A Corner of Kent

This particular corner is not a place but an individual – Ellen Ethel Corner, daughter of William Charles and Louisa Ellen Corner. Her father, a member of the South Norwood Lodge until 1887, was given as a chartered accountant but later as a clerk which implies a diminution in status. He died in 1890, his death being attributed to a combination of bad drainage in the house and heart disease. The Maidstone Journal and Kentish Advertiser on 05 August 1890 reports the inquest and apparent cause of death.

His personal estate value was given as approx. £124 so, even if he had survived, it is quite possible that Ethel (as she was known at school) would have been eligible for a place because of her father’s indigence.

Ethel was 5 when her father died so would have been too young for the School. Sadly however, in 1893, her mother also died, leaving all three children orphaned. Ethel, now aged 8, was the correct age for admission and a petition was drawn up for her. She became a pupil subsequently and is found in the census return at the School in 1901. Her brother became a pupil at the Boys’ but the remaining child was not accepted although she may have been found a place elsewhere.

In 1901, Ethel was awarded the Supreme Council Prize for Good Conduct, an indication of both ability and behaviour. It was an accolade not given lightly. The following year, she left school and went to Brighton College for two years to train as a teacher. In 1905, she secured a teaching post at Upland Council School, Bexley Heath.  

Reproduced with permission:the original school buildings were demolished in 2005

In the 1911 census, Ethel confirms her status as a certified teacher working for Kent County Council. She was a boarder at The Broadway, an address less than a mile from the former family home.

A year later, she gave her address as Rutland [Villas], Crook Log, Bexley Heath so it would appear that this was still in the family’s possession as it seems likely to be the same address given in her father’s records. In 1912, Ethel attended Ex-pupils’ day.

Ethel is probably somewhere in this picture of ladies resplendent in their finery in 1912

She also attended Ex-pupils’ day in 1914, the year she married Henry Eric Kyrle Fry. He was the son of Henry Lawrence Fry, the vicar of Christ Church, Bexley Heath. This must have been the family church as Ethel’s sister was baptised in the same place by the same person. Ethel and her husband may well have known each other growing up.

Exterior and interior images of Christ Church, Bexley

Bexley Local Studies and Archive Centre via Ancestry

It is interesting that, although they married in her father-in-law’s church, the person conducting the ceremony was the vicar in Fareham for whom Henry Fry was the curate. The marriage took place 13 days after war was declared. Perhaps he was expecting to be posted overseas as it is known that Henry served as Chaplain to the Forces during WW1. In 1918 he was serving in Italy.

In 1921, Ethel and her daughter were visiting friends (the Passmores) in Bexley at the time of the census.  Henry is listed at the vicarage of St Mary to which he had been appointed in 1915.

St Mary’s Portchester. The church was built within the walls of Portchester Castle and originally part of an Augustinian friary. (Images courtesy of English Heritage and Wikipedia)

In 1923, Revd Fry was appointed as vicar to St Mark’s in Wellington, New Zealand and the family arrived there on 28 May 1923 on the Ionic. They obviously hit the ground running as on 3^rd June, he was instituted as vicar and The Evening Post of 7 June 1923 indicated that

A SOCIAL to welcome the Rev. H. E. K. Fry and Mrs. Fry will be held in the Schoolroom, Dufferin street THIS (THURSDAY) EVENING, at 8 o”clock.

All Parishioners cordially invited.

Fry, Henry Eric K Rev

Then in September of that year a bazaar was opened ‘by Her Excellency Viscountess Jellicoe’ (ibid.) during which Honor Fry presented Lady Jellicoe with a bouquet. Honor was an experienced presenter by this stage as the Hampshire Telegraph of 15 September 1922 indicates that ‘Little Miss Honor Fry’ presented a basket of fruit to the wife of the speaker at a Portchester garden party. Honor would have been 4 years old then so at five this sort of thing was old hat.  Easy-peasy, lemon squeezy!

Mrs Fry’s later obituary in the Evening Post gave the information that

‘Soon after, arriving in New Zealand she was approached by Lady Jellicoe to take an interest in supporting a Girl Guide movement in New Zealand.’

It is not known if Ethel had been involved in guiding before her departure for New Zealand but her husband had been involved in the scouting movement so it is possible and that this is why Lady Jellicoe had approached her. The newspaper went on to say

‘Mrs. Fry addressed a very large public meeting in the Wellington Town Hall at the initiation of the movement, and became the first Girl Guide Commissioner for Wellington South’ and that she was ‘a most able and accomplished speaker’.

Learning to speak in public was a skill available to the more accomplished pupils at RMSG so, although there is no certain evidence for this, it seems likely that she had elocution lessons whilst at school. It is notable even today that senior girls leave the school with confidence about speaking in public.

But guiding is not all Ethel was involved in. Her obituary declared that

she was an outstanding success on every side of church work. She was Dominion president of the Anglican Girls’ Bible Class Union, as well as for four years Wellington Diocesan president. She was a gifted Bible class leader, and conducted large Bible classes for girls, both at St. Mark’s, Wellington, and at St. James’s, Lower Hutt. She was a prominent member of the Mothers’ Union Council, and for ten years was president of the Lower Hutt branch.

The electoral roll for 1928 gives Ethel as residing at The Vicarage, Dufferin St, Wellington and the membership list for the Old Girls’ Assoc confirms she remained in touch. By 1939, her address was listed as The Vicarage, Lower Hutt, New Zealand. Henry Fry had been appointed as vicar of St. James’ Church, Lower Hutt in 1933.

In 1942, the engagement of their daughter Honor Fry was announced followed by the marriage a year later conducted be her father.

Ethel in about 1944. (Courtesy of http://www.frogs.co.nz/goodliffe/richmond-louisa.htm). Sadly, this photograph was published in the Evening Post of 1 October 1945 which carried the announcement of her death.

‘FRY – On October 1, 1945, at Wellington, Ellen Ethel, beloved wife of Canon Fry and mother of Honor and John. Funeral Service at All Saints Church, Otaki, on Thursday, October 4, 1945’

She is buried in Otaki cemetery.

Her death and burial is recorded a long way from where she was born but one has the impression that, wherever she had lived, she would have been noted. Definitely a credit to the School that nurtured her after an unfortunate start being orphaned aged 8: a Corner of Kent occupying a corner of Otaki in perpetuity.

Lesser known sisters

Those familiar with any aspect of the School’s history will also be familiar with the names Eliza Waterman Jarwood and Bertha Jane Dean, long-serving matron and revered Headteacher respectively.

Eliza Jarwood Waterman and Bertha Jane Dean

Their lives, greatly dominated by their time at the School, are well recorded. But what is less well known is that both had sisters who were also pupils at the School. Despite the ruling about no sisters being allowed, this rule waxed and waned over the years and there are many instances of sisters amongst the School population. Time to try and bring these particular lesser-known sisters out of the shadows. One has to use the verb ‘try’ as, in the case of Sarah Jarwood, so little is known that she almost becomes a figment of imagination.

Eliza and Sarah were daughters of John Jarwood (often written as Jerwood), a master mariner, and his wife Nancy Waterman. John died in 1818 – date unknown but his will of 1815 was proved in August 1818 so his death must have occurred by then. Furthermore, his youngest child was born in February 1819 so the death cannot have been earlier than May 1818. John must have died between May and August of 1818. By this will, he appointed his wife Nancy as his sole executrix.

Nancy was originally from Nantucket, Massachusetts so it seems possible that John and Nancy met in Nantucket when John landed there from an Atlantic crossing. Nantucket was particularly renowned for whale oil trade but whether this was the trade the ship John captained is an unknown element.

The couple were married in 1801 in Nantucket, a fact which was later to cause a problem with the admission of Eliza to the School. John’s death left Nancy unsupported and pregnant with their fifth child. Furthermore, the family were living in Cherry Garden Street, Bermondsey so Nancy was on the other side of a large ocean from her own family support. As John had been a member of the Royal Naval Lodge, his children became eligible for admission to the School. However, the documentation required for a petition included a marriage certificate of the parents and, because the marriage had taken place in America, this was not available. Nancy had to provide other ‘proof’ that she and John had indeed been married, which proof included a sworn statement by another Nantuckian, also married to an Englishman and living in Bermondsey. It would appear the Atlantic trade was not just in oil but in American brides! This sufficed and Eliza was duly admitted on 21 Oct 1819.

Sarah was the fourth child of the Jarwoods, born on 16 April 1817 and baptised in May at St Mary’s, Rotherhithe.

https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Rotherhithe_St_Mary,_Surrey_Genealogy

There is no indication that her petition encountered the same difficulties as Eliza’s had so presumably, having proved the marriage to be valid once, it was not necessary to prove it again. Sarah was admitted on 19 April 1827 by which point her older sister had already been apprenticed to the School and embarked on her long career. Although they were both at the School at the same time, they were not pupils at the same time. In 1832 Sarah left, delivered to her mother. What she did then is not recorded. However, in the 1841 census at the School, there is a Sarah Jarwood or Yarwood listed of approximately the right age which may well have been the younger sister of Eliza. Unfortunately, there is no further trace of her in any census returns. Upon Eliza’s death in 1886, Sarah is given as a spinster and sole executrix with an address in South Norwood (Whitehorse Lane). This would imply that she was alive at this time but she is not found in any census returns even close to this date. This is unlikely to mean that she avoided registration but that her name may have been misrecorded or badly written making it impossible to locate her. Jarwood, Yarwood, Jerwood? Or something else similar but not the same? This is doubly unfortunate as later returns gave other details such as occupation where relevant. It seems possible that hers is the death recorded in Croydon in 1893 although the birth year is given as 1815 but this is all ifs and buts and maybes. Lesser known indeed.

Let us turn now to the Dean family. Bertha and Dorothy Dean were two of the eight children of William and Matilda Dean. The family lived in Chichester where William was a music seller and lay vicar.

His death meant that Matilda had to take over the business as well as be head of the family.

Bertha was admitted to the School in 1887 and from that day forward is always recorded in census returns for the School. Dorothy, five years younger than Bertha, was with her mother in the 1891, 1901 and 1911 census and, bar some fleeting school records, we might not know she had been a pupil. In 1894, she played the piano on Prize Day as part of Trio, the music being ‘Rondo Burlesco’. Trio was a long standing School tradition where eight pianos were played each by three girls at the same time. It was a tradition maintained into the 21^st century but, regrettably, no longer a part of the Prize Day concert.

This image is from 1948 so considerably after Dorothy’s time

.Dorothy was due to leave in June 1899 and in that year she not only became Silver Medallist but also was confirmed at St Mary’s Battersea. She was retained as a pupil teacher in the junior school, a sort of apprenticeship scheme for any girls showing an inclination towards teaching. In 1900, Dorothy left to take up a daily post in Chichester and in the 1901 and 1911 census returns she is recorded as being a private governess whilst living in North St, Chichester.

In 1914, the day after World War One was declared (Aug 4^th), she was married at St Paul’s Chichester.

Her bridegroom was at the time a serving officer in the Indian Medical Service (commissioned into the IMS in 1908) and he was recalled to duty the next day. According to the Cambridge Alumni, he served in Aden and Palestine. A graduate of Christ’s, he gained a 1^st class degree in Natural Sciences and was Surgeon-Naturalist to the Marine Survey of India. Later he described himself as zoologist, oceanographer and research scientist. His first positions in India were as medical officer with the 67th and 84th Punjabi Regiments before working as a malaria officer in the Sialkote Brigade.

Dorothy may have already visited India before she was married as Massonica 1912 records her address as Hampton, Conoor, Nilgiris, Southern India. However, this was then crossed through without further explanation and in 1914 she was recorded as being governess to a private family in Luton. It is possible that she had been a private governess in India and that this is where she met her future husband although this has to remain firmly in Speculationland. After her marriage, Dorothy must have gone [back] to India as the couple’s first daughter was born in Coonoor in 1916 with a second daughter in 1919 (also in Coonoor). By this time, Dorothy’s sister Bertha had become head teacher of a girls’ school in London which must have seemed a long way away.

It is interesting to note at this juncture, as a by the bye, that the great-aunt of Robert Beresford Seymour Sewell (Dorothy’s husband) had been a pioneer in girls’ education. Elizabeth Missing Sewell (1815-1906) ‘convinced that middle-class girls needed a better education’ founded Ventnor St Boniface School. ‘Its many years of prosperity were gradually curbed by the high schools that came into being in 1872’ (from Wikipedia). She defined her methods of education in Principles of Education, drawn from Nature and Revelation, and applied to Female Education in the Upper Classes (1865) – they liked long titles then.

Leaping forward to the next generation, Dorothy’s daughter Elizabeth went to Cambridge, graduating in 1942. She then worked for the Ministry of Education until the end of the war whereupon she returned to Cambridge for her PhD. She became a professor and held several fellowships in America where she became a US citizen in 1973. She ‘often wrote about the connections between science and literature’ (from Wikipedia).

Before his retirement in 1935, Dorothy’s husband was Leader of the John Murray expedition, 1933-4 which travelled through the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the north-western Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Oman collecting data and material which formed the basis of a long series of reports published by the British Museum (Natural History) over a period of more than 30 years. The Indian Ocean at the time was the least studied oceanic area on earth, having been entirely missed or visited only briefly by ail of the major oceanographic expeditions. (Extracted from Oceanologica Acta 1984 – vol. 7 – N” 1)

Sadly, by this time, Dorothy had died.

It is an indication of her shadowy existence that we not only know so little about her personally (although we know considerably more about other members of her family) but that her probate has more about her husband than herself.

Whilst Dorothy Sewell nee Dean and Sarah Jarwood must both have had personal histories, they remain as the lesser known sisters of women known well to the School’s history.

Performing Genes

Whilst of course not every performer comes from a family of like-minded performers, there are remarkable examples of families where successive generations tread the boards. Names such as Redgrave, Cusack and Fox spring to mind – where the talent is passed on through the generations: parents, children, grandchildren, greats … We may be less familiar with the names Belmore, Garstin and Danvers but had we been theatre aficionados a century or so ago, these names would be well-known. They include Alice Esther Garstin, former pupil of RMIG in the late C19th, who took the stage name Alice Belmore.

Alice was the daughter of George Belmore Garstin and Jessie nee Danvers. As can be seen from Alice’s parents’ marriage certificate, in 1886 there were already at least two generations of performers.

Top row: Jessie Danvers and George Belmore Garstin and
(bottom row) the generation before them: Edwin Danvers and George Benjamin Garstin (professional name George Belmore)

The grandfather of George (Senior) was James Card who was a stage director so theatre was decidedly in the blood. George married Alice Maude Mary Ann Cooke and of their seven children at least five became actors. George (Junior) and Jessie nee Danvers had five children, of whom four were actors including our former pupil.

Alice is sometimes recorded as Alice Esther Garstin, sometimes as Alice Belmore Garstin. Her petition as a prospective pupil, for example, refers to her as A B Garstin (A14831 GBR 1991 RMIG 3/1/1/10 Petition 1937). It later becomes even more confusing over names as we will see.

Alice was the second born child of Jessie & George. Sadly Jessie was to see three of her children die before she did. When George Belmore Garstin died fairly young, his daughter became eligible for a place at RMIG but, like all other pupils, had to undergo the same procedure for admission. Whether appeals such as the one below is flouting the system is a moot point. It clearly had an effect as another piece just three weeks later indicated that the same person wished to thank everyone who had responded to the appeal and announced that Alice had been accepted.

24 September 1898 – The Era

Alice’s sister Jessie did not become a pupil. It is not known why as she was of the right age but perhaps the rule about no sisters being pupils at the same time was at that point riding high. There were frequently cases of sisters in school at the same time despite the mid-century ruling. If ‘no sisters’ seems cruel, it was based on the view that masonic largesse should be more widely spread as there were always more prospective pupils than places available, despite the constant expansion in buildings and facilities.  Another possible reason is that her mother remarried (an actor, of course!) and was thus able to provide for her daughter. The one rule that was rarely, if ever, broken was that pupils had to be daughters of indigent freemasons who were, through death, disease or disaster, unable to provide for those daughters. As Jessie (Junior) had a home with her mother (Jessie Senior) and stepfather, Gilbert Heron, she may not have qualified as indigent whereas Alice, already at the School, could remain as a pupil on the basis that it would be unfair to inflict further change on ‘the little ten-year-old daughter of the late George Belmore’. 

Of Alice’s time at school we know very little. She was clearly in school in 1901 as she appears there in the census of that year. She left in December 1904 or possibly early in 1905 (two different entries so two different dates) to teach in a family at Maidenhead. Clearly, despite her lineage, the acting profession was not deemed suitable by the School. In the Archives is a book of pupil teachers and mistresses which includes where they went after leaving the school. Most have entries such as ‘left to be married’ but one has the comment ‘left to go on the stage’. The disapproval is palpable!

In 1912, Jessie visited the school on ex-pupils’ day and signed the visitor’s book as Alice Huntley nee Garstin. She remained in touch with school as her name & address appear in Massonica May 1916 under the name Huntley. In actual fact, she married in 1909 Victor Claude Rayment (sometimes known as Huntley) and in 1910 their son Victor Montague Huntley Garstin Rayment was born. Just to add confusion to puzzlement, in the 1911 census, Victor C Huntley completes and signs the census form but is not actually there on census night. Alice is there with her baby son and uses the name Huntley.

As far as the school was concerned, they may have thought they had placed her with a family in Maidenhead but Alice had other ideas. In 1905, the year she left school, she appeared in Back to the Land at the Savoy Theatre

‘… she went on to appear in a series of successful productions at London’s Lyceum Theatre, mounted by Walter and Frederick Melville … [who] were authors and producers in many of London’s Victorian and Edwardian theatres including The Lyceum in the West End. Alice’s biggest Lyceum successes included The Monk and the Woman, and Women and Wine, both produced in 1912. Alice Esther went on to play Mercedes in Monte Cristo in 1913, and Lucy in Her Forbidden Marriage, 1915. In later productions Alice worked with her step-father, her mother Jessie’s new husband Gilbert Heron.’ http://belmore.altervista.org/alice-esther-belmore

Alice appeared in a wide range of theatre productions from melodrama to Shakespeare. She was almost invariably described as ‘charming’. A review (in The Truth) of 1915 made a point about the quality of the material without denigrating the young actress.

Alice often appeared with other members of her family – to wit the cast list for Robinson Crusoe with George Belmore (Alice’s brother) also listed. There were also film roles with the British Empire Films Company.

‘From around 1915 Alice was in a string of films produced by Frederick Melville’s production company in their London Studios of the time’ http://belmore.altervista.org/alice-esther-belmore

British Empire Films, started by Frederick Melville, employed Alice as a star actress in the company. The British film industry was still a minnow compared to the American film industry but it was very popular with British audiences prior to the outbreak of The Great War. The Melville Brothers were prolific playwrights, which plays they would stage at the Lyceum (of which they had joint proprietorship). They were particularly known for what became termed ‘bad women dramas’ concerning inevitably beautiful maidens who make the wrong life choices or cause problems for themselves and others. Titles included The Monk and The Woman, Her Forbidden Marriage or The girl who took the wrong turning.

Sadly, whether Alice’s film career would have taken off is unknown. In 1919, she died aged just 29.

The Stage of Feb 6^th 1919

In her death is another mystery. She is quite clearly referred to as Mrs John Mack and the In Memoriam column of the following year (29 January 1920) includes

In this is the clear understanding that, at the time of her death, Alice was married to John Mack, another performer, who trod the boards in a double act Ferguson & Mack.

Image from New York Public Library’s Digital collection https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47de-d2fe-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

It is unclear whether this was an ‘official’ marriage as stage names and ‘real’ names vary so much it is unknown under which name the couple may have married, if they actually did. However, it might underpin the view held by family members that Alice died as a result of an abortion. If she and John Mack were man & wife in name if not in the eyes of the law, it might not be appropriate to bring a child into the world whose legitimacy could be questioned. This is firmly in the realms of speculation of course. Victor Rayment, the person to whom Alice had been married in 1909, was known to be touring across Canada and later moved to America. He remarried in 1919 so perhaps the marriage had failed, new relationships had been formed but not authorised. The fact that Victor remarried almost immediately after Alice’s death may give a bigger clue than is at first apparent.

Ferguson & Mack were popular comedians and had been working the music halls for many years. It is perhaps fitting that Alice was born as the daughter of one comedian and she appeared to depart this life as the wife of another.

Material from http://belmore.altervista.org/alice-esther-belmore has been used with kind permission.

Praise my soul

So begins the article in the Hendon & Finchley Times of 10 September 1937. Former pupil Cecilia, however, would never have known her grandfather as he died 31 years before she was born!

Cecilia and her siblings – including Juliet who also became a pupil of the Royal Masonic School – were from their father’s second marriage in 1898 but Sir John Goss, father of Walter Goss, died in 1880. He would never have known of the four children from his son’s second marriage.

Image from Wikipedia but no attribution given

Sir John (1800-1880) had been a boy chorister of the Chapel Royal, London. He was briefly a chorus member in an opera company and then was appointed organist of a chapel in south London, before moving to more prestigious organ posts at St Luke’s Church, Chelsea and finally St Paul’s Cathedral. Goss was known for his compositions of vocal music, both religious and secular, amongst the most well-known are his hymn tunes Praise, my soul, the King of heaven (as indicated above, composed 1868) and See, Amid the Winter’s Snow (1871).

Cecilia and Juliet’s father was 65 when he married Christina Saunders, formerly an actress, who was 38 years younger than himself. Juliet was born the following year but Cecilia arrived in 1911, making her father 77 when his youngest child was born. By this stage, sister Juliet was already a pupil at the School and had been since before 1909. In this year, in a prescient reflection of current issues, she was late returning to School after the Christmas holidays because she had had scarlet fever.

This tiny little image is taken from a larger group photo in about 1913. (Magnifying it inevitably blurs it but it is the only image the School has.)

Juliet left school in 1916 and obtained a post as junior clerk in Grindley’s Bank. Two years later she had a clerical post in the Aeronautical dept (the School records do not indicate what of) but joined the civil service as a typist in 1919. She maintained her association with the School throughout her life and so we are able to follow her around the world.

In 1928, she married but continued to live in the family home in Copthall Gardens, Hendon.

Image from Google Earth, showing architecture from the 1930s which suggests that it was new at the time the family moved in

.In 1936, however, her address in Masonica is given as Trafalgar Ave, Roseville, NSW and, although she is listed in the 1939 register at the Copthall Gardens address, the Australia address is again used in 1946. It is unclear whether the 1939 register records a temporary return to UK or if the couple travelled between the two places, holding residency in both.

By 1973, her address in Masonica is given as Christchurch, Hampshire and, as her probate recording her death on 28 May 1983 gives an address of 24 Lymington Rd, Highcliffe, Christchurch, Dorset one assumes this is possibly where she was in 1973.

Meanwhile, younger sister Cecilia took a different path through life. Interestingly, both girls were pupils at a time when their father was alive and therefore the indigence of the family was not related to his death.  At the time both girls became pupils, Walter was described as retired so presumably there was less income than previously on which to support a wife and four children. Walter died in 1926, aged 93, which was after Juliet had left school but before Cecilia had. The different paths they took are likely to reflect the increasing opportunities available to girls. Juliet was twelve years older than her youngest sibling and WW1 had changed much in the expectations of young women. Bertha Dean, the Headmistress from 1915, had been the first pupil to complete a university education although she had done so as an external candidate whilst working full time. Cecilia had the opportunity to actually attend university and read for a degree. A booklet about the School’s history dated 1935 records Cecilia’s school career as ‘1927 School certificate; 1928 honours for same; 1931 passed Intermediate Arts and went to Bedford College for Women in London to read for an honours degree’. She actually left as a pupil in 1928 but was appointed as a pupil teacher in the Upper House whilst she took the Intermediate Arts exam, then a requirement for university entry. She was granted a scholarship of £200 pa to become a student of Bedford College for Women.

Bedford College registers are available online (Ancestry) and this is a copy of her application. Bertha Dean’s name is given as representative of the School and the referee is the Rev Kennedy-Bell who had been the School Chaplain.

Cecilia is shown here from her College records. It is an image she submitted herself as included in her papers is a letter she wrote to the college after she had left when (presumably) it was realised that an image of her was not part of her record.

Cecilia was entered for an Honours degree in Classics.

Her year’s report for her Greek studies describes her as ‘a good plodder’ [!] but, clearly, plodding or not, her standard was deemed to be acceptable. So much so that, when there was a point at which Cecilia may have had to give up her studies because of financial struggles, the College supported her receiving an additional grant.

The College supported her receiving a grant from the Loan Fund to cover the costs of a fourth year of the degree. She had received a Scholarship of £200 pa from RMIG but this had been for a three year course.

Interestingly, although there was an indication in the letter that she would expect to return to the School as a teacher, this is not in fact what happened. A letter from her, undated but clearly post-degree course, is included in her records and in this she indicates that she had taken a post with John Lewis.

Later, she wrote to say she had received some promotion in her job but not long after this, she married and, in all probability, as other married women of the time did, she gave up work.

(Phyllis Newnham was also a former pupil and later a teacher with the School.)

The newly married couple went to live in Errol Gardens, Hayes and are listed there in the 1939 register. Unlike her sister, Cecilia does not appear to have become a member of the Old Girls’ Association and so it is harder to track her through the rest of her life. The public records show that she died in 2002 in Gloucestershire aged 90. Two centuries after her grandfather was born, his granddaughter died. As she died on 18 July 2002, presumably this was not ‘amidst the winter’s snow’!

From https://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/Biographies/john_goss.htm

Bessie Locke, daughter of the Empire

Last time, we considered the School at Clapham in the nineteenth century. All of the pupils who came and went over that period have the School in common although they are, of course, individuals in their own right. They all have their own stories to tell. Tracing the individuals to find the stories is relatively straightforward if they remain within the UK. It is when they slide out of reach by ‘Going Abroad’ that it starts to be trickier. And when most of the life being researched is actually overseas, it can be a challenge. One such is Bessie Phear Woodford Locke, who appeared on only two UK census returns (30 years apart), and her story may never have been uncovered were it not for a brief comment in Massonica [sic] in June 1913.

‘Lady Hamilton is well-known to many of us as Bessie Locke, silver medallist of her year.’

But we are jumping to the end of her story here so let us go back to the beginning.

Bessie was the daughter of Henry Hover Locke and Louisa Jane Locke, nee Woodford, and she was born on the 14^th February in Dumdum, near Calcutta (today Kolkata) in 1876. She was baptised on 25^th March 1876 at St Stephen’s Church, Calcutta.

Record from British India Office births & baptisms, accessed via FindMyPast website

St Stephen’s Church, Kolkata

Her father was the Principal of the Government School of Art in Calcutta, an architect by training. From Wikipedia, we learn that this school began in 1854 at Garanhata but within months had moved to Mutty Lall Seal in Colootola.

‘In 1864, it was taken over by the government and on June 29, 1864 Henry Hover Locke joined as its principal’.

Image of the entrance to the college http://www.victorianweb.org/art/architecture/granville/3.html

From https://www.gcac.edu.in/

Dumdum, where Bessie was born, is a name derived from the Persian word damdama, which refers to a raised mound or a battery. During the 19th century there was a British Royal Artillery armoury there. Here in the early 1890s, Captain Neville Bertie-Clay developed a specific type of bullet which came to be known as a dumdum bullet. More properly known as an expanding bullet, its design is specifically intended to maximise damage and it has been long prohibited for use in war. 

Modern map from Google Earth; Dumdum is just north of Kolkata, West Bengal. Dhaka (see next paragraph) is also shown here. It is now in Bangladesh.

Bessie and her sister were both born in India but so also was their mother Louisa Jane Woodford so they were Empire families across at least two generations. Bessie’s grandfather was Charles Thomas Osmond Woodford, a surgeon, serving in India. He was born in London in 1821 but in 1845 he married Jane Cunnew in India. She was also from London (b. 1819). They were married in Dacca (now Dhaka) in 1845.  Charles Woodford

‘Joined the Uncovenanted Medical Service, Bengal, in 1848; he was Surgeon to the Calcutta Police and ex-officio Professor of Medical Jurisprudence in the University of Calcutta.’ https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/     

He died ‘of general debility’ in 1881 in Coonoor, Madras but lived long enough to see his daughter Louisa married in 1873 at St Paul’s Cathedral Calcutta, and the birth of his granddaughters.

St Paul’s Cathedral; image by Ankitesh Jha – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20204193

Bessie would have been five when her grandfather died but it is possible that she hardly knew him as he died in Madras (now Chennai) about a thousand miles from where Bessie and her family resided. Sadly for her, however, just four years later her father died too, on Christmas Day 1885, the cause of death given as heart disease and heat apoplexy. In his will, he named his wife, Louisa Jane, as his sole beneficiary and appointed her as guardian of their infant children. Because of her father’s death, Bessie came to the School (Petition No 1456) possibly in 1886. What else she did or did not do during her time at school, we know that in 1890 she was entered for the Senior Cambridge Local Examinations which she unfortunately failed. Sarah Louisa Davis, Head Governess, never one for pulling punches if she was annoyed with girls, was clearly sympathetic in this case.

‘The one failure is Bessie Locke, a most persevering good girl, quite worthy to be entered but of an anxious disposition; she may have failed to grasp the meaning of some things in the exam particularly arithmetic.’

She tried for a second time in 1891 but the arithmetic let her down again.

Nevertheless, the Head Governess wrote of her that she ‘has always been a specially good girl and by attention and perseverance has attained a good position in her classes’. In 1892, Bessie was awarded the silver medal.

17 May 1892 – Morning Post – London

Enlarged detail from above newspaper report

In 1892, it was written [she] ‘passed Junior Cambridge Class II Hons. And has prizes for Religious Knowledge & French’. On this basis, she was recommended to take the vacancy as pupil teacher to teach ‘little girls’. She was given a year’s trial but, at the end of this period, Miss Davis ‘felt that there was little point in continuing as she would not attain to any higher level of teaching … she will be better placed in a private school in England or abroad where she could improve her languages & music and therefore able to obtain a post as a governess, which would suit her better than teaching in a large school. Miss Davis cannot speak too highly of her personally and she recommends that she receives the ex-pupil’s grant.’ And in pencil afterwards is written £40.

Where Bessie went to after this is currently unknown. She is not located on the 1901 census so it seems likely she returned to India where, in 1909 in Rawalpindi, she married Henry Hamilton.

Henry was considerably older than Bessie, being born in 1851 at Coolaghey House, Raphoe, Co. Donegal. He had been educated at the Royal School in Raphoe before going to Queen’s, Belfast. He qualified first as a lawyer before going on to medical training, where he graduated in 1875 as M.Ch. The following year he joined the Indian Medical Service as a surgeon and served with the 23rd Bengal Native Infantry. It is possible that he had known Bessie all her life as he first went to India in the year she was born.

In Crone’s Dictionary of Irish Biography it records: “HAMILTON, Sir Henry, Surgeon General; b. Coolaghey, Donegal, 1851; ed. Raphoe and Q.C.B; B.A. 1872; M.D., 1875; entered I.M.S., 1876; took part in march to Kandahar, 1878; senior M.O. Chitral Expedition, and principal M.O. China Expedition, 1900-1; C.B., 1904; K.C.B.; d. Mentone 1932’

He was several times mentioned in despatches and received special promotion to Brigade Surgeon Lieutenant-Colonel. Further promotion followed, being advanced to Colonel in October 1902 and in March 1907 –

‘To be Surgeon-General Colonel Henry Hamilton, M.D., C.B., V.H.S. Dated 25th March, 1907’ – The London Gazette.

He retired in 1911 and in 1913 was invested with the KCB (Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath) and his arms would have been displayed in the Henry VII Lady Chapel of Westminster Abbey.

In 1921, Bessie and Henry are listed in Romsey, Hampshire. Whether this was their home or they were visitors is unclear. Henry died on 21^st Jan 1932 in Menton-Garavan, on the French Riviera. Bessie, despite being 25 years younger than her husband, survived him by only a year. She too died in Menton-Garavan so this would appear to have been their home.

http://www.worldwidemarinasales.com/en/marinas/menton-garavan-port.html

Like so many of the pupils, Bessie arrived at the School as a fatherless daughter. She did her very best with her lessons, then returned to her roots in India before marrying, ultimately becoming Lady Hamilton. Bessie’s life from the Raj to the Riviera with a stop-off point in Clapham!

Songbird

The School at Somers Place East

The School’s beginning in 1788 was to fill a perceived need. Eighteenth century daughters had a function as a member of a family (sister of/ daughter of) and a purpose to grow into graceful adulthood to become wife of/ mother of. Take that function away and her role pretty much collapsed. So if circumstances caused change, she could not swiftly morph into another. A charity to support the daughters of indigent freemasons provided support because decorative females had no alternative. Supporting the daughter and, by this means, alleviating the financial strain on the mother, was more sensible than ‘handouts’ to the mother because in helping the daughter, you helped all the family. Ovvious, innit?

So began an institution in which daughters in need would be placed. But it brought with it the question – what do you do with them when they are there? Providing them with an education would occupy their time and would stand them in good stead perhaps should Mr Right not come along at an appropriate time, and would return them to their family in a better position than when they left it.

Right. Good. Now the crunch. What sort of education? Females were unlikely to have to earn a living for long. Women only worked by necessity so an education, for example, drawn from the seven liberal arts – as might be the case in a boys’ grammar school – would be well beyond requirements. At the same time, it did not seem appropriate to provide the sort of lessons given to upper class daughters: painting, fine embroidery, singing, dancing or the art of conversation.  These were the daughters of middle class families. What need of music? So their education was basic. Reading, writing, enough knowledge of ‘accompts’ for them to run a household efficiently and their catechism. Oh yes, and sewing – just plain sewing, running repairs, darning, creating and maintaining household napiery, and so on. All the things that nobody can do any more. When the School had a 1934 day to celebrate 75 years on its present site, it was felt that asking the girls to come in full 1934 costume was probably pushing it for just one day but perhaps a pinafore (part of the uniform still in 1934) as a token would suffice? That was when it was discovered that mummies didn’t sew any more as the School fielded not a few cris des coeurs over the summer holidays from parents asking how to make a pinafore. They turned out alright in the end. And the staff had the most enormous fun finding costumes and playing their 1934 counterparts!

But back to earlier days. The business of education was a serious matter but still basic. It met needs and that was sufficient. In 1848 – 60 years later – a move to add some extras in the form of music lessons and French was rejected firmly as unrequired.

However, the idea had been set free so it is hardly surprising that, ten years later, music and French were both added and the first of many, many pianos over the years was supplied to the school.

All of this is a contrived preface to the idea that music, once thought of a mere frivolity, became such a staple that, by the end of the C19th, probably most of the pupils could find their way round a piano keyboard and chirp beautifully either as soloists or in choirs. And some were able to turn it into a career.

The scene is set to introduce Mildred Wrighton as an exemplar of musical ability. She wasn’t the only one so selecting her is merely a token but as she appeared in a great number of newspaper articles, all extolling her performing abilities, there is a lot of material to use.

Mildred Ammon Wrighton was born in 1874. Her father, William Thomas Wrighton, could be described as a man with daughters. He married twice: his first marriage produced five daughters and then he married Emily Martin Warren. They had a further 3 daughters including Mildred. In 1869, William was given as Professor of Singing. This label ‘professor’ was used in a way we would not do today where a professor is linked to a university chair and is the ultimate status in academe. In Victorian times, both men and women used the term professor without having gone anywhere near a university. Quite what the difference was between a teacher of music and a professor of music has been lost to us since none of them appear to have much in the way of official qualifications. In William Wrighton’s case, he was also a composer. He wrote mainly piano music, including ‘The dearest spot’, ‘Her bright smile haunts me still’ and ‘She sang among the flowers’.

No. No idea.

Apparently you can still buy and download ‘Her bright smile haunts me still’ should you be so inclined.

William Thomas Wrighton by George Zobel, after William Gush; mezzotint, published 1858; NPG D4922

This is Papa Wrighton in his prime. He would have been 40 years of age when this was published. However, with such a large family, perhaps music was insufficiently remunerative. When he died in 1880, his probate describes him as a composer of music but late licensed victualler of Hotel Mount Ephraim, Tunbridge Wells. Mount Ephraim is an area of Tunbridge Wells so it is hard to pinpoint if this hotel still exists today just renamed or if it has disappeared. There is a possibility that it is now the Spa Hotel or the Royal Wells or even Mount Edgcumbe Hotel. Or maybe none of the above. His widow took over the premises after her husband’s death and in 1881 Mildred is there with her.

Shortly afterwards, Mildred became a pupil at RMIG where she remained until June 1890. Her valedictory report says this of her:

‘has always been a good girl and is a prefect. She has only made fair progress in her studies generally but excels in music being a good player for which she took a prize this year.’

Rather like the apocryphal comment made about Fred Astaire’s screen test (Can’t act. Can’t sing. Can dance a little), the Head Governess’ comment notes Mildred’s talent whilst at the same time belittling it. There is the unspoken view that musical talent was not going to get her very far whereas attention to her lessons would. How wrong can you be? Mildred went on to be a great success on the musical stage. In 1907, for example, the following was written of her:

Grays & Tilbury Gazette, and Southend Telegraph 16 November 1907

Five years later, she was still earning plaudits.

The Stage 24 October 1912

In the early 1900s, Mildred was a singer at many entertainments. All of the newspaper references (about 200 of them!) praise her ability, her voice and her role as humorist’s assistant. She was clearly popular. In Chichester in 1913, for example, it was written

And within that comment is the fact that she took after Papa and was composing her own material. Her talents reached beyond UK shores too as there are reports of performances in New Zealand and Australia. Her co-performer, Joseph Blascheck, was Australian so perhaps he was instrumental in arranging this.

Just as a by the bye, Joseph Blascheck was married to Beatrice Pewtress, reputed daughter of Ellen Terry and their son became an actor taking the name Ballard Berkeley. He played, among many other roles, Major Gowen, resident of Fawlty Towers.

Perhaps during her antipodean theatre tour, Mildred met William Farquhar Young. After his first wife died in February 1915, Mildred and William married the following year in St Paul’s Presbyterian Church.

Without ready access to all New Zealand newspapers, it is not possible to say if Mildred went on performing but her husband had repute as a fine singer with ‘one of the loveliest speaking voices I have ever heard’ (the editor of Triad, cited in the Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Otago & Southland provincial districts] http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-Cyc04Cycl-t1-body1-d2-d22-d5.html). Mr Young was ‘well known as a bass singer and elocutionist throughout New Zealand’ (ibid) and had appeared on stage since he was a boy. His first adult appearance was in 1885 ‘as the sergeant of police in the “Pirates of Penzance”; his rendering of the part was a brilliant success’ (ibid). He toured successfully and perhaps this is where he and Mildred crossed paths.

After their marriage, Mildred made New Zealand her home. When William died in 1937,

In the 1949 electoral roll, she is listed at 29 Cheltenham St, Christchurch, Canterbury, NZ. She died in Christchurch in 1956, aged 82 and is buried in Bromley cemetery there.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/porkynz/50458471357/in/photolist-2jSQ1dH-2jSQRA6-2jSRoAm

Mildred’s success as a songbird may have been somewhat greater than her final report might indicate. A career in light entertainment which spanned the globe seems a bit more than ‘only fair progress’ – the equivalent of ‘C+ could do better’. Mildred appears to have been a chip off the old block and her father, if he had known of her success, would no doubt have been very proud of her. Her prize for music in about 1889 seems to have stood her in good stead.

Votes for Women

Supercali …

In 1896, the snappily titled National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) began its work of achieving women’s suffrage in Britain. Its formation ‘followed a conference of some twenty women’s suffrage societies held in October 1896’ https://www.oxforddnb.com/  Millicent Fawcett had chaired the conference and became the de facto leader of the movement.

‘’I cannot say I became a suffragist’, she later wrote. ‘I always was one, from the time I was old enough to think at all about the principles of Representative Government’ (NUWSS typescript, n.d., Manchester Central Library, M50/2/10/20) as cited in https://www.oxforddnb.com/

The suffragist campaign for wider suffrage (not just for women) had been peacefully pushing forward for forty years before the suffragettes (WSPU) emerged with their rallying cry of ‘Deeds not Words’. ‘The methods of the NUWSS centred on the education of public opinion and the organization of pressure from parliamentary constituencies’ https://www.oxforddnb.com/ and this did not go far enough, or fast enough, for the WSPU. ‘… its methods also reflected a growing impatience with the strategy of the NUWSS, after a private-member suffrage bill that year was talked out in a spirit of ridicule and contempt.’ Ibid

The epithet ‘suffragettes’ was coined by journalist Charles Hands in 1906 to belittle them.

‘… Adding the diminutive suffix, “-ette,” was meant to minimize these women and distinguish them from “constitutional” suffrage advocates, namely Millicent Fawcett, who relied on “non-militant” efforts including petitioning, lobbying and marches.’ https://suffrage100ma.org/resources/did-you-know-resources/suffragists-or-suffragettes/

The militancy of the suffragettes may have publicised ‘the cause’ but the NUWSS was opposed to it.

More of Edith Berney later.

…fragilistic …

The suffragist movement appealed more to middle class women whereas the WSPU drew also from working class women. The film Mary Poppins (1964) turned the original P L Travers’ creation Mrs Banks from a merely incompetent wife and mother into a ‘suffragette’. It has been suggested that this was a product of the 1960’s fears about strident women and, possibly, because the scripting team comprised only men!

Image left from https://themidult.com

If the campaign had had to rely on Mrs Banks, women would probably still be voteless. With a husband employed by a bank and living a comfortable lifestyle, Mrs Banks would far more likely be a suffragist than a suffragette. “We had the most glorious meeting! Mrs Whitbourne-Allen chained herself to the wheel of the Prime Minister’s carriage!” she declares in the film and yet, by the end, she happily uses her Votes for Women sash for the tail of a kite. If nothing else, Mrs Banks’ colours are all wrong. The NUWSS used the colours of red, white and green and the WPSU employed purple, green and white.

‘Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, editor of the weekly newspaper, Votes for Women, wrote, ‘Purple as everyone knows is the royal colour, it stands for the royal blood that flows in the veins of every suffragette, the instinct of freedom and dignity…white stands for purity in private and public life…green is the colour of hope and the emblem of spring.’ ’ https://irishwomenshistory.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-colours-of-suffragettes.html

It probably says much for the campaign of the WPSU that today most people know the term ‘suffragette’ and far fewer are aware of the term ‘suffragist’ or of the difference between them. Despite the name of Emmeline Pankhurst being well-known, it is Millicent Fawcett’s quiet and steadfast campaign which has meant that it is she who has a statue today in Parliament Square, not Mrs Pankhurst. Mind you, she is the only woman to be thus commemorated here and it didn’t happen until 2018 so perhaps Mrs Pankhurst’s spirit is quietly triumphant!

…expiali …

How does all this connect with the School? Allow me to introduce Edith Ann Wilson.

