NOTTINGHAM 1883

Extract from OS 1st EDITION 25" SHEET XLII.2(42) 1883*

*Copyright of this image belong to the British Library and further reproduction is prohibited

Accounts of Vesta's early career in music hall suggest that by the early seventies her family were in Nottingham. Here, her father is said to have managed the St George's Music hall, previously on that part of the present day site of the Co-op department store in Upper Parliament Street, facing Derby Road. And the young Vesta is said to have started dressing up in boy's clothes, and her father added this to her stage act.

However, this did not tally with the 1871 census which still showed the family in Worcester. Also, by the 1881 census they had been located in Aston, Birmingham. So, they must have been in Nottingham sometime between. With this in mind, a search of the births registered in Nottingham eventually located the family at 63 St. Michael Street, in 1875. Vesta's sister, Jessie, was born there on 25 May.

The registration details show that her father was William Henry POWLES and that her mother was Matilda POWLES, formerly BROUGHTON. William's occupation was 'musician' and he registered the birth on 16 June 1875.

Looking at the pattern of births in the family, it seems that by 1877 they were back in Birmingham where May was born. There were no other births in Nottingham and the 1876 Kelly's Post Office directory shows another family at no 63 St. Michael's Street, so my guess is that they were only there for a relatively short period.

Although the above Ordnance Survey sheet is dated a few years after Jessie's birth, I have no doubt that the close-knit and back to back Victorian terraces which it shows, were largely as William and Matilda found them. The Post Office directory describes the St. Michael's Street numbering and the occupants in that part of the western frontage between the St. Annes and William side streets, so it is possible to gauge quite accurately the location of no 63, where the POWLES family lived.

There are entries for occupants at no 41 (greengrocer), no 65 (coal dealer) and no 67 (shopkeeper) a corner shop next to the William Street junction. Thus, at the time when the directory was compiled, no 63 must have been an unoccupied dwelling just below no 65, next to the corner shop.

Those knowing present day Nottingham, will recognise St Michael Street as now Huntingdon Street. Indeed, the area is now on the north side of the Victoria Shopping Centre and largely redeveloped. Then, the locality was in the shadow of the large Nottingham Workhouse which stood a couple of a hundred yards to the north of no 63. This closed and was relocated, its site becoming the location for the new Victoria Railway Station, which was eventually also to be removed and the land stood for years as a gaping hole in the ground, until recently redeveloped.

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