It would've been my maternal Grandad's one hundredth birthday today. That's him above, holding me, as my Gran looks on adoringly at their gorgeous first grandchild. Ahem.
Alfred Frederick Crowe, known as Alf, was born at his parents' home, 124 Scovell Road, in the London borough of Southwark, on Saturday 7th of November 1914.
He died in September 2000, in hospital in Warwickshire, following a fall at home in Kenilworth.
The commemorations, in July this year, of the start of World War I reminded me that this centenary was coming up. It really hit home to me that my great grandmother, Emily Crowe, must have been around six months pregnant with my Grandad when war was declared on 28 July 1914. It was an uncertain time for everyone in Europe, but bringing a baby into the world in London, into what I now realise was overcrowded poverty, must have been truly frightening.
I ordered a copy of my Grandad's entry in the birth register a couple of weeks ago and it has revealed some interesting extra information. It reveals that Grandad's Dad, Robert James Crowe, was in the army at the time, in the 5th Wiltshire Regiment, which I've now discovered saw active service in Baghdad and at Gallipoli. I know that Robert James Crowe survived the war and went on to have many more children with Emily; thirteen in all, with eleven surviving into adulthood. (Twins both died as toddlers, according to family legend which is confirmed by the 1911 census, on which the details of the deceased children were wrongly, but now very helpfully, included.) I must now order his war record to find out where he went. If he survived Gallipoli, I'm impressed and wondering why I didn't know this before.
Here is Grandad's birth certificate. Someone was a little confused over what the month was, as they've crossed out September before correcting it to November. This registration was actually done on the 3rd of December 1914, and Grandad definitely celebrated his birthday on 7th November, so I presume the amendment to be correct.
Scovell Road still exists, but it seems that the tenement block which existed one hundred years ago is no longer there. Google maps reveals the current road to be truncated into little more than a layby and a path. Here's a map and two very dull screen grabs of it.
