THE STORY BEHIND THE PICTURE

In the photo, next to the door, are adverts for Harringay's two early cinemas. The Hindoo, showing at the Premier Electric was released in 1912 (this is where I got to 1912 date from).

Henry Harby was born in Peckham in 1861. In 1863, his father, Alonzo died. Four years later his mother Mary Ann (nee Jubb) remarried (to Reuben Harby from Spalding) and by the time of the 1871 census Henry was living with Marry Ann's brother, William Jubb and his wife, Hannah, both from Spalding, Lincolnshire. The family were living at 220 Clyde Road, where Jubb was running a grocer's shop.

By 1898, Henry had moved his family into 220 Clyde Road and was running the shop under the name Harby & Co. In 1901, the census records that he had two sons, Alonzo 16 (named after Henry's father who like his uncle came from Spalding) and William 14.

William Jubb had retired and was living next door at 64 Summerhill Road. Before his death, he moved to a house at 238 Phillip Lane.

From 1899 to 1902, Jubb was Chairman of Tottenham District Council. He died in 1903. Something of his story was told in one of his death notices.

At the point where Summerhill Road merged with Clyde Road, the row of houses between Summerhill Road were originally known as Western Terrace. However, at a later date, some were renamed as Summerhill Terrace and I suspect that the 1888 Electoral Roll places number 7 remarkably close to where Harby’s Greengrocers store was located.

Prior to 1901 all the houses in Summerhill Road were only known by name. It was only when the Post Office insisted on house numbers that this changed.

The above entry from the 1911 UK Census shows Henry and Gertrude Harby, along with their children Henry Alonzo and Thomas William Harby, together with a nurse child named Nellie Houghton aged 4 living at the premises (Presumably unrelated).

It is most probable that the child pictured in front of Harby’s shop was none other than Nellie Houghton – then aged 5.

The occupation of Henry Harby is a Greengrocer and his place of birth reads ‘Old Ford’ but he was actually born in Peckham.

On the 1936 Electoral Roll Henry Harby (Snr) was living at number 7 Dunloe Avenue, Tottenham along with Ellen Houghton, the very same nurse-child who was living in Harby’s greengrocers shop in 1911. Coincidentally, also living at 7 Dunloe Avenue, were William and Charlotte Saunders, who had also been living at 220 Clyde Road at the time of the 1901 Census. 

 One fascinating discovery from the Electoral Rolls has disclosed that Henry Alonzo Harby (Jnr) and his wife Grace Harby (nee Wright), when living at 12 Dorset Road, were near neighbours to my grandparents George and Minnie Harwood, and my late mother who lived at number 2. Please refer to the copy of the electoral roll for 1934.