Could These Be Alice Mackenzie's Relatives ?

[Gary Barnett]

I deliberately didn't include details of Alice McKenzie's death in the timeline because it's adequately covered elswhere. What might be useful, though, is to record how the limited biographical info provided by Alice's East End cronies after her death enabled the provincial press to identify her in 1889.

[Gary Barnett]

Alice first appears on the 1851 census, aged 6. The family’s address is simply ‘Minster Precincts’. The next household is in Gravel Walk.This map shows the house nos, they are a bit all over the place.

[Robert Linford]

It does look a mess re the numbering. But the pattern in 51 seems the same as in 71 - school, then one house (prebendary in 71) followed by Pitts.

[Robert Linford]

I tell a lie : there are TWO households between the school and the Pitts.

[Gary Barnett]

I tell a lie : there are TWO households between the school and the Pitts.

Perhaps there was a house attached to the Almoner’s Hall.

[Robert Linford]

On the enumerator's schedule it says 2 houses inhabited on page 3 (he hasn't counted the overrun from page 2) so it looks like two houses between the school and the Pitts. Weird.

[Gary Barnett]

On the enumerator's schedule it says 2 houses inhabited on page 3 (he hasn't counted the overrun from page 2) so it looks like two houses between the school and the Pitts. Weird.

The tiny house at the back of 19, then the Prebendal House, then the Pitts’ house attached to the Almoners Hall (small doors at far end - see link) then Gravel Walk?

https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Almoners_Hall_-_geograph.org.uk_-_671326.jpg

[Robert Linford]

Maybe, Gary. This is Clack territory. I once got lost at the top of a helter-skelter.

[Gary Barnett]

Maybe, Gary. This is Clack territory. I once got lost at the top of a helter-skelter.

Goad???

[Robert Linford]

There are maps at Peterborough Archives but may not give the house numbers. I've just forwarded you an email from them.

[Gary Barnett]

This is a great image of Peterborough in the 1860s.

Who is the old boy in the stovepipe hat?



Whoever he was, the chances are that Alice knew him.

[Gary Barnett]

Is this him again?

[Gary Barnett]

By 1871 Charles Pitts, aged 65, had given up his job as a postman and become a gardener, quite possibly working within the Minster Precincts.

[Gary Barnett]

By 1871 Charles Pitts, aged 65, had given up his job as a postman and become a gardener, quite possibly working within the Minster Precincts.

The Pitts family lived in the Minster Precincts for decades (40+ years from memory). Presumably the houses there were church-owned. Charles was originally a servant, so my guess is that he was at one time a church employee and for that reason was allowed to stay on in the house even after he became a ‘post office messenger’. Aged 65, he may well have tended the Cathedral grounds or the private gardens of some senior cleric or other.

The caption accompanying the second photo says:

A very old 1860s photograph taken from what appears to be an area behind what would today be Bishops Gardens.

I rest my case.��

[Debra Arif]

Wonderful photographs, Gary.