1911 infirmities

Happy 2013, everyone! I hope 2012 was a successful year for you with more to come in 2013.

When the 1911 census was initially released the information in the infirmity column was redacted (suppressed). In 2012, when the 1911 information was officially allowed to be released, this infirmity column became available. I've now got copies of all 387 household schedules for Wing and was keen to see what if anything was lurking in this column.

Below is a list of all Wing's infirmities. Note that some of these are unofficial - only "totally deaf", "deaf and dumb" "totally blind", "lunatic", "imbecile" or "feeble-minded" were supposed to be entered here along with age afflicted, but several of Wing's heads of household added extra information (crossed out by the census enumerator, of course, but never-the-less accessible). As always, we give a round of thanks to those that didn't follow instructions and gave us more snippets about their lives than we might expect!


Mary PAGE, age 85 - totally deaf was written but then crossed out. Mary's son D (David) Page filled out her schedule on her behalf, so I do have visions of 85-year-old Mary giving him what-for on discovering he had dared to claim she was deaf!

Sophia LATHWELL (nee THORNE), age 52 - feeble-minded. This wasn't mentioned in the 1901 census so perhaps this was degenerative, or perhaps her husband wasn't prepared to put this on record in 1901 but the head of household she was visiting in 1911 had no such compunctions.

Arthur FOUNTAINE, age 31 - fits since 16 years.

Daniel WHITE, age 69, and  daughter Sarah WHITE, age 41 - there appears to be some congenital defect at work here as Daniel is noted as deaf at 20, while Sarah was deaf at 16.

Emily STAPLES, age 60 - deaf and dumb from birth

Mary FINCHAM, age 71 - deaf 20 years. Mary wasn't a local pe se, she was the Suffolk-born mother of Essex-born James who was a domestic chauffeur. I can't imagine anyone other than the Rothschilds had vehicles to chauffeur at this point in time.

George LOVELL, age 60 - rheumatism. Thanks for sharing, George! He was a pensioned mechanical engineer, so I would think he found his complaint pretty frustrating.

Emma Jane TUTT, age 40 - totally blind at 30 yrs old. Emma's an import to Wing as well, her father George is a London & North-Western Railway pensioner from Sussex.

Benjamin PEASE jnr, age 28 - lame since 6. He works from home as a boot repairer.


Yes, I will be transcribing the 1911 census for Wing in full at some stage (the enumerator summary book is already on the website), however it's not a priority as this information is widely available from the major online genealogy websites. I'd rather focus on bringing you records that are more unusual - and in particular finishing the items on that Moving Target 2012 list which I shall now have to rename the 2013 list!