At 14 Rendezvous Street in Folkestone, in 1891, lived Charles and Elizabeth, with five of their grown-up children. Charles was 61, born at Enfield, Middlesex, while Elizabeth 59, came from Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire. Their children had been born in London, Windsor and Ireland. The family had obviously travelled around. Another clue comes from the children’s names: Frederick, Charlotte, Florence, Alma and Rose; Alma standing out, being the name of an 1854 battle during the Crimea War.
The family show up on censuses at several times. Their 1861 entry is at Windsor’s Infantry Barracks, with Charles being a ‘Soldier – Sergeant Armourer’. The children range from Thomas, 13, to Celina Jane aged one month. Thomas was born at the Tower of London, Elizabeth Mary in Dublin, Frederick and Agness in Windsor; Julia and Florence at St James, London, Middlesex; Charlotte in the Curragh, Kildare, outside Dublin; Alma back at Windsor, then Celina at Wellington Barracks. Those seem to cover all Charles’ postings with his regiment. Luckily, some of Charles and Elizabeth’s descendants have found some documents about his time in the Army, and yes, Alma was a good lead.
Charles enlisted on 19th December 1851, at Westminster, into the 3rd Battalion Grenadier Guards, when he was 22 years and 6 months old – trade Gunsmith, as was his father. A ready-made armourer by the sound of it. He was 5 foot 7 ½ inches tall, had a ‘fresh’ complexion, with grey eyes and dark brown hair.
Elizabeth Childs married Charles at Cheshunt, Hertfordshire on 19th November 1853, just before the Grenadier Guards were sent abroad. Charles spent 2 years 4 months in Turkish Europe and on the Crimea.
British and French regiments began moving to Turkey’s aid early in 1854; first to Constantinople, then Varna in what is now Bulgaria, before embarking to cross the Black Sea and land on the Crimean Peninsula on 14th September. Being an armourer, he would have had responsibility for his unit’s weaponry, keeping rifles in good working order and supervising ammunition stores.
As the army marched south towards Sebastopol, they had to cross the Alma river. Russian forces had dug in on the slopes above the river, so the Guards battalions were called forward into the assault, carrying the ridge after hard fighting. The army continued south, to secure a supply base at Balaclava and lay siege to Sebastopol.
On 25th October, under cover of fog, the Russians counter attacked across the Inkerman valley, turning the flank of the British. The Grenadier and Scots Guards were virtually cut off, fighting off many assaults until support came. They lost 600 out of their 1,300 strength.
Then came the long, bitter winter, camped on the uplands, protecting Balaclava and threatening Sebastopol, as Russia withdrew its civilians. Eventually, better supplies were organised and warm coats issued, but cholera and wounds still took a toll of soldiers. With naval threats to Crimea’s supply lines and to the Tzar’s Baltic ports, a peace was concluded and the troops returned to Britain. Charles returned in July 1856.
Thereafter, being in the Guards, he is in barracks around London, plus those postings in Ireland. His Regimental papers say that his conduct had been ‘Very good’ and that if not promoted to Sergeant Armourer, he would have had 5 Good Conduct Badges, never having appeared in the Regimental Defaulters Book. In fact, he had a medal for ‘Long Service and Good Conduct’, which brought a Gratuity. He also was awarded the Turkish Medal and the Crimea Medal, with clasps. His discharge was late in January 1873.
His and Elizabeth’s infant daughter Celine, born in March 1871, died that autumn. Rose was born in 1872, near Lambeth, in July 1873, they had a son, Harry Inkerman, but he lived only a short while. The 1881 census has Elizabeth and Charles, an Army Pensioner, living in Clapham with seven children and a 15 year-old domestic servant. Daughters Elizabeth and Agnes are listed as milliners.
By the 1890s, now living in Folkestone, at 14 Rendezvous Street, Elizabeth seems to have been an invalid. Sadly, her daughter, Agnes Arabella Smiles Stuart, had died, aged 27, at Swindon in November 1891, but was brought to Folkestone to be buried in the family’s plot. She’d married Wortley Stuart, a fancy stationer, at Christ Church, Folkestone, that January. The cause of death could have been complications after the birth of their son Jack.
Their elder offspring had spread their wings by now, with Thomas Charles, the eldest, moving to France as a jeweller’s assistant and clerk. In March 1882, he was living in the south-west at Bordeaux, where he married Marguerita Flegs in the British Consulate. Frederick James moved to London as a shirt cutter for the Piccadilly tailors ‘Dare & Dolphin’, where he was still employed in 1921, when he stayed with his sister Elizabeth Mary Boorn and her husband Charles, near Windsor. Frederick was married to an Elizabeth, his second wife.
Charles and Elizabeth had worries as the 1890s began, as fighting between the ‘Skeleton Army’ and the evangelist Salvation Army had broken out in Folkestone, and their daughters were involved. Julia, Charlotte, Alma and Rose joined the Salvation Army, with the support of their mother. A much later issue of ‘The War Cry’ implies that Charles had a lot to cope with as a shop owner, perhaps with loss of custom, near riots and maybe damage. However, their girls remained staunch Salvationists.
Julia Eliza seems to have sent by the Salvation Army to do good works in Staffordshire. She came from there to Falmouth in 1903, where she married Henry Standing. He is described as an evangelist at marriage and would later rise to be a Lt-Colonel in the Salvation Army. She is described as ‘One of Three Brave Sisters’ in her War Cry obit in 1948. Charlotte Ellen married Edwin Le Butt, a Salvation Army officer, in north London and is pictured in uniform.
Alma married Robert Young, an accountant and Salvation Army officer. They emigrated, or were sent by the ‘Army,’ to the United States. They moved from New York’s Bronx to Fulton, Georgia, over the years. There is a photo of her in uniform in 1917. Rose Adelaide was also a Salvationist. She married William Forrest, both being listed a Superintendents of the Browning Bethany Old People’s Homes in Surrey. All the girls had several children.
Elizabeth died at home, in February 1896 aged 63. Her grandson Jack seems to have remained in Folkestone, in the care of his Aunt Florence Kate and grandfather Charles. In 1897, Weston’s studio took a photograph of 6 year old grandchild and grandfather. Charles, appropriately, is holding a cigar, while his fob chain holds his Crimea medal with its clasps. In 1901 they still have the tobacconist shop. Charles died in May 1903, aged 63, at 11 Radnor Bridge Road, leaving a very interesting family tree.
Daughters who stayed at home, caring for relatives tend to get short shrift, so I checked on Florence Kate. On the 1911 census she just used Florence Smiles – and there she is at 5 Stanton Road Wimbledon with her nephew Dudley Jack Stuart, so must have brought him up by herself. He is aged 19 and a clerk of electrical engineers, while she is a Landlady. Then on the 1939 Register, Florence Kate is in Bognor Regis as an invalid’s companion, not far from two of her sisters. Aged 85, she died in that area. ‘Jack’ served with a London Regiment in the Great War. He was an electrical dispatch manager, living in Fulham on the 1939 Register, then turns up at Ventnor on the Isle of Wight in the 1960s with his wife May Elsie.
Rob & Carole M – Friends of Folkestone Old Cemetery
Notes: Agnes Arabella Smiles Stuart 1863 – 21st Nov 1891 Area 15 grave 2664, Elizabeth Childs Smiles 1832 – 22nd February 1896 Area 15 grave 2664, Charles Smiles 1829 – 15th May 1903 Area 15 grave 2663
