S is for St George’s Hanover Square

From 1600 to 1700 London’s population trebled, from 200,000 to 585,000, outstripping the supply of what was then almost universally held to be an essential element of the city’s infrastructure, enough churches to accommodate worshippers and would-be worshippers, in particular, those of the Established Church of England.

Population estimate of Inner London (Former London County). Figures from http://demographia.com/dm-lon31.htm which in turn obtained pre-1801 data from The London Encyclopedia, Edited by Ben Weinreb and Christopher Hibbert

Early in the next century, in March 1711, the House of Commons considered a report on the estimated population of the London suburbs and the churches available for worship. In the most populous parishes, there was a total of just forty-six churches and chapels for a population of over half a million. It was estimated that only one person in three could find a place in the pews of the Church of England.

On 1 May 1711 the House of Commons resolved “That a Supply be granted to her Majesty for the Build of fifty new Churches, and for purchasing Sites of Churches and Church-Yards, or Burial-Places, and also Houses for the Habitations of the Ministers of the said Churches, in or about the Cities of London and Westminster, or the Suburbs thereof, and for making such Chapels as are already built and capable thereof, Parish-Churches; and also for finishing the Repairs of the Collegiate-Church of St. Peter’s Westminster, and the Chapels of the same.” This was followed up by legislation in 1712 “An Act for granting to her Majesty several Duties upon Coals, for building fifty new Churches, &c.” A Commission was established to oversee the building of the churches.

Building fifty new churches would ease the pressure for places where members of the Church of England could gather to worship and, it was hoped, potential Dissenters would have a reduced incentive to separate from the Established Church. (My Plaisted forebears became Dissenters about this time.)

The Commission did not achieve its target. Only twelve new churches were built, and just five existing churches were rebuilt.

One of the new churches was St George’s Hanover Square. The architect was John James, a pupil of Sir Christopher Wren. James’s neoclassical design, with a portico of six Corinthian columns, set a new trend in English church architecture.

“St George’s Hanover Square,” aquatint, by T. Malton. Dated 1787. From the collection of the British Library retrieved through Wikimedia Commons.

 

Its location in Mayfair made St George’s Hanover Square the venue for many fashionable weddings. The first entry in the Marriage Register is dated April 30th, 1725. The most weddings in a single year was 1063, in 1816.

On 20 March 1813 my 4th great grandparents Charles Fox Champion Crespigny and Eliza Julia Trent married at St George’s Hanover Square. Charles Fox was twenty-seven. Eliza was a minor of sixteen, and her mother’s consent had to be provided. Charles’s half-brother Philip C Crespigny and Eliza’s brother John Trent were witnesses.

Bishop’s transcript of the marriage of Charles Fox Champion Crespigny and Eliza Julia Trent 20 March 1813 at St George’s Hanover Square. Image retrieved from ancestry.com London, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1932

Crespigny Trent marriage announcement in The Suffolk Chronicle; or Weekly General Advertiser & County Express. 8 May 1813 page 4. Retrieved from FindMyPast.

 

In 1813 weddings were not reported in the newspapers. However, in 1903 when Valerie Champion de Crespigny married Captain John Smiley at St George’s Hanover Square, her dress and the dresses of her six bridesmaids were described in detail.

The 26 November 1903 wedding of Captain John Smiley and Valerie Champion de Crespigny from The Queen 5 December 1903 page 58 retrieved from FindMyPast

 

In 1917 when Rose Champion de Crespigny née Gordon, a widow, remarried at St George’s Hanover Square, her photo appeared in The Tatler and a wedding photo appeared in a newspaper.

Rose Champion de Crespigny marries William Morrice. Newspaper clipping was being sold on EBay 2020, no other details available.

Ms William Morrice from The Tatler 21 November 1917 retrieved from FindMyPast

 

The composer George Handel (1685 – 1759) was a parishioner of St George’s from the time it was first built. He was consulted on the organ installation.

It is said that St George’s has changed little since it was first built and that “a parishioner from two centuries ago, if he could return today, would not find much to startle or dismay him.”

St George’s Hanover Square Church is shown with a black cross to the west of the City of London

Sources

• Church website at https://www.stgeorgeshanoversquare.org/
  • https://www.stgeorgeshanoversquare.org/historical-weddings.aspx
  • https://www.stgeorgeshanoversquare.org/history.html
  • https://www.stgeorgeshanoversquare.org/history/the-exterior.html
  • https://www.stgeorgeshanoversquare.org/history/handel-and-st-george.html
• “Introduction.” The Commissions for Building Fifty New Churches: The Minute Books, 1711-27, A Calendar. Ed. M H Port. London: London Record Society, 1986. ix-xxxiii. British History Online. Web. 21 April 2020. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/london-record-soc/vol23/ix-xxxiii.
• White, Jerry London in the eighteenth century : a great and monstrous thing. London Vintage Books, 2013. Page 19.

