1891 census - Erith

By 1891 all the children had left home. Charles jr and Herbert had married and moved to Greenwich,   but Charles and Eliza were still living in Erith. Charles was again described as a plumber and decorator, and the census now listed the employment status as ‘employer’.

In 1901 Charles (73) and Eliza (70) also moved to Greenwich close to their sons and were living at 41a Craigerne Road. This has now been bisected by the Rochester Way (the approach to the Blackwall Tunnel) and sadly No 41 was the most North Easterly House to have been demolished. Charles had now retired and was living with Eliza and a visitor named Emma Owen (age 29), a "retired cook". Charles and Eliza were 73 and 70 respectively so was Emma there in a caring capacity?

Herbert and family were at the time  living at 21, Old Dover Road - a house that also appears to have been sacrificed to the building of the Rochester Way. However 10 years previously they had been just around the corner from Craigerne Road, at 24 Hassenden Road. Both these streets are in what is now known as the Rectory Fields Conservation area and it would appear that Herbert  (and possibly brother Charles as well) was engaged in the building of this developmemt..  

Charles died on 7th August 1909, aged 80 of ‘morbus cordis, syncope’, only 3 months before his son Herbert. He had moved to Belvedere (part of Erith) and was living at 1, Oakfield Terrace, Barnfield Rd. His eldest daughter Clara Ogilvie was present at the death.

Eliza lived for another two years and surviving just long enough to be listed on the 1911 census. She was living at Hazeldene, Barnfield Road, Belvedere with Clara and her husband Thomas Ogilvie, a skilled iron worker at the Royal Arsenal. Also living at Hazeldene was Clara's only son Stanley (aged 9) and two foster children, Thomas (10) and John (9) Webb. Eliza is described on the schedule as "old age pensioner" suggesting that she was in receipt of a pension.  Less than a month after the census was taken she died of "Senile Dementia, Cerebral Haemorrhage" at the age of 80.