Louisa & Charles FORD deaths
27/03/09 12:49
I cannot find Louisa and Charles’ deaths ANYwhere. They are Addi’s grandparents. Charles was the river policeman; Louisa is born in Chertsey. At Who Do You Think You Are’s show in March I trawled through the probate records looking for a will Charles may have made from 1912 till 1930 but no luck. No FORD deaths in Greenwich, which is where they would have been registered if they’d stayed in Rotherhithe. THEN... I was looking through BMD on Ancestry.co.uk for Louisa FORD using birth years as a filter, and find a Louisa FORD death in Epsom in 1929. It then clicks... I remember Addi talking about her grandmother (or at least someone on her mother’s side of the family) dying in a nursing home (or possibly an asylum?) in Surrey. I vaguely remember Epsom mentioned, so I have ordered the certificate to check. In the meantime I looked up asylum hospitals in Epsom and it seems there were several, all built to cope with an increase in London of people needing care or mental institutionalising. More info here, but I wonder if she did end up in care, as an elderly person, or if she was somehow mentally ill. Would explain her daughter Daisy’s demise, particularly as she loses her husband (Frank PHILLIPS) the same year. I then got all excited because the London Metropolitan Archives have all the records of the patients at these hospitals, including treatments, admissions, behaviour etc.. but when I went to find references on their website I find out patient records are closed for 100 years after their death... 
So I’ll have to wait until 2030 to find out more about Louisa’s stay there. I imagine it’s to preserve dignity and especially protect the family from the huge taboo of mental health problems.
I then searched for Charles FORD again, and there’s no death in Epsom but there is one matching his birth year in Plymouth. His son Captain FORD is living in Plympstock St Mary in 1911; could it be that Charles (and possibly Louisa) goes to live with him? He dies in 1926, three years before Louisa. This is all dependent on the certificates - they arrive next Saturday.
So I’ll have to wait until 2030 to find out more about Louisa’s stay there. I imagine it’s to preserve dignity and especially protect the family from the huge taboo of mental health problems. I then searched for Charles FORD again, and there’s no death in Epsom but there is one matching his birth year in Plymouth. His son Captain FORD is living in Plympstock St Mary in 1911; could it be that Charles (and possibly Louisa) goes to live with him? He dies in 1926, three years before Louisa. This is all dependent on the certificates - they arrive next Saturday.