Wedding of Linda Victoria Fish and Gilbert Payne Mulcahy at Creswick 1921

Linda Mulcahy née Fish (1895 – 1970), the daughter of Alice Fish formerly Reher née Young (1859 – 1935) and Thomas Fish (1873 – 1949), was my husband’s first cousin twice removed.

On 8 June 1921 she married Gilbert Payne Mulcahy (1894 – 1979). Below is a copy of one of the wedding photographs, given to us by Lindsay and Mary George in 2011. (Lindsay, grandson of Elfleda Cecilia Anna George née Reher (1884-1970), is Greg’s 3rd cousin. Elfleda was the half-sister of Linda Fish.)

With the women, hair bobbed, wearing straight, short, drop-waist dresses, picture hats low on the foreheads of the bridesmaids, and the enormous bows of the flower girls, the photograph is easily dated to the 1920s.

The marriage was announced in The Argus of 13 July 1921:

MULCAHY—FISH.—On the 8th June, at Presbyterian Church, Creswick, by the Reverend K. C. Billinge, Gilbert Payne (late A.I.F.), youngest son of Mr. and Mrs. J. S. Mulcahy, of Auburn, to Linda Victoria, elder daughter of Mr. and Mrs. T Fish, of Creswick.

I have not been able to find a newspaper report of the wedding, and I cannot identify everyone in the bridal party.

The father of the bride, Thomas Fish, is on the left. It seems odd that Alice Fish, mother of the bride, was not included in the photo. Perhaps she was taking it?

Linda’s sister, Alice Pretoria Emma Fish (1900 – 1958) is standing beside her father. Alice married Ernest George Aldrich in 1922.

The groomsmen are not named, nor is the second bridesmaid. She was probably one of Linda’s half sisters: Gertrude, Elfleda, or Mary Reher.

The flowergirls are Gertrude Isabel George born 1915, daughter of Elfleda George née Reher, and Pearl Ramelli born 1913 who in 1936 married Elfleda’s son Norman George (1912 – 1968); Pearl is the mother of Lindsay George who gave us the copy of this photograph.

Trove Tuesday: 35 years ago

It is disconcerting to see personal experiences fading into the historical past.

Yesterday, 18 February, was my wedding anniversary; Greg and I have been married for 35 years.

My memories, of course, are of the church, the bells, the gown and so forth, while the historical fact is now an item in the National Library’s digitised collection of Australian newspapers (most cease at 1956, but the Canberra Times, where our wedding news was reported, has been digitised up to 1995).

(1984, February 19). The Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 – 1995), p. 18 (SUNDAY EDITION). Retrieved February 19, 2019, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article116390954

In the newspaper wedding photograph I am wearing a Honiton lace veil that my grandmother wore at her wedding and was worn by various ladies of the Cavenagh-Mainwaring family. My English cousins kindly sent it to Australia for me to continue the tradition.

Greg and I on our wedding day with our attendants Greg’s nieces Cassandra and Jodie and my cousin Vanessa

Me on my wedding day with the veil

my grandmother Kathleen Cudmore on her wedding day 10 June 1933

Yesterday, 35 years later, Greg and I had lunch with friends and spent an enjoyable afternoon at the National Gallery of Victoria. These events will not reach the newspapers, though perhaps this blog might help to make them discoverable, a (very little) part of history.

Greg at the National Gallery of Victoria on our wedding anniversary

R is for Rosina

One of my husband’s maternal great aunts was Rosina Doidge née Sullivan formerly Saunders (1889-1969).

She was the second child of Henry Sullivan (1863-1943) and Anne Sullivan née Morley (1861-1946). (Anne had two children before her marriage to Henry.)

Rosina was born at “Navillus”, the family home in Evelyn Street, East Bentleigh, Victoria.

In 1910 she married John Henry Saunders (1891-1948). They had four children.

John Saunders worked as a linesman, installing and maintaining electrical power, telephone, and telegraph lines. On Christmas Eve 1948 he was killed when he fell through the roof of the North Melbourne Locomotive Depot.

Alfred Doidge (1890-1964), one of John’s work-mates on the railways, went to Saunders’s house to pay his condolences  to the widow. To his surprise he discovered that his mate’s wife Rosina was a girl he had “kept company with” for four years from 1905.

