William Lyons and the streets of London

William Lyons > John Lyons > Elmira Lyons > Lillian Ransom > Charles Walters

William Lyons
(not sure if this is the father or son)

Last weekend, Ancestry.com made available their United Kingdom records and I was excited to see if I could find anything new, specifically in the Lyons branch of my tree.

William Lyons, my 4th great grandfather is my “most recent” ancestor who came from England. Family tradition says they were from London, but I was hoping for some proof.

From letters written by son John Lyons as well as US census records, I had the names of several of William’s children, which made it fairly easy to find William and his family in the 1841 census. William, along with wife Elizabeth and children Sophia, Charles, Will, John, and Albert were living on Stafford Street in the area of Marylebone, London. William was a painter, the same occupation he held when the family moved to New Jersey sometime around 1850.

After finding the census record, I was able to locate a number of baptism records for some of William and Elizabeth’s children, as well as a death record. Earlier occupations for William list him as a coachman and a “painter and glazier” which suggests he was a commercial/residential painter rather than an artist. The family moved a number of times, but stayed within the same general area of Marylebone between Regent’s Park and Hyde Park.

The children of William and Elizabeth include: Sophia, Charles Henry, Edwin John (who died at the age of 2 in 1836), William Valentine (born on Valentine’s Day, 1836), John, Albert, and Emily.

Here is a quick recount of where the family was living:
1829 – Adams Street West (now Seymour Place)
1831 – Devonshire Street (now Ashmill Street)
1834 and 1836 – John Street North (now Knox Street). This street was very near to the St. Mary’s Church. A history of the area, written in 1833, described the church’s location as “being surrounded by streets of worse than a second rate description.”
1836 – The family returned to Devonshire Street
1839 and 1841 – Stafford Street (now Conway Street)

I've marked the location of the streets where the Lyons family lived in red on the map on the left. The box on London map shows the area of London where the streets are located.

  

Sources: Census and church records from Ancestry.com; Google maps; A Topographical and Historical Account of the Parish of St. Mary-Le-Bone by Thomas Smith from Google books; family letters and pictures.