Gertie the Gaiety Girl

A curious piece of family lore was brought to mind when I listened to a podcast episode about researching theatre ancestors. It was that "Gertie was a gaiety girl". Gaiety girl? My im

agination offered up images of sexy dancers but I doubted such women would get a mention at the box office. Plus, we had more than one Gertie in our family tree. Still, the podcast encouraged me to go searching, and the exercise proved very illuminating.

The fact that my mother  and aunt knew about Gertie's career in theatre pointed to her being the more recent Gertrude in the family tree. That would be Gertrude Parker, elder sister of Maude Parker. In other words, this was my Grandad's aunt on his mother's side.  She was born in 1871 in Marylebone and appeared on the 1891 census aged 20 and working as a parlour maid/domestic servant.

According to the podcast, it was typical for theatre people to have two jobs. Because of the inconsistency of stage work, they generally had a regular day job as well. In the case of Gaiety girls, working at the Gaiety Theatre in London's West End, their night job involved singing and dancing as members of the chorus in musical comedies. It was glamorous too, by the sounds of it, because London's top couturiers of the 1890s  designed fashionable bathing suits and clothes for the girls to wear on stage, knowing that their appearance in the theatre and in illustrated periodicals would serve as excellent publicity for their latest fashion lines.

The Gaiety Theatre was situated on Aldwych, at the eastern end of the Strand in Westminster. It had seating for 2000 people on four levels. Interestingly, the proprietor chose to ban smoking and drinking from the main theatre, instead providing separate saloons for these activities. Lighting was  achieved with a novel gaslighting system which created an appealing ambiance. The music was live and the script was witty, but manager George Edwardes was careful to steer clear of the racier elements of burlesque in order to please a slightly more refined audience.

The gaiety girls themselves were respectable young women, polite and well-mannered, according to Wikipedia. They drew people to the theatre and the surrounding restaurants and were regarded as suitable dates for bright young men. The term "stage door Johnnies" comes from the wealthy gentlemen who stood waiting for the chorus girls to emerge from the theatre after the show so they could take them out to dinner.

According to author Alan Hyman, who wrote the book The Gaiety Years, many unlikely matches occurred as a result of this practice. "At the old Gaiety in the Strand the chorus was becoming a matrimonial agency for girls with ambitions to marry into the peerage." After  the star Connie Gilchrist married  the 7th Earl of Orkney,, several other show girls abandoned George Edwards to marry noblemen, bankers or stockbrokers. "The Guv’nor finding this was playing ducks and drakes with his theatrical plans had a 'nuptial clause' inserted in every contract. ... Debutantes were competing with the other girls to get into the Gaiety chorus while upper-class youths were joining the ranks of the chorus boys."

Our Gaiety girl, Gertrude, married Harry Milner Willis, an accountant. The marriage took place   in 1892,  before George Edwards rose to the height of his career with shows that went to Broadway. Nevertheless, she may have participated in earlier productions, such as Faust up to Date [1888], Carmen up to Data [1890], and Cinder Ellen up too Late [1891].

Investigating the link between Gertie and the theatre taught me a lot about Edwardian musical comedy and London society in the 1890s. It also explained something about a family heirloom. I had inherited from my mother an autograph book full of signatures from actors and actresses. My aunt had been unable to remember how  it had come to be in the family, so my sister and I had assumed that Grandad, being so well-travelled, must have also collected autographs as a hobby. Now I believe it was Auntie Gertie who gathered the signatures because it was her that mixed in theatre circles, rubbing shoulders with the stars of the day and many minor characters who would go on to build illustrious careers.

 Photo credit: Miss Broughton in swing, by The National Archives UK.

Evidence of a good start in life

The search for evidence of Grandad's early life continues, but recently I made a couple of discoveries which I will write about in two separate blog posts. This post is about a medal I found, and the following one will be about a previously-forgotten photograph.

The story begins with my daughter Tammy coming out from England in September and asking to look for the ring my mother left her. Putting aside an afternoon at the end of her visit, we took out all the boxes I had stored containing my parents' special items. Tammy found the ring and a couple of gold wristwatches, well-worn but still very pretty, which I put aside to have checked by our jeweller. Then we proceeded to look through the other trinkets in the box to see what else was there. The last time we had gone through the trinkets was when we had been sorting my mother's possessions after she died, and that was eleven years ago.

Tammy came across what looked like a very old metal shield. It was difficult to read the inscription on it but she eventually succeeded. It said: "King's Medal, Awarded by the London County Council for punctual attendance, 1910-1911". The name "David Scott Ritchie" was also inscribed on the reverse of the medal, although it was extremely faint.

This was an Amazing find, since we have no other artefacts relating to Grandad's schooldays. In 1910 he would have been eight years old! The medal had been presented to him in his second or third year of school, and the fact that he attended regularly said a lot about his stable life at the time.

Tammy looked up the provenance of school attendance medals and learnt that they had been manufactured in several versions. Originally, they bore the name and face of Queen Victoria, then King Edward VII, then King George V. Grandad's King's Medal showed King George V on its face. It was presented by the London County Council to all children who attended school regularly, but only children with a 100% attendance record for the school year and whose behaviour was considered commendable by the headmaster qualified to receive it.

Apparently, the medal came with an orange ribbon but Grandad's medal had lost that, no doubt due to rough handling over the 110 years since it was awarded! I like to think of Grandad being proud of his achievement and of him holding onto the trinket as a reminder of his early years at school.

I took the medal, along with Mom's two gold wristwatches, to our jeweller for cleaning. Imagining that the King's Medal would come up shiny and new-looking, I was disappointed when I was told it couldn't be polished. Apparently, the metal they used was ordinary tin, or something like it, so any attempt to polish it would probably damage it. Later, when Tammy visited again, she  looked at the object I had taken to the jeweller and pronounced my mistake; I had taken an ordinary belt buckle, so it was no wonder the jeweller was confused about my claim that it was a family heirloom. Fortunately, there was no need for us to search in the boxes for the actual King's Medal because Tammy had images of it on her phone from when we had shared the discovery with my aunt and cousins. Maybe I could still get it polished, but the images are fine for now!

