Some ‘spin-off’ from the 1901 Census of England & Wales

It seems that the data from the Census became available on the Internet a month or so back and Christine Clement in New Zealand sent me the first batch of records for Bicester, the Oxfordshire town in which she has a special interest. She commented that apparently the transcription work had been contracted out to the English Prison Service. Daphne Austin (of whom more below) told me later that the work had in fact been completed in India; either way, it could ex­plain some of the more extreme spelling errors!

Richard Blencowe (left) with members of his unit during World War I.

The first records that Christine sent me were listed by name, did not link the persons living under one roof, and thus did not show the family relationships that make the Census records are so valuable. However, Daphne has managed to download the data into a spreadsheet that allowed her to sort the individuals into family groups. She has sent me a first list of about 800 persons comprising the spelling variants Blenco, Blencoe, Blen­cow, Blencowe, Blinco, Blincoe, Blin­cow, Blincowe, Blinker & Blinko for the whole country. There are one or two other spellings to search for — plus all those mis-spellings — but there’s plenty to be going on with! Some interesting discoveries have already been made.

Ancestors of Andrew Blencowe of Toowoomba, Queensland

Andrew’s grandfather had served in the infantry in the First World War and emigrated to Australia in 1923. He had lived in Rotherhithe (near Greenwich). Andrew believed the family was originally from Banbury but I could not find a likely link. The 1901 Census showed the family, headed by Thomas William (1857-?) with his birthplace given as Bicester. That allows us to go back five generations: Thomas (1827-1876) and Jane née King, James (1787-1875) and Judith née Mortimore, Thomas (1761-1803) and Mary née Walker — all in Bicester — then William (1735-1806) who had been born in nearby Launton and Sarah née Morse. William’s parents William and Hannah were both buried in Launton. Working forwards from the earliest the family name had been recorded successively as Blincow, Blinco, Blincowe, Blinker, Blinco, Blincowe and Blencowe! Andrew’s e-mail address had changed but I was soon able to contact him: John Malings (another new contact thanks to Benn’s web-site) was driving through Toowoomba en route to Sydney the following day and gave him a phone call. Meanwhile, I had realised that Andrew was a cousin of Alan Blencowe of Wanneroo in West Australia and that Alan probably already knew all this! By the way, it is Alan who runs that attractive website — take a look at it!

Thomas William Blencowe

Next came e-mails from Christine Robertson who lives in Wolviston, near Middlesbrough in N, Yorkshire; one thing lead to another and here we have three photos. Above is one of her grandfather Richard, brother of Andrew’s grandfather Thomas.

Capt. Frederick John Blencowe

Jill Dudbridge found the records of this Merchant Navy captain in the Lloyd’s Captains’ Register at the Guildhall Library in London. He was awarded Master’s Certificate No.03599 in London in 1909 and made many voyages to the East Indies, Australia and America. In 1939 he retired to Australia, arriving in the Largs Bay. Presumably he was called back to wartime service for he returned to Australia in 1949 by the Arawa.

The story might have ended there, but at the Runnymede Memorial to the many thousands of men of the Royal Air Force who were killed in action and have no known grave, I noticed the name of John Dawson Blencowe who had lost his life in 1944, aged 27 years. He was the son of Frederick John Blencowe and Ethel Helen [?]Dawson. There appears to have been another son Guy (1910-1979) of whom nothing more is known.

Turning to the 1901 Census I spotted Frederick John living with his parents John Ebenezer & Isabel Blencowe in Lambeth where John was a commercial clerk. John was the son of Thomas Blencowe (1807-1885) and Ann [?]Feather. Born in Brackley, Thomas was a master shoemaker who was already established in Camberwell by 1851; so, that linked the family closely to the main southern line of the family.

Maria née Green, wife of Thomas William Blencowe

There was another surprise: Thomas had another son Francis (1845-1917) who was a hosiery merchant in Peckham. He and his wife Minnie Jane christened a son Francis Drake Blencowe (1880-1958), a fine patriotic name! Francis and his wife Helena had a son Arthur Frank (1909-1942) and his name too is to be found in the same memorial at Runnymede.

Runnymede, where Magna Carta was signed, is a well-known tourist destination, a few miles down river from Windsor Castle. Close by is a memorial to Winston Churchill erected by the American Law Society and up a wooded foot­path is a peacefully-located memorial to John F Kennedy. The RAF memorial is also close by but, perched on a cliff looking northwards towards London Airport, it is a few miles by road. It is well worth a visit and not a morbid place at all; there are beautiful rose gardens and a spectacular view. Watching the steady stream of aircraft moving in to land at Heath Row one can remember all those young airmen and their hazardous flights some sixty years ago.

A final twist to this part of the tale! Mary Hodges, one of my neighbours, had told me that in the ‘thirties she had been taught Latin at Carlisle High School by a Miss Blencowe. I had found her death in the records: Elsie Isabel Blencowe had died in Carlisle in 1980 aged 95 years; was she perhaps a member of the northern branch of our family — thought to have come to an end in the ‘twenties with the death in Tunis of Henry Prescott Blencowe in 1927?

Not so! There she was in 1901, in Lambeth with her brother Frederick John and their parents, the self-same John and Isabel! Mary Hodges remembers her as quite a formidable personality and she must indeed have been clever as well, it was very difficult for women to gain a university education in England before the first World War.

Joan Blencowe of Northampton

Joan had asked me to trace her forebears; she had told me previously that she believed her grandfather Alfred to have been a shoemaker in Badby. I had spotted an Alfred who, in 1881, had been a bricklayer in Scaldwell lodging with William Wise, a stonemason. This was confirmed in 1901 Census; Alfred (1858-1949) was to be found in Church Brampton, a stonemason, along with his wife Emily, Joan’s father Howard Pembroke Blencowe (1887-1972), and two other children. Alfred’s father and mother, Charles (1837-1906) and Eliza were also in Brampton. Charles was the son of Benjamin (1812-1880) and Sarah Lester — and that takes us back neatly to the bottom of the tree in Fig.13.3 of our book and from there leads us back to John Blencowe, the Parish Clerk of Whilton in the 17th Century, ancestor of many other of our members.