Mary Helena Nelson Smith (née Wake)
1874 - 1969
Note: Helena Smith was a remarkable woman. The basis of her family
tree was given to me by my second cousin Oliver
Suffield which has been supplemented by information provided by other relatives
including descendants of her sisters and aunts.
Four sisters c. mid-1950s: L-R: Margaret
Stocks, Bessie Wall, Mary
Helena Smith and Nin Blackwell
Outline her Life:
India played a dominant role through much of Gran Smith's life,
having also played an important role in her family before she was born. Her
grandfather Horatio Nelson took his family
out there in 1858 (at the time of the Indian
Mutiny) and died there of cholera the following year. Gran herself lived
in India from around 1901 to 1922 and again from 1938 to 1944 (or 1946).
Helena (as she preferred to be called) was born
in Birmingham back in the days when Benjamin Disraeli
was Prime Minister of Britain. She was unusually well educated for a girl of
her day being amongst the first girls to graduate from university in England.
The 1891 census shows her as a 16
year-old living at home and employed as a "School Board pupil Teacher".
This must have been the 'apprenticeship'
that she describes in her 1969 recorded interview (see below).
She then had to pass a Queen's Scholarship exam to get into a universty college,
choosing a London college in preference to Mason College
in Birmingham so that she would not have to attend as a day-girl. Had she gone
to Mason College,
she would have been head girl because she was the top student in Birmingham. [Note:
this contradicts the story given to me by my father
during my conversations with him c1987, where he said that Helena was one of
the first ladies to attend Birmingham university in 1892, graduating from
there with honours in mathematics. He may have been correct in recalling that
she graduated in mathematics, because this was the subject she most enjoyed
teaching her grandchildren. On the other hand, Helena's granddaughter Wendy
Thomson recalled that Helena was one of the first three women to graduate
in the Arts from Birmingham University.]
On 4th April
1899, Helena married George Richard Richards at St. Agnes's church, Moseley
in Soilhull (see
marriage certificate). George was then aged 30, living in Bedworth near
Nuneaton where he was working as a school master. His father Richard Richards
was recorded as retired. Helena, 24 appears to have been unemployed at the time,
but she was then living in Woodstock Road, Moseley which must have been her
mother's home. Witnesses at the wedding were Helena's brother-in-law John Edwin
Wall, her sister Ann Margaret Wake, Arthur
Frank Heath and Edith May Adnaus(?).
In 1900 Helena gave birth to her only son, George
Robert Richards (Dick) who was to become a contemporary of H.E.M.
Newman in the Madras Sappers and Miners
some 25 years later. According to the 1911
census records, Dick was born in East Dulwich, London, however the 1900
birth register shows him to have been born in Camberwell, London. Either
way, it may be presumably the family was
living in South London at the time.
No record has been found
for Helena, George or son George in the 1901 census. Perhaps they were staying
with George's parents, but it is possible that they had packed their trunks
and sailed to India before
the census was taken. In so doing, they were following in the footsteps of Helena'a
mother Adah's who had travelled there
in her youth, long before the Suez Canal was
comleted in 1869.
The actual
date of the family's departure from England remains uncertain. The "Life
and Times of Karachi Grammar School"
(page 36) states that George and his wife arrived at the school from England
in April 1902. It goes on to say that George and Helena's appointment as headmaster
and headmistress (or Assistant Mistress) of the school came at a very difficult
time, the previous headmaster having left to form a new school in competition
with the Grammar School, taking a number of its pupils with him. Thus "when
his successor, Mr G. Richards and his wife arrived from England in April 1902,
they faced a situation that was even more dire than it had been at the end of
the previous year. Student numbers were in free fall, the salary of the new
Assistant Mistress was reduced to Rs.20 per month, there was no gymnastics instructor,
the school was paying 8% interest on its bank overdraft and members of the Management
Committee felt obliged to put forward interest-free loans amounting to Rs.5000.
Mr. & Mrs. Richards left Karachi on 10th July - they were probably glad
to go - and sadly he died a day or two later on the train to Lahore." A
scan of the above text can be found here.
Helena describes the death of her husband George
Richards in the transcrpt of her recorded interview below.
