More about the Browns

From the Kent Family History Society, who I asked to decipher the census returns and tell me anything they could about Chatham in the late 19th C.

"Your Brown family are living in Ship Alley Chatham 1861 and the 1871 address the East End Brook was a part of the road known as the Brook, which was a less than salubrious area of Chatham at that time, it was probably a tenement with many families living there, usually one room for each family!
This area consisted of little alleys and courts which came off the Brook, bearing in mind that Chatham was a military town with army and navy barracks not far away; this is where soldiers & sailors went for their entertainment in the pubs and brothels that were found along the Brook.
Needless to say not everyone who lived along there was a criminal or prostitute, but they were very impoverished, this was a very poor area."

Hmmm, have today received Charity's death certificate. She died of Syphilis in the Union Workhouse, Chatham in 1890. Now of course that doesn't make her a prostitute - Stephen might have given her syphilis but it points to a life lived on the margins. She was only 54 when she died. There is a book that the Kent Family History Soc recommended called the Chatham Scandal which I must order from the library. Apparently its about: It was at this time that Britain experimented with government supervision of prostitution through the Contagious Diseases Acts, and the area around Chatham was one of the districts in which the Acts were applied. Enforced by Metropolitan policemen in plain clothes, the Acts forced women the police suspected of being prostitutes to undergo medical examination for venereal disease. If they were found to require treatment, the women could be forcibly detained in hospital for up to nine months.

The other bit of news for this week is that I found a bit on the Tate website confirming that The Flower Girl was painted by Shannon in 1900 while he was only holiday in Eastbourne and so I think we can confidently say this was definitely Dora holding Naomi Pretoria. I'm really desperate to find out what happened to Dora, Albert and Naomi but can't find marriage or death certs for Naomi nor death certs for Albert/Dora - must see if Dad has more info on his grandparents. He remembers an old photo of them in a caravan, apparently they were living there (to Nellie's horror) when Leonard and Nellie first met. They were married in 1915.

Finally, I have Albert's birth certificate (born 5/5/1866), son of Stephen Brown and Charity Brown nee Moss. This is great as I have now definitely found Stephen and Charity's marriage record and when the certificate arrives it will confirm Stephen's father's name so I can go back another generation on the Brown side.