Martin Genealogy Blog

I have a birth certificate for a Charles Martin:

• Born on 16 November at the Hospital, York Road, Lambeth
• Father: William Martin (another one!!), servant
• Mother: Harriot (Harriet? - unclear handwriting) Martin, nee Foster
• Registration District: Lambeth
• Subdistrict: Waterloo Second Part, Surrey
• Date registered: 23 November 1846

This date and place of birth matches the 1901 census, but the 1891 census gives POB as Hackney and DOB as 1846 and the 1881 gives Lambeth, again in 1846.

However I am more convinced by the marriage certificate of Charles Frederick MARTIN to Emma RICHARDSON, 11 July 1971. This gives Charles’ father as Frederick MARTIN. At the time of the wedding Charles and Emily(Emma) lived at 9 Thomas Street, Lambeth, which is where their 1st daughter, Emma, was born in October the same year.

So I still need Charles’ birth certificate showing his father as Frederick MARTIN.

Dad & I went to London on 18th & 19th May 2007 to try to fill in some particular gaps in our knowledge of our Martin ancestors. We went to:

1. Peabody Buildings - the one just of Stamford Street, Lambeth, where my granddad, William MARTIN, lived just after his birth, with his father, William MARTIN & mother, Emily Sarah MARTIN (nee COOPER). We took photos of the estate, which will appear on the website soon. It was built to house London’s poor but had an unexpectedly well cared for look to it now!
2. Some of the streets where our family lived:
   i. Charles Street (now Nicholson Street) had none of the original housing. Probably bombed or just redeveloped. Have taken photos of the current street.
   ii. Duke Street (now Duchy Street), had very little of the original housing. The plot of grassy parkland just East of the northern part of Duchy St is where Cory Square used to be, when granddad was born there in 1905. Have taken various photos of the area.
   iii. Goding St (no 36, to be exact!). On visiting the street, there are no houses on the south side. On the north side there are businesses underneath the railway arches. Presumably the houses were destroyed in WW2 or were pulled down at some other time. I’ve written to London Metropolitan Archives for further info.
3. Christ Church, Southwark (Blackfriars Bridge Road), where William MARTIN & Emily COOPER were married in 1903. Have taken photos of the church, though the actual building our folks got married in was bombed in 1941.
4. Family Records Office - I wanted get advice on how best to increase certainty we are looking at the correct records for Charles MARTIN & his family. A Frederick Charles Martin appears on the birth certificates of his children (William, Emma & Catherine). Clive, one of the researchers at the FRC, advised us that this was almost certainly the same person as the Charles Martin given in the census records we have (1881, 1891, 1901) and also in the marriage certificate of his son, William (1). On his advice we’ve ordered the marriage certificate for a Charles Frederick MARTIN & Emily (not Emma) RICHARDSON (Lambeth 1871). This should give us some more clues. This was my first visit to the FRC. If you haven’t been before it is excellent.
5. London Metropolitan Archives - Another first visit. On the advice of the helpful Ms Wagg, from the Peabody Trust, we found the rent record books for K Block, Peabody Buildings (Stamford Street estate) and found that our William MARTIN moved to 22 K Block with his wife, Emily, in late January 1905 (about 2 weeks after granddad was born), and left in Nov 1905, with the comment: gone to Catford. This was probably to the house at 43 Engleheart Road, Catford, that the family lived in until the early 1930s.

I’ve got a death certificate for a Charles MARTIN. But I’m not convinced he’s ours:

• July-Sep, 1915 (Q3)
• District: Lambeth, Sub-district: Kennington
• 1d 268
• Age at death: 66
• d 3 July 1915, Lambeth Infirmary, Brook St
• Profession given as Engineer’s Labourer (different from what he’d done before)
• Address: 47 Thornton St, Brixton Rd (quite a different area from the Lambeth/Waterloo/Vauxhall area he’d lived in previously)
• Cause of death: Burst appendix, peritonitis
• Informant: George Stebbing, Acting Superintendent, Lambeth Infirmary, Brook St. (I was hoping the informant would be a family member. Heigh ho!)