She told how she had to take him off the train after he fell ill and that his
temperature rose rapidly to 108oF causing the doctor to proclaim
that nothing could be done to save him. He died in the station master's office
within a few hours and was taken away for immediate burial. However she did
not say where they were travelling to or the place where they had disembarked
from the train, nor the sickness that he had succumbed to so quickly. Helena's
granddaughter Wendy
Thomson confirmed that baby Dick
Richards was travelling with his parents at the time of the tragedy. She
also suggested that the train was crossing the Sind Desert when
George Richards contracted
bubonic plague, but if this was the case then there appears
to be only one railway line across the desert - a lonely single line track between
Hyderabad and Samdari in Rajasthan built sometime between 1893 and 1909. If
the railway had been completed by 1902 and if it was the railway that they were
travelling on, then they could not have been headed for Lahore. However they
would have been heading in the direction of Delhi and towards Mussoori where
Helena recalled that she ended her journey.
Prior to her second marriage in
1905, Helena had moved several hundred
miles south to the Nilgiris where it seems that she was headmistress at a school
for the daughter of "other ranks" in Ootacamund, probably in Lovedale.
Her marriage certificate shows
her residing at 'Lovedale Nilgiris' some 2000 miles from Quetta where her groom
Dan Smith, (newly arrived from the North of Scotland),
was then living (see map below). Wendy
Thomson recalled that Helena founded a school for English girls in
Bangalore to help her survive after her first husband died, and whilst this
seems unlikely (Bangalore being some 300km from the Nilgiris), it may be the
case that Helena founded the school where she worked in the Nilgiris.
At any rate, one can only speculate
where and how Dan and Helena met when they were living so far apart, but after
their marriage they settled in Karachi where Dan built up a pharmacy business
with a Scottish partner by the name of Willam Campbell (see. Dan
Smith's page).
Dan and Helena's marriage produced two daughters,
Margaret
(1907) and Phyl (1910), both born in Karachi,
and the family appears to have continued living in Karachi for another decade
or more. Their names do not appear to have been recorded
in the 1911 census, so presumably they were in India at the time. However the
1911
census does have a record of young George Robert
Richards who was staying with his Grandmother Adah
in Mosely where he was presumably attending school.
Helena was known as "Mousedear" and
Dan was known as "Pop" as evidenced in the two photos below taken
in 1922, the notations being in my father's handwriting. The photos appear to
have been taken in India, which suggests that she and Dan did not leave India
until that year at the earliest.
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%20with%20Dan%20Smith%201922%20-%202.jpg)
Helena and Dan returned
to England in or after 1922, moving into a large house called Mylesdown
at 44 Mayfield Road in Sutton, Surrey (SW London) from
where my parents were married in 1929. They lived there until Dan's death in
1934 (see below), when Helena moved to a house in School Road, Moseley,West
Midlands (near Birmingham) around 1935.
Helena
returned to India in 1938 to look after "Dick"
after his wife, Marcia, had "gone home in disgust" (my father's words)
after her son had died. Helena was forced to stay on when war began because
there was no means of returning to England, and she became well known amongst
army wives (including Patricia Richards, later Patricia
Newman who was also stationed there) as the chief organiser of "war-effort"
work by military wives - specialising in knitting of socks and balaclavas for
soldiers, and making clothes etc for the local hospital. (This was typical of
her character:- indefatigable, inexhaustible, organised and organising, and
possessing a razor-sharp mind, right to the day she died). For her efforts,
she was awarded the "Kaisar-i-hind"
decoration for civilian services in India. She also
took care of my father when he arrived back in
India malnourished and ill after his harrowing escape from the Japanese through
the jungles of Burmah.
Helena returned to England after the war in 1945 or '46,
selling her house in Moseley and moving to Ashtead to live with my parents.
