Page 135 - Just another English family (Sep 2019)

members were probably distributed among four addresses. The three addresses shown in the census were in Wakefield, Dewsbury and Halifax. It certainly looked a thriving group with a dozen youngsters under 21 years of age, but a word of caution was expressed insofar that there were only two males in the reproductive window of 18 to 50 years. So how has this grouping fared and how do they appear at the census point of 1911?
In fact, by 1911 this grouping had 25 members identified in the census of that year with a further six persons who should almost certainly have been in the census but had somehow missed being counted. With regard to the latter, again James (1844-?) seems to have eluded the umbrella of the census – perhaps he had some embarrassment about the legitimacy of his birth which his mother may have shared but, anyway, he, together with five other members of his family, missed the 1911 census. While I have the death dates of these other family members, it is not absolutely clear that James was still alive in 1911, but I have assumed so. Also, I am not clear whether James and Eliza’s son, Colonel (1872-1951), was still living at home or had with his nuclear family set up home elsewhere. In order to examine the difference between 1861 and 1911, I have assumed that they are still in the family home of James and Eliza. So, counting this as one home, there are a further eight other home addresses for the members of this grouping. This is in contrast to the four addresses for this grouping in 1861. While there are more members of this grouping in the 1911 census, the average size of the households had fallen from 4.5 per household in 1861 to 3.4 per household in 1911. In short, more members overall but fewer members per household.
The age profiles are different too. While two/thirds of the members of the 1861 households were minors (i.e. under 21 years of age), this is the case for less than one/third (29%) of the members in 1911. Further, while only two males were in the 18-50 reproductive window in 1861, there were nine such males in 1911. The future in terms of numbers in this grouping looks rosy.
So let’s now look at the detail. In the 1911 census Soothill descendants can be 131