Blanche Stephenson

Alice Edgar's sister Blanche Stephenson was born on August 14, 1882 in Uckfield, and the 1891 Census shows her  at school in that town.

She's apparently missing from the 1901 Census: however, I suspect she is there, disguised by the difficult handwriting that gives us Blanche Hedenson (Ancestry) and Blanche Henenson (Find My Past). This Blanche is 18 years old, born in Uckfield, and is a maid at a school in Goring on the Sussex coast, just over 30  miles from Uckfield - the name might just as well be 'Stevenson' as the other two transcriptions.

In 1911 Blanche was head housemaid in the establishment of James Ferguson and Martha Cole at 52, Porchester Terrace, in Welling (Bexley) Kent. 

About 60 miles by foot

One thing I've learnt from studying Alice Edgar's family is that domestic servants tended to start off close to home but often moved around the country, probably through taking up positions with families who were friendly with their original employer.

On October 6, 1913 Blanche married Edgar Charles Williams at the mid-Victorian Parish Church of St. Paul, Tiverton (Devon). 

© Copyright Grant Sherman and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

He was seven years younger than her, a railway parcel-clerk of Station Road, Twyford (Berkshire). Like Blanche, his father was a gardener. There were four witnesses: T. H. (?) Williams (presumably the groom's brother), H. Abery (perhaps a relative of the groom), Eliza Stephenson (Blanche's mother) and Herbert E. Arnold. The last named was the husband of Blanche' sister, Bessie. This shows that Bessie moved to Tiverton not long after her marriage in 1912 (see the previous post). Her presence there was probably the reason the banns were called (September 21) and the marriage celebrated in Tiverton. Perhaps Eliza was living with her daughter and son-in-law - a couple of years later she was to move into the Windsor house of another daughter, Alice. I any case, Blanche's address is given as 2, Wellbrook Place - which I assume was the home of Bessie and Herbert, and is now probably Wellbrook Terrace. Edgar Charles William's address is given as Station Road, Twyford (Berkshire). He was born in the village of Great Bedwin in Wiltshire on September 14, 1890, and his birth was registered in Hungerford in Berkshire, and it seems that he and Blanche moved immediately to the latter county. In September 1914 Bessie had her only child, a son, Harry, whose birth was registered in Wokingham: Twyford is in this Registration District, so I think it highly likely that the Williamses moved back there and looked after Bessie during the period of birth. This also suggests to me that whenever in September this event took place, Herbert Arnold was already in the army so that Bessie needed the support of her sister.

Soon the couple were having children of their own. Blanche Hilary Williams was born in 1918 in Twyford. Charles Kingsley Williams was born in 1921, also in Twyford. They were still there in 1932 when Edgar Charles Williams is listed as a shareholder in the Great Western railway. When they moved, it was to a different part of Berkshire.

In 1939 the couple were living in Bourne Avenue, Windsor - just over a mile from Alice Edgar.

Charles was a railway goods clerk and their son Charles Kingsley was a  railway telegraph clerk. According to Wilfred Edgar, Mr. Williams Sr. gradually worked his way up the administrative hierarchy of the railway.

Blanche's death was registered in Windsor in 1948. Edgar Charles's death was registered in North West Surrey in the second quarter of 1969.