Her husband (Dan Smith) had reportedly died penniless and left her
nothing but the savings that she'd kept of her own (as she often told us) which
she invested in the stock market in solid companies like Woolworths and Marks
and Spenser, which profited well. She was by then quite wealthy compared to
my somewhat impoverished parents - wealthy enough anyway, for her to pay £2000
of the £4200 that it cost to purchase Churchland
Farm (in Somerset) where she lived with my parents from
1949 until it was sold in 1962, by when my father had inherited enough money
from h's mother to repay the loan. Helena moved to Harbourne near Birmingham
to live with her other daughter Phyl, the move
being prompted partly by her failing eyesight and partly (I suspect) by family
frictions that inevitably arose because my father found it difficult living
with his mother-in-law for so many years.
Her final years in Harbourne were spent listening
to the daily news bulletins and TV shows, sitting so close to the television
that it was hard to imagine it being possible to see anything on the screen.
She enjoyed grumbling about what she saw as the deterioration of English diction
on TV and radio.
Her death in 1969 followed quickly after a fall
which broke her hip.. Prior to the fall, it appeared that she would sail past
her century in fine fettle, but she had to make do with 95 which she was adamant
was longer than she really wanted. She was a wonderful lady who I still miss
dearly.
I grew up with Gran Smith living in Churchland
Farm with my parents. I therefore knew her very well and have many fond
memories of her even though she maintained the rather strict facade of a school-teacher
and was never a "doting" grandmother. However she was generous and
could always be relied upon to hand out crisp white £5 notes to us children
at Christmas and birthdays (quite a large sum in those days). She was a great
story-teller and often entertained us with tales of travel and adventure which
no doubt influenced both my sister and I to seek adventure abroad.
I have only two recollections of Gran Smith telling me about
her relations: (a) she had a relative who came from Dumfries (which happens
to be where I was married); and (b) that she had a relative who was Captain
of the Great Eastern steamship when it laid the first Atlantic telegraph cable
(in around 1876).
Oliver Suffield provided me with the facts behind these memories: (a) her great
grandfather Robert
Wright was a baker from Dumfries; and (b) it was Robert's Wright's sister-in-law
Agnes Anderson's son, Sir
James Anderson, who captained the Great Eastern steamship. He must therefore
have been Gran Smith's first cousin once removed.
Gran must have been very familiar with this side of her family,
because amongst the many people she mentions in the taped interview with Michael
shortly before her death, she mentions a William Costen
Aitken who was born in 1817 and died in 1875. William Costen Aitken was
the husband of Robert Wright's daughter Elizabeth.
(The above combines my own childhood memories with notes
made during a conversation with my father in Australia during his last visit
in 1986 or 87. Supplemented also by the taped recording with Gran Smith
in 1969 transcribed below, and information obtained by Nadine
Price, and given to me by Oliver Suffield).
The following
is my abridged transcription of a
45 minute Tape Recording of 95 year-old Gran Smith (G:) made by Michael
Evans (M:) on 10th Feb 1969, just 10 months before her death:
(1) M: The book that I have here is one
with drawings by Alexander Munro. In the front is a letter from Randolf Churchill;
G: The letter has nothing to do with book. There must be a lot of odd
letters that I just put it there. Randolf Churchill had something to do with
the Birmingham Conservative Association, because my father was very keen about
politics. M (Read the letter: "From Blenheim
Palace 31st Jan 1884: Dear
Mr Barton. Who's Mr Barton? G: I think he was head of the Conservative Association.
M: "Many thanks for your letters and enclosures, which
both will no doubt be gladly adopted. I'm going to make a few remarks to my
constituents on Brighton and Birmingham.
Yours very truly Randolf Churchill".
(2) M: Another letter: "from Birmingham
Town Clerk's office dated 12 May 1875 to Mrs Aitken, Mayfield, Hanver(?). By the direction
of the council of this borough, I beg to transmit to you the accompanying resolution
adopted by the council yesterday, of sympathy and condolence with you on your
recent sad bereavement by the death of Mr Aitken. Permit me to add the expression of my own
personal regret at the event that has deprived you of an affectionate and devoted
husband, and of myself of a much esteemed and honoured friend. I am, dear Madam,
yours very truly E.G. Hayes, Town Clerk".
(3) M: Another letter: "6 Aug 1890:
from R.K.W. (her father): My dear
Ellie, I sent you a hurried PC last night. Bessie had had a very bad night and
this morning I sent for Dr Quirk. He says it is acute rhumatism and her heart
is very weak. Aunty says it is getting worse and worse. Your ma is getting very
low spirited, so we are all in the dumps here. If your grandma can spare you
tomorrow, come down and see Bessie. I have written to Mr Wilks and also Betsie.
