The Russell Family

On Wednesday 14th December 1892 in the church of St Mary the Virgin in the village of Kemsing near Sevenoaks, William Edward Russell aged 25 and Kate Agnes Dugay aged 22 were married.

Kate Dugay was working in Lewisham as a cook for the family of John Vernon, a solicitor. She was born and grew up near Basingstoke in Hampshire. It was not uncommon for women in service to be working a long way from their family home. To have got such a position she must have been a reasonably well accomplished cook with references.

William Russell was also living and working in Lewisham as a platelayer for the London Chatham and Dover Railway. He was living in the home of his younger married brother James who also worked as a platelayer for the LCDR.

William was born in Kemsing on 13th July 1868. The Russells had lived in Kemsing for several generations as farm workers. William was the fourth child of a family of thirteen children. His father was also called William Russell, and his mother was Mary Ann Bowyer, from another long established Kemsing family.

Kemsing was a quiet rural village, populated by agricultural workers and supporting trades, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, bricklayers, joiners, thatchers and so on. The farms grew corn and raised sheep. You can see a place called Noahs Ark just below Kemsing which is where the Russell family lived at one time.

Here's the whole Russell family. They are all from Kemsing apart from a couple of the children, so there are links with other localities.

When William was born in 1868 farm work was gradually being mechanised. The 1871 census for Kemsing shows a fall in the number of agricultural labourers, but there are now some agricultural engine drivers. So the availability of farm work was declining for families like the Russells but things were about to change with the coming of the railways.

Kemsing moved into the modern age in 1874 when the London Chatham and Dover Railway opened it's line from Maidstone to London passing through Kemsing which gained it's own station. Kemsing was now connected to the wider world. The 1881 census has 10 railway workers living in Kemsing and several agricultural steam engine drivers. Many workers from Kemsing including the Russells had moved away from Kemsing to work on the railway. They moved to where they were needed, with free travel included. So there was a natural migration from working on the land to working on the railways. William was part of this, which is why we find him in Lewisham in 1892 at the time of his marriage to Kate Dugay. He wasn't the only Russell who worked for the railway. The four eldest brothers worked as platelayers so William was working with James, Ernest and Alfred.

After their marriage William and Kate stayed in the Lewisham area for a couple of years more and in 1896 they moved to Tolworth in Surrey. By now they had two children Lilian Kate Violet (b1894) and our grandmother Daisy Louisa (b1895). In the 1901 census William has gone back to being a farm labourer living in Tolworth with another child Kathleen May (Queen) (b1898). In 1905 they moved to 101 Windmill Road, Croydon, and by 1908 they had moved yet again to 87 Cecil Road, Croydon, a small terraced house. William was now a market gardener. Here is the 1911 census with the family of 8 living in the small house with 5 rooms.

By 1915 they had made their final move to a very similar house just a stone's throw away at 81 Boston Road Croydon (pictured below). They lived here for the rest of their lives until Kate died in 1935 and William in 1947.

The 1910 map below shows 81 Boston Road shaded in red. There seems to be plenty of land available for the market gardening.

Eventually Kate and William had twelve children, only seven surviving longer than a year. We can see the complete family in the table below, followed by a few biographical notes about the children (who are our Grandmother and Great Aunts and Uncles).

Lilian Kate Violet Russell (1894 - 1977)

Lilian (Lily) was the first child born on 13th January 1904 while they were still living in Lewisham. She was taken to Kemsing to be baptised at St. Mary's on 1st April the same year. Lily started school at St. James school Elmers End, moving aged 12 to Sydenham Road Girls school in Croydon on 9th January 1906 after the family moved to Windmill Road. She left school in 1908 at the age of 14.

She is the only family member not present in Cecil Road at the 1911 census. She had already started work as a general domestic servant for a family in Thornton Heath, near Croydon. Two years later in May 1913 aged 19 she started work as a nurse at Brookwood Lunatic Asylum, near Guildford. She had been working there for nearly two years when in February 1915 an incident occurred which involved six nurses including Lily refusing to submit to having their heads examined for vermin, on the grounds that it was insulting to their dignity. They were summarily dismissed. With support from her Union Lily sued the County Council for one month's pay and return of all superannuation contributions. The Court found in her favour, but the result was subsequently reversed on appeal.

Lily continued to work as a nurse and qualified as a State Registered Nurse in 1925 while working at St. Mary Abbotts infirmary, Kensington. At the outbreak of the Second World War she was a sister at Tooting Grove Hospital, Wandsworth.