It hadn’t worked out, because Alfred and Rosina had quarreled.

One Saturday evening in 1909, Rosina dyed a white dress black, and spoilt it. ‘Look what’s she done,’ Rosina’s mother said to Alfred. ‘What a shame,’ said Alfred. ‘You didn’t have to pay for the dress,’ said Rosina. There was quite a row, and Alfred and Rosina stopped keeping company …

Alfred  married a different girl and had three children, but his wife, Helen, died in 1930 and he had been a widower for 18 years.

Widower and widow, both of them now 60,  the former sweethearts Alfred and Rosina married on 8 June 1949. Their wedding and the story behind it was reported in newspapers around Australia.

Rosina Saunders marrying Alfred Doidge 8 June 1949 at St Silas Church, Albert Park, Victoria

Tiff Over Dress (1949, June 6). Kalgoorlie Miner (WA : 1895 – 1950), p. 4. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article95732387

The graves of my husband’s family are quite often just bare earth. Rosina, however, erected a substantial gravestone at her parents’ grave in Cheltenham cemetery.

The headstone on the grave of Rosina’s parents at Cheltenham cemetery

Related post

• H is for Henry

I am grateful to our cousin Mark Schmidt for the photo of Rosina and Alfred on their wedding day

The marriages of Anne Champion Crespigny (1739-1797)

Anne Champion de Crespigny (1739-1797) sister of Sir Claude Champion de Crespigny, portrait by Katherine Read (1723-1788). Image retrieved from Neil Jeffares, “Katherine Read”, Dictionary of pastellists before 1800, London, 2006; online edition [http://www.pastellists.com/articles/read.pdf], accessed 2 September 2017. (reference J.612.171) . Original reproduction in “Painting and Sculpture” 1927 a catalogue for a sale https://archive.org/stream/paintingssculptu00ande#page/94/

Every Friday the genealogy website FindMyPast lists records newly added to its collection. On 1 September they added several volumes of English marriage licences.

Commissary Court of Surrey Marriage Licences 1673-1770 , title page

In the Commissary Court of Surrey Marriage Licences 1673-1770 I was pleased to find a record, dated 19 April 1765, which gives licence details for my 6th great aunt, Anne Champion Crespigny.

Anne was the sixth of seven children of Philip Champion de Crespigny (1704-1765) and his wife Anne née Fonnereau (1704-1782). She was born 10 October 1739 and was baptised 30 October 1739 at the Church of St Benet’s, Paul’s Wharf, London. Anne’s father Philip died 11 February 1765. He had had a successful career as a lawyer including holding the position of Marshall of the Court of Admiralty.

The Commissary Court of Surrey Marriage Licences lists Anne as a spinster of Camberwell, 21, licensed to marry Bonouvrier Glover of Camberwell, abode 4 weeks, Esq. signs, bachelor 21. Claud Crespigny, surrogate. (page 547).

The surrogate named on the licence could have been Anne’s uncle Claude (1706-1782) or her older brother Claude (1734-1818). A surrogate can take the affidavits sworn by the applicants when applying for the licence. (see paragraph 802 of http://www.oxford.anglican.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/marriage_in_the_church_of_england.pdf)

The index of licences says she was 21 but actually she was 26 and thus of full age, that is over 21. Bonouvrier was also 26. He had apparently only recently moved to Camberwell.

Bonouvrier Glover, the son of Richard and Hannah,  was born 22 November 1739 and baptised 18 December 1739 at St Lawrence Pountney, London. Richard Glover was noted poet and also a parliamentarian. Bonouvrier’s younger brother, Richard Glover (1750-1822), also was a parliamentarian. In 1756 Bonouvrier’s father, Richard Glover senior, sued his wife for divorce. At this time divorce was very rare. The divorce of Richard Glover was the only divorce in 1756 and one of only sixteen in the decade 1751-1760. (Great Britain. Parliament. An act to dissolve the marriage of Richard Glover, with Hannah Nunn his now Wife, and to enable him to marry again; and for other Purposes therein mentioned. S.n., [1755]. Eighteenth Century Collections Online, tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/5A8RA2. Accessed 1 Sept. 2017. Victorian Divorce by Allen Horstmen page 16 retrieved from Google Books)

