Friday Street(North)

Introduction

Journal 28 published by the Henley-on-Thames Archaeological and Historical Group in December 2014 contains articles devoted to the North Side of Friday Street, mostly about the buildings, which are almost all Grade II listed. It was intended to include one article presenting information about the people, extracted from the census returns 1841 — 1901, complemented by a web page expanding that article and enabling the reader to interact with the census database to explore the street, identifying the people by households and occupation groups. This is that web page, extended to include the 1911 census data which was transcribed and added to the database in 2015.

It became clear that a printed article could not do justice to the rich data that can be presented over the internet, so the printed journal contains a very brief introduction to this web page, which should be viewed alongside the Journal.

The journal includes a map, based on the 1879 Ordnance Survey map.with superimposed house numbers and a digital version is available at http://www.henleycensus.info/friday_street_map.php, which can be enlarged to provide more detailed plans of individual houses.

Although the guidelines for completing census returns requested the inclusion of house numbers or names, this was not generally done in Henley until 1901. The household occupying any building in 1901 or 1911 can be found at: http://www.henleycensus.info/who_lived_in_your_house.php Attempts have been made to associate households with buildings for all preceding years with reasonable confidence in some cases and this is presented as a table or spreadsheet at: http://www.henleycensus.info/xl/fsn.htm. Although the 1911 census returns have not yet been added to the database, the names of the heads of households have been added as a final column of this table.

The procedure for the collection of census data required the head of each household to complete a "schedule". This schedule included an address, information about the building and its occupation status and listed each member of the household with additional data for each person. The data collected varied from year to year. The data was transcribed from the schedule to an Enumerator's Book and subsequently check marks, counts and notes were added by census clerks.

Selecting census returns for the north side of Friday Street.

At the time of the 1841 census, the boundary between the Henley Town parish of St Mary's and the parish of Rotherfield Grays ran down the middle of Friday Street. The North and South sides of Friday Street were in different enumeration districts for all census years 1841 - 1901 making it relatively simple to define a database query to extract data for the North side only. In 1861 houses in the court between numbers 35 and 45 were recorded as being in Friday Street Court rather than Friday Street and the query was modified to ensure the inclusion of these houses.

Population

Counting the population from the census returns is a simple database query, but bear in mind that the returns included only those people spending the specified census night in the household. In 1841 we find one person whose name is given with the comment "Abroad". Further research reveals that he was included in a census return for a household in Remenham Hill. The husband and wife we expected to find at another house did not appear in the return and they were found to be visiting with their families in Southampton. With these and similar provisos, the population is as given in the following graph and table:

The population of Friday Street North declined by over 35% between 1851 and 1871, an interval when the population of Henley Town and Friday Street as a whole remain virtually unchanged. This decline is so substantial that significant changes must have taken place.

Households

There seemed to have been no consistent definition of the relationship between households and schedules across the census years and the original schedules for were almost all destroyed. Certainly those for Henley have not survived. Schedule numbers were not allocated in 1841 and allocated inconsistently in subsequent years. Households sharing a building, lodgers, boarders, uninhabited buildings, buildings in construction etc. were sometimes given a separate schedule, but usually were included with another schedule. Commercial and other non-residential buildings were very rarely recorded.

Household data for the north side of Friday Street is given in the following graph and table.

1. Including lodger's family

2. This is a count of schedules with building count of 0, indicating that this household was sharing with a main householder.

This table illustrates some of the inconsistencies. In 1861 lodgers and boarders were included within the main household, but two heads of household were not at home at the time the census was taken. In 1871 boarders were included within the main household, but lodging households were on a schedule separate to the main household.

Buildings

The habitation status of buildings on the north side of Friday Street is given in the following table and graph.

There is a reduction of about 28% in the number of inhabited buildings between 1841 to 1871, a little less than the decline in the population, suggesting a small reduction in household size size.

From 1871 to 1901, some buildings were added, others divided and the population recovered but not to the 1841 figure.

The census returns identify buildings with less than five rooms, including, in 1901, numbers 27, 29, 33, 39, 41, 43, 51, 57, 63 and 69. Of these, numbers 39 and 69 had only three rooms. Some of these small buildings housed comparatively large families; a family of 9 in number 27 and 7 in numbers 29, 41 and 43. For comparison, in 1841 there was one household of 14, another of 9 and two of 8 but the average household was larger in 1901 than 1841. The conclusion is that the decline in the population was entirely due to the reduction in the number of buildings, particularly in Friday Street Court, offset by a small increase in household size.

