January And February 2002

I had been ticking off the months, then days and then hours to when the 1901 Census was about to come online and I could not sleep the night before because I was so excited. Well, what an anticlimax! We all know what happened there! I was bitterly disappointed and a lot more but my reaction over this particular ‘non-great’ event is best left undocumented as likely to cause offence.

On 3 January I was astounded to find another e-mail from Surrey History Centre. The edited transcription goes as follows:

It was all too emotive. Maggie was only ten weeks old when first placed in the workhouse and it seems as though she probably spent most of her childhood there. It was difficult explaining this latest information to my mum, but although she was devastated by the thought of her mother having such a dreadful childhood it also helped her to understand so much more about Maggie.

I looked again at Peter Higginbotham’s Internet site on the workhouse and the more I read the more I hurt for Maggie but the more I understood her and the life she must have had in the workhouse, never mind ‘The Great Depression’ and the Second World War. Maggie never mentioned the workhouse to Mum, but said she was in hospital a lot – denial perhaps or maybe embarrassment. I was able to help Mum understand her too and she at last was able to come to terms with her own childhood. For the first time in her life Mum knew about her mother’s childhood, information she was never privy to while Maggie lived.

I personally have mixed feelings about the workhouse. I hate the fact that my grandmother, Maggie, through no fault of her own was forced to live in a workhouse, never knowing the comfort of a normal family upbringing. But if it hadn’t been for the workhouse would she have survived? I suppose it is easy to judge parents who could do such a thing to their children, having been brought up in a close and loving family myself, but I was not there. I do not know the circumstances that drove Asor Zoar to take her children to the workhouse – maybe her husband died, as she did marry again. Maybe they fell on hard times and her husband could not find work. Maybe one day I will find out but until then I prefer to believe Asor Zoar had no choice. I still have not found the marriage certificate of Asor Zoar to Albert Brown.

I was sure I read in one of the family history magazines or something similar about being able to access archived British newspapers online. This is similar, I suppose, to the Newspaper Detectives who are indexing, but not associated with, the local Surrey Advertiser.

It did not take long to find the site called British Online Newspaper Archives via www.uk.olivesoftware.com . By typing the keyword Workhouse into the search facility located on the home page I found hundreds of articles among which were two very interesting ones that gave both sides of the story of life in the workhouse around the time Maggie herself had been resident in one of these establishments. I have reproduced the articles below.

The first is taken from the Daily News dated 16 December 1918.

Grace Bumpsteed

The response came on 19 December 1918:

A Guardian

The last article talks of only the two eldest girls being trained. I wonder what training for life the others had?

I went to the FRC in search of birth details for George Brown and Edith Brown, but was unsuccessful. I also searched for the marriage of Asor Zoar to Albert Brown and was again unsuccessful. I came home with nothing. I broke my own unwritten rule to always take some positive information away with me so that I never come home empty-handed – I was really losing it.

I also spent a great deal of time searching the 1881 Census for Henry Pudvine and others but could not find Henry or anyone else that I was still looking for. I did find a family by the name of Maloney in Liverpool that could be related to my dad who was born in 1888. I also found a Mary Anne Walker working in Guildford High Street, born in 1860 in Worplesdon. I thought this could be Maggie’s grandmother, Mary Pudvine, but I will need to source the marriage certificate, as I do not know at this time if Mary Anne had already married Charles Walker. If she had not maybe for some reason she was using the name of Walker as I cannot find her on the 1881 Census under the name Pudvine, Pudwine, Mary, Mary Ann, Mary Anne or Maryann.

I posted some messages on the Genforum site asking if anyone had heard of the name Pudvine or Pudwine or knew of their origins. I only had one reply telling me again about the Pudvine that my friend Sue has sourced. I must contact them at some point.