one I was looking for - the informant being E.D. Read, daughter, address: Cliff Combe, Broadstairs!  

One Saturday morning in June 2001 I awoke with the impulse to go to Gravesend and look round the cemetery. I did not really know what I was looking for, but felt I had to go. When we walked in through the cemetery gates we were very nearly overwhelmed. There were literally thousands of graves there, stretching as far as the eye could see (I later found out that there have been approximately 58,000 burials there). 

We just set off at random, turning right here, left there. I was walking along one of the paths, near a large beech tree, when I felt I should have a look at the other side of one of the headstones a little way off the path. Imagine my surprise when I found the entire Ball family (apart from Margaret Jane, Kate and Frederick Richard) mentioned on one headstone! I just could not believe it. I could have taken any path through that cemetery, but something had led me here.  

I found Frederick Ball, his first wife Mary and their daughter Clara Elizabeth; Frederick’s second wife Catherine, their daughter Edith Mary and her second husband, Sidney Blandford; and, something I did not know, Frederick and Mary Ball’s youngest son, George, who died aged 6 months in 1865. 

Now that is what you call real luck - but I really thought I had come to the end of the line now. There did not appear to be anyone left on Kate Ball’s side of the family who could help me, and I had not managed to discover the names of the other two sisters. 

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Who is Edie?

By now our daughter Carole, having heard my story so many times, became interested in my research and offered to help me. She suggested we research the Read family to see if there were any members of that family who could help me trace Winifred. 

From the 1891 census for 63 Buxton Road, Stratford, we learnt that Edward Read had been born in Leiston, Suffolk. We also discovered that his niece, Ada Read, aged 16, was staying with the family - which told us that Edward must have had a brother.  

The 1881 Census revealed Ada Read living at 229 Wellington Buildings, Hanover Square, London with her parents Lewis and Sarah Read and her three brothers, Lewis, Mark and George, so it was only a matter of time before we found not only Lewis’s, but also Edward’s birth registrations, and sent for their birth certificates. Lewis was born in Portsmouth, and Edward in Sizewell, Suffolk. 

We found their parents were Robert and Mary Ann (née Savers) Read. We ordered their marriage certificate which told us that Robert was a seaman, and the couple had married at St Paul’s, Southsea, Hampshire, on 5 February 1845.

We had not forgotten the four sisters during this time, however, and decided to make a determined effort to find the full names of the remaining two. We already knew the full names of two of them – Winifred Dora Read and Margaret Southerden Read. 

A researcher in Essex searched the records of parishes near Buxton Road, Stratford, where Kate and Edward Read were living in 1890 for us. She found only one of their daughters – Olive Edith Read, born 30 June 1892 and baptised on 27 September 1892 at St Johns, Stratford. So now we had the full names of three of the sisters, and the initials of the fourth - E.D, who we nicknamed Edie.

 The 1881 Census showed that Edward’s mother Mary Ann Read and her son Walter were living at 27 Arthur Street, Gravesend. No trace, though, of Robert, Edward, or Charles. We later discovered that Robert was a coastguard. In 1861 he, Mary, their sons Lewis, Edward and George, and their daughter, Mary Jane, were living at the Coast Guard Station, St Margaret’s Bay, Dover; and the family was living on ‘The Elk’, a coastguard vessel, at Tilbury in 1871. 

The coastguard records also gave us personal details about Robert:  that he was born on 8 August 1822 at Woodbridge, Suffolk: that he was 5’7” tall; had a florid complexion, brown hair and brown eyes; and had a scar on his left cheek, marked with smallpox. The records also showed he had three Good Conduct badges. 

I ‘phoned Gravesend cemetery to ask if Edward Read had been buried there. He had - and the registrar also told me there were two other people in the grave with him: Mary Ann Read and George Read. Carole and I went to the cemetery to look at the grave and also to check the records to see if by any chance Winifred or her sisters had been buried in the cemetery, too. 

