Looking for Mr Sewell, my great grand father

This is a long post but it’s been a long search and if we are ever to identify him it might only be through someone recognizing an apparently insignificant detail.

My surname is Sewell-Staples but it should be Sewell, given that someone’s name descends from their father. I’m fairly confident that my great grandfather was a John Sewell. But I have not yet been able to identify the culprit. The reason is that all the evidence is circumstantial.

My great grandmother Emma Alfreda Staples born 1856 from a working class background grew up in the now inner London districts around Islington, St Pancras and Marylebone, but I can’t locate her in the 1861 and the 1871 census.

She had four children; Victor Albert Sewell Staples 1876 – 1877, John Sewell-Staples 1878 – 1949, George Sewell Staples 1880 – 1918 and Louisa Alfreda Sewell Staples 1882 – 1963, but she never married the father of her children. One suspects that she could not. I don’t know why but the existence of a prior family on her partner’s side or the loss of inheritance should he have married, what could then have been considered as a woman beneath himself, are possibilities.

On the birth certificates of all four children the box for the father’s name is blank, but they have the same given name, “Sewell”, so this suggests a common father of that name. It may well be that this, possibly second family, was kept secret. It is only as a result of recent research that the details were uncovered. Family lore had entirely different and misleading explanations of the Sewell name’s origins.
For the 1881 Census, when the family is living at 423 Edgware Road, Paddington Mr. Sewell is not recorded in residence with “Emily”, but he must have arranged for her “keep” as it seems unlikely that she could have afforded a servant on her income as an embroidress.

For the 1991 census, now using the name Kate, she has moved along with her remaining 3 children into the 4 storey 91 Judd Street, St Pancras. She has no servant but is now claiming widowhood. It seems highly likely that Mr. “Sewell” has passed on and settled on her an amount to maintain her life style, although probate has not been located.

Very shortly after the 1991 Census she marries the Irishman Edward Henry Kickham (GRO Index Jun 1891 Vol. 1b P. 237).

Where does the John come from, well on each of the children’s christening records he is mentioned as John and that is also the name on my grandfather’s Wedding Cert where his occupation is shown as a Civil Engineer. My grandfather referred to him as John and indicated that they were a happy couple and that he was proud of his father.

Now who knows of possible candidates; name John Sewell, born before 1856 possibly an older man born as early as 1840, of quite reasonable means, sufficient to keep at least two residences and who passes away between 1881 and 1891 and who was occupied in some form of engineering possibly civil.