Hope you are well at home. With united love, believe me, your affectionate Dad,
RKW". G: I was always known as Ellie until I went to college and
was then I was known as Lina.
(4) M: Letter 29 November (no year) from
Victoria Villa, Heaton Hall Road,
Newcastle-on-Tyne.
G: I think it's from Aunt Ellie to me … but you'll find it too
hard to read!
(5) M: Then there's these pictures of
sculptures by Alexander Munro and all these cuttings from the
various Birmingham papers - all obituaries (to Alexander
Munro). And letters to 8 Richmond Terrace, Whitehall
… more obituaries … died (in 1871) at age of 44 of consumption
…picture of a statue of James Watt .... outside the Town Hall (sculptured
by Alexander Munro). ........................... Resolution of Birmingham ???
Institute, Charles Dickens was the president in 1869. G: I
didn't know that.
(6) M: Extracts from minutes of Council
of April 1875" G: Is that when Uncle Aitken
died …. There should be a photograph of his gravestone. That was subscribed
for and there was small stain-glass window in Handsworth Old Church (see http://www.answers.com/topic/st-mary-s-church-handsworth)
in memory of him. He must have been an extremely nice man. He has a nice peaceful
expression on his face. ...... M: The there's a little book
here "The Death of the Just" a letter written by Pilate's wife ........
Handbook to Ashley(?) Hall ....
M: This chap Alexander Munro. Why the
interest in him? G: ....... I suppose Uncle
Aitken and he must have been friends, or he approved of his work. .........
Can you read what it says on the tombstone? M: reads "This stone
is placed in loving memory of William Costen Aitken
by friends who knew his worth and mourn his loss. Devoted to that which he knew
to be good, he spent the best years of his life in teaching men how work was
richly ennobled when thought was joined to labour and beauty wedded to skill.
Born in Dumfries, 3rd March 1817, Scotland,
died Birmingham
24 March 1875". A nice tombstone! G: Yes - it must be in Handsworth
Old Church.
(7) M: Letter here with an old envelop
with a 1d red stamp on it: from Elverton Lodge, Birmingham, to Mrs
Aitken, Mayfield 14th Oct 1879. "Dear Mrs Aitken, I'm very glad to
tell you that the monument to your (read as"my") good husband
and my dear old friend is now finished and placed ……. only that
the shrubs shall grow up around it to complete its beauty as a work of art.
You will find also that the plaque over the grave of his brother, artist Francis
Aitken*, has been replaced and that it is a work that my good old friend would
have delighted to do to the memory of one who he honoured so much. I hope you
will approve of the inscription, the result of very much thought and care. It
has certainly the merit of being absolutely truthful in every word. The director
has been good enough to offer a guinea for each monument, but I am not yet sure
that we ought to accept so kind an offer as we shall have a balance over, and
we all felt that the memorial should be from personal and lifelong friends.
Faithfully yours, Sam Fimmins or Finnigate*. (Michael has trouble reading these
bits.)
[Post Script:
n July 2018 Suzanne Phillips undertaking
research for a PhD on the work of Francis Eginton (1737-1805) advised that the
transcript should read: "You will find also that the plaque over the grave of
his brother artist, Francis Eginton has been replaced and that it is a work
that my good old friend would have delighted to do to the memory of one who
he honoured so much ...". WC Aitken wrote a monograph on the life and work
of Francis Eginton, who he admired greatly. It was Mr Aitken's wish that be
buried in the same graveyard as Francis Eginton (St Michael's, Handsworth).
Eginton was a noted architectural glass artist, an employee and also briefly
a partner in a business with Matthew Boulton. I do not think Mr Aitken ever
had a brother (called Francis).
(8) G: I had remembered seeing a letter
from Sir John Jaffrey, the one who founded the Jaffrey hospital, called himself
Beak of the Brother …. ????
