Henry and Emily had twelve children, of whom three had died by 1911.

All the children were born at Plymouth/Stoke Damerel: Ernest Edmund (1860–1919), Catherine Mary (1865–1945), Charles Gabriel (1867–1921), Florence Elizabeth (1869–1931), Alfred George [Gordon] (1870–1942), Francis Edgar (1872), Sidney Came (1874), Agnes Maria (1877–1944) and Harriet Sophia (1878–1918). (The three who died in infancy were Henry Edward [1859–64], Emily Alice [1861–63] and Ellen Gertrude [1863–68].)

They were my great grandfather’s first cousins, their children and my grandmother were second cousins. There were ultimately no Roberts descendants from Henry’s line however – only three of his children had offspring of their own and his sons had only daughters.

Henry would have been fifty when Harriet was born. With these infant deaths and the loss of Henry’s brother Edward, and probably Charles too, the 1860s were filled with tragedy for the Roberts family.

Ernest Edmund Roberts

Henry and Emily’s second-born son did not lead a happy life. Ernest Edmund (born in 1860) was at the family home in 1881, aged twenty-one and with ‘no occupation’. But all was not well; the following year he was diagnosed with some form of mental illness.

By the turn of the century he was a ‘pauper patient’ amongst the 200 or so inmates of Blackadon Asylum, run by the borough of Plymouth. Ernest was described as a ‘lunatic 29 years’ – so from the age of about twenty-two (in 1882). He died there in 1919, aged fifty-nine. This was a sad fate that would befall another of Henry’s sons.

Charles Gabriel Roberts

Charles Gabriel (born 1867), was a tailor with premises at 35 Old Town Street, in the centre of Plymouth. There were a number of drapers and tailors along here. Charles must have done well, as by 1911 he was a master tailor and was employing his nineteen-year-old daughter Malvina as an assistant: he possibly employed others in the shop. 

He married Eva Louisa Poland in 1889 and they lived at Furze Hill Road, in the Mutley area of Plymouth in 1901, and by 1911 at 66 Alexandra Road, where they were when Charles died in 1921, aged fifty-four. Their daughter Malvina Irene Stewart Roberts married Alan C. Muirhead in 1915.

Francis Edgar Roberts

Francis Edgar was born in 1872, just in time for his grandfather Lazarus to see him. He was known by his middle name, it would appear. In 1901 Edgar was a ‘clerk in club’ (perhaps the Plymouth naval club where Lazarus had been secretary in the 1860s?). Ten years later he was described as a refreshment house keeper, own account. 

He married an Emma Maria Cutcliffe in 1904 and they lived at 39 Chapel Street, East Stonehouse, Plymouth in 1911. Emma Maria was described as ‘assisting in the business’, so presumably Edgar ran his own cafe or restaurant in the city somewhere. 

Perhaps this business did not go so well, as three years later he is listed in the 1914 Plymouth Kelly’s trade directory as a secondhand bookseller at 83 King Street. This is surely him, although by 1921 it is his wife Emma who is listed as a dealer in second-hand books and running the shop in King Street; in an abrupt change of career, Edgar is listed as a ship’s painter at HM dockyard.

By 1939 Edgar was widowed and living in Green Street with his daughter and her family. A Francis E. Roberts died in Plymouth in 1942, aged seventy. This could well be him. 

His daughter Ivy Ruby Muriel Roberts was born in Plymouth in 1905 and she married a James A. Reid in 1932. They had at least two children, two of many great-great grandchildren of Lazarus.

Alfred George Roberts

Alfred George, was born in 1870. He was living with the family in 1881, but not in 1891. He was living at 2 Waverley Villas, Devonport in 1901, with his wife Maude Roberts (born in Strand, London), his age given as thirty-four – he was actually thirty-one, but this surely must be him. His occupation was magistrate’s agent in 1901. 

When the 1911 census was taken in April that year, Alfred declared himself a political registration and election agent for the Conservative Party in Chatham, Kent – no doubt fresh from the campaign trail for the General Election of December 1910, which gave Asquith’s Liberal Party a narrow victory, but no overall majority. This was a period of national upheaval, with the issues of Irish Home Rule and women’s suffrage dominating. Asquith’s government also brought Britain into the First World War. 