At the time of his marriage to Anne, Bonouvrier Glover was a naval officer with the rank of Commander. On 20 June 1765, two weeks after his marriage, he was promoted to Captain. Some years later, in 1778, he commanded the Janus, a newly commissioned 44 gun Roebuck class warship. In 1780 he became ill and died of natural causes on 20 March during a fight with the French off Monte Christi on San Domingo in the West Indies.  (http://morethannelson.com/officer/bonovier-glover/)

The Argo, a sister ship of the Janus, as flagship at Gibraltar 1799. Image from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roebuck-class_ship

On 3 March 1783 at St George’s Hanover Square, London, Anne married James Gladell (1746-1819), nephew of Francis Vernon, 1st Earl of Shipbrook. Witnesses to the marriage were

• Anne’s brother Claude Champion de Crespigny (1734-1818),
• Claude’s wife and Anne’s sister-in-law, Mary Crespigny (1747-1812),  and
• Henry Reveley (1737-1798), husband of Anne’s sister Jane (1742-1829). (index to marriage retrieved through the genealogist.co.uk)

James Gladell’s uncle Lord Shipbrook died in October 1783 and James Gladell received an inheritance in the will, written 29 May 1781 and probated 7 November 1783. (Prerogative Court of Canterbury Wills PROB11/1110)

The London Gazette Publication date: 4 May 1784 Issue:12540 Page:1 retrieved from https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/12540/page/1/data.htm

 

In May 1784, after his uncle’s death, James Gladell changed his surname to Vernon.

In 1788 James and his wife Anne were involved in an insurance case in 1788 (Description: Insured: James Gladell Vernon, Esq. and Ann Gladell Vernon, his wife, Hereford Street, Oxford Street and James Mansfield Chadwick, Piccadilly, Esq. Other property or occupiers: Finch Lane, Cornhill (Seagood and Collins, printers) Date: 24 June 1788 Reference: MS 11936/353/545158 Held by the London Metropolitan Archives)

Anne died 2 June 1797.

Died:  Friday, Mrs. Vernon, wife of James Gladell Vernon, Esq. of Hereford-Street. (“News.” St. James’s Chronicle or the British Evening Post, June 3, 1797 – June 6, 1797. 17th and 18th Century Burney Collection, tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/5A77y2. Accessed 1 Sept. 2017.)

Anne had no children. James Gladell Vernon married again in 1802. He died in 1819.

N is for nuptials in Norwich

Heaton Champion de Crespigny was born in 1796 in Wiltshire, the seventh child of William Champion de Crespigny (1765-1829) and Lady Sarah Champion de Crespigny née Windsor, daughter of the 4th Earl of Plymouth. He was my second cousin five times removed.

In 1820  Heaton, the second surviving son of Sir William Champion de Crespigny, married Caroline, daughter of the Bishop of Norwich, at Norwich.

Reverend Heaton Champion_de_Crespigny (1796–1858) by Philip August Gaugain Collection: Kelmarsh Hall retrieved from http://artuk.org/discover/artworks/reverend-heaton-champion-de-crespigny-17961858-49124

Caroline Bathurst (1798–1862) by Philip August Gaugain 1826 Collection: Kelmarsh Hall retrieved from http://artuk.org/discover/artworks/caroline-bathurst-17981862-49126

Norfolk Chronicle 22 July 1820 page 3 retrieved through FindMyPast.com.au Image reproduced with kind permission of The British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk) © THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Six months before, on 22 December 1819, the Norfolk Chronicle reported that

At an Ordination held by the Lord Bishop of Norwich , on Sunday last, the following persons were admitted into Holy Orders; Deacons …

Heaton Champion de Crespigny, Student in Civil Law, Trinity-hall, Cambridge

At the time of his ordination Heaton had not yet graduated from Cambridge.

Adm. pens. at TRINITY HALL, Nov. 9, 1815. [4th s. of William Champion (1780), Esq. (afterwards Bart.) and grandson of Sir Claude Champion, Bart.] Matric. Michs. 1816; LL.B. 1825. from Alumni Cantabrigienses: A Biographical List of All Known Students, Graduates and Holders of Office at the University of Cambridge, from the Earliest Times to 1900

In April 1822, Heaton’s father-in-law, arranged for him to obtain the living of Neatishead in Norfolk. This was reported by the  Norwich and Bury Post of 8 May 1822.

The Rev. Heaton Champion de Crespigny has been Collated by the Bishop of Norwich to the Vicarage of Neatishead, in this county, vacated by the death of the Rev. A. Barwick.

Heaton was also appointed Rector of Stoke Doyle, Northamptonshire.

