Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Who Lived In Our Houses 100 Years Ago
I was tying to find some information about who used to live in our houses a hundred years ago (and after that up to the present day). I have always wondered about and tried to get a sense of who lived here, and what clues we can find as to what their lives might have been like. When we started chatting about it with my Y2 daughter we started looking for some of the old census data but it looks like you might have to pay for. I thought we could access this sort of thing free. Anyone out there done something similar and have anything of use?
Tags for Forum Posts: census, data, history of harringay, who lived in your house
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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Sorry Katie, for some reason I missed your post. 527 had
Charles H Escott, boot maker
J Lewis, Hairdresser at a
Miss Dorothy Wright, florist at b
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Permalink Reply by matt on
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Once had a chap turn up at our house asking if he could take a picture of it. Turns out he grew up in the place as a kid but had immigrated to Australia deacdes ago. Giving him a tour of the house was fascinating as he had many childhood memories and could recall structural changes as well. Really brought the place alive within another era, the 50s and 60s.
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Permalink Reply by Lesley Ramm on
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Can I suggest you contact Hornsey Historical Society on archivist@hornseyhistorical.org.uk who will be able to advise/help with this?
Apart from 1911 Census (probably available at Bruce Castle Museum archives) there are other methods to find out about old houses/occupants such as Kelly's Directories. HHS has these from the 1800s through to 1950s. as they list addresses (rather than resident's names) it is easy to check an address. Bruce Castle also has Kelly's and other directories.
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Permalink Reply by Justin Guest on
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Thanks for the offers of help Angela and Michael, I saw Michael's post from 2008 I think it was, you certainly generated a lot of interest. I will check out the other links and advice too.
I guess part of my question was not only who they were, but what kind of people? Were they middle class, were the houses divided up into HMOs, how many people lived in each house, what kind of work did they do? I am guessing that these houses were probably pretty good for the time, ocupied by prefessional people? Did they have servants, or did the wife stay at home and keep home?
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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At a very general level, I think the houses were lived in by lower middle class and respectable working class families. We know from newspaper ads of the early 19th century that some had daily maids. By the 1930s more houses were being shared by two families - one upstairs, one down, often sharing facilities. Flower from Sydney lived in such a house on Beresford in the 1940s.
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Permalink Reply by Liz on
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Here's a view from 1921 of Harringay's inhabitants. A long shot is also to search in newspapers. For example, anyone living at 7 Stanhope might be surprised to read about this bit of scandal. Seemed it was common to give full addresses in the news in the past.
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Permalink Reply by Peter on
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Justin,
I did just that for my house in the Gardens.
As Liz says, Bruce Castle have many of Kelly's Directories, but the great things is that you can also look at all the electoral rolls up until I think 10 years ago, so you will have all the names of the people who lived there.
In my case, I noticed that throughout the 1930s, you would often have two couples and another person living in the house, with lots of change (couples starting families and moving out?), whereas before and after there seemed to be smaller units living in the house.Good luck!
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Permalink Reply by Jane Iremonger on
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I have bought the census information for my house in Effingham Rd for 1901 and 1911. Two couples lived in the house in 1901. The mens' occupations were bricklayer and carpenter planner. By 1911 there was one family, Mr Faulkner was a Foreman Railway Porter, his wife Alice didn't work, his 20 year old son was a stockbroker's clerk, his 16 year old daughter was a milliner, his mother-n-law also lived with them, and they had a boarder, Daisy, 23 and a draper's clerk. How did they all fit in?!
My solicitor said this to my request to look at the deeds:
I am not sure we got much by way of deeds when we purchased. Nowadays everything depends on the registration at the Land Registry as proof of title and most Building Soc / solicitors got rid of deeds becasue of storage costs.I still want to know if the residents of my house were renters or owners.The copies of the two census are hanging in my downstairs loo and great fun to see.
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When we moved into our house in 1983 it still had a maid's room. The bedroom at the back of the house had a tiny subdivision at the back with its own fireplace. I suppose the kids slept in the main part of the bed room and the maid at the back.
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I had a look for my deeds and only found Land Registry entries. I remember my old house in Hackney had the original deeds which were astonishing to read. Sadly I only have snippets from the Land Registry entry. Such as...
- A George Smith live here at some point and he aquired the property from the British Land Company Limited in July 1895.
- I think the original price of the house when first sold/ built was £350...
- The description of the building includes the potential to have a stable on the premisies (bet I would not get away with that today!
- I cannot park a wheeled caravan (with the purpose of providing sleeping acommodation) on the front of property
- Nor can I have any show booths, swings, roundabouts or hoarding or advertising station
- I shall have respoonsibility for maintianing the footpath and half the carriageway of the road outside my house until the Local Authority takes responsibility...
One thing we heard a while back is that the houses up by the passage were owned by the builder of the other houses in the street. He built these first, lived in them while the street was being built and these were in effect his 'profit'.
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Hi Justin - I found out who lived in my house when it was new via a website called the www.thegenealogist.co.uk, you need to subscribe then do a search on the address and you can access the census report. The family in my house on Hewitt Road were the Pappars from Manchester, Wilfred the head of the house was a School Master! Can search for you if you send your address, let me know and I'll send you my e-mail address
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