"we need to remember that a regular spelling of place names was unusual in the first half of the 19th Century (actually, when copied from spoken English, this was true even in the last half ... My grandfather ws entered in the 1881 census as being born in Arcon [Harston] in Cambridgeshire and his sister in Strittone [Streatham], Isle of Ely)."===

Belatedly [by nearly 8 years, but I have only just come across above from IanC] ~~ the Isle of Ely village of Stretham is not, NB, spelt identically, as rendered above, to the S London suburb, but has no central 'a'.

It is two villages & 4 miles down the road from where I sit now in Haddenham, Cambs, & I drive thru it whenever I go to Ely or Cambridge.

So I know.

And it was not for nothing that a poster on another forum wrote "MtheGM, your pedantry is legendary" ~~ she meant a putdown, I suspect, but I felt much complimented.

~Michael~