Category Archives: census

Portmore Lodge, Cheltenham

07 Friday Jan 2022

Posted by in Cavenagh-Mainwaring, census, Cheltenham

≈ 3 Comments

Yesterday when I wrote about the 1921 census record for my great great uncle J G (Gordon) Cavenagh-Mainwaring, I remarked that I could find no trace of Poolmore Lodge, the Cheltenham house of my great great uncle J.G. Cavenagh-Mainwaring.

Today, however, in digitised newspapers available through Findmypast, I discovered what I think is the explanation. ‘Portmore’ was mistranscribed as ‘Poolmore’ on the 1921 census record.

The Gloucestershire Echo of 2 October 1920, for example, lists Mrs Cavenagh-Mainwaring of Portmore Lodge as a member of the Local Save the Children Famine Fund Committee. 

Returning to the image on the cover of the 1921 census return for the Cavenagh-Mainwaring family it was clear that the address can indeed be read as Poolmore Lodge. The handwriting is poor; it would have been easy to make the mistake.

Front of 1921 census return by J G Cavenagh-Mainwaring (retrieved from FindMyPast: Archive series RG 15 Piece number 12175 Schedule number 117 Schedule type code E Schedule type England household, single page, 10 entries District reference RD 333 RS 2 ED 38)

There is still  a Portmore Lodge, now divided into flats, on St Georges Road Cheltenham. A two-bedroom apartment on the top floor was sold in the last few years. I found an advertisement for it at
<https://charleslear.co.uk/property/st-georges-road-cheltenham/> through a Google search. 

Portmore Lodge is at 97 St George’s Road. The advertisement says it was built in about 1830 and was the residence of the first Mayor of Cheltenham. It was converted into a small number of self-contained apartments in 2003. The real estate describes it as:

Standing on the crest of the hill on St. George’s road alongside a row of similar detached villas, Portmore is within 5 minutes’ walk of the vibrant Montpellier district which offers a range of bespoke boutiques, restaurants, hotels and bars. Cheltenham’s Promenade is also within a short stroll as is Waitrose. There are a range of excellent schools in close proximity including Airthrie, Cheltenham Ladies’ College and Dean Close whilst Cheltenham Spa Railway Station is within walking distance just 1 mile away and the M5 motorway junction is only 2 miles distant.

https://charleslear.co.uk/property/st-georges-road-cheltenham/

(Waitrose and the motorway obviously postdate the 1921 residential experience of the Cavenagh-Mainwaring family.)

97 St Georges Road Cheltenham as photographed by Google street view in December 1921.

In Whitmore Hall From 1066 to Waltzing Matilda Christine Cavenagh-Mainwaring (wife of the grandson of JG C-M) wrote that the  J.G. Cavenagh-Mainwaring family moved to Cheltenham in 1917 in order to be nearer to schools for the children. The oldest son Rafe went to Cheltenham College; the two girls, Joan and Mary, went to Cheltenham Ladies’ College; and the second son Maurice went to Dartmouth Naval College (250 km away in Devon!). Cheltenham College was a mile and the Ladies’ College only a third of a mile from the house.

Gordon Cavenagh-Mainwaring from Whitmore Hall: from 1066 to Waltzing Matilda

The Cavenagh-Mainwaring family lived in Cheltenham from about 1918 to December 1928 when they moved to Whitmore Hall, a story for another post.

I am pleased to have found the Cheltenham house. The England & Wales census transcripts can be amended, so I have decided to submit corrections to the transcript. The poor Poms have had a dreadful time at the cricket lately; I will be glad to do my little bit to lift their morale.

Correction of transcription errors for the 1921 census on FindMyPast

Sources:

  • 1921 census return by J G Cavenagh-Mainwaring (retrieved from FindMyPast: Archive series RG 15 Piece number 12175 Schedule number 117 Schedule type code E Schedule type England household, single page, 10 entries District reference RD 333 RS 2 ED 38)
  • Cavenagh-Mainwaring, Christine and Britton, Heather, (editor.) Whitmore Hall : from 1066 to Waltzing Matilda. Adelaide Peacock Publications, 2013. Page 129.
  • Advertisement for Flat 5 Portmore Lodge https://charleslear.co.uk/property/st-georges-road-cheltenham/

Related post: 1921 census return for JG Cavenagh-Mainwaring and family

Wikitree:

1921 census return for JG Cavenagh-Mainwaring and family

06 Thursday Jan 2022

Posted by in Cavenagh-Mainwaring, census, Cheltenham

≈ 6 Comments

Today Findmypast published indexes and digitised images of the 1921  Census of England & Wales.

