Clarkes of the world unite. Your family is being torn apart on e-bay!

 

I always find it unutterably sad when 'dealers' get a Victorian family photo album, and break it up to sell the photos (named or unnamed) piecemeal. I suppose it is more profitable for them that way, but it shows a horrid disregard for history, for family, for the meaning of a photograph. Over the last few days I have watched one family emerging from the stock of one of the usual such history-destroyers. I wonder how many, singly, she will sell. I will try to group the recognisable ones here, and maybe (as has happened in so many cases, after I have blogged) family, or people to whom the people and pictures mean something, will find them. The one which first caught my eyes was this fine lady. Ada in 1875. But someone has kindly pencilled 'Mrs Worthington' on the back ...

Yes, here she is. Ada Louisa Clarke daughter of John Andrew Clarke (1819-1882) and Louisa née Moon, born Warwick Villas, Harrow Road, 1854. Married Arthur Bayley Worthington 1879. OK, well Miss Moon just happened to be the daughter of a Lord Mayor of London. And a printer and publisher when he wasn't being civic. Mr Worthington was a corn-merchant, then brewer, the gentleman. The Worthingtons had two children, Lionel Bayley W (b 1879) and Nora (23 August 1883). Lionel was a mining engineer and went out to Burma where he died at the age of 35. Ada, alas, was already gone. She died 23 December 1890. 

Being familiar with dismembered family albums, I next searched for husband and children. And yes, here is baby Nora Mary Bayley Worthington ...

Nora was MBE'd in 1918 for her work in the Volunteer Aid Detachment during the war.

Well, let's see what else is here. I don't see any Worthingtons. Ah! The internet is helpful. Here is Arthur's brother

And a fine article about them all. https://www.townthorns.co.uk/the-bayley-worthingtons. Slightly odd, though. Mr B-W (hyphenated) had a daughter, Sybil. This site tells us she married in 1898. Actually she hit the headlines in 1898 by shooting herself 'in Park Lane'. 

No more Worthington photos, though. A few Clarkes. And Clarks, as well. Are they connected, then? Let's have a look.

Jane Clarke. Same lady? One is dated 1877. 

Now, where does she fit in?

Robert Clarke? Ah! I suspect that this is Ada's grandfather. The non-conformist silk mercer. With a wife named ... Jane! 

This looks like them ..   Well, Ada is but 21 in her smart photo, could this youngish looking lady be her grandmother? And this her grandfather?

THIS one is supposed to be 'Mrs R Clarke'

Oh, this one is eeeeeeeasy. Another grandmother! "Lady Moon" Sounds like a Paul Rubens song!. The Lady Mayoress. You can see where Ada got her looks!

I wonder if there are more Clarkes to come. Probably not, as John-Andrew and Louisa only had two children, Ada, and a John Francis, who became an accountant in Stepney and seems to died aged 79 in 1926. He appears to have married a widowed laundry-lady and acquired two step-children .. He also (or someone else) seems to have been a bit cavalier about his 'e', which is why I snapped up a few Clark pictures amongst the 'Clarkes'.

These sweet young things, for example:

The label says Eveline, Edward and Dora. No surname. I took a punt, typed in Clark, and bingo. Three of the thirteen offspring of Mr Edward Clark (no 'e') and his wife Adeline Mary née Scott. Daddy was a stockbroker, so I guess mummy had someone to iron all those frills and bows! Ah yes. Eardly House, Beckenham, three servants ...

Left to right: Edward George Urling Clarke (1876-1951), first son -- after seven daughters ...

Eveline Louise Clark 1873-1914 (Mrs Graham)

Dora Septima Clark (1875-1957) (Lady Rees-Davies)

Oh and look. Another cdv with no surname but Adeline Maud and Ethel Mary? And the first two Clark sisters were ... bingo!

And finally, this, still from the same vendor, labelled great-great-grandfathter: John Clark. I don't think I'm even getting into that.

I would, but therein lies the 'dealer' peril. We don't know whether these photo come from the same abum or collection, or auction lot ...

Someone obviously doesn't mind. I see several of the photos above already have a bid on them. I don't suppose its family, or they would have bought the lot. Shame. Hello, Clarkes and Clarks of the world .. get in quickly. The family honour is at steak.

Hang on. Who is this? William Clarke? I don't have a William ...

 

Dale's English Opera Singers

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This week, I came upon this delightful postcard. Undated, virgin verso, just this ... it must, I thought, have at least a wee bit of a story behind it.

First glance. That chappie on the right has to be Jack Point. Right? So this is English Opera. And I don't mean Artaxerxes. It is English light and comic opera. A Songs from the Shows group of the 1890s or 1900s. Pier Pavilions and Mechanics Institutions? 

Next, who is Mr Dale? Yes, it is he, the Jack Point. Frederic John DALE (b Weston super Mare 14 May 1872; d "Keep Cheery", Worlebury, Weston super Mare 1 March 1956). Son of a druggist, trained in music, pianist, humorist, songs at the piano, sketches, character pieces ...