Heaton and Caroline had five sons:

• Eyre Nicholas (1821-1895)
• William (1822-1839)
• Albert Henry (1825-1873)
• Claude Augustus (1829-1884)
• Augustus Charles (1837 – abt 1908)

By arranging for Heaton to have income from two livings, Heaton’s father-in-law had done much to set Heaton and Caroline up financially. However, on 25 January 1828 he wrote to his son, Henry:

Heaton and Caroline continue to go on well; but “laudo manentem,”* and I dare not be sanguine upon that point: he is certainly possessed of considerable natural quickness and very gentlemanly manners; if to these he added a well regulated mind and better temper, I should be glad: it is not however my intention to intimate that she is never to blame. (Memoirs of the Late Dr. Henry Bathurst, Lord Bishop of Norwich, p.289.)

*From Horace “I praise her (Fortune) while she stays with me …” roughly saying “touch wood”

The memoir records:

…and in 1828 the violent but still more disagreeable publicity of the Rev. H. De Crespigny. The Bishop’s son-in-law, harassed him; and still more was he harassed by the distressing state of the Rev. Gentleman’s finances, materially affecting the comfort and situation in worldly circumstances of the Bishop’s daughter, Caroline, his wife, – a young woman of great personal and intellectual endowments. (ibid., pp. 293-4)

The memoir records that in hindsight Caroline’s marriage to Heaton was probably not a good idea

… The Bishop must, on reflection, have been sensible, that his consent to the marriage of his son, (a studious and promising young man,) in circumstances advantageous to no party, was a step, like that of his daughter Caroline’s marriage with Mr. De Crespigny, which as a parent he ought not to have sanctioned. But the facility of his temper, and his love of ease, and above all the sanguine complexion of his mind, and favourable anticipations which he always encouraged of the future, ruled the heart; and to these causes we may fairly attribute the like facility with which he admitted into orders without a degree his future son-in-law, the same Mr. De Crespigny; though, be it remembered, that there was no substantial objection, at the time, of any sort to the character or habits of that gentleman; of whom it was only charitable, as it was not unreasonable, to expect that he might turn out a character as good as others in general. (ibid., p. 305)

 In 1828 Heaton fought a duel with Mr Long Wellesley, who had allegedly defamed Heaton’s father.
The matter later went to court, which found against Long Wellesley.  Heaton’s role in the affair was not to his credit.

Later in 1828 Heaton attempted to blackmail his cousin the Earl of Plymouth. That story will have to wait for another post.

Related posts

• Q is for quarrelling including a duel concerning a duel fought by Heaton in 1828 and a related court case in 1829
• I is for interested in India concerning Eyre, the oldest son of Heaton
• J is for jaundiced in Jamaica concerning Augustus, the oldest brother of Heaton
• O is for Old Bailey records concerning a court case involving Heaton’s father William
• Sepia Saturday: coach rides concerning an attack on Heaton’s mother lady Sarah and one of her children while travelling in a coach

Further reading

• Bathurst, Henry. (2009). Memoirs of the Late Dr. Henry Bathurst, Lord Bishop of Norwich (Vol. 1). London: Book digitized by Google from the library of Harvard University and uploaded to the Internet Archive. (Original work published 1837) retrieved from https://archive.org/details/memoirslatedrhe01bathgoog

K is for Kennengelernt

My grandparents Hans Boltz and Charlotte Boltz née Manock recalled and celebrated the day they met, 24 January 1930, for the rest of their lives. The day of such first meetings is known in German as Kennengelernttag, ‘the day of becoming acquainted’. I recall it being a special day with them making toasts at each anniversary.

Charlotte Manock as a young woman

Charlotte, eighteen at that time, had gone with her family to a tea-dance, Tanztee , possibly at a restaurant by one of the Berlin lakes. Hans went up to the group and asked Charlotte to dance, and from that time they were committed to one another.

A five-o´clock tea and dance at the Berlin Eden Hotel in the 1930s. Image from https://kreuzberged.com/2016/03/30/berlin-past-five-oclock-at-the-eden/ The Hotel Eden would have been close to where the Manock family lived near the Berlin Zoo.

My grandparents would not have been dancing outside in January. Tea Dance, Tegernsee 1932 photographed by Alfred Eisenstaedt and in the collection of Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum, Gift of Lufthansa German Airlines retrieved from http://www.harvardartmuseums.org/art/221655

Charlotte and Hans were from different backgrounds. Charlotte’s father was a prosperous businessman and Hans’s father, who had been in the army, worked as a school caretaker.

