Newspaper reports of June-August 1903 show that my 2xgreat granduncle was summonsed by local magistrates for ‘over-crowding’ his home at The Mint, Godalming, Surrey. In April 1903, an inspector found the improbably named Prince Arthur Stocking (1869-1940) and his wife Eleanor Annie Young (1871-1953) squeezed into four rooms with five children. With another baby born in June, the summons led to the children being ‘put out’ in other accommodation. How did that affect their later lives?

The couple’s first child, Richard Daniel Stocking, was born in October 1891, shortly after their marriage at All Saints, Walworth, on 1 September that year. He died at around six months old in the first quarter of 1892. His birth was followed by five more babies in the next ten years, all children who were at some point ‘put out’ by their family. They had a total of eleven children altogether.

[Header image: (For Child Welfare Exhibit 1912–13.) Overcrowded home of workers. US, Date 1912. Lewis Wickes Hine. From Library of Congress via Look & Learn.].

Eleanor Stocking: Housemaid and Hotel Bar Assistant

Eleanor Stocking was born in September 1892 in Bermondsey. In the 1901 census, her age is shown as 8 (the census was taken in March 1901). As the eldest, she was probably one of the first children ‘put out’ to board in 1903, when she would have been ten years old. Did she ever return home? I don’t know, but by 1911, she is working as a Housemaid, aged 18, for Leo Myers, ‘of private means’, and his New York-born wife and two children at Christchurch Hill, Wonersh, Guildford. The family of four were served by Eleanor and two other Housemaids, a Lady’s Maid, Kitchen Maid, Cook, plus a Motor Driver and Footman. The children are looked after by two Nurses. Eleanor probably had to share a room with at least one of the other female servants, but it may have felt a lot more spacious than her crowded childhood homes. Ten years later, in the 1921 census, she is working as a live-in Bar Assistant at The Sun Hotel, Market Place, Kingston-upon-Thames, owned by G E Silcock, Licensed Victualler and Hotel Proprietor (see image below).

She was still in post when she married on 29 January 1923 widower Arthur Bird, six years her senior and a Clerk at the same hotel. After that, I cannot trace either of them reliably in the 1939 Register, migration or vital records.

Alice Stocking: From London, to Somerset and back to Surrey

Alice Stocking would have not long had her eighth birthday in 1903, when she was presumably ‘put out’ to board along with her older sister Eleanor. She was born on 28 January 1895 in Bermondsey and was probably still a baby or toddler when the family moved to Godalming. In 1911, she would have been about 18; she has not returned to the family home, and I haven’t found her elsewhere in that year’s census. Like her older sister, she may have found work in service, her name or age mis-recorded.

In 1915, Alice Stocking married Jesse Manning Duddridge in the St George Hanover Square registration district of London. It is possible that this was one of many hasty weddings of men going off to war: Jesse was a Sergeant in the Welsh Guards and received a gunshot wound to his left foot and left shoulder during WW1. There are, however, some anomalies in military records (one says birthplace Wales, others Watchet; one says he was single on discharge in 1919, although the couple had had a daughter, Jessie, in 1916), but on balance I think it’s the same man.

That this is the correct Alice is born out by the 1921 census: boarding with Jesse and Alice and their daughter Jessie Eleanor Duddridge (b.1916) at 27 The Causeway, Watchet, Somerset, is a William Stocking, aged 20 – her younger brother. Her husband, who was from Watchet, a harbour town, is a Fish Dealer on his own account (ie not working for anyone else). They do not seem to have stayed too long in Jesse’s home town. Electoral registers through the later 1920s and 1930s find them at 2 Station Road, Francombe, Godalming (in 1929, with two of Alice’s brothers William Stocking and Alfred Leonard Stocking). The couple are still there at the time of the 1939 Register: Jesse is working as a Grocery Van Driver and Alice is a cleaner. Their second daughter Stella Duddridge (b.1923) is an apprentice hairdresser, while the youngest, Flora Duddridge (b. 1927) is still at school. Eldest daughter Jessie had married Walter Barber in 1936.

Alice died in 1962, her widower in 1969.

