BANNISTER, Mary and Martha

[ChrisM]

Re: directry entries
Seems to change after 1914 (which isn't online)
1915 has
View attachment 209369
As Martha died in 1918 I wonder if she had become unwell and Charles took back the reins?

I think there was some confusion over home addresses, business addresses and dual addresses, Janice. It appears that my brother was able to access hard copies of various local directories and did his best to interpret them. The moves are bewildering, over just a decade. My father's 1974 notes tell of the move from Summer Lane to bigger premises at 44 Snow Hill (1903), 20 Snow Hill (1911), Navigation Street (1914), and Prince of Wales Galleries, Broad Street (1917). The family itself moved their home in possibly 1912/13, out of Snow Hill to the cleaner air of Chessetts Wood/Knowle because of Martha's declining health. She died there in 1918.

(It was there that my father met my mother who was living in Knowle - another even more complicated family story, perhaps for another time!!!)

Chris

 

[Richard Dye]

As there are no times I suppose the ship could have docked early hours of 2nd and marriage was the afternoon of the 3rd.
Wonder what the rush was?

I am not sure what the rush was but I doubt one of those dates is correct unless the marriage certificate was pre filled. If they docked at 6.00am (which I did), went across town to Grand Central Terminal where the train was would take close to an hour in those days, now you are at 7.00am. The train was waiting add 12 hours (low side) for transport takes you to 7.00pm. Was the marriage conducted at the station .

 

[pjmburns]

I am not sure what the rush was but I doubt one of those dates is correct unless the marriage certificate was pre filled. If they docked at 6.00am (which I did), went across town to Grand Central Terminal where the train was would take close to an hour in those days, now you are at 7.00am. The train was waiting add 12 hours (low side) for transport takes you to 7.00pm. Was the marriage conducted at the station .

That would be 7pm on the 2nd, wouldn't it? The marriage was on the 3rd.

 

[ChrisM]

The more you think about it, the more possible it becomes, provided there was an early docking on the 2nd. Or an overnight train.

Whatever happened, poor old George Walter would have been a right old state before the formalities, trying desperately to meet his, probably self-inflicted, deadline! Assuming there was one - or did they just turn up and present themselves on the 3rd, immediately after arrival?

Chris

 

[pjmburns]

I think there was some confusion over home addresses, business addresses and dual addresses, Janice. It appears that my brother was able to access hard copies of various local directories and did his best to interpret them. The moves are bewildering, over just a decade. My father's 1974 notes tell of the move from Summer Lane to bigger premises at 44 Snow Hill (1903), 20 Snow Hill (1911), Navigation Street (1914), and Prince of Wales Galleries, Broad Street (1917). The family itself moved their home in possibly 1912/13, out of Snow Hill to the cleaner air of Chessetts Wood/Knowle because of Martha's declining health. She died there in 1918.

(It was there that my father met my mother who was living in Knowle - another even more complicated family story, perhaps for another time!!!)

Chris

The directories do list some home addresses (usually under the man's name) but I only searched for businesses.
1900 directory only has the Summer Lane address
1901 census lists the family at 38 Summer Lane - so I assume used for both.

1905 and 1908 directory lists


1911 census lists the famiy at 44 Snow Hill (so presumaby home and business).
1915 directory


1919 eroll has Charles at 29 Broad Street


1921 census seems to have Charles in Leamington

 

[pjmburns]

Thought you might like to see this 1921 census return

 

[ChrisM]

Thought you might like to see this 1921 census return

Thanks, Janice, again, great! They were only married in the January and so just crept into the 1921.

On Charles and Leamington, also 1921. Would you be kind enough to see whether there was a Mrs. Steadman, also in Leamington at the same time, please? There was quiet talk of an "association" of some sort between her and the widower, Charles. (I MAY even have an image of her). This may have endured and I might have to cling on until the 2031 to be certain (highly unlikely event, but there we are)! Thanks so much.

Chris

 

[MWS]

You may already know this Chris but it appears that the Bannister sisters had a younger brother, Joseph b1893 who died at the age of 2.

 

[pjmburns]

There is a family of Steadmans on the 1921. (I'll post the transcript as it is easier to read).
Address 32 Greathead Road Leamington

 

[pjmburns]

By 1939 he was back in Birmingham
664 Kingstanding Road

 

[pjmburns]

1920 eroll he is listed at 271 Ladywood Road (business address) but his home is Station Road Knowle.

