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Dear Jan. 1911 census shows William was born in Croydon which is very close to me, so if I went to the Registry Office could they help me? Was it common not to register children? If so did it affect them when applying for legal docs, e.g. passport? I had always been told that William was in the army in WW2, would they have needed birth cert?

Tina, sorry but I really don't know. It would be quite unusual not to register births by this time, but possible obviously. Maybe someone else has a bit more knowledge?
Jan

Also his job was reasonably paid.

He had been out to Canada to work.I think divorce in the case may have been possible

Thank you for your reply. Have spent the last week searching for birth records for William Edward Townshend 1902, Annie Townshend 1903 & Ivy Townshend 1904 but with no result. Looked for marriages for the two girls too. Even looked under Sownshend. Am I likely to find them on other sites or are the same registries used by all sites?

Did you try using "Phonetic search surnames" option on Freebmd? Did manage to find this one:

Births Sep 1902 (>99%)
TOWNSEND Annie Elizabeth Croydon 2a 230

Can't pin the other two down though.

Jan

Maybe??

Marriages Mar 1922
ROZEE Frederick W Townshend Kingston 2a 669
TOWNSHEND Ivy Rozee Kingston 2a 669

After all that we still haven't found William have we! best I can find is this:

Name: Leonard William E Townsend
Year of Registration: 1903
Quarter of Registration: Jul-Aug-Sep
District: Croydon
County: Greater London, Kent, Surrey
Volume: 2a
Page: 373


Name: William Edward Townsend
Year of Registration: 1903
Quarter of Registration: Apr-May-Jun
District: Kensington
County: Greater London, London, Middlesex
Volume: 1a
Page: 121

Wanted to thank all you great volunteers that helped me in the search for my grandfather William Edward Townshend. Your information has put me in touch with my late father's cousin, who has also been searching for him and other Townshends for some years. Sadly our connection has come about just months after my father died. However, I have now been able to fill in and provide, some missing links and have been sent some great photos and best of all I have spoken to my second cousin, he has lots of stories including one about a child stolen by indians in Canada. (My next project is to see if I can find a name - all I know is the child was born in Canada around the late 1880s. The child would have been William's sibling, born whilst the parents were working in Canada on the TransCanadian railway). My newly found relative and I are arranging a visit for the summer. He has been researching both his and his wife's family tree for many years and apparently has huge files of information. All done without a computer.!! I am still not able to trace any birth registration for William nor his two younger sisters, Ivy and Annie. It seems that all the children were registered apart from the three youngest. Thank you all once again, I am really very grateful. It has given me the incentive to keep on with my ever growing tree. Tina

Good news

That's great Tina, thanks for letting us know - it's always good to hear how things work out.
Jan