Prince Arthur Stocking Jnr.: Military Policeman and Regular Soldier

Prince Arthur Stocking, clearly named for his father, was born on 21 January 1897 and is at home on census night in 1901 with parents and four siblings, having recently turned four years of age. He would have been six years old when ‘put out’ to help reduce over-crowding at home. I have failed to find any trace of him in the 1911 census, nor the intervening years. Perhaps to escape his home life, he joined the army, although I haven’t found service records indicating when.

There is an Arthur Stocking, aged 24 and 7 months in the 1921 census, an Army Military Policeman born in Southwark and serving with the British Army of the Rhine. In the 1920s he is shown as registered to vote at his parents’ addresses, but ‘absent’. In 1930, he is registered in army quarters in Woolwich with ‘Elisabeth Stocking’, his wife, but I have not found a record of their marriage in English records online. It is possible that he continued to serve in the Military Police or regular army, as he, like all serving military personnel, is absent from the 1939 Register; his (presumed) wife Elisabeth Stocking, born 1897, is living with his married sister Alice and her husband Jesse Manning Duddridge and family at 2 Station Road, Godalming. There are various Gazette and Army Lists indicating that he was a Regimental Sergeant Major who was promoted under the Regular Army Emergency Commissions scheme to Second Lieutenant, a rank he appears to have held until at least 1945. There is a possible death index entry for him in Brighton in 1957; probate was granted to his widow Elizabeth and (to me) an unknown spinster:

His widow died in Brighton in 1975. I cannot say with certainty that these records relate to this Prince Arthur Stocking, although where birth years and addresses are given, they do seem to match.

Jane and/or James Stocking: A missing child, or a mistaken census entry?

In the 1901 census, a daughter, Jane Stocking, aged 2 (b.1899) is listed as the youngest child in the family. I have found no trace in the GRO birth or death indexes for a girl of that name, and other records lead me to believe that this was actually a son, James Thomas Stocking, born on 28 January 1899. This boy appears in the 1911 census, aged 12, boarding with his younger brother William Stocking (aged 10) at 15 The Mint, Godalming, in the household of 64 year old widow Mrs Caroline Myers; the boys’ surname is transcribed as Stacking. It seems they are still ‘put out’ of the family home, which is further along the street. If they had been boarded out in 1903, as newspaper reports suggest, they would have been only four and two years old. By 1911, they had perhaps been living apart from the rest of the family for eight years. Mrs Myers’ home is not much larger than their own, with only three rooms.

Like his older brother, James seems to have joined the Army; on 21 March 1918, he was taken Prisoner of War at St Quentin, Marne, France. He was serving with the 8th Battalion Kings Royal Rifle Corps, and his next of kin is shown as Eleanor Stocking (his mother), 20 Victoria Road, Godalming.

The Long Long Trail website has a detailed and illustrated history of the role played by this French town during WW1 and preceding conflicts, in which it was more or less completely destroyed. 21 March 1918 was the first day of Germany’s Spring Offensive ‘Operation Michael’. A map some way down the page linked above shows the 8 KRRC clearly positioned very close to the front line.

At the time of the 1921 census, a James Stocking, aged 22 and three months, born in Godalming, appears to be at the Army White Barracks in Quetta, Baluchistan, India, as a Rifleman in the 4th Battalion Kings Royal Rifle Corps. The census was taken at the beginning of June 1921, suggesting a birth date of late January 1899, which would fit with other known information.

He must have returned to the UK, perhaps on completion of 12 years’ service, as on 28 November 1928, he married Flora May Wright at St Mary Magdalen Church, Woolwich. His bride was a 22 year old spinster from Camberley in Surrey, the daughter of a Groom, while James now has what appears to be a civilian job, a Fitter. His address at time of marriage is St Mary Street, Woolwich, although whether he was living there, or stayed there to marry, is unclear. Electoral registers show the couple at 192 Winchcombe Road, Mitcham in Surrey through the 1930s.

By the time the 1939 Register was taken, Flora is living with her widowed father, a Retired Stud Groom, at Bardwell Terrace, Bicester, Oxfordshire. There are two redacted records which suggest there were two children in the household. A FreeBMD search for births registered with surname Stocking, mother’s maiden name Wright produces just two results: Doreen E Stocking, born 1930 in Woolwich, and James A Stocking, born 1939 in Ploughley, Oxfordshire. James Thomas Stocking may have been recalled to the Army from the reserve and is therefore not shown on the 1939 Register; his wife has moved to Oxfordshire to give birth near her family. There is a possible death index entry for James Thomas, aged 64, in Bristol (though I have no idea what he might have been doing there). Flora, of 12 Cliffe Road, Godalming, died in 1977, her surname given in the probate record as both Stocks and Stocking.

