Even I hit Brick Walls sometimes ...

Answers

 The harder you bang your head against the wall, and the longer you spend doing it,  the less likely you are to  step to one side and find is a doorway through the wall just round the corner! Many of the questions I get can be solved by just throwing new light on information which is reasonably accessible, perhaps using some special search tricks, and sometimes new or easily overlooked resources.

So sometime I get a question where I feel I can offer little practical advice. It may be that there is no solution - or perhaps I am just looking too hard in the wrong case. Anthony Pearson asked me about Henry Pearson - who according to the 1881 and 1891 census was born in Barnet in about 1855. However there are no obvious entries in the 1861 or 1871 census and no matching birth registrations around 1855 - even after I tried all the tricks of the trade at the problem. Read Henry PEARSON, Barnet, 1850s to see the approach I used - and you might spot a trick that could help you with your problems - or find the advice in I've hit a Brick Wall useful.

Or even better (for Anthony) you might see something I overlooked and come up with a way forward.

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 ...