While the discovery of a school attendance medal cannot replace a birth certificate as proof that Grandad was born in England, it certainly adds something to the story. We know from the 1911 census that Grandad was at the home of his aunt and uncle, Emily and William Smith, on the night the census was taken. From what I have found out about his parents [see other posts about his father, David Scott Ritchie Sr and his mother, Maude], I feel certain that he was living with the Smiths permanently. From what I have learned about the Smith children and grandchildren, it appears that Emily and William placed a high value on education. So then, while the medal awarded to the nine-year-old David doesn't tell us how he became an engineer, it does satisfy my curiosity about how he avoided the long-term effects of having a mentally-ill father and a mother who worked as a cook in residence for aristocratic families. Thanks to the Smiths of St Johns Wood, my grandmother Sandy, mother Wendy, aunt Gillian and all their descendants benefitted from a stable home life, optimism about the future, and a sense of responsibility that translated itself into a sound work ethic and professional success.

Photo: Grandad's medal for good attendance at school..

  

New information gleaned from oral interview

Some exciting new information has come to light about my grandfather's whereabouts following the 1911 census. It came through an interview I did with my oldest living relative, my aunt Gillian. I conducted the interview via Zoom using the recording function, then transcribed the important parts into my notes. Here is what I learnt:

My aunt travelled to Europe with her friend in the fifties. While in London, she visited several  elderly relatives, among them her father's uncle, Uncle Alf. This would have been Grandad's mother's youngest brother whom I had on record as Alfred Parker. According to my aunt, Uncle Alf was like a father to her dad and her Dad was very fond of him.

 "He was a big man and he was a lovely man," said my aunt Gillian. "He really was. He and his wife, they were very happy and they lived very simply. At that stage, I didn't really take much notice, I went over there, we had a cup of tea, and that was Uncle Alf sorted out." She added, "To us, he was old. I don't know what age they were but to us they were old, whereas we were young, we were hitching around Europe."

Hearing my aunt talk about her visit, I was surprised. According to what I had found out so far, Alfred was born in 1884 in Marylebone and was living with his widowed mother Jane in both the 1901 and 1911 censuses. This had led me to assume Alfred had never married but I was wrong. Preliminary research turned up a record on  Family Search that showed he married Florence Edith Harper in 1912.

Even more surprising was the information that Alfred was like a father to David. Did this mean David had lived with Alfred and his wife? The 1911 census showed that David was at the home of his maternal aunt and uncle, Emily and William Smith, in St John's Wood. Now I wondered if he had just been visiting, or if he had moved in with Alfred and Florence when they married the following year.

I did my best to imagine how the relationship between Alfred and David had developed.  Alfred would have been 18 at the time David was born. He would have been 25 when David's father, David Scott Ritchie Sr, was admitted to the Hanwell asylum. The Hanwell admission records show that he was with Emily and William in 1909, which is where he was in 1911 as well. Perhaps, then, he did only move in with Alfred after Alfred got married. The marriage certificate might provide clues but even more useful would be the 1921 census, showing where David was living at age 19. Access to the 1921 census is currently prohibited by the 100-year privacy rule but that restriction will fall away next year.

  I'm not sure what year my aunt visited Uncle Alf in London. The record on Family Search states that Alfred died in 1956 at the age of 72. Gillian would have been 24 at the time. I doubt she and her friend would have travelled to Europe earlier than that, so her memory of him as an old man was accurate.

My aunt Gillian is 88 going on 89 as I write this, and in very good health. It's truly a privilege to be able to learn family history from her first-hand accounts. Speaking to her gave me some excellent leads which I will be following up with online research and assistance from a professional genealogist. Look out for more information as I come across it!

Photo credit: "Wood Marylebone, Marylebone, NW1" by Ewan Munro

 

An alternative origin story for David Scott Ritchie of Paddington

My last post on this blog reported  on a DNA connection between my aunt, born Gillian Margaret Scott-Ritchie, and her cousins who emigrated to Canada. The genetic link confirmed that my grandfather David Scott Richie was definitely the biological son of David Scott Ritchie Sr, the slight-looking man in the photo from Hanwell Asylum published elsewhere on the blog.

This left me with a conundrum. How could I explain Grandad's aristocratic appearance? More puzzling still, who funded his education and facilitated his entry into the burgeoning computer industry?

Finally, I dared to ask the question, What if  Maude, my great-grandmother, wasn't Grandad's biological mother? It would certainly explain the absence of a birth certificate. It would also account for the fact that  Maude wasn't part of my mother and aunt's life growing up. Documents show that she didn't even live with my grandfather from the time he was about 7, choosing instead to have him live with her sister Emily.

Here is a possible version of events, based on what I know about the way things worked in London society at the turn of the twentieth century:

David Scott Ritchie worked as a footman for the Viscount Francis Wheler Hood and Edith Lydia Drummond Hood. He charmed a young girl of aristocratic birth who either lived at the house or came to stay. When it emerged that the girl was pregnant, her parents were appalled. However, they happened to be people of good character, so they made arrangements for the child to be taken care of. Picking another of the servants, a young, responsible woman named Maude Alice Parker, they organised a marriage between David Scott Sr and Maude Alice before the expected birth and set them up at 22 Albert Street. They even established a fund to ensure that the child would receive a proper education.

All might have gone according to plan had not David Scott Ritchie Sr suffered an attack of insanity in 1909 and been institutionalised. The fact that he was first seen at the local workhouse and lived out the rest of his life in a paupers' asylum indicates how hard up he and Maude were. Yet their son, my grandfather, left school and landed a job with an engineering company who transferred him to South Africa at the age of 28 to head up their newest branch.

I have a good feeling about this version of events. If it is true, it would explain why my grandfather never spoke about his early life. Knowing there was a secret surrounding his birth and how he came to be at a good school, he would have been obliged to keep the facts hidden.

The same goes for me if I should discover the identity of the young girl through my DNA research. The next question I have to answer is, How do I create a family tree that is private so i can continue building it with historical records without compromising anyone else's privacy?

