THE GRAVE OF MATTHEW ARNOLD

 AT THE GRAVE OF THE POET

MATTHEW ARNOLD 

(1822-1888)

Matthew Arnold was born on 24th December 1822 in Laleham, Middlesex and was Christened at All Saint's Church, Laleham on 23rd January 1823. His father was the educationalist, social reformer and Head Master of Rugby School, Thomas Arnold, D.D. (1795-1842) Matthew's mother was Mary Penrose Arnold. In 1828 when his father became Head Master, the family moved to Oxford, Matthew was 6 years old. Matthew was educated at Winchester College in 1836 before returning to Rugby School the following year. In 1840 Matthew went up to Balliol College, Oxford and was awarded his B.A. in 1844. The following year he taught at Rugby and later became a Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford.

All Saint's Church, Laleham 

Arnold's first volume of poetry was The Strayed Reveller in 1849. In 1851 he became an Inspector of Schools, a role that lasted thirty-five years. Other well-known poetry includes the dramatic poem, 'Empedocles on Etna' (1852),  'The Scholar Gypsy' (1853) and 'Dover Beach' (1867). In 1858 Arnold became Professor of Poetry at Oxford and his poetry was popular although he seemed to remain under the shadow of his fellow poets, Browning and Tennyson.

Matthew married Frances Lucy Wightman in 1851 and they had six children (three of the sons died young): Thomas Arnold (1852-1868), Trevenen William Arnold (1853-1872), Richard Penrose Arnold (1855-1908), Lucy Charlotte Arnold (1858-1934), Eleanor Mary Caroline Arnold (1861-1936) and Basil Francis Arnold (1866-1868).

Matthew Arnold's grave is situated to the right of the church which is 12th century with later additions (brick tower replacing the wooden steeple in 1732) as one enters from the front. His stone reads: 'Matthew Arnold eldest son of the late Thomas Arnold, D.D. Head Master of Rugby School, born Dec 24th 1822. Died April 15th 1888'.

Also with Matthew is his wife, 'Frances Lucy Arnold, wife of Matthew Arnold and third daughter of the late Honourable Mr. Justice Wightman. Born Sept 16th 1825. Died June 29th 1901'. Her funeral took place on 6th July 1901. Beside Matthew and his wife are their three sons: Thomas Arnold 6th July 1852 - 23rd Nov 1868, Trevenen William Arnold, 15th Oct 1853 - 16th Feb 1872 and their youngest child, Basil Francis Arnold, 19th Aug 1866 - 4th Jan 1868. Also in the churchyard is Matthew's grandmother, Martha Delafield Arnold (1751-1829) who was buried on 19th April 1829

Some facts in the incidents of Arnold's death are interesting. He was with his wife, Frances, in Liverpool awaiting the arrival of their daughter, Lucy and her husband, from the United States. They had been travelling from New York on the steamer 'Aurania'; Matthew was running for a tram car when he collapsed and died a while later of a heart attack.

His body which was placed in a simple coffin with a brass name plaque, was taken to London from Liverpool on the 11. a.m. express train with his widow, Frances and the three children, Richard ('Dick'), Lucy and Eleanor. His body was kept at Cobham for a day or two before.

The funeral took place at noon on Thursday 19th April 1888. The weather was warm and showery with sunny intervals. Some of those who attended were: poet Robert Browning (1812-1889), Professor Benjamin Jowett (1817-1893) Master of Balliol College, Oxford; the American author, Henry James (1843-1916) and the author and ghost story enthusiast, Augustus Hare (1834-1903) whose deadly six volume autobiography I have wrestled with.  Family members who attended include: Matthew's brother, Thomas Arnold (1823-1900), his nephews Edward Penrose Arnold Forster (1851-1927) [who transcribed the poetry of Schiller as E. P. Arnold Forster] and Hugh Oakley Arnold Forster (1855-1909), Arnold's widowed sister, Jane Martha Arnold [Arnold Forster] who married the M.P. William Edward Forster (1818-1886). The service was taken by the Dean of Westminster, George Granville Bradley (1821-1894) and among other mourners were Lord Coleridge, [John Duke 1st Baron Coleridge (1820-1894) and Lord Chief Justice] and George Smalley (1833-1916) of the New York Tribune.

