My 2xgreat grand uncle George Thomas Stocking (1862-1947) was a Bermondsey Leather Dresser/Finisher. He and his wife had 17 children, but are said to have lost seven of them in infancy. He was also the first of his siblings to be able to sign his name. After marriage, he raised his growing family, staying put at just two addresses. After World War II, he moved to Farnham in Surrey, to a house called ‘The Jungle’ in Abbey Street, perhaps reflecting the change in landscape from industrial Bermondsey to rural Surrey.

Childhood and marriage

George was the fifth son and seventh child of my 3xgreat grandparents James Stocking and his wife Mary Ann Collins. His baptism record (no image) of 12 October 1862 at St Mary Newington records his date of birth as 12 September that year. Like his ten siblings, he lived with his parents (as attested by the 1871-1881 censuses) until he married, aged 20, on 11 November 1882 at All Saints Walworth.

This is the first time that George’s occupation is described as Leather Dresser; on the 1881 census he is simply a Labourer. It is also the first time we see his rather shaky signature. He must have benefitted from a better education than his older brothers and sisters, as they were all illiterate, although this post showing his signature over time suggests he may not have been that comfortable with writing.

His bride was Fanny Whitcher, of 6 Aylesbury Street.

This address rang a bell; when his older brother Frederick James Stocking married on 5 February 1883 at the same church, his bride also gave 6 Aylesbury Street as her home address. My further investigations into the mystery of the Aylesbury Street brides are covered in this post.

Married life and losses

It seems that their marriage was just in time, as their first son George Stocking was born two weeks later, on 15 December 1882. By the time George was baptised on 5 November 1883 at St Mark’s, Cobourg Square, the family had settled at 3 Marygold Court, Old Kent Road. Many of my Stocking ancestors and their families moved regularly from place to place according to their finances and the number of children in the household but, unusually, George and Fanny (also known as Annie) stayed at the same address for over 20 years, raising a large family, but suffering also a large number of losses.

Charles Booth’s survey of poverty in London records Marigold Court as being ‘off Bermondsey New Road’ and, on a visit in 1899:

… on S. side all houses being down save one, N. side decidedly poor, the upper end being particularly miserable. 2 st[orey] houses.

Charles Booth’s London: Poverty Maps and Notebooks. Ernest Aves’ Notebook 1899.

They are still there when their son James Daniel Stocking was baptised in 1905, but by the time of the 1911 census, George and Fanny have finally moved house, to 3 Cluny Place, Bermondsey. The street still exists, barely a few hundred yards from where Marygold/Marigold Court used to be. On the corner with Bermondsey Street, now closed, is a Victorian tile-fronted pub, The Hand & Marigold (although a pub had stood on the site since the 1790s). The rest of Cluny Place, however, is now lined with modern flats.

The 1911 census tells a sad story of child mortality. G. T. Stocking, head of household, is a 48 year old Leather Dresser. His wife, Fanny, is the same age, born in ‘Handover, Hampshire’. They state they have been married for 29 years (ie 1882) and have had 17 children, seven of whom have by then died. Seven of their surviving children – aged between 7-22 – are still living at home. So far, I have only found records for 15 children born to the couple between 1882-1905. Those who died before 1911 were:

Name	Born-Died	Age at death
George	1882-1895	12
Gladys Elsie	1899-1900	1
Ernest Daniel	1901-1902	3 months
Aaron Travers William	1902-1902	5 months
James Daniel	1905-1906	18 months

The years 1900-1906 saw the loss of four children in fairly quick succession (as well as one other birth). Perhaps this led to a renewal of faith for George, who was confirmed at the local church, St Mary Magdalen, aged 37, in 1901.

The impact of war

The couple were to lose two further sons in World War I. Stephen James Stocking was born in 1886, their second son. Aged 18, in 1904, he joined the Lincolnshire Regiment, but was discharged as medically unfit less than a year later. On 31 March 1907, he married Amelia McLoughlin at St Mary Magdalen, where he had been confirmed, aged 18, two years earlier. His father witnessed the marriage. Four of their five children survived infancy. When he signed up to join the armed forces again on 8 November 1914, their youngest son was just over a year old. In May 1915, he was admitted to hospital in Rouen, his condition ‘not yet diagnosed’. He returned to fight, however, as Private 8218 Stocking of the 1st Lincolnshire Battalion sustained gunshot wounds, and died later of pneumonia on 27 September 1915. He is commemorated at the Etaples Cemetery (IV. G. 12A).

Their son – also Stephen James Stocking, b.1912 – fought in the Second World War and was killed in 1948 as a result of Soviet fighter action while a passenger in a Viking aircraft flying over East Berlin.

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George Henry Stocking was born in 1896. The 1911 census records him as a 15 year old Grocer’s Errand Boy. He joined the 2nd Battalion Royal Berkshires as Private 17436, first embarking for France in September 1915, around the same time that his older brother Stephen was injured. He was killed in action on 14 March 1916, his army pension going to his parents as he did not marry. He was 20 years old.

Later lives

At the time of th 1921 census, George and Fanny, 58 and 59 respectively, are sharing four rooms at 3 Cluny Place with their two unmarried daughters Fanny, 23 and Lydia, 18. George is unemployed, his last job shown as Leather Dresser to a firm in Dockley Road, Bermondsey. A year later, daughter Fanny married Frederick George Chalkley, a stoker, and almost immediately emigrated with him to Australia where their two daughters were born in 1923 and 1925. She returned to the UK, to 3 Cluny Place, in October 1925 with her two daughters; her husband had died in May that year, aged just 26.

Although I have not been able to find information on all 17 of their children noted in the 1911 census, the same number is recorded in a brief announcement of their Golden Wedding Anniversary:

George’s wife Fanny Stocking died on 30 December 1938, aged 76, after 57 years of marriage. Nearly a year later, at the time of the 1939 Register and the outbreak of WWII, George Stocking is still at Cluny Place, a Retired Leather Dresser, living with his daughter Fanny and her second husband Robert Jarman, who she had married ten years earlier. By the time the war was over, George has moved to Farnham in Surrey, his house called ‘The Jungle’ (perhaps it had an unruly garden). He died there on 21 October 1947 at the grand age of 85.