(9) M: There's this little tablet with
a clip on it….. a picture of W.C. Aitken,
and a cutting from the Birmingham Post, dated 1935 with an article 50 years
ago reproducing an article from Birmingham Post in 1885 on the Corporation Art
Gallery. G: I think
I remember: I'd just come to Moseley and Bess had sent it to me there.
(10) M: This book is the Deed of Foundation
of Josiah Mason's Scientific
College ….. got this
cutting from the Birmingham Post again, of 50 years ago.
(11) M: Also got this Port Bannatyne
….. I asked Melville about it, and he's going to let me (Michael)
have a book all about Port Bannatyne. He thinks that maybe that this William
McLeod Bannatyne is related to the Marquis of Bute, because the Marquis owns
all the Isle of Bute and property elsewhere, and he thinks there may well be
some family connection. He's going to give me a lead by letting him have a book;
because they go and stay there, you see. G: It must have been amongst
my paper, and possibly Peg was reading it and perhaps it got amongst hers. Henry
found it, but none of his people belonged to Scotland ….. But evidently a
friend or relative of some of the Dumfries
people. Henry found it and sent the book to me about three or four weeks ago.
(12) M: If some of this stuff not of
any interest to you, we might as well throw some of it away. What do you think?
Because Mum is always saying she's going to have a good old clear out."
G: Yes I know. She'd send half the stuff to the jumble. She's not interested
in it at all ……Some of it may be of more of interest to family who
are interested in Birmingham. I don't want them destroyed! In the future
someone may like to read them, and as I've kept them through all sorts of conditions,
I don't want them to be thrown away indiscriminately.
(13) …M: This stuff is all about
Josiah Mason's College. Here's an invitation" "Bailey and Trustees
of Josiah Masons Science College request the pleasure of the company of Mrs Aitken and Lady at the opening address by
Professor Huxley in the town hall Birmingham on 1st October 1880 and at a soirée
at the college at 8.00 in the evening. An early answer on the accompanying form
is requested when tickets of admission will be sent". What is a soirée?
G: Soirée was an evening show, dancing and that sort of thing.
Very popular at one time and the Womens(?) Institute often had them. Before
my father died, he used to go regularly every week to lectures. They were usually
given by some well-known person, big scientist or big literary man. I think
Mother used to go with him to those as well. At the time, I was doing science,
and I had my science lectures on Monday evenings, and we all came home and talked
about it".
(14) M: There's a little letter here
from Penval(?), Abergelly from Josiah Mason. "Dear Mr
Aitken, The same influence that directs my energies to accomplish a benefit
for man must influence you in accepting an office that can only have the same
object in view. Sincerely thanking you, sincerely yours, Josiah Mason".
Was that taking office of the trustee? G: Yes. M: Is the Josiah
Mason's Science
College in existence then? G: No,
it was absorbed, I think, by the university. Because after I finished my apprenticeship
as a pupil teacher, we had to pass what was known as a Queen's Scholarship exam
to get into different colleges. I could have applied to go to Mason College,
but I didn't want to go as a day student. So I went to a London college instead. Had I gone to Mason College
I should have been head girl because I was top of the students in Birmingham". M.
What did you teach? G: Ordinary subjects later. I didn't specialize.
Then when I went out to India,
Dick's father and I were joint head-master
and mistress of the Karachi Grammar School. And it's only two or three
years ago that the Duke of Edinburgh attended the centenary celebrations (of
the school) when he was out in India. So it's still in existence.
Then Dick's
father died on the railway as we were going up to the hills …. He was
taken ill in the train, then when we got to … what was the name of the
place? But I got out to call a porter to help me to get him out of the train.
But I shouldn't. I should have waited until we got to the Contument [= Cantonment]
Station. I got out at the City station (which was) amongst all the native population.
Contument is where all the military had all their bungalows. However the Permanent
Way Inspector was a very nice man, and when he found out that Dick's father
had been a Mason he helped in every possible way. Well, George was taken into
the station waiting room and they had to send to the Contument for the civil
surgeon, and when he came he said there was no hope at all because his temperature
was 108. And on his way back to the Contument, he must have ordered a coffin
to be sent to the station, because he couldn't be kept in the waiting room.