And over a century later this 'creepy individual' with a death-obsession was lurking about the churchyard and any slight resemblance to myself is purely coincidental! Also of note is the church which contains the 'Lucan Chapel' and in the churchyard one can find the graves of some of the Earls of Lucan.

WINTERBOURNE HOUSE AND GARDEN

 WINTERBOURNE HOUSE AND GARDEN

BIRMINGHAM

NORMAN ROWLAND GALE

 

A GOOSE AMONG SWANS

NORMAN ROWLAND GALE (1862-1942)

BY
BARRY VAN-ASTEN
                                                                                      
 
‘Diana with her limbs of dream,
Her wavering heart of lily-stuff,
For long had mocked me with the gleam
Too sweet, and yet not sweet enough.’ (1)

 

 

Norman Rowland Gale was a minor British poet and storyteller who is seemingly neglected in recent times or ‘out of fashion’; he is often associated with the fringes of the eighteen-nineties and the young aesthetes such as Beardsley, Richard Le Gallienne; John Lane and the Bodley Head publishing house (two of his poems appeared in volume 2 and volume 5 of The Yellow Book) where he is often mentioned in passing; a man ‘possessed of a pretty gift for turning melodious flowing verse of no originality’ and a familiar figure to many who was ‘rather a big, florid man, who wrote discreetly fleshly poems about pretty milkmaids, and apple-blossom, and rustic junketings.’ (2). In the literary circles of what is often termed the fin de siecle, Gale became quite well known as a poet writing in the modern manner of Clare or Herrick and his books were widely sought after and although he avoided town society as much as possible for he was a ‘passionate lover of the country’, he became talked about and sought after for he was, according to Arthur Warren of the Boston Herald, a  ‘big, handsome, brown-eyed, brown-haired, wholesome fellow, who gives himself no airs of “decadence” as the fashion is with so many of the young literary men in town. Gale hates the town.’  (3)

 

‘I tell you there is Arcady
In leafy Warwickshire.’ (4)

 

 He was born on 4^th March 1862 at Kew in Surrey; his father was William Frederick Gale, (son of Charles and Elizabeth Gale) born in Richmond in 1821 and christened there on 11^th July of that year; William was a ‘master plumber’. Norman’s mother was Elizabeth Pullen born in Chilham, Kent in 1834; William and Elizabeth were married in Richmond in 1857. Their first child was Olive Gale, born in Richmond in 1858, (5) then came Clement Rowland Gale (1860-1934) born in Richmond and baptised at St. Anne’s Parish Church, Kew on 15^th July 1860; next came Norman Rowland Gale (1862-1942) and finally Harold Rowland Gale (1864-1941), born Richmond. Michael Seeney of the Eighteen Nineties Society who has diligently researched Gale, to whom we are all indebted, says that the Gale family ‘lived in Cumberland Place, a row of small houses almost opposite Cumberland Gate of Kew Gardens.’ (6)

Young Norman was a passionate lover of the countryside and a keen player of field sports and as a poet his rustic verse delights in the joys of cricket, the charm and simplicity of children and the beauty of young and lusty milkmaids. In fact, he became an ‘ardent sportsman. With rod or gun, foot-ball or cricket-bat, on the back of a horse, or trudging along a Warwickshire road, he is in his best spirits.’ (7) He collected first editions and was said to have a fine library of rare and exquisite books but had to part with many, something he regretted dearly. When he was 18 Norman Rowland Gale entered Exeter College, Oxford on 22^nd October 1880 and was awarded his B.A. on 14^th January 1884. In the 1881 census both Norman, aged 19 and his brother Clement, aged 21 state their occupation as: ‘Undergraduate Oxford University’, both are single and residing in Caterham, Surrey. Norman’s father, William Frederick, is 58 and his occupation is ‘Gate Porter of Asylum’ and Norman’s mother, Elizabeth, is 46 and the ‘Wife of Gate Porter of Asylum’. (8) The Asylum is the Metropolitan District Asylum for Imbeciles, also known as the Caterham Lunatic Asylum.

