| Notes |
- George was a successful butcher in Plumstead for most of his adult life, and is believed to have come to England somewhere between 1848 and 1868 from Niederstetten, a village south-east of Bad Mergentheim in the Tauber Valley, Germany.
We have no information on George's early life and a mystery persists surrounding the reasons why he came to England and with whom. We can, however, be sure that Georg Leonhardt Rengert was born in Niederstetten on 18 April 1838. As his eldest son John Frederick was 13 years old on the 1881 Census and was born in Plumstead, Georg must have arrived from Germany in or before 1868, i.e. before the age of 30. Brian Ash, George’s great grandson, believed that he came to England with his parents and/or his cousin.
The question of exactly when he emigrated is still open. Ted Rengert of New Zealand engaged a researcher to enquire further. He could find no record of any Rengerts in the English censuses for 1851, 1861 or 1871. What the researcher missed is that George’s name is recorded incorrectly on the 1871 Census for 72 Plumstead Road, Plumstead where he appears as ‘Lanard Rengert’, a pork butcher from Germany, with his English wife Emma, her mother Sarah Warren and the first two children John Frederick (3) and George Leonard (2).
In a reference to the National Archives, the ‘Moving Here’ website has this: ‘There are several series of certificates of aliens arriving in the UK between 1836 and 1852, arranged by port of arrival in HO2. Each certificate gives the individual's nationality, their profession, date of arrival, last country visited and signature. There is an index to German arrivals, which can be found in the Research Enquiries Room at the National Archives. Otherwise this material remains unindexed. In addition, there are incomplete lists of immigrants arriving from Europe between 1836 and 1869, drawn up by the master of the ship on which they arrived, found in HO3.’ These archives are, no doubt, where the truth will be found about Georg’s arrival in England if it exists.
George was naturalised a British citizen on 9th October 1879. His naturalisation certificate is held by the National Archive in Kew.
Plumstead was growing rapidly when Georg lived there. A map dated 1869 shows a small town on the edge of the Thames surrounded by fields. In the twenty years between 1871 and 1891 Plumstead's population grew from 28,318 to 52,754. The small Kentish village of 1801 had mushroomed into a heavily populated London suburb. Extensive information on the history and development of Plumstead can be found on the University of Greenwich website. Pigot's Directory for 1840 is also of interest.
Dora Adams (née Rengert), interviewed by Brian Ash and his son David in February 2003, remembered her grandfather as, ‘Very religious. He gave a lot to the church. He helped build a church in Woolwich. I used to go to church with him there. He used to take me there. It was a Methodist Church and it was his money that helped build it. He considered that he should give so much of his earnings to the church and his name is inscribed there.’ The Methodist Church on whose outside wall the names of George Rengert and his friend Charles Thorogood are engraved and where George and Emma married is now the Woolwich Gurdwara or Sikh Temple in Calderwood Street (formerly William Street). Charles was the father of George's daughter-in-law Edith and also a butcher.
George's business grew beyond the confines of Plumstead. In a diary previously in the possession of Margaret Rengert the following advertisement was printed: ’56 High Street, Erith. G.L.Rengert (of Plumstead) will open the above establishment. First class beef and pork butcher's, on Thursday next, April 18th 1891. Pork & beef sausages made on the premises, fresh every day. Hot joints every evening at 7.30. Also on Saturday from 12 till 2. Note the address, 56 High Street, Erith, and at 72 Plumstead Road, Plumstead, 65 Glyndon Road, Plumstead, 81 High Street, Plumstead.’
In an e-mail to David Ash in April 2003, Alex Cartwright wrote that his research had unearthed the fact that George Leonard had two butcher’s shops in 1901, one at 65 Glyndon Road on the corner of Griffin Road, where he lived with the family, and another at 72 Plumstead Road on the corner of Charlotte Street. These two premises are confirmed by an entry in Kelly’s Directory for 1891. Meanwhile, his eldest son John Frederick had a shop at 81 High Street, Plumstead, on the corner of Abery Street, where he also lived with his family. Confusingly, records also show that, in 1895, George paid the Land Tax (a precursor of the Council Tax) on 98 High St, Woolwich, which was listed as a ‘house’. Whether this was another family home or a business premises is unclear.
Further digging has produced some surprising information about George’s property holdings. The electoral register for 1896 shows G L Rengert residing at 72 Plumstead Road but also registered as the owner of 67, 69, 71, 82 and 84 Glyndon Road and 27, 29 & 31 Station Road, Plumstead. This looks like three sets of adjacent properties which were, presumably, converted into large butchers’ shops.
In a letter to David Ash dated 5 June 2003 Margaret Rengert wrote, ‘My 92-year-old friend tells me she clearly remembers the butcher, Mr Rengert, to whom she ran errands 3 or 4 times a week when she was about 4 years old. She mimics his expression to her as he sharpens his knife, his wife, hair tied back in a bun (he with glasses, her not) coming into the shop quite often. The shop was at the corner of Charlotte Street and Plumstead Road.’
The social reformer Charles Booth visited the area in May 1900 and wrote, ‘The whole of the Plumstead Road is a shopping street’. To judge by his description, though, there were some fairly insalubrious, even dangerous neighbourhoods close by, particularly in the area known as the Dusthole. He wrote, ‘I got back to the Dusthole about 10 minutes after closing time (i.e. 12.10 a.m.). More life in the streets but no quarrelling. Women and men had just been turned out of the public houses.’
In April 2003, researcher Alex Cartwright obtained the marriage certificate for George and Emma Rengert which gave the name of George's father as Frederick, a bootmaker. Alex also obtained the marriage certificate of another Rengert, Johann, who was believed for a while to have been George’s brother. However, the certificate showed Johann’s father to be John, a labourer, which proves that George and Johann could not have been brothers.
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1838 - 1925 (86 years)
Residence
