Category Archives: Floersheim Family

The Kipling Connection or Not So Great Expectations

5 Replies

My condolences on the approaching departure of the daughter.

All sons-in-law are direct descendants of the Devil.

And the nicer they are the more devilish it is.

Rudyard Kipling to Sir Hugh Clifford, Governor of Nigeria, (May, 1925)

This new chapter in my family history is a stand-alone story that came as an unexpected surprise – a spin-off to the main narrative. It was, however, a fascinating tangent to my journey, and I would like to share the results with you in this month’s post. As August has been very busy with visitors here in Switzerland, I have been slightly restricted in my research time, so have chosen to present this vignette in the last remaining days of my summer break.

One of my recent visitors was my teenage nephew, who was taking a well-earned breather before his final year of A-levels. Despite the weather being constantly up and down (everything between 30 and 13 degrees), it was wonderful to have him ensconced in the spare room. I enjoyed playing the role of the magnanimous aunty, knowing I could spoil him in the relatively short time we had together. And as he winged his way back to Newcastle with a bag full of vintage Swiss Army clothing and chocolate bars, I could not help but wonder what life would be like if he came to live with us permanently. Then I would have to forgo my overindulgence of him and play the same role my sister has – one which inevitably comes with the onerous role of chief nagger, despite every parent or guardian’s best intentions.

This is exactly what Cecil Floersheim’s mother agreed to do when both her sister and brother-in-law died unexpectedly within two years of each other, leaving their little boy, George, an orphan at six years old. And in 1898, George Louis St Clair Bambridge (to give him his full name) was sent to live with the middle-aged Louis and Julia Floersheim at 12 Cadogan Square. By then their oldest son Cecil had just recently married my ancestor Maude Beatrice (see The Fortunate Widow), and although his younger brother and sister were still living at home they were already well into their twenties. Like his older male cousins before him, George Bambridge was eventually sent to Eton, and while the 1901 census finds him at home with the Floersheim’s in London, the 1911 census lists him as a boarder at the elite school. Coincidentally, George’s paternal grandfather – the photography pioneer William Bambridge – had been a schoolmaster at Eton in the 1850s before taking up the position of royal photographer.

George Louis St Clair Bambridge was the son of Julia Floersheim’s younger sister, Ada Henrietta Baddeley, and her husband, George Frederick Bambridge, who was the private secretary of Prince Alfred, The Duke of Edinburgh (Queen Victoria’s second son), later the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha – an appointment most likely obtained through his father’s post as photographer to Queen Victoria and her family. Julia and Ada Baddeley, who had four other siblings, were born in 1848 and 1851 respectively, and as the two oldest of the three girls (they had a much younger sister, Blanche) appear to have been close.

The 1891 census shows the newly married Ada Bambridge with the Floersheims and Louis Schott at Pennyhill Park (see On the Dogs’ Grave at Bagshot), while George Bambridge was with the Prince of Wales at the royal naval barracks in Devonport. This family get-together was possibly to celebrate Ada’s fortieth birthday – the census of 1851 had described her as a new-born female, as yet un-named. To my mind, this is a delightful piece of information which conjures up the insouciance of the upper and upper-middle classes when it came to the births of their children (all three of Julia Floersheim’s children were actually officially registered simply as male or female Floersheim).

The six Baddeley siblings moved around the country with their parents due to their father’s various army appointments. Major John Fraser Loddington Baddeley was from a military family, and was a decorated veteran of the Crimean War, where he had served in the light division. He had been present at most of the major battles in the conflict, before being badly injured at Inkerman. After this event, he was appointed second officer of the Royal Powder Works at Waltham Abbey for five years, later moving to the post of Assistant-Superintendent at the Royal Small Arms Factory in Enfield. He died there in 1862, at the age of 36, after contracting diptheria, and appears to have been a great loss to the army: his military funeral was conducted in style with large numbers of attenders. The obituary by the Institution of Civil Engineers states that: Lieutenant-Colonel Baddeley possessed all the qualifications for eventually attaining a very distinguished position. He had clear intuitive perception, good judgement, indefatigable industry, and had studied hard to extend his scientific and mechanical knowledge. To him may be ascribed the merit of the introduction to the service of the foreign mode of purifying saltpetre ; and he published a tract, ‘On the Manufacture of Gunpowder, as carried out at the Government Factory, Waltham Abbey (1857)’.

When Julia Frances Ellis Eva Baddeley married the thirty-five year-old Louis Floersheim in 1870, at the age of twenty-one, the marriage was considered to be good for the German-born (recently naturalised) immigrant’s social standing, due to the military record of the bride’s father. It has also been suggested that by choosing his wife from the Anglican Victorian ‘establishment’ Louis was also distancing himself from his Jewish roots, However, I cannot quite believe that this was such a calculated move. The young and beautiful Julia Baddeley was no doubt impoverished to some degree from her father’s untimely death and by then Louis had been established in London society and would have been seen as a successful older man. Interestingly, Julia’s two other sisters – Ada and Blanche – both married men over a decade older than themselves, perhaps searching for the father figure they had lost earlier in their lives.

Julia_Floersheim_nee_Baddeley (3)Julia Floersheim (née Baddeley) c1870

In contrast to her sisters, Ada Baddeley married much later in life. The birth of George junior when Ada was forty-one might have come as a surprise to his middle-aged parents, and it is undeniably sad to think that this late-blooming romance was destined not to last more than five years – by 1896 Ada was dead, and two years later the young George lost his father too. (I have not yet been able to ascertain the manner of their passing, but both were away from home at the time: Ada in Brighton and George senior at Clarence House, St James, with the Duke of Edinburgh).

Without any siblings, it must have been a disorientating time for the young George, and although the Floersheims hired a children’s nurse and presumably cared for him as best they could, he would have had no ready playmates among his older cousins. And in a house where servants outnumbered the family by almost three to one, it might have been a rather strange and lonely life for one small child. Perhaps his later time at Eton was a relief to him. By then his foster parents must have seemed old and out of touch, and it is not surprising that he applied for a commission at the start of the Great War.

1431739913709-wimpole-bambridgeGeorge Bambridge as a soldier (and his war medals)

Bambridge went on to survive four years of conflict, winning the Military Cross for his bravery, and it was while in the Irish Guards that he made the acquaintance of Oliver Baldwin – the son of the future conservative prime minister, Stanley Baldwin, and cousin of the ‘Empire poet’ Rudyard Kipling. When Kipling lost his only son John at the Battle of Loos in 1915, he spent many years in what appears to be an atonement of sorts for his role in circumventing regulations that prevented his son from signing up for military service for medical reasons. (Whether it was the problem with his eyesight that lead to John’s untimely death at eighteen is open to debate). Part of working through this profound grief involved Kipling in writing a two-part history of the Irish Guards – John’s regiment – and being involved with the new War Graves Commission.

