The Yapp’s Family Site

Matthew and Alice


According to the 1911 Census records, Matthew and Alice had 10 children but only 7 lived.


At the time of writing (10/02/2011), I can now confirm that I have found the three deceased children thanks to my sister and brother-in-law who paid for the cost of the certificates. We have an agreement, I pay for all the research sites and do the researching and Linda and Ken pay for all my required certificates, I think there was time when I was hitting them hard but not scoring very well but in all I think we have done quite well.


The three deceased children are:


1. Ellen Yapp born and died in December 1894 of Accidental Suffocation whilst in bed

 

2. Frederick Yapp born and died 1897 of Tuberculosis


3. Martha Hilda Yapp born and died 1900 of Diarrhoea


So, it would appear that although our Dad was the youngest, he was not the last born.


 An interesting story here is: That we had an Aunt Doris Yapp that we always believed to be our Dad’s sister but during all my research (And this one really gave the little grey cells a headache) because there was no Doris Yapp registered that fitted our family line. Anyway to cut a long story short, I discovered that her name was actually Lilian May Yapp (AKA Doris) and she is listed on the 1911 Census record as the daughter of Matthew and Alice but in fact, she was the illegitimate daughter of Matthew and Alice’s eldest daughter Lilian Alice Yapp of 1887 but she was brought up as another daughter. The family story has it, that it was the local Butchers Son that was responsible. This of course meant that my sister and I didn’t have an Aunt Doris (And I have no idea where the name Doris came from) at all but we did have another cousin Lilian.








 














Lilian Alice Yapp                                              Lilian May (Doris) Yapp

 


Lilian Alice married William Walter Diggins.


This next tale, I have it on good authority from Lilian Alice’s Granddaughter.


William Walter Diggins ran away from the family and headed for the USA. Lilian or Diggie, as she was called, was not the sort of woman that would have taken that lying down so she packed up her youngest daughter Dora, then sixteen, left her eldest daughter Constance, then eighteen, and headed for New York to find her runaway husband. It didn’t take Diggie very long before she found her dear Billy Boy. He was working as a chauffeur on a Long Island estate. It seemed he stayed with the family for some years after that but he finally took off again and headed for the Land Down Under (Australia) and was never heard from again.


I did actually find his death record in Brisbane, Queensland but I don’t appear to have that record anymore. I am told that he may have married again even though he was still married to Lilian. What a family we are. Haha!!


 


Lilian Alice’s descendants are still living in Long Island New York and I am a very Happy Yappy to be able to say that via the Internet I was able to find Lilian’s Granddaughter and we are now in touch regularly.


 


My sister Linda and I don’t remember too much about our Grandfather Matthew, he did live with us until he was put into the Langthorne Hospital in Walthamstow where he died in 1956.


I always remember him as a very hard Nasty Man. As a young boy I do recall him chasing me with his walking stick and trying to beat me with it but I managed to escape out of the front room window. Dad always used to tell us that he is “Going off his Rocker”.


One night he was having one of his turns and creating a lot of fuss, cursing and swearing and it sounded like he was smashing his room up so Dad put a rope round the door handle and tied it to the top of the stair rail to stop him getting out and he had tied a rope to the door handle inside to stop us getting in.


The Police were called and it took about 6 of them to get in the room and get him down the stairs and into the Paddy Wagon. I don’t quite know where they took him but I can’t remember him coming back to our home.


Matthew was a Fishmonger by trade so he carried the nick name of Pikey.























4 Generations of Yapp’s: Matthew, William John (Our Dad) William Arthur Our Brother and baby John Yapp.

This photo was taken about 1952.


The above photo was taken in the back garden of our home in Walthamstow a few years before the walking stick event I mention above.