In December 1940 aged 46 she married Charles Ryding, an Australian soldier. In 1944 she emigrated to Australia where she lived with Charles until she died in 1977.

Daisy Louisa Russell (1895 - 1975)

Our Grandmother Daisy was born just over a year after Lily on 5th February 1895 in Penge. She went to the same schools as Lily, first St. James school Elmers End, then Sydenham Road Girls school in Croydon on 9th January 1906 when she was 11. In 1908 she moved to Boston Road Girls school just across the road from their new house in Boston Road. She left school in 1909 at the age of 14. In 1911 she was still living at home and working as a domestic servant. In 1918 she married George Hooper. They had two children, our Dad Russell St. George in 1919 and Audrey Olive in 1924.

George Hooper died in 1926. Daisy remarried in Croydon in 1930 to Peter Herbert Neal who was in the Royal Navy. (How did they meet?) They moved to Portsmouth to live. Janice was born in 1936. In 1939 they were living at 78 The Crossway, Portchester. Uncle Peter as he was known to us left the Navy after the war and in November 1951 took over the off licence at 45 Adames Road. Earlier the same year Daisy had enrolled as an assistant nurse.

They lived in Adames Road until the 1960s when Audrey took over the shop. Nanny and Uncle Peter then moved to Blackmoor Walk where they lived out the rest of their lives.

Kathleen May Russell 1898 – 1986

Kathleen was the third surviving child born on 10 May 1898 at Long Ditton Surrey. She was always known as Queen.

She married George Lambert in 1936. She was 38 and he was 51. In 1939 they were living in Croydon, George was a warehouseman. They never had any children. George and Queen were both in the Salvation Army, but when they joined we don't know. The Salvation Army only keep staff records for officers and they have nothing for Queen or George, which suggests that they were both ordinary soldiers. But the Salvation Army archives did manage to find a photograph taken from a book about the history of the Salvation Army in Croydon which has both Queen and George in it.

The picture was probably taken after the war, and certainly before 1954 which was when George Lambert died.

In 1963 Queen was living in Grenaby Avenue Croydon, with her sister Myrtle I Russell, who was known as Reen. By then Reen was also in the Salvation Army. Queen died in Eastbourne in 1986.

William James Russell 1902 – 1995

Uncle Bill was born on 17th October 1902. He attended Boston Road Infants school, then Boston Road Boy's school. He only had to cross the road to get to school. When he left school in 1915 he probably spent some time helping his father in the market garden. A few years later in 1926 he married Florence Alice Creamer in Croydon. One of the witnesses is none other than George Hooper, our Grandfather. By now Bill's job is a cowman, so there must have been a farm nearby with cattle.

They both gave 81 Boston Road as their address. It was very common for the bride and groom to give the same address in order to avoid paying an extra fee for having the banns read in another parish.

Over the next few years Uncle Bill and Auntie Flo progressed from a cottage in Beddington, to a smallholding in Carshalton, and then a farm in Newchapel. After the war in 1945 they were at Hook Farm, Leigh, where we visited as children. They adopted Ivy's daughter June as a baby when Ivy died. They both died in 1995.

Ivy Mabel Russell 1905 - 1933

Ivy was born on 31st August 1905 and went to Boston Road Infants school. She married Leonard Field in 1931, and had a daughter June in Feb 1933. Sadly Ivy died shortly afterwards, and the baby, June, was adopted and brought up by Uncle Bill and Auntie Flo.

Margaret Hilda Russell 1911 – 2004

Mag was born in Croydon on 1 February 1911. She married Benjamin W Hall in the last quarter of 1932 in Croydon. There is no record of any children, or where they lived.

In 1938 she had a child, a boy called Peter Duncan Webb. The father was a leading stoker on HMS Coventry by the name of Walter Sydney Webb. Walter died on 24 November 1941 when HMS Dunedin was struck by two torpedoes in the South Atlantic.

In 1939 Mag was living in Clive Grove, Portchester using the name of Margaret Webb. She doesn't seem to have ever married Walter Webb, probably because Benjamin Hall was still alive.

She had another child in 1944, Jacqueline M Webb. Mag died in 2004.

Myrtle Irene Russell 1913 – 1993

Born in Croydon on 4 May 1913, Myrtle was the last of the Russell children. We always knew her as Reen. She never married. In 1939 she was still living at home in 81 Boston Road with her Dad. She was a surgical instrument maker. In later years she lived with Kathleen (Queen). They were both in the Salvation Army. She died in Portsmouth in 1993.

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