The census was taken on 19 June 1921. Thirty-eight million people in eight and a half million households were surveyed. Household by household the census recorded the number of rooms, the occupants’ age, birthplace, occupation and usual residence, their place of work, and their employer. For the first time the census gave ‘divorced’ as an option for marital status.

To try it out I searched the Findmypast 1921 census records for my great  great uncle, James Gordon Cavenagh-Mainwaring (1865-1938), whom I knew  was living in England at the time.

Screenshot of search results from FindMyPast

Only six people were recorded with that surname, all of them in the same household: Gordon, his wife and their four children. The return for their household has these six family members and two young servants. Their house had 14 rooms.

Image of 1921 census return for James Gordon Cavenagh Mainwaring retrieved from FindMyPast: Archive series RG 15 Piece number 12175 Schedule number 117 Schedule type code E Schedule type 
England household, single page, 10 entries District reference RD 333 RS 2 ED 38

The address is not given, so I downloaded a copy of the original transcript. It was recorded as Poolmore Lodge, St Georges Road, Cheltenham. The transcript came with a useful historical map.

Historical map provided with the 1921 census result for JG Cavenagh-Mainwaring

The transcript did contain some minor errors, for example St Georges Road had been mis transcribed in one instance as “Nr Gloyes Road”, and the person making the return was “Major Maireveaing”.

Linked to the main image of the return were extra materials which were related images:

  • the front of the return which had the address and the name of the person making the return
  • the cover of the book containing the return
  • census collector pages
    • a map of the district (in this instance noted as wanting at the time the records were transferred to the Public Record Office in 1977)
    • notes describing the district – the boundary and streets within the district

A search on Google  gives no results for Poolmore Lodge, but Google streetview shows that though some houses in the area appear to date from 1921 there has also  been some redevelopment: the Cavenagh-Mainwaring house probably no longer exists. (Update Have found Portmore Lodge was mis transcribed – see later post Portmore Lodge, Cheltenham. Coincidentally the house appears in the Google street view I screenshotted – it is the darker house one house in from the right.)

Google Streetview of St Georges Road, Cheltenham.

To recover the costs of digitisation and indexing, Findmypast charges  for retrieving records. It cost me AU$5.94 to view the image and another AU$4.32 for the transcript.

Looking at the English census household return gave me a good sense of James Gordon Cavenagh-Mainwaring’s family at that time. Unfortunately this sort of information is not available in Australia, where individual census returns are destroyed. By 1921 most of my family lived in Australia, but so far as census records are concerned I now know a little more about my English uncle.

Wikitree:

Heaton Champion de Crespigny in 1841

22 Thursday Feb 2018

Posted by in 52 ancestors, census, Champion de Crespigny, Oxfordshire

≈ 3 Comments

In 1841 Heaton Champion de Crespigny (1796-1858) was living at Pyrton, 13 miles south-east of Oxford, with his son Augustus and a 15 year old servant Jane Lovegrove. His occupation was recorded on the census as clergyman.

 

1841 census Heaton CdeC

1841 England census retrieved through ancestry.com Class: HO107; Piece 884; Book: 3; Civil Parish: Pirton; County: Oxfordshire; Enumeration District: 1; Folio: 9; Page: 9; Line: 12; GSU roll: 474574.

Shaun Ferguson [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Church of England parish church of St Mary, Pyrton, Oxfordshire and graveyard

 

The census was taken on Sunday 6 June 1841. It was the first of the modern censuses in the United Kingdom and the first to record information about every member of the household. Each householder was required to complete a census schedule which contained the household address and the names, ages, sexes, occupations and places of birth of each individual living at the address. These schedules were then copied by the enumerator in the official books, which were known as the ‘Census Enumerator’s books’. As the original census schedules have been destroyed, it is the census enumerator’s books that researchers can see.

The census is a snapshot of the family in June 1841 and to understand it you need to look at the events leading up to that time.

Heaton Champion de Crespigny had married Caroline Bathurst (1797-1861) in 1820. She was the daughter of the Bishop of Norwich. Thanks to the efforts of his father-in-law Heaton was ordained shortly before his marriage despite not completing his degree at Oxford University. Heaton was appointed the Vicar of Neatishead, Norfolk and the Rector of Stoke Doyle, Northamptonshire in April 1822.

