Harriett was the fourth of my 2xgreat grandparents’ 19 children and had her own large family of ten with her husband Alfred Edmund Ilott Bishop. They lived their lives in Camberwell and then Norwood in London, dying in the final throws of WW2. They gave a home to her widowed sister and their ten children produced 18 grandchildren. This is their (very long) story.

Harriett with two ‘t’s

Her birth – on 14 April 1879 – was registered by her mother with the first name Harriet (just the one ‘t’) on 23 July 1879; she was born at 43 Bowles Road, Camberwell, the first reference to this address in the family records, but one in which they lived on and off for more than two more decades.

Extract from birth certificate of Harriet Elizabeth Stocking (GRO)

When she was baptised at St Philip’s Avondale Square with four of her siblings on 19 July 1882, the ‘t’ is still singular.

Extract from baptism register of St Philip the Apostle (Ancestry.co.uk)

The baptism of the children’s eldest sister, Alice Caroline Stocking, is recorded on the previous page of the register. Alice would have been eight years old, young William Henry not quite two. Who knows what prompted their parents to have them baptised on the same day?

Throughout much of the rest of her life, Harriett’s name was spelt with two ‘t’s, occasionally also acquiring an ‘e’ at the end, such as in the Admission Log of Rolls Road School (Ancestry) where she is ‘Harriette’. I know little of her early life other than 1881 and 1891 census appearances at home with the family, until her marriage.

A husband’s naming mystery

On Christmas Day 1889, Harriett married Alfred Edmund Ilott Bishop, a Carman, ie driver of horse-drawn carts and lorries transporting various goods about the capital.

Extract from St Philip the Apostle marriage register (Ancestry.co.uk)

As the parish register entry above shows, both bride and groom give her parents’ address at 44 Herman Road as their residence. Harriett’s father James Thomas Stocking was one of the witnesses, his signature a bit shaky; his eldest daughter and bride’s sister Alice Caroline Stocking was the other. The wedding preparations may have been overshadowed by the death six weeks earlier of another sister Emma Mary Ann’s illegitimate five-week old daughter Violet.

Alfred was not a Londoner; he was born on 14 March 1876 at Elmdon near Saffron Walden in Essex. Despite what he records on his marriage certificate, he was the illegitimate son of Eliza Ann Bishop.

She was born in 1854, the daughter of Edmund Bishop and Eliza Clements, and married a 19 year old Shepherd, Samuel Wright, when Alfred was four years old. The couple appear with Alfred a year after their marriage, in the 1881 census, at Pond Street, Elmdon. Eliza A Wright is 25, and another child, Minnie Bishop, aged 1, is enumerated with them. The latter’s birth was registered in the first quarter of 1880 with the name Minnie Eliza Wright Bishop; she too was illegitimate, but Samuel Wright may have been her father, acknowledged by the inclusion of his surname.

Alfred is working as a Farm Servant, aged 15, in 1891, still living with his mother, stepfather and a growing number of half-siblings. By 1899, he has left rural essex and farm life, and found his way to London, quite possibly in search of better paid work. I do not know why he adopted the Ilott name, nor why he felt the need to invent a father using his own names and that of his stepfather.

Family life

Two years after their wedding, at the time of the 1901 census, they are living in two rooms at 30 Dragon Road, Camberwell. Alfred is described as a Hay and Corn Carman, and the couple have a two month old baby, Alfred. A Dragon Road still exists on the Northern edges of Peckham/Camberwell, but is now the site of modern flats.

A family photo is said to show our 2xgreat grandparents, their 17 surviving children and other family members in around 1904. It is possible that it was taken at the time that Harriett and Alfred’s third child, James Thomas Bishop, was baptised at St Philips Church, Avondale Square, on 4 May 1904. He had been born three weeks earlier, on 14 April 1904, Harriett’s 24th birthday.

By 1911, they have moved to 35 Lettsom Street, Camberwell. They occupy three rooms with their five young children, aged six months to ten years. A month later, Alfred registered the death of James Mayers, the husband of his sister-in-law Emma Mary Ann Mayers. The couple shared rooms in the same house as the Bishops. Lettsom Street is now the site of post-war flats, but the Lloyd George Domesday Survey of around 1910 (The Genealogist) suggests that the house was of brick with cement render and pantile roof, and had “two good rooms and one fair slop room” on the first floor, with the ground floor comprising “one good room, kitchen, sculleries and outside WC”.

Shortly afterwards electoral registers show that the Bishop family moved to 34A Durban Road, Norwood. The 1921 census records that Alfred was a Motorman working at the LCC’s Norwood Tramways Depot. BoroughPhotos has an image from 1916 of a tram, driver and conductress outside Norwood Tram Depot; the lady is called Amy, the driver’s name is not recorded. Could it have been Alfred Edmund Ilott Bishop?

