Inspired by the prospect of my visit to London getting nearer, I turned my attention to my father's mother's family once again. Back in 2005 I had traced her mother's side of the family (Chambers) back to Barking fisherfolk but found myself hampered by the fact that the menfolk were always absent and unrecorded when census were taken.
Gran's mother was Hannah Garnell Chambers - I've found that many of my female forebears were exceedingly helpful in giving their maiden surnames to their children as second names. Hannah's parents were Hannah Garnell and William Chambers. From his daughter's marriage certificate I knew that William Chambers was a fisherman and his own marriage certificate told me that his father was William Hughes Chambers, but only that he claimed to be of age in 1875.
Searching FreeBMD, the only possible Chambers in the index of births for Essex, was named George instead of William. However, since I knew that William had named his son William George, I decided to risk it and in June 2005 sent off for the birth certificate. Sadly, however, it turned out to be the wrong one. (If anyone is interested in a certificate for George Chambers born 10 March 1842 in North Benfleet, just get in touch)
Nothing daunted I sent off for the certificate of the closest William Chambers I could find, and hit paydirt: This William Chambers, born in Camberwell in 1844, was son of Hugh Chambers and Rebecca Barnett. Since I could find no trace of him in any census, though, the story stopped there until this weekend, when I visited the Ancestry.co.uk website where I searched the 1861 census, which I suspect was not yet available in 2005. Aha, the search flags up a William Chambers, age 18, born Camberwell, resident in Barking. Umm, don't really have the money to fork out for another year's sub though... Nevertheless, I went to have a look to see how much the asking price is these days and found that you can now subscribe for a month at a time, which suits me fine, since I usually do my family history in short intensive bursts. Copied in the Mastercard details and went to have a closer look at William. He turned out to be living in Heath Street, Barking, in the household of James Morgan, Smack Owner and Fish Salesman. In the same household were 19 other apprentice fisherboys aged between 13 and 18, many of them also originally from London.
I searched for him in the 1851 census, but with no results so turned my attention to his parents. A search in the 1841 census for Rebecca Chambers resident in Camberwell produced two results, at the same address. Further investigation revealed that they were the wife and daughter of Hugh Chambers, Labourer - surely this was William's family. Using the IGI I found the dates of birth of Hugh and Rebecca's children and then tried to find them in 1851. No sign of Hugh and Rebecca, so I searched the BMD deaths in Camberwell and found a Hugh Chambers died in 1848 and a Rebecca Chambers a year later, so it looks like poor William became an orphan when he was five.
And there the story ends at the time being. At some point I must see if there are any Poor Records for Camberwell that can tell me what happened to William when his parents died and how he came to be an apprentice in Barking.