Heaton and Caroline had five sons:

  • Eyre Nicholas (1821-1895)
  • William (1822-1839)
  • Albert Henry (1824-1873)
  • Claude Augustus (1830-1884)
  • Augustus Charles (1836-1905)

In 1828 Heaton fought a pistol duel with Mr William Pole Tylney Long Wellesley, who had defamed Heaton’s father. The matter later went to court, which found against Long Wellesley. Heaton’s role in the affair was not to his credit.

Later in 1828 Heaton attempted to blackmail his cousin the Earl of Plymouth. He was imprisoned but was bailed by friends and committed to a lunatic asylum.

In 1833 Heaton was declared insolvent. Shortly afterwards he resigned as rector of Stoke Doyle.

In 1839 Heaton and Caroline’s son William died at Great Hasely, Oxfordshire (close to Pyrton), aged 16 years six months of a “diseased heart”, possibly cardiomyopathy. The informant was Eleanor Smith who was present at the death.

In 1841 Claude, aged 11, was at school in London at Christ’s Hospital, the Bluecoat School. Heaton, as mentioned above was living in Pyrton, Oxfordshire with a young son. Caroline and the other children are not recorded on the census. I assume they were then living in Germany. It has been suggested that Caroline met the author Thomas Medwin at Heidelberg in 1841. In 1842 at the age of 21 Eyre graduated from Heidelberg University with a medical degree.

Heaton travelled to Australia in the early 1850s and tried gold mining. He was also briefly appointed as a magistrate on the goldfields. Augustus accompanied his father to Australia. Heaton died at Ballarat on 15 November 1858 of apoplexy. He is buried in an unmarked grave. On Heaton’s death certificate in 1858, Augustus is the informant.

Augustus returned to England where he is on the 1881 census. He later migrated to Texas, United States of America where he appears on the 1900 census. Augustus died in Texas in 1905.

Jane Lovegrove, the fifteen year old servant who was living with Heaton and Augustus in 1841, became pregnant and had an illegitimate child, William Augustus DeCrespigny Lovegrove, who was born in late 1842. William Lovegrove named his father as Heaton on both his marriage certificates.

Heaton is my second cousin five times removed.

References

 

Related posts concerning Heaton and his sons

The 1828 census: John Horsley

17 Wednesday Aug 2016

Posted by in census, Horsley

≈ 1 Comment

I have previously written about John Horsley (1776-1834), who married my 5th great-aunt Maria Champion de Crespigny (1776-1858).  Their marriage broke down and John Horsley emigrated to Australia in 1814. Maria remained in England.

In November 1828 the first census of the colony of New South Wales was held. There were 36 598 non-indigenous inhabitants. 20,870 of these were free and there were 15,728 convicts. 23.8  percent of the population had been born in the colony. 24.5% of the population were women. There were 25,248 Protestants and 11,236 Catholics. Aborigines were not counted.

There are two copies of the 1828 census: an Australian copy, which had been locked away and only became available for viewing in the mid 1970s, and an English copy that has more errors and slightly less detail than the Australian copy.

John Horsley was among those counted in 1828.

1828 New South Wales, Australia Census (Australian Copy) for Jno Horsley retrieved from ancestry.com.au (click on image to enlarge)

John Horsley was aged 52 (born about 1776), living at Liverpool. He had arrived on the Broxbournbury in 1814. He was employed as coroner. He was free (not bonded), and his religion was Protestant. He had 700 acres of land, of which 340 were cleared and 17 were cultivated. He had one horse, 47 horned cattle and no sheep. In the same household were

  • Fanny aged 12
  • John aged 10
  • Mary Morris aged 8
  • Caroline aged 7
  • Charles William aged 4
  • Eliza Vivian aged 2
  • George aged 1

The mother of John’s children, Jane Horsley formerly Cross née Jackson, is listed as Jane Cross, aged 38. She had also arrived in 1814 on the Broxbournbury. Her occupation is given as housekeeper for John Horsley, Coroner, Liverpool.

The English copy of the census record for John Horsley and his children is easier to read but doesn’t give the information about his land or cattle.

1828 New South Wales, Australia Census (TNA Copy) for John Horsley retrieved through ancestry.com

Sources

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