Firstly, you, like me and almost all of other researchers, have an illegitimate ancestor. Joseph's mother was not married. He was born, or at least living in the workhouse when he was 2 years old, and his unmarried mother was with him then.
In 1881 he is an inmate at a reformatory school. Stdts, MAY mean students, but it could have another meaning. Inmt means, inmate.
If you are very lucky, his mother may have attempted to get some maintenance for this child, and there could be a 'bastardy record' held at the local magistrates court records, but this is extremely unlikely, if he was in the workhouse. You may have to content yourself that you will never know who his father was.
I could be that Jane
Beaston got married. There is a marriage in 1876 of a Jane
Beaston to a man named Walter
Mayhew.
He did not live very long, because on the 1881 census, this Jane is living with her mother and father in laew, and is decscribed as a widow. BUT, it does say she was born in
Capel, which is the place of birth listed on the 1871 census, for Jane
Beaston. She appears to have had a child to Mr. Mayjew as this child is listed on the 1881 census. It all needs to be proved of course.
Marriages Dec 1876
BEESTON Jane Ipswich 4a 1353
Mayhew Walter Ipswich 4a 1353