Many literary works describe Gale as being a schoolmaster at Rugby and Gale sees nothing wrong in letting this stand uncorrected – ‘Gale lives at Rugby during term-time, although he no longer teaches at the famous school.’ (9) The statement is not quite true, he was a schoolmaster at Rugby, something he became soon after leaving Oxford it seems, but not at the famous public school of Dr. Thomas Arnold who was Headmaster of Rugby School from 1876-1886, in fact, ‘the only school at which we know he taught was Oakfield Preparatory School just around the corner. There are suggestions in correspondence, however, that he may also have coached boys from Rugby for university entrance.’ (10) Oakfield Preparatory School situated at 20 Bilton Road, Rugby, was opened in January 1888 by the Headmaster, Thomas Arnold Wise M.A. (1861-1940) who retired in 1929. There is also some evidence that Gale may have taught as a schoolmaster at St. Sidwell, Exeter in Devon where he turns up in the 1891 census (see note 13) and also at Boston Grammar School in Boston, Lincolnshire, where his first two volumes of poetry, ‘Unleavened Bread’ and ‘Primulas and Pansies’ were published by Dingwall and Wilson at 42 Market Place. In fact, I have found an article in the Boston Guardian of 1884 which confirms Gale was a master at the school – the article is in the ‘wanted’ column and reads: ‘Tuition – Wanted by master at the Grammar school teaching work from the 8^th of August to the end of holiday. – Apply to Norman Gale, Grammar School, Boston.’ (11)

69 year old William Frederick Gale and 57 year old Elizabeth can be found on the 1891 census living in Ringstead Road, Lewisham; William is a ‘retired plumber’ and they have taken in two boarders: Charles F Buckingham, aged 25 and born in London, who is single, and Grace Forbes Cochrane, also 25 and single, born in Gloucestershire. (12) Not long after the census of 1891 William Frederick Gale dies in Lewisham, aged 69 (13). His wife, Elizabeth Gale died in Lambeth aged 63 on 11^th February 1899 (14). In 1900-1901 Norman is living at Avenue Lodge, Ledrington Road in Dulwich.

As a poet much of Gale’s work can be seen as the usual sentimental Victorian slush about childhood where many artists worshipped the cult of the child, the purity and beauty, which to contemporary minds may seem inappropriate but to the Victorian was perfectly innocent. Michael Seeney says that Gale’s love of and sympathy for childhood was ‘qualities which, no doubt, made him an excellent teacher.’ He goes on to say that ‘I recognise the dangers in today’s climate of suggesting that an adult male’s (especially a school teachers’) affection for young people is entirely innocent, and perhaps it never can be. I have found nothing to suggest that Gale took any more than a naïve delight in the presence of young people.’ (15) I most definitely agree with Seeney’s opinion and see nothing harmful in Gale’s charming, if sometimes mawkish verse, yet there are those during his time who thought his poetry, some of which can verge on the sensual or erotic, to be quite vulgar, as in this review from The Artist: ‘Norman Gale seems at present to be dead, dead as the second volume of Gillman’s Coleridge. He has been and so is no more. So long as he was unknown he fashioned for himself pretty verses, which never became poetry but were worth reading all the same. With the printing of his first his first book, he became famous, and the success and Mr. Le Galliene between them killed him. The second volume of The Country Muse was a long fall from the first. With “Orchard Songs” Mr. Gale committed suicide.’ The review goes on to say that ‘not only has Mr. Gale’s verse become excessively bad, but he now thinks coarsely’. (16) The reviewer is referring to poems such as The Shaded Pool which begins ‘The virgins slipping from their robes, / the cheated stockings lean and long, / the swift descending petticoat, / the breasts that heave because they ran, / the rounded arms, the brilliant limbs, / the pretty necklaces of tan.’ (17) One cannot deny the erotic imagery of such a poem with its ‘undraped girls so wonder-sweet’ but I would not call it ‘course’. And again we find from the same volume in the poem A Woman, the lines ‘she is velvet and scandal and lace / and beautiful limbs’ (18) which to my ears ring as perfectly beautiful with deep ‘fleshly’ sensuality. But perhaps the most well known poem of Gale’s to suggest the sexual thrill of observing the sensual form of woman is his poem, Cicely Bathing:

 
‘The brook told the dove
And the dove told me
That Cicely’s bathing at the pool
With other virgins three.
 