And the prima donna of the group is Mrs Dale, née Edith Jane Serpell. I would pick that that is she in the pink frock and in full-face ... prima donna oblige. The other three ... contralto, tenor, baritone ... alas, I cannot tell, for the composition of the group, other than Mr and Mrs Dale, changed over the fifteen years -- yes, fifteen years -- of its existence.

But Mr and Mrs Dale were not the original performers in the troupe. The English Opera Singers, performing 'gems from the light operas' sprang from, and took much of their material from, the D'Oyly Carte companies. The instigator of the group appears to have been Harry Virgilius ['Broughton'] Black, and his company included fellow Cartesians Adeline Vaudrey and Cecil Barnard. At various times it was advertised as 'The English Opera Singers', 'The original English Opera Singers', 'Charles Butler's English Opera Singers', before it settled down, circa 1898, to being Dale's English Opera Singers or, I suspect, truthfully Mrs Dale's EOS: for Edith it was whose superior and unpretentious performance gave the team its quality.

Cecil Barnard

Edith SERPELL (b Truro x November 1872; d 99 Esmond Rd, Turnham Green 29 July 1916) was the daughter of pharmacist Samuel Serpell, from Pool in Cornwall, and his wife, Ellen Frances née Wilson. She took to singing as a child (I see her, aged 9, in the Truro People's Concerts), sang her way through Truro Girls High School and by 1888 had 'established herself as the prima donna of the Truro amateurs'. She sang around the local concerts for several years before enrolling at the LAM: I notice while her fellow students launched themselves on such as 'Softly Sighs', Edith got no more hefty than 'Rose, Softly Blooming' and 'With Verdure Clad'. When they did a Freischütz selection, she was Ännchen not Agathe. During her study years (gold medallist), she continued to appear in concert and, in late 1895, I first spy her concertising with the English Opera Singers: Miss Serpell, ex-Savoyarde Louise Lancaster, Charles Butler late of Carte's companies, Mr W H Webb (bass) and comic singer Mr Fred Dale. At Easter 1896 the team (now Serpell, Blanche Murray, J William Birtley, Webb, Dale) sang at London's Crystal Palace, and in 1898 (Serpell, Dale, Mandeno Jackson, Edith Bushell, Robert Grice) at the Alexandra Palace.

The team sang together when there was an engagement (which seems to have been frequently), and when there wasn't, Edith popped off sing Stainer's Mary Magdalene at Aylesbury, The Messiah with Lena Law and Charles Childerstone at Diss, van Bree's St Cecilia's Day at Billericay .. as well as giving her Cowen, Lehmann, Molloy, Tosti, Deacon songs et al in concerts.

The group carried on through the 1900s, and in 1905 even took a trip to America and Canada (Edith, Fred, Claude Anderson &c)

I see the singers in concert as late as 1908. I see Fred and Edith duetting at the London Cornish Association in 1910.

Edith died in 1916. Fred lived another forty years. I see him listed as 'proprietor of the Pavilion, Penzance', in 1915. In 1924 he is directing at the Exeter Theatre, in 1929 he is entertaining the Old Folks at Weston, in 1939 he is an 'entertainments manager' (with a new wife) and ... oh my goodness! there he is in 1922 ...

Well, I guess he had all those parts and scores in the attic!

Tracing the Opera Singers' history, I encountered a number of folk I already knew and have already blogged -- Charles Butler, Louise Lancaster and Adeline Vaudrey -- and also quite a few whom I wasn't familiar with. One day I definitely must investigate the mysterious 'Madame' Eugenia Morgan who turns up so often. But, of course, sopranos weren't needed. No Edith, no Singers...

Contraltos: Edith Bushell, Violet Cooper, Florence Venning, Blanche Murray
Tenors: Thomas Mandeno Jackson (b Remuera 27 November 1863; d Kawau Island 21 April 1908) the New Zealand auctioneer-vocalist, Albert Pearce, John William Birtley of the Savoy Theatre (?b Plumstead 11 October 1863), Thomas Willey
Baritones: W H Webb, Henry Bailey, John Josey ...

Well, one day, maybe. Not today.

Oh, look! Miss Bushell's marriage certificate. Mrs Hanewald ka Cunningham. 'Miss Edith Jane Bushell daughter of Mr J G Bushell of Wendover and his wife Rose née Gale'. Born 1870. Last seen (1911) running a boarding house in Willesden. Later Whiteley Village. Died 3 June 1938. 

And 'Florence Venning' was Florence Madeleine née Southgate. Born at The Cranes, Tooting 7 August 1866, daughter of auctioneer and music teacher Walter Venning Southgate and his wife Lucretia née Coley. 1888 Val Marriott's concert, Collard's Rooms. Conductors: Tito Mattei and Albert Howard Fox. Married Mr Fox, for a while. One son, one daughter, divorced 1909. Married Ernest Alban Begbie 1912. Died Bath 26 May 1950. Mr Fox became 'of the Guildhall School of Music'.