In 1931 Hans was a cadet [Anwärter] in the Prussian Geological Survey [Preussischen Geologischen Landesanstalt]. He had spent four years at the Technical School of Cartography in the State Institute for Mapping, and joined the Geological Survey in 1930. His training lasted another three years until he took and passed the examination for the Cartographic Service in March 1933. He was then appointed to a non-tenured post, on three months notice, which he held until May 1937, when he received a permanent position, subject to formal confirmation which was given in January 1938.

Charlotte and Hans married in April 1937, not long after he had received his appointment in the cartographic service. They had been engaged for four years and known each other for seven.

Charlotte and Hans following their marriage in 1937 outside the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche

Related post

• Kanu-Club Wannsee

N is for Naval husbands

In 1895 my great-great-grandmother, Ellen Jane Cavenagh-Mainwaring (1845-1920), wife of Wentworth Cavenagh-Mainwaring (1822-1895), was widowed at the age of 49.  Of their ten children, six were daughters and five of these were unmarried. She saw all of them married before she died, even the youngest, Kiddie.

• James Gordon (1865 – 1938) 
• Eva Mainwaring (1867 – 1941) 
• Mabel Alice (1868 – 1944) known as May
• Wentworth Rowland (1869 – 1933) 
• Orfeur Charles (1872 – 1890) 
• Kathleen Mary (1874 – 1951) known as Kate
• Hugh (1875 – 1953) 
• Helen Maud (1877 – 1918) known as Nellie
• Alice Mainwaring (1879 – 1952) known as Queenie
• Gertrude Lucy (1882 – 1968) known as Kiddie

Ellen and her daughters were all born in Australia. In 1891 the family moved to England and lived at Southsea near Portsmouth when Ellen inherited the Whitmore estate in Staffordshire after the death of her brother Frederick (1859-1891). The estate was leased, hence The Cavenagh-Mainwaring family could not live there until the lease expired.

Christine Cavenagh-Mainwaring, writing in 2013, suggests that Ellen Jane, following her inheritance of the Whitmore Estate in 1891,

didn’t feel that Staffordshire offered sufficient suitable young men as potential husbands for her daughters, so being a very sensible and pragmatic woman, promptly took a house in Southsea, near to the naval base of Portsmouth where there were a considerable number of young naval officers and installed her bevy of girls there. (One can almost feel the approval of this strategy of Jane Austen’s Mrs Bennet. ) The girls duly obliged and in due course five of them married naval officers. (Cavenagh-Mainwaring, Christine and Britton, Heather, (editor.) Whitmore Hall : from 1066 to Waltzing Matilda. Adelaide Peacock Publications, 2013. pages 117-118)

This Jane Austen view of a bevy of girls needing husbands, on the marriage market, provides a misleading image of the Cavenagh-Mainwaring daughters. When the Cavenagh-Mainwaring women married they were not young. Eva married at the age 25 to a 41-year-old lieutenant, not a successful career officer. My great grandmother Kathleen was 27 when she married.  Helen was 25 when she married, Mabel was 37, Alice was 33 and Gertrude was 37. Perhaps their colonial Australian background hindered their marriage prospects, perhaps they were not interested marrying as quickly as possible, perhaps not all Victorian women married young and our assumptions are wrong about this aspect of Victorian  life.

My grandmother wrote on the back of the photograph that it was taken in 1908 and the names: Back row, left to right: Queenie Magee; Kate Cudmore; Nellie Millet Middle row, L to R: Eva Gedge; May Gillett Front centre: Kiddie Bennett

In 1892, the oldest daughter Eva married a naval officer, Herbert James Gedge (1851-1913). There were reports of the wedding in English and Australian newspapers. (For example A LADY’S LETTER. (1892, November 26). South Australian Chronicle (Adelaide, SA : 1889 – 1895), p. 18. Retrieved April 14, 2014, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article92300620 .)

Launch of HMS Agammemnon at Chatham Dockyard from the Illustrated London News of September 27 1879

In September 1892 Herbert J. Gedge was appointed lieutenant and joined the Agamemnon. (“Naval & Military Intelligence.” Times [London, England] 24 Sept. 1892: 6. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.) He retired from the Navy as captain on 3 May 1904. (1912 Navy List page 645) He became an adviser in Egypt with the title of Pasha, a title denoting high rank or office. In 1913 Herbert Gedge died in Alexandria, Egypt. 

Eva and Herbert had two children: Norah (1894-1971 and Edward 1895-1991).

