I wrote about a nineteenth century advert for furniture polish yesterday, and found that despite it being called Newth’s, as far as I can gather there was no Mr Newth who invented the polish, but it was produced a company called W.B. Fordham. The founder of the company was W.B.’s grandfather, Isaac. Intrigued, I looked up Isaac Fordham on the census returns, and a man of that name appeared in 1841, 1851, 1871, and 1881.
When I looked at the census returns in detail it was apparent that there were two different Isaacs. However what struck me was how the names of the children changed – fashion in naming children is nothing new!
- 1841: Isaac and Lydia had Charles, Frances, George and Louiza
- 1851: Isaac and Lydia had a second son called Charles, and Laura
- 1871: a second Isaac and wife Thirza had Hannah, Mary and William
- 1881: Isaac and Thirza had Mary, William, Alice, Annie, Arthur, Ellen, Harry, Kate and Lily
William Bennett (W.B.) Fordham, and his wife Christina, had a number of children too, William, Dora, Ernest, Ethel and Sidney.
Many of these names are fashionable once more, but I haven’t come across many Thirza’s… except in my novel Radwinter… and she was a character who was born in the 1820’s!
Lois Elsden 
Isaac the elder was my great, great, great grandfather 😄
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How wonderful! I guess you know much more about his company and his products!
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It seems WB Fordham bought the recipe for Newth’s British Furniture Polish in the 1880s. There was a family of Newths who made ‘British Furniture Polish’ in Clerkenwell in the 1871 census: Maria Newth b. 1820 (step-daughter of Ann Newth b. 1796), Eliza Newth b. 1830 and Emma Newth b. 1841, although their father, who seems to have been diamond manufacturer Elijah Newth, died in 1856.
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Thank you, it is such an unusual name, isn’t it? Thanks for the information!
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