For more information on the history of Brixton Road, click here.
Kelly’s Directory 1881 tells us that at 134 Brixton Road was Gilbert Hamilton Wilkins, a surgeon.
Click here to see where this property would have stood on a modern day map.
Expanding on the info taken from Kelly’s Directory and looking at the Census we find out a little more…
On the Census of 1881 we can see Mr Wilkins living in this property with his family. Generally Brixton road was inhabited by fairly well-to-do home owners in rather sizeable Victorian houses. Mr Wilkins, a surgeon would have been no exception.
1881
Name | Relation to head of household | Age | Year born | Town of birth | City of birth | Country of birth | Profession |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Gilbert Wilkins | Head | 30 | abt 1851 | London, London | Middlesex | England | M.R.C.S. Physician |
Anne Wilkins | Wife | 32 | abt 1849 | Newport | / | / | / |
Trevor H. Wilkins | Son | 1 | abt 1880 | Lambeth | London | England | / |
Charlotte Fulford | Servant | 19 | abt 1862 | Lambeth | London | England | Servant |
Ten years later in 1891 the Wilkin’s have more children and are living at the same property.
1891
[table “75” not found /]In researching the Wilkins family I noticed that their youngest son Geoffrey who is named on the census above was killed in 1915 in the Great War. He is named on the All Souls Church, Twickenham war memorial. The below document is taken from here.
The column on the right of the table above suggests that Geoffrey’s father Gilbert Wilkins died in 1898, he would only have been in his late forties, I wonder why this was?
Number 134 Brixton road is still standing, see below:
This may be of interest to you. Gilbert Hamilton Wilkins is shown at 112 Brixton Road with his older brother, John Canning Wilkins, also a surgeon, in GMC Medical Registers for 1979. John moved to Tulse Hill some time after that. Their father was William Crane Wilkins, their grandfather Robert Wilkins. The senior Wilkins were lighthouse lantern manufacturers that supplied Trinity House through the 1800s for lighthouses all over the world. Their factory was in Long Acre near Covent garden. It burnt to the ground in 1876. William Crane Wilkins took out many patents relating to lighthouse lanterns, exhibiting at the Great Exhibition in 1851. He met his future wife, Louisa Canning, in Cornwall when he went to install the lantern in the St Anthony in Roseland lighthouse that guards Falmouth harbour (completed 1835).