Jack-Kipling-013John Kipling (centre, in glasses) c1915

Thus Rudyard was delighted when Oliver introduced him to a young Captain in the Irish Guards one November at Bateman’s, the Kipling family’s Jacobean home in the Sussex countryside. Although neither Oliver nor George had fought alongside John (having joined the regiment later), Kipling was grateful for the extra insight they gave him into the life of a guardsman, and as Bambridge became more involved with the family, Rudyard increasingly began to regard him as a substitute son. This unofficial role had been the one assigned to Oliver Baldwin – before Kipling found out that, despite a short-lived engagement, his cousin’s son preferred the company of men. It is not sure whether Oliver and George Bambridge ever had a sexual relationship, but some biographers believe it was most likely, given that they travelled frequently through Europe and North Africa together.

161195675_1460918073Oliver Baldwin, with his parents, 1920s

However, at Easter 1922, Bambridge joined the Kiplings on their annual holiday to Spain, shortly before taking up a post as an honorary military attaché in the diplomatic service in Madrid. Kipling’s recent biographer, Andrew Lycett, writes that: With his knowledge of Spain and North Africa, George was an ideal guide to the once Moorish cities of Granada and Seville. He adapted easily to the expected role of the Kiplings‘ surrogate son, partly because he had been in the Irish guards and partly because his own parents were both dead and he needed a family. His father had been private secretary to queen Victoria’s second son, the career sailor Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, later Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. George’s childhood in the hierarchic world of minor courtiers had made him diffident, courteous and remote.

U101129P-AElsie Kipling, with her parents, 1920s

Lycett further points out that when George and Elsie announced their engagement early in 1924, the Kiplings were unhappy to learn that their last surviving child (their first daughter, Josephine, had died when young) would soon be leaving home, and Rudyard fell into a depression, not helped by increasing worries about his own health and that of his wife, Carrie. By then he knew about Oliver Baldwin’s homosexuality (which he kept from his wife and daughter). So it would seem that not only was he perhaps concerned about the suitability of Bambridge as a groom for Elsie from the perspective of his sexuality, but the Kiplings had always hoped to make a more wealthy and well-connected match for Elsie, who had a generous trust fund established in her name, and had been brought out in society at considerable expense.

In her fascinating biography of the four Macdonald sisters*, A Circle of Sisters, Judith Flanders mentions that: Bambridge was not a terrific catch. True, he was a young diplomat and he came from a good family – his father had been a secretary to the Duke of Edinburgh: with his family and Kipling’s money, anything was possible. However, his very close friendship with Oliver came under scrutiny when in the 1920s Oliver began to live openly with another man. (This was his long-term partner, Johnny Boyle). In addition, Oliver became a socialist in 1923 (and in 1929, briefly a labour MP). A socialist and a homosexual: Kipling never spoke to him again.

*Alice MacDonald was Rudyard Kipling’s mother, while her sister Louisa was the mother of Stanley Baldwin. Their two other sister, Georgiana and Agnes, married the Pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne–Jones, and the painter and President of the Royal Academy, Sir Edward Poynter, respectively.

Flanders also goes as far as to mention that, shortly after their marriage, Elsie and George were posted to Madrid and France. When they came to England they travelled in great style, with a chauffeur, a maid for Elsie, and a Spanish valet in elaborate livery for George. It has been suggested that the Bambridges’ footmen were suspiciously good-looking. It was generally accepted by friends that this was a marriage blanc that suited both parties: Bambridge was kept in the style to which he aspired; Elsie got away from home.

The one thing, however, that George Bambridge could claim was the ‘Bambridge Legacy’ – a trust fund Louis Floersheim had set up for him that amounted to £27,500. This was stated in detail in Louis‘ will from several years earlier, but it appears that George only became aware of this when he mentioned his upcoming nuptials to his Aunt Julia. The Kiplings duly met with Julia Floersheim and also agreed to add to the settlement so that the newly-married couple could live from the combined interest. However, Rudyard also seems to have played a pivotal role in buying properties for Elsie and her husband, and it is clear that Bambridge benefitted greatly from having such a wealthy father-in-law.

Interestingly, I came across a coded reference to Julia Floersheim in one of the letters Rudyard sent George (part of the Kipling correspondence at the University of Sussex) in which he writes to his son-in-law from The Grand Pump Room Hotel in Bath on January 6th, 1932. The first two paragraphs of his letter are as follows:

Dear Old Man –

Yours of the 3rd (reference to a letter written by Bambridge 3 days earlier) – one can only fall back on the old useless proverb – “no good crying over spilt milk” etc.: but it’s damnably annoying and what makes us both dance with rage is to think of where and how all those monies over the years of her widow-hood were squandered and robbed, by her own attendants – and all for nothing.

The other possibility (of equal share in the income) I never thought likely. The second chance we did think might be pulled off. But, every way, please take our sincere understanding. Your Aunt was right. Money is the cause of all the troubles in the world.

Julia Floersheim had in fact died the previous month, leaving an estate of several thousand pounds – a fraction of what Louis had possessed fourteen years earlier. This sum (once expenses were deducted) was to be divided between her three children and nephew. In contrast to the large legacy Bambridge had received from his uncle, his inheritance from his aunt would amount to very little in relation to the lavish lifestyle he craved. Moreover, Julia Floersheim’s will itself had not been changed for over a decade and mentioned that Bambridge should have all the furniture from his room in her house at 11, Hyde Park, in addition to the wardrobe in the library. I am sure that Bambridge (who would go on to furnish his homes with Elsie in fine style) would have been pleased about that!

The Kipling-Bambridge wedding took place on October 22nd, 1924, at St Margaret’s Chapel, Westminster (the small chapel next to the Abbey). As to be expected, the great and the good were there, including Mr and Mrs Stanley Skelton (brother of Maude Beatrice – more about him next month), although no Floersheims appeared to be present. The reception was held at the home of Stanley Baldwin at 93, Eaton Sq. and The Times devotes several paragraphs to describing the event, in particular Elsie’s wedding dress and ‘going away’ outfit (the newly-weds left for Brussels that same day, where Bambridge was to take up an appointment).

33510119_133922116057Elsie Kipling and George Bambridge on their wedding day

According to the biographer Andrew Lycett, over the next few years the Kiplings lavished a great deal of money on the Bambridges – who they admonished for living beyond their means – paying out for cruises, cars and houses. The Bambridges’ lack of income was exacerbated when George gave up working for the Foreign Office in 1932, and Kipling agreed to pay the rent on their new home – Burgh House in Hampstead, where they lived until 1937, with their life very much focussed on entertaining.

After this, they then moved permanently to Wimpole Hall, a large and very grand Georgian House outside Cambridge, where they had once briefly lived earlier in the decade. They eventually bought the house with the inheritance they received after Rudyard and Carrie Kipling’s deaths in 1936 and 1939 respectively (when Elsie became the sole owner of her father’s works). Lycett points out that George had known the owners – the Agar-Robartes family – while a schoolboy at Eton, and had previously attended shooting parties on the estate, so perhaps from a young age had been infatuated by the grandeur of the place.

