Shep's Place Family Tree

William was just fourteen years old when his mother Mary Fosbrook Carey died in 1829. He was 19 when his father remarried Esther Cook; but by then William would have been well into his printer's apprenticeship.

In the winter of 1838, two weeks before Christmas, William married Harriet. What was her surname? How did they meet? Harriet was born in West Horsley, Surrey.

In the 1841 census William F. and Harriet, both 26 years, lived on Grantham Street in Lambeth borough, Surrey ‎(Parish of Newington Saint Mary)‎. Their first baby William ‎[Mason]‎ was just seven months old. William's occupation was that of printer.

The occupations of others in their neighbourhood were very varied: coal dealer, laundress, furrier, tea dealer, mercantile clerk, stock broker, printer header, compositor and draper.

In the 1851 English census taken in Peckham, Surrey, we find the William Fosbrook Carey family living at 62 Stanton Street, Old Kent Road. In parenthesis it appears to say "2 Christian cottages." William and his wife Harriet were both 36 years old and had a family of five children who were born every two years: William Mason ten, Eustace eight, Harriet six, Edmund four and Margaret Lassam Carey two. The three oldest children were scholars. They also had a visitor in the household, Richard John Cormack ‎[or Connick]‎, aged 24, who like William was a "Printer's Reader" ‎[which I suppose is the equivalent of an editor or proofreader]‎.

William's father Eustace Carey died in Camden Town ‎(London)‎ in 1855 and was buried in the old section of the Highgate Cemetery in Highgate village.

By the 1861 census, the Careys had moved to Kensington in London where their address was 17 Brunswick Terrace. William's occupation was Printer and Bookseller. He and Harriet, both 47 years old, had eight children under the age of twenty.

Their children were William M. 20, Harriet 15, Edmund 13, Margaret L. ten, Emily and Mary F. ‎[I think that they were not both seven]‎ seven, Peter five and Annie three years.

Occupations of some neighbours were Tobacconist, Coachman and Stableman. The Careys lived next to the mews.

Still in Kensington but a different address in 1871, the Careys lived at 71 Peckham Grove near Southampton Court. William and Harriet, both 56, still had a house full of offspring plus a daughter-in-law.

Edmund 24 years with no occupation given, had married Elizabeth Mary Copsey, 23 years, who was born in Norfolk. Also at home were Margaret 24; Mary 19, Milliner; Emily 17, Dressmaker; Peter 15, Lawyer's junior clerk; and Annie 13.

William F. died in March 1880 most likely in Kensington, but I don't know that for sure.