The registrar showed us a plan of the cemetery and took us to the grave. Under a tree by a brick wall there was a headstone, too! We began to gently rub off the grime that had accumulated and first of all saw the words “The Family Grave of Robert and ....”. The registrar was in a hurry to get back to her office so we had to abandon our rubbing and go back with her. We quickly searched through the large volumes and made notes of any likely Reads. 

We could not wait to get back to that grave! The inscription round the top of the headstone read: “The family grave of Robert and Mary Read”. Further down it mentioned George Read (sixth son of Robert and Mary), then a memorial to Robert Symonds Read, his father, which told us he had died at San Domingo on 23 October 1885; a memorial to Walter Read (seventh son, who had died at Darnley Island, Torres Straites in 1887); Mary Ann Read; and Edward Read, her son. 

Despite all this research, none of it was getting us any nearer to finding Winifred.

I was still not sure about the death of the Kate Read at Clacton in 1911 but I decided to see if the local paper had published an obituary for her. When this arrived it told me everything I wanted to know - how and when Kate had died, and the names of all four sisters – Winifred Dora; Margaret Southerden; Olive Edith; and the elusive E.D. - revealed at last as Elsie. It was a simple matter now to go through the GRO indexes and find her birth registered as Elsie Dorothy, in 1897. Her birth certificate confirmed her parents as Edward and Kate Read, by now living at 18 Gurney Road, Stratford, London. 

I found that Kate had been buried in Clacton cemetery and the registrar very kindly took a photograph of her grave for me and told me that Margaret Southerden Read had bought the grave in 1911. The cemetery’s last contact with Margaret had been in 1918, when she was living at 102 Gower Street, London - just around the corner from Shoolbreds in Tottenham Court Road. 

Was she the ‘Sis’ mentioned on Winifred’s admission record to the Mothers’ Hospital? I thought she probably was. There were several houses and small hotels in the vicinity of No.102 Gower Street. Margaret could have been either in the process of moving into, or moving out of, No.102 and given her work address to avoid any confusion. 

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Hard work

Carole and I now trawled through the GRO indexes to look for references to marriages for the four sisters, even though I had already done this for Winifred. We searched for marriages from 1911 onwards and eventually came up with one likely marriage for Margaret, a couple each for Olive and Elsie, and two or three for Winifred D.  

Before we sent for these certificates, however, we decided to have one more trawl through the death indexes.  This was extremely hard work, four large leather-bound, steel edged volumes for each year to look through, in total about 300 volumes searched that day.  Eventually we came up with one likely death for Olive Edith in Windsor (the date of birth given tallied exactly), and two for Elsie Dorothy – one in Windsor, one in Southend. 

We sent for copies of Olive and the ‘Windsor’ Elsie’s death certificates, and these confirmed they were the Read sisters we had been looking for.  We also ordered the marriage certificate for Margaret, and found that she was indeed our Margaret Southerden Read and that she had married Alfred Owens Ball (her second cousin, incidentally) at Treyford, Sussex on 23 June 1930.  

We still had no likely death for Winifred. We did order a certificate of one possible marriage, only to find that this was not her. 

A phone call to the local crematorium for Windsor, which is at Slough, revealed that Elsie and Olive had been cremated there - Elsie in 1966, and Olive in 1975. Their ashes had been scattered in the garden there. Elsie’s brother-in-law, Alfred Owens Ball, had arranged her funeral, so we knew he was still alive in 1966.

We decided to visit the Probate Registry again, to see if any of them had left Wills. As we knew their dates of death we quickly found Wills for Elsie and Olive. We started searching for Alfred’s Will from 1966 onwards, the last date we knew he was alive, by which time we reckoned he would have been about 76. On and on we went, past 1970, 1980, 1982, and there, at last, in 1983 we found him!  

Now, we could either go backwards or forwards to look for Margaret, as we did not know when she had died. We decided to go on until at last we found her in 1985.  When we had all four Wills, we looked at Elsie’s first, which told us nothing, except that Olive was her sister.  

