Locating Gedling Street and Bermondsey Workhouse

The long bank holiday weekend has given me a few hours to follow-up some of the leads that have come via MyRoots over the past few months. Geri, a Canadian who describes herself as a 'fellow family hunter', was kind enough to email me in February to say that Gedling Street in Bermondsey no longer existed, but that Druid Street SE1 now occupied the same area. The Gedling Street Ragged School is where my 5xgreat-grandfather David Windebank suffered a heart attack. Druid Street is easily found online in Google Maps.

I decided to search the Charles Booth Online Archive for this address in the 'streets in 2000' search and with some browsing around also found Gedling Street (mis-transcribed as Gelding Street). This brings up the exciting notebook entries of a walk taking in Gedling Street (where it is described in 1898 as "a dull street", Charles Booth Online Archive, B364, pp86-87) and reference to an interview in January 1900 with "Mr John Davis, London City Mission, Bermondsey Ragged School and mission, Gelding [sic] Street Bermondsey. Contains mission story booklet nd, printed annual report Bermondsey Ragged School 1898". A reference to follow up at some point, as I've so far failed to find any other online mention of the mission or school.

Browsing the Charles Booth poverty maps online also highlighted how close Gedling Street is to the Bermondsey Workhouse (described in Peter Higginbottom's Workhouses site) where David's wife Elizabeth (nee Topper) died in 1908, by which time it may have served more as a hospital. The closely packed streets are shown in 'The A to Z of Edwardian London ' reproduced in the historic maps series by Harry Margary (2007), although I needed my magnifying glass to spot Gedling Street. These wonderful reproductions, though expensive, are a great reference tool for anyone with ancestors in London. But it took a Canadian to help me make the connections - so thanks, Geri.