I see her daughter Olive married (1) violinist Edward Cawardine, and then... good heavens! (2) Arthur Carl Rose, known to generations of pierrots and players as 'Clarkson Rose'. Twinkkkkkle!

Blanche Murray -- this must be Blanche, daughter of 'Gaston Murray'. In other words, Blanche Mary Wilson (b Brixton 29 September 1866; d Broadstairs 19 December 1946, Mrs Thomas John Hanbury). Mezzo-soprano. Once of the Children's HMS Pinafore (1880), RAM, Llewellyn Thomas Gold Medal, Westmoreland Scholarship, Carina, the D'Oyly Carte, the German Reed Entertainment ('pleasant voice and unaffected style'). As late as 1910, I see her on the halls in the sketch Charles, his Friend, with brother-in-law Courtice Pounds.

John [William] Josey (b Shepherd's Bush 25 February 1866). Baritone, son of an engraver, followed his father's trade before joining Gladys Heathcote's little La Mascotte company (1889). During the 1890s he was seen sporadically in such venues as Portsmouth's Clarence Pier, at Derby, or the Tynemouth Palace before joining the Singers. I see him singing at the Nottingham Empire in 1906 (with Charles Butler), after which his did the macho midlife thing, abandoned his wife and four children, and swanned off to California as 'Jose Robinson'. He seems to have worked as a perambulant singing teacher for a bit, by 1930 he was working in 'dental supplies' and in 1945 he was 'clerk'. Wife Grace Margaret née Dormain died in 1928, 'Jose' appears to have returned to Britain after the second world war, and some of the family historians have seemingly credited him with someone's else's death .. he appears to have died in London 2 February 1951.

Albert [Grafton] Pearce (b Birmingham 1 October 1869; d Weston-super-Mare 10 March 1946). Tenor, son of a gold/silversmith, at the age of 21 declared his occupation as 'operatic prompter'. In the mid-1890s he became a regular in the Portsmouth concerts, and joined up with a little party, At Home, run by J M Gordon, singing tenorious ballads and playing such operettas as After All and Mock Turtles, mostly alongside a violinist by name Ada Cleveland. She may or may not have been the Agnes Tibbey whom he wed in 1900. Almost all his work was on the piers and in the small concerts of southern England, so I was surprised to find him billed as 'of the Royal English Opera House'. So I looked up David Stone's lists ... and there is his father! Joseph Knight Pearce obviously supplemented his jewellery income by singing in the chorus as the Savoy between 1881-1892! Maybe that explains Albert getting away with After All and Mock Turtles!
Whatever young Albert did at the EOH, it was pretty invisible (prompter again?), and he was soon back Portsmouth Town Hall and at Southend Pier, performing At Home (including an operetta by Ada), until he was hired by Fred Dale. He sang with the Singers company between 1899 and 1903, then moved to the Henri Goddard party (the other male singer was the unrisen T Thorpe Bates!) and then ... well, by 1906 he had quit the piers, and taken to the music-halls in a double act with 'Clarissa Talbot'. 'Clarissa' was Mrs Clara Alice Taylor née Talbot, and after Agnes's death (1913), she would become Mrs Pearce (1918). The couple gave musical scenas with such familiar titles as The Spider and the Fly, Over the Garden Wall, A Winsome Wooing and 'Japanese musical dialogues and song scenas' on the Stoll and Tivoli circuits for a number of years, before they retired and Albert became a 'café proprietor'.

Post scriptum; I eventually did chase up 'Madame Morgan'. Pffft. She was a student at the Guildhall, 1889-1893, already Madame, and already Morgan. Either or neither of which may have been kosher. The school gave her Marguerite, Maritana and Arline to sing, but, once graduated, she worked largely on the Spas and Piers circuit. Llandudno credited her with 'a voice of fair power and extensive range'. 'Somewhat exaggerated in her style'. She appeared with the Opera Singers in 1892, but in 1893 she joined W H Burgon's mini 'opera' troupe. With them she got to have a crack at such pieces as The Golden Legend and The Bride of Dunkerron and at one of Cross's concerts even a chunk of Cavalleria Rusticana. Her billing seems to have been more impressive than her exploits -- 'of the Royal English Opera Company', 'of the St James's Hall Concerts', 'of the Crystal Palace Grand Opera'. When? The best I find is an afternoon concert with the Band of the Horse Guards at the Alexandra Palace.

Madame sang with the Burgon groups up till 1901, at which date she disappears from my ken. Obviously, because I don't know her real name. But she left a wee clue. When she retired to become a lady living on 'paying guests', she left an address. 19 Bovingdon Road. Then another: 69 Elgin Avenue. So I popped down there to see what I might see. Bovingdon Road was Mr Walter Baker. Then Elgin Avenue was Mr Walter Baker. Hummm. That's a coincidence. A Mr Walter Baker was a bass singer with Cantor's group in 1886-8. There he is at Neston in 1884, and with the Tranmere Choral Society's Creation in 1885. Possible?  I delve on! 

