The evidence is consistent with this being our Henry William.
Edwin Louis Augustus
Edwin had apparently become a bootmaker and got involved with Bertha Staddon, the daughter of John Staddon, also a bootmaker. (Between 1881 and 1884 a William Staddon was listed as a bootmaker at 171 Kentish Town Road.) Towards the end of 1883 Bertha gave birth to a daughter, Eleanor, and Edwin was registered as the father. Eleanor died early the next year.
On 19th May 1885 Edwin and Bertha were married in the register office (two months after Rudolph, see later). They had another child, Augustus, on 29th June 1888 but he also died in infancy. They had no further children.
In the 1891 directory Edwin is listed as the proprietor of the newsagents shop at 82 Pratt Street, where he and Rudolph had been living with their family in 1881, although by the time of the 1891 Census Edwin and Bertha had moved to 42 Pratt Street. Between 1893 and 1900 he is listed as proprietor of a newsagents shop at 42 Pratt Street. After that he appears to have returned to his original trade as he appears as such in the 1901 Census living in Bayham Street. Unfortunately he was living alone and claimed to be single. Bertha has not yet been located in 1901. Edwin was listed as a bootmaker at premises in Warden Road, Kentish Town in the 1904 trade directory.
Edwin, or Uncle 'Gus' to Rudolph's children, died early in 1908 at the age of 45 and Bertha at the end of 1914, aged 51.
Rudolph
Rudolph became a coach trimmer like his father. He appeared to be very close to his brother Edwin who was two years his senior. A year after Edwin fathered his illegitimate daughter, Rudolph nearly had a similar problem with Mary Ann Smith but they married in the register office on 19th March 1885. The next month, on 29th April, their daughter Eleanor was born. She was presumably named after Edwin and Bertha's lost child.
The two brothers were witnesses for each other's wedding and the other witness on both occasions was Emma Wright, probably a common friend of Mary and Bertha. We will hear more of Rudolph later.
William Richard
Documentary evidence of Richard's adult life is scarce. He cannot be located in the 1881 Census. In the 1891 Census he was serving with the 1st Battalion of the Lincolnshire Regiment at Shorncliff Camp near Folkestone. It is possible that he had enlisted as a boy soldier. Again, he cannot be located in the 1901 Census but the regiment were in India at that time. His end could have come in 1912 at Whitchurch in Shropshire on 18th August when a Richard Wagner, a 47-year old general labourer died of a cerebral haemorrhage. The death was registered by a neighbour and so presumably there was no family about. Furthermore there were no other Richard Wagners registered as born in this country between 1864 and 1868.
William Richard Francis
William had a more documented, but shorter, life. He had started in the family trade and become a coach painter. On 5th January 1887 he died of pneumonia, aged 18. The death was registered by his stepmother from the address in Wharfdale road.
Charles Frederick Septimus
Charles was familiarly known as Septimus. He also joined the coachbuilding trade as a coach painter. He cannot be located in the 1891 Census but by 1901 he was living at 21 Pitt Street (later renamed Scala Street), off Tottenham Court Road with Thomas and Julia Moore. He was unmarried and recorded as Thomas Moore's nephew although I cannot see how this could be the case. Thomas Moore died later that year, aged 43. Septimus stayed with Julia and eventually they were married. He was 35 and she was 47. They were married in St. Saviour's Church, Pancras on 23rd December 1905 and at this time they were living at 42 Fitzroy Street.
Julia did not have children by either husband but Septimus did "give away" his niece Eleanor at her marriage to George Skinner as her father had died. Uncle 'Sep' and Aunt Julia later lived in Kensington.
After Charles died in 1936 the family heard no more from Aunt Julia as she was not well liked. Her death was possibly in 1943.
Julia Ellen Amelia
Ellen, or Nell as she was commonly known, went into domestic service. In the 1891 Census she was a general servant at 23 Bryant Street, Islington for Richard Gilbert, a carman. In the 1901 Census she was at 73 Hillfield Road, Hampstead working for Walter Simpson, a woollens manufacturer and later, for the same family, at 16 Buckingham Mansions, West End Lane, Hampstead.
Ellen was very close to her brother Rudolph's children, especially Eleanor who was only 11 years younger than her. When they were orphaned (see later) she tried very hard to keep the family together. On 31st July 1909 at St. Andrew's Church, Kettering, Ellen married Frederick Augustus Wrighton Fox, a 37-year old sergeant in the Northants. Regiment. One witness at the wedding, and bridesmaid with her sister Edith, was Eleanor.
Following his period as a music instructor in the army, Frederick became a bus inspector at Hendon. He and Aunt 'Nell' lived at Hendon for the rest of their lives and remained in close contact with Eleanor and the other children. They had no children of their own. Ellen outlived her husband and died of cancer, aged 79, on 14th May 1954.
RUDOLPH WAGNER AND FAMILY
Rudolph and Mary spent the first few years of their married life in Pratt Street with Edwin and Bertha and possibly with, or close to, the rest of the family.
A year after the birth of Eleanor, on 8th May 1886, a second child was born and was christened Edith Mary. Then came a son, Rudolph Richard , on 24th March 1890 and a third daughter, Lily , on 17th May 1892. By the time Lily was born the family had moved to 6 Dalby Street, backing onto the railway line by Kentish Town West station. The last child, Edward Augustus, was born on 24th April 1894.
When Edward was only two a tragedy occurred - Mary died of dropsy. They were then living at 160 St. Pauls Road, Camden Town. As Rudolph was already ill, and apparently none of the family could take them in, there was no alternative but to fall back on the provisions of the Poor Law. The five children were admitted to the St. Pancras Workhouse on 28th June 1897, three weeks after their mother died.