The National Trust website for Wimpole Hall states that: Captain and Mrs George Bambridge first rented Wimpole in 1937 and had bought it by 1942. The house was largely empty of contents, they set out buying pictures and furniture to fill the house.  During the war the household moved into the basements.  The house itself was not requisitioned by the War Office due to lack of mains electricity and primitive drainage and water supply. Captain Bambridge died in 1943 as a result of chill caught whilst out shooting.  Elsie Bambridge was the only surviving child of Rudyard Kipling.  She was able to use the substantial royalties from his books to refurbish the house. Mrs Bambridge bequeathed the house to the National Trust on her death aged 80 in 1976.  

bp-wimpole-hall-1024x576Wimpole Hall, Royston, Cambridgeshire

At Wimpole, the childless Bambridges devoted all their time and energy to managing the estate – with George calling himself simply ‘landowner’ on the 1939 Register. The year before he had placed an advert in The Times looking for a footman: Tall Second Footman of four required June 1st: height over 6 ft.: personal reference: age over 21 essential: thoroughly experienced: country only. Whether it was true that George only picked the best-looking footmen or not, one thing about their lifestyle was certainly not in dispute: the war would irrevocably change their way of life as it did for estate owners up and down the country.  

Andrew Lycett points out that when Elsie Bambridge died in 1976, she ordered the destruction of all her diaries, alongside those of her husband and her mother, leading many scholars to wonder if there was a family secret she wished to conceal – perhaps in order to preserve her father’s reputation. Could this have been the reason why Elsie prevented publication of the first biography of Rudyard Kipling, leading to bitter recriminations with the author, Lord Birkenhead (a connection initially made through her late husband)?

The idea of the dark family secret which needs to be kept hidden from outsiders  is certainly a potent one that is a recurrent theme in many different types of family histories – from biographies, to memoirs to fictionalised lives. And perhaps this is the reason why family historians (myself included) are often searching for such a story in their own genealogy.

The Incidental Genealogist, September 2017

 

 

On the Dogs’ Grave at Bagshot

4 Replies

These shared our walks, but left when we would roam

Too long, to welcome us returning home.

Friends here before us, friends who on the way

Have passed us, have you nothing now to say?

Cecil Floersheim, On the Dogs’ Grave at Bagshot in Collected Poems (1936)

Sometimes it’s just a small thing that sends you off on one particular area of genealogical research. When I first returned to my family history project, it was the photograph of my father as an evacuee in East Coker during the war (see East Coker) which was the catalyst for my current quest. In the case of Cecil Floersheim (the husband of my ancestor, Maude Beatrice Sleath-Skelton – see The Fortunate Widow), it was the poem entitled On the Dogs’ Grave at Bagshot in Cecil’s 1936 posthumous collection of poetry which intrigued me, sparking as it did a memory of an almost forgotten incident from my childhood.

I was lucky to grow up in the quiet green enclave of Alloway in Ayrshire (birthplace of the poet Robert Burns, in whose cottage I once worked during the long summer between school and university). A nature-loving child, I had my pick of woods, rivers, and parkland to explore: surrounding the village were a number of 18th and 19th century houses and estates, many of which were open to the public by the 1960s and 70s, in part due to crippling inheritance tax which had forced landed families across Britain to sell off their estates. The unusual names of these parks – Rozelle, Belleisle, Cambusdoon – only added to their allure, and as I explored their damp grounds, filled with the exotic vegetation that thrived in the west coast climate, I was drawn to searching for hidden clues about the families who’d previously lived there.

P1040684 (3)In Rozelle (with my sister) shortly after it became a public park

As a pre-digital child who spent every spare moment outdoors and the rest curled up with an adventure book, I had always fantasised about having my own private estate where I could roam and explore at will. I imagined walking or horseriding around the woodland paths, dogs at my side. Or fishing from the banks of my very own river. And on these explorations I undertook into the old great estates of Alloway (sometimes with friends, sometimes alone) my greatest thrill was entering the parts that were out of bounds to the public. It was only there, I reasoned, that I would be able to uncover the mysteries of the place that the public side strove to conceal.

It was one such day in early spring, while exploring the banks of the river Doon at the estate on Cambusdoon (see Where there’s a Will . . . and the Sun), that I came across a curious group of stones jutting out of the long grass at uneven angles, partly concealed by a tangle of vegetation. As I scrambled over a fallen tree and clambered through a clump of bamboo to take a closer look at what I thought was part of an overgrown rock garden, a strange horror overtook me. These were no ornamental stones, but tiny doll-sized graves. And a closer look revealed something even more uncanny: the ages of the long-dead occupants, carved into the weathered and lichen-covered surfaces, corresponded roughly to my own.

For one sickening moment I thought that a whole family of Victorian siblings must have died together from something incurable and contagious – perhaps from one of those old-fashioned diseases that we had recently been vaccinated against at school. But it was only when I began to properly decipher these these oddly-named gravestones that I realised these were not children who had been buried here. No person would have ever had such a strange epitah, even a beloved younger child. I suddenly understood that these were, in fact, the miniature graves of household pets. And it seemed to me then as if the surrounding woods sighed in relief and drew back slightly at the knowledge.

P1040639 (3)This pet cemetery was almost as intriguing – and certainly less frightening – than the idea of a group of children buried away out of sight in the woods. At that age I had no idea that people erected tombstones for their dead pets. Having never had an animal until we got Jet (photo on left), my very much living dog (my father being against caged animals, or cats which might kill birds), I hadn’t given much thought to what would happen when he died.     

For wealthy landowners (such as the Floersheims), creating a pet cemetery on the family estate made a lot of sense. Not only would their dogs have been an integral part of their lives, in particular on shooting and hunting trips, but they had the space and money to indulge in such a whim. And while many of these miniature cemeteries have been bulldozed away, there are still a number of them dotted around the country. The most famous of these is perhaps the pet cemetery at Hyde Park, which features in many articles on the subject of ‘hidden London’. Although it is not generally open to the public, there is an upcoming tour in October (2017), the details of which can be found here.

So when I discovered that the Floersheim family had once owned Pennyhill Park in Bagshot, Surrey, (now a luxury spa), at around the same time that I came across Cecil Floersheim’s poem On the Dogs’ Grave at Bagshot, I began to wonder if the verse referred to a pet cemetery on that very estate.

Cecil’s poetry anthology, published posthumously in 1936, includes his verses which were privately published and distributed to his friends throughout his middle years. When he died unexpectedly at sea in 1936 at the age of sixty-five (an event I chronicled in last month’s chapter), he had already drawn up a short and succint will, mostly leaving everything to his wife, my ancestor Maude Beatrice. (This was the same will that harped on about the excesses of socialistic mis-government, making me think that he was perhaps not a very pleasant chap).

Written in 1931, Cecil’s will also states that his close friend and fellow barrister, St. John Welles Lucas of 5, Pump Court, Inner Temple, should be his literary executor, and bequeathed him two thousand pounds to publish his collected works of verse, at his discretion. St. John, however, unfortunately died in 1934, two years before his good friend, so it is unclear who did indeed organise the publication of his anthology by Chatto & Windus in 1936. The blurb on the inside cover provides details we already know about Cecil’s life and death, and then goes on to state: For many years Cecil Floersheim’s poems have been known and appreciated by his friends, a few of whom possess the privately printed volumes published in 1911, 1932 and 1934; these with some recent additions are now published in a Collected Edition.

