Coincidences across a century ….. Jessie, Joseph and me

 Sometimes history has a habit of popping up and pitching you into another place and another time.

The "silk", 1916

So yesterday my old friend David Harrop sent over this 1916 silk postcard.

It is a particularly fine example of a type of card which was popular before, during, and after the Great War.

This one dates from 1916 and depicts the Manchester Regiment.

Such cards were popular with soldiers who would send home a “silk” of their regiment with a message on the back.

Now given that I wrote a book on Manchester and the GreatWar which David sourced a lot of the original material, I assumed it related to that.

But no, David also knows I come from southeast London and grew up on the borders of Peckham and New Cross, before moving to Eltham in Woolwich.

And I suspect it was the address on the card which made him send it over.

That address was Dennett’s Road which was next to Lausanne Road where we lived from 1952 till 1964.

Moreover, during school time, I would have walked along Dennett’s Road to our junior school and visited friends who also lived on the road.

Writing home, 1916

The card was sent by an unknown soldier on active service to Jessie Philips who in 1916 was 32 years of age.

She lived with her family at 71 Dennett’s Road and they ran a grocery shop.  Her sister Kate is listed as the owner of the business and Jessie worked along side her, while their father was a travelling salesman.

Now I can’t be sure, but I think just maybe the unknown soldier was a Joseph Sullivan.

He is listed on the 1921 census for 71 Dennett’s Road as the husband of Jessie who still assisted Kate in the shop.  Mr. Sullivan gave his occupation as oner and driver of a motor lorry.

So far tracking his military records has turned up nothing.  A man with the same name and date of birth is listed but he died in 1916 in France.

But I know that Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan were still at Dennet’s Road in 1939, sharing the house with Kate and another sister, along with Joeseph and Jessie’s 19 year old son who was also a lorry driver.

71 Dennett's Road, 1916

After that the trail goes cold, but with a bit of diligence I might find out more.

The Earl of Derby, 2022

Leaving me with that very unhistorical thought that as I was growing up in the 1950s the Sullivan and Phillips families may still have been on Dennett’s Road, and may have drunk in the Earl of Derby which was just a few doors up from them at no. 87.

And to close the twists of coincidence the Earl of Derby was managed in the late 1950s by Mr. and Mrs Pott’s who had lived next to us at 24 Lausanne Road, and we still have pictures of their children in our back garden at 26.**

So, this indeed is one of those little bits of history which link me and my family to a card sent a century and more ago to a house which I knew.

71 Dennett’s is no more, and just when it vanished is lost to me.  But the site is now an extension to the playground of Edmund Waller school which I and my sisters attended which is yet another link and one I like.

71 Dennett's Road, 2022

Location, Dennett’s Road, New Cross, London

Picture, sill postcard, circa 1916 from the collection of David Harrop, Dennetts Road, 2022, and the Earl of Derby, 2022, courtesy of Google maps

*Anew book on Manchester and the Great War, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20Manchester%20and%20the%20Great%20War

** A postscript the picture of the Earl of Derby dates from August 2022, by October the pub windows were boarded up.