A House Through Time. No 6 Roseville Street

A House Through Time. No 6 Roseville Street

Back in the late 1950s, when I was born, until the end of the 1960s, when we moved to St Brelade, we lived at number 6 Roseville Street. I’ve often enjoyed “A House Through Time” on TV, and thought it would be interesting to do my own research.

I started by look back at an early Almanac in 1910, when I find a Mrs Le Mottée down as the head householder:

1909 sees a Mr J Warren, and then from 1910-1918 (as far as I went), “Mrs Wm Le Mottée”. But in fact that’s misleading. A custom, which we see in newspapers, magazines, and books, was to call the wife by her husband’s Christian name; hence this would be “Mrs William Le Mottée”. It seems strange to us today, but it is even present in the late 1950s books by John Wyndham.

The tradition of calling a woman by her husband’s name comes from an old legal practice that erased a woman’s identity, called “coverture.” This was a set of laws that said that a married woman’s identity was “covered” by her husband’s, and it meant that her legal rights were subsumed by her husband’s when she got married.

The legal doctrine of coverture was most prevalent in the 18th and 19th centuries, and it was phased out in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A 1963 stylebook for the Washington Post of 1963 decrees: “‘Mrs.’ is never used with the Christian name of a woman. It is Mrs. Walter C. Louchheim; Mrs. Louchheim; Katie Louchheim — NOT Mrs. Katie Louchheim.’” By 1989 it was largely fading from practice, although The Times continued the practice until 1999.

So who was Mrs W Le Mottée really? The 1911 census places her in Number 6 Roseville Street, as

Mrs W Lemottee [Mrs W Bishop], 47 years old, widowed. Her real name was Alice Elizabeth Bishop. She was the head of the household.

Her son William J Le Mottée was 18, single and a hosier’s assistant. Her daughter Adele B Le Mottée was 14 and a milliner’s apprentice. Her father James W Bishop, a widower, aged 77 also lived there. He was a cabinet maker, and is also recorded as “deaf and dumb” from birth. Elvina Wilson, her younger sister, aged 44, also a widow, and a milliner lived with them.

Regarding those professions, a hosier is someone who deals in hose (stockings and socks), or in goods knitted or woven like hose, such as undergarments, jerseys, cardigans, and the like. A milliner is someone who specialises in the sale of women’s hats.

There were also 4 boarders. John E G Binet, 47, also a widower, and a draper’s assistant. A draper was a person who sold textile fabrics (silk, linen, and cotton piece goods). Lily Binet, 11, his daughter who was still at school.

Like their landlords, they were all born in St Helier of Jersey parents, but that was not the case with Gertrude Gardner, 38, single, of “private means” and who had been born in Jersey but whose father had been born in St Peter Port, Guernsey. Finally, there was an immigrant, Ernest Hart, 20, single, who was a gardener and who had been born in Stoke Newington, London.

So a total of 9 people were living in number 6 Roseville Street. The building, as I remember it, has a basement room (which initially had a lodger when we lived there), ground floor rooms (kitchen, dining room, lounge), first floor bedroom, half flight bathroom and toilet, and two small bedrooms right at the top of the house, front and back. Clearly back in time from our day, some of those other rooms would have been used by the families as living and sleeping spaces.

It’s interesting too, to see how mortality had taken its toll. There are two widowers, two widows. And while one might expect Alice’s father, at 77, to be a widower, the two sisters are widows in their 40s, John Binet at 47, bringing up his daughter alone.

Various censuses enable us to go back a bit further. Alice was born in 1865 and married William Philip Le Mottée (born 1865) in 1892. They had three children William James (1893–1971), Adele Bishop (1897–) and Philip Bishop (1898). In 1901 her husband was still alive, but not by 1910. 1901 shows them living in Belmont Road, and the rest of Alice’s family who moved to Roseville Street are all there – children William and Adele, father Philip, sister Elivina (a widow at 34). There is no sign of her son Philip, and one suspects he had died in infancy.

By 1921, the family had moved out of Roseville Street to Royal Crescent, where Alice is now a “lodging house keeper”. William has moved out but Adele is still with her mother, now a 24 year old confectioner’s assistant at Voisins. Gertrude Gardiner is still part of their family group, listed as a “help”. There is one tenant at the property, three boarders, and two visitors (essentially temporary boarding there)

Thanks to the Occupation, and identity cards, we can trace their stories further down the line to 1941. Amazingly, Alice Le Mottée (nee Bishop) is still alive, living at 16 Royal Crescent. Alice’s daughter Adele, had not married in 1941, was living with her mother at the same address. Her occupation is listed as “supervisor. And the former lodger in 1911, Gertrude Gardner is also living at the same address! Obviously they had become close because her will (of 1947) names as her beneficiary as Adele.

In 1941, William James Le Mottée is now living at of Northwood, Main Road, St Clement. He is now married and an “outfitters manager”. His wife is Eva Blanche (nee Starling), and they have one 14 year old son Adrian James, born in 1927, a scholar in 1941, a bank clerk in 1943. Eva dies in 1966 aged 69. William died in 1971 at the ripe old age of age of 78, and was buried in St. Clement, Jersey.