The brook told the dove
And the dove told me
That Cicely floating on the wave
Woke music in the tree.
 
The brook told the dove
And the dove told me
That Cicely’s drying in the sun,
A snowy sight to see.’ (19)

 

A rather pompous article on Gale appeared in the illustrated monthly, Pearson’s magazine in 1896 which has a few interesting details on the poet whose ‘love of nature is the mainspring of his songs, and to him sunshine serves as an unfailing stimulant’; the article goes on to say that ‘according to Mr. Grant Allen, “this is an urban age,” and it is remarkable, therefore, that a poet who sings of birds and woodlands, of the loves of country folk, and of such pleasures as are called Arcadian, should have established himself in the poetic ranks, and once more brought rustic themes to the front amid applause. Mr. Gale would not desert Warwickshire meadows for the isles of Greece, and whatever may be the glories of the Ganges, it may safely be averred that they could never tempt him to leave Shakespeare’s Avon for long.

All that need be said of the poet’s personal history can be written down in a few words. He was born in 1862. As soon as he left Oxford he occupied himself in schoolmastering, and continued so to do until three years ago, when he published “A Country Muse”, a book which was, to its author’s great surprise, the recipient of unanimous praise.

His one venture in prose, “A June Romance”, has brought him many friends, and it has again gone out of print. As to his love of sport, is it not proved by his “Cricket Songs”? The fact is, Mr. Gale is an adept in nearly all games, whether those that are played in the house or those of the open air. The young men who desert the national pastime for golf and tennis he has some vigorous remarks to make. All sports that involve the suffering of dumb animals Mr. Gale shuns as he would shun the plague, and he is never tired of trying to implant the creed of mercy in both old and young listeners. Children he adores, and he does not yield to Mrs. Marriott Watson in his love for cats. The former have inspired him to write a book of songs, which have yet to be appear, and the latter have not been altogether neglected by his pen. Mr. Andrew Lang, that inventor of felicitous phrases, in calling Mr. Gale “a kind of Theocritus in flannels”, described him to a nicety.’ (20)

Gale’s love of cats led him to collaborate with various authors on several amusing publications for the publishers, Raphael Tuck & Sons Ltd of London, notably with the well known Edwardian cat illustrator, Louis Wain (1860-1939). Wain was a rather tragic figure who fell into a great depression following the death of his wife, Emily and he was admitted into the Springhil Mental Hospital in 1924 as a pauper and continued to draw cats throughout the remainder of his life in various institutions. Gale also became friends with the ‘midland poet’, Alfred Hayes (1857-1936) who was educated at New College, Oxford and became well known for his volume ‘The Vale of Arden and Other Poems’ (1895); they shared many similar sentiments on nature and the pastoral and they collaborated together, along with Gale’s other friend, Richard Le Gallienne, on a volume of verse – ‘A Fellowship in Song’ published in 1893. In it, Hayes honours his friend with the poem: ‘To Norman Gale’ which begins:

 

‘Friend, whom I met in fruitful days
Rambling amid sequestered ways
Of rustic song,
These flowers, in midland meadows grown
While yet I walked and mused alone,
Pleased to be laid beside thine own,
To thee belong.’

 

Hayes goes on to say that ‘we both have worshipped the pure rest / of Arden’s gently sloping breast’ before ending with a melancholy flourish on the timeless nature of their verse – ‘age will abate the lyric flame, / the grave’s dull tooth consume our name; / but hap what may, / friend, we have captured fugitive / fine joys, whose music will outlive / all the discordant world can give / or take away.’ (21) The poem also appears in Hayes’ volume ‘The Vale of Arden’. Gale also published a volume of verse titled ‘On Two Strings’ in 1894 with fellow poet, Robinson Kay Leather (1865-1895) of University College, Liverpool, a rather pathetic creature who in my opinion was a far greater chess player than he was a poet, (see his ‘Verses’ published by Fisher Unwin. London. 1891) nevertheless, he seems to have got on well with Richard Le Gallienne with whom he published a volume of stories titled ‘The Student and the Body Snatcher’ (London. Elkin Mathews. 1890).

