History
Genealogy has become so popular, the number of people who want to see the places where their ancestors lived, walked, worked, and loved for themselves is at an all-time high.
The search to learn more about your ancestors – who they were, where they came from, what happened to them, and why – starts in conversations with relatives, in the attic or basement rifling through old photos and documents, at the local library or archives researching vital records, or online mining genealogy websites.
Having a family so entrenched in a particular trade makes tracing ancestors much easier. Not only do you have a name to search, you have a specific job.
Because of this and family stories, we know quite a lot about our family’s history.
How the Firkins started in Chimney Sweeping in London
We know that in the mid 1800’s, Charles Firkins moved to London from Droitwich to work as a leather tanner.
What we don’t know is how or why Charles became a chimney sweep before 1860.
It was clearly a successful career change though; 4 years later 3 of his brothers had joined him in London and were also working as chimney sweeps.
A couple of these brothers ended up working in North London, mostly around the Crouch End, Hornsey, Highgate, Wood Green and Tottenham areas.
The other two were in South East London, based in East Dulwich and New Cross.
These 4 brothers had sons who became sweeps too. In no time at all there were over 10 Firkins chimney sweeps. This number grew as time went on, and employees from outside of the family were taken on; mostly boarders in the Firkins households across London.
Some of our history in photographs
Current family members working in the firm are Graham and Josh. Before this, Cyril Firkins was in the business, along with brothers and employees. Cyril and Graham can be seen below, in a photo from the 1980’s.
Cyril was a sweep for most of his life, man and boy. He did also spend some time in the family greengrocers in Middle Lane, Crouch End, as well as helping in the nurseries opposite behind the family home also in Middle Lane.
The nursery and greengrocers were well known in the area – the death of Cyril’s Mum, Edith, warranted a mention in the local Hornsey newspaper, published in 1958
Cyril’s brothers worked in the sweeping business as well as the shop, but Cyril brought his friend Dennis into the sweeping business for extra help. Dennis was one of his good friends from school.
We have a photo of the Firkins home in Middle Lane as can be seen below. Firkins lived in this house and the one to the right, 41 and 43.
Before Middle Lane, some of the family lived in Manor Cottages in Tottenham Lane. One of our best photos was taken outside this house, seen below.
As well as this side of the family, there were the Firkins South of the river. There were as many down there as up here, in fact possibly more. They had their own ‘and Sons’ business! J Firkins and Sons was based in New Cross up until the 1950’s or 60’s. It can be seen below in a photo that we found on Ebay. The photo wasn’t supposed to be of the family’s old premises – it was possibly one of the first ever photo bombs!
Lost history
As well as these photos, there must be many in existence somewhere or other.
Hopefully as time goes on, with AI and other modern technology, trawling the Internet for possible links to our family, especially in photo form, might become easier.
One thing that would have been great for our collection would have been a photo a Firkins sweep with their horse and cart. It’s something that I actively searched for but never managed to find.
By sheer fantastic coincidence, in February 2024 a lady who, while not a Firkins herself, had a grandmother whose maiden name was Firkins, got in touch with us.
She’d been looking up her family tree and found that she descended from a family of chimney sweeps. She contacted her uncle to find out if she knew anything about these sweeps.
Her uncle not only knew about this side of the family, he had a really old photo of an ancestor in his loft. Walter Firkins from East Dulwich.
He sent the photo to his niece, who while doing further research, found that the Firkins sweeps were still around! She contacted us and asked if we’d like to see the photo.
Understandably, we were delighted to receive this photo. It is just more history to add to our collection – some of which is included in this blog – and its even better that it shows that lovely old form of transport.
There are probably more old photos of Firkins sweeps in lofts across London. Hopefully we find more in the future. If we don’t though, we’re grateful to have seen this one.