alfred henry mallandain + elizabeth alice richards
Alfred was born in Shoreditch in 1874 to William Samuel Mallandain and Jane Bull. When he finished school, he found work as a Bookbinder but gave that up when he enlisted in the Army on 8 March 1898 at Dalston. He agreed to a term of seven years followed by 5 years in the reserves and joined the Yorkshire Regiment in Richmond, Yorkshire on 10 March. Alfred served in Gibraltar for almost a year before being transferred to India for 3 years and 3 months with the remainder of his term served at home at Bulford in Wiltshire and Aldershot in Hampshire. He was posted to the reserves on 7 March 1905 and formally discharged on 7 March 1910.
After returning home from India, Alfred married Elizabeth Alice Richards at St John the Baptist in Hoxton on 20 April 1902 with her sister Emily and brother Henry standing as witnesses. Elizabeth was born on 25 December 1873 in Bermondsey, the daughter of David and Elizabeth Richards. At the time of her marriage, Elizabeth was living at 63 Wenlock Street with her widowed sister Emily and her young daughter and they were both working at home as Blouse Machinists.
Alfred and Elizabeth had seven children and their first, Elsie Beatrice, was born in 1905 followed by Ethel Winnifred in 1908 and Alfred Ernest on 16 June 1910.
In 1911, Alfred, Elizabeth and their three children were living at 34 Percy Terrace in Hackney Wick which now lies between Victoria Park and the Olympic developent at Stratford. The family occupied 4 rooms in the house and Alfred was working as aa General Labourer for a Chemical Manufacturer.
Frederick Thomas was born in Hackney on 10 September 1912 and shortly after he was born, they moved from Percy Terrace to Berkshire Road in Hackney Wick. Dorothy was born in West Ham in 1914, but died shortly after birth, and Winnifred E. in Hackney in the summer of 1916.
On 1 December 1916, their 11 year old daughter Elsie died at Hackney Infirmary and the cause of death was listed as ‘morbus cordis’ which was a catch-all phrase for death by natural causes when the exact cause was not evident. She was buried in the Tower Hamlets Cemetery one week later. The family was living on Montague Road when their seventh child, Dorothy Maud was born on 5 March 1918. Two years later, they had moved one street away to 2 Trowbridge Road in Hackney Wick.
In the summer of 1923, Alfred Henry died in Shoreditch and was buried at the Tower Hamlets Cemetery leaving Elizabeth alone to care for their five children between the ages of 5 and 15. Withouth Alfred’s wages, it is not known how Elizabeth supported her large family. Her older children may have left school to find work and it is possible that Elizabeth received help from other family members or in desperation sought parish relief.
In 1930, Elizabeth and her three daughter were still living at 2 Trowbridge Road in Hackney and two years later, sons Alfred and Frederick were also living with them. Her son Fred was the first to marry, to Violet Jessie Porter in Norfolk, in 1935 and they went on to have two sons, Frederick Ronald in 1935 and David Alfred in 1937. They lived on Rockmead Road after their marriage but moved back to Trowbridge Road and lived at number 10 and later number 8 for many years. Violet died in 1949, aged only 43 years, but Frederick remained in their house with the two boys until 1959 when he moved to the Gascoyne Estate. The London City Council built the housing estate across Cassland Street to Well Street Common in 1949 to replace buildings badly damaged by bombing during the second world war. He was still there in 1965 but by 1972, he moved to the London borough of Havering, which includes the town of Romford, where he married a second time, to Esther Lilian Lock. Frederick died in Havering in 1986 and Esther died there in 1998.
Alfred also moved out to Havering and married Elsie Hunt in Romford in 1937 and they had one daughter. By 1939, they had moved to Hornchurch and were living at 54 Alma Road and Alfred was working as a Furnishings Salesman and his wife as an Upholsterer’s Machinist. Elsie died at Harold Wood Hospital in Romford on 4 August 1965 and left an estate valued at £560 to her husband who was employed as a Sales Manager. Alfred died in Havering two years later.
In the summer of 1942, Winnifred married Dennis Beaven in Hackney and they had two sons. One year later, Dorothy Maud married David James Crook and they had three sons. Several months after Dorothy’s wedding, Elizabeth died at the family home on Trowbridge Road and was buried at Chingford Mount Cemetery in Waltham Forest on 17 June. Ethel remained in the house and in 1945, her two sisters stayed with her while their husbands were fighting in the war. She stayed on Trowbridge Road until the late 1950s when she moved into a council house on Candy Street in Poplar. Ethel never married and died in Hackney in 1973; she was buried at Chingford Mount Cemetery in Waltham Forest on 6 December.
Dorothy Maud died in 1993 in Harlow in Essex and her husband in 2006 in Epping Forest.