The genealogical enigma continues

I saw my cousin last week and we had a chance to talk at length about my grandfather. She is very keen on the royal link which made for lots of outrageous speculation and laughter. When she left I found myself wanting to review the facts in order to check that we weren't fabricating a mystery. After all, I don't want to be putting a huge amount of effort into chasing what-ifs when a completely mundane explanation of Grandad's missing birth certificate is right under my nose.

For example, I took another look at my grandfather's name, David Scott Ritchie. My mother, his daughter, grew up with the surname "Scott-Ritchie". The double-barrel form of surname often happens when the surnames of spouses are joined together. Now, I know my grandmother's surname wasn't Scott, but what if my great-grandmother's surname was? In other words, what if Maude Scott married somebody Ritchie and they named their son David Scott Ritchie?

Well, I tried this theory out and turned up nothing useful.

So I went back to my notes to remind myself why I was so sure that David's mother Maude had married David Scott Ritchie Sr. Perhaps, I thought, I was placing too much weight on the fact that my grandfather's name was the same as the husband of Maude Alice Parker. None of the surviving members of my family actually remember what Granny Maude's maiden name was.

What I found though was undeniable evidence that David's mother was Maude Alice Parker. I had in my possession a statutory declaration which served as my grandfather's birth record, stating that Maude was living at 22 Albert Street when David was born in 1902. I also had a copy of Maude Parker's marriage certificate which shows that she was living at that same address. One document came directly from my grandfather and the other came from the Government Record Office. There is no doubt that Maude was born Parker and no doubt that the man she married is the man who spent the latter part of his life in the asylum at Hanwell.

So the enigma continues. My grandfather, senior businessman and world traveller, bearing the noble likeness of Henry Duke of Gloucester, was the son of a cook and a mentally-challenged butler. Perhaps it is no wonder Grandad never spoke about his childhood or teenage years. Yet there must be records relating to his scholastic achievements, if nothing else. I am determined to find these, and anything else besides, because a man with so much charisma and talent is a man whose story deserves to be told.

Photo credit: "Blowing questions" by Brian Yap.

His good education must have come from somewhere, surely

Among the many questions surrounding my grandfather's background is the one concerning his education.

How did the son of two domestic servants get appointed to head up the South African office of an important British company? What equipped him to travel around the world talking about computers when most firms were still using basic adding machines?

My grandfather, David Scott Ritchie, was born in London and probably attended a school in St John's Wood with his cousins from the age of seven. This was when his father, David Ritchie Sr, was dismissed from service as a butler and admitted to the London County Hospital's asylum as a pauper. His mother, Maud Alice Ritchie, was a cook who resided with the family that employed her at Cleveland House, St James Square. Up until that time, it is unclear where my grandfather lived, given that both his parents were in domestic service but it seems unlikely that he would have received much exposure to books or sophisticated adult company wherever he was.

Unless he was identified early on as a little boy with special intelligence and coached in reading, writing and arithmetic by a kind-hearted employer. Perhaps the lady of the house allowed him to sit in on lessons with her children's tutor. Whatever the case, my grandfather developed wide-ranging interests, a great conversational style and an impeccable dress sense that remained with him until his death in 1989.

Then again, maybe he only began to blossom into his full potential later on. Maybe he was identified as a promising young man when he was working at his first job and delivering chocolates to the royal palace. It is possible that someone took an interest in him there, especially because of his strong resemblance to Henry, son of George, the future king of England. It could be that this person suspected a connection to the royal family and gave him a leg-up by recommending him to be the beneficiary of a college education.

Then there is the other possibility, that David was the unacknowledged son of a gentleman, and that the gentleman paid for his education in return for his mother's silence. This theory is fun to think about but I am inclined to discount it. To my mind, any admission to a smart school or university would have been worth celebrating and we would have heard about it. After all, what grandparent can help themselves when it comes to sharing stories from their own childhood with their grandchildren?

No, I tend to think that my grandfather was exposed to gentry early on. Whatever happened to him after his father was committed to the asylum probably remained undisclosed because of the stigma attached to mental illness. I believe his early exposure to books and stories about travel created in him an appetite for learning and a desire to escape the confines of the working class. By the time he finished school, his good grades and ambition were enough to propel him into the kind of career he thirsted for, and the rest is documented history.

Photo credit: "Aske's Boys School, New Cross, London" by Matt Martin.