As a point of interest, sometimes, it is easier to look at the records for
the institution where the person, Morris Pichols, was listed in the 1901
British Census which was the Jews' Hospital and Orphan Asylum in Norwood,
England.

You can find information about this institution at and their records at:
http://www.archives.lib.soton.ac.uk/guide/MS127.shtml

This was a well-known Jewish welfare organization which was first founded as
two separate organizations - the Jews' Hospital in 1795 and the Jews'
Orphan Asylum in 1831. They became one organization in 1876 until they
closed sometime in the 1960's.

Very often, South African orphans or those children who parents were too
poor to care for them were sent to England which had greater resources as
the small South African Jewish communities could not sustain the cost of the
orphans' or paupers' upkeep.

There are many heart-rending stories of these orphans, a number who were
babies or toddlers, many of whom may have been separated >from their
siblings, and others little older, who were sent away to England.

The children or their families may have actually come originally from
England to South Africa. In fact, they may have lived a very short time in
South Africa before their families died or became unable to care for them.

As South Africa's Jewish communities grew and became more solvant,
native-grown orphan asylums developed such as the major ones in Johannesburg
and Cape Town. At that point, many of the children were able to be kept in
South Africa rather than being sent to England.

If you look at the 1901 British Census for the Institution, you will see a
number of South African-born children listed in the fourteen pages given
over to the Orphan Asylum such as:

Nathan COHEN, age 7
Solomon COHEN, age 9
Morris PICHOLS, age 7
Frederich SABER, age 8
George SABER, age 10
Florrie SOLOMONS, age 12
Alexander WHITE, age 8

An interesting sidelight on the Orphan Asylum is that Sheila Graham, the
British gossip columnist who made it big in Hollywood and was the mistress
of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, was an inmate at Norwood at the age of six
along with her brother. She was sent there not due to her parents dying,
but due to her family's poverty.

Ann Rabinowitz
annrab@bellsouth.net