My Stocking ancestors (amongst others) tended to stay in one place, often with several branches and generations of the family living very close to, or with, each other. Beechfield Road in Catford, South London, was the centre of the family’s life from the early-mid 1900s until after WW2. I wonder what stories those properties could tell? I hoped that newspapers might provide some interest, but there are slim pickings there as far as I can tell. So what do other records tell us?

Victorian and Edwardian development of Catford

But first, a bit of history. A district of South East London, Catford was, until the mid-late 1800s, a rural area largely covered by farmland and on many maps is subsumed within Rushey Green. It is now part of the borough of Lewisham, although it was part of the county of Kent until the creation of London County Council in 1889.

In 1857, the railway reached Catford Bridge, providing direct links into the capital and prompting the building of housing for the middle classes, albeit on a modest scale. Towards the end of the 20th century, tramlines were laid and a railway station opened at nearby Hither Green; the housing boom accelerated, led by two main developers, : Archibald Corbett and James Watt. Over 40,000 homes were built in Catford and Hither Green between the 1890s and 1911. See more on the history of Catford at the turn of the century at The Lewisham Archives.

The map below is taken from an OS map surveyed between 1861-1871, and published in 1893 (click for a larger view):

Sheet 270 – South London Surveyed: ca. 1861 to 1871, Published: ca. 1893 Size: Sheet ca. 41 x 55 cm (ca. 16 x 22 inches), Reproduced with the permission of The National Library of Scotland. Full map at: https://maps.nls.uk/view/239766784

The red line shows the approximate location of Beechfield Road, which already seems to have buildings at this point. The development of the area can be clearly seen in the revised map, below, published in 1904 (click for a larger view):

Sheet 270 – South London Surveyed: 1861 to 1871, Revised: 1901 to 1902, Published: 1904
Size: Sheet ca. 47 x 63 cm (ca. 18 x 25 inches) Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland. Full map at: https://maps.nls.uk/view/239766775

Beechfield Road: The houses

Members of the Stocking family appear to have made their homes at Beechfield Road from the early 1900s. At under ten minutes’ walk from Catford Bridge Station, Beechfield Road was an excellent location for family members travelling into central London, or intermediate stations, for work. The properties also provided enough room for several members of the family to rent rooms on different floors in the same building. My Stocking family initially occupied numbers 14, 16 and 18, although some also occupied other properties in the street in the 1930s. Google Street View shows numbers 14-18 Beechfield Road as large, three storey semi-detached villas, with steps up to the first floor entrances, located on the bend of the narrow road.

But when were they built, and by whom? The British Newspaper Archive at FindMyPast features mostly adverts from the 1880s onwards which mention the address; some for houses or rooms to rent, some for people living there and seeking situations vacant or advertising services or goods for sale.

The Lloyd George Domesday Survey books and maps at The Genealogist give details of the rateable value and rents of Beechfield Road properties as at 1912. Properties 16 and 18 are said to be ‘identical’ to the description given for no. 2. This was owned by JR Nurcombe, who held a 99 year lease from 1879, so the properties were probably built then or shortly afterwards. However, the owners of properties with higher numbers hold 99 year leases from, for example, Christmas 1897, so perhaps the road was developed over a longer period.

The property description for no. 2 Beechfield Road (below) shows the layout of rooms across the three storeys which broadly match what Google Street View shows today from the exterior at least:

Extract from Lloyd George Domesday Survey for no. 2 Beechfield Road Ref. 3270 (The Genealogist)

The description references a ‘back addition’ – an extension perhaps? – which houses extra rooms on each floor. It also notes that some houses in the road ‘show signs of damp in the basement’, no. 2 especially. Fast forward through the valuation book to no. 16 (ref 3277); this and no. 18 (ref. 3278) are owned by R O Amlot, and is rented at 14 shillings per week (no. 18 is 12 shillings per week). There are no other differences in the particulars of the properties, so it is unclear why one is cheaper than the other.

On 25 February 1910, The Kentish Mercury published a small ad for a ‘an excellent semi-detached house for rent’ (below):

Extract from The Kentish Mercury, 25 February 1910 (British Newspaper Archive via FindMyPast)

This is for the whole house at no. 3, at £3 5s monthly, and gives another indication of the distribution of rooms and the location. I wonder if similar adverts attracted the Stockings to move here? In fact, the majority of mentions of Beechfield Road in the newspapers appear to be in the small ads, where rooms to let are offered, emphasising the ‘select road’ and proximity to transport links.

My great grandfather and 2xgreat grandfather were both living in Beechfield Road at the time the Lloyd George Domesday survey was taken, but when did they move in?

