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Ha ha!

I feel another visit coming on to the library tomorrow :-)

Just trawling through that John's Directory 1934 posted aeons ago by Chris...at 32 Backhall Street is one William Sargant Haycutter!!

So I'll have a look at that address from 1925...still waon't explain why they suddenly parted after at least 14 years living together....but......

Jude

making some progress then

Mavis

Well...another satisfying yuet frustrating visit to the library that maybe opens up more questions than it answers :-)

This time I literally trawled through every page (fortunately not a huge place)....In the Spring of 1925 William is with Martha Jane at 8 Uskside. By Autumn he is listed - seemingly quite close by - at The Hut Gasworks. And there he stays until 1927

Then in 1928 he has gone from there. At the same time Wilfred Henry Sargent appears at 32 Backhall Street. In 1929, he is joined by Winifred Mary Sargent and they remain there right up to the war. And then disappear.

Incidentally, in 1930 Hilda Marjorie Stoddart is with Martha at 8 Uskside - so she has already changed her name from Sargent to Stoddart although she married - presumably as she had to legally - as Sargent.

I also looked at the John's Directory for 1934, 1936 and 1941 (I think) and at 32 Backhall Street it is listed as Wm. Sargent Haycutter.

So next avenue is to try and prove that Wilfred Henry was actually William......

Jude

Right scotch that - Wilfred Henry is Charles Augustus' son and he married Mary Winifred Barratt in 1920........back to the drawing board

Have you ever got the Marriage of Sarah Ellen Mogford and Charles George
White ??

would know who his father was then .

Are there any school records for Winifred and Hilda - though I would presume
that Martha or William took them.

Mavis

Yes I have the banns of Sarah Ellen to Charles George White - the image of the marriage certificate is not on there. The transcription is shot to pieces as both fathers' names are George William! It should be William Mogford and George White. I am waiting for a second try at her death to arrive - I am sure she was a red herring all along!

My thinking is that something happened in 1925 that caused Martha and William to split. And both Hilda and Winifred seem to have maintained contact and allegiance with Martha rather than him (on the face of it) with Hilda changing her surname to fit! I can't see any trace of William living with Winifred and John at any point and when he dies - in hospital - the informant is his brother even though his last address was that of Winifred. If he was living with them why didn't she act as the informant?

More more questions :-S

10 out of 10 for efforts Jude, think some Xmas 'digestion' needed on it, lol.

Chris :)

Yes Chris....seeing mother-in-law today....but I have come a long way since starting this post three and a half years ago!

Have a good one!

Jude

Just noticed something when scanning my certificates...on Hilda's birth certificate it was actually "S.Sargent" mother who registered the birth........so reckon this was Martha impersonating her!

Jude

a clue --Sarah always seems to be known as Sarah Ellen rather than
just Sarah.

Mavis

Well broached the subject with mother-in-law and in one fell swoop my theories are confirmed :-)

Will digest everything she has told me - along with turkey and trimmings - and report back!

Have a good Christmas everybody!

Jude

Might be surprising what she remembers now then!, don't forget to digest, and not choke, lol.

Enjoy!.

Chris :)

Ha Chris...well without prompting "my mother's sister" was a Sargent ....her father "we called him grancha Sargent" but he wasn't my grandfather. Well maybe Vi, he was :-)

But she remembers him - so he might not have lived with Martha but my mother-in-law wasn't born until 1933.....well after he "disappeared".

She seems to think the Stoddarts were lawyers (David Bristol mentioned) - not got there yet and the women were teachers - and not got there either. But there is no doubt from what she said that Hilda was the daughter of Martha and William (as I had surmised).

Sarah White (2) bombed...so not found her death yet although I think there is no doubt she wasn't Hilda's mother.

Jude

So buoyed by my mother-in-law's memories of Grancha Sargent, I set about one last try to find him after he moved out of (seemingly) 8 Uskside. Given that my mother-in-law was only three when Martha died and that Winifred's address is on his death certificate as his last abode, I surmised that he was a feature in Winifred's life until his death. (mental note, must ask my MIL whether she remembers her mother's birth date). So I spent one last visit to the library for 2014...to no avail. So Martha and William were together until 1926. And then until the end of 1927 he was "around the corner" at The Hut, Gasworks. And then he disappears. I have trawled the electoral rolls for Caerleon right up Old Hill to Christchurch, Newport up to 1933. And he does not feature at all. Then I tried known addresses in Pill in Newport, again to no avail. He doesn't even feature in 1946/7 around his death.

