The 1881 and 1891 census entries for my 2xgreat grandparents John Hill and Elizabeth Sarah Windebank are intriguing for the birthplaces shown. Unlike their children, they were not, it seems, Londoners. He was born in Elsted, Sussex,; her birthplace was variously described as Chalvey or Churvey, and ‘Churvey the Slough’, and variously Buckinghamshire or Berkshire. So what evidence could I find to confirm where she was really born?

A Lambeth wedding

My great grandmother Susan Caroline Hill was born in Southwark, London, in 1875. Her mother is named as Elizabeth Sarah (formerly Windebank) on her birth certificate. A FreeBMD search for the marriage of her parents before 1875, and the resulting marriage certificate ordered from the GRO (also available at Ancestry), shows that they married on 16 May 1869 at St Thomas, Lambeth:

John Hill is a bachelor, of ‘full’ age, (ie aged 21 or over) working as a labourer and living, like his bride, at 11 Pave Court, Fraser Street. Elizabeth Sarah Windebank is under 21, a spinster, daughter of David Windebank, a Farrier. They were married after banns, and their witnesses were David Windebank and Elizabeth Windebank – as I later found out, these are Elizabeth’s parents. As she was under age, perhaps they were present to give their consent to the marriage. All of the parties make their ‘marks’ as they couldn’t sign their names.

No clues here, then, as to their origins, but it may be that the couple and perhaps their parents had been living in London for some time by 1869.

Clues from the censuses and a son’s birth

My great grandmother Susan Caroline Hill is enumerated with her parents John Hill and Elizabeth Hill in London at the time of the 1881 and 1891 censuses. Her father’s birthplace is consistently given as Elsted, Sussex, although his birth year varies slightly. Her mother’s entries are more variable: her age in the 1891 census is difficult to read, but whether it’s 40 or 46, that’s still some way from her age in the 1881 record.

John Hill	1881: 40 (b1840), Elsted, Sussex	1891: 53 (b1838), Elsted, Sussex
Elizabeth Hill	1881: 41 (b1839), Charvey, Berks	1891: 40 or 46 (b1852/1845), Churvey the Slough

It took some detective work to locate them in the 1871 census, two years after their marriage, and before their daughter Susan Caroline Hill was born in Southwark in 1875. They are no longer at Pave Court or elsewhere in Lambeth. I finally found them in the semi-rural surroundings of Sunbury on Thames in Surrey, some 13 miles from central London. Frustratingly, this John Hill had no birthplace recorded; he is said to be 28, so born about 1843, which doesn’t match later records. His wife Elizabeth is said to be from Bucks, Slough, which is similar to later records. However, her age (22) suggests a different birth year (1849) to the later censuses, but is more consistent with her being under 21 when she married.

The census holds one more clue: they have a son, John Hill, who is 7 months old (ie born September 1870), birthplace Sunbury. A baptism record for this child on 6 November 1870 at Sunbury is at Ancestry: he is John David Hill, son of John Hill, a Labourer, and Elizabeth Sarah, of Sunbury. Just to be sure that this was indeed the right couple, I ordered the birth certificate from the GRO, which shows he is the son of John Hill and Elizabeth Sarah, formerly Winderbank [sic], born at Sunbury on 24 September 1870. This child doesn’t appear with the couple on the 1881 census, and I believe that he died in Poplar, Middlesex, in 1872.

Until the end of the 19th century, Sunbury on Thames was a riverside village where employment focused around the local market gardens, nurseries and orchards. By 1861, the population had risen to over 2000, but there was still little in the way of industry or manufacturing (https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol3/pp58-59). Did John Hill have to leave London in search of work? Or, remembering the small Sussex village where he grew up, did he hope to raise a family in more rural surroundings? Who knows, but by the time my great grandmother Susan Caroline Hill was born in 1875, they were back in the heart of Victorian London’s poorer places.

But I was still none the wiser about Elizabeth Sarah Windebank‘s birthplace, the mysterious ‘Chalvey’ or ‘Churvey’.

Unravelling the mystery of ‘Churvey’

From her marriage certificate I knew that Elizabeth’s father was David Windebank, a Farrier, her mother Elizabeth. She also had a sister, Caroline Windebank, born in Reading around 1854 (and who is with the Hills on the 1881 census).

I couldn’t find Elizabeth Windebank with these family members in the 1861 census, but a search did reveal a David Windebank, Farrier and Smith from ‘Berkshire, Bazelton’, living at 11 Pave Court – her address on her marriage certificate – at that time. This is clearly Elizabeth’s father. Aged 32, he is with his wife Elizabeth, the same age, and six children, including Caroline, born 1854. So why wasn’t Elizabeth at home?

I found her in Hayes, Middlesex, with Charles James and Susan Topper (who I later found out were her mother’s parents). She is aged 11 (b1850) and her birthplace is given as Bucks, Chalvey. Her grandfather is a 57 year old ‘Foreman Porter, GWR’ from Chelsea. Perhaps she was visiting or, given the growing number of children at home at Pave Court, she was living with them more permanently.

Assuming that she was born in or around 1850, she should appear in the 1851 census, and indeed she does, although her age is unclear and her name is Sarah, not Elizabeth Sarah. She is (maybe) 15 months old, born ‘Berks, Charvey’ and enumerated with her parents David Windybank, a Blacksmith, mother Elizabeth, and older brother David, aged 3. They are living in the village of Dorney, Buckinghamshire.

Her birth certificate, ordered from the GRO, confirms her date and place of birth (17 October 1849, Chalvey), and her mother’s maiden name as Topper:

Her baptism (record at FamilySearch) took place on 11 November 1849 at Upton cum Chalvey, Buckinghamshire, daughter of David and Elizabeth Windebank.

This then is the ‘Charvey’ given as her birthplace in various guises in the censuses. Upton cum Chalvey runs along the southern edge of Slough (over the county border in Berkshire) and has three churches. Only one, the historic St Laurence’s church, existed in 1849 and is presumably where Elizabeth was baptised.

From their home in Chalvey, the Windebanks would have had a view of Windsor Castle in the distance, and of nearby Eton College (below), just over a mile away.

Dorney, where the family is living in 1851, is about three miles away from Chalvey. They had ten children between 1848 and 1868, the first five born in Buckinghamshire or nearby Reading, Berkshire. The next two were born in Turnham Green, Middlesex and in Acton; and the last three children were all born in Lambeth between 1861-1868. So I assume the family moved from Reading between 1854-1858, and had finally settled in Lambeth by 1861, when Elizabeth would have been about 12 years old.

The early years of her husband, John Hill, and his journey to London from Elsted, Sussex, were much harder to find, and warrant a story of his own.