I was a bit perplexed when I came across a 2xgreat grand uncle with a seemingly Royal title. Prince Arthur Stocking (1869-1940) was given the first name Prince when his birth was registered in the Jan-Mar quarter of 1870, but it was used sparingly in most other official documents until he married. He called his own son by the same names and was also in the news (although it wasn’t good). Was there some Royal connection or influence?

A princely start in life?

Arthur’s early years were a long way off being royal. Born in Southwark on 22 November 1869, he was the youngest of the 11 children of my 3xgreat grandparents James Stocking and his wife Mary Ann Collins. By the time of the 1881 census, he is living at 24 St Thomas Street, Bermondsey, with his parents and seven of his siblings; his father was a Bricklayer’s Labourer. The street runs in the gloomy shadows of London Bridge Railway station’s arches (one of the world’s oldest railway stations, having been opened in 1836); very much a poor, industrial area, home to leather dressers and tanners, docks, railway and factory workers – like most of his family.

He was baptised, aged 13, at St Mark’s Cobourg Road, on 12 October 1883 – as just plain Arthur Stocking. His father had died barely two weeks earlier, although it’s unclear whether this had any bearing on the event.

At the time of the 1891 census he is enumerated in his older sister’s household. Mary Ann Stocking had married Packing Case Maker William Ward in 1873 and on census night, they are at 22 Alfreton Street, Bermondsey; Arthur Stocking is now 27 and working as a Leather Dresser (Read more about Mary Ann’s story here). A few months later, on 14 September 1891, Prince Arthur Stocking married Eleanor Young at Walworth All Saints. The marriage register is an interesting record not only for the use of his royal-sounding first name, but also for his father’s occupation being recorded as Policeman. I still do not know if he really was a policeman.

It seems that Eleanor was heavily pregnant as their first son Richard Daniel Stocking was baptised six weeks later. Sadly, the baby died before his first birthday, in the first half of 1892. Between 1892-1897 they had three more children, two girls and a boy named after his father. Prince Arthur Stocking junior was born on 28 January 1897.

A change of scene … but not better conditions?

It seems that the family moved away from London to the relatively rural environs of Surrey, probably around 1898 (their son James Stocking was baptised in Godalming in February 1899). By the 1901 census, the family is living at The Mint, near Mill Lane, Godalming. Arthur is working as a Bricklayer’s Labourer. Squashed into four rooms with him and ‘Ellen’ are four children and an 11 year old ‘Boarder’.

The Mint was an area featuring tanneries and flour mills, as this illustrated article from The Andrews Pages Picture Gallery Godalming shows. Unlike the Leather Market in Bermondsey, this is – at least now – a much more rural environment and could have been a welcome change of scene for the growing Stocking family. However, all was not as it seems: a report in a local paper noted:

Prince Arthur Stocking of The Mint, Godalming, answered an adjourned summons for over-crowding his house. Dr Minchin, Medical Officer, stated that since the last hearing, the defendant had made arrangements that would improve matters somewhat. If that were the case the Sanitary Authority would be prepared to accept that as a temporary measure. There were now in the house Mr and Mrs Stocking and a baby. Three children were boarded out. He thought that this was an unsatisfactory state of things, but would do temporarily until defendant could get a more suitable house.

Surrey Advertiser, 15 August 1903. FindMyPast

The baby was Amy, who would have been just over a month old. Another newspaper report noted that, on 27 April 1903, inspectors found that seven people were living in the house (Arthur, Eleanor, and five children). Two of the children had soon after been ‘put out’, with the further three mentioned above following once the new-born arrived. Arthur stated he could not afford a larger house, nor could he afford to pay to board the children out for long. The newspapers of June-July that year included reports under ‘Overcrowding Crusade’ headlines, listing several others from The Mint and nearby streets summonsed for similar breaches of housing by-laws.

The family did not move and were still at 39 The Mint ten years later, at the time of the 1911 census. Prince Arthur is a Builder’s Labourer; on the census form, he states that he and Eleanor have been married for 21 years and have had 11 children, only four of whom are still alive. Actually, four of them were still living at home with them at The Mint (Amy, 7; Frank, 6; Alfred, 3 and 18 month old Louisa). I think it likely that, with the earlier court case in mind, Alfred completed the form to demonstrate that the house was no longer over-crowded. There is certainly evidence that by then, most of their children were still alive.

Their youngest child, Kitty Stocking, was born on 5 March 1915, by which time the family had moved to 20 Victoria Road, Godalming. Sadly, she died three months later, on 15 June. Their new home – a red brick terraced house which still stands – was the address given when Arthur joined up to fight in WW1 that September. He was a Private (Reg. nos Ss/15698, 307989) in the Army Labour Corps and served in France, being demobilised in 1919. Eleanor was presumably left on her own to bring up the rest of their young family.

By 1939 they were living at 107 Ockford Ridge, Godalming. Prince Arthur continued working as a Builder’s Labourer, although at the outbreak of WW2 he was out of work, his last employer named as Godalming Borough Council. He was to die a year later, in 1940, aged 70. Eleanor was awarded an army pension of some kind on his death, her address on documents shown as 107 Ockford Ridge. She outlived him by 15 years, dying early in 1953. Both were buried at Eashing Cemetery, Godalming, Surrey.

The stories of the boarded-out and other children will be told in another post.

The Princely name

In early records, apart from his birth registration, Prince Arthur Stocking is recorded as plain Arthur: in the 1871-1891 censuses and on his baptism record. His full name is used again when he married, on all his children’s baptism records, and the 1901-1921 censuses and 1939 Register. So it seems that he was known as Arthur in the family and recorded by them as such, but when he was able to record his own name, he used his ‘royal’ title, so was probably quite fond or proud of it.

A search of other birth registrations in 1869-70 with the first name Prince revealed five other Prince Arthurs (and several other princes and princesses). Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, was the seventh child of Queen Victoria. By 1869, he had graduated from the Royal Military Academy and was serving with the Rifle Brigade. In January 1870, when Prince Arthur Stocking’s birth was registered, he made a high profile visit to Washington DC; perhaps the news coverage inspired his parents to bestow the name on their child. [Featured image: British Museum, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons]