The Beverley Recorder and General Advertiser
Saturday February 2 1907
A gentle pleasant-looking youth was released from Wandsworth Prison to the care of the Church Army after serving a short term for begging. The only name he was able to give was Ted. He was ignorant of ever having a surname and had no notion of who his parents were or whether they were living or dead. His earliest recollections were of being brought up in Devonshire by a grandmother but in which town or grandmother’s name he knew not. At the age of six he tramped to London but couldn’t remember who took him. Since that time Ted took his chances on the streets doing odd jobs and sleeping in common lodging houses when he had money or living under bridge arches when he had none. He was sent to the care of the Church Army to get on an even keel and then hoped to try his luck at a life at sea.