As to be expected, Cecil does not appear to have been influenced by modernism (no doubt he would have something disparaging to say on that subject, too), and as such his poems come across as a dated pastiche of the romantics. However, I am not a literary critic and will leave it up to the reader to decide for him or herself the merit of the verses contained in this volume and others, copies of which can be picked up online from a few pounds – unless of course you would like the one signed by a certain Vita Sackville-West at Sissinghurst (who had also recently published her own collection of poetry)  – and then it is a cool $175!

*Combridges, a publisher from Hove (where Maude has family connections) published some of Cecil’s poetry privately in 1932 and 1934, in addition they put out their own collected works in 1938 (Vita Sackville-West had one of these copies).

P1060935 (2)

Through reading Cecil’s poetry it is clear that he had a real love and appreciation of the natural world, both at home and abroad, and in particular a deep attachment to the English countryside around the South Downs in Sussex (near to where the Sleath-Skeltons lived). Although Cecil had been born in London and grew up at the family homes at 11 Hyde Park Street and 12 Cadogan Square, in 1901 the Floersheims inherited Pennyhill Park, in Bagshot, Surrey, from Louis Schott, a wealthy childless friend and business partner of Cecil’s father, who was also a successful German banker from Frankfurt.

Like Louis Floersheim, Schott had also become a naturalised British citizen four years after arriving in London, and I discovered that the original documents detailing the two Louis’ application for citizenship were tantalisingly kept at the National Archives. So one wet November morning I travelled out to Kew with the official pieces of paper needed to register as a reader, and which would allow me to access the naturalisation papers on-site (now available online). I was curious to discover what the connection was between the two men. Were they in fact related, as some internet searches seemed to suggest?

Although I have never been able to discover if there was a familial connection, it would appear that the two Louis’ were roughly the same age, so may have simply been friends. In addition, both were from Frankfurt-am-Main and worked together in the early 1860s as merchants at 17 Moorgate Street in the City of London. Business reports from later in the century show that together with their friend, Julius Beer, they set up private banks (Floersheim and Co. and Beer and Co.) and had numerous successful business ventures (in part due to their continental connections, particularly the Jewish Frankfurt banking families), which allowed them to accumulate great wealth. Writing in The First Lady of Fleet Street, a biography of the 19th century newspaper editor Rachel Beer (née Sassoon), Julius’ daughter-in-law, the biographers Eliat Negev and Yehuda Koren state that: Though he had no family in London, Julius was not alone in the city – two of his friends, Louis Floersheim and Louis Schott, had settled there as well. In Frankfurt, the Floersheims specialised in English haberdashery and hardware, while the Shotts dealt in English tulle and lace. Together, the three young men would become business partners in various successful enterprises. And in addition to cooperating professionally, they would remain close friends, sharing trials and tragedies as the years passed.

While I can find no evidence of the Floersheim and Schott family businesses mentioned above (presumably these records are in Frankfurt), there are plenty of documents which are testament to the successful lives of these three entrepreneurs, who arrived in London in the 1850s in their late teens/early twenties. Although the two Louis’ became naturalised British citizens after the required four years in the UK, Julius Beer did not – perhaps because he was often out of the country on business trips, not least to America with the banker Frédéric Emile d’Erlanger (whose son would  be one of Louis Floersheim’s executors) in order to lend money for the Confederate cause. However, this did not appear to be a set-back as by the time he died at the early age of 43 he had amassed a fortune through his interests in railways, telegraphs, and mining (among other things), not to mention his ownership of the Observer newspaper.

Interestingly enough, the requests for British citizenship made by Floersheim and Schott are almost identical in wording – perhaps not surprising as they both used the same immigration agent. In addition, the two Louis’ give the name of the same four referees: all British citizens and business associates who could vouch for the veracity of the applications. For both men, citizenship was connected to their business and social standing, and Louis Floersheim stated on his form in 1861 that: This memorial of Louis Floersheim further showeth and puts forth, that your memorialist finding it desirable for his mercantile as well as for his social position to become a denizen of that country which he has fully adopted as his future abode, hereby prayeth and applies for the grant of a certificate of naturalisation.

Out of the three Frankfurt men, Julius Beer is the one most people have probably heard of, despite the fact that he died relatively young. The Beer family mausoleum at Highgate cemetery is regarded as one of the highlights of a visit to the Western Cemetry (now by guided tour only – but take a virtual tour here).

imagesBIBK4MIZReports suggest that, as a self-made German-Jewish financier, he was never accepted into the higher echelons of Victorian society, despite his wealth and exclusive West London addresses. Thus he attempted to compensate for this exclusion with a grand and ornate family mausoleum (on left), designed by John Oldrid Scott. (Although it was originally erected for his young daughter Ava, who died in 1876 at the age of 8 from scarlet fever, Beer and his wife were buried there several years later).

However, I am rather sceptical about this version of Julius Beer’s life story: once a piece of information finds its way into print, it tends to be repeated, and thus becomes the standard line (adrift from the original source). Since all of Victorian London was awash with self-made men, many of German-Jewish origin, I cannot quite believe that Beer had as much of an inferiority complex as was made out. It would also appear to be part of the Julius Beer myth that he had arrived in the UK as a penniless immigrant, although evidence would point to the fact that, like his friends Schott and Floersheim, he came from a middle-class family with mercantile connections.

Like Beer, both Schott and Floersheim had the best London addresses. When Louis Floersheim bought the leasehold of 12 Cadogan Square in 1887 (in addition to owning 11 Hyde Park Street), he paid £13,750 for the new 6 storey-townhouse, which included an adjoining coach house and stable. The house remained in the Floersheim family until the 1920s, then was bought by Patrick Bowes-Lyon, uncle to the Queen Mother. After the war, like many of these town houses, the rules of the Cadogan Estate were relaxed to allow multi-occupancy in the square, and today there are several flats in what would have been one family house (which incidentally needed 12 servants).

P1040061 (2)12 Cadogan Square, West London

In 1891, when Cecil was at Oxford studying modern history, the census finds the Floersheim family at Pennyhill Park in Bagshot, guests of Louis Schott. Pennyhill Park was name of the country residence Schott had bought ten years previously at auction, on the death of the original owner and builder, industrialist and engineer, James Hodges. And it was this house and the adjoining estate that the three Floersheim children (Cecil, Walter and Ethel) were to inherit in 1901 (along with £5000 each) when Louis Schott died without issue*, although it appears that the whole family used it as a country residence until it was sold twenty years later.

*Schott’s brother, Philip, was deceased, but he had a sister, Flora, who had married the French architect William Bouwens van der Boijen. And it was to Flora and her children that he left the bulk of his savings. 