Photo credit: Image from page 265 of"The Linzee family of Great Britain and the United States of America and the allied families of Penfold, Hood, Amory, Tilden, Hunt, Browne, Wooldridge [and] Evans".

 1917,; Linzee, John William, by Internet Archive Book Images.

 

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.

The strange case of the Smith family of St John's Wood

This post is a continuation of my previous post about finding second cousins on my mother's side. In that post, I reached the conclusion that I should examine the children of Emily and William Smith, the couple who cared for my grandfather David Scott Ritchie from about 1909 onwards. This led to some frustrating research, a surprising finding and an illuminating dream.

Emily and William had 5 children of their own, as far as I can tell from census records, plus Grandad, their "adopted" son who was living with them in St John's Wood in 1911. Here is what I managed to find by trawling through hints on Findmypast.co.uk:

LS Smith, a daughter born in 1892 in Marylebone, could be one of several people in the military records, death records and 1939 Register. There seems to be no birth or baptism record . Perhaps the date of birth on the census is incorrect, except that Emily and William only married in 1891, making it unlikely that she was born before 1892.

Frank E Smith, a son born in 1893 in Marylebone, is slightly less mysterious, although I still had to make some big assumptions based on the year of his birth. I believe he was born on 20 July 1893, served in the Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment in 1914, and married Ella B [maiden name unknown]. Together they had a son named Vernon F Smith, who was born on 28 August 1929. At the time of the 1939 Register, Frank, Ella and Vernon were living in Dorchester Way in what appears now to be a 5-bedroom semi-detached house. Frank was a post office sorter. He died in Marylebone in 1960. Note that no birth or baptism record turned up for him either.

Alice M Smith, a daughter born in 1899 in Marylebone, is once again a very mysterious individual. She may have served as a nurse in a volunteer unit but another record of a nurse with a similar name gives the wrong birth date. An Elsie M Smith crops up in Marylebone married to Ernest Smith, but they would have had to share the same name before marriage if she had remained a Smith after marriage, which seems unlikely. Again, no birth certificate turned up in the hints and no marriage certificate.

Ivy Smith is a really difficult case. A son born in 1902 in Marylebone, he was Grandad's contemporary and would likely have been in the same class at school. I will come back to him.

Richard William Smith, a son born in 1904 in Marylebone, is thankfully a little less complicated. However, as in the case of Frank E Smith, I had to guess his identity based on his birth year, there being several other Richard Smiths in the mix. I believe he was born on 16 January 1904 and became a general clerk. He married, although his wife was not present with him in Wandsworth on the 1939 Register, nor any children. He died in Wandsworth in 1981.

Now to the surprising finding. Although Richard William Smith's household in the 1939 Register didn't include his wife or children, it does include his widowed mother, Emily Eliza Smith. It also, interestingly enough, includes an Ivy Francis Smith, born on 2 January 1902. You will remember that Ivy was previously listed as a son of Emily and William, but now she is listed as female, working as a saleslady in a drapery shop. Clearly, the earlier census record was incorrect on this point. But there is something else which is troubling. Instead of giving her surname as Smith, she gives it as "Batchelor [Fordham]". If the name "Batchelor" is not confusing enough, harking back to the question of her gender, then surely the name in brackets, her maiden name, should be Smith, not Fordham?

I went to bed pondering this issue, then had a dream which brought clarity. In the dream, I was questioning a little girl about her parents' names, trying to solve a mystery about where Ivy fitted in. I awoke with the conviction that she must have been adopted. Fordham was the name of her biological mother. Hmmm. Interesting....

What if Emily and William could not have children of their own? What if all their children were adopted? It would certainly explain the absence, as far as I can presently tell, of birth records for them under the Smith name. It would also fit in with their informal adoption of my grandfather. This is all a matter of speculation for now as I'm still very much in the middle of my research into this family, but it does point a way forward. I believe that, by further investigating Ivy Batchelor [Fordham[, I will discover more about the rest of the family, even if it doesn't lead to second cousins who are actual DNA relatives!

Photo credit: "Frost fairies" by Plum leaves.

In search of second cousins on my mother's side

I've decided to take a break from reporting on David Ritchie Sr's mental illness in order to post a couple of updates on my search for DNA relatives. According to 23andMe, we each have about 250 first and second cousins, which I find amazing and hard to believe. my own family is really small, with just 2 cousins on my mother's side and 2 on my father's side. How can it be that this number could multiply so quickly?

Let's look at definitions. A first cousin is someone who shares a set of grandparents with you. He or she is the child of one of your parent's siblings. In my case, my mother's sister had 2 children who are my first cousins on my mother's side, and my father's sister had 2 children who are my first cousins on my father's side. Neither my mother nor my father had a brother, so that's it.

A second cousin, by definition, is someone who shares a set of great-grandparents with you. he or she is the child of one of your parents' first cousins. At this point, i find myself rather stumped. i don't know any of my parents' first cousins. Why? It never even occurred to me to ask about it while my parents were alive. Now that I am looking into my family's history, it strikes me as rather puzzling and worth investigating.

I'll focus today on my mother's side. Her parents, Dave and Sandy Ritchie, were both only children. At least, that's the story. Grandma definitely didn't have siblings. Grandad always claimed that he had no brothers or sisters but that's not completely true. i have a census record where his mother Maude states that she gave birth to 2 children, one of whom is living and one of whom died. Then there is the fact that Grandad appears on the 1911 census as the "son" of Emily and William Smith. Did they formally adopt him? I don't think so, as it is Maude, not Emily, who is pictured in photographs of my grandfather and my aunt as a baby. Yet they must have thought of him as part of their family to have called him a son on the census.

To give some background, Emily was Maude's elder sister. Emily and William were looking after Grandad because his father, my great-grandfather, had been committed to an asylum a couple of years earlier. Their children would have been like brothers and sisters to my grandfather while he was at school. That being the case, it follows that the Smiths' grandchildren should have been like my mother's cousins. And, taking the argument to its logical conclusion, the children of those grandchildren should be like my second cousins, if not by blood then by virtue of descending from a common childhood home.