DOB would have been around 1849, which fits with some of the census records I have. This doesn’t give any real corroborating evidence and can’t be relied on.

Maybe I will look for his death in Catford - after all, his son, William, had moved there by November 1905.

According to the 1881 and 1891 census, Katy would have been the 2nd eldest of Charles’ & Emma’s children. I sent off for a birth certificate, details as follows:

• Born on 2 October, 31 Charles Street, Lambeth
• Father: Frederick Charles Martin, Deal Porter*
• Mother: Emma Martin, nee Richardson
• Registration District: Lambeth
• Subdistrict: Waterloo Second Part, Surrey
• Date registered: 8 November 1875

* The census tells us that her father was Charles Martin. The Birth certificate gives him as Frederick Charles Martin.

Later in his career we know Charles as a coal porter. At this time he was working as ‘deal porter’ - a job which involved lugging wood to and from barges and around the many timber yards that can be seen in Lambeth on the Godfrey Edition of the Old Ordnance Survey Maps of Waterloo & Southwark, published in 1894 and later.

The 1891 census shows Charles & Emma living with their 8 kids at 37 Duke Street, Lambeth. The 1881 census shows another older girl, Emma, who has presumably left home by the 1891 census. The full list of their offspring is as follows (all are born in Lambeth):

1. Emma - b 29 Oct 1871
2. Mary - b abt 1873 (envelope folder in 1891)
3. Katy - b 2 Oct 1875 (sweet maker/confectioner in 1891)*
4. Annie - b abt 1877 (domestic servant in 1891)
5. Lizzie - b 1879 (still at school in 1891)
6. Charles - b 1881 (worked as a carman in 1901)
7. William - b 7 Dec 1884 (painter in 1901 - presumably decorator rather than artist; was an engineer for Cockburn’s Iron Works, Westminster Bridge Rd, in 1905; ran own window cleaning business in Catford till he died in 1912)
8. Frederick - b abt 1886-7
9. John (Jack) - b 1891. He was 1 month old at the time of the 1891 census, which puts his DOB in March 1891.

I sent off for a birth cert for Mary, b 1875, 31 Charles Street (interestingly Mary’s brother was living at 9 Charles St with his bride-to-be, Emily Cooper, in 1903).
It gives the father’s name as Frederick Charles Martin (full details elsewhere).

Charles Frederick MARTIN was born abt 1849 in Lambeth (though the 1891 census says it was Hackney). Well the 1901 and 1891 say Lambeth so I’m going with that for the moment! He was known as Charles, as that was how his name appeared on the censuses and on the marriage certificate of his son, William to Emily Cooper (1903).

However, the birth certificates I’ve got hold of for Charles’ children all give his name as Frederick Charles MARTIN. This discrepancy is evidently not uncommon in the older records and I’ve been advised by the Family Records Centre that we can be very certain that this is indeed our family!
He married Emma/Emily Richardson in July 1871 and their first child, Emma was born in a few months later, October 1871. By the 1901 census Charles was widowed. In between they had 9 children in total!

Charles and family lived in one of the poorest parts of London: Lambeth. In 1881 they were at Cottage Place, Lambeth. In 1891 they were at 37 Duke Street (now known as Duchy Street) and 1901, Charles and his 4 boys were to be found at 36 Goding Street (near Vauxhall Station).

We don’t know when he died - the last record we have of him is his son’s wedding in 1903. I’ve found a death certificate for a Charles Martin who died in 1915 but it shows no next of kin, so I can’t be certain it’s him. I wonder whether maybe he moved to Catford with son William in 1905.

Have located census info about my gt gt grandfather, Charles MARTIN.

He was a ‘coal porter’ (working on the Thames), according to the 1881 & 1901 census. In 1891 he was a dock labourer. he was known as ‘black dad’ because he was usually covered in coal dust.