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I know: I may have a way to get a date of birth for Mary Phillips over the next month or so, with some help from my mother and the LMA.
My guess is Mary was born 1910-20, making her 19 to 29 when she had my mother in 1939 (my mother was immediately given up for adoption). I have bought a half dozen Mary Phillips birth certificates for that period but no success yet.
Her three pregancies must have limited her employability at this time, which is perhaps why she gives the Chelsea Institution (former workhouse) as her home address in 1939 on my mother's birth certificate.
Social Services records stated this was the second child (the first had died) and I have the certificate for the third, a boy in June 1940, which she seems to have kept, as she refers to 'my little boy' in the two letters she wrote to the authorities in 1942-3.
In her letters she mentions looking after her mother. n 1949 on the death certificate Elizabeth is stated as having died of gangrene of the legs and arteriosclerosis, so she would have been getting more immobile through the 40s, which might be why son Peter and unknown relative William show up after the war for a year or two each. All speculation of course.
Elizabeth Phillips was born 1874 so by 1910 she would have been about 36.
I have looked for a family group that includes all the names but there is none up to 1911 census.
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If only we knew the ages of Mary, Peter, and William E!
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Thank you both for the new information, very kind of you to do that research.
One item I forgot to include, from Elizabeth Phillips January 1949 death certificate, is that she is stated to be the widow of 'Bernard Phillips, a coalminer'. Elizabeth's age is given as 74, meaning likely born in 1874.
Presumably the name Bernard Phillips came from her son Peter Phillips, who is the informant on the death certificate.
I have paid two different researchers in the last year with no luck tracking down any such marriage of a Bernard Phillips and an Elizabeth that would fit with her 1874-1949 life.
I suspect the husband of Elizabeth may be a polite fiction, which would accord with my grandmother Mary Phillips' giving birth to three children out of wedlock (no father named on my mother's birth certificate in April 1939 nor on 'Boy' Phillips' certificate June 1940).
On the June 1940 birth certificate of Boy Phillips she gives her address as 22 Regents Park Road, St Pancras (I presume a work address as she seems to work as a domestic).
Mary worked at a hotel near Hyde Park (listed as work address on my mother's 1939 birth certificate), and in 1941 gave two Midlands addresses to the social services ('Malayan House, near Leicester' and 'The Hollies, Ravenstone') where she may have been working or perhaps evacuated to.
Then in 1941 she is reported to have 'moved home' to the 20 Clarendon Gardens rooming house she lived in to 1950 (thank you, ArgyllGran).
Quite a mystery and a common name is hard to track. I may just have to wait until the 1921 census date is released.
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Mary is still at 20 Clarendon Gardens in 1950.
The transcription says 21 Clifton Gardens, but the image shows her at 20 Clarendon Gardens.
London, England, Electoral Registers, 1832-1965 about Mary Phillips
Name: Mary Phillips
Year: 1950
County or Borough: Westminster
Ward or Division/Constituency: Paddington
Street address: 21 Clifton Gardens
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message sent to poster to return
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William E Phillips is with Elizabeth and Mary at 20 Clarendon Gardens in both 1946 and 1947.
London, England, Electoral Registers, 1832-1965 about William E Phillips
Name: William E Phillips
Year: 1947
County or Borough: Westminster
Ward or Division/Constituency: Paddington
(Image shows him at 20 Clarendon Gdns with Elizabeth and Mary)
London, England, Electoral Registers, 1832-1965 about William E Phillips
Name: William E Phillips
Year: 1946
County or Borough: Westminster
Ward or Division/Constituency: Paddington
Street address: 20 Clarendon Terrace
(Transcription says Terrace, but the image says Gardens, and he's definitely with Elizabeth and Mary.)
I have no connection with the family - I'm just one of the many people who like to help on the boards.
It's unlikely that anyone related to the family will just happen to see your message.
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My grandmother Mary Phillips lived with her mother Elizabeth Phillips from about 1940 to 1949 at 20 Clarendon Gardens, Paddington, London (confirmed by two wartime letters, and electoral rolls 1945-9).
Mary Phillips was a domestic servant, employed at a London hotel in 1939 when my mother was born. In 1939 Mary gave her address as the Chelsea Institution on Dovehouse Street (Arthur Street).
Mary Phillips had three children I know of: one died prior to 1939, my mother in 1939, and in June 1940 Mary had a child, (unnamed on the birth certificate) whom she kept (referred to as 'my little boy' in the two wartime letters).
I have very little information other than that Clarendon Gardens address, and the death certificate of Elizabeth in January 1949, aged 74.
The informant on Elizabeth's death certificate was Elizabeth's son Peter who lived nearby at 23 Clarendon Gardens for about two years 1947-9 (according to electoral rolls).
Someone named William Phillips also appears at 20 Clarendon Gardens for one year on the electoral rolls.
If you have a connection to this branch of the Phillips family please let me know. As the name is common and I have so little information, I have reached a dead end, aside from fishing for birth certificates from the GRO.
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