Below is an article I wrote for Practical Family History magazine on the very close relationship between Georgina Houston and the Carter Family.

Most family historians will have been puzzled at one time or another by the names of some of their ancestors.  Two middle names in particular set me thinking in my own research.  My great grandfather Frederick Carter’s middle name was ‘Houston’ and my great great grandmother Mary Carter’s  was ‘Philadelphia’.  Was there an American connection?  I looked at Everyman’s Dictionary of First Names  and discovered that ‘Philadelphia’ was the name of an Old Testament city and had been used as a girl’s name until the nineteenth century.  There was, however, no mention of ‘Houston’ as a first name.  Where had it come from? 

The answer came as I was delving back into the story of my great grandfather’s parents Frederick William and Mary Philadelphia Carter.  I knew that Frederick senior had died in 1895 in Norwood, so I wrote to the West Norwood Cemetery, to ask them if he was buried there. They were exceptionally helpful.  Not only did they tell me to look for Square 69, Grave no. 25605, but they also provided me with two maps - one giving directions to square 69 and another showing the exact location of the grave.  They even enclosed three Polaroid photographs of the grave.  It turned out that there were two other people sharing Frederick’s grave.  One was his wife Mary, who had died in 1926, and the other was a woman called Georgina Houston, who had been the first to be buried there in 1894.  She was 81 years old when she died and had been at least eighteen years older than either Frederick or Mary. Who was this person and why were my ancestors sharing a grave with her? 

There seemed to be two possibilities. There had been no father’s name or occupation entered on Frederick senior’s marriage certificate.  Perhaps he had been illegitimate and Georgina Houston was his mother?  The other possibility was that Frederick’s parents had died when he was young and he had been adopted by her.  I decided to try to find out more about this mysterious lady.

Knowing the date of her burial, I was able to obtain Georgina Houston’s will, which had been made two years before she died.  It proved to be a fascinating insight into her relationship with the Carter family.  Georgina Houston had been a spinster. The total value of her effects was £1,430 18s 9d which meant that she had been comfortably off when she died.  In her eightieth year she had drawn up her will, making a number of bequests to various nieces and their children. However, the greater part of her estate was left to the families of Frederick William Carter and Alfred, his brother. Alfred Carter, a timber merchant, was named as the sole executor.  Six of Frederick’s children were left between £50 and £100, while his wife Mary was left £50 and all her ‘linen and wearing apparel’ together with all of the rest of her estate ‘for her sole and separate use and benefit free from the debts and control of the said Frederick Carter or any future husband.’  Moreover, while she left  Frederick’s brother Alfred her ormolu clock,  Frederick received nothing at all. Why had she excluded Frederick from her will when she was so generous to the other members of his family?  The answer came when I tried to obtain Frederick’s will.  I was to discover that he had died intestate, leaving an estate valued at only £5.  Subsequently I have discovered that he was a bankrupt and that he had been supported by his wife’s family in his later years. 

Further progress was made when I was able to discover the identity of Frederick’s father, Alfred.  By a piece of luck, my second cousin Janet came across a slip of paper written in 1910, which mentioned an ‘old Mr Carter’ who ‘died at Blackfriars about October 1842’.  I went to the new Family Records Centre and discovered a will made by Alfred Carter of 6 Blackfriars Road in Southwark, leaving his estate to his sons Alfred and Frederick William. Alfred Carter senior and his wife Charlotte, who had died the previous year, had been stay makers.  Among his bequests was the sum of twenty pounds to each of three women who worked for him on condition that they remained ‘one entire year in the business so that it may be advantageously disposed of.’  One of these women was Georgina Houston, who was also one of the witnesses to the will.  I obtained his death certificate to find that he had died of typhus fever on the 14th October 1842. The will was proved in December 1842 with the two boys Alfred and Frederick, aged twelve and ten respectively, being put in the care of their uncle William Carter. 

What happened to the staymaking business?  I made a search through a number of microfiche copies of the Post Office Directory for London.  Looking in the index of occupations for ‘staymakers’ I was able to find a William Carter at 7 Newington Causeway in Southwark in the 1850 Directory.  Was this Frederick’s uncle?  The same directory also shows that the staymaking business at 6 Blackfriars Road was still operating, under the ‘executors of Alfred Carter, staymaker’.  Six years later, the 1856 Directory listed the business as ‘Carter and Houston, staymakers’.  It would appear that Georgina Houston had played a major part in keeping the business running and was now in partnership, probably with Frederick, who would have been 24 years old in 1856.   

However, Frederick was also engaged in a completely different business.  On his marriage certificate and his son’s birth certificate he gave his occupation as ‘tea broker’.  Documents in the City of London Record Office show that in 1856 he was admitted to the freedom of the City of London as a tea broker’s clerk.  He then set up his own business as a tea broker, trading from 19 Little Tower Street in the City.  It would seem very likely that he left Georgina Houston to run the staymaking business at 6 Blackfriars Road.  At first their business prospered and the Post Office Directory shows that by 1870 they had moved to new premises at 88 Regent Street.   

Things then seem to have gone wrong for Frederick.  He began to fall into arrears of the rent that he was expected to pay as a tea broker, and was discharged from being a broker in March 1875. From that time on his name no longer appears on the list of tea brokers in the Post Office Directory.  It is unclear how long the stay-making business continued, but by 1880 it had been taken over by a Miss Sarah Levett. Who was to blame?  In view of the fact that it was he and not Georgina Houston who was made bankrupt, it would seem likely that it was a tea broker that Frederick had lost his money.  Ironically, several of his sons subsequently went into the tea broking business with considerable success.  His eldest son Frederick Houston Carter set up the firm of Lloyd and Carter and went on to become President of the Tea Brokers’ Association and a London County Councillor. 

While I know a lot more about the relationship of Georgina Houston with the Carter family, I still know very little about her as an individual.  However, what is evident is that she must have been a remarkable woman and a great support to Frederick Carter in both his business and family affairs.  She may have not have had any children of her own, but her name was carried on by my family.  The mystery of my great grandfather’s middle name has finally been solved.