As far as locating these people is concerned, I'm making slow progress. I've managed to establish that the Smiths had 5 of their own children, all of whom were born in Marylebone. They are, in order of birth, LS Smith [a girl] born in 1892, FE Smith [a boy] born in 1893, Alice M Smith born in 1899, Ivy Smith [a boy] born in 1902, and Richard William Smith born in 1904. Now the challenge is to track their spouses and children, and those children's spouses and children, until I eventually find descendants of Emily and William who belong to my own generation.

Granted, these descendants wouldn't actually be my second cousins, but so what? I'm going to be painfully short of second cousins if i don't count them. Besides, they are still my relatives on the Parker side. If they don't have old photos and stories about my great-grandfather's childhood, I can still ask them if they are interested in taking a DNA test and locating second cousins of their own.

Photo credit: "Ascending the Stairs" by Thad Zajdowicz.

Transforming documentary evidence into plausible family history

After my in-depth examination and presentation of the documents relating to David Ritchie's admission to the London County Asylum, I feel the need to meld the elements together into a proper story. In this, I must take some literary licence. There are still big gaps in my knowledge, especially with regard to my great-grandfather's medical diagnosis. What follows is, therefore, only a possible version of events, yet it helps bring history to life.

To recap, David Ritchie Sr, born in November 1873 in Tottenham, was the second son of William and Emma Eliza Ritchie. The census of 1891 found him living with his widowed mother and sister in the City of London and working as a junior clerk. A year later, at the age of 18, he suffered an attack of insanity and switched his occupation to footman.

For 10 years, he maintained a steady track record, eventually finding himself in the enviable position of working for the Viscount Francis Wheler Hood in Mayfair. There he met Alice Parker, whose Christian name was Maude. When it emerged that Maude was pregnant, the couple moved from Chesterfield Street to a boarding-house in Albert Street. They married in February 1902 and their son David was born on the last day of March.

As soon as it was possible for Maude to wean David, she arranged for him to go and live with her sister Emily, who had a son of the same age. Maude and David Ritchie Sr returned to work as before, in aristocratic houses. For example, David worked at 10 Cornwall Gardens, South Kensington from May 1904 till September 1907. Then came an opportunity for both him and Maude to work for Sir Charles Murray at Cleveland House in St James Square, Piccadilly.

David and Maude finished up at their respective jobs a month ahead of the new appointment. Emily and William Smith kindly invited them to stay at their house so they could spend time with their son. Maude readily agreed, anticipating a welcome holiday. But the house was full of noisy children and, given his mental fragility, David Ritchie felt overwhelmed. He couldn't wait to relocate to the much more sedate and orderly atmosphere of Cleveland House.

Things did not improve though. The last couple of weeks at the Smith household had exposed him to childhood illnesses, leaving him suffering from deafness. Then his son fell ill and was transferred to the fever hospital. The stress of meeting a new employer, trying to learn the foreign habits of the rest of the Murray family, and worrying about his son, combined with his own deteriorating health, lowered his defences against insanity. His speech turned to rambling, he sang and laughed at inappropriate times, and he claimed to have been sent to elevate the human race. When he refused to be silenced and resisted efforts to control him, it became clear to Maude that she needed help.

Lacking the means to take him to a doctor herself, she turned to the Parish of St Marylebone. They accepted him as a pauper into the workhouse. He was examined by a medical practitioner and found to be of unsound mind. Feeling helpless, Maude agreed that he should be transferred to the London County Asylum in Hanwell for special care and treatment. Thus began the long separation; her working for the Murrays in St James Square, her son David living with her sister in ST John's Wood, and her husband living as a lunatic behind high walls in Hanwell.

Personally, I don't understand why Maude didn't live with one of her other single sisters, work as a daily woman and raise her son herself, but she must have had her reasons.

Photo credit: "Old doll with blue dress" by Lisa Ann Yount.

Facts about David Ritchie Sr's whereabouts prior to his diagnosis of insanity

The final batch of documents relating to the admission of my great-grandfather to the London County Asylum in Hanwell contains illuminating details about his life in the years prior to his breakdown in June 1909. The documents are actually a series of procedural letters and forms aimed at establishing whether his expenses should be covered by the Parish of St Marylebone or the Parish of Kensington. Yet they provide valuable information to flesh out the story as we know it so far.

There is a letter to Miss Louisa Parker, the eldest sister of David's wife Maude, who is living in New Cavendish Street. In it, the Settlement Officer of St Marylebone asks for information pertaining to David Ritchie's stay at 10 Cornwall Gardens, South Kensington. Louisa Parker provides the following answers: Firstly, Mr David S Ritchie went to live at that address in May 1904, and stayed there till 30 September 1907. His stay there was continuous, as opposed to broken periods. While at Cornwall Gardens, he had nothing whatever to do with any hospital, infirmary or institution of any sort.

A second letter from the Settlement Officer is addressed to Miss Clara Philpott, 2 Portman Square. Miss Philpott gives basically the same answers: David Ritchie stayed at 10 Cornwall Gardens, South Kensington, for 3 years and 6 months, and he left on 30 September 1907. His stay there was continuous. Not once while at Cornwall Gardens did he become an in-patient at a hospital, infirmary or any other institution.

There follows a page of notes summing up the findings of the Settlement Officer. Here are the pertinent facts:

For the week preceding his arrival at the Marylebone Workhouse, David Ritchie stayed at Cleveland House in St James Square. He was with his wife Maude, who was working at this address.

Before Cleveland House, David Ritchie stayed for a month at 41 Cockrin Street in St John's Wood. This was the home of Maude's sister Emily and her husband William Smith.

Tracking backwards in time, the notes indicate that, for the 11 months prior to his stay with the Smiths, David Ritchie stayed at 14 Clafaine Road, Canonbury. No further details are given about this location.

Before that 11-month stay, he was at 10 Cornwall Gardens, South Kensington. It appears that the head of this household may have been Sir Henry Bliss, because there is a note beside his name that says, "Gone. Abingdon, Oxford. No relief here." Maybe Miss Clara Philpott, who was applied to for information about his stay, was a servant who worked with him at this address. I do not know who she could be otherwise.

The upshot of all this investigation was a lengthy printed order from St Marylebone regarding "Lunatic Settlement, Maintenance and Care", signed in the presence of the police. This was, in the words of Judy Lester, "a formal order of removal from the Parish of ST Marylebone to the Parish of Kensington, and a request for Kensington to reimburse St Marylebone with all the expenses of getting David Scott Ritchie to the asylum, plus the costs of his ongoing care and maintenance while he remained there. This was because his parish of legal settlement had been adjudged as Kensington, on the basis of 3 continuous years residence at Cornwall Gardens [1904 to 1907]. Point of interest: The costs of care and maintenance at hanwell were being charged at 1 shilling 5 3/4 pence per day."

Image Description - Vintage European style key engraving from Six Semaines de vacances by Paul Poiré (1880). Original from the British Library. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel.

Young love in the streets of Mayfair

After walking through Marylebone and seeing the modest houses where Maude had lived as a child, we found Knightsbridge and Mayfair striking in their grandeur. We were approaching Chesterfield Street where my great-grandmother and great-grandfather were in service together. How they must have congratulated themselves on landing such enviable jobs!

As explained in an earlier blog post, the census record in which they both appear was hard to trace. I had been looking for Maude Parker in the 1901 census and eventually found her listed as Alice Parker. David, for his part, was listed as Daria. Finding them living and working in the same household was an incredible surprise. Better still, it explained how they must have met.

The census record revealed that they were both single and occupied as household staff. They were listed along with 10 other staff members, the most senior being Charles Dixon, aged 55, who must have been the butler. The head of the house was the Viscount Francis Wheler Hood and the only other family members living there were the Viscountess Edith Hood and their adult daughter, the Honourable Dorothy Hood.

We found the address very easily because I had researched the property and discovered that it was now the premises of the High Commission of the Bahamas. Although the house looks fairly compact from the front, it is apparently very spacious inside. In addition to the rooms having high ceilings, the property stretches far back, affording ample space for entertaining and accommodating guests.

In my imagination I can see Maude Alice Parker standing just behind the butler, Charles Dixon, as he holds open the front door. She is ready to take the cloaks and hats from the arriving visitors and show them into the parlour. Meanwhile, David, serving as footman, directs the carriage and horses to the courtyard at the back. Outside on the street, a young boy in heavy boots lights a row of oil lamps. From a house across the way, a silver-haired man with a walking-stick steps out for an evening of high-stakes gambling at his nearby gentleman's club.

I may not be accurate in my depiction of the details of this scene but the exercise is fruitful in making me contemplate

the actual lives of my ancestors. Standing in the street where they had possibly stolen kisses late at night, I came face to face with the fact that Maude Parker and David Ritchie were far more than names on a census. Nor were they staid and starchy as we tend to think the Victorians were. No, the young couple were adventurous, passionate and idealistic, no doubt as full of big dreams for the new century as I once was for the new millennium.

Geographical gaps and genealogy guesswork

Paddington wasn't the pretty, upmarket neighbourhood I had envisaged when planning my trip to London. Somehow I had merged my impressions of the old Victorian tube station with those of paddington Bear and come up with a picture of bright windows and cosy interiors. What I found was a bleak area crouching under a leaden sky, foul-smelling gutters and lots of traffic noise.

What was more, we were coming to a location that was extremely significant in terms of my genealogical research but for which I had very few addresses.

Here's what I knew about Paddington:

First, Maude Alice Parker and David Scott Ritchie had been living here at the time of their wedding in February 1902. In particular, they had been living in Albert Street. However, my husband and daughter had struggled to find an Albert Street address that seemed to fit the facts. So we could not visit the place where David and Maude had first lived as a married couple.

Second, their marriage had happened in Paddington. But I had forgotten to write down any details. My daughter had said something about a registry office, I thought, but none of us could be sure. So visiting the location where the couple signed the marriage register was out of the question too.

Third, my grandfather David Scott Ritchie had been born at Paddington Green, but that could either refer to the Paddington Green Children's Hospital or the general vicinity of Paddington Green. The fact that we had not yet found a birth certificate could suggest that David had been born at home and his birth not registered at all—except that, as I said elsewhere, Maude came from a family where such events were scrupulously recorded. Whether or not David was born at the hospital, though, that building still stands. it is now a health centre offering daytime consultations and its interior has no doubt been significantly modernised. nevertheless, the inscription that identifies it as once having been the Children's Hospital can be clearly seen.

The entrance to the building is directly opposite an entrance to Paddington Green, the park, so we paused there to take photographs. If my grandfather was indeed born there at the end of march 1902, I reflected, the weather in London would not have been very different from today. Perhaps it would have been a bit sunnier and the grass would have sprouted clumps of cheerful daffodils, but the wind would still have plucked at David Scott Ritchie Sr's coat as he turned into the gate

and hurried up the steps.

Of all the images that stayed with me after we left Paddington Green, this is the one that remains. A young father going to see his wife and newborn baby. Feelings of excitement mingled with guilt at having made her pregnant before they were married. Anxiety about whom he might meet in the maternity ward and what he should say to them. Worry about whether this inauspicious start would lay a burden on the child and what, if anything, he could do to make that burden lighter.

Help wanted with the history of Broadley Street

Maude Alice Parker, my great-grandmother, lived in Earl Street at the time of the 1891 census. Today the street has been renamed Broadley Street. I visited there on my recent trip to England, although I doubt it resembles the old Earl Street much these days. A wide, attractive road with good pavements now runs where, probably, a couple of narrow lanes wove before.

If anyone can contribute information about when and why Earl Street became Broadley Street, it would be of great help to me. At this point, I only have suppositions to go on. The following are some thoughts currently brewing in my mind:

Maude and her family lived in a house that is not numbered in the census. I assume this means the houses didn't have a proper numbering system. It is unlikely, therefore, that the family occupied rooms in a large boarding establishment. More likely, they lived in a cottage in a row

On a more whimsical note, the new name "Broadley Street" calls to mind something I read in a wonderful Phil Rickman novel entitled Curfew

. The novel features a gentleman who is investing money into the resuscitation of a depressed town in Herefordshire based on what he knows about ley lines. ley lines are generally regarded as pseudoscience because of the tendency of New Age enthusiasts to equate them with pathways of spiritual power. Yet when Alfred Watkins first coined the phrase in 1921, he was thinking more in terms of ancient trackways for navigation in a densely forested landscape. What is especially interesting is that Watkins coined the term "ley" because the first line he discerned passed through several towns whose names contained the syllable "ley", suggesting that the towns were named thus because they "lay" on the ancient trackways.

