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Brentford Families - Tompkins

My g-g-g-grandfather William Tompkins, a carpenter, moved to Old Brentford from Chesham in Buckinghamshire. He’s listed in the 1841 census as living in Drum Lane with wife Ann and daughters Elizabeth, Margaret and Fanny.

In the 1851 census he’s still there with wife Ann, daughter Fanny, son John and grandson Harry. He’s listed in the Old Brentford section of Mason’s 1853 General Directory of Middx as a carpenter and his daughter Fanny (aged 16) as a milliner and dress maker. In the 1871 census, aged 73 and a widower, William is reported as being in Brentford Union Workhouse and he died in 1872.

My Gt Grandfather Harry Tompkins married Charlotte Odell (born in Brentford in 1858) whose family also lived in Drum Lane. 1861 census shows William (born in the Stevenage area) and Emma (born in Old Brentford but don’t know maiden name) Odell living there with Charlotte aged 2.

In the 1871 census the Odell family is listed as living in Paradise Place, Brentford, by which time Charlotte was in service in Kew, and in Boston Road in 1881. Harry and Charlotte Tompkins lived in Distillery Road where my grandfather Humphrey Tompkins was born in 1889. They later moved to Chiswick according to the 1901 census. Charlotte died in 1904. Humphrey Tompkins married my grandmother Edith Phillips in 1913 (marriage registered in Brentford). Humphrey Tompkins was killed in WWI in 1917 in Flanders.

Coincidentally, my mother moved to Somerset Road, behind The Butts in the mid 60’s where I lived until getting married in 1970.