It’s long been a bit of a family mystery how Roy, Jenny and Di’s father (Brad) came to have four flats in Gateshead and to be living mortgage-free in 213 Prince Consort Road shortly after their marriage. I decided to try and see if there was some way of finding out how this change of fortune, from James William (Jimmy) Bradford – living in the workhouse in Alnwick in 1901 to James Edwin Bradford – living in a nice part of Gateshead and able to take the family on holidays every year, came about. [This is not underestimating of course Jimmy’s achievement on his own account to rise through the ranks of the Durham Life Infantry during WWI, that story has been told elsewhere.]
One piece of oral family history that we did have was that Jenny remembered her mother saying that she’d delivered newspapers to 213 Prince Consort Road (presumably when she was a teenager which would have been between say 1921 and 1930), and she’d seen Brad’s “Aunt Meggie” (Margaret Jane Bell) in the house – presumably working as a housekeeper.
The publication of the 1911 Census enabled me to see who was living in 213 Prince Consort Road at that time. Maybe that information would lead somewhere?
Looking at the census revealed the occupant was one Joseph William Porter [There’s some interesting history about him that you can glean from the census and his will, and from tracing his footsteps from Blakeney in Norfolk to the north-east with his brother Robert – a Master Mariner (who died in 1933 in Gateshead, although he lived in South Shields) … does that ring any bells for anyone?
[pdf-embedder url=”https://afamilyaffair.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Robert-William-Porter-UK-and-Ireland-Masters-and-Mates-Certificates-1850-1927.pdf” title=”Robert William Porter UK and Ireland, Masters and Mates Certificates, 1850-1927″]
[pdf-embedder url=”https://afamilyaffair.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Robert-Porter-d.1933-England-Wales-Death-Index-1916-2007.pdf” title=”Robert Porter d.1933 England & Wales, Death Index, 1916-2007″]
Should I get Joseph’s death certificate? He had a wife named Esther and a daughter called Caroline. What became of them after 1911? Well … Esther died in 1925, and Joseph died in 1929. Did he leave a will? Well he did, and unsurprisingly he left roughly half of his estate to Caroline and this part included 213 Prince Consort Road and four flats at 256/258 and 260/262 Alexandra Road.
[pdf-embedder url=”https://afamilyaffair.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Esther-Porter-d.1925-England-Wales-Death-Index-1916-2007.pdf” title=”Esther Porter d.1925 England & Wales, Death Index, 1916-2007″]
[pdf-embedder url=”https://afamilyaffair.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Joseph-W-Porter-d.1929-England-Wales-Death-Index-1916-2007.pdf” title=”Joseph W Porter d.1929 England & Wales, Death Index, 1916-2007″]
[pdf-embedder url=”https://afamilyaffair.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Joseph-W-Porter-1929-Probate.pdf” title=”Joseph W Porter 1929 Probate”]
[pdf-embedder url=”https://afamilyaffair.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Joseph-Porter-Will-1925-Death-1929-COW101930g.pdf” title=”Joseph Porter – Will 1925 Death 1929 COW101930g”]
Brad was living at 2 Stanhope Street with his mother (Joannah) at this time of course, and “Aunt Meggie” looked after him, we think, to enable her to go out to work after the death of his father – James William Bradford. The supposition is that before, or after, Esther died and around 1925 (when Brad would have been 11), Joseph employed a housekeeper – Margaret Jane Bell who may well have been living with Joannah (her “sister”) in nearby Stanhope Street.
Caroline at the time of her father’s death had married William Levett and moved to Darlington. She had previously had a son, born in 1916 (Joseph) who’d unfortunately died in infancy, only a few months old. They had no other children. William himself was not to live much longer than Joseph – he died (in Darlington) in 1936. In consequence to that, there were no relatives for Caroline Levett to pass on her estate to when she died in 1941.
[pdf-embedder url=”https://afamilyaffair.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Joseph-W-Levett-b.1916-England-Wales-Birth-Index-1916-2005.pdf” title=”Joseph W Levett b.1916 England & Wales, Birth Index, 1916-2005″]
[pdf-embedder url=”https://afamilyaffair.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Joseph-W-Levett-d.1916-England-Wales-Death-Index-1916-2007.pdf” title=”Joseph W Levett d.1916 England & Wales, Death Index, 1916-2007″]
[pdf-embedder url=”https://afamilyaffair.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/William-H-Levett-d.1936-England-Wales-Death-Index-1916-2007.pdf” title=”William H Levett d.1936 England & Wales, Death Index, 1916-2007″]
[pdf-embedder url=”https://afamilyaffair.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Caroline-Levett-Porter-d.1941-England-Wales-Death-Index-1916-2007.pdf” title=”Caroline Levett (Porter) d.1941 England & Wales, Death Index, 1916-2007″]
[pdf-embedder url=”https://afamilyaffair.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Caroline-Levett-Will-1940-Death-1941-COW101928g.pdf” title=”Caroline Levett – Will 1940 Death 1941 COW101928g”]
[pdf-embedder url=”https://afamilyaffair.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Probate-Caroline-Levett-1941.pdf” title=”Probate – Caroline Levett 1941″]
By now you may have begun to see where this story is going. After all, we again have oral family history that says that rather than go to Edinburgh for their honeymoon in 1944, Brad and his new bride Jennie went to Darlington (at the insistence of his mother – Joannah) to visit his “Auntie Meg”. We can now suppose that Margaret Jane Bell moved to Darlington to be with Caroline Levett at some time, probably after 1929.
Can we fill-in any of the gaps, and provide any proof of what actually happened? Well yes we can by examining the will of Caroline Levett (above). I think you’ll find it as interesting reading as Jenny and I did when I’d obtained them from the Probate Office. I’ll say no more, there’s so much poignancy about the records.
However, one last document, Margaret Jane’s death certificate and the bombshell that Brad, in registering her death, became aware of – Aunt Meggie was in fact his grandmother.
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