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Uncovering My Maternal Grandmother’s Past: Florence Mabel Percival

“To begin at the beginning…”

In the summer of 2024 I started to seriously look into my family history. My daughter had started to build our family tree on Ancestry.co.uk. In fact, she had done more than ‘started’; she’d done an excellent job in laying the foundations for her family tree. But there were gaps. And I was conscious that since my parents had both died (my father in 2018, my mother in 2009) there were family stories, often half-remembered, that I had in my memories from childhood that perhaps my brother also shared, but perhaps not. I wanted to investigate and understand more. My impression is that this is not unusual; we all tend to have a sparse knowledge of family history from our grandparents and other relatives we meet in childhood. And then our own lives take over, and they are filed away in the dusty corners of our memories, to be remembered rarely, if at all.

So where to begin?  

Looking through some old photos by way of inspiration, I found a photo of my mother with her mother at what I’d understood to be my Mum’s 16th or 17th birthday dinner. ‘Nana’, as my brother and I called her, looked both radiant and elegant as she beamed out of the photo. It’s the end of the meal, coffee has been served. In the background you can see men in dinner jackets; both my mother and grandmother are wearing pearls and my grandmother is also wearing earrings,  a large ring, and a dress watch. It is a picture, ‘the very picture’ as the saying goes,  of late 1950’s middle-class prosperity. Posh even!

My memories of ‘Nana’

The Census Records

The first document I looked at was the 1901 census. There she is, listed as 3 months old, living with her father Benjamin Percival, mother, Florence Rowley Percival and brothers George, aged 4, and Benjamin Rowley, aged 2, in Chatham, Kent. Further investigation revealed that ‘Rowley’ was the maiden name of her paternal grandmother, Mary Rowley. 

I then looked at the next census record – from 1911. Nana is there listed as a 10 year old school girl. George, Benjamin Rowley and her father are also all listed as living at 26 Church Road, Gillingham. Her father’s occupation is listed as ‘engine fitter’ working in the dockyard. But there is no sign of her mother. Her father has remarried to Selina Jane Percival, 7 years his senior, and Nana had three much older step-siblings: Harry Thomas Petty, 27, also working as a ‘skilled labourer/ engineer’ in the dockyard, Rosa May Petty, 22, working as a laundry assistant, and Edith Gertrude Petty, 18, with no listed occupation. What had happened to her Mother?

A Dickensian ‘Twist’

And then I found something quite shocking. In the Medway Poor Law Union records on the 21st of December 1904, just after Nana’s 4th birthday, she, her father and two brothers were admitted into the poor house for pauperism. Her father is listed as ‘temporarily disabled’. Her mother is not listed. Presumably, her Father had been incapacitated either through disease or industrial accident and the poor house was the only social provision in such circumstances. Her mother had already gone, and aged 4  she is spending Christmas in the poor house. Possibly alone – the discharge document lists her as being in a separate building which makes sense as sexes were segregated. 

Christmas 1904, aged 4, on her own in the poor house, no Mother.  Dickensian.

Family Secrets Revealed

So what happened to her mother – Florence Rowley Latham?

In the 1911 census she is recorded as being married to John George Moins, 44, a Staff Sergeant in the army. They are living in Aldershot and are listed as having been married for 7 years. However, the England and Wales Marriage Registration Index lists them as being married in July 1919. 8 years later. But you’d hardly put ‘living in sin’ on the 1911 census, would you? I’ve tried looking for divorce records on Ancestry but nothing comes up.

And on the off chance I figured it was an unusual enough name that something may come up if I just put her name in Google. And it did.

I found this page on Wikitree about her. She was born in 1871 in Altrincham, Cheshire with her Mother listed as Mary but no Father. In the 1871 census she is listed as the daughter of John Latham, a Groom and 57 years old, and his wife Mary Latham aged 51. In fact it is clear she is the daughter of Mary Latham, John and Mary’s daughter, aged 22 and listed as a dressmaker. Did she grow up thinking her mother was her sister? Or did she never know? How disturbing to know you were illegitimate in these circumstances in the late 19th century. I can only imagine. 

In the 1891 census she is listed as a lodger, aged 20, living in Heaton Norris, Stockport and working as a Reeler in a Cotton Mill. In 1892 she married Benjamin Percival in Heaton Norris.

In 1894, they had had a son, William, who would’ve been Nana’s oldest brother, but he died aged 2.  By 1901 they were in Chatham, with Benjamin working as an Engine Fitter on the docks.

So that’s it for now. My happy, radiant and seemingly well-to-do Grandmother in the photo from the late 1950’s had come from very humble beginnings.

The First World War Naval Battle 

And what of the half-remembered story of the First World War naval battle, and the relative who returned as the family were in mourning?

Well, I’m pretty sure that was Rowley.

He’d joined the Navy in December 1913 with the rank of “Boy, second class”. His Naval record describes him as having fair hair, blue eyes, a fair complexion and being 5’ 0” tall.  By May 1916 he was a “Boy 1st Class” and is listed as having served on HMS Centurion, a King George V-class dreadnought, in the Battle of Jutland. He is listed here in the crew list. Being a boy did not mean you were kept out of harm’s way in the Royal Navy. Far from it. A post on this forum states that there were 1,426 casualties in WW1 for the rank of “Boy”, and one, Jack Cornwell, received a posthumous Victoria Cross for his bravery on HMS Chester in the Battle of Jutland.  This from his Wikipedia entry:

“After the action, medics arrived on deck to find Cornwell the sole survivor standing at his gun, shards of steel penetrating his chest, looking at the gun sights and still waiting for orders. Being incapable of further action, Chester was ordered to the port of Immingham. There Cornwell was transferred to Grimsby General Hospital, although he was clearly dying. He died shortly before 8:00am on the morning of 2 June 1916, before his mother could arrive at the hospital.”

No wonder Nana’s family feared Rowley had been killed. 

A Return to Civilian Life

Happily, Rowley returned to civilian life. In the 1921 census he is listed as a boarder, aged 23, living in Wandsworth Borough and was working as a timekeeper for C.J. Wills and Sons, a renowned firm of contractors and engineers, possibly on the Becontree Housing Estate.

In April 1922 he married Elsie Cook and they had 5 children; Joyce, Barbara, Roger, Marjorie and Dorothy.

In October 1931, aged 33, he died and was buried in Lewisham. I’m still trying to find out how, and what happened to his family after that.

Rest in peace Rowley. My Nana still lit up at your memory all those years later. I wish I had known you.