ellen and Albert Eales (eals)
Subjects: Ellen Eales (b 1868 – d 1911)
Albert Eales (b 1870 – d ?)
Researchers: Pauline Sieler, Mike Brock,
Carol Thompson
Travellers’ lives for Woking siblings after turbulent upbringing
Ellen and Albert Eales were the innocent victims of their father’s life of crime, spending their childhood in either the poorest part of Woking or the Guildford Union Workhouse. Ellen became a mother at 17, going on to have 12 children with her partner as they lived as travellers around Hampshire, Surrey and Sussex. Her brother Albert was with Ellen and her family in Great Bookham in 1891 but then seemingly disappears from the records.
Tough start for Ellen and Albert in Woking
Ellen Eales was born on Crastock farm, Woking, Surrey on 21st August 1868 to labourer Peter Eales and his wife Rachael 1-5.
Ellen’s father was rarely out of prison. In May 1866, less than 3 months after the birth of his first child David, Peter had been found guilty of raping an 11-year-old girl 6. He was given just an 18-month sentence in Wandsworth Gaol for the shocking offence 7. Ellen was born some nine months after Peter was set free.
The family were living in Wych Street, Woking, when Rachael’s next child, Albert, was born on 26th September 1870 8. However, husband Peter was not around as just a week before, he had 
been taken into custody prior to being sentenced to five years in prison for stealing pork, sugar and other items from a shop in Chobham 9. He also pleaded guilty to the theft of eight live tame rabbits from a property in Pirbright.
Because of her husband’s imprisonment, Rachael received some financial and other assistance from the Guildford Union during her confinement and after Albert’s birth 10. The 1871 Census recorded 30-year-old Rachael as a ‘convict’s wife’, living in Hook Heath, Woking with her three young children David (5), Ellen (2) and Albert (6 months) 11. Also in the same crowded household were Rachael’s mother Elizabeth and her partner Stephen Cooper, two brothers and a sister 12. Hook Heath was a somewhat bleak, barren area at this time, with the accommodation just rough wooden huts or tents 13.
In August 1872, while her father remained in prison, Ellen was baptised at Woking’s St John’s Church shortly before her fourth birthday 14. Her brother Albert’s baptism took place the following February not in Woking, but at Stoke-next-Guildford’s St John the Evangelist Church, indicating that Rachael and her three children were probably Guildford Union Workhouse inmates at this time, although there are no records available to confirm this 15.
Peter was released from prison in 1875, with David and Ellen registered that year as scholars at Woking’s St John’s Board Council School 16. The family were living in The Lye, and were soon growing again – Edwin George was born in 1876 and Ann Eliza in 1878 17, 18.
1878 also saw Albert registered at Woking School, but once again, the children, now numbering five, were to be without a father when Peter, who had been working as a shoemaker, was imprisoned in January 1879 for the third time for stealing a pair of boots and two umbrellas from a Woking farmhouse 19, 20.
He was sentenced to one year, but soon after his release, he was convicted once more for larceny in May 1880 21. Although his crime was just the theft of a shovel worth two shillings (£0.10), Peter was sentenced to seven years on the strength of his four previous convictions.
Peter never knew freedom again. After being transferred from Pentonville to Portland Prison on the Dorset coast in February 1881, he died there in May 1882, aged around 43 22, 23.
Hard times continue
For his wife Rachael and their five children, the 1881 Census showed that after Peter went to prison, the family had been split. 12-year-old Ellen and her brother Albert, 10, were scholar inmates of the Guildford Union Workhouse, while their mother Rachael and siblings David (16, ‘recently left work’), George (5) and Eliza (Ann) (3) were living in The Lye, with her now blind mother, Stephen Cooper, her sister, brother-in-law and their two young children 23, 24.
In June 1882, just after their father’s death, Ellen and Albert were moved from the Workhouse School in Stoke-next-Guildford back to the St John’s Council School in Woking, so they were now back living with their mother Rachael in The Lye 26. Ellen and Albert gained a half-sister in February 1883 when Rachael gave birth to Clara in the Guildford Workhouse 27.
It seems certain, however, that the conditions for Rachael and her family in The Lye were dreadful.
A report by the Guildford Union Inspector of Nuisances and Medical Officer of Health in July 1883 into a ‘turf hut’ in The Lye owned by Rachael’s sister-in-law Martha Eales said the hut ‘was, without exception, the most wretched habitation he had ever seen’. Within the ‘deplorable and filthy’ conditions were three bedsteads shared by Martha, three of her children and two male lodgers ‘without the slightest attempt at dividing the sexes’ 28, 29.
