My maternal grandmother’s birth certificate named her father as William John Fage, as did her marriage certificate. He appears as William Fage (1881-1891 censuses) or William J/John Fage in later records. So why couldn’t I find his birth registration? Because like so many other ancestors, his first names were ‘swapped’ around.

Changing names

John William Fage was born on 10 March 1872 at Girtford, Sandy, Bedfordshire. His birth certificate names his parents as James Fage, a Market Gardener, and his wife Sarah, formerly Wilsher. It was she who registered the birth some six weeks later, making her mark as she couldn’t write.

Extract from birth certificate of John William Fage 1872 (GRO)

The baby was baptised with the same names – John William Fage – at Sandy’s parish church of St Swithun on 6 April 1873, according to a transcript of the record at Ancestry.co.uk, derived from the Family History Library (FamilySearch). It is possible that the baptism actually took place in 1872, a few weeks after his birth; the original baptism entry is not available online so I haven’t been able to check.

By the time ‘John William Fage’ was nine years old, he has become known as William, confirmed by his first census appearance in 1881. The change of name may well have occurred much earlier, of course. The family is living at St Neot’s Road, Girtford, Sandy, headed by his father James Fage, a 29 year old Agricultural Labourer. His wife Sarah is the same age and is working – probably at home – as a Straw Plaiter. William appears to be the eldest child; he has two younger sisters, Louisa (7) and Mary Ann (5), a brother Elijah (2) and baby brother Walter, just two days old. It seems that John William wasn’t the only child whose name changed: Walter’s birth was registered later in 1881 with the name George!

Girtford lies to the West of Sandy, a small hamlet even less populated than Sandy itself in the 1880s and 1890s. A map from Bedfordshire Archives Girtford pages from 1883 shows a few buildings, the London and North West Railway line (Bedfordshire and Cambridge branch) and farms and fields. Very little changes on subsequent maps, until Girtford merges with Sandy’s boundaries in the early 20th century. Not surprising then that the Fages and most of their neighbours worked on the land, on farms and market gardens. Bedfordshire Archives has a history of Girtford, and its own name changes, from the 1200s onwards.

Around the time of William’s birth, Sandy Timeline up to 1899 – Sandy Historical Research Group (shrg.uk) notes that the total population of the Parish of Sandy, including Girtford, was 2,482, rising to 2,662 by 1881. There was something of a religious boom, with a new Mission and a Baptist Church being built during his childhood. In 1891, with a population now totalling 2,755, St Swithun’s Churchyard was closed to new burials, and a town cemetery was erected on Potton Road. Sandy’s fertile soil and extensive market gardens – supplying cucumbers and other fruit and vegetables to London’s Covent Garden Market – were noted by travellers and other commentators. Sandy Town Council – About Sandy notes that good transport links

“… allowed Sandy to fully exploit its best asset, the acres of rich farming land surrounding the town. Market gardening thrived as growers were able to transport produce quickly from the fields to the town and on down the Great North Road and later on the railway to the London markets”.

Market gardening seems to have been in William’s blood. By the time William was 19, and an Agricultural Labourer like his father, the 1891 census shows the family of James Fage at Sandy Terrace, part of the North Road in Sandy, with his 39 year old wife Sarah and four sons and four daughters. The eldest girl was 17 years old, the youngest just one. The whole family were said to have been born in Girtford, although other censuses suggest other parts of Bedfordshire.

Extract from 1891 census (Ancestry.co.uk) showing first part of the household of James Fage

A large family, but several losses

From these two censuses it appeared that William John Fage was probably their eldest child, born when they were about 20 – assuming their ages in the census were correct. In fact, research shows that he was the second of 12 children, and the first boy. The first child, a girl called Mary Ann Fage, was born in the Summer of 1870 and died at just over one year old. The Mary Ann Fage who appears aged 5 in the 1881 census was given the same name. Another sister was born and died in the first quarter of 1885, and did not live long enough to be named, appearing as ‘female’ in the birth and death indexes. Mabel Annie Fage suffered a similar fate in the last quarter of 1888, with another daughter born the following year being given the same name. A total of nine boys and girls survived. The youngest, Arthur James Fage, was born in 1896, three years after his big brother William John Fage, by then 24 years old, married Alice Cade. But their married life, children and tragic deaths will be detailed in other stories.