Olive had left some bequests and the remainder of her estate to her sister, Margaret Southerden Ball. Later, it was by contacting one of the people mentioned in Olive’s Will that I was able to obtain a photograph of her. 

Alfred had left bequests to various people and the remainder of his estate to his wife Margaret Ball. 

The first page of Margaret Ball’s Will, written in 1977, mentioned various items of furniture, etc. she wanted her solicitor to sell. Halfway down the second page, one name seemed to jump out - a bequest, amongst others, to a Mrs Winifred Dora Tucker. Could Nan have been right all along in saying that Winifred had married a Mr Tucker? 

We left the Probate Registry and went to the Family Records Centre to look for Winifred D. Tucker’s death registration in the GRO indexes. Luckily, the first volume we searched, for the March quarter, 1977, listed a Winifred D. Tucker at Sutton, Surrey, date of birth 19 March 1888 - the same day as the birth of the London Winifred Dora Read.  

I sent for her death certificate. It arrived by first post on a Friday morning, and told us that Winifred Dora Tucker had been born on 19 March 1888, her maiden name was Read and she was the widow of Alfred John Tucker, a retired postman. It looked as if Nan had been right, all along, and I was virtually certain I had found my grandmother, although we had not found anything to confirm the story about Richmond, the nun or the sister who worked at Shoolbreds. 

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Loose Ends, Kind Friends

One thing remained - to discover: where Margaret, Alfred and Winifred were buried. Several phone calls later I found that Alfred and Margaret had been cremated and their ashes scattered together in the grounds of Leatherhead crematorium; and that Winifred had died on 27 January 1977 at Sutton Hospital, Surrey and that she had been cremated at Croydon on 2 February 1977.  Her ashes were scattered in the grounds. 

I was anxious to see the places where the sisters had lived, so one bright, crisp November morning we travelled to Surrey and found Margaret and Alfred Ball’s house in Tadworth. We knocked on the door to ask permission to take a photograph of the house and when we explained the reason the owner kindly asked us to have a look inside.

It was a large detached house, built in about 1936, which contained many original features, including beautiful wood panelling in the hall and the original kitchen cabinets and Art Deco lights.  The owner knew a little about Margaret and Alfred Ball; they had been the first owners of the house and had lived there all their married life. They had been very keen on gardens (not necessarily gardening!). 

She then directed us to her neighbours, Rosemary and her husband, who had helped look after Alfred Ball towards the end of his life.  They told us that Alfred had been an industrial chemist and had worked for ICI.  Rosemary remembered once being asked to fetch him something from a wardrobe.  When she opened it she saw some of Margaret's beautiful evening gowns still hanging there.

Rosemary also told us to visit another neighbour, Sue, a few roads away. But before we left she handed me a parcel.  She said it contained an evening bag that had once belonged to Margaret Ball, which she thought should now be returned to a member of her family - my mother - Margaret's niece.  It was such a  kind and generous gesture, and very much appreciated.

We later met Sue, and her husband Ernest, who had become close friends of Margaret and Alfred. I told Sue I believed I was Margaret’s great niece, and asked her if she could tell me any more about the family. 

It was then that most of the remaining pieces of the puzzle finally fell into place. Sue told me that Margaret had three sisters – Winifred, Olive and Elsie. I asked her about Winifred. Sue told me that Winifred had married a postman; had lived in Wallington, Surrey; and had had a child who had been killed on the railway line at Carshalton. She did not think there had been any other children. This virtually confirmed all the stories we had been told about Winifred, but if I had needed any more confirmation, what Sue told me later was the icing on the cake. 

Sue told us that at some point in their lives, Elsie and Olive had trouble finding suitable accommodation, and Alfred Ball made the necessary arrangements for them to live in Windsor, in a property that had once been a nunnery. (Could this be where the story originated about one of the sisters being a nun)?   

Before we left, Sue showed me a photograph of Margaret and Alfred Ball; this was the first time I had ever seen a photograph of a member of my grandmother’s family.

