The Windsor Family

William Thomas Windsor (1864-1926)

William Thomas Windsor was born in 1864 in Brighton, Sussex to labourer William Henry Windsor (1832-1921) and Emma Marchant (1841-1882). His parent were living in Carlton Row, Brighton, which would be the area in which the family lived for many decades. He was the third of seven children and the eldest of three boys in the family.

William seems to have followed in his father footsteps and took on any work available, being recorded as a Labourer on the 1881 Census when he was aged 17. He had almost certainly been working hard for many years, adding as much as he could to the family income to provide for himself and his younger siblings.

Although his name is not recorded on the birth certificate, it is likely that William became a father at the age of 18, when Emily Elizabeth Dove gave birth to her son Henry Christopher Dove in 1882. By the time of William and Emily's marriage in 1890 there were four more children with the youngest, daughter Emily born on 2nd January 1888 bearing the Windsor surname. It is not impossible that William would have taken on the three children of his wife even if they were not his, but more likely they carried the mothers surname only because their parents were not married at the times of their births.

During their marriage the couple would become parents of a large number of children. The 1911 Census records that they were parents to 16 children, five of whom had died by that time, but only one of the deceased children, a daughter named Norah who died in infancy in 1901, has so far been identified. It is possible the other children died at childbirth and were not named.

William was mostly employed as a hawker of various goods around the streets of Brighton, selling fruit and other goods either door to door or on street corners. It must have been extremely hard work as the area he lived in was a very hilly and run down area of Brighton.

For some reason, William does not appear with the family on the 1901 Census. There are a number of possible reasons why this may have been, but his details have not yet been found to show where he was residing at that time or why he was not at home with his family.

In later life William was recorded working as a Greengrocer while living at John Street in the St. James' Street area, though whether he ran a stall in a market, or helped in a shop, or merely gave himself a slightly grander title is not known.

By the mid 1920s William may have begun to experience intestinal pain and weight loss. His strength would have been diminishing rapidly, but as a member of the working class he would have been unable to afford to visit a doctor and would have needed to carry on working to provide for his family. 

On 28th March 1926, when the family were living at 38 John Street, William died. His cause of death was given by W.E. Powell MRCS as Inoperable Carcinoma Recti, with a secondary cause of Obstruction. His widow Emily signed his death certificate with an X, showing her inability to write, not uncommon for working class women who had missed out on universal education.

William Henry Windsor (1832-1921)

William Henry Windsor was born in the spring of 1831 in Brighton, Sussex to William Henry Windsor (1800-1861), a Bricklayer, and Ann Humphrey (1795-1878). His baptism on 22nd April 1832 showed that his parent were living in Orange Row in the Pimlico area of Brighton. The Pimlico area was considered the worst slum area of the town, and in 1849 a commissioner from the Brighton Board of Health named Edward Cresy, wrote that Orange Row, Pimlico, Foundry Street, Spring Gardens and Thomas Street were areas where diseases prevailed, often the result of sulphurated hydrogen "which arises from the excrement retained in cesspools. It pervades all the breathing places found at the back of buildings. Many of the houses are wretchedly damp, constructed with inferior bricks and mortar made of sand. No methods are available for getting rid of the rain water. The walls are covered with lichen, and with the decomposition of vegetable matter the inmates seek the imagined restorative powers of the public house." These buildings, possibly built with Bungaroosh, a local composite material, would eventually be demolished in the 1860s.

 By 1841 the family had moved to Woburn Place, still extremely neglected and run-down but improved living conditions compared to Orange Row. William was the eldest of five children, four boys and one girl. His parents had recently lost another son, Robert, at two months old, an all-too-familiar event in such areas. On this census the father William was recorded as an Ag Lab, an agricultural labourer, probably working in the farms and smallholdings in the immediate vicinity of the town.

The Census of 1851 recorded the family living at 54 John Street, in the immediate vicinity of St. James's Street, described as the "Bond Street of Brighton" in the 1820;s. While not high quality buildings they were much better accommodation than the family had previously experienced.

In 1853 Britain became involved in the Crimean War in an attempt to limit Russian expansionism, and William answered the call for able bodied men to serve. As an inhabitant of a town with strong links to the fishing industry, William and his elder brother became members of the naval forces arrayed against Russia, and both served on HMS Belleisle, a former third-rate (a rating based on the number of guns and troops carried) ship of the line which had been converted to a hospital ship.

William served through the campaign when the ship was based in the Baltic Sea as part of a defensive shield to limit the Russian navy.

At the conclusion of the conflict, William returned to Brighton, where, on 13th September 1857, he married Emma Marchant at St Nicholas’ Church. The couple were to have seven children, four girls and three boys, all of whom survived to adulthood. Living in Circus Grove at the time of their marriage, William and his family would move to Carlton Row by the time of the 1861 Census, remaining in that street in various houses for the next for decades.

On 11th January 1882, William’s wife Emma died. Her death certificate recorded the cause as “Entercitis”, probably a mis-transcription of Enteritis, and a secondary cause of Asthenia, or generalized physical weakness and a lack of energy and strength.

A year after his wife’s death, William, at the age of 51, married Eliza Harmer.

William was recorded with many different occupations even in old age reflecting the need to provide for his family with no social assistance. His many careers included labourer, vegetable hawker, jobbing gardener and in 1901 he was recorded as a Night Watchman.

William lived a long life in Brighton, dying at the age of 89 on 21st April 1921. His funeral, a large event with a military procession was reported in the local newspaper, which despite incorrectly reporting his age, showed he was a well-regarded and respected veteran of the Crimean War.