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John Stanfield - Can anyone help?

By Chris Herbert |
General Genealogy

Can anyone help? We are having difficulty tracing:

John Stanfield living at 20 Salisbury Street, Everton

In December 1873 and listed as a Shipwright

The mother is stated as Mary Stanfield (formerly Rigby)

This information taken from a Birth Certificate (of his child, also John)

 

Cannot link any (John Stanfield) birth to him (conclusively)

Cannot find him in 1871 or 1881

Cannot find his marriage

 

Also, being a ‘Shipwright’ would he be listed in any

Shipwright Records such as Apprentice / Employment / Dock Workers etc.

The 1873 Electoral Roll has Charlotte Malam living at 20 Salisbury St, she was a Midwife.

 

If that address is on the birth certificate, the mother probably went there to be in safe hands.

I don't know whether you would be able to confirm that this is definitely not your young John, but there is a Workhouse entry

353 SEL/24/1 Creed Register Kirkdale Industrial Schools

No. 3944, School Register Number 1417, Date of Entry and Admission 19 July 1878, Name Surname and First name Stanfield (U.M.C.) John, Age 3, Father Destd . Mother D? From Whence Admitted Workhouse, Religion Protestant, Name of Informant Governor Workhouse, Discharged or Died 31 Dec 1879, Remarks  Unknown Boarded Out.

There are a few other admittances which may or may not be the same child, between Kirkdale Industrial School and Mill Road and apparently given for adoption but it may not have worked since he came back, but the age is a little more out of kilter, but could actually be the above boy, who may be a year or so out as your child.

If he was taken into the Workhouse system it could explain why you have no details about his father.

I'm thinking this child has been in and out of the system, a later entry for April 1885, discharged 9 October 1885, discharged to School, references in the comments "See 19 July 1878 - 3944 Kirkdale" so definitely the same as seven years earlier.

If you think this has any merit I would suggest that you take out a two week free trial of Findmypast and delve more deeply into these records.

BUT it could also be confused with a young John Stanfield who died in 1885 with a similar birthdate.

Thank you so much for such a thorough response. We can confirm that John b.1873 is right. We believe that he was picked up by the Bell Man in or around Kirkdale when he was about 3/4 years old and was in and out of the Workhouse/Industrial School until he was about 11 years old. We think that he was then sent up to Blackburn to work at Harwood Colliery.

What we are struggling with, is where his mother (Mary Rigby) and father (John Stanfield) were before or after he was born. One issue that we have, is that anecdotally from and old aunt, young John was abandoned in Kirkdale by John/Mary, who set sail for America, leaving him behind.

We are looking at Births/Census/Marriage/Passenger Lists for both John and Mary, to try and find them. We have both Find My Past and Ancestry and have been searching for these two, for many years. No luck yet!

Thanks again.

 

I seem to have been on the right lines with young John, to find a parent often it's useful to follow what happened to the children so as to look all round a situation and not just search for an individual in isolation, but we didn't know about the suspected abandonment, however the entry against the father "Destd" seems to concur that he was deserted.