Kathleen, my great grandmother, married Arthur Murray Cudmore (1870-1951) in Melbourne, Australia in 1901. He was the only husband of these six daughters who was not in the navy. He was a doctor, a colleague of Kathleen’s brother Wentworth. Arthur would have known the Mainwarings in Adelaide, South Australia. He went to England to study. The Cudmores had two daughters, Rosemary (1904-1987) and Kathleen (1908-1913).

In 1902 Helen, known as Nellie, married Thompson Horatio Millett (1870-1920) in Hampshire.

Thompson Millet was appointed Fleet Paymaster in September 1909. (Navy List 1918 page 130) In the 1919 King’s Birthday Honours he was made Commander of the Bath (civil division). He then held the rank of Paymaster Commander (acting Paymaster Captain). (“Birthday Honours.” Times [London, England] 3 June 1919: 18+. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.) In recommending him for the post-war award Admiral Commanding 3rd battle Squadron,  Sir E. Bradford wrote

Paymaster Captain Thompson H. Millet, was my Secretary throughout the period of my command of the 3rd Battle Squadron, from June 1914, to July, 1916. Being almost always detached from the C-in-C’s Flag except at sea, and generally having addition battleship and cruiser squadron and a flotilla under my orders was a source of increased Secretarial work, and Paymaster Captain Millet performed his duties with untiring zeal and an admirable punctuality. ( from http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=28039)

Helen died in 1918 and Thompson in 1920. They had had three children, Hugh (1903-1968) and Guy (1907-1978), and a third child, who died in infancy.

“Deaths.” Times [London, England] 14 Apr. 1920: 1. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.

Mabel married Owen Francis Gillett (1863-1938) on 16 April 1906 at St Paul’s Church, Valletta, Malta.

“Marriages.” Times [London, England] 23 Apr. 1906: 1. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.

Elevation drawing of St Paul’s Valletta by the architect William Scamp in 1842. Retrieved from http://www.oneweekholiday.com/malta/valletta-floriana/st-pauls-anglican-cathedral-valletta-2/

In 1924 Owen Gillett retired as Vice-Admiral, and was promoted to Admiral on the retired list. His obituary in the Times mentioned his World War 1 service at the Cape, where he was senior naval officer at Simonstown for over three years. (“Admiral Gillett.” Times [London, England] 23 Mar. 1938: 16. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.)

Mabel and Owen had two children, Michael (1907-1971) and Anne (1911-?).

Alice, known as Queenie, married William Edward Blackwood Magee (1886-1981) on 14 August 1913 at St Simons, Southsea.

In December 1910, W.E.B. Magee gave his future mother-in-law a book of the first two operas of the Ring Cycle.  I wrote about the book at http://ayfamilyhistory.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/a-christmas-gift.html

In 1917 and again in 1918, as Lieutenant Commander, William Magee was mentioned in despatches as part of the honours for the Destroyers of the Harwich Force. ( London Gazette 22 June 1917 and Edinburgh Gazette 25 February 1919) In 1920, for services in the Baltic in 1919, Lieut.-Cdr. William Edward Blackwood Magee, R.N. was made Companion of the Distinguished Service Order, for distinguished services in command of H.M.S. “Watchman.”. (Edinburgh Gazette 10 March 1920) In 1945 Captain (Commodore second class, R.N.R.) William Edward Blackwood Magee, D.S.O., R.N. (Ret.), was appointed Commander of the Military Division of the Order of the British Empire for Distinguished Service in the War in Europe. (London Gazette 7 December 1945) William Edward Blackwood Magee became a Captain in 1929. (1939 Navy List).

Alice and William had two children, Richard (1915-1937) and Jean (1917-1996).

The Harwich Force Leaving for Sea by Philip Connard 1918. A view from the stern deck of a Royal Navy warship looking back at a convoy of warships arranged in two parallel lines. Four sailors stand on the deck. The foremost ships visible include light cruisers and a destroyer. The coastline is visible in the left background. © IWM (Art.IWM ART 1318)retrieved from http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/5431

Gertrude, known as Kiddie, married Edward Morden Bennett (1878-1941) on 30 April 1919 at St Thomas’s Church, Portsmouth.

In January 1919 Commander Edward Morden Bennett, R.N. was made Officer of the Military Division of the Order of the British Empire. (London Gazette 1 January 1919) At the time of his death he held the rank of Captain. 
 

“Deaths.” Times [London, England] 28 Apr. 1941: 1. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 15 Apr. 2014.

Kiddie and Edward had one daughter, Jean (1921-2009).

The six daughters of Ellen Jane Cavenagh-Mainwaring had a very different experience of marriage and motherhood to that of their mother. Ellen Jane married aged 19 and had ten children. Her daughters were aged between 25 and 37 when they married and had none of them had more than three children.

