THE BAYLISS FAMILY IN 1881 : ANATOLA ROAD

Picture of the Victorian houses in Highgate New Town

just before demolition taken from the top of Archway

Tower.  Part of Anatola Road can be seen on the left of

the picture with Magdala Road on the right. Girdlestone

Road runs between them. Whittington Hospital is on the

right of the picture.

In the1881census Charles Bayliss was still living (as he would for the rest of his life) at 24 Hanley Road - soon to have its name changed. Hannah is still alive (she would die in 1887) and Elizabeth Ann is at home again - although she may have still been working as a domestic and just visiting her parents on census day. His son, Charles William and his wife Nancy had left Hanley Road West and for a while lived in Cottenham Road but by 1881 he had moved to 7 Anatola Road.  This street was situated on the left of Highgate Hill below the Whittington Hospital. Known at the time as Highgate New Town the area was mainly populated by people who had moved en masse from Somers Town, north of Euston Station, when many of the streets had been cleared to make way for the advancing railway. It is possible that Charles Bayliss actually owned the lease on the house in Anatola Road (he certainly did by the time of his death in 1898) where Charles William was living. The census tells us that, besides Charles William and his wife Nancy, the family now included Louisa (working as a laundress), Albert Charles (Plasterer's boy working with his father), Harry, Maude, William and George. There would be one more son born a few years later - my grandfather (possibly yours as well or at least you direct ancestor) Herbert. In later posts we will look into the lives of these children (and in Herbert's case quite considerable) detail.

Another view, this time showing Brunswick Road

Opposite number 7 Anatola was number 6, the home of the family of Oliver Dumayne, his wife Annie (ex Price) and their daughter, Minnie Rebecca. They were originally from Wales and had recently moved to Anatola Road from nearby Hargrave Park Road (later simply Hargrave Park) where Minnie had been born.Oliver was a police constable.  Minnie and Albert Charles Bayliss (Charles William's eldest son) became childhood friends and would marry in 1892.  Another significant event of the 1880's took place in nearby Annesley Road; this was the birth of Esther Abbotts in 1885. We will return to the Abbotts family in a future post.

Jack the Ripper

Some of the most dramatic events of the 1880's took place on the other side of London in the autumn of 1888 - the Jack the Ripper murders.  My late partner, Terry (Theresa) Burkett had a distant connection with these murders.  Her second great grand uncle, John Thomas Stride, was born in Sheerness, Kent in 1821.He was a carpenter by trade and in 1869 at St.Giles in the Field, London he married Elizabeth Gustafsdotter.As her name suggests Elizabeth was Swedish by birth, born in 1843.  By 1865 she appeared on Swedish police records as a prostitute. She came to England to work as a domestic servant.

Elizabeth Gustafsdottor Stride in 1872

Her marriage to John Thomas Stride seems to be an on off affair and they separated several times but reunited in 1881 when they appear on the census living at 69 Usher Road in Bow, East London. John Thomas would die in the East London Sick Asylum in 1884 after which Elizabeth drifted into Whitechapel where she survived working as a house cleaner, seamstress and sometime prostitute and was known as "Long Liz Stride". She took up with a man named Michael Kidney. On the night of 30 September 1888 she was seen by several witnesses outside Dutfield's Yard in Berners Street, Whitechapel.  She seems to have had an argument with a man (possibly Kidney) but the man left. Later that evening a cart driver taking his horse and wagon into the yard found Elizabeth's body. Her throat had been cut. Many believe that she was the third victim of the notorious Jack the Ripper and that the killer was still in the yard. Disturbed by the arrival of the cart driver the Ripper slipped away. Frustrated by his inability to carry out his usual mutilations, he traveled across Whitechapel into The City where he claimed his fourth victim. I personally subscribe to the theory that "Long Liz" was the victim of either a domestic (Kidney has been suggested as a possible suspect) or of a violent attack by one of her pickups.

Berners Street, Whitechapel (now Henriques Street).

The cartwheel on the wall marks the entrance to

Dutfield's Yard

Contemporary artist's impression of the

discovery of Elizabeth's body.

Whatever the truth about Elizabeth's death she has a place in history as one on the five "canonical" victims of The Ripper. She was buried on October 6th in grave 15509 (Square 37)  at the East London Cemetery in Plaistow where it can be seen today.