Oh .... it seems a Mr Walter Baker was musical director of the Birkenhead Male Voice Choir, And ... good grief ... the father of baritone George Baker ...  His mother was Elizabeth Amelia Sanders. Of Birkenhead. Try again ..  (in 2026 I found the answer! And yes, Eugenia was Mrs Walter Baker of Elgin Avenue. He was an electrical engineer with nothing to do with Birkenhead!)

The real Connie Ediss, or "She was a Milliner's Daughter"

Here I was, quietly investigating my latest ebay picture on a cool spring morning, when I got a cry for help from a Real G&S Expert, Mr George J Low, in locked-down Munich. When George calls, it's (historically) serious, so I put aside my wanderings in Truro, and snapped to attention.

Connie Ediss? What was wrong with Connie Ediss's history as known? Wikipedia, said George, didn't make sense. So I looked ... well! 

"Connie Ediss (11 August 1871-18 April 1934) ... was born in Brighton, the eldest child of Charles Coates, a house-painter, and his wife, Jane. Her real name was Ada Harriet Coates. Her mother and aunt had both been members of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company"

At least three errors already! To start with, the compiler of this piece has her date of birth wrong. She was born 11 August 1870.  Gulp! Does that mean *I* have it wrong? Quick glance. No. The wiki-person doesn't reference The Encyclopaedia of the Musical Theatre: only Who's Who in the Theatre ('I have known some strange errors in THAT publication!), Stanley Green (who will have followed it) and, those most fallible of sources, newspaper reviews. For goodness' sake, the Encyclopaedia has been out for twenty years. I don't say it's perfect, it's not, but I actually bought thousands of birth, death and marriage certificates (now with Andrea Cawelti in Harvard) to make sure such details were correct! Did this wiki-person? Of course not. How do I know? Because if she or he had, he would have not said she was born Coates, the daughter of Charles. She wasn't.

Well, I shall stop getting angry over this careless and lazy 'history-making' and instead put the truth on record. 'Connie' was born Ada Harriet Whitley, the child of milliner, Mrs Jane Whitley née McClean, daughter of Irish cork-cutter, Mr Francis McClean. Whether she was also the child of Mr John Whitley, the Brighton ?tailor, is another story. Whitley and Jane married 13 July 1863 and Jane had already borne him three daughters, before she, seemingly, walked out to shack up with young Mr Coates, taking with her just her youngest child: Ada Harriet. Rhoda and Ellen stayed with father.

So, Ada became 'Ada Coates'. She wasn't of course. It was merely a case of 'known as'. For John and Jane were never divorced, and Jane never married Charles Coates. Just bred from him. And Ada is referred to as his 'stepdaughter' in the 1891 census.

So date wrong, real name wrong, parentage probably wrong, she was the third daughter of Whitley not the first of Coates ... all that is correct is that mamma was named Jane and that 'Connie' was born in Brighton. Talk about fake 'history'!

The comment, however, that had caught George's eye was the one about mamma and auntie having been members of the D'Oyly Carte company. Wiki says 'had been'? Er ... there was no 'D'Oyly Carte company' before 'Connie' was born. It was nearly another decade before Mr Carte formed his famous company. By which time Jane was in her mid-30s, and the mother of a houseful of small Coateses ... 

Enough. I should say that I have not purchased Connie's real birth certificate. Maybe that's a bit of homework for Ms/Mr Wiki to do ... I am kind o' busy in Truro. But, please, if Wikipedia is to have any value at all as a reference source, the contributors need to GO THE CORRECT AND PREFERABLY PRIMARY SOURCES.

So, George, in answer to your question, it is extremely unlikely that Jane McClean-Whitley ka Coates and her sister, by any other name, became mature members of a Cartesian chorus ... 

Betty in Mayfair

Some time in the late 1970s, I saw a lovely-looking bit of theatrical ephemera in the little shop called Pleasure of Past Times in Cecil Court. A boxed, presentation score of a West End musical of 1925, signed by the whole of the original cast. David Drummond's shop was, in those days, rather beyond my means, but ... well, I guess the Christkindl was watching, because the  turned up in my stocking that year.

Ive had it now for forty plus years. I used the interleaved photograph of the touring cast in one of my books, but otherwise ... well, it was too mint to actually play from ... it was simply an 'item of collection' as the French say. I soon learned not to buy those. My Collection existed to supply me with information. But, as hunks of the huge collection I amassed in the 'eighties have now been dispersed to new owners, I kept this one. Well, Christkindl, you know. The box has got a little battered in the last forty years of world travel, but the almost 100-year score itself is pristine ... and the signatures look as if they were signed yesterday ...

Betty in Mayfair, music by Harold Fraser-Simson all aureoled by the success of The Maid of the Mountains, was an adaptation of J Hastings Turner's successful play The Lilies of the Field, and proved -- with its gentle mixture of lavender'n'lace and up-to-date London -- to be the most successful new British musical of the year. With Evelyn Laye featured in the central role of Betty-who-isn't-as-demure-as-she-seems, it ran for half a year in the West End before setting out on the road. 