William James Stocking

The West Surrey Times of 17 July 1903 reported that Prince Arthur Stocking had already ‘put out’ two children, and had only four at home, following an earlier summons for over-crowding. The Chairman of the Sanitary Committee supposed this had reduced ‘the nuisance’ somewhat, but the Medical Officer disagreed, noting that ‘there has been a fresh arrival here though’. This was baby Amy Stocking, who was born on 7 July 1903, so was just ten days old. Her father retorted ‘You can’t expect me to put that out’. Despite claiming he could not afford to board any more of his children, by August 1903, it was reported that only the parents and baby remained in the house at The Mint, Godalming. The remaining children, including William James Stocking, aged two, had all been ‘put out’ to live in nearby houses.

William James Stocking was born on 2 April 1901 in Godalming. by the 1911 census, he is still ‘put out’, living with his brother James Thomas Stocking (above) in a neighbour’s house. At the time of the 1921 census, he is boarding with his sister Alice and her family in Watchet, Somerset, where he is an out of work Labourer, last employed by the Wansborough Paper Company there. In electoral registers through the mid-late 1920s, he is recorded at his parents’ home at 20 Victoria Road, Godalming, so perhaps finally returned home as an adult.

On 22 December 1928, he married Gertrude Agnes Mills at Milford, Surrey. His occupation is rather cryptically given as ‘Transport’. By the outbreak of WW2 they are shown on The 1939 Register living at Hambledon Road, Caterham, Surrey, where he is working as a Packer at an Engineering Works. They had one child, Irene B Stocking, born in Hambledon in 1931. Gertrude died in Surrey in Summer 1982, William in the Autumn of that year.

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From the newspaper reports on the over-crowding crusade in Godalming (and, presumably, other parts of the country, although I have not researched that), it seems that requiring parents to board out their children to relieve cramped and unsanitary conditions in the home was fairly common. Prince Arthur’s five eldest children – the youngest just two years old – seem to have spent most of their childhood in other peoples’ homes; how this worked with their care and their relationship with their parents is not known, but they seem to have kept in touch with one another, some returning home as adults, other living with other siblings. Having moved from Bermondsey, where Prince Arthur’s ten siblings and parents lived, must have removed them from their immediate help … although with large families of their own, their capacity to assist may have been limited.

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Of Prince Arthur Stocking’s younger children, it seems that Amy Stocking, new-born in 1903, remained at home, as she appears with her parents in the 1911 census with three younger siblings. In 1921, she was a general servant in the home of a schoolmaster – the Reverend Brook – of nearby Charterhouse public school. By the time she married, aged 22, in 1925, she was working as a Shop Assistant, her husband was a Baker. They had two daughters (Pamela, b.1928 and Shirley, b.1929) and by the 1939 Register, were living at 12 Cliffe Road, where her husband had exchanged baking for aircraft fitting. She died in 1984, her husband in 1989.

Frank Stocking was born in 1905 and was at home in 1911; sadly he died, aged 8, in 1913.

Alfred Leonard Stocking also appears at home in the 1911 census, having been born in 1907. In 1921 he is still at home but electoral registers show him in his sister Alice’s household in Godalming in 1930. He married Flossie Jones in Godalming in 1933, and by the outbreak of WW2 is back at home with his parents and wife, where he is described as an Aircraft Worker. I haven’t found any children of the marriage. Alfred died in 1993, his wife in 1999.

The youngest child to appear in the 1911 census with her parents is Louisa Martha Stocking, who was 18 months old (b.1909). Like her brother Alfred, she is still at school, and at home, in 1921. Ten years later, on 25 May 1931, she married Stanley George Meech. Their daugher Elizabeth M Meech was born in 1932. I haven’t located them in the 1939 register, but electoral registers show them living in Reigate through the late 1930s and 1940s. In the 1950s-1960s, they are registered at Farnham, Surrey. Louisa died in Watchet, Somerset in 1997.