john william malandain + evelyn chapman
c. 1915
John was born at 8 Adelphi Terrace in Bethnal Green on 9 May 1875; he was the eldest of six children born to John William Malandain and Elizabeth Cushway.
He was living at 1 Trim Street and working as a Commercial Traveller when he married Evelyn Mary Ann Chapman on 1 January 1899 at St Paul in Deptford. Evelyn was born in Bristol on 21 March 1868 to Thomas Chapman and Mary Ann Stephens. She was left a widow when her first husband, Daniel Lambert, died in 1897 leaving her with four daughters under the age of ten.
Only six months later, their first son, Arthur John, was born on 6 July at 5 Colyton Road in Peckham followed by daughter Edith Elizabeth on 3 October 1900. By 1901, the family had moved to 1 Wisbech Street and Jack was working as a Commercial Trader. He also appears in several Trade Directories of the time as a Manufacturer’s Agent and at some point, he started working for a company called the Acme Stopper & Box Company of Birmingham and managed the London office from his home. The company made caps for screw mouth bottles, tin boxes and cannisters, and claimed round seamless tins as their speciality item.
Jack Lemay was born on 14 February 1902 and was thereafter known as ‘Valentine’. Mabel Rose was born on 17 October 1903 in Lewisham and Hilda Ada on 2 December 1904. They moved to a larger house to accomodate their growing family and settled at 145 Peckham Rye which was across the street from Peckham Common between Nunhead and Dulwich. Two years later, they moved next door to number 147, known as Acme House, where they lived for the next ten years.
Millicent Annie was born in 1906 and Stanley George in 1909. In 1911, there were 12 members of the family living in the ten room house on Peckham Rye — John, Evelyn and their seven children as well as Evelyn’s three eldest daughters, Lilian, Evelyn and Louisa who was known as Lena. Evelyn’s youngest daughter, Mary, was away at boarding school in Oxfordshire. Four years later, they celebrated a double wedding as her two eldest daughters married at St Antholin in Nunhead in the same week; Evelyn married William Ingram on 7 August and Lilian married William Whowall two days later.
1925
Jack and Evelyn had one more child, Peter Charles William, in the fall of 1918 but he died the following spring and was buried in the Old Cemetery in Camberwell on 24 March. In 1923, they moved across Peckham Common and back to their old house at 5 Colyton Road, and over the next five years, they celebrated a wedding each year as five of their children married and left home to start their own lives.
Edith was the first to marry, to Percy Herbert Turner, on 11 April 1925; Percy was born in Islington on 24 December 1900, to Joseph William Turner and his wife Clara Collins, and he was working as a Sorter in the Post Office when he married. The following summer Arthur John married Constance Ferrar and in 1927, Jack Lemay married Georgina Henderson. Known as Molly, she was born in Camberwell on 13 December 1894 to Herbert Henderson and Mary Routledge. They had two children but Molly died, on 12 November 1931, one week after her son’s birth and was later buried at Camberwell Old Cemetery. Jack remarried in 1934 to Edith Musgrave but they did not have any children.
Mabel Rose married William Harold Stickells in 1928 and they went on to have three children. Billy and his twin brother Thomas were born on 19 September 1903 to William Thomas Stickells and Elizabeth Devall. The next to marry was Millicent Annie, to Henry George Morrill Upston in Camberwell in 1929. He was born in Camberwell on 13 March 1907 to Henry and Emily Upston. They had one daughter, Millicent Annie, in 1935 and lived in Staines-upon-Thames before retiring to Brighton.
Jack and Evelyn left Colyton Road in the late 1920s but they remained in Camberwell and lived on Oterhill Road and Springhill Mount before moving to 70 Harlescott Road where they remained for five years. Stanley George married Joyce Ada Mary Lindsell on 28 April 1934 in Lewisham and they had four children. Joyce was born in Croydon on 1 August 1912 to Alfred Edward Lindsell and Emily Peverall. And finally, daughter Hilda Ada married Frederick Pegler in the summer of 1936 and they had one son.
They moved back to Peckham Rye, at number 169, in 1936 and they were still there when they were enumerated for the 1939 Register; Jack was still working as a commercial agent for a metal working company and also in the household was his recently widowed step-daughter, Evelyn Ingram, and her two children. Their sons Arthur John and Jack Lemay were both living in Beckenham with their families and Stanley George was living in Lewisham with his wife and daughter while his son was visiting his maternal grandparents in Brighton.
Jack and Evelyn later moved to Queens Park Road in Brighton where they ran a guest house. Evelyn Mary Ann Chapman died there in May 1944 but was buried in Camberwell at the Old Cemetery on 17 May. One year later, seventy year old Jack remarried to Eva Florence Allwork in Margate, Kent. Eva was the sister of William Ingram who had married Jack’s step-daughter, Evelyn Lambert, in 1915. Eva was born on 26 May 1879 to George Frederick Ingram and his wife Fanny and she too was widowed when her husband Frederick Allwork died in 1938. Eva and Fred lived at 67 Bavant Road in the Denmark Hill area of Camberwell for many years but after Fred’s death, Eva moved to Cecil Street in Margate.
After only three years of marriage, Eva died at their home at 11 Cecil Street in Margate and on 14 March 1948, probate was granted to her husband on her estate valued at £170. Jack left Margate and returned to south east London and a house at 54 Thicket Road in Penge near Beckenham. He died on 7 October 1952 while visiting his daughter, Edith, at 68 Elmwood Road in Camberwell and one week later, he was also buried at the Old Cemetery in Camberwell; his son Arthur John was appointed executor of his £1100 estate.