James HAM (c1841-     ) married Sarah Matilda MARTIN (1841-1915) in 1862 and had 8 children of which 2 died in infancy.

At the time of the 1891 Census John & Sarah were living at 6 Stanbury Road, Peckham with 4 of the children, viz. Mary (who was shown as Mary Ann although there was no mention of Ann in her birth registration or baptism details), Arthur, Ann (known as Annie) and Albert (known as Bertie).

Mary had married John SMITHWHITE in 1888 and the two of them together with their one-year-old son were listed as a separate household at that address.

The two surviving children of James and Sarah who were not at No. 6 were James Thomas HAM (who had married in 1886 and moved to Henslowe Road, a mile or two away, where they were lodgers with another family) and Sarah Amelia who had married Alfred Charles GRAY and was living 3 doors away from her parents at 12 Stanbury Road.

Sarah Amelia presumably didn’t like her names since she married as Nellie Sarah HAM and was listed in the 1891 Census as Nellie (she was still Sarah in 1881).   In the 1901 Census she is shown as Helen (but this may be the enumerator assuming that Nellie was a diminutive of Helen).   Her death in 1935 was registered as Nellie Sarah GRAY.

There are lots of changes in Stanbury Road by 1901.   The family no longer occupies number 12 but now has No. 8 where the GRAYs head up one household and Arthur (previously at No. 6) and his wife, Ellen, and son make up the other.

James and Sarah are still at No. 6 as are Annie together with husband William Frederick FENNER and Bertie.

Strange things have happened to the SMITHWHITEs: John and Mary have disappeared.   They may be ‘away’ but I cannot find them anywhere in the 1901 Census (nor for that matter the 1911 Census) and nor can I find any relevant registrations of death.   They have left behind 2 children and the elder is with John & Sarah and the younger is with the GRAYs.

Alfred GRAY is a bit of a mystery as I cannot find any birth registration matching the details in the Censuses etc.   He was 24/34/44 in the 1891/1901/1911 Censuses (i.e. giving year of birth as 1866/7 but was stated to be 82 when his death was registered in 1951 i.e. 1868/9).   He was 22 when he married Nellie in 1888 (=1865/6) and at the time of his second marriage in 1935 (see below) he was 66 (=1868/9). The 1921 Census gives his age as 52Y 8M but as the ages of other members of the household are inaccurate this is quite unreliable. The 1939 Register gives his date of birth as 8/8/1869.

His second wife was Amy Mabel HAM (known as Mabs) who was his niece by marriage, the youngest child of John Thomas HAM. This took place only weeks after the death of his first wife and added to the fact that he had been living with Mabs prior to the marriage this did not go down well with the family – not to mention the difference in age (about 30 years)!