Adeline Philippa Jacobs

 

Comments by Dave Simpson – November 2010

Gerry’s research hinges on a couple of items.

1. The entry in the Jewish Chronicle regarding Ellen’s death
2. The 1871 census listing Leah, Adelaide and Emanuel in Brighton

 

1. Jewish Chronicle entry of 7th November 1913 (Ellen died on the 6

Only 5 children (Kate, Lil, Adeline, Lizzie and Lewis) are mentioned in the Jewish Chronicle notice rather than 11, Lil is actually Leah. This is evidenced in the 1891¹ and 1901² censuses

 

Now there are some logical reasons for not mentioning other children, the most logical is that they have died.

David died in 1899

Hannah died in 1912

Maurice died in 1913 before his mother.

Sarah – unknown

Matilda – unknown

Jacob (Emanuel?) – unknown

From this article we can confirm that Adeline is Ellen’s daughter and can find her in the BMD indexes as Adeline Philippa Jacobs born in Brighton in 1867

 

1. 1871 Census in Brighton

 This is the most difficult thing to prove or disprove.

 

The first problem we have is that there are 3 Jacobs children (Leah, Adelaide and Emanuel) in the 1871 census who are born and living in Brighton but not with their parents, so who do they belong to?

 

First let’s look at the BMD entries for the period:

Leah	(abt 1867)	Nearest is ‘our’ Leah	1865 Q3
Adelaide	(abt 1868)	Nearest is our Adeline Philippa	1867 Q1
Emanuel	(abt 1870)	Nearest is Manuel Serran	1869 Q3

 

Manuel Serran proves to be the son of Abraham & Rachel Jacobs³

Leah could well be Henry & Ellen’s

Adelaide could be a corruption of Adeline

 In the 1871 census there are 5 definite families of Jacobs, one of which is Henry and Ellen and so there could be a case for them to belong to any of these families.

 

Looking forward to the 1881 census our 3 children do not appear with any of the 6 families in Brighton (Henry and Ellen have moved to London by 1881) nor do they appear in Brighton at all.

Ellen has most of her children with her in 1881⁴ including a Leah which would fit, however there is no Emanuel and no Adelaide but there is a Jacob of a similar age to Emanuel, could they be the same person? We can place Adeline in the orphanage at this time⁵.

Why should Adeline be in an orphanage on her own? I find this a little strange, but Gerry has suggested that orphanages such as this would only take a single child from a family.

If a child were to be deserted by their father then I would have expected it to have been either the eldest or the youngest. At this time, taking into account who has left home or died, Leah would be the eldest and Lewis the youngest. However, given that it is neither of these and she is listed as ‘deserted by father’ is it worth considering that she wasn’t actually Henry’s?

 

Conclusion

I have followed all Gerry’s leads and traced the family as best I can and whilst I cannot find definitive proof that the 3 children in the 1871 census are who we think they are, I can find nothing to disprove it and on balance I believe that Gerry’s assumptions are correct.

I have attached the 1871 census to the 3 children with appropriate notes and hope that in the future some other information comes to light.

 References

1. 1891 Census RG 12-0239 F136 P11
2. 1901 Census RG 13-0083 F041 P02
3. 1891 Census RG 12-0813 F065 P16
4. 1881 Census RG 11-0612 F097 P17
5. 1881 Census RG 11-0630 F065 P07