My Family Tree

Birth GRO 2nd qtr 1854
STEEL, Henry Cuckfield 2b 138
=====
When the census was taken on 3rd April 1881, Henry Steel and his family were recorded at 102 Goldstone Road, Hove. On the census return, Henry Steel, who gives his place of birth as Clayton, Sussex, is described as a twenty-seven year old "Watchman". At this time, Henry and Mary Steel had three young children - Henry, aged 5, John, aged 2, and a baby daughter named Janet Elizabeth Steel. In the early months of 1884, Henry Steel's youngest son, John, and his youngest daughter, Janet Elizabeth, both died. Now with only one surviving child (Henry junior), Mrs Mary Steel gave birth to another daughter during the 1st Quarter of 1887. Henry and Mary Steel christened their new daughter, Janet, the same name that was given to their two previous daughters who had died young.

In the 1880s, Henry Steel supplemented his income as a "Watchman" by taking in lodgers. [When the 1881 census was taken, the Steel household in Goldstone Road contained 4 paying boarders]. By 1890, Henry Steel and his family were living at No. 74 Goldstone Road, Hove. The census taken on 5th April 1891, records Henry Steel, his wife Mary, their teenage son, Henry Steel junior, and four year old daughter Janet Steel at 74 Goldstone Road, Hove. On the census return, Henry Steel is described as a "General Labourer", aged 37.

Sometime in the early 1890s, Henry Steel set himself up as a photographer in Hove. Local trade directories indicate that Henry Steel established a photographic portrait studio at 74 Goldstone Road, Hove around 1894. The Trades Section of Page's Directory of Brighton & Hove, published in 1895, lists Henry Steel as a photographic artist at 74 Goldstone Road, Hove. The 1895 edition of H. & J. Barnes' Popular Directory of Brighton & Hove also lists Henry Steel as a professional photographer at 74 Goldstone Road, Hove. Many of Henry Steel's early carte-de-visite portraits are mounted on old photographic card stock belonging to Robert Cox, a photographer of Clifton, Bristol. when he first started his career as a photographer. Robert Cox had closed his studio at 37 White Ladies Road, Clifton, Bristol, in 1891 and apparently Henry Steel had acquired Cox's unused stock of cdv cards shortly afterwards. Henry Steel's early cdv portraits are mounted on the backs of Cox's cards. On the reverse of the cdv portraits, Steel's trade mark - H. Steel, Photographer, 74 Goldstone Road, West Brighton *- is rubber-stamped above Robert Cox's details. By 1896, Henry Steel was producing his carte-de-visite portraits on cards professionally printed with the photographer's credit "Hy Steel, 74 Goldstone Road, Hove".

[* In 1895, Henry Steel gave his studio address as "74 Goldstone Road, West Brighton". Central Hove was commonly referred to as "West Brighton" during the early 1890s. The area of Central Hove in which Goldstone Road was situated had been known as Cliftonville up until around 1879. Cliftonville Railway Station officially changed its name to West Brighton in 1879. By the early 1890s, Goldstone Road was listed under Hove in street directories, but was often still referred to as "West Brighton". In October 1895, West Brighton Railway Station was officially re-named Hove & West Brighton and in the following year (July 1895), the name West Brighton was dropped altogether and the railway station became "Hove Railway Station". From this date, Henry Steel printed 74 Goldstone Road, Hove, on his photographic card mounts].

From the mid 1890s, Henry Steel produced both carte-de-visite and cabinet portraits at his studio at 74 Goldstone Road, Hove. The 1901 census records Henry Steel, his wife Mary and 14 year old daughter, Janet, living at 74 Goldstone Road, Hove. On the census return, 46 year old Henry Steel is described as a "Photographer" working on his "own account, at home".

Around 1905, Henry Steel opened a second studio at 11 Hove Street, Hove (later re-numbered No.9a). Henry Steel managed his studios in Goldstone Road and Hove Street in parallel until about 1913. After he closed his Hove Street studio, Henry Steel continued to take photographic portraits in the studio attached to his home at 74 Goldstone Road, Hove. Local trade directories recorded Henry Steel as a photographer in Goldstone Road until the mid 1920s. It appears that Henry Steel retired from photography around 1925 when he was in his early seventies.

Henry Steel's Family
Only two of Henry and Mary Steel's children survived into adulthood - Henry Steel junior (born 1876, Hove, Sussex) and Janet Steel (born 1887, Hove, Sussex).

Henry Steel's son Henry Steel junior, a bricklayer by trade, married Ella Annie Kean (born 1877, Cannington, Somerset) in 1904. Henry and Ella's first child, a baby boy named James Steel, was born in 1906. Two more children were born during the next 4 years - William Frank Steel in 1908 and Arthur Steel in 1910.

Early in 1911, Janet Steel, Henry Steel's daughter, married William Alfred Field Buss (born c1889, Jarvis Brook, Sussex), a twenty-two year old "Domestic Gardener". When the census was taken on 2nd April 1911, Janet and her new husband were residing with Henry and Mary Steel at 74 Goldstone Road, Hove, the location of Henry Steel's photographic studio.

Henry Steel died in Brighton in 1952 at the great age of 97.
-----
1891 Census
Piece: RG12/819 Place: Steyning -Sussex Enumeration District: 15
Civil Parish: Hove Ecclesiastical Parish: St Andrews
Folio: 25 Page: 43 Schedule: 281
Address: 74 Goldstone Rd
Surname, Forename Rel Status Sex Age Occupation Where Born
STEEL, Henry Head M M 39 General Labourer (Notem) Sussex - Keymer (age? should be abt 37.)
STEEL, Mary Wife M F 40 Scotland - -
STEEL, Henry Son - M 10 Scholar Sussex - Hove
STEEL, Janet Dau - F 4 Sussex - Hove