Transcript Lost in London

Lost in London
Breaking down brick walls in London research
Why is London such a problem?
"Hell is a city much like London - A populous and smoky city." Shelley
• Size
• Scale
• Range of repositories
• Range of sources
• Difficult research period
Why are Londoners such a problem?
"There are two places in the world where men can most effectively disappear—the city
of London and the South Seas." Herman Melville
• Extreme poverty
• Extreme mobility
• Fragmented families
• Social breakdown
• Official anonymity
General strategies
• Keep an open mind
• Use all available sources
• Research related lines
• Use the Internet
• Share your research
London strategies
• Learn the geography
• Understand the society
• Remember the history
Learn the geography
"Mr Weller's knowledge of London was extensive and peculiar". Dickens
• Administrative structure
• Administrative changes
• 19th century growth
• Street name changes
• Maps
• Migration routes
Understand the society
"London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are
irresistibly drained." Conan Doyle
• Read Ackroyd, Dickens, Engels, Mayhew
• Booth poverty maps and notebooks
Remember the history
"If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us!" Coleridge
• Missing from the 1901 census?
• Came to London in the 1840s?
Helpful Websites
•
Access to Archives
•
Black Sheep Index
•
Docklands Ancestors
•
Google
•
London Gazette
•
Proceedings of the Old Bailey
•
Times Digital Archive
Julius Fritz's 1876
application for
naturalisation, listing
all his children with
dates of birth
Julius Fritz's 1876
application for the
Freedom of the City
of London, complete
with signature and
much valuable
family information
• 17a Fetter Lane, London
• Home of John Dryden in the 17th
century
• Between 1871 and 1887, home of
Julius & Mary Ann Fritz and their 14
children
• Often sketched by Victorian artists
• Several pictures found on the
Internet through a Google search
An assult case
involving Mary Ann
Fritz, nee Bluett,
reported in the
Times.