 In 1886, Norman married Charlotte Mary Barnes in West Ham but for some reason in the census of 1891, 29 year old Norman, a ‘schoolmaster’ who is visiting the home of 41 year old Daniel Joseph Wood (1849-1919), an ‘organist and teacher of music’ (22) living in Denmark Road, Exeter, in Devon with his wife Elizabeth and children Kathleen and Dorothy, ages 13 and 12 respectively, states that he is ‘single’. We know that Charlotte Mary Gale died in Kent on 9^th May 1922 and the probate was held on 26^th May and that Norman is the benefactor, so I can find no reason for this. Dr. Daniel J. Wood was organist at Boston Parish Church in Lincolnshire from 1869-1875 and Exeter Cathedral from 1876-1919 and it is highly probable that Norman’s brother, Clement, the organist and composer also knew Dr. Wood as Clement was the pupil of the organist and music teacher, Alfred Angel (1816-1876) who was organist at Exeter Cathedral prior to Wood from 1842-1876.

On Wednesday 14^th December 1898 Gale gave a lecture at Gloucester Guildhall titled ‘The Horizon of Literature’. In 1901 Gale published a selection of poems by the Northamptonshire poet, John Clare (with a bibliography by C Ernest Smith) and one can tell he has a real feel for the ‘labourer poet’ born into a ‘heritage of handicaps’ whom ‘because of his strange manner, his fits of abstraction as well as of uttered enthusiasm, his appetite for solitude, the neighbours passed from mere mockery to whispers of a mind diseased, and even of a nature beset by the black ministers of magic.’ (23) Gale writes a fine introduction to the book and shows his deep sympathy and compassion for Clare and the harrowing poverty he was subjected to before succumbing to mental illness.

In 1913 Gale published a delightful little book called ‘Solitude’ which is a short essay upon the charms of solitude in nature and it is the essence of Gale’s own feelings towards the beauty of escaping to the countryside and immersing oneself in its sensuous surroundings – ‘I have gone to Solitude for a better reading of earth; I have gone in sorrow, I have gone in turmoil; I have known the pang of convulsive truancy.’ (24) Gale achieves an almost spiritual enlightenment with the solemnity of the countryside and looks upon trees, as in fact do I, as having a distinct consciousness, a sentient nature; trees with which he has formed unbreakable friendships.

In 1930 Norman Gale left Old Bilton, Rugby, and moved to Bexhill-on-Sea where he married again on 6^th December 1930 at the ‘Church of Saint Barnabas by Rev. B. H. Davies’ to Miss ‘Edith Margaret Davy of Bexhill-on-Sea’. (25) Norman Rowland Gale died aged 80 on 7^th October 1942 at ‘Connemara’, Carlton Road, Headley Down, Hampshire. The cremation was at Woking on Saturday 10^th October. Under the heading ‘A Literary Loss’, the Hampshire Telegraph and Post said he was ‘well-known as a poet, story-teller, and reviewer, and was the author of many charming books, which included “Cricket Songs”, “Orchard Songs”, and “Songs For Little People”. He formerly resided at Bexhill-on-Sea, but had been living on Headley Down for the past two years. He is survived by his second wife, whom he married 12 years ago.’ (26) [Probate: 18^th November 1942, beneficiary: Edith Margaret Gale]. Norman’s elder brother, 20 year old Clement Rowland Gale also entered Exeter College on the same day as Norman and studied music. B.A. 10^th July 1886. B.Mus. 24^th October 1889. As a boy, Clement was a chorister at Kew Parish Church and later at St. Luke’s Church, Chaterham. After leaving Oxford Clement became organist at Reading School (1885-1890) before becoming a music teacher at John Watson Institute in Edinburgh. It was in Edinburgh, presumably, where he met his wife, Blanche Antoinette Barbara Kunz (born 1^st June 1865 in Edinburgh, Scotland); she was the daughter of Jules Antoine Louis Kunz and Wilhelmina De Dreux. Blanche and Clement were married on 28^th July 1892. Clement went to the United States, arriving in New York on 14^th September 1891 and became organist and Precentor of the Episcopal Parish Church, Calvary, St. George, New York and a founding member of the American Guild of Organists. In the U.S. census for 1930 Clement and his wife Blanche, are living in Manhattan, New York. He died on 10^th May 1934 at the Fifth Avenue Hospital. His younger brother, Harold Rowland Gale immigrated to Australia, living in Brisbane. He married Annie Marie Hicks on 17^th March 1886 and in 1929, aged 64 and a ‘company director’ went to Victoria, Vancouver Island, British Columbia travelling by ship named the ‘Oarangi’. Their daughter, Muriel Maria Dolores Gale, born in Brisbane in 1890, married William George Robertson in Toronto, York, Canada on 1^st September 1915. Harold Rowland Gale died on 20^th May 1941.