I think the train got in about 1.30 and at about 9.30 the same night he was
buried. The Permanent Way Inspector made all arrangements. They hadn't a hearse
or anything of that sort; they had a most peculiar vehicles in those days covered
in with a narrow door on either side and for ages I could see this coffin stuck
on top of that funny little vehicle. It was an awful nightmare. M:
That was Uncle Dick's father, your first husband?
G: Yes.
Then fortunately, one of the students who had
been in college with me was teaching at a big school run by the railway up in
the Himalayas at a place called Mussoorie [India, north of New Dehli, about
1250 km from Karachi - see map above]. I had discovered that she was there,
and she had come down the previous Christmas to Karachi and had spent the holidays with us.
I think I must have sent her a wire because she and the headmaster came down
to the foot of the hills because the only way of getting up to where they were
was. … when you got out the train you got into a sort of 'tonga', a vehicle
with a cover over (a hood) with seats back-to-back; the driver sat in front
and you got on the back seat. You went as far as it was possible for horses
to pull these things, and then you had to change into rickshaws and then you
could go only so far in the rickshaws. After that they couldn't pull the rickshaws
- it was too steep. The last part, you were carried up in what were called "dandies";
it's like a hearth rug folded up at each end on pole, and you sat in it, while
four coolies carried the poles on their shoulders. And that's how you got up.
Your luggage was carried up by porters; they used to have a strap round their
heads and used to carry these enormous trunks and things. And I had a very heavy
one at Sarratoga which I left down at the farm. It had iron clamps on and solid
wood; they were used at the time. But once having been up to the Himalayas and got back again, I would never take such a
heavy case up again for those poor devils to carry. Oh it was dreadful. You
would see them carrying wardrobes and glory knows what. Even in Karachi when people moved house, there were
no such things as furniture vans; everything was carried on their heads by coolies
- you would see a wardrobe or dressing table floating down the road on the coolies'
heads! I don't know what they do now. I expect everything has changed. It wouldn't
be the same if I went back now."
(15) M: "Going back to modern times
- I have a green book called "Encyclopaedia of Art Industry" edited
by W.C. Aitken. Is that of any interest to you?
G: Oh rather. He was so interested in making things beautiful. Not just
any sort of design. I wouldn't lose that book. There must have been others as
well. M: "Would they be of interest to anybody else? Perhaps the
art gallery or museum?" G: "I don't know. Wendy
might be interested in some of it. It would be a pity to throw them out just
because they're of no interest to just one or two, when others may be interested".
(16) M (looking at photos): Here's one
of you - Mary Nelson Helena Wake 1894. G: Yes - that's when I was in
college. M: Sweet photograph - hair back in a bun. Here's one of Robert Kirkpatrick Wake, that's your father
- just a little tiny photograph ...... And another one of your
mother standing behind a chair. And then there's one of Aunt
Aitken in all her magnitude! She was huge! And here's one of your mother
and you and your two sisters in a garden with a greenhouse at the back. Your
mother sitting down, you on the right. G: I'm standing up very stiffly,
and then there's Daisy and Nin. M: There's one with long flowing hair:
that must be Daisy. I think Nicki is the other on the left .... she has fuzzy
sort of hair. You on the right with a sort of bonnet on. G:
Betsy isn't there; M: No, but Daisy's at the back with long
hair down to her shoulders.
(17) Another photograph? M: That was
by Jugendra Singe. What was that about? G: That was given to me by the
wife of the author. She was married to an Indian. M: With love from the
author's wife Xmas 1925. G: He was an awfully nice man. I think he was
Sikh. I think he was Minister of Education in the Punjab.
She was a second wife. I'm not sure but I think she may have had a little dark
blood in her, but she'd been educated in Brussels,
and I met her on the boat coming home once.
(18) M: The next one here is Tennyson's
Works. G: That was a prize wasn't it. Or was it Wittier? M: No,
this is just a book. Here's one called ?? Names and Emblems of Jesus Christ.
G: Oh that was written by a friend of Aunt Aitken. M: By A.G. Somner. G:
Yes - it was one that Aunt Aitken gave me.
(19) M: Here comes Le Wittier. G:
I think that was a prize. M: That's right. Sparkhill Green South(?)
