The loneliness of the private detective

William Cheesewright worked as a sleuth from a single room in St Pancras - and is something of an enigma

William Cheesewright filled in his census return on 2 April 1911 from his home at 77 Gloucester Road, St Pancras. It made for rather sad reading. He said he had been married for 35 years, and had two children, both of whom were alive. Yet at the age of 68, he was living alone in a single room.

William’s entry in the 1911 census (TNA/TheGenealogist)

William had lived his entire life in the St Pancras area of London, and he would die here too, some 20 years later. I know who his grandparents and parents were, who his siblings, aunts and uncles were, all living their lives in this part of north London. Yet who his wife and children were, I don't know: no census entry records him living with them, and there is no record of a marriage for around the time that he said it took place. Neither is there a record of any legal separation or divorce. He suggested he had been married around 1876, yet the 1881 census states that he is single. The 1891, 1901 and 1911 censuses all state that he is married, and yet he lived with his widowed mother until her death in 1909.

Little is also known about William's career as a private detective. It must have been fairly successful insofar as he gave that as his profession for at least 20 years, yet there is no mention of him as a private detective in the newspapers: he is not a witness in any divorce or other court case, and he does not advertise his services. The only clue is in his 1911 description of himself that suggests he was a sole trader (the ‘private detective agency’ written in the census entry to denote type of profession was added by someone else, not William).

William lived much of his life at Stanhope Street, between Regent’s Park (pictured) and St Pancras

The son of a painter, William had originally followed in his father's footsteps. His father died in 1866, when William was 18. He then worked in manufacturing, before becoming a fine art salesman. He had two older siblings, but his older brother, Henry, had died shortly after birth, and his sister, Emily, married at 17. For much of his life, he was with his mother Emily at their home in Stanhope Street, near Regent’s Park.

The family was close; at various times, his paternal uncle Henry and then his maternal aunt Mary, both unmarried, lived at the Cheesewright home. In addition, his sister Emily made her home in St Pancras with her Prussian-born husband, Leopold Hossowski, and their children. In fact, from at least 1891, she lived next door to her mother and brother, still living at 102 Stanhope Street 20 years later.

Tragedy struck the family on more than one occasion, although this was not a novelty in Victorian London. William's niece Louisa - his sister Emily's eldest daughter - was widowed after just four years of marriage, leaving her in her 20s with a three-year-old son. He had two spinster aunts, one of whom was largely dependent on the Cheesewrights for lodging and support. A second niece had her marriage end after just a couple of years, her husband rapidly remarrying. And his sister was widowed prematurely, the result of marrying a man over 20 years her senior. William himself, of course, also appears to have had an unsuccessful, and short, marriage (in practice, if not in theory, as he remained legally married); but who to, and why it ended, remain a mystery.