Former pupil Edith was born in 1865 in Wakefield, the daughter of Daniel & Jane Wilson. Her father was described as manager of the Calder Soap Works in Thornes, Yorkshire.

From https://overtown.org.uk/wakefield-city/calder-soap-works.html (reproduced with permission)

OS Map of Calder Soap Works Yorkshire CCXLVIII.11 Revised: 1905, Published: 1907 ‘Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

The soap works were eventually taken over by Lever brothers (which ultimately became Unilever), not the only time the School and Unilever’s paths crossed as the company used the Weybridge site during the WWII whilst the pupils were moved to Ricky.

At some point after 1861, Daniel appears to have left the soap works and branched out in a business of his own – one assumes in connection with soap manufacturing as he is still described thus in 1871 at 6 Bolton Terrace, Jesmond, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Wakefield Free Press 20 July 1872

His widow returned to reside at Old Hall, Sandal Magna, until her own death in 1905.

At some point between summer 1872 (when her father died) and 1874 (when there was a funding application made by the Head Governess on behalf of Edith for music lessons), Edith became an RMIG pupil. She clearly gained from her education because she was successful in the Cambridge exams December 1880 (reported in Yorkshire Gazette 1881); had been successful in French and was granted ‘a handsome prize’ for having passed Cambridge Local with Honours (The Era May 1882) and subsequently became the Gold Medallist ‘for general proficiency’ (Yorkshire Gazette May 1881) to which the Wakefield Free Press May 1881 added that she had also gained a prize in Religious Knowledge.

So much for the Head Governess’ earlier assessment of her as ‘an excitable case’!

Edith would have left school in 1881 and possibly initially returned to Sandal but by 1891 she is a teacher at The Westlands private school in Scarborough. Her whereabouts in 1901 is not currently known but on 24th December 1904 at Christ Church, Edinburgh, she married Robert, ‘son of Sir Henry Hanson Berney, 9th Bt.’ http://www.thepeerage.com/p14014.htm. The banns were read in Sandal Magna, St Helen and the marriage announcement declared him to be ‘Robert Henry Berney of Morningside, Edinburgh (born Beaumaris, Anglesey, son of a baronet)’. It seems possible that they were residing in Scotland and where Edith was in 1901 but that is speculation only.

By 1911, the couple were both teaching in Godstowe School and living at Ulverscroft, Amersham Road, High Wycombe. It was while here that Edith became active in the NUWSS. The South Bucks Standard of 24 July 1913 describes her as ‘Mrs R H Berney, the indefatigable Hon Secretary of the High Wycombe branch of the National Union’. But it is clear from other newspaper reports that Edith had been a mover and shaker before this.

South Bucks Standard

Reading across the grain of this tells us that Ulverscroft was clearly a residence of a fair size if 60-70 people could fit in. There is no longer any trace of it under this name but it seems likely to have been one of the large villas that were on the street at the time (such as the one shown), and which may still exist or may not.

In 1913, the first of a series of meetings organised by Edith took place.

South Bucks Herald 1913

The so called Suffrage Pilgrimage or Great March took place in 1913 and this may explain why there was much interest in such meetings and the drive to raise funds.

The Common Cause 1913 (NUWSS newsletter)

‘A pilgrimage of law-abiding suffragists: marching through Ealing.’ Image from the Illustrated London News, August 2 1913. ZPER 34/143 (from https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/the-1913-suffrage-pilgrimage-peaceful-protest-and-local-disorder/)

The Great March was first mooted in April 1913 and quickly gained momentum. The first marchers set off on 18 June allowing six weeks to reach London for a rally in Hyde Park where ‘78 speakers addressed the crowd from 19 platforms, one for each federation within the NUWSS’. (ibid)

The route of the Great March

To judge by the number of times her name is recorded in the local press, Edith was rather a Committee animal, motivated by many causes. There are 17 mentions in 1913 alone! After that, she seems to slow down a little and by 1921, the Berneys had moved to Harpenden, Hertfordshire where he (and probably also she) was teaching at St George’s School.

Left: Godstowe School (from https://bucksoxon.muddystilettos.co.uk) and Right: St George’s, Harpenden (from http://www.hertfordshire-genealogy.co.uk/)

Edith died on 19 October 1937 at the age of 72, survived by her husband who subsequently re-married. And so we reach the end of the line for the ‘indefatigable’ Mrs Berney. The one element in life that it is impossible to defeat is the leaving of it. In 1918 the vote was granted to women over the age of 30, either a member or married to a member of the Local Government Register.  About 8.4 million women gained the vote but it probably didn’t include Edith. The ‘excitable case’ (whatever that means) who became a tour de force for ‘The Cause’ locally may have had to wait for a further decade until 1928.

…docious.

A long way from home

Imagine, if you will, a little girl, born in a place with a year-round hot trade-wind tropical rainforest climate, nicknamed the ‘Garden City of the Caribbean’, where the rain falls every month, with temperatures rarely above 31 degrees but not below about 25^○ either. She was living a reasonably comfortable lifestyle with her parents, her father being the Acting Actuary for Georgetown, British Guiana [now Guyana] so a superior civil servant, if you like. In all probability their home, ‘Lamaha House’ was one of the large residences in colonial style.

It is not known what Lamaha House looked like but the above is typical of the Georgetown colonial architecture.

The announcement of her birth in June 1892 was made in a local newspaper:

‘TURNER ‐  At Lamaha House, Georgetown, Demerara, on the 2nd inst., the wife of W.S. Turner, Chief Commissary, of a Daughter.’

The following year, her brother’s arrival was recorded in the same newspaper as

‘On 12 Sept at Ruby Villa, Croal St, a son born to Mrs W S Turner (posthumous)’

Sadly, as the posthumous indicates, a lot had happened to the family between June 1892 and September 1893.

Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard 10 June 1893

As the (slightly blurred) newspaper account indicates, William Samuel Turner very suddenly died on May 4^th 1893. He was 61 years old and the newspaper goes on to describe him as not having robust health but that he had, nonetheless, been a keen advocate for the militia and trained with them in an honorary rank of Colonel. Possibly he had married late in life as he was some 34 years older than his wife, who had herself been born in Georgetown. The newspaper report indicates that William had arrived in Georgetown in about 1877, had taken a twelvemonth furlough in 1888 but somehow managed to avoid the census returns which might have given further information about him! It seems likely that he had married at some point on his return as the little girl and boy in question – Madge and William – appear to be the only children.

Fortunately for research, another newspaper report about his death allows for triangulation of information.

York Herald 28 June 1893

Here we have another brother and a brother in law and by going backwards and forwards and checking one piece of information against another, we can be fairly sure that John, J L (James Llewellyn) and William Samuel are the sons of Thomas Turner, a carpet weaver from Kidderminster. W J Watson was married to their sister Emily. Just as well we were not dependent on his probate as that gives very little information.

Imagine the bewilderment of a little girl when her life is suddenly and inexplicably turned upside down, just before her first birthday. She was possibly hardly aware of her daddy before he was gone. In September 1893, her mother gives birth to her brother and the family of three, that should have been a family of four, had had their circumstances radically altered. Given that her mother was born in Georgetown, it seems likely (assuming her family were still there) that Sarah Edith and her two very young children would have been in their care although we don’t know this to be the case. Quite possibly their residence was the Ruby Villa referred to in the second birth announcement that told such a sad tale. At some point, however, either the Lodge in Georgetown of which William had been a member, or possibly the lodge[s] of one or more brother in UK, stepped in to take care of the family and it was decided to move them to England, a place that none of them were born into and which none of them had visited.  The little family moved to the country of paternal relatives which, by comparison, must have seemed cold, dank and bleak. On the other hand, the motive of the Freemasonry behind the School had always been for the benefit of the pupils in difficult circumstances so the idea of moving the entire family across the ocean away from any life they had previously known was seen as A Good Thing.

‘the objects of charity were not consulted: benevolence was acted upon them rather than them participating in it.’ MRes Dissertation On receiving a Charitable Education

No travel documents for any of the family have been tracked down so it is not known at what point little Madge, baby William and grieving widow Sarah Edith actually arrived in England. The most that can be said is that they arrived between September 1893 and April 1901 which is a gap of seven years. In 1901, mother and son are boarders in a household in Wimbledon and at first glance it seems that Madge is not with them. However, after careful scrutiny of the 1901 entry, it is possible to see a potential error in the recording of the information.

It appears to indicate that Madge Turner is 19 and a general domestic born in Belvedere, Kent but is also a boarder (the status given to mother & brother) and that Nellie Kimpton (serv) is from Georgetown. On closer inspection, the figure 1 in front of the 9 could well be in a different hand by someone trying to make sense of a servant apparently aged 9.

