Vol. 1. Chapter 8 - Go as you please.

Three years after giving birth to Thomas in the Vinegar Yard Workhouse, the pregnant, Louisa married Henry Clark, 7 May 1877 in the church of St. Giles in the Fields. Later that year she gave birth to a son: Benjamin Clark. Probably due to the slum clearance, the family moved south of the Thames to Waterloo / Elephant and Castle. Unusually, Louisa and Henry’s first son, was not named after his father. This honour was to be given to their second son, Henry, born in 1878.

Their daughter Amelia followed in October 1883. By this time, the family was living at, 22 Lanfranc Street, Westminster Bridge Road. (Now the site of “The Perspective” – a block of luxury apartments) They lived here for the next 6 years as the family grew. John was born in November 1885 and Anna (Hannah) was born in October 1889.

Charles Booth the Historian describes Lanfranc Street as a poor area with many of the women employed as home-workers. He could hear the sound of their sowing machines from the road. On the corner was a “Beer House” looking for all the world like an ordinary dwelling, except for the small sign above the door.

The family then moved to 3 streets away to Charles Street. It was here that their daughter Ada Elizabeth was born, November 1889.

22 May 1893, Louisa, illegitimate son, Thomas Edward Ward married Alice Dudman (Skinny Granny) St. John's Church, Brandon Street, Newington. By September 1894, Louisa and Henry Clark had moved again and were living at 3 Morpeth Place, Waterloo Road. Opposite Waterloo Station. (Now a  Sainsbury’s Local)  It was there that Louisa gave birth to her 10th  child,  Francis Alice Clark, b 16 September 1894.

Morpeth Place seems to have been a temporary residence, because by the time her 11^th child, James, was born 14 April 1896, they were living back in Providence Place, only this time at Number 1.

1 Providence place seems to have been a settled time for the family, and the family continued to grow. Thomas Edward Clark was born 20 January 1897; Alfred was born in 1899; Sarah, 1901; Amelia, 25 December 1901; Charlotte, 10 February 1903, and finally child number 16, Daisy was born in 1907, when Louisa was 51 years of age.

At the outbreak of the First World War, the family moved to 16 Grainger Street. Grainger Street had a reputation and was known as “Go-as-you-please-street”. Plenty of rough characters lived here: coster’s and worse!  In 1915, Louisa’s husband, Henry dried. Louisa continued living at Grainger Street for the next 22 years, until called upon to care of her dying and widowed son, Thomas Ward.

Grainger Street is now part of the Friary Estate in Peckham

My mother, brought up in Vauxhall, had very little to do with the “Peckham” side of the family. But my mother had abiding memories of her “Fat Granny”. Mainly because her granny was so fat.

When fat granny came to stay, my mother, uncle Ben and auntie Eileen would spy on her and watch her get undressed. Mum, Eileen and Ben, as young children shared a bed, and would peep through the crack in the interconnecting door between their bedroom and Fat Granny’s. Fat Granny wore knickers the size of tents and brassieres like hammocks! 

Once Fat Granny fell down in the passage to the front door and got stuck between the walls. Alone in the house with her, the three young children couldn’t get her up. All they could do was to laugh helplessly. Much to Fat Granny’s wrath and bad language. They eventually managed to slip a stool underneath her, but had to wait for older siblings to come home from work to pick her up.

On another occasion, Fat Granny was sitting by an open window. All of a sudden she started screaming “Close the window, it’s raining!” More fits of laughter. The family cat was on the windowsill outside and had peed through the window onto Fat Granny!

Fat Granny had a very sweet tooth, and kept bags of sweets about her person. These of course were not to be shared with anyone, let alone grandchildren.  She had mastered the art of slowly reaching into the folds of her dress and surreptitiously slipping a sweet into her mouth. But like all children, mum, Eileen and Ben could detect the rustle of a paper sweet bad at 5 yards.  Granny, of course, always denied having sweets, no matter how engorged her chubby cheeks looked.