Pennyhill Park had been built fifty years previously in the popular mid-Victorian neo-Gothic style, and throughout the years that Hodges had lived there the grounds had been planted with exotic and ornamental trees and hedges. In the pre-auction particulars for the house in June 1880, after Hodge’s death, the estate is described in wonderful detail: There are two ornamental lodges, from which the drives to the house are either past a bank of grand rhododendrons and thuja hedges, or past alternative species of deodera and Portland laurels of great size and beauty. Natural undulations of the ground, with years of care and a large expenditure on the part of the late owner, have resulted in forming a residential estate of an exceptionally desirable character. The grounds and park, beautfully laid out to form terraces, lawns and lovely walks, are everywhere enriched with beds of rhododendrons now in bloom, hollies, specimens of American and other plants and rare coniferae, such as are seldom to be seen. The lake of two acres, the fernery, archery ground, Jenkins-hill, specimen walk and lawn tennis or bowling green, are all attractive features in this delightful place, which should be visited by those seeking a residential estate. There are excellent stabling, large kitchen gardens and cottages. The area of the whole is over 100 acres. Adjoining the estate are farm-buildings and about 9 acres held by lease from the crown.

bagshot-pennyhill-park-1906_57177The holly hedge (sadly no more) at Pennyhill Park c1906 (c) Francis Frith Collection

After purchasing the house, Louis Schott added a fashionable large and ornate orangery* with a 40 foot-high domed roof in the grounds. However, in 1903, shortly after inheriting the estate, the Floersheims went further, building a large Bath stone extension to the house in neo-Tudor style (a reaction to the Victorian Gothic style that was by then falling out of fashion), indicating that Pennyhill Park was important residence for the family. But with no heirs to follow them, the Floersheims sold the estate in the 1920s, after the house was used as a rest home for serving officers during the first world war. The current hotel’s website has an excellent page detailing the history of Pennyhill Park (including old photographs) here.

*I was recently contacted by a family historian with an interest in the Floersheims through Cecil’s mother’s relatives (the Baddeley family), and who had read some of Cecil’s articles published in entomological journals between 1910  and 1917 in which he mentioned a butterfly house at Pennyhill Park. Possibly this was a new use for Schott’s orangery (which was unfortunately demolished in the 1970s).

bagshot-pennyhill-park-1907_58593_largePennyhill Park c1909 (old and new houses) (c) Francis Frith Collection

And so what about the dogs’ graves, my original point of entry to this story ? As luck (or persistence) would have it, the Bagshot village website helped me to track down someone who remembered Pennyhill Park in its country house days. Of course, my first question was about the dogs’ graves – I felt sure that there had to have been a pet cemetery on the estate. A few weeks later my contact, Darcy, replied to say: I knew the house as a child with its spectacular, beautiful gardens and when it changed into a hotel. In its early days the hotel had riding stables within the grounds and I helped with the horses. I discovered the graves  by chance in undergrowth. As I remember, there were about five or six graves and there was one with a cross and larger than the rest. I went to Pennyhill some years ago and managed to find the spot but building work had taken place and they had been disturbed. But I did manage to find two and take photographs. The inscriptions are as follows: In memory of Spot and Flop, 1913; Peter MCMVII.  

Pennyhill Park first became  a hotel around 1973, so my guess is that around about the same time as I was discovering the animal graves in amongst the Japanese knotweed and bamboo by the banks of the river Doon, the older Darcy experienced a similar thrill at finding the pets’ graves in the vegetation at Pennyhill Park. In addition to this, Darcy also sent me a copy of the 1879 ordnance survey map on which the location of the graves was marked. As is the way with old maps (even a photocopy of one), the intricate details of the drawings and handwritten notes conjure up a forgotten world that seems almost possible to enter – as long as one has a copy of the map.

P1060938 (2)Pennyhill Park c1879 (dogs’ graves location in yellow)

And so  it was that one sunny June day I set off with my cousin’s wife, Beverley, through the Range-rover crowded roads of Royal Berkshire towards the Surrey border – and Pennyhill Park. Ironically, my cousin had recently just treated himself to the very same type of car as a midlife present, and we decided to borrow it for our trip to the fancy spa hotel, joking that we would need to ‘fit in’ with all the other visitors.

P1040040 (2)Pennyhill Park (main building) today

Beverley is a very practical yet easy-going person, and the ideal companion to take to explore the grounds of a 21st century spa hotel with only the copy of an 1879 map to guide us! When I explained to her that the original house had been knocked down in the 1930s, leaving only the Floersheim’s neo-Tudor extension from 1903 (not yet shown on the map), she did not even roll her eyes or ask why I had not also sensibly printed out a current map, but enthusiastically trekked around the grounds with me, searching for the lake (which unfortunately we could not find) and kitchen garden (since built over).

bagshot-pennyhill-park-lake-and-boathouse-1909_61376The boating lake at Pennyhill Park c1909 (c) Francis Frith Collection

Later as we sipped our expensive drinks at the ornamental pond on the terrace, watching the wedding guests milling around in their shiny new clothes (and feeling slightly drab in our simple summer skirts), I think we both knew that there would not be any dogs’ graves to visit. If truth be told, I found the rarefied atmosphere of the place rather stultifying, even though all the staff we encountered that day were nothing less than helpful and friendly – to the point of photo-copying some documents pertaining to the history of the house for me to take away.

Several moths afterwards I discovered an on-line review by an American visitor in 2013 which encapsulated some of my feelings about Pennyhill Park: This is a strangely soulless place, built into what was a famous country house, that used to be surrounded by wonderful gardens, an impressive glass greenhouse and a lovely little home farm with walks, orchards,  a lake, and a landscaped stream running through it all. Some of this remains, but the magical feeling has gone out of it, as the brightly lit car park has arrived along with the ubiquitous golf course, the rhododendrons on the driveway pruned back to sensible and the lake shore encroached on by housing developments.

P1040042 (2)Preparations for an outdoor wedding ceremony at Pennyhill Park

But it wasn’t just the fact that the place had obviously changed so much, particularly with the recent very modern-looking spa extensions and new entrance hall. I had to face facts that I was not the kind of person who went to an expensive spa hotel, even for one drink. And wandering freely around the grounds (in search of the lost places from 1879) had proved to be more difficult than we had first thought, in part because of the golf course (one reason  why we could not find the lake), but also because we both had the feeling that somehow we were trespassing on private land – even though as middle-aged women in mid-length flowery skirts and sensible sandals we more or less fitted the demographics of the clientele, and no-one would have thought to question our presence in the grounds.

P1040054 (2)The original house entrance, now the reception area, Pennyhill Park

I think we were both relieved to eventually be setting off down the one remaining approach road back towards the A30 and the promise of a family barbeque in the garden at Tilehurst. At that moment, I wanted to be back in the living world of real and immediate relatives – ones who burnt sausages and knew that buying a black Range Rover with a cream leather interior was a posey thing to do, but went ahead and did it anyhow. Ironically, my cousin’s ‘new’ house actually contained part of the landscaped garden of an old estate. This was due to the fact that when the houses were built in the 1980s there were too many protected trees to build more than a few homes, and so the small housing estate, tucked away off the main road, was embedded into the existing Victorian parkland, each house having relatively large and mature, secluded gardens.

P1040032Old woodland walks in my cousin’s garden, Tilehurst

If I could time travel, would I have chosen to meet the Floersheims that summer Sunday afternoon, reveal myself to them as I wandered around their grounds? No doubt I would have been sent packing – an intruder from another time who would perhaps have infuriated Cecil as he saw how much his fears of socialistic mis-government had come to pass. Perhaps it was this feeling that still persisted through the generations – we had come so far, and yet . . .