The Norwood Tramways Depot was opened in 1909, and electric trams operated from there until the 1950s. It was located South of Tulse Hill station on Norwood Road, and is now used as a self-storage facility.

In 1921, Harriett’s widowed sister Emma is still living with them, but out of work through illness. The family has expanded with four more children since the previous census; their tenth child was born a year later. By 1932, the parents Bishop, several of their grown-up children and Harriett’s sister Emma are recorded as registered to vote at 4 St Cloud Road, Norwood, which ran parallel to Durban Road – so they hadn’t moved far. They are still there when Emma Mary Ann Mayers died on 5 February 1939 in Dulwich Hospital. Her usual address was 4 St Cloud Road, and her sister Harriett – of the same address – registered the death.

Extract from 1920s A-Z paperback (author’s collection)

I own a rather tatty copy of a 1920s London A-Z guide; the above extract shows the rough location of the Norwood tramways depot (circled in red) and Durban Road and St Cloud Road (circled in green).

When The 1939 Register was taken, they were still at St Cloud Road. Alfred Edmund Ilott Bishop is described as an LCC Tram Driver (invalid), so he has presumably stopped work either temporarily or fully because of some form of incapacity. Harriett is undertaking ‘unpaid home duties’; their two remaining unmarried daughters are still living at home.

I do not know what they would have experienced during WW2, although the area where they lived was subject to significant bomb damage. The flyingbombsandrockets website has an account of V1 and V2 rocket damage in West Norwood. Neither Alfred nor Harriett lived to see what happened after the world was once again declared at peace. Alfred died in the April-June quarter of 1943, aged 67. His widow survived him for just two years, dying on 22 October 1945, at St Cloud Street. Probate was granted to her son, Alfred Edmund Ilott Bishop, a hot water fitter.

This photo (left) of Harriett Elizabeth Bishop was shared by her great grandson Ray Bishop and is said to have been taken in ‘her old age’.

Her dress appears to date from the late 1930s/early 1940s, when she would have been in her late 50s/early 60s. It is possible that she is in mourning for her husband, as the dress could possibly be black crepe. Then again, she could be mourning her sister, dating the photo to about 1939.

This photocopy of a photo (below) was shared by another descendant of my 2xgreat grandparents, and was taken in 1943, two years before Harriet died, in the garden of The Crown Inn in Tingewick, where two of Harriet’s sisters lived from the early 1940s onwards. Harriet (front right) is shown with her sister Catherine Alice Hall (front left) and younger generations of the family.

Every one of their five sons and five daughters had at least one child of their own. With at least 55 descendants, there are a lot of stories to tell. I have tried to research them all, but some are better documented than others.

The later generations

Named for their parents

The eldest boy, Alfred Edmund Ilott Bishop (1901-1961), named after his father, married Fanny Margaret Frost in 1928. He worked as a Heating Engineer throughout his life, living at Somerleyton Road and then Durban Road, near the family home. Their only son Edmund George Bishop (b.1933) married Hetty F McLoughlin in 1957. Around the same time, he was sentenced to four months in prison for obtaining money by false pretences while working as a Porter at Covent Garden Market, as reported in The Norwood News on 29 November 1957 (FindMyPast). They don’t appear to have had children of their own. Alfred Edmund Ilott Bishop died in 1961, aged 60.

The eldest daughter was named (mostly) after her mother. Harriett Elizabeth Rose Bishop (1902-1960) was born on 26 October. She was baptised on 12 November 1902 at St Philips, Avondale Square, on the same day that her mother’s parents baptised their youngest child, baby Harriett’s uncle, Alexander Edward Stocking, who was born on 15 October 1902. Before her marriage to Plasterer Charles Thomas Partridge on 7 August 1922 she had been working as a Book Binder for Palmer Newbould of Knights Hill. They had four children. After the war, they moved to Casewick Road in Lambeth, where they spent the rest of their married life.

Their eldest son, Alfred Charles Thomas Partridge, appears to have joined the RAF and, as a Flight Seargent in 76 Squadron, Bomber Command, was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in September 1944, a few months after he married Joan Emily Knight. By then, both his Bishop grandparents were dead. They had two daughters and at some point moved to Lincolnshire, where he died in 2008. His sister Dorothy Harriett Partridge (known as ‘Dot’) married George William Horn in Lambeth, and moved to Croydon in the 1960s where they had four children. Dot died in 2017 in Wymondham, Norfolk. The other two Partridge siblings do not appear to have married: Stephanie V Partridge died in Wymondham in October 2020, aged 93 while Charles Derrick Partridge died in Attleborough, Norfolk, in 2003.