 

[ChrisM]

MWS - thanks and no, I didn't know that and my brother didn't pick it up. The long awaited son and brother, no doubt doted on by parents and sisters during his short life and then lost. He had appeared five years after the youngest daughter, Louisa/Lou. You can imagine the grief.

Janice - interesting that. By 1940 Charles was in Handsworth, got bombed out late in the year, uninjured but badly affected by the exposure, then lived temporarily in digs near to us in Streetly, moved to be with his elder daughter in Kidderminster and died there before the year was out. In 1939 he seems to have been with his younger daughter - calling herself Geraldine at that stage but always Grace to us. In the thirties he was a weekly visitor to us for Sunday dinner - I remember bits of it quite well - and, according to my brother, afterwards always returned to Leamington via Snow Hill. So the Leamington sojourn was quite a long one.

The Station Road, Knowle information is especially interesting. My brother always had the suspicion that Charles had spent a bit of time there. Goodness knows why he was there! The picture of him which I posted earlier was outside one of the houses and I could even tell you the number of whichever one it was. But two or three doors up lived a family called Snook, the wife being born a Tovey and now bringing up her grand-daughter, my mother, there. (I think I mentioned that my mother had a complicated childhood). That house may even be in the background of the picture.

I don't know how long he had lived there but by 1921, as we have seen, my mother had already moved away and was married to Charles's son, Henry. Charles's presence, if he had arrived shortly after Martha's death nearby in 1918, may have been the reason for my parents' meeting each other; or he was there later because of the association with the nearby Snook family and especially their grand-daughter and his daughter-in-law, Elsie. Something else we don't know.....

I don't suppose the census gives us a house name or number? Because of previous delving, I know that row of houses quite intimately! And they are all still there.

Thanks to both. Here's the picture again we are talking about.

Chris

 

[Astoness]

hi chris what census address do you need the number of

lyn

 

[ChrisM]

The 1921 Knowle address, please, if available.

(Will come back to Mrs Steadman later).

Chris

 

[Astoness]

chris see post 125 and 126 janice posted 2 1921 census both giving the addresses im not sure if its charles myers you are after on the 21

lyn

 

[pjmburns]

chris see post 125 and 126 janice posted 2 1921 census both giving the addresses im not sure if its charles myers you are after on the 21

lyn

It was on the 1920 eroll - so just checking.
Sorry Chris - this is the entry

 

[pjmburns]

The 1921 Knowle address, please, if available.

(Will come back to Mrs Steadman later).

Chris

See last post - it was 1920 eroll. By 1921 he was in Leamington but will look where the Snooks were.

Annoyingly it just says Station Road and there is no number . Both on 1921 and 1911 census

According to Mr Snook's probate their house was called Salisbury House

 

[pjmburns]

Is t this row of houses?

Street View of Station Rd · Google Maps

Solihull

www.google.com

 

[MWS]

Below is a map of Old Hill from 1881. Underlined are some of the roads on which the Bannisters lived and as you can see just how close some of the mines were.

Cherry Orchard is the address given on a number of records for the family of Joseph & Mary including that on the burial for young Joseph. I can only assume it was one of the houses just above the words Cherry Orchard.

Below the map is a link to the larger map and also a link (hopefully) to the modern view of where the houses of Cherry Orchard were. As you can see it is now Bunker Woods but there is a path leading off Wright's Lane that appears to be just as would have been in 1881.

View full-screen map: Staffordshire LXXI.8 - Ordnance Survey 25 inch England and Wales, 1841-1952

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

www.google.com

 

[ChrisM]

See last post - it was 1920 eroll. By 1921 he was in Leamington but will look where the Snooks were.

Annoyingly it just says Station Road and there is no number . Both on 1921 and 1911 census

According to Mr Snook's probate their house was called Salisbury House

Yes, Janice, Salisbury was the house in which my mother spent much of her childhood. I suspect that Charles was living next door or next door but one. I did quite a bit of work on all that some years ago but didn't put it online because it contained personal information belonging to others which I didn't feel free to publish. I'll check that in the morning and clarify a bit, especially with numbers and house names. It's why I'm trying to establish exactly the house in which Charles lived after Martha's death and when (although I'm unlikely to learn much more of the latter beyond the date of the 1920 information).

The fact that Charles was in Leamington in 1921 makes me wonder about the motivation for that. There is mention in the family notes of a letter from this Mrs Steadman to him, inviting him to her flat to spend the August 1919 Bank Holiday there. It sounds a little unlikely therefore that this was the Mrs Steadman who has been unearthed living with her husband and children at a Leamington address in 1921. (Although there is a mention of a nurse living there as well and one wonders for whom SHE was caring and what that implied for the future structure of the family). Something kept Charles, fairly happily, it seems, located as a widower in Leamington through the 1920s and possibly up to the late 1930s and into my memory.