During this time Alfred and Maude lived at 122 Rainham Road, Chatham and were both now going by the double-barrelled surname of Gordon Roberts. Was this an affectation assumed for some political reason? They had no children and Alfred died at Chatham in 1942. 

Sidney Came Roberts

The youngest son, Sidney [sometimes Sydney] Came, was born on 2 February 1874, a few months after his grandfather Lazarus died. He attended St John’s School, Plymouth in 1883 and in 1891 was an apprentice hairdresser. By 1901, aged twenty-seven, he was living at home and still working as a hairdresser. 

But by 1911 he was, like his eldest brother Ernest Edmund, a patient in the Plymouth asylum, his age wrongly given as thirty-three (he was thirty-seven). He is described as a ‘lunatic 24 years’, so clearly he had been afflicted by some form of mental illness since childhood (1887). Unlike his brother, however, his infirmity did not prevent him from holding down a job. In 1921 his occupation was that of hairdresser, although he was still in the asylum. He remained unmarried. 

That two of Henry’s sons were diagnosed as ‘lunatics’ would surely have been covered up by the family at the time and never discussed. 

Florence Elizabeth Roberts

Florence Elizabeth (born 1869) married Frederick Myrick Henry Somerville (1865–1951) at St Germans, Cornwall on 21 October 1889. The Somervilles were another interesting family in the Plymouth/Stoke Damerel area. 

Frederick Somerville was an insurance agent in 1891, and in 1901 was a ‘contractor’s timekeeper’ in Plymouth.

Florence and Frederick had several children, all born at Stoke Damerel. Those surviving infancy were: Aubrey Victor (born 1890), Ulrich Lewis Forester (1895–1917), Dora Florence Edith (1895–1961; m. James Talbot 1933), Olive Catherine May (1897), Agnes Hilda Bernice (1899–1965) and Alban Frederick Mark (1903–87). When the 1901 census was taken, the infant Olive was staying with her grandfather Henry at Holborn Street. 

From 1904 onwards the Somervilles travelled extensively to various destinations round the world, notably South Africa and South America. During the First World War their address was given as Ferrocarril Antofagasta a Bolivia, Mejillones, Chile. By the start of the war, Britain had invested in 118 railway lines in South America and the companies recruited the staff from Britain. The Ferrocarril Antofagasta a Bolivia (FCAB) operated in the northern provinces of Chile. 

They kept links with the UK though. In July 1917, the youngest son, Alban, was baptised at Plymouth St John, when he would have been about fourteen. The same month as Alban’s baptism, Ulrich, a lance corporal in the 1st Batallion Hertfordshire Regiment, was killed in action, aged twenty-three, at the third battle of Ypres (Passchendaele). His body was never recovered  but he is commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial. Aubrey emigrated to Cape Town, where he married in 1926 (this could be his family).

Florence died in Kensington in 1931, aged sixty-one. Frederick seems to have still been in Chile in 1933 but returned to England at some point as he was at Hill Park Crescent, Plymouth in 1939, where he died in 1951. 

Agnes Maria Roberts 

Agnes Maria (born 1877) married a Cornish carpenter, Richard Gill, in 1909 in Plymouth. In 1911 she was living at Desborough Road, Plymouth, aged thirty-four, although on census night her husband was lodging with a family at St Blazey, near St Austell. In 1939 they were both at 12 Holborn Street, with Catherine Roberts. 

Agnes Maria died on 21 February 1944, when she was living at 22 Radnor Street, Plymouth, aged sixty-six. She left £887 13s to her husband. When Richard Gill died in 1956 he was living in Brunswick Terrace. He left over £2000 (to a Charles Daw, ‘hardware shop assistant’). They appear not to have had any children.

Catherine Mary and Harriet Sophia Roberts 

Harriet Sophia and Catherine (listed as Katherine) Mary were still with their father in 1911. Harriet appears to have died unmarried in 1918. Catherine was left alone at 12 Holborn Street, although in 1939 her sister and brother-in-law, Richard and Agnes Gill, were also living there. They had moved by 1944.

Catherine died a spinster, at Plymouth City Hospital on 3 November 1945, aged eighty. She was the last of Henry’s twelve children. Her address when she died was still 12 Holborn Street; she had lived on Holborn Street on and off for almost seventy years. The Western Morning News reported that the house was auctioned in January 1946, for £660.