In the middle of the nineteenth century the mean age of women marrying in the United Kingdom was 25. (Woods, Robert (2000). The demography of Victorian England and Wales. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge ; New York page 82) Recent figures have age at first marriage in the United Kingdom as 28.5 for women in 2005 and in Australia at 27.7 as at 2009. (Age at first marriage. (2014, April 6). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 01:56, April 16, 2014, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Age_at_first_marriage&oldid=603021351) Historic figures for the United States show that the median age at first marriage for women was about 22 between 1890 and 1910, declining in 1920 and lowest in the 1950s and has climbed higher over the last decades to over 26 years old today. (US Census Bureau graph of Median age at first marriage by sex: 1890 to 2013  https://www.census.gov/hhes/families/files/graphics/MS-2.pdf ) The earliest figure I have for Australia is that the median marriage age for spinsters in 1921 was 25.2. This figure is not useful to compare to the Cavenagh-Mainwaring women as it is after World War I. (Vamplew, Wray (1987). Australians, historical statistics. Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Associates, Broadway, N.S.W., Australia page 46)

In composing this blog post I have realised how little I know about young women 100 years ago and my great grandmother and her sisters. I am unable to assess whether they were eager to be married or content to wait until the right person was there. I suspect they were financially able not to marry. Perhaps there was pressure on the youngest daughter not to marry and keep her mother company.

A related post  five of the girls attend a children’s ball in 1887: http://ayfamilyhistory.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/trove-tuesday-kathleen-cavenagh-dressed.html

A quiet wedding in Staffordshire

Lady Kitty Says—. (1931, July 23). Advertiser and Register (Adelaide, SA : 1931), p. 14. Retrieved January 14, 2014, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article35674280

Rosemary Cudmore (1904 – 1987) was the older sister of my grandmother Kathleen.  Rosemary married her cousin, Rafe Cavenagh-Mainwaring (1906 – 1995).

No Title. (1930, December 26). News (Adelaide, SA : 1923 – 1954), p. 5 Edition: SPORTS EDITION. Retrieved January 14, 2014, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article128956613

This is Rosemary in the early 1930s. She’s dressed in what’s possibly her wedding outfit.

Rafe, also from the early 1930s.

de Crespigny – Beggs 1891 wedding

In 1891, one hundred and twelve years ago, my great-great-grandfather, Philip de Crespigny (1850-1927) married Sophia Beggs (1870 – 1936).

The Sentinel. (1891, November 7). Queenscliff Sentinel, Drysdale, Portarlington & Sorrento Advertiser (Vic. : 1885 – 1894), p. 1. Retrieved November 5, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article73592032

 

This news item was reproduced in the Euroa Advertiser of 13 November, with the bride’s surname given correctly as Beggs.

His marriage to Sophia Beggs was Philip de Crespigny’s second, and this wedding seems a little more sedate than his first. In 1883 Philip’s first wife, Annie Frances née Chauncy, had died at the age of twenty-five, leaving him with two young boys: Philip born 1879 and Constantine Trent (then called Con) born 1882.  At the time of her death, Philip and Annie had been married for little more than five years.

In March 1889 P. C. Crespigny was manager of the South Melbourne Branch of the Bank of Victoria.  He had previously served at Queenscliff (where Annie Frances had died ) and Epsom near Bendigo (where his son Philip was born).  By August 1890 he had been promoted to Assistant Inspector of Branches for the bank, and went on to  become General Manager in 1916. 

Sophia Beggs was the cousin of  Philip’s brother-in-law, Frank Beggs (1850 – 1921), who had married Rose de Crespigny (1858 – 1937) in 1876.

References

•   Euroa Advertiser. (1891, November 13). Euroa Advertiser (Vic. : 1884 – 1920), p. 2. Retrieved November 6, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article65531264
•  Advertising. (1889, March 23). Record (Emerald Hill, Vic. : 1881 – 1900), p. 1. Retrieved November 6, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article111967484
•  Advertising. (1890, November 8). Illustrated Australian News (Melbourne, Vic. : 1890 – 1896), p. 20. Retrieved November 6, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article60444634
•  The Horsham Times. (1890, August 22). The Horsham Times (Vic. : 1882 – 1954), p. 2. Retrieved November 6, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article72866280
•  BANK OF VICTORIA. (1916, February 1). The Horsham Times (Vic. : 1882 – 1954), p. 3. Retrieved November 6, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article73169623