James Frederick JACKSON Head M Male 39 Hurstpierpoint, Sussex, England Wine Merchants Clerk Ada Maria JACKSON Wife M Female 27 London, Middlesex, England Ada Ruth JACKSON Daur U Female 2 Clapham, Surrey, England James Frederick JACKSON Son U Male 1 Hammersmith, Middlesex, England Vincent JACKSON Son U Male 1 m Hammersmith, Middlesex, England Ruth WILKINS Serv U Female 18 Iver, Middlesex, England General Servant Emma Ann THORNTON Lodger W Female 53 Brompton, Kent, England Dressmaker Emma Jane THORNTON Lodger U Female 24 Poplar, Middlesex, England Dressmaker
Yup, I know. I mentioned them in my reply to MarkCDodd. This was typical behaviour for families of this economic class. Take on boarders then use the income to afford a maid. Being without a maid on that street would be like not having an XBox or broadband.
I don't have any more concrete information, but a few more possible avenues have opened up.
Pankhursts
Firstly I took a gamble and wrote letters to some living Pankhursts in the Rochester area. I hit paydirt and contacted David, the great-grandson of John and Sarah Pankhurst (Head and Wife on the 1891 Frindsbury Census), who were living with 9 year old Charles Herbert Hill. He knew even less about his ancestry than I did, but did confirm that some or all of his father's uncles (John and Sarah's sons) had emigrated to Canada, and that his father had wanted to go with them but had been too young.
These would have been the boys living in the house with Charles Herbert, so presumably he would have kept in contact with them (maybe seeing them in the same light as older brothers). If this is "our" Charles Herbert, then it explains why his youngest son, Cecil, still had connections with Pankhursts in Canada.
Unfortunately this is the only information David Pankhurst has. He has no photographs, although he did locate the cottage that the Pankhursts lived in, in 1891, which was quite poignant for him!
Mary Jane Robinson
Following the idea of a illegitimate pregnancy got us looking for a young Mary Jane Robinsons on the 1881 Census. We found one, living as a "nurse" (presumably servant) for the very well-off Ussher family in Folkestone. Born in Bearsted in Kent in 1865 (making her 16 at the time of the 1881 Census) we then found her marrying into the Shoebridge family in 1887, and finally dying in Chatham in 1955.
We have no proof that she is "our" Mary Jane Robinson, but from her marriage in 1887 to her last appearance on the 1911 Census she lives in Frindsbury...less than a mile away from Charles Herbert Hill and the Pankhursts. We have yet to trace her to any living Shoebridges.
73 St Stephens Avenue
Mary Jane Robinson is listed on Charles' birth certificate as living at this address. We know the Jackson family were living there in 1881, with two lodgers and a maid (not Mary), and that they had left by the 1891 Census. So were they there in January 1882? The answer is yes they were. We have since found that their daughter Elsie Jackson was born in 1883, and her baptism record shows the same address.
Charles Herbert
We know he was in the Royal Navy from 1899 to 1901, as his date of birth was on his Navy Record (albeit a year out) and we also know what ship he was on - the HMS Northampton, a training ship for young boys. He left in March 1901, so may have just missed getting on the Census for that year. We don't know where he was between 1899 and 1882, unless that is him in Frindsbury in 1891, in which case it's only the first 9 years of his life we don't know anything about. He's listed as being a "scholar" on that Census, so presumably he's in school in Strood or Rochester.
So there we go. A little bit further but nothing solid as yet.
