george mallindine + mary ellen simmonett
George was born on 19 April 1858 and was one of twin boys born to George Mallindine and Amelia Skinner but his twin William died four days after birth. George was baptised on 27 June at St John the Baptist in Shoreditch along with his younger brother Thomas.
On 6 May 1883, George married Mary Ellen Simmonett at St Peter in Bethnal Green with his brother Thomas and sister Alice Amelia as witnesses. Mary Ellen was born on 5 July 1856 at 8 Alfred Place in Shoreditch to John Simmonett and Eliza Farrah and she grew up on the same street as George. When they married, George was working as a Cabinet Maker and both of them were living at 28 Kay Street which was a few streets away from their families’ homes on Alfred Place.
They moved to 20 Mansfield Street near Kingsland Road where their only son, George Reuben, was born on 2 July 1885. He was baptised at St Peter on 9 August and George’s occupation on the baptism register was listed as Book Binder. Six years later, they’d moved again and were living in two rooms at 57 Shrubland Road in Shoreditch and George had returned to work as a Cabinet Liner while their sixteen year old son worked as a Tailor’s Assistant.
In 1901, George, Mary and George Reuben were living in 3 rooms at 63 Pownall Road in Shoreditch but when the next census was taken, they were living at a Boy’s Club on Durward Street in Shoreditch where both George and Mary Ellen were employed as Caretakers. Their son was still with them and working as a General Assistant at a Tailor & Outfitter’s but he left home shortly after to marry Florence Offord Searle in 1911.
Florence was born on 9 February 1882 in Deptford, Kent to Frederick Richard Searle and Elizabeth Jane Masters. After their marriage the moved to Stoke Newington and were living at 35 Elm Croft Street in Stoke Newington. They had one son, Cyril, who was born on 12 March 1916 in Hackney but George Reuben was away during his early years serving as a Transport Corporal with the Army Ordnance Corps for which he was awarded the British War and Victory medals.
Mary Ellen appears alone in the electoral registers at 73 Rushmore Road in Hackney from 1920 to 1925 and there is no record of George until his death in Islington in 1924 aged 65 years. From the mid-twenties until 1934, Mary Ellen was living on Spenser Road in Stepney; she died in Hackney in 1935.
George Reuben and his family moved to Lewisham after he was discharged from the army and in 1930, they were living in 12 Holme Lacey Road. George died in Lewisham on 10 Arpil 1934 and was buried three days later in the Ladywell & Brockley Cemetery.
In 1939, Florence and twenty three year old son Cyril were living at 34 Dallinger Road in Lewisham where she worked as a Cashier and Cyril as an Electric Welder for a construction firm. In the mid-fifties, they moved to a house at 95 Wren Road in Sidcup in the London Borough of Bexley. Florence died there on 25 March 1978 and was also buried in the Ladywell & Brockley Cemetery on 7 April.
Cyril never married and was still living on Wren Road when he died on 17 December 1984; his ashes were interred in the Eltham Crematorium in Greenwich on 11 January 1985.