And somewhere along the way, this presentation score was bound and boxed and prepared for ... I wonder whom?

And what do I do with it now?

Postscriptum:  Betty is now back in her native England, in the hands of a young gentleman who probably knows more about her period of musical theatre than anyone. Mission accomplished.

Memories: looking back ....

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A strange morning. Request from my publishers for regurgitable rave reviews of my past books. Well, I think I have just about every one ever written in the 1980s and early '90s. Not that *I* saved them. But, the day the first ads and flyers for my very first adult book came out, the memorable Maisie Fielding presented Ian with one of the vast press-cutting books, beautifully bound, which the Fielding office ordered, in quantity, to hold the records of their various shows and seasons. 'Fill that' she grinned imperiously, as only Maisie could. Oh, Maisie, silly us, we only used one side of the pages, little realising that I was getting into A Career in Books. By book four, the album was bulgingly full ... and I more or less stopped clipping. And you were gone.

Today, I had to go back through the pages of that album and pluck out some quotable quotes. Oh dear, all those incredibly marvellous things that men of the stature of Michael Coveney ('book of the year'), Clive Hirschorn, Robert Cushman, Benny Green, Andrew Lamb, Arthur Jacobs et al said about my work! Lovely letters from Vivian Ellis, Sandy Wilson, Julian Slade, Tim Rice, David Heneker, Alex Cohen, Julia Mackenzie, from the British and American Libraries Associations bearing awards ... and a telegram from dear Gerry Bordman (American Musical Theatre), post-my Encyclopaedia, saying 'you are now indisputably Number One'. Silly man. If it hadn't have been for him, I would never have ventured...

Anyway, I snipped some suitably over-the-top phrases, sent them off to New York, shoved the album back on the topmost shelf, and ... felt, suddenly, rather deflated. And dreadfully sad. Oh, no, not because one can't be a Wunderkind all one's working life. But you see, today is 5th November. Exactly fourteen years ago tonight, here at Gerolstein, my darling Ian breathed his last ...

I can still see him laughingly pasting the first notices in the album. I think, maybe, today of all days, I should have got someone else to have reviewed my reviews.

So ... when feeling low: e-bay! Get into someone else's life ...! What shall it be? Well, among the very first places I visited when, the formalities completed, I fled off round the world were Leicestershire (to see little brother) and the Isle of Wight (to be alone on a hilltop). So Leics and IoW? ... here were a couple who seemed exactly to fit the bill: from Leics and photographed in Ryde ... 

Somone has scribbled across the album page 'Leicestershire 1862'. The vendor describes the couple as the Rev William Gibbson and Mrs Rev W Gibbson. Another ruddy Rev? No. He is actually wrong, on all counts. But it's not entirely his fault. Because the inscriber has got his facts wrong too ... scribal error down the generations!

Firstly, it is not Gibbson. I know a 'b' when I see one. It is GILLSON. Secondly, he wasn't a Rev (hurrah!), he was an Esq. His younger brother (as befell younger brothers) was ladled into the clergy. And his name was Edward. So... I doubt that the inscriber knew them. Them?

I reckon we have here William Hall Gillson (b Greetham, Rutland 1796; d Barsby Lodge, Ryde 29 February 1880). He doesn't look 65 in that photo, does he? His wife doesn't look 60. Misdated? Wife: Maria née Goodacre of Ullesthorpe, daughter of one of two largest landowners, farmers, graziers in that area. The other? Why, Mr William Gillson, father to her new husband. The couple were married 26 October 1819, and the future of Ullesthorpe was sealed. They had two children: both daughters.

The Gillson family had been for generations large farmers and graziers, sherrifs and high sherrifs etc in Rutland and Leicestershire, and had clearly married into equally land-rich families: I see an 1800 will in which an aged Elizabeth Cole names father William and his brother John her executors for a healthy wad of land, shares and cash, to be shared among her Gillson grandchildren. And grandfather William 'of Oakham' in his will, around the same time left 'Property at Greetham, Barsby, South Croxton and Ashby Folville to his son William. That at St. Martins Stamford Baron, Braunston, Leighfield and Market Overton, Rutland and Knossington, Leics. to his son John Cole Gillson, interest in a shop in London to son George, £1,200 to son Thomas...' Land rich, all right!

And William the next seems to have even increased their holdings. When he died ...

But the sons of William of Greetham then of Ullesthorpe apparently didn't continue the farming and grazing activities which had made their fathers rich and prosperous. In fact, our Mr W H Gillson doesn't seem to have actively done anything. He describes himself as 'independent'. By 1835, I see him already in the Isle of Wight, living/staying at Arreton. Goodness, I wonder if he was at that nowadays hideously tourist-trapped 'Arreton Manor' (see my 2008 visit blogged at https://kurtofgerolstein.blogspot.com/2008/06/three-as-in-one-day.html). 

In 1858, after William of Ullesthorpe's death, William H, his wife, and daughters moved -- after several Wightish homes -- to a new-build in Pelham Fields, Ryde, which they christened Barsby Lodge, after their former lands in Rutland. 