So, I'm posing the question: does the name Broadley Street have deep, prehistoric roots? Was there once a marker, such as a standing stone or spring, to guide the footsteps of Britain's early inhabitants? Or is the name simply derived from a certain mr Broadley who happened to live nearby? I rather like the idea that the street in which my great-grandmother came of age was an ancient trackway, but if she only ever knew it as Earl Street, that's okay too.

A visit to Huntsworth Mews

Before i describe my visit to Huntsworth Mews, let me warn you that this is not an account which will satisfy the scientifically-minded reader. I can't read maps or street signs, nor can I describe with confidence what an edifice looks like. Visual impairment forces me to focus on what I pick up through my intuition and so I'll ask you to be content with that.

I had researched a little about Huntsworth Mews, as reported in a previous post, but that research didn't prepare me very well for what I found. i was expecting a quaint, cobbled street with Victorian row houses, complete with two steps leading up to a painted door. Instead, i found what appeared to me like a yard. If there had once been front doors at ground level — or even stables and carriage houses — they were now gone, replaced by garages for the residents who lived in the upstairs apartments.

This was disappointing because I couldn't see any pretty Victorian architecture on the house fronts at all. Perhaps this was because there never had been any, the houses having been accommodation for servants in days gone by. or perhaps renovations to the buildings had resulted in the loss of old-fashioned details, especially if those details had been too weathered or damaged to restore.

The old archway leading from the outer street into the mews is, however, still as it always was. Standing beside it, I had a sense of what the atmosphere must once have been like. I could imagine horses passing in and out of the gate, some carrying riders on errands for their masters,, others pulling carriages decked out with curtains and plush velvet seats. Inside the mews, boot makers, bucklers, dressmakers and spinners would be working in a patch of sheltered sunlight, keeping company with their neighbours. Mothers of small children would be busy with washing, cooking and cleaning the house, while the children themselves would be scooting round the edges, chasing the odd tabby cat or chanting rhymes as their grandmothers had taught them to do.

Summer time would probably have been hot in that closed, paved space, but winter would have been fairly cosy, especially if horses were stabled under the houses and hearth-fires were kept burning. Maude's family numbered 12 in all at the time, which would also have added to the feeling of warmth.

My overall impression of Huntsworth Mews was favourable. It was a solid place from which to embark on life's journey in the latter half of the 19th century. Not only were the buildings strong and protective, but the community they housed were knitted together in both work and leisure, producing a comfortable and nurturing environment.

Walking in my great-grandmother's footsteps

A recent trip to England to see our daughter gave my husband and I an opportunity to look up some addresses that feature in the narrative of my grandfather's mother, Maude Alice Parker nee Ritchie. I had collated the addresses into a list from census records and other documentation. Google then assisted in the plotting of the points on a map and coming up with a route to link them all. This post is about the route we took, while future posts will detail the events which took place at each location.

Our starting point was Piccadilly Circus where we were staying. We boarded a tube for Marylebone Station and rose to street level via a couple of very long escalators. I believe Marylebone Station is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, underground train station in London, although this would only apply to the upper platform since deep-level tunnelling came later. It's hard to imagine what the old station would have looked like in the late 1800's, given the crowds of sneakered tourists and suited businessmen, not to mention electric cars, vans and double-decker buses that populate the area today.

Following the satellite navigation, we made our way to Huntsworth Mews where Maude lived as a little girl. Not much of the facade remains now but the secluded, paved road is just the same as it was.

Next we walked to Broadley Street, formerly Earl Street, where Maude lived in her early teens. The street is now an attractive residential road, although I have a sense that it comprised much less salubrious accommodation at the end of the 19th century. It has nice wide pavements now and the houses are set back a little from the street, suggesting that the upgrading of the area may have included some demolition of small cottages.

Our walk took us through a busy and very noisy part of town to what used to be the Paddington Green Children's Hospital. It is now a care centre but the red brick gate-posts and facade are reminiscent of times past. This was where my grandfather was born. Directly opposite the gates of the old hospital is Paddington Green itself, a fenced park with very wintry-looking trees. No doubt Maude would have known it well.

Heading into Westminster, we found Brown Street, the address given by Maude on her statutory declaration of David's birth. That was in 1918 when my grandfather was 16. Standing on the corner, I caught a snatch of conversation between two young men in suits and gleaned from their discussion about finance that they were probably in the banking sector.

By this time, it was mid-afternoon. Catching a bus, we emerged at Knightsbridge where some of London's most expensive property is located. After admiring the beautiful facades of buildings occupied by property brokers, accountants and lawyers in Curzon Street, we reached Mayfair and Chesterfield Street. This is another very impressive road, much quieter than Curzon Street and thick with blue signs identifying the addresses of historical notaries such as author Somerset Maugham, prime minister Anthony Eden and fashion leader Beau Brummell. Right in the middle of all this fame and fortune lived the Viscount Hood at the residence which now houses the High Commission of the Bahamas. It was here that Maude worked in 1901 as a kitchen maid and met the man who was to become her husband.

Staying amongst the rich and famous, we made our way across Green Park to St James Square. Our route took us along the mall and the area where the Queen's horses are stabled. There was a convoy of motorcycles ahead of us which could have been escorting an important official but it wasn't likely to have been any of the royals as they are currently in Sandringham, to the best of our knowledge. Anyway, we finally reached St James Square and the address where Maude was working in 1911. It is now the London headquarters of the Rolex Watch Company.

With the sun sinking fast and the temperature dropping, we hurried through St James Park back to Piccadilly Circus. Two things stood out to me from the afternoon's long ramble: Firstly, that what was for us just a tiny part of the city was, in Maude's day, quite a substantial portion of it. And secondly, that the 1939-1945 war must have wrought extensive damage in the streets through which we'd passed although I detected nothing but neatness and order.