Named for their maternal grandparents

The baptism of James Thomas Bishop (1904-1963) may have prompted the family photo discussed in other stories. He was named after his mother’s father, James Thomas Stocking. In the 1921 census he is 17 years and two months old, and working as a Tricycle Messenger for ‘French Cleaners Dyeing Co., Park Road, Dulwich’. I haven’t been able to find out anything about this company. He appears to have lived with his family at 34A Durban Road, Lambeth until his marriage, when his occupation is recorded as Motor Mechanic. His bride was Evelyn Agnes Whiteman, the daughter of a Borough Roadman.

They were married on the same day, 27 September 1927, and in the same church, St Luke’s Norwood, as his sister Alice Maud Mary Bishop (1906-1984), named after her maternal grandmother. It must have been a large family occasion. St Luke’s is a graceful building first consecrated in the 1820s (see photo left. Credit Stephen Richards, CC BY-SA 2.0).

James and Evelyn had four sons between 1929 and 1943, with a large gap during the war years, although I have not found any WW2 service records for him. He died in Lewisham Hospital on 17 April 1963 and was cremated on 25 April. His probate record shows that administration of his estate was granted to his widow and his son, Norman J Bishop, Garage Manager.

His sister Alice Maud Mary Bishop was named for her maternal grandmother Alice Maud Mary Stocking, who died in 1907, a year after young Alice’s birth. She attended Gipsy Road School in Lambeth between 1915-1920, and by the 1921 census was working for the same Bookbinders as her older sister. Her ‘double wedding’ with her brother saw her marry News Agent Albert Arthur Johnson. They only appear to have had one child, Beryl F Johnson, whose birth was registered in the first quarter of 1930, in Lambeth. In 1939, the couple are registered to vote at 4 Lepine Cottages, Gipsy Road, West Norwood, but do not appear there together at the time of The 1939 Register. Albert Arthur Johnson is there, working as a Plumber, but there is no sign of his wife. Their daughter Beryl is listed with her maternal grandparents Alfred and Harriett Bishop at 4 St Cloud Street. I have searched for her mother with various combinations of names and dates of birth, but have not yet located her.

Ancestry.co.uk has a digitised set of records for Albert Arthur Johnson, which includes his WW2 service card and various attestation papers. The earliest show that he joined the Territorial Army in the 1920s, before his marriage, and had attended annual training sessions for four years. When he joined up in 1923, he was working as a Decorator, and living at 107 Hamilton Road, West Norwood. He later rejoined the territorial army in 1940, and was released in November 1945, having ‘reached the age of 45, no eligibility for further recall’. He had joined the Auxilliary Military Pioneer Corps in 1940, associated with the Royal West Kent Regiment. On enlistment, his occupation is shown as Painter. More information about the Pioneer Corps can be found online. Albert Arthur Johnson died in the Apr-Jun quarter of 1983, in Swale, Kent. His widow survived him by only one year, dying in Bromley, Kent in the first quarter of 1984. Their daughter Beryl married Arthur S Floyd in Lambeth during the first quarter of 1949. By 2005 they had moved into a retirement flat in Sidcup in Kent, and were still registered to vote there in 2011. One or both may still be alive, almost centenarians.

Francis and Susan: lives sparsely documented

Alfred and Harriett’s fifth child was a son, Francis Samuel Joseph Bishop (1910-1983).

Extract from parish register, St Giles Camberwell (Ancestry)

Apart from his baptism record (above), childhood appearances with the family in the 1911 and 1921 censuses and a 1937 electoral register, his life is barely documented until his marriage. The banns were called during the first three weeks of July at Christ Church, Norwood, with both bride and groom shown as ‘of this parish’. His bride was Grace Georgina Rose Gyde. By the time The 1939 Register was taken a month or so later, they are living at 17 Gibbs Square, Lambeth, with her parents and family. Her father was a Tram Driver, like his. Francis Samuel Joseph Bishop is working as a Lorry Driver (Heavy worker), and a member of the ARP Demolition Squad, helping to demolish buildings damaged by bombs or associated fires. His wife was a Clerical Worker.

There are two birth registrations at FreeBMD, surname Bishop, MMN Gyde: one in Berkhamstead, Hertfordshire in 1945, the other in Lewisham in 1949 (named Raymond F Gyde, and Jacqueline Gyde respectively). I know nothing more about them until their deaths. Francis Samuel Joseph Bishop, of 212 Meadowview Road, Catford, died on 10 October 1983. His widow died in Bromley in the first quarter of 1998.   

The sixth child, Susan Violet Bishop (1912-1981) was baptised aged 2 on the same day as her baby brother Alexander Archibald at St Luke’s, West Norwood.