And there they lived, watching the yachts and doing good works, and there, one by one, they died. Maria first, 12 January 1879, at the age of 80, then William, the following year, at 84, Maria Jane on 22 December 1893 and Mary Ann 27 December 1897. 

And their home went under the hammer ..

The Gillsons ran Barsby with just a cook and one maid. I hope it hasn't suffered the fate of so many Victorian family homes, and been turned into a Bed and Breakfast place. Or, worse, apartments. I hope it has a family in it. I see it valued on the www at a bit over (estimated, of course) a million pounds, so maybe it is still entire.

There! I'm feeling quite cheerful again. Even though, alas, I will never see my beloved Wight again. I must get my friend Debbie Robinson to pop down and photograph Barsby Lodge 2021. Someone already did the family tomb: 

It looks as though the Gillson family don't care for the memorials to those who made them rich. But that's the way it goes.

Now, iced chardonnay, under Ian's photo, in our drawing room ... and I've had a pretty full 'fifth of November', here and in the beautiful Isle of Wight ...

                                

The Rodden Rector.

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Well, you can't win 'em all. 

After my adventurous last finger in the ebay pie, and the thoroughly interesting history lesson on Gibraltar which resulted, I thought I'd have another wee dip. Now, we don't want clergy, and we don't want Indian army .. so ... how about this pose-y looking wee gent from Hereford ...

How wrong can you get it. Edward Methuen Rogers Edgell (b Bromham Rectory 17 January 1851; d Rodden Rectory, Style's Hill House, Rodden, Somerset 21 June 1916) was not only a country clergyman, he was a fourth generation country clergyman. There wouldn't be any more, because, shockingly, he was a confirmed bachelor country clergyman. I guess his longtime servant, Frances, whose parents and family lived in a nearby cottage, did the opening of fêtes and cossetting of the worthy ill of the parish for him.

The Edgell family held sway over the Manor of Standerwick in Frome, Somerset for a couple of centuries' having purchased it by deed of chancery ... seat of Admiral Harry Folkes Edmund Edgell 'formerly governor of Languard Fort', son of Caffin Edgell of Standerwick ... Oh, yes, their were army and navy men in the ranks of the Edgells, you can find them piled up in the pages of Burke, but I won't go there: just to the successive Edgells who went to Oxford, got their degree, found themselves a living gifted from within the family and lived out their lives thereupon.

Edward Betenson Edgell (our man's father) became rector of Bromham. E M R succeeded to the living at Rodden, previously held by his grandfather (also forenamed Edward) who had been also of East Hill and later was prebendary at Wells, a grandson of Chaffin. I think. So, our Edward? Trinity Oxford BA. Curate at Hope-under-Dinmore, Dinton with Teffont Magna (1879), Semington, Wilts (1881). And then, thank you, in 1883 he dropped anchor as Perpetual Curate in Rodden. 1884 MA (why?)... 

Poor little country vicar? Not on your nelly...  Amongst the bequests of Edward I to Edward II was a nice painting. Among, I imagine, other items of its ilk and value...

Yes, it's a Titian. And yes, our E M R sold it.

So, E M R lived his life at Rodden ... when he died, in 1916, the only reportage I can see in the press is five lines, saying that his will amounted to eighteen-thousand pounds. I wonder how many times he tripped up to Sotheby's...

Looks as if he'd already mortgaged his share of the patrimony. There are heaps of documents in the Somerset archives concerning the family, for those interested.

• "On 22 Oct 1879 the Revd Edward Betenson Edgell of Bromham Rectory, Wiltshire, clerk conveyed to George Alfred Daniel Percy Wilson, Daniel Cruttwell and Walter Harry Wilson Cruttwell, all of Frome Selwood, gents, the Mansion House known as Standerwick Court, with 147 acres of land in the parishes of Standerwick, Berkley and Beckington. On 29 Jan 1890 the Revd Edward Betenson Edgell and the Revd Edward Methuen Rogers Edgell of Rodden Rectory, clerk appointed Edward Methuen Roger Edgell to the property. On 22 Mar 1890 Revd Edward Betenson Edgell and Hesther his wife appointed Catherine Isabella Edgell and Helen Julia Edgell, both of Bromham Rectory, spinsters to the property. On 24 Oct 1905 the Revd Edward Methuen Rogers Edgell mortgaged the property to Catherine Isabella Edgell of Devizes, Wiltshire, spinster. On 24 Mar 1919 Florence Helen Baxter, wife of Arthur Baxter of Frome, gent and Percy Wilson Daniel Cruttwell of Frome gent conveyed the property to Charles Henry Edgell of Exbridge, Devon, gent.
  Also includes receipt from Catherine Isabella Edgell of Devizes, spinster and Helen Julia Hunt wife of William Alfred Hunt of Yeovil, surgeon for the payment of £3000 from Revd Edward Methuen Rogers of Roddan Rectory, clerk, being a portion charged on Holt Manor Farm, Wiltshire, 20 Oct 1905; indemnity as to the increment value duty by C N Edgell, 27 Aug 1919; acknowledgement of right to production of documents, 27 Aug 1919; abstract of title to portion of the Standerwick Court Estate, 1919; copy death certificate of Caroline Edgell, [6 Sep 1897]."