Now that I had heard about the railway accident at Carshalton I telephoned the cemetery office at Bandon Hill, the nearest likely burial place for Winifred’s daughter.The registrar located the grave for me and told me that Winifred Rose Tucker of Richmond Road, Beddington, had been buried on 10 August 1932, aged 9 years. The grave had been bought in 1932 and was later made over to a Mrs Winifred Dora Tucker of 36 Richmond Road, Beddington. I remembered that Nan had told Mum that Winifred came from Richmond - could she have meant Richmond Road? 

We visited Bandon Hill cemetery in Carshalton and found little Winifred’s grave. We next visited Sutton Library where we searched the local papers for 1932 to see if there had been a report of the accident on the railway. The accident was reported in full on the front page of the Wallington & Carshalton Times of 11 August 1932. The report described the circumstances in which Winifred Rose had died: she had been electrocuted on the railway line near her home whilst playing ‘hide and seek’ with her cousin. Winifred Rose had been killed instantly and the jury at the inquest recorded a verdict of ‘misadventure.’ The newspaper also included a photograph of her and gave details of her funeral. She was laid to rest in a little white coffin, ornamented in silver. 

Shortly after this, a letter arrived from Sue enclosing more photographs of Margaret and Alfred Ball, including one taken on their Wedding Day on 23 June 1930; an old invoice giving Edward Read’s address at 6 Lordship Lane, Tottenham; and a selection of picture postcards sent by Olive to her mother and her sister Margaret. The cards written to her in 1914 are addressed c/o Shoolbred & Co in Fitzroy Square, London, and those in 1917 to her c/o Shoolbred at 102 Gower Street, London. 

Most of the stories we had heard about Winifred have eventually been proven (give or take a bit): her marriage to Mr Tucker, the postman; the child being killed on the railway line; Richmond; the nun(nery); and the sister who worked at Shoolbreds. But despite searching all the likely registers, we have not yet been able to find out when or where she married Mr Tucker 

But where did all these stories come from? As far as we are aware, Winifred never made contact with Nan after she left Canterbury in the early 1920s. But Mum does remember Nan reading out from a newspaper details of the little girl’s death on the railway. And Nan certainly was right about Mr Tucker. Mum also remembers someone by the name of Miss Pay visiting them - and a Miss Pay lived in the same village in Sussex as Margaret Ball’s husband’s family, so perhaps she was the go-between. We shall never know. But no-one from the Read or Ball families ever contacted Mum at all. 

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Family photographs

I still had no photograph of Winifred, but various pieces of information on the documents we had amassed led me to contact Alfred Tucker’s nephew and niece, Neither of them had known about Mum, but both were extremely sympathetic and helpful and they sent me three photographs – one of Alfred Tucker, one of little Winifred Rose, and one of Winifred herself.

And so it wasn’t until early 2002, when she was just over 83 years old, that my mother first saw a photograph of her real mother.

It must have been very strange for Mum, after over 80 years, to see a photograph of her half-sister and real mother. Since then she has met Sue and has been able to talk to someone who actually knew her real mother and learn more about her and her family. 

A few months later came a letter from Sue. She told me she and her husband often talk about our family, thinking back to how we met, and they had suddenly remembered a habit Margaret had of putting one photograph behind another in a frame. They had a photograph of Margaret’s husband Alfred in a frame, so they looked behind it, and there they found a photograph of the missing sister, Elsie. So, thanks to them, we now have a complete set of all four Read sisters - Winifred, Margaret, Olive and Elsie. 

Mum was delighted with what we had discovered, and satisfied that she now has a past with deep roots and with many interesting ancestors.

Since we found my grandmother I have been continuing my research into various branches of her family, and the names I’m looking at now are Ball, Longley, Read, Savers, Southerden and Wittwer. I would be delighted to hear from anyone who is researching these, too.

Pat Tritton, January 2006

Me with Nan & Grandad Stacey in 1939