Stockings in Beechfield Road before WW1

My 2xgreat grandmother Alice Mary Stocking died in February 1907. At that time, my 2xgreat grandparents and many other members of the family were living in the long-term family home at Herman Road in Bermondsey. It is possible that her death prompted by 2xgreat grandfather James Thomas Stocking to move further South to the growing suburbs of Catford, taking his unmarried children with him, and perhaps accompanied by some of his older, married children too. He is registered to vote at 18 Beechfield Road in 1908 and in 1909, his daughter Lavinia Stocking gave this as her address when she married Frederick James Monk.

His eldest son, my great grandfather James Aaron Stocking, had married in 1900; his son, my grandfather – also James Aaron – was born in Bermondsey in 1901, and his daughter Susan Caroline Stocking was born in 1904 in Camberwell, so they seem still to have been living near James’ parents at that time. I haven’t found any records that suggest a date for their move to Catford, or whether it was before or at the same time as his father and younger siblings. But he is registered to vote at 16 Beechfield Road in 1910.

Extract from electoral register for London, Lewisham, 1910 (Ancestry)

A street directory for the same year shows a similar picture:

Extract from London Street directories (London Metropolitan Archives) 1910, via Ancestry.

Thomas George Evans, who was the second husband of my 2xgreat grandmother Elizabeth Sarah Hill (nee Windebank), who he married in 1895, is shown at no. 14 Beechfield Road. At no. 18 is James Thomas Stocking; did the electoral register somehow record him as James George by mistake?

1911 census and WW1

The handy address search at The Genealogist shows that 23 members of the extended Stocking family were living in Beechfield Road in 1911. This included nine of James Thomas Stocking’s 16 surviving children (of a total of 19). Click on the addresses below to see details for who was living with whom at the time.

14 Beechfield Road

Household 1: Arthur William Evans, a Hot Water Fitter aged 25 and his wife Elizabeth Bridgetina (nee Stocking, sister to my great grandfather, daughter of my 2xgreat grandfather), aged 24, a Gent’s Hat Trimmer. They have been married for one year and have no children.

Household 2: Thomas George Evans, widower and Skin Dresser aged 59, father of Arthur William. His other children living with him are all unmarried: George, 23, a General Labourer; Violet, 21, a General Servant Domestic; Ethel, 18, also a servant, as is 16 year old Theresa. His stepson John Charles Hill, aged 20 and a soldier, is also in the household on census night. It seems that he had returned to London as his mother, Elizabeth Sarah, had fallen ill and died just before the census was taken. She was my 2xgreat grandmother, widow of John Hill and mother to my great grandmother Susan Caroline, wife of James Aaron Stocking. Yes, I know it’s confusing!

16 Beechfield Road

Household 1: James Aaron Stocking, 34, a Paper Hanger (my great grandfather), his wife Susan (nee Hill, stepdaughter of Thomas George Evans) aged 35, and children James Aaron (my grandfather) aged 9 and Susan 7, both at school. James and Susan say they have been married for ten years and have had two children, both still alive.

Household 2: John Arthur Stocking, 28, a Telephone Jointer (and brother to James Aaron), his wife Hannah, 29 and John’s younger sister Violet, daughter of James Thomas Stocking. John and Hannah have been married for five years and have no children.

18 Beechfield Road

Household 1: James Stocking, 57, widower, Builder and his unmarried children: Aaron, 27, a Gas Fitter; Annie, 18, a Collar Turner; Susan, 14; Alfred 12 and Alexander 8, both at school. James states that he has had 19 children, 16 of whom are still alive. Most of them, indeed, are still living with him or nearby.

Household 2: Charles Hall, 28, a Mechanical Engineer’s Fitter, and his wife Catherine Alice (nee Stocking, daughter of James Thomas Stocking), aged 26, and their daughter Catherine Alice, 1 and son Charles James, 4 months.

The Stockings’ homes are in the middle of the street, all on the same side of the road, but who else lived there in 1911?

The road seems to have housed upper working- and middle-class families. At no. 12 was an elderly widow and her grown-up, unmarried children, two of whom were involved in the teaching or playing of music and seemingly occupying the whole house. At no. 20 was a family working in the printing trade and, in a separate household, a 49 year old single woman with no specified occupation. In the houses immediately across the road was a family headed by a Clerk, with two unemployed adult children and a Shorthand Typist daughter (no. 17) and at no. 15, a ‘Representative of an Engineering Company’ in his 30s, his wife and young children.

As an aside, many newspapers in 1914 carried advertisements for ‘Dr Williams’ Pink Pill’s, such as this extract (below) from The London Daily Chronicle of 23 January 1914. They feature Richard De Cuyper of ‘Oakdene’, Beechfield Road, Catford, proponent of handstroke billiards, who claims they have saved him from insomnia and nerve trouble. Click on the image for a larger version.

Extract from The London Daily Chronicle, 23 January 1914, British Newspaper Archive via FindMyPast

I have not found Mr de Cuyper/Kuyper in censuses in Beechfield Road, but I did stumble across this short video on Europeana of his handstroke skills (at this point, sans moustache). I wonder if the Stocking family knew him, and ever got to see him perform?

