A chance meeting?

However, remember, we want to know more about our ancestors’ lives so we’ll go on a little excursion here. We still don’t know Thomas’s actual birth date, but this will be found when we look at Parish Records, those documents usually created by the Church. Let’s find out how Thomas and Elizabeth possibly met. We’re looking at the 1871 census below when Thomas was about 20. He wasn’t a butcher then but he was by 1881 as the 1881 and 1891 censuses will later show. We can see he was 22 and a servant living at 160 New Cross Road. Do you remember this address from earlier? Exactly where he and the family were in 1891! Where was Elizabeth Cockett, his future wife, in 1871? She was staying at 102 New Cross Road as a servant. Just down the road from Thomas. She was 16 and Thomas was 22. Say no more. If they hadn't met in a pub down the road or at church one Sunday, we wouldn't be here. Elizabeth Jane Massingham (Cockett) in later life A middle class woman was entirely dependent on a supply of domestic servants, ranging from the untrained ‘slavey’ to a staff of several highly trained specialists. A young wife newly elevated to her husband’s status in the middle class might not have the accumulated knowledge of an old-established household. Here was a huge market for Advice Books, such as Isabella Beeton’s Book of Household Management, published in 1861 (and still in print and updated). https://www.bl.uk/victorian-britain/articles/the-victorian-middle- classes