And perhaps it is this which makes these old family country house hotels so appealing, especially for staging important family events  such as christenings and weddings. Professional photographers advertising Pennyhill Park (and similar houses) as upmarket venues for nuptials invariably show couples gliding down ornate staircases with oil paintings of supposed ‘ancestors’ on the walls around them. It is as if the idea of having an old family country seat is imbedded in our subconscious desires – the primal home to which all of us long to return. And perhaps most of our family history quests (including my own) are really only just a search for this mythical lost place.

pennyhill-park-hotel-main-staircase (2)The staircase at Pennyhill Park. Who is on the wall?

Next month . . . the curious tale of the Kipling connection.

The Incidental Genealogist, August 2017 

The Fortunate Widow

3 Replies

Truest and best who made for me of old

Higher the name of woman that you hold;

Beloved, whom thro’ so many years I see

Of happiness your rarer gift to me

Cecil Floersheim, To My Wife, from Collected Poems, (1936)

When Maude Beatrice Sleath-Skelton married Cecil Louis Ferdinand Floersheim in 1896, she retained the Sleath part of her name (from her mother, Emma Sleath) but dropped the Skelton part (from her father, James William), calling herself Maude Beatrice Sleath Floersheim. I can’t say I blame her. Skelton is not the most attractive name, with its guttural Nordic sound and closeness to the ghoulish word skeleton. The short form – Skel or Skelly – is not particularly endearing either, and lends itself to a fair amount of teasing from classmates, especially during adolescent growing spurts. Despite that, I actually kept my English surname when I married my Swiss husband, as is common here, wanting to maintain personal and professional links to my former life.

P1060932 (2)OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

 Copying my Skelton grandparents’ wedding pose from 1923 in 2005

The Sleath-Skeltons, however, lived in a time and culture where to double barrel both names was a sign of success and prosperity – telling the world that here were two relatively important families coming together. No doubt Emma wanted to pass on her deceased father’s name, associated as it was with the Sleaths’ success in building up their artificial body parts business since the 18th century (see Artificial Limbs on Curious Plans). And James William possibly did not need his arm twisted (no pun intended) to distance himself from his own father, James Skelton, and the disgrace of his ‘living in sin’ with the poverty-stricken single mother, Mary Ann Hawkins, a young woman the same age as his sisters.

Maude Beatrice’s brother – the Edwardian actor-manager Herbert Sleath, also plumped for the matriarchal line when he chose his stage name, his enthusiasm for acting perhaps encouraged by his connection with his mother’s step-cousins, George and Weedon Grossmith. Even Stanley Sleath-Skelton, the sensible first-born child who followed his father into the mahogany business (see A Tale of Exploitation), and later becoming a stockbroker, always used his two names – and this despite having his father’s ship named after him (The Stanley Sleath), which ignored the Skelton part of his surname.

As the year progresses, I’ll be writing more about Stanley and Herbert, Maude’s older Brothers, who were both educated at Eton and obviously destined for great things. For her part, Maude was probably simply expected to marry well, and it would appear that she was educated at home – perhaps alongside her cousin, Daisy Winifred Green, with whom she was close until her death in 1954. Maude and Daisy spent much of their late Victorian childhood together, while their brothers were away making connections with successful young men who, amongst other things, were potential suitors for their sisters. Both Maude and Daisy made what looked like (on paper, at least) ‘good marriages’: Maude to the barrister Cecil Floersheim; Daisy to the Olympic sailor, Salusbury Manners Mellor, then to the yacht designer, Alfred Westmacott.

I have written before about the three Sleath-Skelton children’s privileged upbringing in Gypsy Hill and later Clapham, with their houseful of servants (including a private coach and driver), and all the opportunities for advancement and social networking which was denied to their unknown Hawkins-Skelton relatives. But while James William’s half-siblings eventually went on to create large numbers of descendants across south London, none of his own progeny had any issue, thus abruptly ending the only wealthy and successful branch of the family before it could put out shoots. I often wonder how different my quest might have been had I come across any living descendants of Stanley, Herbert or Maude Beatrice. Would they have held on to the family wealth and thus been more likely to have kept papers and documents pertaining to the family as well as looking after their ancestors’ cherished possessions? Might they have been able to open the door just a little on that lost gilded world that the Sleath-Skeltons enjoyed?

Both Herbert and Stanley, however, died with relatively little to their name, albeit in very different circumstances. Their male Green cousins also seemed to be constantly battling near bankruptcy, brought on through ‘living beyond their means’. Thus it would appear that only the canny Maude Beatrice and Daisy Winifred were able to retain part of their respective family’s wealth. When Maud died in 1954, at the age of 82, she left behind a large amount of money and jewellery and other possessions which she requested be distributed among all her friends and family, making her will into one extraordinary long list of exotic objects. These included diamonds, emeralds, furs, a Rolls Royce, and a Millais painting, among other things.

But fascinating as all these riches may be, what interests me more is how she came to have so much in the first place. Because there is something of the magpie about Maude Beatrice. Whether consciously or unconsciously, over the years she became a repository for the wealth and possessions of not only her parents, but also her husband, and latterly from his unmarried friend from his Oxford days. And on her death, she had still not claimed the small inheritance that was left to her by her older brother Stanley when he died intestate in 1948.

For those of us who dream about suddenly finding ourselves the beneficiary of bountiful wills and being able to give up the day job (something Maude Beatrice never had to bother herself with) it is quite galling to know that much of what Maude had gathered around her she most likely had no need for. We can only guess at the lifestyle she would have had in her later years. It is not hard to picture her in old age shortly after the Second World War – a part of that generation of wealthy West London widows who met for long luncheons, decked out in too much jewellery and outdated, sweeping clothes. One of the last of the privileged Victorians who still clung on tenaciously to an earlier more gentile way of life, with their cooks and housemaids and chauffeurs.

Through Maude Beatrice’s detailed will I was lucky to also track down the descendants of Daisy Winifred Westmacott (formerly Mellor, née Green), the cousin who was like a sister to Maude. Several months after writing to one of Daisy’s grandchildren mentioned in the will, another grand-daughter replied instead, explaining that as the oldest child she was the only one of her group of siblings who could actually recall visiting Maude (together with their grandmother, Daisy) in London as children. Confirming my suspicions about Maude’s lifestyle, she told me that: We all used to lunch at Searcy’s restaurant in Sloane Street and I remember she gave banknotes for a tip – riches to a child! In addition to this, she gives the following interesting fact: I also have what I believe is the table silver with the Floersheim crest on it. It is silver-plated and family lore has it that Maude used it for the servants!

Sadly, Daisy’s grand-daughter was unable to supply any photographs of Maude Beatrice, something I had hoped she might have possessed. However, it would stand to reason that, for a child, a grandmother’s cousin would not necessarily be regarded as a close family member (I cannot remember having met any of my own grandparents’ cousins). But I imagine that with no children of her own, nor any nieces or nephews, Daisy’s children and grandchildren were perhaps more important to Maude than they themselves ever realised.

Just as James William Skelton (Maude’s father) involved his brother-in-law, John Green, in his financial affairs, Maude trusted Daisy’s oldest son, John Edward Mellor, with her will, among other things (he was also the informant at her death). Interestingly, it was this second-cousin of Maude’s who married Joyce Niven in 1940 (the older sister of the actor David Niven). Another of Daisy’s grandchildren who I contacted separately through a yachting website recalled how David Niven sometimes came to visit the Mellor/Westmacott family at Bembridge in the Isle of Wight, where the Niven family had once lived when David was a child – and presumably where Joyce Niven met John Mellor.

