Adding your cat to the Census Form

[Another2Cats]

From the 1911 census, the Rigby family of Birkenhead included two children and a maid. Mr Rigby was a decorator and plumber.

But then, in another hand (I suspect it was one of the children), a further member of the family was added.

Name: Tobit Crackitt

Relation to head: Tom Cat

No of children: 16

Occupation: Mouse Catcher Soloist & Thief

There is then a whole load of extra stuff written below that in the same hand:

All the above mentioned have breakfast dinner tea & supper. Eat standard bread drink sterilized milk. Sleep with the windows open. Wash[?] our feet[?] once a week. God Save the King.

I think it's adorable that, likely, one of the children has added in the family cat as well.

I came across this thanks to Bobbie @ bo66ie29 on Twitter

Has anyone else here ever come across anything like this?

Oh how fabulous. Did you work out what it says, or is that the work of the person on Twitter? Good work either way!

I love the detail that Mr Crackitt was married, and thus his 16 children were all respectably legitimate.

(I have a bittersweet fondness for the 1911 census - I found several 'lost' relatives who'd slipped through the cracks, by dying in infancy. So sad, when you see how many children had been born, vs those living.)

The quote from Twitter was:

"The 8 year old, married Mouse-Catcher, Soloist and Thief with 16 children. ‘Tom Cat’ who was listed on the 1911 census by the Rigby family of Upton Road, Birkenhead. #InternationalCatDay"

I then went to Ancestry and had a look there and was able to zoom in to see the rest of the writing more clearly.

Both women are listed as suffragettes!

I've not come across this in all the research I have done about my ancestors, both those in the UK and overseas.

I wonder given their residence if Eleanor Rigby was a descendant?

And under 'infirmity' Tobit is listed as 'speechless' 😻

This is absolutely marvellous!

Thank you so much for sharing!

Love this

Ace!

Love it! I wonder what that child went on to do in life.

Just to add, something that I didn't notice before now, his nationality is given as "Cheshire Cat" - somebody had obviously read Alice in Wonderland

This has made my day. Thank you so much for posting it.

This is so interesting, not only about the cat, but also that both women put 'suffragette' as their occupation. What else I noticed though, is that there is the head of the household, and then not his wife, but his sister-in-law. I wonder whether he was in a relationship with his late wife's sister...

Ah, my neck of the woods! I love this.

That's brilliant! Notice that some spoilsport had crossed out the entry for the cat--but also, interestingly the entry for "suffragette " s as occupation is crossed out in both examples. By the head of the household I wonder? Or some official?

His wife is not listed and his marital status is widowed unless I'm completely misreading it. The other suffragette is the maid.

This really has made my day 😻

This is wonderful. I vaguely remember a connection between cats and suffragettes. Wasn't the practice of arresting, releasing and re-aressting women called the cat and mouse game? Perhaps it's a suffragette reference?

Toby Crackitt is a thief and lock picker in Oliver Twist. I wonder whether the cat and comic sentence at the bottom are political statements? Perhaps a show of disrespect for the government by the suffragettes after being added to the form by the head of the house? Many suffragettes boycotted this census. It's such an intriguing find. Thank you Another2Cats!

www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/No-Vote-No-Census-1911-Census-Protests/

@invisiblecat I did a quick FreeBMD search and there’s a marriage in March 1914 in Birkenhead between William Rigby and Elizabeth Hetherington, but the sister in law on the census is Ethel. Bit odd that she moved in to help him with the children and then he goes and marries another sister??

Thank you so much for that extra information. I had no idea about the Oliver Twist reference or about boycotting the census.

The Oliver Twist reference and also, what I took to be a reference to Alice in Wonderland (the cat's nationality is given as "Cheshire Cat"), suggests that this was definitely a very literate household.

Thank you for this.

That's a different William Rigby. Rigby wasn't an uncommon name in that part of the world.

In fact there were three William Rigbys that got married in Birkenhead between 1912 and 1915.

The William that married Elizabeth Hetherington was an engine driver for the LNW Railway and by 1921 they were living at 7 Florence Street about a mile away from where the William we're interested in was living.

Also, Hetherington was not an unusual name either. Elizabeth Hetherington was certainly not a sister of Ethel. There appears to be no close connection between them and I would guess that they were likely 3rd or 4th cousins at closest.

In the previous census they did have a Hetherington brother in law staying with them as well. So it seems like they had various Hetherington family members staying with them at various times.

I know @Another2Cats has discovered that, in this case, it's a different William Rigby, but I wanted to add that the scenario of the widower marrying the wife's relative who has moved in to help with the children is very common!

Yes - that's what I mean. Men very often took up with their late wife's single sister because they needed someone to keep house and look after the children.