Ernest Hilton Gates
Born 1878 Peckham; married 1903 Mabel Macintyre (widow, born c.1874). I rather liked Mr Gates’s 1911 census form – not only had he filled in the exact address where he, his wife and one of his two staff were born, but he also wrote SANE four times in the column reserved for details of infirmity. I am not sure what happened to Mrs Mabel Gates, but by the time Mr Gates enlisted in 1914 at Ramsgate (his most recent employment was at a cinema) she did not seem to be around and his service record stated that his wife was Mrs Eva Gates of Bedford. Elsewhere on the record he said that he was separated and that his wife lived in Southend, so that one may have been Mabel. He had an unfortunate time, being shot up at Rouen and sustaining various other injuries, but survived.

Possibly died 1935 Abingdon district.

Isaac Benton Hales
Born 1842 Epsom; married 1860 Isabel Eliza Hawes and then in 1870 married her sister, Mary Willis Hawes (1843-81) and then in 1882 married Mary Ann Sparks, who seems to have died by 1911.

Children – Isaac Thomas (c.1860 Epsom – 1919, inmate of workhouse); Isabel (1863 Petworth, Sussex), possibly married George Harrison Huntley; Owen George (c.1866 Newmarket-1930), married Mabel Kate Burgess; Edith (c.1869 Newmarket); Zachariah Benton 1884 Chesham, Bucks (fate unknown).

Died 1917, still living on Albion Terrace.

Note: I rarely give up on researching people but the residents of the Albion Hotel and Yard have ultimately defeated me (courtesy of Mr Gates’s love life and Mr Hales’s wives and children).

The 1912 street directory for Epsom implies that a Mr James Budd, plumber and smith, had premises at the side of the Albion and, if this is right, then he must have been in the yard. However, I have the Budds as living in West Street.

The Albion
Image courtesy of Bourne Hall Museum