A Victorian Scandal - Cruelty to Children: The Vicar of Ruyton-XI-Towns

Hi Tom,

Do you subscribe to Ancestry website or have access to it in a local library? If so, then do a "Search All Records" on Charlotte May HARRIS born 1886 +/- 2 years. That will lead you to birth and baptism records in Birmingham for Charlotte May HARRIS born in the district of King's Norton in 1887, the daughter of Robert and Alice HARRIS. But also it gives a link to the 1901 and 1911 Census records for Charlotte May. In 1901 she was living with her sister Beatrice in a (sisterhood). S. Scholastic School in Oxford. In 1911 Charlotte May was living as a boarder with a 28 & 30 year old couple in the Aston district of Birmingham. Her sister Beatrice had moved to London where was working as a Nurse at the Paddington Infirmary, London.

You will need Charlotte May's 1887 birth record to determine what happened next. But my gut feel is that she never married, was working as a Shorthand Typist in Hendon in 1939 (National Register) and died in the Hastings area in 1988 aged 101 ! If this is Charlotte, then she left an estate not exceeding 70,000 pounds. The birth date of this lady is the same as that on the 1939 National Register.

I haven't been able to trace Beatrice after the 1911 Census, so may have to wait until the 1921 Census is available to narrow down possibilities.

If you look on Findmypast and search the newspapers section for Charlotte May HARRIS you will find reports of the court case in several Shropshire newspapers, but also in The London Daily News and a couple of other regional newspapers.

Hope this helps.

Phil Poole

Thanks, Phil. I will follow up on that information and add a quick tag to the blog in a few days. Much appreciated. Tom. 

Thanks to Phil Poole's research, the story of the Vicar of Ruyton has been updated.

https://victorianclericalerrors.blogspot.com/2019/06/revolting-cruelty-to-children.html