FROM LEE TO NORCOp,
Bill lee. 
Mary Shardlow. 
On his birth certificate, my father, John Norcop, is described as the son of Mary and William Norcop. Were that to be true then there would have been no sense to my researching the Lee family for I am the son of John Norcop and the grandson of Mary and William. To understand the reasons why I researched the Lee family it is necessary to disclose a few pertinent facts relating to the liaison between William and Mary.
Mary Shardlow was born at Eccleshall in 1869, the daughter of Joseph Shardlow and Elizabeth Emery of Stone, Staffordshire. In 1887, she married George Norcop of Stone. They had three children, Lillian, Harold and Anne.
By the year 1898, George Norcop had died.
According to family legend, Mary then began a liaison with William Lee. They had four children: Emma May 1899, Sarah 1902/3, John 1904 and Elizabeth 1905/6. Because William and Mary never married, the four children of the liaison were given Mary's married surname - Norcop. Eventually, according to the legend, the liaison ended and William went to live and work on a farm at Kingsley. My father described how he and his sister, Dolly (Emma May), used to travel from Longton to Kingsley to collect money from their father for the children's upkeep.
Although William and Mary's relationship was common knowledge throughout the families of the four children of the liaison, there did not exist documentary facts to confirm that the liaison was genuine. Because of this, I felt that future generations would not be satisfied with hearsay and I set out to discover the available documentation to confirm that William Lee was the Common Law Husband of Mary Norcop and, therefore, the father of the four children, Emma May, Sarah, John and Elizabeth..
As my first objective, I decided to try and obtain the birth certificates of the four children. I didn't get all four but I did get two, those of Emma May (Aunt Dolly), and my father's. Aunt Dolly's certificate bore no name at all for her father, but my father's father was described as William Norcop, Coal-miner. The informant was Mary Norcop, mother, of 27 Adelaide Street, Fenton, Stoke-on-Trent.
I now had an address for the couple. There are, in the Harold Barks reference Library at Hanley, two directories of the inhabitants of Stoke-on-Trent for the years 1907 and 1912. I requested the books from the archives and they were duly presented to me at a desk in a corner of the reading room. I opened the one for 1907 and leafed through it until I came to the entry for 27 Adelaide Street. It Read.....
27 ADELAIDE STREET, FENTON. MARY LEE. HOUSEHOLDER.
Excellent. I was now almost sure that my grandmother had lived with a William Lee and that all the hearsay evidence was true. You must remember that this was the first time I had ever seen my grandfather's surname in writing, and I felt really pleased with myself.
This find had also opened up another avenue for me to follow - the census returns for 1901 for this address to see if grandfather Lee was listed. However, there was a problem in doing this.
Perhaps now is the ideal moment to educate you, the reader, into the laws that exist regarding the census returns which are collected every ten years here in England.
From 1841, the names and age and place of birth have been recorded every ten years for every household in the country. From 1851, the status in the family, (head, wife, son, etc), marital status, and occupation were also required. Anyone who has reason to do so, can look at these census returns up to a date which is not less than 100 years. Therefore, as an aid to my research, I could look at the returns for, 1841, 1851, 1861, 1871, 1881 and 1891. As the format for this document was being drawn up in 1995, the 1901 census was not available for general research
However, there was a way around this. It was possible, providing you gave the correct names of those people in the household you wished to trace, to obtain details of their age and date and place of birth from the census returns of 1901 and 1911. There was a fee involved, quite a hefty one, but if it was the only way forward then really one has no alternative.
I sent off a detailed request for information regarding the family and I patiently awaited a reply. On December 4th, (my father's birthday), the reply dropped through my letter box. I picked up the envelope and placed it on the work surface in the kitchen, made a cup of tea and sat down, not daring to open the envelope in fear that it contained nothing that would help me. If it did not, where would I go from here?.
I eventually opened the envelope and read it's contents. It said....
DEAR MR. NORCOP,
THE SEARCH YOU REQUESTED HAS REVEALED AN ENTRY SHOWING THAT ON 31ST MARCH, 1901, THE UNDERMENTIONED PERSONS WERE RESIDING ON 27 ADELAIDE STREET, FENTON, STOKE-ON-TRENT, STAFFS.
NAME AGE PLACE OF BIRTH.
WILLIAM LEE. 46 KINGSLEY, STAFFS.
MARY NORCOP. 24 ECCLESHALL, STAFFS.
EMMA NORCOP. 2 FENTON, STAFFS.
There it was. The proof I needed that the legendary liaison had existed and that my grandfather was indeed William Lee. There was a bonus too for I now knew his approximate date of birth, (1855), and also the place of his birth, Kingsley.
From there, it was a relatively simple task to link William Lee of Fenton to the William Lee baptised 1853, son of Robert and Margaret Lee of Kingsley.
An addendum.
At this point, I should add that new information has reached me in June 2002. A kind friend provided me with a copy of the census returns for 1901. In that census, it shows that there was a boy child of this liason who was named William and was 4 months old at the time. I am currently researching this new data. The information in that census is given below.
PRO Ref. RG 13/2612 Page 11. Schedule 51.
27 Adelaide Street Fenton, Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire.
William Lee......................Head................46......Miner/Cutter/hewer....Born Kingsley
Mary Norcop...................Housekeeper.. 24....................................................".....Eccleshall
Harold Norcop.................Son.....................4....................................................".....Fenton
Annie Norcop..................Daughter...........6.....................................................".....Fenton
Emma Norcop..................Daughter...........2.....................................................".....Fenton
William Norcop................Son.................4mths................................................"....Fenton
I knew of Annie and Harold. They were my father's half siblings and the children of George Norcop so it is reasonable to assume that George Norcop died circa 1896/98.