 If Norman Gale shall be remembered at all it is for his love of childhood and his sporting enthusiasms but most of all for his adoration of nature where his ‘praise of Warwickshire is that of a true devotee, and in its lanes he dreams of the presence of Shakespeare, and in listening to the songs of its birds he feels that

 

“the bough
Is bending with immortals now,
And gods go large in Warwickshire!”’ (27)

 

 

NOTES:

 

1. Dream and Ideal. Song in September. Norman Gale. London. Constable.1912. p. 12.
2. John Lane and the Nineties. James Lewis May. London. John Land and the Bodley Head. 1936. p. 103.
3. Current Literature: a magazine of record and review. New York. Volume XVII. Jan-June 1895. General Gossip of Authors and Writers. P. 489.
4. Leafy Warwickshire. A Country Muse. Norman Gale. New Series. London. David Nutt. 1893. p. 101.
5. Olive Gale, sometimes known as ‘Alice’ [1871 census] or ‘Clara’, married 24 year old grocer, William Portsmouth Gartell, born in Dorset in 1855 and the son of Joseph Gartell, china dealer, at St Mary’s Church, in Caterham, Surrey on 16^th March 1880; Olive is 21 and her father, William Frederick gives his occupation as ‘plumber’ on the marriage certificate. In the 1881 census [RG11 folio: 32/55 page: 59] William, 26, a ‘Grocer and Proprietor of Coffee House’ and ‘Alice’ [Olive], 22, are living in Kensington.
6. A Six-Foot Three Nightingale: Norman Gale, 1862-1942: Biographical Essay and Check-List. Michael Seeney. Privately Printed. Oxford, for the Eighteen Nineties Society. Rivendale Press. 1998. (41 pages) p. 2.
7. Current Literature: a magazine of record and review. New York. Volume XVII. Jan-June 1895. General Gossip of Authors and Writers. P. 489.
8. 1881 Census for England and Wales. RG11 folio: 806/63 page:2.
9. Current Literature: a magazine of record and review. New York. Volume XVII. Jan-June 1895. General Gossip of Authors and Writers. P. 489.
10. A Six-Foot Three Nightingale: Norman Gale, 1862-1942: Biographical Essay and Check-List. Michael Seeney. Privately Printed. Oxford, for the Eighteen Nineties Society. Rivendale Press. 1998. (41 pages) p. 3.
11. Boston Guardian. Saturday 26^th July 1884. p. 4.
12. 1891 Census for England and Wales. RG12 folio: 521/108 page: 14.
13. Register of Deaths in England. Frederick William Gale. Lewisham. June 1891. 1d 815.
14. Register of Death in England. Elizabeth Gale. Lambeth. March 1899. 1d 217. Probate: 11^th March 1899, beneficiary: Norman Rowland Gale.
15. A Six-Foot Three Nightingale: Norman Gale, 1862-1942: Biographical Essay and Check-List. Michael Seeney. Privately Printed. Oxford, for the Eighteen Nineties Society. Rivendale Press. 1998. (41 pages) p. 3.
16. The Artist. 1^st January 1894. p. 7.
17. The Shaded Pool. A Country Muse. Norman Gale. New Series. London. David Nutt. 1893. p. 21-22.
18. A Woman. ibid. p. 89.
19. Cicely Bathing. Orchard Songs. Norman Gale. London. Elkin Mathews and John Lane. 1893. p. 88.
20. Pearson’s magazine. C. Arthur Pearson. Volume 1. Jan-June. 1896. ‘In the Public Eye’. p. 161-162.
21. A Fellowship in Song. Alfred Hayes [From Midland Meadows], Richard Le Gallienne [Nightingales] and Norman Gale [A Verdant County]. Rugby. George E Over. 1893. To Norman Gale. Alfred Hayes. p. 1-3.
22. Daniel Joseph Wood, born 1849. Educated at New College, Oxford. FRCO 1873, BMus 1874, DMus 1896. Organist at Boston Parish Church (St Botolphs) from 1869-1875. Organist at Exeter Cathedral from 1876-1919. He died on 27^th August 1919.
23. John Clare Poems, Selected and Introduced by Norman Gale with a Bibliography by C. Ernest Smith. Rugby, George E Over. 1901. p. xiii.
24. Solitude. Norman Gale. London. B T Batsford. 1913. p. 35-36.
25. Bexhill-on-Sea Observer. Saturday 13^th December 1930. p. 8.
26. Hampshire Telegraph and Post. Friday 23^rd October 1942. p. 8.
27. The Poets of the Shires: Warwickshire Poets. Charles Henry Poole. London. N. Ling & Co. 1914. p. xix.

