I spoke about Walter James Bryer and his wife Phoebe Bishop in a previous post. In this article I want to cover what happened to Walter and Phoebe in later life. It is tale concerning “two Walters”, and it is not altogether a happy story.
The first family is named BRYER, the two main parties to this tale being Walter James BRYER and Phoebe BISHOP. Walter James was a London cab driver, born in 1845 in Newington to John Henry BRYER and Emma BERRY; as I said in my last post, Phoebe was the daughter of Robert BISHOP and Mary Ann ELY and had been born in the village of Dalham Suffolk in 1848. They married on 28 April 1867 at Trinity Church, Holborn. They had 9 children in total, 2 of whom did not survive childhood. One of these children was Rosina Jane (25 Jan 1867 – 1937), and she married Walter John HUDSON on the 19 September 1892 at Islington Register Office. The address she gave at the time of her marriage was 4 Rufford Street Islington, an area of high-density slum dwellings; this address will become relevant later!
The second family is named HUDSON, and as you can see the two families converged at the marriage of Rosina Jane and Walter John. Walter John (1867 – 1943) was the son of Walter HUDSON and Charlotte Ann MORRIS and was a Boot Last Maker by trade. Rosina Jane and Walter John were my great-grandparents, and there is another tale to be told of their lives, but for the moment I need to go back a generation, to Walter’s parents Walter and Charlotte Ann HUDSON and to Walter James and Phoebe BRYER.
Father Walter Hudson was born in 1845 in St Martin’s London. He was a Smith by trade who later turned to plumbing, fitting hot water and gas systems. He married Charlotte Ann MORRIS on 22 April 1867 at St Luke Chelsea; they had 6 children before Charlotte’s untimely death on 26 Feb 1881 at the young age of 33. Her last child was a daughter, Maud Vivian, born in 1878 (confusingly named Jane on the 1881 census).
So the families finally meet up in 1892 with the marriage of their children, or so it would seem. However, I was unable to find Walter James BRYER in the 1891 census; why was he not living with his wife or his daughter in Rufford Street? And where was Phoebe, she wasn’t in Rufford Street either. Well, I did eventually identify Walter James living in the Bethnal House Lunatic Asylum in Bethnal Green in 1891. And Phoebe was found in 1891 calling herself Phoebe Hudson and was living with Walter HUDSON (born 1845) and his daughter Maud, plus her youngest daughter Phoebe (born 1886) now named Phoebe Hudson. I can’t find any marriage for Walter and Phoebe, either before or after Walter James Bryer died in 1896.
It would appear that the families had converged a little earlier than I had assumed. Subsequent digging brought up this tragedy. On 3 July 1890, Walter James Bryer had been admitted to Ishmael’s Ward for alleged lunatics in Islington Workhouse, was assessed, and then committed on 5 July. The admission documents gave his wife’s name, Phoebe, and their address 4 Rufford Street, so it is definitely the right Walter James. Thereafter he was transferred to the Bethnal House Lunatic Asylum in Bethnal Green, where I found him in the 1891 census. So he was committed in July 1890, and the following April, at the time of the 1891 census, Phoebe was living with Walter Hudson and calling herself Mrs Hudson.
Walter James sadly died in 1896, in a psychiatric hospital called Claybury Mental hospital, or London County Lunatic Asylum, Ilford; this establishment existed as a hospital until 1997, but has since been converted into luxury flats called Repton Park. There is more information on the hospital itself in Wikipedia. The Wellcome Collection has a number of interesting photographs. The cause of Walter’s death was given as Exhaustion of General Paralytic Seizures. I’m not a medical expert, but this sort of illness sounds like a brain injury or tumour.
Walter and Phoebe continued living together, through the 1901 census and the 1911 census. Walter Hudson died 2 Jan 1919 at Westminster Hospital MDX, aged 73; his home address was given as 47 Mornington Road St Pancras. In the 1921 Census, completed for her by her son in law Thomas J PECK (daughter Phoebe’s husband), Phoebe was widowed and living alone at 47 Mornington Road NW1; Thomas got her birthplace slightly wrong (he put Bury St Edmonds not Dalham). Phoebe died 2 Oct 1924 at 47 Mornington Road St Pancras, MDX, aged 76.
It is hard piecing together the joys and tragedies that affected relatives distant in time though not in blood. I try to imagine what it must have been like living 11 to a couple of rooms (Rufford Street was a slum), sharing a sink and an outside toilet with half a dozen other families. 130 years may seem like a long time in human lifespan terms, but it is only 3 or 4 generations ago. Phoebe Bryer nee Bishop had a hard life, bringing up so many children in a dismal and depressing place; no wonder, when her husband and provider was committed with little prospect of a cure, she seized the opportunity to improve her life and that of her youngest child. I am surprised, however, that she does not seem to have married Walter Hudson, despite the fact they were both legally able to from 1896.
Family Group Sheets for the people mentioned:
Walter James Bryer and Phoebe Bishop
Things my grandma taught me 