(As a three or just-about four-year-old, I can still see him on the opposite side of our dining table in Streetly, having his Sunday afternoon tea with us. Anchovy sauce on toast. I watched fascinated as he poured a narrow stream of the sauce from the bottle, up and down the slice of toast in exact, parallel lines. I got more and more agitated as this exercise went on and on, finally could contain myself no longer and yelled out: "That's ENOUGH!!!" Everyone laughed, including him and he finished off the exercise by a neat strip at right angles at each end. Later, I imagine, he was off to Snow Hill by bus, and whatever comforts awaited him back in Leamington).

Chris

 

[ChrisM]

Below is a map of Old Hill from 1881. Underlined are some of the roads on which the Bannisters lived and as you can see just how close some of the mines were.

Cherry Orchard is the address given on a number of records for the family of Joseph & Mary including that on the burial for young Joseph. I can only assume it was one of the houses just above the words Cherry Orchard.

Below the map is a link to the larger map and also a link (hopefully) to the modern view of where the houses of Cherry Orchard were. As you can see it is now Bunker Woods but there is a path leading off Wright's Lane that appears to be just as would have been in 1881.

Thanks for that, MWS. Blimey, the area seems to have been 100% redeveloped! You have to refer to the old map to obtain even the slightest idea of what life must have been like for everyone there. (The one favourable thing was that NO ONE had a lengthy commute to work!) I have yet to work out where Riddings Street was - where Martha was in service in 1891. Possibly off this part of the map. I'll delve further.

Chris

 

[Richard Dye]

That would be 7pm on the 2nd, wouldn't it? The marriage was on the 3rd.

When we were married, 1969 there was a 5 day waiting period (NJ) after application for a marriage license. Checking in Ohio, they did not install the 5 day waiting period until 1992. When they were married you could have the ceremony immediately after receiving the license. So theoretically it could be done!

 

[ChrisM]

At the risk of drifting further off-topic, I'll just contribute a few words about the significance to me of Station Road, Knowle. I'm writing about what are now Nos. 152, 152A, 150 and 148, once known by names only and in the case of no. 148 "Salisbury".

152 and 152A are two halves of a semi-detached house. That house was originally built as such at the end of the 19th century but was then lived in as a single residence until around 2010 by several generations of the same family with, presumably, appropriate linking within the indoor structure. It was knwn then as Brighton House or Brighton Villa. (It didn't revert to its original semi-detached state until renovation over the last few years). The family who occupied it for more than a century may even have been the original builders of all those houses in the immediate neighbourhood.

Then, next door, No. 150 and the house beyond that No. 148, " Salisbury", the first of a pair of large semi-detached homes.

The occupants of 152/152A were generations of a family named Thompson. I discovered fairly recently that they were sort-of relatives of mine. (The wife there was next-door-but-one George Snook's eldest daughter). At No. 148/"Salisbury" my mother, Elsie Tovey, was brought up from around 1906 by her paternal grandmother, Elizabeth, and Elizabeth's husband, George Snook. (Her childhood was a complicated one and definitely another story!) At some stage my grandfather, Charles Myers, injected himself into this community for a while, after the death of his wife, Martha Bannister and disposal of their home in Chessetts Wood in early 1918. The picture I have posted of him was taken in the front garden of no. 152/152A, looking down past 150 and with 148/"Salisbury" in the background. I assume he must have taken a room or rooms in one of these houses but I have been for some time trying to establish precisely which, and assumed/hoped that the 1921 Census would provide the answer.

(All these houses survive in modernised form and are desirable residences).

Chris

The images below show the row only about a decade ago, shortly after the death of the last Thompson and with 152/152A about to be brought back from the brink:


....... and George and Elizabeth Snook, a few years before moving into "Salisbury" from their existing home in Sparkbrook and at that moment, at around the turn of the century, on holiday in the Isle of Man together with a younger man, perhaps one of George's sons.

 

[pjmburns]

So my link to Streetview in post 138 is the correct row of houses.
Pleased with that as I thought I recognised the houses in your photo. I vaguely know that part of Station Road.

The left house here is 148

 

[pjmburns]

Not sure if this helps but on the 1921 census the house called Elmleigh took in boarders. So this may have been where Charles lodged.
They lived at 140 I think (at least that is where the daughter is on the 1939 register).