Ancestry search following on from Pennock - Maureen Cecilia

[edam]

Hi Trouvere, over here!

[edam]

thanks for you help so far. To recap, can't understand that freebmd site that has downloaded the info on the registers as I can't find Maureen or my own records or any other member of my family when I do a check.

Anyhow, am searching for Maureen Cecilia Murphy, who was 21 and in London in 1945, working as a book-keeper according to the Electoral register. And who doesn't seem to have a birth cert. in England so am guessing was Irish (wasn't Eire created post WW1?). Or a marriage cert. in the UK according to the detective we used.

Thing is, a young woman who was in London in 1945 could have gone anywhere in the world, I suppose...

Detective found one possibility, a Maureen Murphy (detective said Cecilia could have been a confirmation name) who had died, but her niece and nephew were terribly offended at the idea and said no, their aunt could never have given a baby up and requested no further contact. Rather naive of them given that unmarried mothers had no choice in the matter in those days but hey ho. Didn't match up in job terms either.

[Trouvere]

Hi edam.
Recapping!
From here,
Maureen Cecilia X,
Dumbrell, 8 Apr 1922 - Dec 1995, Eastbourne
Mudd, 28 Oct 1922 - Mar 1995, Central Cleveland
Price, 11 Apr 1924 - Jan 2002, Taunton
Walker, 14 Mar 1924 - Jan 1997, Ryedale.

Those four seem to be the only post-1984 deaths (in England and Wales) of women old enough to vote in 1945.

I too worked my way back a few years from 1924 looking for possible births. While there are quite a few Maureen Murphys, perhaps an average of 6 born each year, none has the middle initial C. An Irish birth does seem likely.

I checked Dumbrell marriages from 1945 to 1955 and no Dumbrell men married a Murphy.

Do you have more information on the strange coincidences? The house in London is surely a possible avenue for investigation?

[Trouvere]

freeBMD is an ongoing project that covers a limited range of years. They have largely completed 1837 to 1910 and are working their way forward slowly. It's a volunteer effort. It won't be of very much use for tracing MCM.

Was she exactly 21 in 1945?

[DontlookatmeIamborrrring]

Hi Edam, are you able to give us the address that she lived at as that may help.

[edam]

Oh, I see re FMBD.

No, we don't know how old she was, just that she was on the electoral register so must have been 21. Which was quite comforting, at least she wasn't some poor pregnant 16yo IYKWIM.

I don't have all the info in front of me - we kind of gave up, disillusioned, when the detective didn't get anywhere - but IIRC she was at the house on one electoral register only i.e. had moved the next year. I have a vague memory that perhaps it could have been flats back then. Must ask my mother to dig it all out.

The only thing that's significant about the house is when the address came up, it was a bit spooky because I used to walk down that street every week when I was involved in fringe theatre - it was by the canal in Little Venice. And my mother was startled because her parents used to park their motorbike and sidecar there whenever they went to London.

[edam]

Will ask my mum for address.

[edam]

My mother says the address is 19 Warwick Avenue, Maida Vale, London.

[edam]

Oh, and thank you ever so much, btw!

[Budababe]

Could she have been Irish - got PG - sent or went to UK - had baby - gave up for adoption and then returned to Ireland?

A friend in Ireland was adopted and tried to trace her birth mother and discovered that she was 30, got PG, fled to a sister in London, went back to a home for unwed girls in Ireland and from there gave her baby up - but she could have stayed in UK in a similar home.

[edam]

Could well have been Irish with a name like Maureen Cecilia Murphy, yes. Wasn't in an unmarried mothers' home, though. At least don't think so.

[Mercy]

Apart from your mum's birth mother's name, is there any other information that might be relevant?

Eg, your mum's place of birth/registration district? Or BM's nationality, place of birth etc?

[Mercy]

sorry I meant any info on your mum's birth certificate

[edam]

Sorry Mercy, RL called! Will have to double check with my mother for details but AFAIK, all it says is she was born in London on a certain date, her name at birth and her mother's name.

[KTeePee]

Edam, is there any possibility that there was a family connection between your mother's adoptive parents and her birth mother?

Adoption was not legalised in Ireland until the 1950's and prior to that (and even after) babies were often informally fostered/adopted within the extended family or by neighbours.

[edam]

We have wondered about that, but sadly no adoptive family left to ask. No Irish connection obvious with her adoptive family, either. Grrrrr why does this have to be so darn hard?!

Anyway, my mother was born in London and adopted in the UK - we just think her mother was Irish because no UK birth cert. and very Irish name.

[Mercy]

edam, I had a bit of a search today but I'm afraid I'm stumped! If you could let us have as much detail as possible from your mum's birth certificate it could be really useful.

I did find out a couple of things today though. Apparently there were no electoral registers between 1940-1944 due to the war, and that two registers were published in both 1945 and 1946.

Also, as so many records were destroyed in 1922 in the Custom House fire, the 1911 Ireland census has been made publicly available ahead of time. So if one or both Maureen's parents are named on the certificate then we could trace backwards and then possibly forwards, iyswim. The Irish Times website has an 'Ancestors' section which looks as though it could be helpful.

