William Martin 1 - Life Events
This William was my gt grandfather, b 1885, Lambeth, d 1912, Catford, from falling off a ladder while working in his window cleaning business. My Dad remembers seeing a badge or sign in a draw at his parents’ house, many years ago, which said: ‘W C Martin, Window Cleaner’.
William 1 is found on the 1891 census living with his 7 siblings at 37 Duke Street. In 1901 he is shown living with his father, Charles, and brothers, Charles, Frederick & John (known as Jack).
William married Emily Sarah Cooper in 1903. The marriage certificate shows both of them living together at the time of the marriage, at 9 Charles Street (now Nicholson Street). There ages given on the marriage cert are questionable as we believe Emily married quite young, after they’d already been living together. We suspect that they inflated their ages by a couple of years on the certificate.
The marriage cert is very interesting also because it shows one of the witnesses as Sarah Pratt, who was Emily Cooper’s mum, who married Thomas Pratt after her husband Henry Cooper (soldier) died. The other witness on the marriage certificate was George Trouse, who turns out to have been a neighbour in Goding Street in the 1901 census.