| Home Page | Root Page | Census Records | GRO Records | Parish Records | Names Directory |
Charles (2) Woodhurst was born in 1862 to parents Richard William (1) Woodhurst (RWW) and his first wife Susannah Miller. His birth certificate [Birth Index: Shoreditch 1c 221, 1862 (June)] shows that he was born at his parents' residence 11, Essex Place in Haggerston, Shoreditch on March 1st 1862. RWW was the informant and cited his occupation as straw hat maker. The birth was not registered until six weeks later, on April 11th 1862.
Essex Place was near an Essex Street which may have been the one where RWW's brother James (2) was residing in 1841.
The subsequent life history of Charles (2) is almost entirely unknown, and its determination remains one of the most difficult and enduring problems in this Woodhurst tree. Intense efforts to find him in the online Census indexes from 1871 up to 1901 have not yielded any plausible candidates for him.
It may be that when RWW left Susannah in 1862, Charles (2) was passed to some other family and thereby acquired a new name. Or, he may have simply assumed some other name by his own choice.
He is conjectured to have been the father of Marcella May Woodhurst, born in Shoreditch in 1890. On this child's birth certificate the parents are named clearly as "Charles Woodhurst" and "Annie Woodhurst formerly Riley", but no marriage for these - allowing for diverse surname variants over the period 1878-1890 - has been found in the GRO marriage index. There are no feasible candidates other than Charles (2) for the "Charles Woodhurst" named as Marcella May's father.
The 1871 Census possibly finds Annie living at 19, Leverton Street in Kentish Town, St. Pancras and working as a servant in the household of Caroline Prentice, an unmarried dressmaker with two daughters. This girl's age is given as "15" and her birthplace as St. Pancras. Annie may have been related to the Thomas Riley whom the 1871 Census finds living at 25, Prince's Terrace in Kentish Town. He was a railway clerk and - like his wife Rosa - was born in Ireland. He and Rosa had with them two daughters Marcella (aged "11") and Mary (aged "2") both born in St. Pancras. The GRO birth reference for Mary may be [Birth Index: Pancras 1b 125, 1868 (March)].
Marcella May was born at 28, Flemming Street (near the Kingsland Road) in Haggerston, and the occupation of her father "Charles Woodhurst" is given on her birth certificate as "blacksmith (harnessman)". The 1891 Census for Flemming Street lists the house numbers only up to No. 26, and discloses no apparently relevant persons residing in that street or in those neighbouring it.
Marcella May may have been the accidental product of a brief liaison between Annie and Charles (2). What is certain is that by early 1891 Annie was living with a man named William Henry Hurst. It appears (so far) coincidental that his surname is a suffix of "Woodhurst". The 1891 Census finds Annie at age "31" living at Stanley House in Stanley Road, Leyton, Essex. She was the head of household and described as a widowed housekeeper born in St. Pancras. With her was William Henry Hurst, described as her brother-in-law and as an unmarried engine smith aged "39" born in London's Cripplegate. Also present were two "sons" George Charles Richard Hurst (aged "11") and Charles William Hurst (aged "9") - both born in St. Pancras - and a girl "Marcella May Wood Hurst" aged 11 months and born in Shoreditch. The record suggests that all three children were Annie's, but that she had reason to insert the word "Wood" only into Marcella's name. No definite GRO birth references have yet been found for the boys.
About a year later Annie married William Henry Hurst. The marriage certificate [Marriage Index: Pancras 1b 253, 1892 (June)] states that they married on May 25th 1892 at the Pancras Register Office. It names her as "Annie Wood Hurst" and describes her as a widow aged 32 whose father Michael Riley was a chimney cleaner. William Henry is described as a bachelor and blacksmith aged 40 whose father George (1) was an engine smith. The bride signed her name as "Annie W. Hurst". By this device she seems to have been contriving to acknowledge an earlier Woodhurst association whilst presenting herself as a Hurst. Their joint address is given as 8, Little George Street. The witnesses were R. Clark and Mary Eliza Clark. This couple were Richard William Clark and Mary Eliza (nee Hazel) who had married in 1873 [Marriage Index: Pancras 1b 57, 1873 (Dec)]. Both the 1881 and 1891 Censuses find them living with their children at 8, Little George Street where Richard, born in St. Luke's, was occupied as a blacksmith.
It is suspected that Annie's father was the Michael Riley described on this page.
The 1901 Census finds Annie with William Henry and the same three children living at 1, Pendleston Road in Walthamstow where he was still occupied as an engine smith. Marcella May, now aged "10", is here named simply as "Marcella M. Hurst". The two sons were now also working as engine smiths.