A possible narrative for Maude Alice Parker nee Ritchie

As a student of English literature, I am unabashedly influenced by novels. Historical novels, in particular, can throw valuable light on the customs of the past. Family history research is, i believe, enriched by such reading, and has given me insight into what my great-grandmother, Maude Alice Parker, may have had to go through as a young woman in Marylebone, London at the start of the 20th century.

For the sake of full disclosure, the book that gave me an appreciation of her circumstances and a possible narrative for her life story is Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell. I can heartily recommend it to any genealogist looking for a close view into English country life. But back to Maude. here is what may have occurred:

Maude wasn’t raised in a God-fearing family. By the time she came along, the ninth of 10 children, her parents had wearied of raising young girls. She was more or less raised by her sisters, with the result that her knowledge of men focused more on the potential for romance than on caution and restraint.

When she was about 20, Maude obtained work in the residence of the Viscount Hood at 10 Chesterfield Street. The Hoods entertained hundreds of guests, nearly all of them titled. The servants numbered about 15 and were largely chosen for their attractive appearance and good manners. Maude herself was pretty and eager. She attracted the attention of one of the visitors to the house and was charmed by his interest in her. Without realising that there was any shame involved, she fell in love with the gentleman and allowed him to have his way with her.

Discovering that she was pregnant, Maude felt a mixture of shock and wonder at the thought that she was carrying her beloved's child. However, reality quickly sobered her up as instructions came for her to leave her job. The gentleman, fearing exposure, urged her to say that the child was that of a fellow servant, David Scott Ritchie. In return for this subterfuge, the gentleman gave the couple a handsome endowment which they could spend as they wished.

The young couple moved together into Albert Street, occupying rooms they could never previously have afforded. However, they soon had to face the fact that they were totally unsuited to each other. Maude was only interested in her child, whereas David, who had no time for another man’s son, wanted to invest in business like his father and brothers. It was agreed that they would move out of Albert Street into separate lodgings. In Maude’s case, she moved in with her younger sister, Gertrude. Her estranged husband, for his part, took his share of the money and went south to Devon where he bought property.

As soon as she could, Maude sent young David to boarding school and returned to full-time work. However, she bore the shame of wantonness because everyone knew she had been pregnant when she got married. Unable to find work as a dressmaker along with Louisa, Ellen and Mabel, she sought work as a cook once again.

At some point in his young life, David was told that he was illegitimate. This knowledge burdened him with shame because he was well aware of the disgrace associated with so-called “loose women”. Even though Maude assured him the shame was hers, not his, his sunny disposition was darkened by the ostracism his mother suffered. Moreover, he had to bear the weight of his secret knowledge at school among the other boys, with all their fantasies about pretty, innocent girls. This had the effect of turning him into a more thoughtful and compassionate scholar than many of his peers.

As young David grew and began to excel in academics and sport, Maude struggled with her wish to hold him close. He was her only son and she was inexpressively proud of him. Yet, for his own sake, she needed to let him go so that he could pursue his ambitions and dreams. Thus, when he finished school, she encouraged him to find a job that would take him far from home, far from the orbit of her influence and the stain that was apparently forever on her character.

The tragedy of Maude’s early infatuation [or love, as it may well have been] with the high-born gentleman in Chesterfield Street left its mark on both Maude and her unfortunate husband. She remained in lowly service all her life, seldom seeing her son and his South African family. As for David Scott Ritchie senior, he lost all his money when his tenants were called up to fight in the First World War. Disappointed and humiliated at having to go back into service as a butler, he eventually succumbed to depression and fits of rage, which lost him his job and sent him into a mental hospital for the poor.

A truly fortuitous find in the 1901 census

Census records are a rich source of information for the family historian. If you are lucky, you can find the names, birth dates and birth locations of a whole family, plus the occasional brother-in-law, elderly parent or future marriage partner. Especially useful are the details you discover about where a family lived over the course of time and how their occupations developed or changed.

But sometimes you hit a brick wall and are unable to locate a person on a census record at all. This happened for me in both Maude Alice Parker and David Scott Ritchie senior's cases. Knowing that gaps on the census can indicate travel, military service or institutionalisation, I tried broadening my search to include locations outside of London and even the United Kingdom, but with no luck.

What puzzled me was that I had evidence to suggest that Maude and David were right there in Paddington. For one thing, the pair were married in Paddington in the first quarter of 1902. For another, Maude's statutory declaration citing the date of my grandfather's birth also gave the address where they were living, which was 22 Albert Street in the same neighbourhood. Surely they could not have been out of the country in 1901?

In desperation, I began searching for anyone named Parker who was born around 1879 in Marylebone who appeared on the 1901 census. There were a few hits that came up for women named Maude or Alice, so I checked those out first. Sure enough, there was an Alice Parker working as a kitchen maid at a house in Chesterfield Street, Mayfair. The age was slightly out but everything else looked promising.

The transcription on Ancestry made it look as if the house was full of foreigners, so muddled were some of the names. But a few searches on Google soon solved that mystery. What I had in front of me was the household of the Viscount Francis Hood. The status of the family is born out by the number of servants they employed, as well as the fact that their home on Chesterfield Street is now the premises of the High Commission of the Bahamas.

An even bigger surprise came when I scrutinised the names of the other servants living in the house. A footman from Tottenham was among them and his name was Daria Ritchie. Now, it's not rocket science to realise that "David" can appear as "Daria" if the entry was scribbled, and, indeed, another genealogist had noted the error in transcription of this name as well as several others.

So, I've found my missing lovers! It is quite likely that Maude met David through her job, although perhaps they met beforehand and enlisted together. The main thing is, i have an address for them before they married. Slowly but surely, i am building a timeline for them and, by extension, for my grandfather's early life.

Illustration from "Directions to Servants in general; and in particular to the Butler, Cook, Footman, Coachman, Groom, House-Steward and Land-Steward, Porter, Dairy-Maid, Chamber-Maid, Nurse, Laundress, House-Keeper, Tutoress or Governess, etc", "Miscellaneous Single Works"

Author: Swift, Jonathan Shelfmark: "British Library HMNTS 1077.i.45."