Without being able to interrogate the enumerator or the copyist it is simply not possible to know but Madge, aged 9, is not found anywhere else and logic would indicate she would be with her mother as she is not yet at the School. The clincher is that there is a Nellie Kimpton born in Belvedere, Kent in 1881 so it seems highly probable that the two lines in the 1901 census have become mixed up.

Between the 1901 and 1911 census, Madge attended the School, leaving in 1908. Because it is not known at what point she left Georgetown, it is impossible to know how much she remembered of it. Did her first sight of the rather severe looking school at Clapham Junction make her heart quail?

Or was she filled with excitement at being with other little girls with whom to make friends?

In 1911 the family is together in Bournemouth although, as they lived in London before and after this date, it is possible they were taking a holiday at the time of the census. They were not to be together for long as William was shortly to travel to Australia where he married and served with Australian forces in World War One. The 1921 census does not appear to list either Sarah Edith or Madge Edith (although it is to be supposed that they were somewhere at this time!) and the next record we find is for Madge’s marriage to Frank Mervin Harrison, a civil servant, in 1923. Presumably her experiences at school can’t have been so traumatising that she ruled a line as she visited her alma mater in 1914, 1929, 1930 and 1932 and became a member of the Old Girls’ Association until at least 1933. The 1939 register finds her still in Middlesex with husband and mother but the next almost 40 years is a blank. The last ‘sighting’ of her is a death record in Devon in 1973 aged 81. Her mother, described somewhat charmlessly in 1939 as an ‘aged person’, had died in 1949 leaving Madge the sole survivor of the little Georgetown family.

But what of the brother you cry!

Well, his story is uncovered from https://discoveringanzacs.naa.gov.au/browse/person/29150 and https://www.awm.gov.au/learn/schools/resources/anzac-diversity/william-turner Sadly, he was killed in WWI serving with Australian Forces, leaving a young widow.

‘Arriving in France in March 1916, William took part in the bitter fighting on the Somme near Mouquet Farm, where he was affected by shell-shock and made temporarily deaf by the heavy artillery bombardments. He was evacuated to the 26th Australian General Hospital in Ètaples, and remained there for more than a month. After re-joining the battalion in October 1916, William spent the bitterly cold winter in the trenches near the village of Flers. On 3 January 1917 a German artillery shell landed on the battalion headquarters, killing ten men and wounding three more. Among those killed was William Turner, who was 24 years old when he died.’ https://www.awm.gov.au/learn/schools/resources/anzac-diversity/william-turner

His personal effects, consisting of a brush, a small case, bathing trunks, and a damaged photograph, were forwarded to his mother in London.

But that’s not quite the end of the story as there is an ongoing plan of Roll of Honour name projection at the Australian Memorial, to ensure that

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them

(Laurence Binyon For the Fallen)

And William Samuel Turner’s name will be projected onto the exterior of the Hall of Memory on:

Mon 20 June 2022 at 9:14pm

Mon 15 August 2022 at 12:18am

Fri 18 November 2022 at 2:17am

From Georgetown to London and on to Glanville, Australia via Wimbledon and Isleworth, the story of the Georgetown Turners echoes through the years. The players may have left the stage but the memory of them can still be found.

“Wonderful things!”

These are the words of Howard Carter in answer to Lord Carnarvon’s enquiry about what he could see as, in 1922, he applied his eye to the small view hole into the tomb of the Egyptian boy king. The discovery had been the final throw of the dice before they gave up the (very costly) hunt for the lost tomb but the wonderful things Carter could see initially were as nothing to what was later uncovered – and which so enthralled the world.

Image of the death mask from Tutankhamen (C Desroches-Noblecourt, 1971)

The tomb robbers may have attempted to remove the ‘wonderful things’ but failed. One could argue that Egyptologists finished their job for them. On the other hand, the pharaohs were carefully preserved for the afterlife and someone whose name is known throughout the educated world, but who was only 18 when he died, has certainly achieved an immortality that would have been lost if his tomb had not been discovered in 1922.

One hundred years on, the thrill has lost none of its lustre so it’s time to go all Egyptian as we search through the School archives. A word of warning that what follows will sometimes stretch the elastic band of Egyptian connection past pinging point!

No pharaohs, male or female, have been discovered so far but there are a surprising number of references to Egypt.

Joan Loy Marvin (b 1922) travelled to Egypt in 1930 with her mother and her brother. The reason for the journey is unclear but Joan’s father had recently died and he was a Lt Commander in the RN so it is possible that he died in the Mediterranean area.

Heather and Patricia Jones were possibly born Egypt in 1930. There are no records to confirm this but their father died there and there are travel documents for Heather & Patricia from Egypt to UK and returning again in 1935.  Later their applications to be pupils were given in a 1942 List of patrons as Overseas Girls elected: Egypt & the Sudan.

Alexandria 1930 from https://www.pinterest.com/

Florice Allchin was born in Alexandria (Arabic Al-Iskandariyyah), Egypt although her sister Marian, a year older and also a pupil, was not. Florice later became a teacher and was in 1939 a school mistress at Christ’s Hospital, another school like RMS with a long history as a charitable institution. Florice’s name clearly caused problems to indexers as her death record gives her as Florence but the 1921 census records her as Horace!

Dora Cree was known as Rosemary. She was born in Egypt as was her father. Her mother, on the other hand, was French. Clearly keeping up the internationals, Rosemary married a Dane in 1957 and made her home in Denmark. She was fluent in Danish, French and English. There were also strong Masonic connections too as not only did Rosemary became a pupil but her two brothers attended the Boys’ and Rosemary later became a nurse at the Royal Masonic Hospital.

Image of the hospital, built 1933, https://www.freemasonrytoday.com/features/award-winning-architecture-of-the-royal-masonic-hospital

Muriel Haxton married in Egypt in 1928 and lived in China for a while. Although she was back in UK by 1939, she emigrated in 1958 to Australia and thereafter we lose sight of her.

Mary Evelyn Hope also married in Egypt in the 1950s when she wed a West Australian serving out there in the RAF. ‘My late uncle flew with Bomber Command during the war’ said her niece when informing the School of Mary’s death. The couple had later moved to Perth but towards the end of her life Mary had decided to return to family in UK. They were in the process of sorting everything out when, sadly, she died: ‘On Thursday 2nd July in Perth, Western Australia, most beloved wife of Wing Commander J D Kirwan DFC, and dearest aunt, great aunt and godmother to her English and Australian families and friends. … a service of Thanksgiving for her life on Thursday 16th July 2015 at St George’s Cathedral in Perth at 11.00am.’ Donations to the RAF Benevolent Fund were welcomed.

Anthea Page took a diploma in Archaeology and worked at the British Museum in the Department of Egyptology. Later she founded Rubicon Press which published books about Egyptology and other Ancient History. Her sister Juanita illustrated the books with fine line drawings and was a meticulous editor.  Rubicon Press was a considerable achievement, publishing over 30 books before it closed upon Anthea’s retirement in 1999.

Betty Harrington’s father was general manager of the Nile Cold Storage company in Cairo (although Betty and her mother stayed at home in Brighton). Betty’s earliest memory, however, was of being taken to Brighton railway station to wave goodbye to her father as he returned to Cairo. Sadly it was the last time they were to see him. Unfortunately one evening in Cairo he ate some crayfish and succumbed to food poisoning. Later Betty wrote her memoir, intriguingly entitled Your sister has broken her leg, and gifted a copy to the Archives. In them she revealed that one of her first memories was a letter from her mother telling of her sister’s contretemps with a car and motorcycle which resulted in a compound fracture of her leg. (Fortunately, she made a full recovery.)

Asenath Bedford (1836-1922) never apparently went near Egypt but her name, pronounced U-sen-ath, is an Egyptian name. Definitely one of the pinging connections!          

Mabel Stubbs became a pupil after her father, Herbert Molyneux Stubbs, died on board the Royal Edward when it was torpedoed off Alexandria.  The ship had left UK carrying troops bound for Gallipoli and arrived at Alexandria in August 1915. On 13^th August, it passed a hospital ship going in the opposite direction, a ship ignored by the U-boat commander precisely because it was a hospital ship.  A torpedo hit the Royal Edward which sank within six minutes. The ship managed to send an SOS message and the hospital ship sailed back to the stricken vessel, thus saving 440 men. Sadly the Royal Edward´s death toll was 935, thought to be so high because a boat drill had just been carried out and many of the crew were below decks stowing their equipment when the torpedo struck. Sadly for Mabel one of the dead was her father, an engineer. He is commemorated at Tower Hill Pier 2, course 3, col f.

https://www.cwgc.org/ for image of Tower Hill Memorial

Image of the Edward from an old postcard from Ship Photo Gallery at the Great War Primary Documents Archive direct image link, PD-US, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22413233

By one of those amazing coincidences, the Royal Edward was the ship on which, in 1910, former pupil Melora Collins nee Goodridge and her family emigrated to Canada. Her story is told in https://www.rmsforgirls.com/userfiles/rmsmvc/documents/AboutUs/History%20Trails/Melora_Collings.pdf

The School at Rickmansworth had its foundation stone laid in 1930 and it is said that ‘The maul used in the ceremony was originally used by an ancient Egyptian workman in a tomb of Sakkara some 4,000 years ago.’ (Article about the stone laying in the School magazine 1931) That might imply a direct connection with Ancient Egypt and the idea of Egyptian connections is possibly the inspiration for the design of the old front entrance to the School with its resemblance to the entrance to an Egyptian temple. The design would have been created between 1928 and 1929 at a time when ‘Tutmania’ was still strong. There is an excessively tall doorway flanked by two pillars [the traffic cone is not part of the original design!].