An understanding of Annie's life must depend on the interpretation of her 1891 census record and, in particular, on whether the details in it are taken at face value. If William Henry was indeed her unmarried brother-in-law, the implication is that she had partnered one of his brothers and that the two boys were the product of that partnership. William Henry was one of at least eight children born to George (1) Hurst and his wife Ann (nee Reynolds), who in 1871 were living in Bunhill Row, St. Luke's in Finsbury. At that time George (1) was a master smith, whilst William Henry - then aged "19" - was already a smith himself. By 1881 George (1) had changed his line of work to manufacturing mineral water.
If one of George (1)'s sons had been the father of Annie's two sons, the question arises as to which one. Assuming it was not William Henry, the only known alternatives would be George Thomas and Charles Richard. George Thomas, however, married Agnes Ashley in 1871 [Marriage Index: Holborn 1b 944, 1871 (June)] and can therefore probably be eliminated. This leaves only Charles Richard, and it is striking that the name of his father and both his own forenames constitute the forenames of Annie's first son, whilst her second son was also named Charles. The 1881 Census finds Charles Richard lodging at 29, Newton Street in Shoreditch, occupied as an engine smith and apparently claiming to be unmarried. He probably died at age "30" in 1889 [Death Index: W. Ham 4a 115, 1889 (Sept)].
A possible synopsis of Annie's relationships might therefore be as follows. She partnered Charles Richard Hurst in the late 1870s. He fathered her two sons but had separated from her by early 1881, before the second son had been born. Annie may or may not have interacted with him, or received some financial support from him, during the 1880s while she raised the two boys. Around the summer of 1889 Charles Richard died. Later that year she had a brief liaison with Charles (2) Woodhurst resulting in her conceiving Marcella. Now having three children to support and no full-time partner, she established (or renewed) an association with her brother-in-law William Henry, and subsequently married him. Perhaps having some residual feelings for Charles (2), she employed the "Wood Hurst" appellation during 1891 and then dropped it altogether in later years.
Whether or not the above synopsis is correct, it contributes nothing to the open questions about Charles (2) himself. As noted earlier, he has not been found in any census, whilst the GRO indexes appear to contain no references to his marrying or dying. There seems a strong possibility that he emigrated in early 1891. The passenger manifest of the ship Ruapehu of the New Zealand Shipping Company includes a Charles Woodhurst, described as an unmarried salesman aged "27". The ship departed with 94 passengers from London on March 6th 1891 and was destined - as also was this Charles himself - for Wellington, New Zealand. Charles (2) would have just passed his 29th birthday on that date and is the only plausible Woodhurst candidate for being this passenger.
Annie may have died as "Annie Hurst" in 1916 aged "56" [Death Index: W. Ham 4a 458, 1916 (March)].
The GRO reference to the birth of the first boy may be [Birth Index: Pancras 1b 5, 1879 (Sept)], which gives the name as simply "George Hurst" to whom Annie may have later assigned the additional (and unofficial) forenames "Charles Richard" in memory of his father. However, another birth reference of potential interest here is that of "George Charles R. Wood" [Birth Index: St. Saviour 1d 24, 1880 (June)]. In 1905 "George Charles R. Hurst" married Selina Mary Morgan [Marriage Index: Epping 4a 437, 1905 (March)].
It may be that Charles William was born not in St. Pancras but in West Ham, his birth reference possibly being [Birth Index: W. Ham 4a 194, 1882 (Dec)]. However, another reference of potential interest here is that for "Charles William Wood" [Birth Index: Pancras 1b 125, 1882 (March)]. He may have married in 1908 [Marriage Index: W. Ham 4a 426, 1908 (June)], to either Emily Gobby or Lily Violet Elen.
George (1) Hurst married Ann Reynolds in 1849 [Marriage Index: London E. 2 201, 1849 (June)] on April 8th at St. Botolph without Aldersgate [IGI: Batch M022382]. The 1851 Census finds them with their first child at 46, Whitecross Street in Cripplegate. They have not yet been found in the 1861 Census. The 1871 Census finds them in Bunhill Row, St. Luke's. The 1881 Census finds them at Knotts Green in Leyton, Essex with most of their children.
George Thomas was living at 24, Chestnut Walk in Walthamstow, Essex in both 1881 and 1891, occupied as a fruiterer and greengrocer and with his wife Agnes. The 1891 record confirms his birthplace as Whitecross Street.