Really It all starts with Hettie, my grandmother. She was the first Peel I knew. But tracing her ancestry was a real pickle!

Her father was easy to find. On her birth certificate was William George. So that was easy. His father was not too hard – Alfred (born around 1854). There the mystery starts. there are records of him on William’s birth certificate and marriage certificate, and Alfred’s marriage certificate to Elizabeth Sophia Winkelmann was obtained but that was all. There was no birth certificate, no entries on any census and nothing else. Alfred’s profession was listed as “Seaman” so some of the omissions from the census could be explained by the fact he was at sea. It was not helped by the fact that Winkelmann had been mis-transcribed in several censuses and that did not help. But eventually they were all found. After almost a year I found Alfred’s death certificate. He died on 14 Nov 1881 at sea on the “City of London”, apparently drowned. Several records exist in the seaman’s register at the national Records office , and these list his place of birth as Liverpool. He was apparently a Chief Cook on the ships. However after huge amounts of searching, I still have not found his birth records.

There is one intriguing possibility. On 3 December 1854 in the workhouse, Liverpool Alfred Plege was born to Rose. This family came from France. The Plege family appears to be circus performers. If I am right, we come from a line of tightrope walking, clog dancers! But this family is itself a mystery and there is no father listed on the birth certificate. Rose later dies and there is no trace of her birth in France, so the mystery endures.

Now we can look a bit at the child of Alfred. His only son. William George.

William George Peel was born 25 December 1879 In Severn Street, St George’s in the East. He had a range of professions. He was a carman and an Ostler. He delivered beer for a brewery. Later he was a general labourer and finally when he retired he was a “Council Dust Collector”. He died in 1947. In 1899 he married Catherine Gunschmann, but her story is part of another chapter.

He had 4 children:

Elizabeth Lily Peel (Aunty Lily) was born in 1900 and died in 1983. She married Harry Ridgway and had one daughter.

Alfred William David Peel (uncle Alf) was born on 25th January 1903 in Stepney and died June 1984 in Tower Hamlets. He married Florence Amelia Perschky (Flo) in 1924 in Shoreditch and they eventually divorced.

His second marriage was to Harriet Hennchen (daughter of a German journeyman baker) known as Dolly on 25th March 1944 in the Registry Office in Stepney. At the time Alf was an L.AC. in the R.A.F. in Hornchurch. Their wedding pictures show him in uniform.

They adopted a niece of Dolly’s and when he died Dolly moved to Blackpool with the niece – Dorothy Hilda Trott. Dolly herself died in 1991.

Henrietta Agnes Peel (1905-1982) is my grandmother. She was born in Stepney and married Albert Singer. They lived very happily first in Stepney, then moved to Ilford and finally retired to Epping. Both my grandparents died there.

The final child of William and Catherina was Frederick Richard Peel born in 1912 who was again born in Stepney. He moved to Hammersmith where he died of a brain tumour in 1937 – unmarried and childless.

Now it’s time to go back in history and take the diversion to the Hilkens. The reason for this will become clear in time. The Hilcken (or Hilken) family came from Hanover. There are several branches including some who emigrated to America, but the ancestor of most interest is Titche.

Titche Hilcken was born on 23 February 1799 in Gnarenburg, Hanover. He immigrated to London in 1817 and immediately went into the profession of sugar baking. This was a very interesting profession. The Germans ran the sugar industry in England and it was almost entirely their province. There’s a very interesting website (http://www.mawer.clara.net/intro.html) run by Bryan Mawer, which goes into the profession in some detail. The work was hard, hot and dirty, but it attracted many Germans here and one of them was Titche. There was a long history in the East End of London of sugar refineries and it would appear that most of them were German. They imported their workers from Germany (mainly Hanover) and the work was horrid. The pay was very low. If a worker didn’t like the job, he was laid off and with no money had to go back to Germany. Many were “hi-jacked” on their way to America. Unscrupulous ship’s captains told them they were actually in America, whereas in fact they were in London. Sometimes the people were landed in London and told to walk to Liverpool to get the boat to America. On this long walk, many fell ill or ran out of money, so stayed in England.

Anyway Titche was a very poor man as you will see. Through contact with Horst Roessler in Germany, much of Titche’s ancestry has been obtained. He also sent me this interesting extract.

“In two ‘Annual Accounts’ (1866, 1868) of the (philanthropic) ‘Society of Friends of Foreigners in Distress’ Tietje Hilken was reported to have immigrated to England in 1817. It was also reported that his wife had died in 1862, that he lived with a (step?) daughter in 26 Everard St, Back Church Lane, that he was a sugar baker by trade but had lately worked as dock  labourer and that by 1866 he was no longer able to do any real work. That’s why he received a weekly allowance of 2 shillings from the Society.

“In addition, at that time Tietje Hilken also received 1 shilling and a loaf of bread per week from St. George’s German Lutheran Church (Little Alie St)”

Finding his records was very difficult as he spelled his name many ways. I would guess he could not write and could not speak English. As a result many of his children were born with slightly different names and the censuses had different names on them. In one he was even called John Breman! This all made sorting out the different Hilcken families a real problem. Anyway he had 11 children and they all survived infancy. His wife (Elizabeth Sulan) died in 1862 and they brought each other up. The one who interests us is Elizabeth.

• Elizabeth Hilcken was born 1831 in Whitechapel. She was a seamstress and married Heinrich Claus Winkelmann. His family goes back a long way in Germany in the town of Oyten. Horst gave me some details. So let’s get right on to the children of Elizabeth and Claus. Heinrich Claus Winkelmann born 2 February 1834 in Oyten. He was another sugar baker and that’s probably why he ended up meeting and marrying Elizabeth. He came over in the mid 1850’s and little more is known about them. He had 7 children.
• Theresa Margaret Winkelmann born 1857 married George Joseph Hillman in 1883. They had two children (at least).
• Elizabeth Sophia Winkelmann is my direct ancestor. She was born 25 December 1858 and married Alfred Peel the mariner. When he died in 1881, leaving her with one child, she married David Shepherd, born 1862 in Oxfordshire. They had two children of their own, and adopted one. Henrietta Agnes Shepherd born 1888 may well not have married. Elizabeth Sophia Shepherd born 1891 married Daniel John Berry and had at least 5 children. Finally they adopted Grace Elizabeth Winkelmann, who after some time took on the name Shepherd and became known to us as Aunty Tony. I had met her and there was always a secret about her past. I have now found that she was illegitimate and I will mention more about that later.
  

  Aunty Tony

• Catherine Sarah Winkelmann born 1861 and died 1862 as a child.
• Henry Claus Winkelmann born 1863 married Lizzie Bull and had at least two children. One of these was Grace Henrietta Winkelmann, who was at my grandfather’s wedding. She was a witness on their marriage certificate.
• Mary Ann Winkelmann born 1865 married James Palmer.
• Agnes Georgina Winkelmann born 1867 is the interesting lady. She had one baby out of wedlock and that was Grace (Aunty Tony). Grace was later adopted by Elizabeth and David Shepherd. In 1891 she married George Bingham who was 20 years her senior. On the 1901 census they even were noted as father and daughter! George already had 4 children by his fist wife and he had one more from Agnes.
• Finally Louisa Winkelmann born in 1867 died before the 1871 census.

That brings us right home and to the family again.