Various addresses in Beechfield Road appear in Stocking family WW1 attestation papers and related records 1914-1920.

1921 census

My 2xgreat grandfather James Thomas Stocking continued to live at 18 Beechfield Road, as evidenced by electoral registers, until his second marriage (to his deceased wife’s widowed sister Emma Margaret Goodchild, nee Wales) in 1919. He died on 8 December 1920 at 96 Ringstead Road, Catford, the same address given as his usual ‘abode’ in the register recording his burial in Southwark (and the home of his daughter Elizabeth Bridgetina Evans).

Although the family patriarch had moved away and died, it is clear from the 1921 census that seven of his 16 surviving children and the widow of another and their families are all still living in Beechfield Road.

14 Beechfield Road

His married daughter Lavinia Monk, her husband and five children are enumerated in the same household as another married daughter Annie Louise, son-in-law Francis Turner and their children. Emma Ann Stocking, the widow of their brother, Aaron Archibald Stocking, and her three-year old son Stanley Aaron Archibald, are also living with them. Emma (nee Flack) gave birth to Stanley after his father was killed in action in 1917, giving 14 Beechfield Road as the address on his birth certificate.

16 Beechfield Road

My great granddad James Aaron Stocking is recorded in electoral registers at 16 Beechfield Road between 1911-1921. The 1921 census finds him there aged 45, a self-employed Jobbing Builder, with wife Susan and their three children (Dolly Hannah Stocking, their third child, was born in 1913). My grandad, aged 20, was working for the family firm of W Stocks & Sons, as a Marble Grainer, while his 18 year old sister Susan is employed as a Clerk. James’ brother John Stocking is still living in the same building, enumerated separately with his wife Hannah and sister Violet, now aged 20. She married from this address in 1928; her husband Albert James Golder said his was 18 Beechfield Road.

18 Beechfield Road

In my 2xgreat grandfather’s former home, are his daughter Catherine Alice and son-in-law Charles Hall and their four young children, and his younger son Alfred Edmund Ilott Stocking, a 22 year old House Decorator.

Before and after WW2

By the time The 1939 Register was taken, members of the Stocking family seem to have moved around different properties in Beechfield Road.

At no. 11 Beechfield Road is Harry Catlow, a 39 year old Lorry Driver, and his wife 43 year-old Susan Caroline. Another of James Thomas Stocking’s daughters, she had married Frederick Thomas Smith in 1919. He died of heart disease in 1929, and in 1933 she married Harry Catlow of 18 Beechfield Road, giving her home address as 10 Beechfield Road. They had been living at no 11 since at least 1936, according to electoral registers. Living with them in 1939 are their daughter Dorothy and her husband-to-be Robert Piner, who would marry later that year. Susan’s niece Catherine Alice Ledger, daughter of her sister Kate Hall, and Catherine’s husband Sydney Ledger, are also at no. 11 with them.

Next door at no. 13 Beechfield Road are Lavinia and Frederick Monk and several of their adult children and families. They had previously lived across the road at no. 14. Their sons had given no. 14 as their address at their marriages in 1936 and 1937 respectively, so this was a fairly recent move.

The Register shows four households at no. 14, but only two are occupied, neither by members of the family as far as I can tell. I wonder what happened to make them move? Perhaps the general condition of the house had deteriorated.

Next door at no. 16 Beechfield Road there are still plenty of family members. Head of the first household is John Arthur Stocking, Lavinia’s brother, and his wife Hannah. A Jack Stocking, born 19 September 1920, is also living with them, an apprentice in the Post Office for which John had worked for many years. He appears to be a relative, but I do not know through which branch of the family.

The second household at no. 16 Beechfield Road shows my great grandfather James Aaron Stocking, wife Susan, their married daughter Dolly Humber and her two young sons. James died later in 1939.

No. 18 Beechfield Road houses James’ sister Catherine Alice Hall, her husband Charles, and their married daughters and families, and an unrelated (I believe) family headed by William Daniel.

The Stocking family occupation of Beechfield Road seems to have reduced during and after WW2, with several family members moving away to escape the bombing and not returning. The 1949 electoral register shows John Arthur, Hannah and Susan Caroline Stocking still registered to vote at no. 16 Beechfield Road. My great grandmother Susan Caroline died there in 1951, as did Hannah in 1956 and John Arthur in 1957.

Was this the last Stocking family resident of Beechfield Road? As far as I know, yes, but records after this time are dependent on having a name to search rather than an address, so there may have been some extended family still there.

From recent estate agents’ listings, it seems that Beechfield Road is still a desirable place to live. The sturdy Victorian housing and close transport links, whether for whole houses or flats, make these attractive properties to buy or rent.