Dark, dark, dark outside ... only a few days to go to the shortest day ... all the 'folk' of my little world have curled up for the night ...
I could read a book ... my brother is drowning in Dostoevsky and wallowing in White (Patrick) ... but you know me. Back into the cartes de visite in the hope of another postman ... pick a card, any card ...
Here's the first. Oh, it's a child. Adults are more fun. Anyway, at least she's clearly labelled:
Effie Douglas KEMPE. Hmmm. Kempe with an 'e'. Wimbledon. (Sudden thought: why do Victorian boy babies look so often like girls, and girl babies -- voilà -- the opposite). Well, bravo the inscriber. This little lass was exactly 2 1/2 on 9 March 1883. She was born at 58 Broadway, Wimbledon on 9 September 1880, the child of William Sanford Burrington Kempe and his second wife Annie Caroline née Summerford. Oh cripes. There was a Charles Gilbert Burrington Kempe, a surgeon at Salisbury who earned an obituary of a large column. So, what did William, from Philleigh in Conrwall, do?
He was a station master for the South Western Railways. He was stationmaster at Wimbledon for a good number of years, and when little Effie grew up, and father had retired into being a cab proprietor, she married (2 January 1905) the cab proprietor son of another station master. And Mr and Mrs Montague Richard Lasham lived happily ever after. He gave up the trains abd cabs and went to work as a clerk in the customs office until he ritred and the family went to live in Ashstead.
The couple had two daughters Effie May (Mrs Arthur H Taylor, architectural drawing master) (b 6 October 1905; d 1995) and Greta Nina (Mrs Howard H C Barton) (b 10 March 1908), and passed the 60 years of married life before Effie died 22 April 1966. Her husband followed on 18 December. He left over 6000 pounds, and named widowed (1964) daughter, Greta, his executrix ...
The was a musical once entitled The Station Master's Daughter ....
Dip again. Now, do we think this lady is theatrical, having fun or dressed in her Sunday best.
This is Betsy LEVER from Bolton. Mrs Betsy Lever née Leach. She was born in the village of Clayton-le-Moors, where her father, John Leach, for a time ran the Fort's Arms public house. The pub is still there, and looking healthy, but I couldn't, sadly, find an 1860s picture of it. When I wen searching, one promising link was broken, and another gave forth with such violently alarming electric twanging that I had to to pull out my speakers.
Anyway, Betsy was born to publican, John, and his wife, Ann née Downey in 1855. And in 1857, a brother, John, was added to the family. But soon John sr wasn't a publican, he'd become a 'factory operator' (1871), then a 'general labourer' (1881), and Betsy was working as a 'cotton operator'. I don't know whether she kept on working after marrying (31 December 1881) 'cotton weaver' William Lever (1855-1930), because I can't find any of them in the 1891 census. There don't seem to have been issue from the marriage.
William rose to become a 'cotton loom overlooker', they settled in, by the turn of the century, at Bolton's 30 Wentworth Street, and just missed their golden wedding when William died in 1930. Betsy lived on at Wentworth Street till her last illness, and died in Townley's Hospital, Farnworth 14 May 1938.
Dear (pretty) woman, I'll bet she was right proud of her millinery ...
I just knew my next one was going to be a toff. But he looked so giggleworthy, I just had to investigate him ...
Yes, the photo taken in Naples, as all good toffs do, and the back signed with a rule-the-world flourish that speaks volumes. Offley confident ...
Offley Bohun SHORE (b Norton Hall 21 January 1839; d Ealing 12 April 1911) was one of those chaps who come along in aristocratic families and blot a few centuries of parchments. Actually, he was only 'of Norton Hall' for about four years (although advertised as such for ages), until Offley Shore sr 'of Norton Hall', banker, saw his bank fly into insolvent smithereens (1843) and had to sell up and settle for being Offley Shore of Measebrook, Yorks. I'm not even going to attempt to go into the Shore family, with multiple Offleys and Bohuns in its various branches: it has been done in the minutest detail on the www by others. Suffice it to say that Florence Nightingale belongs there -- yes, she was Offley Confident's cousin -- and later the family had a juicy unsolved murder, absolutely made for the novelwriters and screenplayers of the 21 st century.
Offley was a third son. He didn't get to go to Cambridge, like son number one. He was sent to Edinburgh. But there was a good reason. He was to study medicine. And he duly graduated MD in 1861. Medical degree courses must have been much shorter in those days! And, having graduated, he married .. His (first) wife was ...
And his first children soon followed ... Offley Bohun Stoivn Fairless Shore (9 August 1863), Florence Nightingale (10 January 1865), Urith Beresford Foye Shore. (9 September 1866) ...
But, in that time, life had happened. Failing, it seems, to get appointed at Derby, he took up a position in Stamford, where he took part in social and (liberal) political life ...
Until the mess he had got himself into finally exploded. Firstly he and his elder brother Harrington were declared, in 1878, vastly bankrupt for something like 90,000L each. I haven't read the details, but I do notice that the bankruptcy was annulled in 1881. Had they paid the money back? Why were they liable for it, in the first place? Round about the same time, Offley Confident walked out on his wife and three children, for what appears to have been a satyrical lifestyle. The whole story is, I think, told in Rosemary Cook's splendidly researched book about his daughter, Florence ... yes, the one who was murdered on a train ... After the divorce he married a 20 year-old syren, who, in her turn walked out on him and seemingly died of syphilis some years later... what a mess of a life ...
I'm going to leave Mr Shore there. He was rather depressing from the start. Ms Cook can have him
I wonder if she has documentary proof of the 'Florence Nightingale's god-daughter' bit.
One more, and then bed. This rather dashing chap (to make up for Offley Confident) is listed on e-bay as Capt Morrell. Nooooooo ...
This is Captain Bolton James Alfred MONSELL (b Coleraine 27 December 1840; d 1 Tedworth Square, Chelsea 2 February 1919), and he is another who has a Family Tree. Which I'm not going to spend time on. We can tell when this photo was taken, for he was ADC ... aide de camp .. to Sir Richard Airey, governor of Gibraltar in the mid and late 1860s. And this photo was taken in Gibraltar. Those mutton-chops are ageing.
I see him in 1861, three years into his army career, already Captain Monsell of the 12th company of the 23rd Regiment of Foot, in 1865 he seems to be out in Hong Kong, in 1868 he married Mary Ogle (18 August), daughter of Sir Edmund Ogle, bart.
and the following year their first daughter was born in Gibraltar (15 June). He made the headlines, back home, when he went in pursuit of some Italian brigands who had kidnapped some promenading Englishmen ..
He resigned from the 23rd in 1874, settled in South Hants, had more children, ran the Royal Military Hospital at Netley, got beaten out for a series of constabular jobs, and in 1886 was named a district superintendant of the Metropolitan Police. Some years later, he became Chief Constable.
He and Mary had two sons and four daughters. Son Bolton Meredith Monsell, later Eyres-Monsell, became a politician, First Lord of the Admiralty e tutti quanti. Daughter Jennie married Mr Watkins, ex of the Coldstream Guards, and mothered Arcic explored 'Gino' Watkins (d 1932).
Next up ... Edward Dumaresque THOMAS (b Breconshire ... solicitor ...
No. He's going to take clear eyes. It's 11.59 and Minnie the cat has woken up and is demanding another log on the fire ...
The tired-looking lawyer can wait till tomorrow ...
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