27 All Saints Road – possibly where it all started after “the boat”.
Following my 1921 census and street trawling research in the spring, which, with enormous difficulty, discovered my Harris family disguised (through erroneous transcription from hell) as the Rossiter family…
…my cousin Angela Kessler (née Harris) leapt in to the research fray and started uncovering all manner of wonderful stuff about our family’s earliest steps towards and in the UK.
Let’s start with the family legend that my grandfather Harris (aka Herz aka Hescha) set off for America but ended up in London due to a relatively minor infection/illness on arrival at Ellis Island that resulted in him being turned away from the USA.
On the above document Angela found Herz Russinov on a ship’s manifest setting off from Hamburg 6 May 1911, but clearly not for a USA destination as this is not a USA manifest. Left hand column just over half way down, record 518, listed as a 22 year old shneider (tailor).
Angela also found Hersch Russinov on a USA bound ship out of Rotterdam on 12 May 1911. He’s third from bottom on this manifest, listed as a “Hebrew” from Vilnius, aged 23. It states that his occupation is tailor, that his wife’s name is Hesha (Grandma Anne’s real name) and that the wife hails from Minsk province. This ticks our family boxes.
Uniquely on this page, no destination in USA is listed for Grandpa Hersch. Instead, in very small print, you can see a stamp that says “hospital” and “discharged” just above the hand-written word “tailor”. This does seem to prove the family legend.
One intriguing aspect of the boat records is Grandpa’s stated age; 22/23 years old. For the 1921 census and subsequent documents he had added 6 or 7 years to that age. It seems unlikely that he would have pretended to be younger than he really was for the journey, unless there was some financial/regulatory incentive so to do. It seems more likely that he added a few years subsequently, perhaps to suggest more gravitas and/or experience than was actually the case. Either way, “naughty Grandpa, cousin Angela caught you out”.
Cousin Angela also found traces of our family’s early years in London, before my father’s arrival, via birth records, in 1919. For example, Angela found the following directory entry in a 1915 trade directory:
Just in case that isn’t good enough for you to prove that this is “our” Harris Russinov, she also found her father (Alec) and our Uncle Manny in the following School Board register:
These records (around 20 rows down), which we believe to be Pulteney Street School, show seven-year-old Uncle Alec there between April 1915 and October 1915. He was previously at Lancaster Road School, near All Saints’ Road.
In early January 1916 Uncle Manny, not yet five, is removed from Pulteney Street and switched to Marylebone. Intriguingly, that Schools Board record says that Uncle Manny had attended no previous school, but the following record suggests that Uncle Manny had a very short stay at Lancaster Road School as a four-year-old.
At the time of the Pulteney Street School Board records, our family address is stated as 13 West Street, which, as Angela’s detective work ascertained, is now Newburgh Street (near Carnaby Street). Possibly Uncle Manny’s January 1916 school switch to Marylebone coincides with the family moving to Upper Marylebone Street.
It was time for me to take a stroll.
27 All Saints’ Road is, at the time of writing, Amanda Thompson Couture, despite retaining (presumably due to planning laws) the old Treggs Grocery sign. It seems to me, if retaining old signage is the rage, that the Treggs sign itself should be excavated to see if there is a Harris Russinov The Chandler sign underneath.
It is interesting that a tailor would have a go as a chandler during the Great War. I suppose there was not much business for a tailor at that time, with the men almost all away at war.
I suspect also, with the family moving around at that time, that it was struggling somewhat to settle. Still, it was a surprise to find the family in Notting Hill so early in their time in the UK. I have always thought of Notting Hill as MY stomping ground.
Above is Uncle Alec’s (and very briefly Uncle Manny’s) Lancaster Road School – now a Virgin Active Health Club.
As for 13 West Street, aka Newburgh Street, that building remains – majorly repaired perhaps but not replaced – and looks rather splendid now:
I don’t suppose the burgeoning Harris Russinov family occupied all of this premises, but who knows? There was a war on and perhaps they were engaged temporarily to “shop sit” for someone.
Now that I have disambiguated Upper Marylebone Street and New Cavendish Street numbering, I can confirm that the Harris Russinov family then took up residence at 4 Upper Marylebone Street, which is now 162 New Cavendish Street. Another building that appears to have been majorly repaired relatively recently, leaving its Fitzrovia slum days far behind.
Our guess is that the family settled there around 1916 and for sure they were settled enough by the end of the Great War to start expanding the family again. My dad was actually born in the above building on 11 August 1919.
Having only got to know them as middle-aged folk, it’s hard to imagine the Harris brothers as babies and/or mischievous school kids.