Norcott HouseNorcott House, Isle of Wight, built 1908 for Alfred Westmacott

alfred1-295x600

The boat-builder, Alfred Westmacott, circa 1930

All this information is of course manna to the ears of a family historian – as a child I remember the older David Niven appearing on television in the 1970s in chat shows and how by then he was regarded as a national treasure. Recently I read sections of his entertaining biography The Moon’s a Balloon, which unfortunately only mentions his Isle of Wight connection in passing. My mother, however, eagerly devoured the whole book in one sitting. For her generation, David Niven was a much loved and respected figure who embodied the idea of the British gentleman actor (a topic to which I will return when discussing other male family members’ connection with the stage).

412yJMB8POL__SX324_BO1,204,203,200_

Interesting as the tenuous Niven connection is, I have to ignore the temptation not to get side-tracked by thoughts of celebrity. And while the protagonist of this chapter – Maude Beatrice – knew some of the actors and actresses of earlier in the century due to her actor-manager brother, Herbert-Sleath, there is no evidence to suggest that she herself had any artistic or bohemian bent. Although Maude’s will detailed a gift of jewellery to the actress Marie Lohr, in the main her friends and relatives tended to be those with a different kind of standing in society: Lady Oppenheimer, the Dowager Lady Swaythling, Captain Bryan Cecil Durant to name some of the most prominent.

Maude’s long list of beneficiaries sent me on an extended chase to find out more about those mentioned in her 11-page will (complete with codicils). Although she included servants, cooks and chauffeurs (past and present), most of these individuals were difficult to research, whereas not only had her wealthier friends more unusual names (often double-barrelled), more importantly they had left a paper trail behind them that was easy to pick up on-line (at least superficially). And so it was that I peeked into some of the lives of those in the upper echelons of society in the first half of the twentieth century, and marvelled at their houses and gardens and military honours.

Lady Swaythling in her Gertrude Jekyll designed garden at Townhill Park House, Southampton,1920s

Maude’s friend, Lady Gladys Swaythling, in her Gertrude Jekyll designed garden at Townhill Park House, Southampton, pre-1920

It did not take me long to notice, however, that there were certain things most of them had in common. The men (or husbands) had studied at Oxford in the 1890s, around about the same time as Maude’s own husband, Cecil Floersheim. Some of them had also come from German-Jewish banking families established in the Frankfurt area in the 19th century, and had moved to London and become naturalised British citizens (usually then converting to Anglicism). Many had prominent roles in the law, government and military – just as Cecil did – and had been decorated or given peerages. Floersheim himself had received his CBE (Commander of the British Empire) in 1920 for voluntary services to the Royal Patriotic Fund Corporation and to the Legal Branch of the Ministry of Pensions.

It would appear that, despite – or because of – their wealth, the Floersheims and their friends had attempted to contribute to society in their own patrician way. The men through their influence in the legal and political sphere, their wives through raising funds for ‘worthy causes’, such as the Distressed Gentlefolk’s Aid Association and Dr Barnardo’s. Without the pesky business of having to make a living getting in the way, it was relatively commonplace for  wealthy women to devote some of their free time to charitable works. Whether this had anything to do with assuaging their sense of guilt at the easy hand that life had dealt them, or their strong sense of faith (both Anglican and Jewish), it is difficult to speculate. Perhaps it was more a social activity that also managed to combine aspects of the former points.

Like most of their friends, the Floersheims lived in West London: the census returns from 1901 and 1911 show them to be living at Kensington Court, a select neighbourhood just off Kensington High Street, close to Kensington Palace and Gardens, where they were to remain until Cecil’s unexpected death at sea in 1936. Throughout the decades in which they made the area their home, they moved three times within Kensington Court Mansions – a red sandstone neo-Gothic Victorian apartment block. In her latter years, the widowed Maude moved to the nearby Rutland Court – the place where she was living when her cousin Daisy’s grandchildren visited her after the war.

And in another strange, but happy, coincidence, a writer friend of mine actually lives in that very same mansion block in Kensington. Because of this I have visited the place on several occasions, and still can’t quite come to terms with the uncanny feeling that an unknown force is pulling me back into my ancestors’ lives in some way. The quiet tree-lined streets belie the proximity of the neighbourhood to the hub of Kensington High Street, and the ornate French balconies let in a gentle breeze to the building on hot summer days. In most of the apartments there is enough space for several people (and domestics) to live there quite happily without having to bump into each other, and when the location is factored in, it is unsurprising that the Floersheims chose to make this their London home for several decades.

kensignton-courtKensington Court Mansions, Kensington

Regular readers might recognise that I can often get rather obsessed with the ex-houses of my ancestors, and with the contemporary connection adding an extra incentive to discover more about this mansion block where the Floersheims spent their married lives together, I decided to undertake a little research into the building, unearthing a story which I believe to be worth telling:

As to be expected, Kensington Court Mansions was one of several buildings erected in the area at the end of the 19th century to fuel the demand for the growing upper middle classes to have an apartment (in the continental style) in a fashionable part of town. Following a familiar pattern of West End development, the new buildings replaced two old houses with generous gardens that had been on the site for several centuries (and belonged to the Colby Family) which were unsurprisingly named Kensington House and Colby House.

fig20Kensington House and Colby House

However, things were not quite as straightforward as one might assume. Between these two events – the destruction of the old houses and the establishment of the Kensington Court neighbourhood – I discovered the story of a forgotten other house. This was a mansion that was confusingly also called Kensington House, and built in 1873 to the specifications of a wealthy entrepreneur, Albert Grant (also known as Baron Grant). Grant bought up and demolished the two medieval Colby family houses on the site, as well as some of the surrounding slums, in order to create a private estate for himself and his family, of which a newly-built Kensington House would take centrepiece. However, this new house was never actually inhabited due to Grant’s unexpected bankruptcy shortly after its completion. When no buyer for this rather ostentatious building could be found (despite the idea of turning it into a private club), the estate was sold to a speculative builder who promptly tore down Grant’s new mansion and erected the buildings which exist today. As much as it is an oasis of calm in a busy part of London, one cannot help but wonder at what the previous houses and their extensive gardens would have been like. But perhaps something of their spirit lingers on in the quiet and sedate neighbourhood of Kensington Court!

fig22Grant’s Plans for the New Kensington House

fig23The completed residental area of Kensington Court

With a large airy flat in London’s West End as well as shared family country houses in the home counties, the Floersheims would have enjoyed a life of arts, theatre, travel and entertaining. Cecil had studied modern history at Oxford, and was interested in the classics, as well as writing poetry (in the census of 1911 he described himself as being a literary barrister), and was also a member of the Royal Geographic Society as well as Entomological and Zoological societies. Cecil’s office was at Farrar’s Building  in the Inner Temple, just off Fleet Street – and another unexpected corner of calm in the capital. However, I’m not quite sure how much legal work Cecil actually did as he found time to travel widely and write papers for his scientific societies as well as translate poetry from the classics and write his own (rather dull) verses. But as he had inherited a large amount on the death of his German-born banker father in 1917 (Maude Beatrice had already received her inheritance from James William Skelton on her marriage to Cecil), he could probably pick and choose the cases he wanted to pursue.

