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In the end we opted for the 1883 birth certificate and that proved to be the right one but, as we suspected, there is no father named on it.

We have since discovered that his brother was actually named WILLIAM John Scott and are awaiting his birth certificate to see if any father's name appears on that one. Then again, they could have different fathers!

A further note on their mother Josephine. She did die, and is buried, at Poole. Through her marriage with Jesse Hillyear, they did have a second son named William who was born at Brighton in 1893 but died just two years later.

Thanks again to all who assisted in these searches

Let's hope it helps but, as you say, it will probably not have the father's name.

I've opted for the 1884 cert because he was 22 years old when married in 1907 and 69 when he died in 1953

I think 1883 will be too early

Which birth cert have you sent for? There are two possibles:


Births Jun 1883 (>99%)
SCOTT Robert Brighton 2b 276 Scan available - click to view

Births Sep 1884 (>99%)
Scott Robert Brighton 2b 237

Potty,

Agree it looks like Robert and John were illegitimate. I've sent off for Robert Scott's birth cert but I doubt it will have his father's name?

Josephine married Jesse Kitchear Hllyear in 1890 but I dont have the cert. Her parents were John and Martha Scott. She and her two sisters were in the Brighton workhouse in 1871. I'm told she died in Poole in 1945 aged 89

Visited the Scott grave at Hollybrook Cemetery last weekend and there is a very old wooden cross with his and two daughters names - but dont know who put it there

Josephine married Jesse under the name of Scott - that would seem to indicate that Robert and John were probably both illegitimate. Do you have their marriage cert?

We now have more evidence of Robert Scott’s identity. He was born in Brighton in 1884 to Josephine Scott (her maiden name) and had a brother John Scott some three years younger. The family is shown on the 1891 census living at 14 Fleet Street, Brighton.

By that time, Josephine had married Jesse K. Hillyer (in 1890) and had another child Jesse Hillyer junior born in 1891. By 1901 the family had moved to Southampton and was living at 27 Dock Street, where Robert had taken the name Hillyer (or Hillier) after his stepfather.

Robert reverted to his original surname of Scott in his 1907 marriage to Rosetta Annie Beatrice Cotton but on the birth certificate of their third child, Robert John in 1913, both parents have the surname Hillier-Scott.

The Scotts and Hillyers were all at 13 Ryde Terrace when Jesse junior was killed in WW1 in 1917. Robert finally lived at 21 Albert Road where he died on 25th May 1953.

We still have yet to find his actual date of birth – and the name of his father. If anyone can help in light of this new evidence we’d love to hear from you.

From other relatives, it now seems fairly certain he came from the Portsmouth area as he had a brother still living there, possibly in the 1960s.

Can anyone suggest another route we might be able to find more about him?

It seems the merchant seaman's register was not kept up prior to him becoming a stevedore around 1913. Would there be registers of dock workers at that time?

To sum up so far, I think we can reasonably discount Robert Harold Scott as he just doesn't seem to fit. Though all we really have is his father's name as William and the possibility of his mother or other relative being named Matilda.

He was a merchant seaman "on the coal boats" who possibly came from the Portsmouth area.

The coal boats is an interesting link as many came to the nearby Wharves in the St Mary's area, bringing supplies from the north east. But we have no evidence that Robert Scott was from that area. He could have indeed been a Southampton man who joined the boats locally

Odd, as the Robert H I posted was in the 1891 and is still alive in 1901, living with his widowed mother Emily, so can't be the one who died in 1886 but I can't find a birth for him.

Mother Rose, Little Rose and Matilda all appear in the 1911 census living at 40 Cumberland Street. No mention of Robert as he was probably at sea on that date

Yes, Matilda died after only a few months

The husband/father is not on 1911 census............as per original message

????

on fmp no credits left

Matilda Scott, "England and Wales Census, 1911"
Name: Matilda Scott
Event Type: Census
Event Date: 1911
Gender: Female
Age: 0
Birthplace: Southampton, Hampshire
Schedule Type: Household
Registration District: Southampton
Sub-District: Southampton Eastern
Parish: St Mary
County: Hampshire

The tree on Ancestry is a work of fiction

Births Dec 1884 (>99%)
Scott Robert Harold Southampton 2c 15
Deaths Jun 1886 (>99%)
Scott Robert Harold 1 Southampton 2c 16

I think he died Potty if you note my edit above.

Looks like the Robert in that tree had a father Thomas:
Name:Robert H Scott
Age:7
Estimated Birth Year:abt 1884
Relation:Son
Father's Name:Thomas R Scott

Mother's Name:Emily M Scott
Where born:Christchurch, Hampshire, England

Thomas R Scott 41
Emily M Scott 40
Robert H Scott 7
George W Scott 5
Henrietta M Scott 3
Louisa Miller 14

I think the Ancestry tree mistakenly refers to another Robert Scott who died a few months earlier.

We have no evidence on any documentation that mentions a middle name of Harold

The Stokes Bay reference is interesting as somebody once mentioned he came from "Portsmouth Way" but we know he was a merchant seaman in 1911 - not in the Royal Navy

One other mention was that he was "on the coal boats"

Ancestry trees are notoriously unreliable

Deaths Jun 1953 (>99%)
SCOTT Robert 69 Southampton 6b 516

Stephen

'Deceased' fathers on marriage certs were sometimes invented