Birmingham Institute. Prize awarded to Mary H.N. Wake for success in Hygeine
and Physiology at the examination held in 1897. G: That was after I came
out of college I still went on studying. There are several of my books and prizes
that are lost.
(20) M: Another book, Henry Longfellow.
Nothing special about that; no reference to prizes...... It cost 3/6d! Here's
another book called MacCauly's Essays. G: Oh yes - I did several of those
essays. McCaulay's essay on the Life of Byron, Madam Darglave was another …..
I expect it belonged to my father.
(21) M: And then we have a Volume of
Verses, Serious, Humourous and Satirical by Will Buchanan; to Mrs McLellan from
the author, Will Buchanan. "In recollection of such kindness and attention
from her husband and herself while his wife and he stayed at Daisy Bank, Noble
Hill. Will Buchanan, Ayr, 21st April 1866".
G: I can remember the names - there were the Andersons, Arnotts, McLellans,
Wrights, Richardsons, they were all Dumfries
people. I used to stay with the Richardsons sometimes when I was in College;
they had a lovely house in South Croydon, and it was such a treat to go into
a house with lovely stair-carpets and carpets after the wooden stairs in college.
She was a very handsome woman. They also came from Scotland.
(22) M: ……. (looking at more
books)."Short History of the World" by H.G. Wells … McCauley's
Biographies, then Shakespeare's King Lear. G: "Oh! King Lear! I
wouldn't have parted with that. We did it as an English subject, and the elecution
mistress that took us for it made it absolutely live, and for years I couldn't
go and see King Lear acted on the stage ….. she was wonderful".
(23) M: Here's another one. "To
Gran with love; Patricia, Xmas 1941", Leaves in the Wind". G: Patricia Richards. They live near Bristol.
(24) M: Here's another one called "Groundwork
of British History", George R. Richards … this was Uncle
Dick’s …. or was it his father? …. printed in 1912. Uncle
Dick would have been 12 then. G: Possibly his.
(25) M: Sermons on the 23rd Psalm …..
(sound lost)
(26) M: Another one: Mrs Elizabeth Wright written inside. G: That's
Aunt Aitken. M: The Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare; G: What
date is that? M: MDCCCXXX. That must be 1830. So it's 140 years old and in remarkably
good condition. All the pages are intact. A very well kept book. G: Some
of our books were ruined in the cyclone in Karachi. I have got one or two books where the
bindings were spoilt.
(27) M: Here's nother fairly ancient
one - this is Pilgrims Progress by John Bunyon: "Miss
Aidah Nelson, first prize for writing, from Mrs. Frazer, Dec 1863",
and you've written Poonah(?) there. G: Mother was in boarding school
in Bombay. And Dr Frazer was head of the school.
So that must have been mother's prize. M: This is also very well kept, this
book, because they bound them well, didn't they, in those days.
(28) M: Book of Common Prayer, Elizabeth Aitken, Easter
.... 1862, Victoria Cottage ??? Lane, ….. "Poetical Works of Alfred
Lord Tennison" ..... "Gems from Shelley" …cost one pound
two shilling ... sounds an awful lot... New Testament …issued by the King
to his forces. Then there Lady of the Lake, "To Mrs
Wright from a friend 20th Feb 1846".
(29) M: Then there's Burns Poems, Vol 1 and Vol 2, "To
Chummy, with Kitty's love Dec 2nd 1895". G: That was from my first
chum. M: Who was Chummy? G: I was. M: Who's Kitty? G:
She's the one who gave it to me.
(30) M: Common Prayer with ivory cover and clip ….
(lots of talk without much direction - getting a bit hard to follow). End
of recording.
Last Updated: 13 Jul 2018: Post Script added with information
from Suzanne Phillips regarding the plaque over Francis Eginton's grave;
Updated: 7 Jul 2011: First marriage certificate
added together with information about first husband George Richards
Updated June 2011 -
several updates including India map, information
from Karachi Grammar School etc.
Updated: 2 Jan 2006: Links added to W.C. Aitken
and others mentioned in recorded discussion.
Previous Update: 28 Jun 2005: Dan Smith data moved to new page.
