william mallandain + emma sibrey
William was born on 19 March 1858 in Finsbury, the son of Frederick Mallandain and Sarah Vaughan. By the time he was 16 years old, his mother and father had both died and he was left with three younger brothers to support. There is no information on where the boys lived or who supported them following their parents’ deaths but it appears they left the house on James Street and gave up the family business.
William married Emma Sibrey at St Sepulchre in Holborn on 7 March 1880 and one of the witnesses was his maternal aunt Emma Vaughan. Emma Jane Sibrey was born in London in 1864, the daughter of William Sibrey, a Printer, and his wife Catherine. At the time of their marriage, William and Emma were living in Hosier Lane with her mother and younger brother William George.
When they married, William was working as a Tobacconist and he continued in this profession for much of his working life. They returned to Finsbury and less than a year later, the first of their six children was born; Emma Maud was born at 5 Bath Street on 30 January 1881 and baptised at St Mark Old Street on 27 February. Shortly after her birth, they moved down the street to number 36 where they lived with William’s three younger brothers and one lodger. Based on the census records, it appears that the street was made up of terraced housing with three to four families living in each house.
The census records also note that the houses from number 1 to 22 on Bath Street were Almshouses — likely the Dulwich Almshouses founded by the renowned actor Edward Alleyn in the 17th century and rebuilt in the 1850s. Almshouses were a form of charitable housing primarily for the old and infirm but it is possible that William and his brothers were admitted following their parents’ deaths.
Their time on Bath Street was short lived and by the time their second daughter was baptised on 2 August 1882, they were living at 2 Ware Street off Kingsland Road in Hoxton which was north of the parish of St Lukes. Florence was born on 1 July 1882 and baptised at St Anne in Hoxton when she was one month old. Although William was listed in the 1882 Post Office Directory as a tobacconist at 36 Bath Street, his occupation on Florence’s baptismal record was Waiter rather than Tobacconist.
Their son William was born on 14 June 1884 and baptised at St Peter, Clerkenwell on 6 July; the baptismal record isn’t clear but their address at the time appears to be 3 Upper Charles Street which hasn’t been located on any contemporary maps. William’s occupation was once again listed as Waiter but he was still listed in the trade directory as a Tobacconist at 36 Bath Street, this time in the 1884 Business Directory of London. Sadly, only months after William’s birth, their two year old daughter Florence died and she was buried at Islington Cemetery on 7 September. By 1886, William and Emma had moved the family south of the Thames and were living in Rotherhithe where William was still working as a Waiter. Their son Frederick was born on 11 July 1886 at 148 Rotherhithe New Road and baptised at All Saints on 16 February 1887 followed by James who was born on 23 June 1888 and baptised at the same church on 15 July. The family was still living on Rotherhithe Road at the time of the 1891 cenus.
from Tooley Street
There are no further trade directory listings for William until 1895 when he appears in the Post Office Directory as a Newsagent at 15 Duke Street, London Bridge (which may refer to Duke Street Hill near the London Bridge railway station on Tooley Street in Southwark). The family had moved from Rotherhithe to 131 Tooley Street where their son Albert Edward was born on 31 July. He was baptised at St Olave in Southwark on 6 October and William’s occupation was listed as Newsvendor. The family was still listed at 131 Tooley Street in the 1901 census with William’s occupation as Tobacconist and Newsagent. Their five surviving children were still at home with eldest son William working at the Private Detectives Guild and fourteen year old Frederick as a Junior Clerk. It appears that William began operating his Tobacconist and Newsagents shop from their home address at 131 Tooley Street between 1895 and 1907 when he once again appears in the Post Office Directory.
They were still there at the time of the 1911 census which confirms that he operated his business from the ground floor shop while the family occupied seven rooms above. Only two of their children, Emma and Albert, remained at home and Emma Jane’s 82 year old mother, Catherine Sibrey, was also living with them. Their son James was employed as a Travellers Tobacconist and living in lodgings in Kingston, Surrey. William, known as Bill, had left home years earlier when he joined the army and in 1911, he was serving as a corporal in the Middlesex Regiment in Aldershot, Hampshire. Frederick joined the army, the Northumberland Fusiliers regiment, several years after his brother William and he was posted to South Africa soon after.
