Be careful when conflating dates and places

Tom recently contacted me with the following question:

In your page on Freemasonry in St Albans it mentions that a meeting was recorded in March 1843 and "Henry Edwards of Hamsteads, Bricket Wood" attended. My question is whether the date could possibly be a mistake?  I have an advert from July 1843 in the Herts Mercury, which announces that the current tenant, a Mr. Bellis, intends to give up the farm and is selling all the live stock.  I assume it was after this point that Henry Edwards took over the farm.

This raises a common problem in some records. There is a dated reference to an individual - but no date mentioned - but it is known where he lived at another date. So the two bits of information are conflated - although (if the truth were known) the individual did not live at the place at that date.  In this example it is not clear whether the March 1843 list was contemporary, or drawn up at a later date. However the conflation of places and dates is a real problem when people drawing up family trees record conflate the place of marriage with the unknown place of birth - giving the impression that the place of birth is known.

I've found Thomas Pearson, Brickmaker

Well I think I have. A few day ago I discovered that St Stephen's brickworks (Newsletter reference) had an absentee owner called T. Pearson - but there where literally hundreds of T Pearsons listed in the old census returns. On a hunch I decided to follow up a census entry to a "Brick Manager and Agent" called Buxton Wilberforce Pearson and this lead me to Thomas Pearson (1821-1876) who in 1861 was a "Builder and Contractor employing 100 men", and in 1871 described himself as a "Brick Manufacturer."  While I still have no information explicitly linking this T. Pearson to the brickworks it seems very likely that he is the person I have been looking for.

    Looking for Thomas proved difficult - particularly due to an appallingly bad census transcription (8 people in household, 28 incorrect words in transcription) - and I have decided to record the steps I took to find him, and winkle out the details.

St Stephens Brickworks, Bricket Wood

T. Pearson
St Stephens Brickworks
nr St Albans

Some years ago I spent a lot of time researching the Brickmakers of St Albans so I was very surprised when Peter drew my attention to a picture of a railway wagon he had found on the web. The picture accompanied an advert by the St Albans Signal Box Preservation Trust which was selling '00' gauge models of wagons related to St Albans.

    I contacted the Trust and Keith supplied me with a better picture, which had come from a book, which said nothing about the location of the brickworks or the identity of T. Pearson. I checked the trade directories for the Victorian period for the whole of Hertfordshire and there was no sign of the brickworks in the listings. There was also no sign of a brickworks owner called Pearson in the Hertfordshire census returns. The hunt was on ... I had to find it ...