Walking Through My Maternal Grandparents’ Lives
My maternal grandmother, Harriet Martha Upcott, was born opposite Dalston Junction station in Dalston Lane in May 1871. In September 1894, she married my grandfather, Henry Millbank, who had been born in Clerkenwell in 1870. Census and other records show that in 1894 they lived at 29 Dalston Lane and then by 1901 they had moved to 90, Princess May Road in Stoke Newington. As Princess May Road is perhaps a kilometre from where I live now, I walked round all these places this morning.
In some ways, one thing that struck me as I walked in a semi-circle to St. Mark at the back of the famous Ridley Road Market was how intact the late Victorian terraces were. But why was 90, Princess May Road missing. Was it just development or did the Luftwaffe have a hand? I shall go to the Hackney Records Office opposite where my grandmother was born in the week.
It was a family joke between my parents, that my grandmother was born in the Balls Pond Road, when it was posh the first time around. The Balls Pond Road is the continuation of Dalston Lane towards Islington.
I can’t salso ever remember talk of Dalston, despite my mother having worked at Reeves. Stoke Newington and Islington were mentioned.
The Anonymous Widower 
It is interesting walking in the footsteps of our ancestors, I have done this, mostly in Nottingham, but other places too. Good luck with it.
Comment by nosnikrapzil | January 18, 2015 |