I think I might just have pulled out the woolly lamb of this particular flock. I wonder what became of little Frances Emily Gaisford (b Semington 1876) who had looked after him for over twenty years. I hope she got some of the 18K. Ah! I sees a Frances E Gaisford wedding a John W Aitchison in Wiltshire in 1924 ... In 1939, at Hillview, Littlemarsh, John is a 'heavy labourer', and if it's Frances she's chopped 3 years off her age. Died 1951. I wish I had a photo of her ... Some people are just more interesting than others ...

PS: I see our man's uncle, the Major got a large obituary ... containing the family history ...

Walter, Walter, lead me to Gibraltar ...!

.

Actually, it is Edward, but that didn't rhyme.

And I haven't been to Gibraltar since 1973. I was working on the SS Northern Star, cruising in the Mediterranean, and we stopped there once. Alison's mum was born there, so we decided to go ashore. I remember thinking it was rather scruffy and glum, and the celebrated monkeys all looked as if they had infectious scrofula. I've learned a little about the presqu'île's history since, and I wish I had swotted it up before we went there, rather than after ..

The last couple of days have been rather désoeuvrés. Book finished, delivered to the publishers, next one not ready to start for a week or three. Can't go outside too much, with all the white stuff from the trees flying about, ready to reduce me to a sneezing, itching rubble ... so, a bit more clearing out, a bit more redecorating the skite wall, vaccuming, washing, a massage ... and a wander down ebay way.

As soon as I saw this darlin' lookin' chappie, I wanted to investigate him!

What was he, I wondered. A nice, kindly schoolmaster, maybe? Or just a small-town country gentleman. Turn over the photo ..

Oh. Poplar. Not a country gent, then. Seventy-five years of age, eh? More or less the same as me. Now to decipher the name. Edward B **** died aged 79. But he has a middle initial in what seems to be a signature, below. And what's the other line? Cousin of William Cupps Singer? Well, here we go.

Two working days later ... yes, I have him. And the cousin. But it has been a heck of a job. And most of the details are complete except ... I can't find the cousinship link. I started strongly. The B-squiggle, I decided, was Bracebridge. Not millions of those. And up he duly popped: Edward Ledger Bracebridge, architect and surveyor, of 136 High Street, Poplar. Poplar? Oh, dear. East End slums? One wife. One surviving child ... we're on wheels! Born c1815 in ... Gibraltar. Ouch.

Ah! So the last name of the cousin isn't Singer, it's Ledger. William Cripps Ledger. The Reverend. And here he is! Born Limerick 18 July 1827; d Rathgar 30 May 1920. Second son of Zacaria Minnet Ledger, of Gibraltar, but latterly a stationer and bookseller in Limerick, and his wife Mary née Cripps 'of Limerick'.

OK. The connection clearly lies in Gibraltar. But where? And why did Edward's parents, already, in 1815, name their first son 'Ledger'. Well, I spent a bit too long on the Ledgers. I don't know why they left Horne, Surrey in the C18th to go to Gibraltar. Military? Merchanting? Profiteering? Smuggling?

So. The Bracebridges then. Mr Edward Bracebridge sr was born in England. I can't be precise about where, but it was around about the year 1784. At the age of 24, he left Albion's shores and made his way to Gibraltar. As a soldier for the garrison? I think not. Mr Bracebridge was a painter. I think, also, he was a man of some comfortable means. Maybe something of a lotus eater? But why Gibraltar? Why not Tahiti or the Greek Islands or the French riviera? So be it. Two years after his arrival he took to himself a nineteen year-old wife, by the name of Jane Diego. Jane, too, was professedly English-born, but her family had arrived on the rock when she was some six years of age.

So Edward painted, and created an apparently splendid set of gardens in the Southern District of Gibraltar, at the place called Buena Vista. Edward Frederic Kelaart noticed them in his book Flora Calpensis: Contributions to the Botany and Topography of Gibraltar in 1845.

Several acres at Buena Vista, eh? He'd be a zillionaire today, now that the area has become a blurge of elbow-to-elbow 'posh' 21st century housing.

Apart from painting and botany, Edward (d 8 October 1860) also devoted himself to fathering children: Edward Leger B in 1815, then Jane (1816), William George (1819), Mary Amelia (1824), Ellen Elizabeth (1826) and Charlotte Eliza (1830). And, yes, I've tracked down every single one of them. But the most important to us, of course, is Edward Leger.