Associating households with buildings

Although the guidelines for completing census returns requested the inclusion of house numbers or names, this was not generally done in Henley until 1901. We do, however, know who lived in almost every building in 1901.This information can be found at: http://www.henleycensus.info/who_lived_in_your_house.php

An Excel worksheet has been created with columns corresponding to the census years and the rows corresponding to buildings. Each column contains the name of the head of the household and a schedule number which provides a link to a list of members of the household. Although the census returns for 1911 are not as yet in the database, the data for that year has been added as a final column of the worksheet, but without a link to the household.

In working back in time to earlier census years it is necessary to make assumptions about the sequence of census returns and continuity of occupation of a particular building by a householder who appears in consecutive years. The Hunt family, for example, appears, possibly in number 31, from 1841 to 1881.

On the corner of Friday Street and Duke Street, Thomas Giles also appears from 1841 to 1881, then aged 75, described as Shopkeeper or Grocer. In 1841 Giles is two households from the corner and in 1851 one and appears to be the corner property over the next three census years. The corner building now (2014) has a stone marked 1899, presumably the year of re-development. In 1901 the address of the corner building is given as 1 - 3 Friday Street, occupied by Frank Neech, Draper, his wife, two servants and six Draper's Assistants.

Fortunately there are other sources of information.

Numbers 17 — 29, referred to as Gravett's Gift, include the White Lion pub, so the names of licensees are known, at least until its closure in 1890. Licensees' names are conveniently listed in Ann Cottingham's excellent book "The Hosteleries of Henley". Subsequently the White Lion was divided into two. The Gravett's Charity records also refer to the occupiers of adjacent buildings, allowing these also to be associated with buildings.

Number 47 was a tan yard, subsequently an iron foundry, with number 45 the principal residence of the tanner/iron founder. It seems clear that the Jefferis family occupied number 45 in 1841 and 1851, although in 1841 both parents were away from home visiting with their families in Southampton.

The households in Friday Street Court were identified in 1861 and although the buildings were apparently demolished before 1870 and new houses built it is possible to place these households between those occupying numbers 35 and 45.

Hilary Fisher has kindly provided much information from deeds that identify the occupants of originally two houses, rebuilt around 1850 as three cottages now numbered 57 — 61 to the east of what was known as Rectory Way. See http://www.henleycensus.info/html/57-61_Friday_Street_deeds.pdf. It would appear that George Jefferis, a tanner, bought two houses in 1828. Whilst his name does not appear in any census returns for Henley, he is listed in Town Directories and his wife was living at number 45 in 1851. He died in 1848 and his trustees sold at auction three cottages in 1855. Of the names mentioned in the deeds at the time of sale, William Woodley and George Partridge appear in the census returns for 1861 and Widow Shaw for 1851, whilst there is a George Cordery for 1861 whereas the deeds mention an Edward Corderoy.

Using these other sources, bearing in mind that many of the buildings existing in 1841 have been redeveloped, it is possible to associate households with buildings; with reasonable confidence in some cases. The workbook is available at: http://www.henleycensus.info/xl/fsn.htm

Occupations

This is one of the most difficult areas for analysis. The guidance given to enumerators varied from one census to the next and the perceived interpretation varied over time. In 1841 a labourer was almost inevitably a farm labourer. The enumerators or census clerks added comments such as Agricultural (or various abbreviations) to "Labourer", or "Domestic" to "Gardener", or "Cook" etc. to assist in analysis and from the images that are available to a transcriber it is usually impossible to decide the original entry.

Detailed occupation data was collected from 1841. Statistical reports listed the number of persons in 877 occupations, grouped into 12 classes, excluding the unoccupied, wives and children. For 1851, occupations were grouped into 17 classes divided into 90 sub-classes. The categorization was modified in subsequent years and for 1881 included:

• 6 Classes
• 24 Groups
• 80 Sub-groups
• 414 Categories

The considerable task of categorising occupations was initially done by Jill Kendal. The 1881 categorization has been used, with additional divisions of the "unoccupied" class. There are 3819 distinct occupations included in the database after removing variations such as "Ag Lab". "Ag. Lab.", "Agr. Lab." etc. for "Agricultural Labourer". This loses none of the original information, but otherwise the original has been retained. We have, however, introduced a "Preferred Occupation" to remove abbreviations and to clarify a "work status" which includes "Unemployed", "Pensioner", "Formerly" etc., and to clearly identify "Master", "Journeyman", "Apprentice", etc. This allows these terms to be searched for, as well as the Classes, Groups, Sub-groups and Categories.

