Meeting with Henry Seffens on 8th December 2005

and details of family living in 

 Slades Green, Kent

      Henry Seffens has lived in Slade Green all his life. He currently lives at 50 Hazel Road, just around the corner from my in-laws, Les and June Lincoln, so they have known him since they were children. He is a lovely man and keen to find out what we know of his family.

      Les remembers his father Fred saying they were related to the Seffens family. Henry remembers his cousin Bill Evans saying they were related to the Lincolns. But neither of them took much notice at the time and there was no active family link. Slade Green (earlier known as Slades Green) was a small community so everyone knew each other anyway. It is tucked away on the edge of the Thames marshes between Erith and Dartford. It was on a “spur” away from the main road. If you lived there you probably worked there say on a farm, at the railway sheds or in the brickfields (at least up until the early 20^th century) and you would be unlikely to go there unless you lived or worked there. Houses were rented which is why people moved around so much. Most houses had big families and lodgers, so would have been very overcrowded.

      Henry was a classmate of Les’ elder brother John. They both secretly joined the ARP when they were too young, aged 14 and used to climb out the window so nobody knew they were going there.

ARPs John Lincoln

middle row, sixth from the left

  and Henry Seffens

(Isabella Attwood's grandson)

eighth from the left

      Henry was born at 6, Poplar Place in Slade Green Road (formerly “Lane”) at the right hand end of a short terrace, with both a pub, The Corner Pin, and a shop at the other end. They were built as railway cottages around the 1830s. My in-laws have a photo of a street party outside, which I assume was 1945 and I think they were demolished in the 1950s. Number 6 is the same house that Henry and Ellen Lincoln lived in with baby son Henry in 1871.

     The Lincolns shared it then with Ann Allen and her 2 grown children and a lodger. The house was tiny and although I didn’t ask, I imagine it had 2 bedrooms so it would have been a squeeze for 6 adults and a baby. Henry had a photo of fields and brick cottages, which he thought was on the edges of Slade Green. However my in-laws have looked more carefully and are sure that the cottages are 4, 5 and 6 Poplar Place.

      Henry was an only child, born on 12 December 1928 to Henry and Gladys (nee Edwards) Seffens. In 1936 they moved to the south end of Slade Green, in Howbury Lane, but his mother Gladys left soon after.

     They eventually divorced and Gladys remarried and had another son and daughter. Son Henry kept in touch with his mother. When the two Henrys, father and son, were left alone they moved in with Aunt Bella Evans plus her husband Albert and 2 sons, Albert and Bill. Their new home had 3 bedrooms and was in Hazel Road (formerly High Street), which ran north/south between Slade Green Road and Howbury Lane. The Hazel Road house was demolished around 1958 when council flats were built on the site and Henry lived in the flats.

      Henry and his wife (name unknown) had an only child Alan Henry, who is now around 50 years old. So I am not sure at what stage son Henry left home but I assume father Henry continued to live with Bella. Henry later moved back to a house across the road at 50 Hazel Road, which he later bought from the Council.

      Bella Evans (nee Seffens) was the oldest of 3 children born to Henry and Isabella (nee Attwood) Seffens. Her full name was Isabella and her birth was registered September quarter 1891 (Dartford 2a 478). Next was George, registered June quarter 1895 (Dartford 2a 485). The youngest was Henry’s father, Henry William registered June quarter 1900 (Dartford 2a 526). Henry thinks his birthday was 25 March 1900. Henry is not aware of any further aunts or uncles and this seems to be confirmed by the fact I could not find any other registered births on the Ancestry website. Henry didn’t mention when his father, aunt or uncle died.

Henry William Seffens (LHS) and friend approx 1940s
		Henry William Seffens WWI in India

      Aunt Bella’s elder son Albert was born around 1920. He served in the Navy during WWII and was demobbed in Australia. He stayed out there and I think Henry mentioned that he never came back to England, at least during Bella’s life. That broke her heart as he was her favourite son. He is still alive and I think he lives in Sydney.

      Bella’s younger son Bill was born around 1926, possibly at 6 Poplar Place (although I may have confused this with Henry’s birth. He is still alive today and lives in Lincolnshire. Henry has asked him if he has any photos but he doesn’t think so. Henry remembers Bella having a photo of her mother Isabella on the wall, but when Bella died this was thrown out.

      Uncle George and his wife Cissie (nee Owen) lived at Mill Place, Crayford. As this was a few miles away they didn’t see them so often. They had 4 children born approximately between 1920 and 1927. The eldest was Cissie, who had a daughter; then Victoria, who died of TB; then George, who had a son and daughter; and finally Ron, who had 4 sons and one daughter. These 4 children, Henry’s first cousins, are all dead now.

      Henry thinks his grandfather Henry died in the 1930s as he can remember him. He is buried at St Paulinus’ churchyard in Crayford. His grandfather lived at 1 Albert Row, which was at the start of a track running north and perpendicular from Poplar Place, just behind number 6. So he must have lived at the end of his garden. My in-laws were born in 1936 and 1937 and they remember these cottages in their childhood as being derelict. They were demolished and a small housing estate is there now.

      Even though Henry was brought up amongst his father’s family, he does not remember his grandmother Isabella Seffens (nee Attwood) ever being mentioned. He remembers her photo before it was thrown out. He thinks maybe she died young, which makes sense if there were no further children after the third was born in 1900. If Bella was only young then they would have no memories to talk about and Isabella’s husband was not around after the 1930s to talk about her. Or maybe they just weren’t a sentimental family? I will probably need to check the Crayford burials register to find when she died.

      Henry had not heard of any brothers or sisters of Isabella, although he did know of a Lincoln connection. He knew of two of his grandfather’s sisters. One of them, Jane Seffens, was married to Jim Mayzes, a brother of George Mayzes, my mother-in-law’s grandfather. So the Seffens family married into both sides of my husband nigel’s family. Although this is unrelated to the Seffens/ Attwood family, he confirmed that George Mayzes had cowsheds on the marshes. His brother Jim Mayzes rented a farm north of the school and had orchards for apples and damsons to the south plus meadowland. So it appears that Henry only knew of the relatives that were alive and living on his doorstep.

      In 1891 Isabella and Henry were living at 2 Poplar Place, next door to the shop, with Henry Seffen’s sister Ellen May and her husband and around 5 children. Ann Allen (from 1871 above) was living around the corner at 7 Albert Row. Ellen Lincoln was in Bow, London, with Isabella’s brother George. A year later, Ann was present at Ellen’s death in Slades Green and was the informant. I can only assume that Ellen was living with Ann Allen in 1892 because there was no space with Isabella and her sister-in-law. But I wonder why Ellen’s death was registered by a friend rather than family?

      Was Ellen a persona non grata? Had she walked out on her children from her Attwood marriage, set up home with Henry Lincoln and when he died, she trailed round after her adult children looking for a home with them? Where was Ellen when her teenaged children needed her? Isabella was 15 in 1881 and her half brother Thomas Lincoln was 17 in 1891 but they weren’t living with her and cannot be traced yet on a census.

     So maybe Isabella Seffens will be as elusive as her mother Ellen Attwood/Lincoln (nee Hudgell)?

 Laura Lincoln

10 December 2005