In September 1911, Emma Jane suffered serious injuries after falling from an upper window of their house when she leaned out to see who was at the front door below. She was taken to the London Hospital in Whitechapel but died several days later as a result of her injuries.
jessie farwell yarnold
William remained in the house on Tooley Street and managed the house and shop with help from his daughter Emma. On 10 February 1918, William married Jessie Yarnold, a widow 25 years his junior, in the chapel at Southwark Cathedral. Jessie, nee Farwell, was born in Worcester on 12 February 1882 and married Francis Yarnold in Worcester in 1902. They had three daughters, Lilian born in 1905, Ellen born in 1907 and Florence in 1909. Jessie and her daughters were boarding with George Yarnold in Southwark in 1911 but Francis was not living with them nor has his death record been located. It is not known if William legally adopted his step-daughters but when Lilian and Florence married, they were registered under the name Mallandain.
Six months later, his daughter Emma married John Stewart Robertson at St Saviour with St Peter, Southwark on 5 August 1918 with her brother Bill acting as a witness. John was born in London in 1889, the son of John Whitelaw Robertson, a chiropodist. Emma and John had one daughter, Evelyn, born on 11 August 1919.
Albert married Violet Stone in Lambeth in 1924 and they had two daughters. Their first daughter, Pamela Violet Phyllis, was born in St Olave in 1925 but died only two years later and she was buried at Nunhead Cemetery on 10 February. Their second child, Daphne Violet Joan, was born in St Olave in 1927. Albert also ran a tobacconists shop and appears in the London Post Office Directory from 1928 operating a shop under the name of AE Mallandain & Co on Jamaica Street in the Tower Hamlets. By 1932, he had also taken over his father’s shop at 157 Tooley Street but he closed the Jamaica Street shop two years later although he was listed in the Post Office Directory on Tooley Street as late as 1943. In 1939, he was travelling to customer sites as a Wholesale Tobacconist and in 1939, he was staying at 58 Rovel Road, Bermondsey while his wife and daughter were at home at 1 Burlington Gardens in Portslade by Sea in Sussex.
When William retired, he sold his shop and bought a house at 2 Park House in Camberwell. He died there on 16 January 1930 and he was buried at Nunhead Cemetery on 22 January. His estate went to probate over a dispute regarding the validity of a second will that Jessie claimed to have found after William’s death which left small legacies to his children and the remainder of the estate to her. William’s children contested the validity of the will and claimed that his signature had been forged. A handwriting expert was called as a witness and testified that the signature on the will did not match the undisputed signatures of the deceased and the judge ruled that there was not enough evidence to confirm the validity of the second will and granted probate based on the first registered will which left the majority of the estate to William’s children. The judge also declared that there was not enough evidence to prove that Jessie had forged the will or William’s signature. William’s estate, valued at £3667 in 1930, would have a comparitive value of almost £200 000 today.
Fred stayed in South Africa before returning to England in the 1920s. He married late in life, aged 48 years, to Anne Bindoff on 24 December 1934 at the Southwark Registry Office. Annie was born in Newcastle in March 1906, the daughter of Henry Forster Bindoff and Margaret Henderson Anderson. At the time of their marriage, Frederick was living at 19 Bath Terrace, Union Road, London and was employed as a Newspaper Representative. Fred and Annie had two children and the family lived in Kennington Lane, close to his brother Bill, for many years. During the second World War, Fred served as a Reserve Constable at Woolwich Arsenal. He died of cancer at Lambeth Hospital on 25 October 1947 and his wife died 2 February 1981 in Tindal Hospital, Aylesbury from multiple sclerosis.
James also followed in his father’s footsteps and ran a tobacconist and newsagents in Southend on Sea in Essex for many years. When he was 59 years old, he married Lilian Higgins in Westminster in 1947 but they did not have any children. He died in Leigh-on-sea, Essex on 18 January 1971 followed by Lillian on 26 December 1978.
In the 1950s, Albert and Violet settled in Ealing, a borough to the north west of London. Their only daughter, Daphne, married John Smee at the Church of the Ascension in Ealing in August 1952 and they had two children. Albert died in Ealing on 17 January 1982, Violet in Uxbridge on 31 December 1993 and their daughter Daphne died of cancer in 2008; she was predeceased by her husband John in 1997.
Emma Maud and her husband, John Robertston, lived in Bermondsey for many years. Their daughter, Evelyn, married at the end of the second world war to a pilot serving with the New Zealand forces in England. She emigrated to New Zealand and lived near Wellington for many years. Following John Robertson’s death in 1951, Emma Maud also emigrated to New Zealand and lived with her daughter until her death in 1962. Evelyn died near Wellington in 2013.