Anyway, this isn't particularly relevant but I found it interesting. According to the 1901 census, 19 Warwick Avenue (then known as Warwick Road) was occupied by the McLennan family. The head of the household was Alexander, aged 40, and is described as living on his own means - and was born in New South Wales and three of their 6 children were also born in Australia. Jeannie, his wife, was from Scotland.

Today, the premises are occupied by the HQ of a small chain of hotels - Peel Hotels.

[Trouvere]

Stumped describes me too. I checked the phone books around that time, although it's probably a bit much to hope that a young single woman would have had her own phone number. There were a fair few Murphys in Maida Vale c. 1945, though.

[edam]

Oooh thank you very much for your help, both. The Irish census/Times and Warwick Road stuff does look interesting, will feed that back to my mum. She'll have to dig all this stuff out, it all went away when we got to a dead end.

[DontlookatmeIamborrrring]

Edam, this is so hard isn't it? It's such a shame that you can't seem to get anywhere - I'm sure there must be something that will give us a lead somewhere!!

I've been concentrating on the history of the address like Mercy to see if anything crops up, here's some useless info so far -

Latest sold price for a flat at 19 warwick Ave is LH £475,000 in Nov 2002

Current resident is Peel Hotels & Nigel Harris - textiles?

Resident in 1923 (at the bottom of the page) Douglas Alfred
WRIGHT - Artist

The BT search is so frustrating isn't it trouvere?? Why can't we just put the address in, not the name? - guess it would be too easy!

[edam]

Do appreciate your efforts.

My mother says the birth cert. only gave mother's name, baby's name, date and place of birth - no father, not other helpful info.

She seems to recall there were lots of people at that address on the register - she thought perhaps they had been billetted there? Apparently if you had a spare room, you had to put people up - not just service people but those doing essential jobs or something... a book keeper might well have been working for some official body, I suppose.

[Trouvere]

I wonder what the chances are that one of the other names at 19 Warwick Avenue is that of your unknown grandfather.

[Mercy]

Had another little look today - nothing unfortunately. Found a couple of bits of interesting background stuff though (I keep doing that!)

This brief description of Warwick Ave during WW2

and this long but interesting piece re experiences of Irish women in WW2.

I was also wondering whether Maureen could in fact have been married (and her husband stationed elsewhere in the UK/abroad)and your mum was the result of an affair? I suppose there are several theories really; I'm sure you've gone through them already tbh.

Would you mind telling us the year your mum was born and the location?

[edam]

December 1945, London - maternity hospital that is now part of St Thomas's IIRC, mother living at the address I gave you.

Hadn't thought about unknown grandfather being a resident... gulp! Or about affair - would she still have been on her own by the time of the '46 electoral register, though?

I am very grateful for your help!

[edam]

Actually you just gave me an idea - I wonder if whichever Catholic church it is that covers that parish would have any records of worshippers going back that far?

[Mercy]

It's quite likely edam - you'd need to contact City of Westminster Archives I think.

see here for specific boro'/ward details

I also found this from a history of St Thomas' hosptial website

"St Thomas's Hospital and Medical School were seriously disrupted by the second world war. The hospital's status as a casualty clearance station, with sixteen wards closed and a limited out-patients' service meant that clinical teaching was impossible. Students were dispersed among other London hospitals and the pre-clinical school went to Wadham College, Cambridge. By March 1940 the anticipated aerial bombing had not taken place, and the medical school had reformed, the out-patients' service resumed and 250 civilian beds opened at Lambeth. However bombing raids in the Autumn severely damaged the hospital. Arrangements were made to move staff and patients to a hutted hospital at Hydestile, near Godalming, which had previously been occupied by Australian troops. By 1943 St Thomas's Hospital comprised 184 beds at the London site, 334 in Hydesville and 50 maternity beds in Woking. By the end of the war four ward buildings, three operating theatres, most accommodation for nurses and a large section of the out-patients department had been destroyed."

and this from the BBC WW2 memories website

"Later that year, in October l944, I started training as a physio at St. Thomas?s Hospital in London. Initially we were evacuated to Hydestile Hospital, near Godalming in Surrey, and billeted in nearby Milford. We were required to learn basic first aid so that in a real emergency we could be asked to work as nurses on the wards. Interestingly, the patients were exclusively from London and one of my memories is of hearing from Eastenders whose only previous time in the country was ?opping in Kent each summer. We cycled everywhere from Milford and I remember one day in the bitterly cold winter of ?44/45 cycling to the cinema in Godalming. There was no question in those days of wearing trousers, and we had bare legs instead of stockings as it was easier to chip the ice off bare legs!

After six months, we went back to London for the next part of our training, and fortunately this commenced the day after the last doodlebug fell on London. A very badly damaged ward at St. Thomas?s was made available to student physios as a classroom and much of the department was in the basement. We did some of our training at St. Peter?s, Chertsey, then an orthopaedic unit. We also visited a maternity unit, which was at Ashdown House in Woking."