ARC TBC - Lillie Hayes - my mysterious great grandmother

[Derek]

I started researching my ancestors about 20 years ago and got some way down the road, only to hit a number of brick walls, the most irritating of which was my great grandmother - Lillie Hayes. She seems to have had an aversion to any kind of officialdom and first seems to have troubled the registrar shortly after her death in 1918!
So what I do know;
She claimed to be an actress, although research at the Theatre Museum and through an archive in South London whose name I have forgotten, revealed nothing concrete;
From census records, she seems to have been born in 1865/6 in Marylebone, now the West End of London. I have checked both national records and the local records held at Marylebone Town Hall but no evidence of a Lille Hayes being born there (or anywhere else for that matter) has appeared. Of course Lillie may just have been a name she adopted in later life and her given name was something completely different, but short of investigating every female with the surname Hayes born in Marylebone over a two year period (and there were a lot) I don't know how to proceed. Does anybody have any ideas?
She appears in the 1881 census working as a waitress in her brother in law's restaurant in Long Lane, Covent Garden. Not an actress, but smack in the middle of theatre-land.
In the mid-1890s, she becomes the common law wife of Joseph Silvester (my great grandfather) and the first of several children is born in 1895, all bearing the surname Silvester. He also has an official wife but all record of her and her family ends after the 1891 census (there is no record of Lillie or Joseph in 1891).
The only other records we have of her were as a witness to her sister's marriage in 1878 and after 1881 she disappears not to surface again until 1895.
You may say that I actually know quite a bit about her, but there is a huge gap between the ages of 18 and 30 which is completely blank and one would have expected this to be the most heavily recorded period of a person's life.
Does anybody have any ideas how I can fill this void, not excluding any line of research - criminality, lunacy it's all the same to me!

Any advice would be truly gratefully received as this has become something of an obsession...!

Incidentally, this is a photograph of the lady concerned, taken about 1880 when said to be in a play called 'The Fish Maid of Orleans'. No record of that seems to exist either...

[Jimmy]

Hi Derek, welcome to the forum.
Is this the one,
1881.
Salnatere CUZZIA Head M Male 28 (F), Switzerland Waiter
Jane CUZZIA Wife M Male 21 Paddington, Middlesex, England Waiter Wife
Salnatere CUZZIA Son Male 2 St Marys, Middlesex, England
Henry CUZZIA Son Male 1 Notting Hill, Middlesex, England
Annie CUZZIA Daur Female 7 m Fulham, Middlesex, England
Lily HAYES Sister U Male 18 Paddington, Middlesex, England Assistant Inn
Ernest BARETTI Boarder U Male 22 (F), Switzerland Waiter
Gregory ARCHONI Boarder M Male 33 (F), Switzerland Chef (N D)
John CONSIPRIO Boarder U Male 22 (F), Switzerland Waiter
Ferdinado PEGHENZI Boarder U Male 18 (F), Switzerland Waiter
Anoruto PULZZI Boarder U Male 22 (F), Switzerland Waiter
Ernest BERETTA Lodger U Male 22 (F), Switzerland Waiter

15 Long Acre.
London, Middlesex.

[Derek]

Yes that's her. The name of her brother-in-law was actually Salvatorre CIZZIO. He was Italian Swiss and disappears from the record shortly afterwards there being no record of his death (possibly due to the complete inability on the part of officialdom to spell his name correctly - the marriage certificate for Jane's second marriage quotes her name as GIGGIO! ). Jane re-marries in 1895 (this time to a German) at which point her condition is described as 'widow'.

[Jimmy]

Marriages Mar 1878.
CHRISTIE Thomas. Chelsea 1a. 393.
CISSIO Salvatore. Chelsea 1a. 393.
CIZZIO Salvatore. Chelsea 1a. 393.
Hayes Jane Nettleton. Chelsea 1a. 393.
WINTER Ellen. Chelsea 1a. 393.

London, England, Marriages and Banns, 1754-1921.

Salvatore Cizzie.
[Salvatore Cizzio]. Bachelor. Resuarant Keeper. 26, High St, Notting Hill Gate..
Age: 26.
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1852.
Spouse Name: Jane Nettleton Hayes. 96, Church St.
Spouse Age: 18. With consent. Spinster.
Record Type: Marriage.
Marriage Date: 08 Jan 1878.
Parish: St Luke, Chelsea.
County: Middlesex.
Borough: Kensington and Chelsea.
Father Name: Domenick Cizzie. Independant.
Spouse Father Name: Henry William Hayes. Deceased. House agent.

Witnesses,
William Scotchford.
Lily Hayes.

[Jimmy]

Have you found Jane Nettleton Hayes, with father Henry William Hayes, House agent in the 1871 census.

[Derek]

Jane's birth is recorded. Henry William Hayes was born in Ireland and seems to have set up home with Annie Nettleton in the Great Portland Street area some time in the 1850s. There is however no record of any marriage between them and as Annie was in her 90s when she died in 1920, her birth (recorded in censuses as 'London') would have been before general registration.

[Derek]

Sorry, I omitted to say that I have been unable to trace any of these these people in the 1871 census but they do appear in the 1861 census in Buckingham Place, Marylebone (which no longer exists). It is quite possible that Henry Hayes was dead by 1871.

[BC Wench]

Is this still a Brickwall, or have you solved it?

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