Two little girls met for the first time in the early C20th in a building in Clapham.
It was the beginning of an intertwining of their lives that stretched far beyond being little ‘girls in blue’.
Mary Ruth Cherry Piggott and Violet Kate Dingley were both elected to the School in 1902. Some 86 years later, Violet wrote in her memoirs ‘…Mother took me up to London to the school … where I met my lifelong friends Gwen Kitkatt and Mary Piggott, who seventeen years later became my sister in law’. (from The Memories if Miss Violet Kate Dingley by Violet Piggott © Violet Piggott’s estate)
At this time, the School was on its site in Clapham/Battersea where it had been since 1852. It was by this stage started to be rather overcrowded both by the encroachment of properties nearby and also in terms of the accommodation within the School. It had expanded probably as far as it could go and it was a case of juggling to fit all the girls in. There were almost always more girls admitted than left in any one year, an indication of the continuing need for support for the daughters of freemasons.
The School had been established 114 years before Mary and Violet were admitted. Designed for the daughters of freemasons whose circumstances were reduced (charmingly referred to as ‘decayed’ – how the import of language has changed!). As such, the girls came from middle class families and the reason for the ‘decay’ was often, but not exclusively, the death of the father. In the cases of both Mary and Violet, this was true.
Mary’s father, Walter Arthur Piggott, died in October 1901 aged just 42. He was a chartered accountant and his estate in probate was valued at £435. This has a representative value of about £20,000 today but with a family of nine children to support, it did not give his widow Charlotte much to work with. Her son Hubert, later to marry Violet, said that ‘Mother had a small pension from father’s partnership in business’ and the sudden reduction in income made Mary a prime candidate for masonic support. The family had been living in Beckenham, Kent but moved to Belmont in Surrey after Walter’s death. Charlotte, however, had come from grander things having been brought up in Hawling Manor, Winchcomb where her children were also baptised.
The family were tenant farmers of this substantial house dating originally from the C11th although this building dates from the C16th. It was sold in 2014 – for an asking price of £10 million pounds.
Violet’s father, George Dingley, was a jobmaster, one who lets out horses and carriages by the day and hour. The family lived In Marylebone ‘in a flat above the carriage houses of my father’s business.’ As the motor car was starting its rise to dominance, the jobmaster’s role was diminishing so, even if George had not died following an accident in which a broken rib pierced a lung, a reduced income may well have made Violet eligible anyway. His death left Violet’s mother, Charlotte, with seven boys and one girl to bring up singlehanded. As Violet recalled in her memoirs, there was no government aid in those days and, because Charlotte hailed originally from Exeter, ‘she had no family in London to fall back on in time of need.’ The Freemasons came to the rescue, first with Violet’s brother Albert (who went to the Boys’) and then, in 1902 when Violet was of age, she was also educated by the Freemasons.
Violet enjoyed being at school. In fact she remembers being called ’conceited’ because she found school work easy and probably, as is the wont with children, boasted of it! Violet’s memoirs mention a prize for arithmetic but not whether that was at the Masonic or the school she attended before that. Violet passed College of Preceptors’ exam in 1905. This institution, now little known today, was established in 1846 but
‘the College… committed the unpardonable sin of the twentieth century: a lack of communication’ Janet Delve in https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0315086003000260.
Because at the time the College of Preceptors’ exams were well known, no-one at the School recorded what was being examined. We are left to guess what exactly Violet passed in 1905 but it may possibly have been mathematics and may therefore be the ‘prize’ she refers to. It should be noted that, whatever it was, Violet was only 11 at the time so she was clearly a clever little bunny.
As with so many of our early pupils, Violet’s recall of her lessons stayed with her all her life: Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories in Class 5; Walter Scott in Class 3, learning by rote part of The Lady of the Lake; on to Shakespeare in the top classes. French was taught in Junior school with German and Latin in the Seniors. All the school work was tested by Junior Cambridge and Senior Cambridge exams. Violet took Senior Cambridge, which she passed with Honours, and the following year was made Gold medallist, the highest level of achievement of the School, her name being recorded in perpetuity on the School’s Honour Boards. As well as ‘brainbox’ activities, Violet won a singing prize in 1910.
Mary also passed Senior Cambridge in 1910 and was due to leave that year but was retained to assist the matron in the Junior School. Her own memoirs (supplied by her grandson) indicated that she was a pupil teacher. As such, she would have been at the School when Queen Mary visited in 1912 although Violet, unfortunately, missed it.
This rather faded image serves to show the uniform that both Mary and Violet would have worn.
In 1914, Mary Piggott obtained a post to assist in a nurses’ home in Plaistow.
When war broke out, ‘I was on loan to the Social Services Department at City Hall – my job was to interview wives whose husbands had been called up into active service … until their husband’s family allowances were fixed.’ In 1916, she undertook some nurse training but then worked at the War Risks Dept of the Sun Insurance Office.
Her change of direction was because she had met the man who was to become her husband, Arthur Ernest Hopkins ‘Hoppy’. He was a soldier who served with distinction in WWI, being wounded twice (Ypres & the Somme). Although he had been born in Manchester, he had emigrated to Canada in 1913 and was serving with Canadian forces. At a hospital in Edinburgh he met Mary’s brother in law, Sidney, who brought Hoppy to the Piggott household for tea where he and Mary met.
They married in 1918 in Belmont, Surrey and then Hoppy returned to the War where, despite several near misses, including contracting ‘Spanish’ ‘flu in November 1918, he managed to survive. After recovering, Mary & Hoppy obtained berths on a ship departing for Canada in July 1919.
Violet, in the meantime, discovered that while she shone at School, it was not quite so easy out in the wider world.
As she wanted to be a teacher, a masonic grant for her training was made available but she had to be 18 to start and she was 17½. Unfortunately, the family needed income so Violet had to apply for a job as a teacher’s assistant to earn some. She gained a post in a private school where ‘I was put in charge of the littlest, without a clue or any given directions as to what to do with them.’
After a couple of months, a friend told Violet of a job with the International Correspondence School, which she took. ‘There I stayed until 1918, marking arithmetic and algebra papers’. Then she became engaged to Mary’s brother Hubert whom she had met on weekend visits when he was on leave from his ship. In 1919, he had managed ‘to get a berth on a company steamer … bound for Hull [from Egypt]. Arrived in Hull Easter Sunday. Arrived in London on Tuesday, April 22, and was married Saturday, April 26, 1919.’ (One Man’s Life, Hubert Piggott, 1979) At West Holloway St Luke to be precise.
The die of their future together was presumably already cast, as whilst Violet went back to work, Hubert set about obtaining a ship to Canada. In June, he set sail waving goodbye to Violet on Princes Dock, Liverpool.
The next time they were to meet was in Canada where they joined with Mary, her husband and small son John in a place called Peace River.
In Part II, we will look at their Canadian life. Geographically several thousand miles away but in terms of a different lifestyle, metaphorically a million miles away for two little girls in blue.
With grateful thanks to Ivan and Norm, grandsons of both Mary and Violet, who provided much family information.
RMSG History Extra 
