I came across this photographic postcard of what was an unidentified house, produced by a Leicester printer, on Ebay a couple of years ago. I have had quite a bit of luck with identifying these in the past, but particularly so with this one as the house turned out to be not 100 yards from my own front door. It’s 101 St Leonards Road, which was built in 1887, one of a pair with number 99 making “Belton Houses” (very grand). I really love finding these photographs of working class houses and re-connecting them with their history. This one will eventually find its way to the records office so it will be forever safe.
101 St Leonards Road looks to have been first lived in by Henry Stretton (1864-1936), who was born in Warwickshire and worked as gas labourer for Leicester Corporation, his wife Catherine “Kate” Stretton nee Moore (1868-1950) and their son Henry Moore Stretton (1896-1975).
In 1905 Rose Ellen Greaves nee Hobbs (1871-1905), who lived at 114 Hartopp Road with husband Arthur Francis Greaves and her three surviving children, died and was buried in the churchyard at St Mary’s, Knighton, where her second son Arthur Reginald Greaves (1901-1902) lay resting. At some time between 1905 and 1911 but probably soon after Rose’s death, Henry and Kate adopted Eva Clara (1892-1923), Harry Ernest (1899-) and Dorothy May Greaves (1904-1987). It’s not clear what happened to Arthur Francis Greaves, who was father to Harry and Dorothy but probably not to Clara who was six when Rose – six months pregnant with Harry – married Arthur.
I believe that the woman in the postcard is Kate Stretton, holding hands with little Dorothy who looks perhaps 4 years old. That, along with the clothes they are wearing, dates the photo at around 1910. It’s telling that Kate was pictured with Dorothy and not her own son Harry, who would have been a young teenager. How kind of Kate and Henry to take in three orphaned children with all the extra work and expense involved. Eva went out briefly to work as a domestic servant in the home of headmaster Samuel Scattergood at 165 Knighton Road, but otherwise all of the children lived at 101 St Leonards Road until they either married or died, and yet I can’t find any connection between the Strettons and Rose Ellen to explain why they adopted her three children. Perhaps they were friends or maybe Kate and Henry felt their family was not complete with just one surviving son.
It must have been a busy household. Henry Moore Stretton worked as a gardener’s errand boy before marrying Lucy Eileen Slater and leaving home in 1919. Eva lived out in domestic service for a while but then came home and worked a shop assistant for grocers Simpkin & Jones. Harry Ernest worked for H E Allsopp hosiery manufacturers on Charles Street and Dorothy was a packer for J Goddard, manufacturing chemist, Station Street.
Eva Clara Greaves died at 101 St Leonards in 1923 aged just 31 and was buried at Welford Road Cemetery. Henry Moore Stretton’s wife Lucy became unwell and was nursed at St Leonard’s Road before finally dying in 1927 at the Infirmary. He remarried in 1930. His second wife was May Kinton May Kinton (1899-1975). Henry Stretton died in 1936 and was buried at Saffron Hill Cemetery. Kate lived out her days at 101 St Leonards Road and died in 1950 at Hillcrest nursing home aged 82. She was buried alongside Henry at Saffron Hill.
After Kate died, adopted daughter Dorothy May probably lived in the house for a time (although I still can’t get to the records office to check). She died in 1987 whilst living at Saffron Court supported accommodation on Southfields Drive.
<1960 – 1975
After Dorothy left, the next occupants of 101 St Leonards Road were the Kinton family. I have found no connection to May Kinton, who married Henry Moore Stretton, but it does seem an unlikely coincidence that unrelated Kintons should have moved in after the Stretton/Greaves left. Charles Archibald Kinton (1892-1967) was a poster writer who had lived as a small boy at 90 Montague Road. Charles married Emma Helen Poperly (1886-1975) at St Peter’s Oadby in 1914, and initially lived at 6 Linton Street. It looks from the value of their estates when Charles and Emma died that they owned 101 St Leonards rather than renting. Charles died in the house in 1967 and Emma died in 1975, not before installing the first telephone line in 1971.
Around the time that the Kintons lived in St Leonards Road the Leicester Chronicle ran a regular feature called “Down Your Street,” interviewing residents of a particular road and giving snippets of history. In 1963 the Chronicle featured St Leonards Road – which gives a flavour of what it was like to live there. Ron Allsopp, resident of number 106, said “These old homely back streets, with their obliging corner shops, are giving way to an impersonal streamlined modern way of life.” Mrs Weston of number 54, who had lived in the road for 56 years, said “We are mostly elderly folk who live down here. You could almost call St Leonards Road a street of widowed ladies! You used to be able to see fields from here once. Now there isn’t a field for miles.” Times have certainly changed.