Farra's Buildings

church-court-inner-temple

Farrar’s Building and Inner Temple (with Temple Church)

But I am going to leave the story of Cecil and his family to another day, as the focus of this chapter is Maude Beatrice and what happened to her after Cecil’s death. It is the sort of story that (with a bit of tweaking) could be rewritten as a 1930s whodunit, which might then be turned into a rather hammy stage play where odd-looking characters strut the boards with a stiff gait and even stiffer accents. However, I am getting ahead of myself again, so will return to 1936, the year that Cecil unexpectedly died on board the ship Oronsay on his way back from Australia, on what had possibly been a private ‘scientific’ expedition. Throughout the 1930s, Cecil took many overseas trips (he was no doubt fully-retired by then), and his death at 65 from a cerebral thrombosis was presumably unexpected.

The times printed the following obituary:

P1060930 (2)

Other papers mention Maude Beatrice’s inheritance, and report on the strong wording of Cecil Floersheim’s will (one example is: Socialistic Misgovernment – Barrister’s Request in Will). This was the 1931 will in which Cecil stated that: I express my very strong wish in view of the possibility of even greater excesses in socialistic mis-government than those already obtaining and which in my opinion cannot at any time be deemed unlikely in view of universal suffrage and the want of proper constitutional restraints thereon that my wife will retain at least one-half of her fortune in currencies other than British and preferably that of the United States. (note: such legal documents do not use punctuation)

This was one thing that I found rather shocking, and at odds with the concept of the possible philanthropic lifestyle that I mentioned earlier. Reading those words over and over again, not quite able to believe them, I thought about my Hawkins-Skelton relatives (the ones from which I am directly descended) and how a bit more of so-called socialistic ‘mis-government’ might not have gone amiss for that family, helping them to have the opportunities from which the other branch of the Skeltons had benefited.

However, to give Cecil his credit, in this relatively straightforward will he also mentions that: I express my wish though without imposing any legal trust upon or wishing to fetter my wife in any way that she will herself if she thinks fit leave my estate by her will as to one third to Brian (sic) Cecil Durant and as to two thirds equally between the children of my wife’s cousin Mrs Alfred Westmacott at present residing in the Isle of Wight. Interestingly, Daisy’s grand-daughter later told me: So that’s where my father got the money to build the tennis court!

But the strange thing was that shortly after her husband’s death, Maude was to inherit a significant amount again. This was from Cecil’s friend, the cleric William Doherty, a former tennis player, and brother to the famous Doherty Brothers (Reggie and Laurie), and who later arranged for the erection of the Doherty Gates at Wimbledon in memory of his two brothers.

Contemporary newspapers reported the event as thus:

Maude Beatrice_Article (2)(c) The Straits Times, 30 August 1936

After carrying out some more research into William Doherty, I came across a reference to Maude Beatrice in an on-line book The Tennis-Playing Doherty Brothers – a Biography by Mark Ryan. The information given in the final chapter is worth quoting in full:

According to the British Probate Registry, Willie Doherty died at 90 Kensington Court, Middlesex, off the Kensington Road, in the exclusive Kensington area of London. Kensington Court is, in fact, located only a few minutes’ walk away from Albert Hall Mansions, where Willie’s parents and brothers once lived. Willie Doherty left effects to the value of £53,208-4s-2d, in those days a significant amount of money. It is possible that he had invested the money he inherited from his father and that he had sold the family apartment in Albert Hall Mansions, a valuable asset. He might well also have inherited his father’s printing business. Of course, Willie Doherty had also worked for a living. Like his two younger brothers, Reggie and Laurie, Willie Doherty had not married.

Willie granted probate to a Maud Beatrice Sleath Floersheim, listed in the British Probate Registry as “widow”. This lady had been married to Cecil Floersheim, a minor English poet and a barrister by profession. Cecil had died at sea earlier in 1936, leaving Maud £171,000, a huge sum at the time. The link between Willie Doherty and Cecil Floersheim had first been created back in 1889, when they went up to Christ Church, Oxford, at the same time. They had both been born in the same year, 1871.

Cecil Floersheim married Maud Beatrice Skelton at Saint George’s Church, Hanover Square, London, in the second quarter of 1896. In the 1901 Census of England and Wales Cecil and Maud Floersheim were living at 16 Kensington Court Mansions; ten years later they were living at 29 Kensington Court Mansions. They had no children. Because Willie Doherty died at 90 Kensington Court*, Maud Beatrice Floersheim was probably with him in his final hours, especially if she was still living in Kensington. This would have been a solace to Willie in the same way that the presence of family members had been a solace to Reggie, and the presence of his father had been a comfort to Laurie, in their final hours.

*90 Kensington Court was actually the third and final apartment in Kensington Court Mansions where Maude and Cecil lived, until the widowed Maude later moved to Rutland Court.

I applied for William Doherty’s will and death certificate – curious to find out more about this story. It would appear that Doherty hurriedly wrote his will on one sheet of hospitality notepaper on the 28th of December, 1933, at the Hotel Metropole, Brighton (reproduced below), giving everything to Maude before she was in fact made a widow.

P1060934 (2)

It does seem a rather strange scenario.  However, over twenty years later, when Maude made out  her own will, she donated a thousand pounds each to three different charities in remembrance of her legacy from William Vernon Doherty. Ironically, one of these organisations was The Church of England Children’s Society (formerly Waifs and Strays Society) Old Town Hall, Kennington, London (the original stamping ground of the Hawkins-Skelton children).

When William Doherty died five years later, The Oxford and Cambridge Club (see the will above) was still given as his home address, while the place of death was recorded as 90, Kensington Court. His death certificate states that he died of a coronary thrombosis at 65 (the same age as Cecil). The informant was given as an L. Turner who was present at the death, and lived in nearby Queen’s Gate, so perhaps Willie was simply visiting Maude when he collapsed with a fatal heart attack. However, Mark Ryan (the writer of the Doherty biography) reports that one source  mentions that he had suffered from a short illness just before his death.

Whatever the relationship had been between Maude, Cecil and William Doherty, Maude could no doubt count on her cousin Daisy for support during that fateful year when she lost two people dear to her. For shortly afterwards, in the autumn of 1936, Daisy’s second husband, Alfred Westmacott, died, thus turning both the cousins into widows.

Neither of the two women remarried, and when war broke out Maude went to stay with naval friends in Hove, near to where her widowed brother Stanley was living. A year later Daisy lost her middle son in combat: RAF Wing Commander, Harry Manners Mellor. Their husbands’ deaths in 1936 had possibly only been the beginning of a turbulent time for the two cousins, who saw the world plunged into chaos yet again. But perhaps this was also the start of a new bond in older age for Maude and Daisy. Certainly the post-war world in which they would soon find themselves would feel even more alien to the aging women who had grown up under the reign of Victoria, and they may have increasingly turned to each other and their shared childhood memories for comfort in the final years of their life.

The Incidental Genealogist, July 2017