So the only references I have to him after 1926 are Hilda's marriage certificate in 1930, the John's Directories in 1934 and 1941 where he is shown as a haycutter at the abode of his nephew (though is not on ER) and his death in 1947.

So I have reached the end of the road for now....

I'd like to tie up some loose ends. I have yet to find the death of Sarah Ellen White or indeed her husband Charles George White. He was alive in 1911 (at the home of his daughter-in-law) in Sheering Essex. His son, William Walter born 1881, is not present. However, he and his wife Alice Martha Carter appear to have had three more children in Epping between June 1911 and March 1915...and I can find a death for Charles G White in Epping in 1917 (which I may send for some time).

But what of Sarah? He declares to be widowed in 1901 but the only two deaths that fitted between 1891 and 1901 have both bombed. But I can't find her in censuses (if he was not telling the truth) nor can I find a later death that matches. There is a Sarah Ellen in 1897 but the age is wrong (very wrong)

I have contacted a member on here who is descended from one of the three children born in Epping...hopefully she might be able to fill in a few gaps.

Jude

do you think there is a chance that Sarah Ellen could have "taken up "
with some one else ??

death would then perhaps have been under different surname

just a thought

Mavis

Yeah thought of that...not investigated too much though! I can't help thinking she didn't die when Charles said she did.....flighty these Mogford girls! :-)

Jude

Back to William Sergeant for a mo...found this "memory" of Caerleon 1935 - 1950

Next door to him lived Bill Sergeant and his wife Winnie. We had a goldfish called Benjamin who swam around in a globe. One morning Benjamin was lying still on his side on the surface of the water. Bill came in just to say hello. Our front door was never locked and people came in and out all day long. Bill saw Benjee, folded his cap and said a prayer and Benjee turned over and swam around. Bill Sergeant was a hay cutter, one of many jobs which have now disappeared. He had a wide blade double edged three feet long knife and travelled around the farms cutting hay stacks into cubes when the stacks were ready for cattle to eat. The four red brick houses and the two where Mr Davis and Bill Sergeant lived had only short gardens but Grandad's garden, which I enjoyed as a boy, ran behind them from the garden of the Grange to those of the White House and Lulworth House and back to the New Road. There were sheds big and small everywhere. One was a very large hall with a table tennis table and dart board and another mysterious building where I was not allowed contained an engine of some sort and all sorts of rubbish.

I have no doubt this is MY Bill.....not sure who Winnie is though....unless it should be "daughter"! This area fits with my MIL's memory of where her grandparents lived (behind the Ship) rather than the other side of the river where Martha lived (at 8 Uskside). But why doesn't he show on ER (this was the area I trawled the other day)....

Jude

Always something useful on google, lol, good find Jude, wonder if anyone there could help with anything for you, or remember more of Bill and Winnie. Caerleon seems a 'close knit' community place, just like it was in Martha's days, lol. Things gradually coming together...(or secrets being revealed!)

No idea about absence on electoral, was he working away, getting wed, seems strange.

Chris :)

http://www.caerleon.net/

Well I can't find a marriage....so IF Winnie was his wife then I don't think they were actually married. Not found a death for her - there is a Winnie N but think she was the wife of an Archibald Sargent.

I will try another trawl in the library sometime - the article gives some neighbours too...

Jude

Biggest conspiracy theory ever????

OK Wilfred Henry (William's nephew) and his wife Mary Winifred/Winifred Mary...live at 32 Backhall Street which is the address for Wm Haycutter in John's Directory in 1934.

Wilfred married Dora M Scannell in 1952 - not found a death for Winifred Mary/Mary Winifred (not looked too deeply) though Ancestry trees suggest she died in 1995 in Warwickshire.....what IF...Martha dies...William takes up with his nephew's wife and his nephew remarries....

Did visit library today but it was closed until tomorrow.......