The 1921 census has officially been released! So, even though accessing the records is an expensive business that will no doubt become cheaper at a later date, I've just had to budget for a certain amount of splurging on it, since my blogging about the 1911 census proved so popular with friends and previously unknown relatives alike!
Census Day in 1921 ended up being June 19th, when the people of Britain filled in their forms that had been printed with the date 24th April on them. But the particularly fun thing about 1921 is that all four of my grandparents were already alive at that time! So here's a brief overview of the census data, starting as seems only right with a little baby girl in Wakefield...
My sainted grandma, who sadly died nearly four years ago now, was Dorothy Ada Bancroft, aged 1 year and 2 months at census time in 1921. She's living at 24 Cross Lane, Dewsbury Road, with her parents Herbert and Ada, Auntie Edith and Uncle George. Her dad is a motor mechanic, which was a very cool thing to be in 1921. Grandma was fond of telling people that her parents were going to emigrate to Australia until they found they were expecting a baby and so had to stay in Wakefield. Which is a little unfortunate, but I think it worked out for the best in the end.
Also available on the internet, less expensively, is the 1939 register - showing what people were up to in September 1939 and not protected by the rules requiring censuses to be kept secret for 100 years. Although it does black out anyone born under a hundred years ago who hasn't been officially ticked off as having died - here are the Bancrofts in 1939:
Grandma's still at home (now 18 Albion Street) with her younger brothers Leslie, Donald and blacked-out Kenneth and another Batty relative. Any thoughts of emigration are well and truly over by this point, but as the corrections to women's surnames made in later years show, Dorothy Bancroft / Ball / Robotham is about to go on some travels...
Bernard William Ball, aged five years and five months and probably already finding that with a name like that you're inevitably going to end up being called Bill Ball like your father, is at 223 Scotland Green Road, Ponders End, Enfield. He's the secret southern part of my heritage, and Grandma (who exclusively referred to him as "Aileen's father" in contradistinction to her second husband) would have lived her life down in London if he hadn't died tragically young, forcing her to move back up to Wakefield. I can't find him on the 1939 register (already in the army, maybe? Or just a transcription mistake meaning he's harder to search for?), but his parents and younger sister are at 16 Hyde Way, Edmonton, with grandma Emily and auntie Elsie...
And it would be rude to exclude Granddad, even if he wasn't technically my biological grandfather...
Lawrence Simpson Robotham, a two-year-old with two surnames for his given names, is at Hillside, Bradford Road, Wakefield. By 1939, at 41 Cliff Park Avenue, he's twenty years old, still with his parents and blacked-out younger brother John, and working as an order & shipping clerk. That's where my accountant genes come from, you know - it runs in the step-family.
Moving over to my dad's side of the family (who, since he was a very late baby, are all much older than my mother's side), we find my other grandma, who died long before I was born.
She's probably already seeing Sid Pridmore, who lives nearby...
He's at 34 Hunt Street, chronicled in detail on my 1911 blog post, and now just occupied by his widowed father and stay-at-home older brother Oswald. Sid and Cath got married in April 1922, and had their first baby, Uncle Bill, in September that year, so it was obviously a bit of a hasty marriage - they and their rapidly-growing family lived at Penistone Road for a couple of years before getting a place of their own, where we find them in the 1939 register.
72 Robey Street isn't a particularly big house, but the Pridmores certainly managed to fill it up. Uncles Bill, Ted, Syd, Mick and Bernie are blacked-out, and this blog entry is dedicated to the memory of Mick, who sadly died this very morning aged 92, just as I was getting all excited about writing up the family history. Uncle Robert was four months away from being born at the time the register was taken, and my dad, who took everyone by surprise in 1946, wasn't even dreamt of.
And to catch up on the Pridmores of that 1911 summary, or their survivors...
Ernest Pridmore is still living at 4 court, 1 Shepherd Street - those back-to-back houses in the courts were tiny, but Ernest and Elizabeth still manage to raise their six children and find space for Elizabeth's brother Herbert!
By 1939, the widowed Ernest has left the court at last and moved in with daughter Nellie at 164 Southey Green Road.
Albert Pridmore was killed in 1917, and his widow Margaret is now living with her five children at 71 Hollis Croft. The census form doesn't give any indication as to how she's supporting the big family. She died in 1931.
John Thomas Pridmore was the first of the family to be killed in the war. His widow Harriet and their three children are living at 2/3 Ellison Street. In 1939, she's still living in the back-to-back houses, 5 court 1 Granville Street, but she's got the place to herself.
I draw a blank searching for Arthur Edward Pridmore's widow Annie in 1921 - she'll have to be the subject of further research in the future.
The families of Pridmore daughters Florence and Lilian are living in the same address, 10 Brough Street, and John May doesn't consider himself the head of the household, but for some reason they did two separate census returns. Florence had died of pneumonia the previous year, but her husband James William Palmer and their three children form one half of the household, with John Charles May, Lilian May May and their daughter being the other half.
By 1939, the merged family had moved into Hunt Street with brother Oswald.
Wilfred Pridmore had died in March 1921, not long before the census. His widow Chloris lives at 15 Silver Street, and has a visitor on census day, at least. Chloris died in 1933.
George Harry Pridmore, the second lieutenant, died in 1918, and his widow May had by 1921 opened a boarding house at 129 Whitehouse Lane. In the 1939 register, she is remarried and living at 555 Herries Road with a Harry Foster (that was May's maiden name) and a Barbara Pridmore who subsequently married a John Foster in 1943.
And I will need to research Barbara some more. She was born in 1922, her mother's maiden name was also Pridmore (presumably unmarried, but let's not cast any aspersions until we're sure), she wasn't the cousin Barbara who you can see in the comments of my post from ten years ago, but I have no idea where she fits into the family tree.
Which is just typical, isn't it? I'd firmly resolved that I can't spend any more time or money on family tree research in the immediate future, and I'd just limit myself to a carefully considered list of relatives to chronicle, and the very last name on the list gives me a tantalising mystery to solve! Genealogy - it's a terminally addictive thing...
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