The following tables give the numbers of persons in each Class, Group, Sub-group and Category. The first column in each table headed "Id" is a link which allows each item of data to be explored at the next more detailed level until the individuals can be identified by name with a link to the household.

An occupation was frequently not given, particularly for wives and very young children. The number of people for whom an occupation was given is shown in the following table

Number of persons in each Class

Click on any underlined Id to explore that Class

The small number in the "Agricultural" class in 1851 is almost certainly due to the enumerator not adding the term "Agricultural" to "Labourer", which is categorized in the "Industrial" class.

A specific query was created to count all occupations including the term "Labourer", including for example "Agricultural Labourer", "General Labourer", "Bricklayer's Labourer" etc. The result is given in the table below.

Number of persons in each Group

Click on any underlined Id to explore that Group

Number of persons in each SubGroup

Click on any underlined Id to explore that SubGroup

Number of persons in each Category

Click on any underlined Id to explore that Category

Occupations of individuals

The following table identifies all occupied individuals (category < 416), ordered by census year and last name. This is easily searched for last name or occupation by using a browser find facility. The procedure is browser dependent.

Click on any underlined link to discover the other members of the household

Tanners

There are many references to a tannery on the site of number 47 with the tanner living at number 45, but the 1841 census records do not include any tanners nearby, although David Hoing (Tanner), is living in an extended household of 14 persons towards the eastern end of Friday Street, possibly at 67/69. The 1851 census records include Mary Jeffries (Tanner) with her family, including a son Edmund aged 11 at a location presumed to be number 45 and David Hoing, again in an extended household possibly at 67/69, but his name was struck through with the note ’Abroad’.

An 1842 street directory includes George Jefferis, Tanner, in Friday Street. A search of the 1841 national census records finds George Jefferis (Tanner) and his wife Mary (née Binsted) in a census return for Portland Street, Southampton with other members of their families. Also, Edward Jefferis aged 17 months with servants Elizabeth Knight and Sarah Floyd in Friday Street. As so often with census returns there are name differences, but the conclusion is that George and Mary were living in Friday Street in 1841, but on the census date were meeting with their families in Southampton.

George Jefferis died in 1848. His will is available at:
http://www.henleycensus.info/html/Will_of_George_Jefferis.pdf

As for David Hoing, he can be found in an 1851 census return at 41 Remenham Hill, described as aged 46, General Labourer, with an unmarried female servant, aged 36.

The 1861census returns include Thomas Hunter, Tanner, employing seven men and three boys, presumably occupying No 45, but also John Hone, Iron Founder, aged 19, son of a Cow Keeper in an adjacent schedule and Thomas Carey, Whitesmith, aged 18, son of a bricklayer living nearby in a cottage that was part of Gravett's Gift. This was the first appearance of metal workers in the census returns for the north side of Friday Street.

By 1871 there were no tanners living in either Friday Street or even Henley and number 45 was occupied by Charles Haslam, Iron Founder, employing 8 men and 5 boys. Thomas Hunter can be found at Moor Lane, Southwell, Nottinghamshire, a widower living with his elder daughter, still a Tanner employing 7 men and 1 boy.

Chimney Sweeps

The concentration of chimney sweeps, (included in workers and dealers in refuse matters) is interesting, led by Reuben Cooper, assistant to William Spicer in 1861, but seemingly having taken over his premises by 1871 and sharing his family house with two other sweeps by 1891.

Retailers

At the western Duke Street end, more than for other parts of the street, the use has been for retail trade. The 1841 - 1901 census returns give the occupations of householders, but do not identify retail premises directly. Where the head of a household is occupied in a retail trade such as “butcher” it does not follow that the trade is based in that building. Other data, such as the working at home indicator, might suggest that. Persons involved in retail trade include:

The 1911 census provided more information about occupations showing the “ precise branch of Profession, Trade, Manufacture, etc.”.

N.B.

No.13: The head of Household is given as Carpenter with Confectioner added with his wife given as “Assists in the business”.

21, 23 and 25: Described as a shop in the summary, but occupation of head is “Chimney sweep” with no indication that any one else in the household is engaged in trade.

In Conclusion

This web page demonstrates ways in which the data in the census returns for a street or a group of buildings can be processed and presented. It could be repeated for any other selection of buildings that can be specified in a database query.

Graham Jones

December 2014