After two months Lily was transferred from the Workhouse to Leavesden Schools at Watford. Two weeks later Eleanor and Edward were transferred to Hanwell Residential School and thence to Leavesden early in 1898. It is not clear when Edith left the Workhouse but she is believed to have been transferred to a home at Newdigate, 5 miles south of Dorking.
Richard (his name is now given as Richard Rudolph) suffered from a mental handicap and was transferred to Darenth Hospital after two months at the Workhouse.
Rudolph was admitted to the St Pancras Infirmary, Highgate and was there as the time of the 1901 Census. He died there on 25th January 1906, aged 42, although he was thought to be 45. He was buried in the St. Pancras parish cemetery at Finchley.
Eleanor
Eleanor (or Ellen as she was more commonly called) was at the Schools for two and a half years and seems to have been very happy there. During this time she learnt to swim and even play cricket! On 26th June 1900 when she was 15 she was placed in domestic service with a Mrs. Kyte of 47 Chichele Road, Cricklewood. She left the Schools with a pine chest containing her possessions and a half-a-crown. She was still with Mrs Kyte at the age of 21 and obviously well liked by her employers for she was given a gold watch for her birthday.
She later moved to a family who lived at Knoll Road, Bexleyheath. She attended church at Christ Church, Bexleyheath and it was outside there that she met George Skinner whom she eventually married. The history of the Skinners is recorded elsewhere. Ellen died on 29th December 1973, aged 88.
Edith Mary
Edith, who was 11 when her mother died, did not go to Leavesden Schools with the rest of the family, but was taken in by a small private "school", possible the one in Newdigate mentioned earlier, where two ladies cared for half a dozen girls. She was later known to be in service at "Hurstdale", Granville Road, Sevenoaks.
In 1913, at the age of 27, she left these shores with her friend Belle Cos, bound for New York. There she found employment as a lady's maid. On 13th April 1918 she married Albert P. Wardell (and Belle married his brother). Bert and Edie had one son, Edward Cornelius.
Edie returned once to England for a visit in April 1939. She died on 23rd February 1964 in Poughkeepsie, NY
Rudolph Richard
As mentioned earlier, Richard suffered from a mental handicap and spent all his life in institutions. He is recorded to have spent one or more periods at Darenth Hospital, Rochester House at Ealing, Caterham Hospital and Leavesden Mental Hospital. He died at Leavesden on 9th March 1924 of pulmonary tuberculosis.
Lily
Lily was five when she went to the Schools and stayed there for nine years, apart from three weeks' holiday with Ellen in the summer of 1906. On 10th December 1906 she was placed in service at 39 Anson Road, Cricklewood, very close to where Ellen was working. Lily was not very happy here and we know that she ran away at least once (in 1908).
During the Great War Lily lived with Ellen and George, who had just married, and worked on munitions at Belvedere. After the War Lily worked as a maid for a Dr. Frankau at 51 Wimpole Street. In the Second World War Lily left London for Belvedere again and found employment locally.
After the Frankau's Lily worked for a Miss Scott who lived in Bryanston Court, Sloane Square. When she died Lily worked for some of Miss Scott's relations, the Solomons, who lived at Furze Bush, Maidens Grove, near Henley. Lily spent the rest of her working life there.
On retirement she and her friend Dora Rush lived in Ray Mill Road West, Maidenhead and died, the last surviving Wagner, on New Year's Day 1977.
Edward Augustus
Edward obviously benefited from the band training given at the Schools for, on 23rd July 1908 at the age of 14, he enlisted as a band boy in the 1st Battalion, Liverpool Regiment, based at Kinsale, Ireland.
On leaving the army Ted worked as a policeman in Liverpool and in 1924 married Elizabeth Wilkes, a widow with two children. They had no children of their own.
Ted died of influenza in the epidemic of the winter of 1928, aged 34.
LEAVESDEN SCHOOLS
In 1868 the St. Pancras Board of Guardians purchased 37 acres of land at Leavesden, near Watford, for the erection of schools to accommodate children under the Poor Law Act. The Schools were opened in 1870. The following quotes from a historical record of the Schools gives an impression of the life the children experienced.
"It was long felt in connection with the industrial training of girls for service, that the steam appliances both for cooking and laundry work, and the use of machinery generally in most departments, necessary as they are for the daily work here, tended to unfit a girl for ordinary domestic service. A special training room was therefore arranged, in which the girls receive on an average six months' training in the details of ordinary household work. No machinery is in use, and the girls are taught washing, ironing, economy in cooking, the preparation of their own meals, the value of all articles used,æand thus become accustomed to the ordinary routine of work which they have to perform when sent out to service."
"The girls have in addition their needlework, knitting and crochet classes, with occasional readings, and every effort is made to give a home-like and cheerful tone to the whole School."
"The boys are taught useful trades, such as carpentry, upholstery, engineering, tailoring, shoemaking, gardening, etc. Many lads also receive tuition in the brass band attached to the Schools; in several instances lads from these schools who entered the army and received their first instruction in this band have risen to very important positions ."
"Whilst every effort is made to give a home-like and cheerful tone to the Schools, and to brighten the lives and sharpen the intellects of the children, it will be seen that special attention is given to their training."
"It is pleasing to be able to state that this training of the children shows most gratifying results, as but a very small percentage of those brought up in these Schools ever find their way to the Workhouse."
Under the Local Government Act, 1929, the old Poor Law authorities came to an end and their functions were transferred to County Councils and County Borough Councils. The Schools thus passed to the control of the London County Council, continuing to be used to accommodate children in care. A rationalisation of all the institutions taken over from the various Boards of Guardians saw the closure of the Schools at the end of 1931. The buildings were converted to provide additional ward accommodation for the nearby Leavesden Mental Hospital.