Edward left Gibraltar for England, seemingly, as a teenager, to study architecture. The first time I spot him is in 1840, and he is getting married. He is dubbed 'of Broadwindsor, Dorset' and his bride is a Claines girl, Anne Jones, daughter of John Jones, grocer. Thereafter he is credited with a number of church restorations -- Blackdown Holy Trinity (1840), the nave of Chiselborough Church (1842), the rebuilding of the nave of the Church of St Peter and St Paul, Stoke-sub-Hamdon -- as well as with the plans for the Theatre Royal, Gibraltar (1847). He settled in Poplar, became a stalwart of such as the Poplar Union, the Poplar and Limehouse Literary and Scientific Institution, the Tower Hamlets Constitutional Association, a supporter of the Conservative working man, and architected. The Sailors' Home in Well Street, London Docks, the Strangers' Home for Asiatics, Africans and South Sea Islanders ('a handsome structure in the Italian style'), 'new workshops for the schools in Forest Gate', St Stephen's National School, Speeding's Gardens ... He seems to have been an excellent, practical architect on utilitarian and public buildings, and I see his designs praised on several occasions for their excellent 'use of space' and comfort .. pretty well in budget!.

Edward and Annie apparently had four children, of whom only one, Jane Alice Ellen (b Barnsbury 1846; d 1919) seems to have survived. She became Mrs Charles Edward Challis.

Edward Ledger Bracebridge survived his Annie, who had gone sadly deaf, and died at his longtime home in Poplar High Street 6 September 1892. He left an estate of 1,655 19s 0d. So, what happened to the acres in Gibraltar? Well, we get a tiny glimpse in the British legal notices half a dozen years after Edward sr's death

Yes. I came on that list AFTER I had done all the winkling out. Few things therein which puzzle me an iota. Why is William listed before Edward ... the girls are in birth order. William seems to have been father's preferred. Poor William. He too came 'home', became a 'merchant' 'of Lonsdale Street', and died 29 July 1873.

Mother Jane outlived him, in Gibraltar, in a property on the road from Buena Vista to Wind Mill Hill, in the company of her unmarried daughter, Ellen. Ellen was still there, alone, in 1891 ... I think the Bracebridge Gardens were already gone.

Well, I've done ten times better than the family historians, but I still haven't found the Ledger 'cousinship'. Not surprising, I suppose, since that lot seem to have been a bit peripatetic: the eldest son hooted off to Australia and .... no ... enough. My search was for that nice warm-looking man above: and I've found him. At 136 High Street, Poplar.


Addendum:
I notice that Edward's English will was probated by the London representative of Jerome Saccone. Saccone? Wine merchant. I bought a bottle of sherry at Saccone and Speed during my brief stopover at Gibraltar. Did Edward then dabble in the wine trade, or was Mr Saccone just a friend?

Addendum (2) (this family lends itself to addenda!)
Edward sr just may be the Edward Bracebridge born in Epsom and baptised there 30 January 1784, son of a licensed victualler and vintner of the same name and his wife Mary. We can wipe out the watchmaker from Clerkenwell ... 

Addendum (3) those Ledgers. Zacarias (or Zachariah) apparently had four sons: Zacharias Joseph L, Robert Hastings L, James Campbell L and our straggly-bearded Reverend. Robert ended up in Australia where he died at Wollongong 23 July 1882, James (d 23 November 1889) was a memorable civil engineer in India, and the Reverend outlived them by decades. Zac's daughter, Mary Elizabeth was Mrs Wm Harley Moore. No Bracebridge conection anywhere there. Have to try an earlier generation. 

So.. another (Irish) Zacarias. Ah! Well, now we know what the Ledger family's Gibraltar connection was. 'Leader of the Methodist mission'. 'Receiver and issuer of stores'. Oh dear, it seems he went home to Limerick and ... is he the protestant Zacharias whose house was attacked and burned by a bunch of yobbos ... ? Or rather the Zac 'formerly of the Ordnance Department' (ah-hah!) who died 'at an advanced age' in 1837. But I'm getting off track: none of that helps find the cousinship ...

Addendum: Five years later! and some of the other family surfaced on ebay!

The minister's wife and two of her children!

I'd happily researched her before the 5 year-old connection clicked!

Henrietta Grace LEDGER d Colwyn Bay 22 November 1931 left 131L to Marion Frances Alde Ledger (b 20 July  1867 Shinrone; d 4 April 1951 Rhos unm) and Mary Gertrude Ledger (b Lisnaskea Fermanagh 20 Jan 1877) daughters  unm

also Henrietta Beatrice  ka Etta 1 April 1870-9 Feb 1861 = Mrs Rev John George PERDUE m 1905

 

Willim Crip[p]s Ledger m Ireland  Rev curate of Shinrone m July 4 1866

1905 Attybaron valuation Rev Canon

 

daughter of William Smith Esq JP of Northland Tipperary and late of 71st Highland Light Infantry  

She b Tipperary 1840 he died 1855 March mayor of Clonmel?

 

1874 father is late. Brother 3rd surviving son W M Smith Berkly S Africa m 1 June 1874 m Mrs Mary Edington

 

SON James Philip Ledger b Lisnaskes Fermanagh, Ireland d Matatiele 11 January 1955 wife Ada Blanche COLE a 81.6

 

son 27 November 1871

son 20 June 1873

son 1878