Read this first about the Griffith's Revisions for William Street

Read this first about the Valuation Revisions for William Street, Derry/Londonderry

After the completion of the Griffith's [Tenement] Valuation of 1859 valuers visited the street periodically between 1860 and 1931 to note any changes in occupants and/or improvements to buildings. These were recorded in books. Here is a copy of a page from one of the valuers' books.

I have produced tables and a database which show the changes to individual properties in the street listed in the various revision books from 1860 to c.1900. The changes are listed in the final column of the table/database. Note that the dates given for each change can only be approximate. They give the year when the valuer recorded the change, which was not, necessarily, the exact year when the change took place. It could have been earlier. The other columns simply record the information that is in the Printed version of the Griffith's Valuation in 1859, with one addition - the valuation of each property circa 1900. This allows us to see where redevelopment took place in the street during the second half of the nineteenth century.

I have also included local street numbers for the 1890s/1900s. These are important because they are often different from the street numbers of today. Also the addresses given on birth certificates and baptismal records for this period will use these numbers. In fact I have used a number of these to confirm the exact location of a family e.g. Manesses Doherty who lived in No. 111 William Street which was No. 30 on the 1859 Griffith's map. The street number of his house changed some time in the early 1900s to 99.* Such information would be useful to someone wanting to see today where this family had lived in the street in 1901. Unfortunately, they would be disappointed because the area is now a car park and in fact the whole of William Street above Rossville Street/Little James Street has been completely redeveloped obliterating any buildings from the early 1900s. Fortunately, many of the buildings in the lower part of the street towards Waterloo Street/Place still look very similar to what they would have looked like in the early 1900s.

Note that in column two the addition of new numbers to the Griffith's Valuation after 1859 are shown in red. This renumbering is often a sign of redevelopment in a part of the street.

Normally it is relatively easy to match up the names in the revision books with those in the 1901 Census Returns. However, this was not the case in William Street. I found, for example, the names of some householders listed in the 1901 Returns first appearing in the revision books in 1907. Fortunately I found another source where there was almost a perfect match with the householders listed in the 1901 Returns. This was the Borough Directory part of the Derry Almanac for 1901. This Almanac was produced as a trade directory on an annual basis from 1867. By the 1890s it was listing the householders in most streets in the city. Because of this source I was able to confirm the exact locations of virtually all of the householders listed in the 1901 Census.

Of course the reason for the mismatch of names in the street was the fact that many of the families who were listed in the 1901 Census were recent immigrants to the city and some had been moving around between streets or even between houses in the same street. I suspect that the Griffith's Revisions for William Street only give us the 'tip of the iceberg' as far as changes in the street are concerned during the latter part of the nineteenth century.

It is also worth pointing out that the 1868 Voters' List for William Street gives the names and occupations of a fair number of people who are also mentioned in the Griffith's Revisions, and some who are not. Again, it also confirms the fact that the Griffith's Revisions for the street only give a partial picture of change in the street. In short, the ancestor that you are looking for may not have been recorded.

* Note that quite often local people would still use the old street number for a period of time after the new numbers were introduced.