Ellen becomes a teenage single mother
In December 1885, 17-year-old ‘house keeper’ Ellen became a mother herself when she gave birth to Henry Edward Eales in Knaphill, Woking 30. No father was named. Two years later, a second son was born ‘in a tent’ in Bramshill, Eversley, Hampshire, about 16 miles (24km) west of Knaphill. He was registered as Daniel Grist, son of Thomas Henry Grist, a hawker, and Ellen Grist 31. No marriage has been traced, but the boys were both baptised with the Grist surname in 1889 32.
Ellen’s ‘husband’ did not have a blameless past. At the age of 14, Godalming-born Thomas was imprisoned for stealing property to the value of two shillings (10p) and sentenced to one month’s hard labour 33. He had an unsuccessful stint in the Army, ending when he deserted the 103rd Regiment of Foot in 1878 with records noting his character as ‘v bad’ 34.
By 1891, the young family were living at Slyfield Farm, Great Bookham 35. Ellen now had a third son, George 36. Ellen’s brothers, George and Albert Eales, were living with them, employed as farm servants, as was her husband, now using his middle name Henry.
Ellen’s first daughter Maud was born in 1892, and by the time of the birth of Reuben in January 1894, the family were living in Postford, Albury 37, 42.
Life as travellers
An article published in the Surrey Times in February 1895 gave an insight into the travelling lifestyle of the Grist family 38. Entitled ‘A Gipsy Encampment’, it noted that Henry, Ellen and their five children were living in a tent on the land of Lockhursthatch Farm, Shere, alongside five other tents. Three of these tents, which included that of the Grists, were being investigated by the Guildford Rural District Council local sanitary officer regarding possible overcrowding. Henry was paying 1s 6d (7.5p) rent per week for about 800 cubic feet (22.6 cubic metres) of space. However, it was pointed out to the Council that the conditions under which the Grists and their neighbours lived were much healthier than that of many cottages and that the Council should not ‘bear heavily upon them’. One criticism noted was that none of the children on the encampment appeared to be attending school although records from 1897 on show Ellen and Henry did ensure their children received an education 42.
In early 1896, Esther was born near Peaslake 39. Shortly afterwards, the family moved south to Sussex where 10-year-old Daniel died in Washington, just north of Worthing, in January 1897 40.
The family continued to grow rapidly, with six more daughters born in Sussex within eight years from the beginning of 1897 to late 1904 – a total of 12 children in all for Ellen and Henry 41.
Joy and sadness
There was a day of great celebration for the family on 11th December 1906 at St Peter’s Church, Woking where five travellers’ weddings took place including Ellen and Albert’s siblings/half-siblings Annie (Ann Eliza) Eales marrying John Williams, and Clara Eales to James Baker 43. Their mother Rachael would surely have enjoyed the day, but her health was beginning to fail, and in March 1907, she passed away in the Guildford Union Workhouse, aged 65 44.
Ellen and her family lived for about three years in Irons Bottom, between Reigate and Horley, with their life on the road coming to an end in April 1910 when they moved into a property in Charlesfield Road, Horley 42. This move may have been because Ellen’s health was suffering, as on 14th January 1911, aged just 43, she died at home from cervical cancer 45.
Ellen’s husband Thomas Henry remained in Charlesfield Road with their family for more than 20 years until he passed away in March 1933, aged 77 46, 47. This did not end the Grist connection with Charlesfield Road, however – Ellen and Thomas Henry’s daughter-in-law Annie Grist was there at the time of her death in July 1989 at the age of 97 48.
Albert Eales disappears
Nothing has been traced for Ellen’s brother Albert since he was a 20-year-old farm servant living with his sister Ellen in Great Bookham in 1891. His brother George was also living with Albert and Ellen in 1891 and has also disappeared from the records, so the double vanishing act seems ripe for a conspiracy theory!
December 2020, updated June 2026
Edited by Mike Brock
With many thanks to Geoff Burch, great grandson of Rachael Eales, for his help.
We’d love to hear from you if you are a relative of the Eales and Grist families, and especially if you know what happened to Albert and George Eales!
Please contact us by email at spikelives@charlotteville.co.uk or visit our Facebook page “Tales from Guildford Workhouse”
Sources and References
Original Surrey parish, school and Guildford Union records, criminal registers and newspapers are available at the Surrey History Centre, Woking. Digitised records were sourced through Ancestry.co.uk and FindMyPast.co.uk. Newspaper articles were from the British Newspaper Archive/FindMyPast.co.uk. A complete list of references may be found at Ellen and Albert Eales references
Spike Lives is a Heritage project that chronicles the lives of inmates, staff and the Board of Guardians of the Guildford Union Workhouse at the time of the 1881 Census. The Spike Heritage Museum in Guildford offers guided tours which present a unique opportunity to discover what life was like in the Casual/Vagrant ward of a Workhouse. More information can be found here