Photo courtesy of S. Aley March 2022

But the capitals on the pillars on either side of the entranceway do not fit into any of the classic forms of architecture (Ionic, Doric & Corinthian). It may well be that the architect, Denman, was given free rein to create his own design which draws on Corinthian but with extras. The lower foliage could be stylized lotus leaves with papyrus leaves above. Or possibly not!

Photo above left courtesy of S. Aley March 2022; above right from https://thedesigngesture.com/the-egyptian-architecture/

The Egyptian image is not dissimilar to the RMS capital but is not quite the same either. So the jury is out about whether there is Egyptian influence or not. Still, it makes an interesting, if contrived, connection to King Tut.

This is the sound of elastic Egyptian connections reaching their limits!

Girls and Careers

The previous post (Careers for Girls) set the scene, so to speak, about girls’ education and the careers that might – or mostly didn’t – follow their time at school. This one looks at some details.

The dominant ideology of public/private spheres meant that girls’ education was imbued with the idea of them not seeking to have ‘professional’ roles but to undertake employment until they married. In other words, their occupations were seen as a stopgap until they acquired a husband who would provide them with a home and income. Consequently any choosing of employment would not be done in the same way as school leavers of today who select a career with a view to continuing with this whether married or not. It is an indication of the way society has changed beyond the recognition of the C18th or even the C19th Miss.

In a sectional study of approximately 650 RMIG pupils between 1851 and 1908, representative rather than comprehensive, the two biggest categories of employment were clerical and teaching. How much stems from being pushed in those directions by the School (‘Do you want to be a secretary or a teacher?’) or those sorts of posts being more readily available is an unanswerable question without a deal of close and detailed research into individuals. And as many of those individuals are no longer walking the earth, it somewhat hampers the investigation. Refuge in generalities it is then. Nursing, surprisingly, came a very unclose third in the tables with only 4% of the survey going into the caring profession. However, given the date range of the survey sample, it is possible that these results reflect the fact that nursing had been perceived as a working class occupation. Later, more rigorous organised training opened it to a higher class of women and had the survey sampled a slightly later time period, the percentage opting for nursing may have been higher.

Image of nurse from https://www.familytreemagazine.com/photos/old-photo-nurse-1890s/ and teaching staff at RMIG similar period

In a book by Mercy Grogan entitled How Women may earn a living published in 1880, the following careers were described as ‘suitable’ employment for women:

teaching generally and tutoring in music and cookery; artistic activities such as china painting and art needlework; clerk based roles in the Post office and law copying, telegraphy and bookkeeping; printing; shop assistant work in linen draperies; becoming a school board visitor; the role of superintendent in laundries; concertina making; and hairdressing.

Most of these are self-explanatory although some have ceased to exist. Law copying related to days before it was possible to make multiple copies of documents at the press of a button. People were employed to copy out documents laboriously by hand.

From https://www.wise-geek.com/what-does-a-copyist-do.htm

As for a school board visitor – this is an interesting choice to be described as suitable for a woman to carry out. ‘The School Board Visitors perform amongst them a house-to-house visitation’ wrote Charles Booth in Life and Labour of the People in London, their purpose being to ensure that children who should be in school were in attendance. Until universal education was made free, there was a cost imperative in sending children to school (known as ‘the school penny’), something impoverished families often found difficult, especially compared with the additional money a child could earn from not being in school. A Visitor must have encountered opposition from time to time and possibly even threats of violence as they sought to ensure school attendance, it possibly being seen as ‘interference from do-gooders’.

The reference to concertina making may cause amusement. Was it really such a widespread industry that it was included in a list of suitable professions? And why was it deemed suitable for women? One can only imagine the smaller, and possibly more dextrous, fingers of a woman might be preferred to the strength of a male.

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/503682

In the same year (1880), Phillis Browne produced a book with a chapter entitled ‘Work for Necessity’.[i]  This implied that whilst employment was not the desirable option, some choice was possible, albeit from a rather limited range.  Teaching was regarded as the main female occupation. Twenty years later a publication by Helen Candee (How women may earn a living) contained twenty-two chapters of suitable employment categories including nursing and teaching, care of hair, flowers and typewriting but also architecture and interiors, hack writing and advertising, from which it may be deduced that, in the subsequent twenty years, many more professions had become suitable.

A hack writer, for those less familiar with term (i.e. most of us), is ‘a writer who is paid to write low-quality, rushed articles or books “to order”, often with a short deadline’ (Wikipedia). Also known as a pen for hire, the phrase arose from ‘hackney’ which was a hired horse. It is synonymous with low paid work thus implying that it was suitable for women as they were only biding time until Mr Right came along.  ‘Many authors who would later become famous worked as low-paid hack writers early in their careers’ (ibid). These include Anton Chekhov, Arthur Koestler, Samuel Beckett and William Faulkner. Note the absence of female names in this reference!

Clerical work, originally a profession for men, changed when technology, such as the typewriter, was introduced: ‘the work became both more monotonous and at the same time […] offered fewer chances for advancement. As these occupations took on a proletarian character, females began to enter them in significant numbers.’[ii] 

https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/tw-history.html

https://www.edwardianpromenade.com/occupations/the-type-writer-girl/

By and large schools were very conservative in outlook and RMIG was no exception. The primary choice was employment or marriage: ‘girls still learned that careers for women had to be bought at the high personal cost of remaining celibate.’[iii] In fact until the mid C20th, women were expected to give up paid employment upon marriage. Known as the Marriage Bar this ‘required single women to resign from their job upon getting married and disqualified married women from applying for vacancies. They were in common use up until the 1970s’ https://www.ictu.ie/blog/marriage-bar-ban-employing-married-women

That women’s careers were seen as secondary to men was amply demonstrated when women took on men’s roles in WWI, made a very competent fist of them but, nevertheless, were out of work the moment the men came back from fighting. And, of course, this links with the great battle to get the vote – finally granted in 1918 to ‘enfranchised women over the age of 30 who were either a member or married to a member of the Local Government Register.’[iv] This compares unfavourably with New Zealand where women had been able to vote after 1893. It was 1928 before women had the same rights to vote as men in UK.

However let us not get sidetracked by female suffrage. (The soap box got a bit excited but is now disappointed.)

Original image of soap box from https://christiantoday.com.au/news/the-soapbox-and-a-good-story.html

Back to the careers advice offered to RMIG pupils. As with any generalisation, there are always exceptions and amongst the many teachers, clerical roles and nurses in the study, there was also a missionary, a gardener, a dispenser, an artist, an author and a typecutter – in each case a single example. There were a lot more shop assistants and those working in domestic service although most of these followed the unwritten rule of being stopgap occupations. Only 2% of the sample stayed in domestic service and did not marry and one has the feeling that the latter was the reason for the former rather than domestic service being perceived as a career.

Of course, if we jump forward in time to 1988 – the bicentenary year of the School – and have a quick look at those leaving from the 6^th form, we have a whole raft of different potentials. Some may sound more similar (art history, modern languages, geography, history, teaching, nursing, mathematics) although with modern twists. Some have developed a long way from the nineteenth century occupations but have the same roots: pharmacy, business/marketing, physiotherapy, civil engineering (for men anyway. It was not regarded as an occupation for women until much later). Others reflect the way the world has developed: computer science, travel & tourism, radiography, criminology & forensics. What is clear though is that there is no longer any question of it being either career or marriage and nor are there as many clear cut divisions between male and female occupations.

This more specific look at the kind of occupations of RMIG/RMSG former pupils does not show the School to be unique in its approach – then or now. It is society that has changed and continues to change but today’s pupils can be thankful they have a very much wider range of opportunities than their Victorian counterparts.

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[i] Browne, Phillis, [pseud. Sarah Sharp Hamer. 1839-1927] What Girls can Do: a book for mothers and daughters

[ii] Gorham, Deborah, The Victorian Girls and the Feminine Ideal

[iii] Dyhouse, Carol, Girls growing up in late Victorian & Edwardian England, 1981

[iv] Fawcett, Millicent Garrett. The Women’s Victory – and After.