Mabel Jamieson

1881 Census showing William Mason living and possibly working at 4 Scots Hill

The 1881 Census shows a William Mason who was a grocer and was living at 4 Scots Hill. Perhaps David Jamieson (the father of Mabel Jamieson)  worked for William Mason or perhaps took his place as manager of the shop. A few lines below William Mason in the 1881 census at number 49 is another grocer whose name looks like Robert Sunday.

Mabel Harris Jamieson the Grandmother of Ross Milner was born at Croxley Green 9 December 1888. her father, David, was 23 and her mother, Lucy, was 29. She married Horace William Milner in Preston, Lancashire on 30 April 1914. They had five children during their marriage. She died on 2 May 1978 in Pukekohe, New Zealand, at the age of 89, and was buried there.

(© loaned by Ross Milner) Mabel Jamieson (seated on the left) with her parents David and Lucy Jamieson and sister Clara, taken in 1890 just a few months after the family left Croxley Green.

(© loaned by Ross Milner) Birth Certificate of Mabel Harris born Ninth December 1888

Mabel Harris Jamieson was born on 9th December 1888 in Croxley Green, Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, to Lucy Jamieson (nee Harris), age 29, and David Rae Jamieson, age 23. A sister Clara Harris Jamieson was born on 2nd December 1889 in Ely, Cambridgeshire, when Mabel was less than a year old.

(© National Archives - IL-1491) 1901 Census shows Mabel Jamieson now living in Preston

(© National Archives - IL-1491) 1911 Census shows Mabel Jamieson still living in Preston

Ross has a postcard of Croxley Green that was sent to his Great Grandfather by a neighbour. The date on the postmark cannot be read, but from his research the stamp was issued from 1912 to 1924. On the back of the postcard Ross' Great Grandfather has a note to his grandmother saying “your birthplace at other side of church”.

The message on the postcard reads:
Rickmansworth Monday 12th January
I have walked out from Watford through Croxley to see it in a splendid morning. Hope this will remind you of the place. J. R. Taylor
We have to assume that the postcard was posted after 1913 as the mains works were carried out in the Summer of 1913 and the next Monday 12th January was in 1914 in which we have to assume is perhaps the correct year unless the card was kept for a while and then posted in 1920.

Ross Milner adds, my grandmother was born in Croxley Green on 9 December 1888. At the time her father was just 23 years, so perhaps was only a grocer’s assistant. However his occupation on my grandmother’s birth certificate was shown as grocer. By the time my grandmother’s sister was born in 1890 they lived in Ely, and in the 1891 census they were at Newport Pagnell. My great grandparents were married in Shoreditch London early in 1888 and presumably moved to Croxley Green after that. Therefore my family association with Croxley Green appears to be very brief. Nevertheless my grandmother was born in Croxley Green and kept this postcard all her life, and my family still has it today. My grandmother moved to New Zealand in 1914, after her marriage to Horace Milner, and died here in 1978 age 89years. 
​Ross Milner​