Extract from parish register of St Luke’s, Norwood (Ancestry)

She went to Gipsy Road School, but I have found no other records for her before her marriage at Emanuel Church, West Dulwich, on Boxing Day 1935, when she was 23 years old. Her groom was Joseph Leonard Catchpole, a 26 year old Car Driver. . They had two children, Janet in Jul-Sep 1936 and Susan in 1943. At the time of The 1939 Register, they are living at 121 Queen Mary Road, Croydon, where Joseph is working as a Garage Hand. There is one redacted record, which is likely to be for young Janet.

Through the 1960s, they lived at her parents’ home at 4 St Cloud Street, Norwood. Joseph Leonard Catchpole died in Colchester, Essex, in 1978. The same year, his widow appears in the telephone directory (Ancestry.co.uk) at the St Cloud address. She died in Lambeth in Jul-Sep 1981. Their daughter Janet Catchpole married Derek McTernan in Lambeth in 1960. They appear to have had two children, Aileen and Ian.

My second cousin 1xremoved, Ray Bishop, is the son of Harriett and Alfred Bishop’s seventh child Alexander Archibald Bishop (1914-1990). Ray shared this photo (right) of his Dad in his younger years.

He lived at home with his family until he married, in the summer of 1938. His bride was Violet Hibbert, and they married in Southwark, where she had been born in 1917. A year later, when The 1939 Register was taken, the couple is living at 64 Saltoun Road, Lambeth, where Alexander Archibald Bishop is working as a Mattress Maker. His wife is working as a Food Machine Operator for Oxo Ltd. They are sharing the property with two other couples. Google Street View shows no.64 and its fellow three storey terraced houses still standing, and they may have been purpose built as flats, or converted into rooms.

FindMyPast has a Royal Artillery Attestation record for him which shows he joined up in 1940. It also suggests that he was discharged after the end of the war, on 31 May 1946 – although that date may refer to some other part of his service, I don’t know what the abbreviations on the record mean. However, their only son wasn’t born until 1950, so his father may well have been absent for much of the duration of the war.

In the early 1950s, they are registered to vote at 24 Kellett Road, Norwood. I have found nothing else out about his life until the record of his death in the first quarter of 1990, in Lambeth. His widow Violet Bishop survived him by five years, dying in 1995; her usual address on the probate record is shown as Haynes Buildings, Elliotts Row, SE11.

I met up with their son Ray in the Bree Louise pub in London to share family stories and photos.

The three youngest Bishops

Jenny Emma Maud Bishop (1916-1981) was born on 6 December 1916, while war raged across Europe. Her first adult appearance in records found so far is in The 1939 Register, at the beginning of yet another war. She is listed with the rest of the family at 4 St Cloud Road, Lambeth, where she is described as a Telephone Switchboard Wirer. A year later, in the Summer of 1940, she married Frederick W Chipping in Lambeth. Their first child was Valerie J Chipping, born in Newton Abbott, Devon in the last quarter of 1941. Her mother may have been evacuated from London during the War. They had two further children, Shirley A Chipping (1944) in Lambeth, and David F Chipping, born in Camberwell in 1949. From around 1945 onwards, the couple are registered to vote at 5 St Cloud Road, Norwood. Frederick W Chipping died in the last quarter of 1966, his death registered in the Croydon district. However, the couple may still have been living at 5 St Cloud Road, as that is the home address given on his widow’s probate record when she died on 8 October 1981.

Their eldest daughter married in 1962 at the family church of St Luke’s and had two sons, who also married and had children of their own. Daughter Shirley married in 1966, moved to Tonbridge in Kent and had two sons. Sadly, she seems to have died young, aged 57, in 2001. Son David Chipping also married in the 1960s and seems to have settled in Bromley, Kent after his three children were all born in Lambeth.

Harriett and Alfred’s youngest two children left little evidence in records available online. Arthur Sidney Bishop is something of a mystery. I ordered his birth certificate to make sure of his date of birth. He was born at the family home, 34A Durban Road, West Norwood, on 11 November 1918. The Streatham News, 31 January 1930 (FindMyPast) shows he was attending Gipsy Road School and was awarded a junior county scholarship – presumably for senior school. He does not seem to appear in The 1939 Register, and his name is too common to trace military or death records, despite knowing his date of birth.

His sister Violet Rene Bishop (1922-1990) was working as a Bedding Machinist by the time The 1939 Register was taken. In the Summer of 1942, while WW2 was still underway, she married Edward C Hunt in Lambeth. At the time of The 1939 Register, he was living in Norwood with his parents, working as a Machine Fitter. He was six years older than Violet. They appear to have had one child, Brian Hunt, born in Lambeth in 1944. I haven’t been able to find out anything more about the family, other than Violet’s death in Bromley in 1990, and her widower’s death in Lambeth in 2003.

In total, Harriett Elizabeth Stocking and her husband Alfred Edmund Ilott Bishop had ten children, 19 grandchildren, 19 great grandchildren and at least eight great great grandchildren. No wonder this has been a very long post!