Changes evident in1891 Marylebone

Sometime between 1881 and 1891, the Parker family moved from Huntsworth Mews to Earl Street. Perhaps this was because the family had shrunk with the older children leaving home and Ann Watson no longer staying with them. The 1891 census records just 5 people in the household, as opposed to the 12 listed ten years earlier.

Actually, I struggled to find Earl Street in the pages cataloguing London streets. Unlike Hunstworth Mews, it didn't pop up on property websites offering centrally-located residential accommodation. I wondered whether it had been bombed in the war and had to be cleared, but that wasn't the case. It turns out that the name of the street was changed in the early 19th century to Broadley Street, and that it is, in fact, very close to huntsworth Mews. The only difference is that Huntsworth Mews comprises terrace houses while Broadley Street consists mostly of flats.

As before, while researching the history of the area, I was astonished at what I found. What is today a bustling area of London, alive with night life and exhibitions, was once overrun with rats and rampant with disease. Just down the road in Lisson Grove, a veritable rabbit warren of hovels was built on ground poisoned by cess-pits, and thieves and murderers were said to be lurking in the shadows, ready to pounce on anyone who could relieve their grinding poverty and hunger. Maude would have been familiar with the nearby Marylebone Workhouse and the foundlings who ended up there. I doubt she could have harboured any sentimentality amidst such deprivation. On the contrary, I wouldn't be surprised if, at age 11, she was a tough pre-teen herself.

It isn't clear how many times Jane Parker, her mother, gave birth after Maude arrived in the world. What the 1891 census tells us is that young Alfred Parker was born in 1884, bringing the number of children in the family up to ten. Perhaps there was another child between him and Maude, say in 1882, who succumbed to illness, but I will have to search for a birth record to check that. At any rate, Maude must have been exposed to some pretty gruesome sights, smells and sounds in her formative years.

Maude Parker's first home in Marylebone

Not being a resident of London, I had to be taught how to pronounce Marylebone. One apparently has to say "Marly-bin", or something to that effect. Anyway, for those interested in where names come from, this part of London takes its name from the 900-year-old parish that was originally called St Mary the Virgin, or St Mary of the Born.

Maude's first home was in Huntsworth Mews, which is described on Wikipedia as a "through road with a cul-de-sac section, approached through an entrance under a building on Gloucester Place in Westminster, leading onto Taunton Mews". Note that I have to rely on other people's word pictures because I can't read maps or view photographs myself. Apparently both Huntsworth Mews and Taunton Mews are within the Westminster City Council’s Dorset Square Conservation Area, meaning that the large red brick and terracotta buildings still retain their original late Victorian style. The mews is said to have been named after Huntsworth in Somerset because the estate that originally owned the land, the Portman Estate, also owned land there.

Back in 1881 when Maude was an infant, Huntsworth Mews provided stable/ coach house accommodation to the main houses on Gloucester Place. As such, it represented the "back quarters" to the fancy houses near Regent's Park. In fact, when Charles Booth drew up his famous Poverty Maps for the city of Westminster in 1898, less than two decades later, the inhabitants of the mews were classified as very poor. But by that time, the Parkers had moved out, as we shall see later.

Nowadays, of course, Huntsworth Mews is situated in one of the most fashionable parts of London. Property websites emphasise that it is located a 3-minute walk from Marylebone Tube Station on one side and a 3-minute walk from Baker Street Tube Station on the other. The prestigious Landmark London Hotel, originally the Great Central Hotel, is just four minutes away, while Madame Tussaud's and St Marylebone's Church can be reached in just six minutes. If you are looking to buy a one-bedroom terrace house measuring 75 square metres, you are looking at 1.1 million pounds.

The thought of being able to visit the place where my great-grandmother lived in the centre of London is rather thrilling. Many other old buildings have been demolished to make way for new properties in the scramble for urban office space. I did read that Huntsworth Mews was damaged by a high-explosive bomb during World War II but the buildings were thankfully repaired. At least for the time being, our family can visit the site of Maude's early childhood and get a sense of how close she lived to many of the most famous Victorian landmarks.

Illustration from "Metropolitan Improvements ... From original drawings by T. H. Shepherd, etc" Author: ELMES, James. Contributor: SHEPHERD, Thomas Hosmer. Shelfmark: "British Library HMNTS 010349.s.3."

Maude Alice Parker in the 1881 census

One of the earliest searches I did online was on the website findmypast.co.uk. Utilising their free 14-day trial, I looked for Maude Alice Parker, mother of my grandfather David Scott Ritchie. The search produced a long list of search results in table form, showing date of birth and location at the time of the census. I didn't know Maude's exact date of birth but I could make a pretty educated guess. As for location, I confined myself to the areas of London close to Paddington where Maude had said David was born.

When the right record popped up it was chock-full of valuable information. For a start, it provided the exact address where the family was living. More about that in another post. It also provided the names of Maude's parents, James and Jane Parker, plus eight other siblings and a resident called Anne Watson, who was listed as the sister of Jane. From this I was able to ascertain that Watson was probably Jane's maiden name, which gave me a useful clue for tracing her line back another generation.

The 1881 census also gave me the age of each person, their estimated year of birth, birth location and occupation. The latter is especially interesting because it gives insight into the possible income level of each individual. For example, James Parker is described as a boot maker, not a very illustrious profession but certainly a means to earn steady wages. The two eldest daughters, Louisa and Ellen, are dressmakers, while the eldest sons, Harry and Frederick, are errand boys. The four middle daughters, Emily, Gertrude, Florence and Mabel, are all listed as scholars. Maude is listed as an infant.

Neither Anne Watson nor Jane Parker thought to record an occupation on the census but, with so many children in the house, one can only assume that their hands were full with cooking, cleaning, washing laundry, mending clothes and visiting the market. Life was very different in those days from what it is today.

At this point, I confess that my present level of knowledge is sadly lacking. But no worries, I love going down rabbit holes and learning new things, especially when the facts have value for other people too. And that's the beauty of writing a blog. What a great reason to do research this blogging project is going to be!