The Molcock Family👒🎩

These two CDVs are just so lovely and a bonus to have names on them both.

It didn’t take me too long to research and find a matching family for the two children.

May Dorothy Molcock was born on 16 May 1890, so the photo above was taken in 1892. In 1921, May Dorothy was living with her sister Annie Louisa and husband James Young Patterson at 5 Wyndham Crescent, Islington. She was a Typist working for the Associated Equipment Company, which was a British vehicle manufacturer known for producing Buses, Motor Coaches and Trucks from 1912 to 1979.

May married Cecil A Gurrin, an Auctioneer Valuer and later an office manager, in April 1924 in Middlesex. May and Cecil had two children, a girl, Denise and a boy, Anthony. Denise married Frederick George Earthey, and they had one son.

May Dorothy died on 17 January 1974 in Surrey at the age of 83. Her husband Cecil had died in 1958.

Charles Stanley Molcock was born on 13 July 1888, so this photo was also taken in 1892, possibly at the same time.

Charles Stanley Molcock was born on 13 July 1888 in Islington, Middlesex.

He married Dorothy Leech on 27 July 1912 in West Hackney Church, Hackney. The couple had one daughter, Doreen Mary, who married Alan Marshall, a master builder, in 1933, and they had two sons and one daughter.

I had a quick look at the Gazette online to see if there was any mention of Charles; it’s free to search, and I was really surprised when this result popped up! I should do it more often! Link here: The Gazette

Charles Stanley Molcock changed his surname on 20 February 1923.

If a deed poll was enrolled in the Supreme Court, it was very likely advertised in The London Gazette, especially from 1914 onwards. To find records of surname changes in the UK, you can also check resources like the National Archives for deed poll records (particularly for those enrolled between 1851 and 1903), and the Royal Courts of Justice for more recent changes. You can also explore The Genealogist’s Change of Name Database (a paid subscription is needed), which includes records from Acts of Parliament, Royal Licences, and newspaper notices.

A Large Molcock Family

Both of these children, May and Charles were born to William Molcock and Mary Jane Rodway; astonishingly, they were the youngest two of eighteen children born to the couple!

Here are the eighteen children, with just two boys dying very young, John Henry and Francis George.

On the marriage record of William and Mary Jane below, it says that William Molcock was a ‘Millwright’ in 1862. Which is a bit strange and I think could be incorrect, as on the 1861 census, before his marriage, it says he was a Cloth Draper just like his father John. Then in 1871, now married with children, he is still in the cloth industry, but the family have now moved to Westminster, London.

On the 1881 census, the Molcock family had moved to St Pancras, Marylebone. William must have been doing well in his trade of Clothworker, as the two girls were still at home helping their mother and had not been sent out to be servants like so many large families back in Victorian times.

Did William belong to the Worshipful Company of Clothworkers, which could trace its origins back to the 14th century? I have looked at their online register, it’s free, but I couldn’t find him. Here’s the link to their website if you want to search it for your own research: Clothworkers

In 1891, William and his family had moved again to Islington, Middlesex. This was considered to be a more desirable area to live than Saint Pancras at the time, so William was working hard and improving his family’s conditions as the years went by.

Molcock family on the 1891 census page 1

Molcock family on the 1891 census page 2

On page 2, you can see that the family now have a Nurse Maid and a General Servant. Charles Stanley, known as Stanley and May Dorothy are also on this census for the first time.

On 30 May 1899, William died aged 57. He left over £2,000 in his will, worth £223,229.00 in today’s money.

Mary Jane, by the time of the 1901 census, was sharing a house with another widow with children, and she was back in Saint Pancras, a cheaper area to live. Looking at the records it seems that all the boys went to private schools.

Mary Jane died on 20 June 1906 at 26 Windsor Road, Westcliff on Sea in Essex. She was 61 years old. Her youngest child, May Dorothy, was 15 when she died, and she went to live with her eldest sister, Annie Louise and her husband and family.

Mary Jane Molcock probate record

Charles Stanley was no different from his older siblings, as in 1901, he was in a private school in Lee, Lewisham, London, all the children received a good education, and Charles went on to be a Commercial Traveller in Millinery. By 1911, he was also using the surname Molock.

Here’s the direct link to the public family tree I have compiled for the Molcock family on Ancestry: The Molcock Family Tree

On this First World War record, below, from Find My Past, he is recorded as being Molcock, alias Molock. He joined the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS), which was the air arm of the Royal Navy, on 10 October 1916. Charles was transferred to the RAF reserves on 5 February 1919 and discharged on 30 April 1920. As you can see, he gave his occupation as a Motor Driver. His occupation in the RAF was an Aviation Mechanic. 273 Squadron RAF was a Royal Air Force squadron based in Norfolk/Suffolk and formed as a reconnaissance unit in World War I.