My 3xgreat grandparents James Stocking and his wife Mary Ann Collins had over 127 descendents in two generations (their children and grandchildren). Their ninth child – my 2xgreat grand uncle Henry John Stocking (1866-1938) – and his wife Alice Matilda Vidler had ten children, although four died in infancy. He otherwise had a fairly uneventful life, at least according to official records, although like his siblings he changed address and occupation – though perhaps not employer – often over the years.

Early years, marriage and work

When Henry was born in Spring 1866, his parents had already had eight children. Two more were to follow before the 1871 census, which shows all 11 with their parents at 26 John Street, Bermondsey. His father was working as a Bricklayer’s Labourer, and Henry would follow suit at various points in his lifetime.

By the age of 14, he was already working as a general labourer. In 1886, when he was 20, there is a record for a Hy Jno. Stocking being appointed as a Postman in NW London; this may or may not be the same man. However, by the time he married Alice Vidler at St Mary Magdalene, Southwark, on 11 April 1887, the marriage register shows him as a Tripe Dresser.

Six months later, when their one-month old son Henry Richard James Stocking was baptised, he is recorded as a Labourer, as he was on all but one of his other children’s baptisms (on one record he is a Bricklayer’s Labourer).

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Henry and Alice’s first three children all survived into their 60s. Sadly four others died under a year old. They were:

• Ellen Sarah Stocking (born early January 1893, died towards the end of 1893)
• Twins Arthur and Albert Stocking (both born Jan-Mar 1896, both died March 1897)
• Mary Ann Stocking (born February 1902, died September 1902)

Son Thomas John Stocking also died young. Born in 1894, his death was recorded, aged 24, in March 1919. In 1908, aged 14, he was briefly an employee at Willow Walk Railway Station, Bermondsey, but the 1911 census records him as a Leather Stainer. I have no information as to cause of his death.

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By the time the twins were born, the family had moved from William Street to 21 Alice Street, Bermondsey, off Tower Bridge Road, where they were still living five years later, at the time of the 1901 census. Henry Thomas Stocking is by then aged 35, now working as a Gas Engineer. He and Alice have six children at home, aged between 18 months and 13 years.

The youngest, May Pretoria Stocking, was born on 27 May 1900. At the beginning of that year, the British Army had occupied the South African Boer capital Pretoria, during the second Boer War, and many children were named Pretoria after the ‘victory’. A quick search of FreeBMD shows 249 children with a first name of Pretoria between March and June 1900., Pretoria May being the most common (although Pretoria Mafeking also appears), The war was to continue with great losses until 1902, but presumably at the time it was felt to be cause for celebration.

Working with animal products and by-products

In 1911, they are still at Alice Street and Henry is once again working as a General Labourer, his employer shown as a Size (glue) Manufacturer – another of the industries that, alongside the leather works, tanneries and offal merchants, would have given Bermondsey its distinctive smells. It may be that he worked for a company which was involved in all aspects of animal products (size being a by-product of the boiling of horse and cattle bones).

This is perhaps born out by his line of work ten years later. By the time of the 1921 census, they have moved to 43 Rolls Road, Bermondsey. Only Henry, Alice and 23 year old son Joseph Stocking are in the household on census night. Henry is now described as Storekeeper, Offal Merchants (Johnson, Cole & Co., 1 Purbrook Street, Tower Bridge Road). The firm was actually called Johnson, Cole, Brier & Cordrey, and it is described in this extract from what appears to be a directory of Bermondsey firms, hosted at Ken Ripper’s family history website (www.kenripper.co.uk/bog/18.pdf).

The Past to Present Genealogy blog takes a light-hearted look at the occupation of Tripe Dressing and consumption of this ‘cut’. I have never fancied eating it myself (and as a ‘pescatarian’ now I wouldn’t anyway), but it was presumably filling and cheap for families with little money, and perhaps the Stockings – with many mouths to feed – made the most of it. [Blog heading image: Tiia Monto, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons]

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Alice Matilda Stocking died in February 1928, in the Dartford district – where she may have been living with one of her daughters. I haven’t found her widower in the 1939 Register; there is a death index record at FreeBMD for a Henry J Stocking, aged 71, in Dartford, Kent, in the Jan-Mar quarter of 1938. Ancestry also has a possible burial record for him, died 1 February 1938 and buried at Eynsford Cemetery near Sevenoaks (Eynsford was part of the Dartford registration district).

At the time of the 1939 Register, their married daughter Alice Elizabeth Barber, her husband Albert Victor Jubilee Barber and her married sister May Pretoria Baker are living at Valley View, Dartford, Kent. Albert was born in Eynsford, so it seems likely that his elderly parents-in-law had been living with the family when they died, ten years apart.