There were many Leather Workers in my family in mid-late Victorian London, and my 2xgreat grand uncle Robert Matthew Stocking was one such. He lived in Bermondsey, ‘the Land of Leather’. He and his wife Martha raised seven children, all of whom lived to maturity, unlike very many of his nieces and nephews. Why was his family different? Or was it just good luck?

A Bermondsey Boy

Robert Matthew Stocking was the fifth child of my 3xgreat grandparents James Stocking and his wife Mary Ann Collins. He was born on 4 June 1859, and baptised a month later at St Mary Newington on 3 July.

By the time of the 1861 census, they are living at 26 John Street (Kent Road); Robert is two years old and has four older siblings and a younger brother, Frederick, just six months. By the time he was 12, his parents had added five more younger brothers to the family. They are still at John Street at the time of the 1871 census. Ten years later they have moved to St Thomas Street, still in Bermondsey. Robert is now working as a Labourer. His father died there two years later, in October 1883.

A happier event occurred on Christmas Day the following year, when Robert married Martha Elizabeth Silverlock at St Peter’s Walworth, in the Parish of St Mary Newington.

The incumbent ministers were busy that day: Robert and Martha were one of eleven couples who married on 25 December, perhaps one of the few days working men and women had free. Neither bride nor groom could write, so make their marks in the Register. One of their witnesses is William Ward, who had married Robert’s eldest sister Mary Ann Susan Stocking just over ten years earlier. Robert and Martha went on to have seven children, the first five being girls, the last two boys. On their baptism records, and most of their census appearances, his occupation is Leather Dresser, as it was on the day of his wedding.

The family moved addresses several times over the decades, but always stayed in and around Bermondsey and Southwark.

Bermondsey: Land of Leather

Leather Dressing was one of many occupations engaged in the treating of raw animal hides (tanning, polishing/dressing, dying, shaving, cutting etc). The treated leather would in turn be made into multiple products such as saddles, bridles, harnesses, shoes, bags etc. Hides were also used in furniture making, covering chair and sofa seats and backs.

Bermondsey was dubbed the ‘Land of Leather’ due to the numerous Leather Manufacturers established there, so it is not surprising that Robert and many of the other Stocking menfolk who lived in the area found work there too.

Barrow, Hepburn & Gale is one company established in the 1700s and still trading (famous for making the Leather Dispatch Boxes used by MPs and Royalty). Robert’s nephew Horace George Thomas Stocking, only surviving son of his brother Richard Daniel Stocking, was working for them at the time of the 1921 census.

The Southwark News of 2 February 2017 has a history feature on Leather Making in Bermondsey, with illustrations. According to this, Bermondsey was producing one third of the country’s leather by the end of the 18th century. Very large numbers of skilled workers were employed in the tanneries (there were eleven in Long Lane Bermondsey alone), and the area would have been filled with the strong, unpleasant smells resulting from the various processes.

(Source: Bermondsey: Land of Leather. Southwark News Online. 2 Feb 2017. Visited 16 May 2023).

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Between 1901 and 1911, Robert’s wife Martha appears to have died, although I have not found a likely death index record for her. At the time of the 1911 census, he is living at 44 Vienna Road, Camberwell. By now aged 57, he is still working as a Leather Dresser, describing himself as a widower who had been married for 27 years and had seven children, all still alive. In the same household are his four unmarried daughters Eliza (25), Martha (22), Alice (19) and Emily (17). They are all working in local pickle, tin and jam factories. Of his two sons, Robert (15) is working as a Messenger, while 13 year old James is still at school. Also living at Vienna Road was a Housekeeper and a Boarder, and four year old Robert Stocking, described as ‘Grandchild’.

A child called Robert Francis Stocking was registered in the GRO birth index in the Apr-June quarter of 1907 in St Olave, Bermondsey, with no mother’s maiden name given. He was presumably then the illegitimate child of one of Robert’s daughters, but which, I cannot tell without ordering the birth certificate.

A family at War

Robert’s brother, my 2xGreat Grandfather James Thomas Stocking, had two sons who were awarded the Military Medal during WW1 (one of whom was killed in action). The stories of these young men – Robert’s nephews – are told in this post.

Robert and Martha’s two youngest children were their only sons, and both joined the army, although only one served during the WW1 conflict. The impact of the War was also felt through their sons-in-law, one of whom was killed. Their stories can be found in this post.

Life after the war

At the time of the 1921 census, Robert Matthew Stocking senior was out of work, his last employment shown on the census form as Leather Dresser for the Morocco Leather Company of Cable Street, Bermondsey. Daughter Emily was a bottle washer for Blackies, Wholesale Chemists of Tower Bridge Road; her brothers were both General Labourers, Robert for White, Thompson and Courage, Grain Merchants and James for Bennet & Co., Grain Merchants, London Wall (although he, like his father, was out of work). As this blogpost from A London Inheritance shows, Bevington Street – named after another leather works firm – runs from Bermondsey Wall, close to the banks of the Thames, to Jamaica Street – although as the photos show, little of the buildings the family might have known survived the London Blitz.

In April 1923, Robert junior married Rose Lilian Jones from his home at 44 Bevington Street (she lived nearby at Flockton Street, which is also mentioned in the blogpost linked above). Sister Emily was one of the witnesses. By the outbreak of WW2, Robert Matthew Stocking senior is at 103 Bevington Street with his unmarried daughter Emily, who does home washing for a factory (still bottle washing, perhaps?). His sons live nearby, both doing their bit for the War effort as ARP warden (James) and British Red Cross (Robert) – perhaps putting his stretcher bearer experience in the first World War to use.

Robert Matthew Stocking lived a long life, outliving all but one of his siblings. He was 86 years old when he was buried on 8 June 1945, at Nunhead Cemetery, South London, perhaps only just having past his 86th birthday on 4 June.