Individual's Report

May was born somewhere between 1885 and a888, although I have yet to be able to find the registration of her birth in the records. In the 1891 census she is found as a 6 year old living with her parents at the Castle Hotel, Castle Street, Berkhamsted. Her father is listed as a licensed vitraller, so is presumably the owner of the hotel. I believe that May is descended from the Swanborough family that ran the Strand theatre in London during the Victorian period and this is something that I hope to discover more about.
The 1901 census finds her as a sixteen year old living with her family at 39 Harders road, Camberwell London, although in this census her name is given as Mary Victoria.
I know she married a man by the name of Smith in 1908. From this marriage she had one son called Lennard or Leonard. I also know that her first husband was killed during the first world war.
On December 11th 1918, she married Alfred Leopold Dale at Lambeth registry office, and it is here that I encountered the first ambiguity with her age. Both the previous census data had approximated her as being born in 1885, but this certificate suggested a date of 1886, did she shed a year or two somewhere along the way? May had two children from this marriage.
She was the informant of the birth of her daughter (my grandmother) in July 1922 and at that time was living at 212 Stockwell Road in London, The same address as she gave on her marriage certificate to Alfred Dale.
May was widowed again when Alfred, her second husband, died in 1931. At this time she was living at 39 Somerleyton Road in Brixton, London. This was the address given by Alfred on his marriage certificate!
She was a witness to the marriage of her daughter to Ernest William Doust in April 1945.
On 7th June 1958 she married her third husband, Phillip Spicer, at Wandsworth Registry Office in London. Again we have some ambiguity with her age, for now she claimed to be 70 years old, knocking three years from what I suspect to be her real age. My grandmother always says that nobody ever really knew how old her mother really was, as it was a question she would never answer! At the time of this marriage she and Phillip both gave their address as 73 Temperley Road, London. Phillip had been a soldier during the first world war and had suffered a gas attack. I am told that he wasn't in the best of health when the couple married and that May's children were not too happy at the marriage fearing that their mother would end up nursing Phillip, and that it would be too much for her.
May died on March 29th 1965 at the home of her daughter, 4 Davidson Gardens, London. My mother can remember her nan 'being laid out' in the bedroom room of their flat for a day before her funeral.

I am told that she was a very likeable lady and that she nearly always had a cigarette in her mouth.