 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

Unleavened Bread: Simple Verses, by Aura [Norman Gale]. Boston. Dingwall and Wilson. 1885.

Primulas and Pansies: Simple Verses by the Author of Unleavened Bread [Norman Gale]. Boston. Dingwall and Wilson. 1886.

Marsh Marigolds, by the Author of Primulas and Pansies [Norman Gale]. Rugby. George E Over. 1888.

Meadowsweet, by the Author of Marsh Marigolds [Norman Gale]. Rugby. George E Over. 1889.

Anemones, a Collection of Simple Songs from Unleavened Bread. [Norman Gale]. Rugby. George E Over. 1889.

Thistledown: Essays Whereof the Tale is Six. Penned in the Studies of Rusticus and One who is a Friend of His. [Norman Gale and Charles H Meade]. Rugby. George E Over. 1890.

Cricket Songs and Other Trifling Verses, Penned by one of the Authors of ‘Thistledown’. [Norman Gale]. Rugby. George E Over. 1890.

Violets, by the Author of Meadowsweet [Norman Gale]. Rugby. George E Over. 1891.

Prince Redcheek. [Norman Gale]. Rugby. George E Over. 1891.

Gorillas. [Norman Gale]. Rugby. George E Over. 1891.

The Candid Cuckoo. [Norman Gale]. Old Bilton. Rugby. George E Over. 1891.

A Country Muse. Norman Gale. London. David Nutt. 1892.

A Country Muse. Norman Gale. New Series. London. David Nutt. 1893.

Orchard Songs. Norman Gale. London. Elkin Mathews and John Lane. 1893.

A Cotswold Village. Norman Gale. Private Printing (15 copies). Rugby. George E Over. (June) 1893.

A Fellowship in Song. Alfred Hayes, Richard Le Gallienne and Norman Gale. Rugby. George E Over. 1893.

A Verdant County. Norman Gale. Rugby. George E Over. 1893. [poems from A Fellowship in Song]

A Country Muse. Norman Gale. First Series. London. Constable. 1894.

A June Romance. Norman Gale. [Privately Printed 1892.] Rugby. George E Over. 1894.

Cricket Songs. Norman Gale. London. Methuen. 1894.

On Two Strings. Robinson K Leather and Norman Gale. Privately Printed. Rugby. George E Over. 1894.

A Country Muse. Norman Gale. Second Series. London. Constable. 1895.

All Expenses Paid. Norman Gale. Westminster. Archibald Constable and Co. 1895.

Holly and Mistletoe. E. Nesbit, R. Le Galliene and N. Gale. Lord Marcus Ward. 1895.

Songs for Little People. Norman Gale. [illustrated by Helen Stratton]. Westminster. Constable. 1896.

John Clare Poems, Selected and Introduced by Norman Gale with a Bibliography by C. Ernest Smith. Rugby, George E Over. 1901.

Barty’s Star. Norman Gale. London and Newcastle. Walter Scott. 1903.

More Cricket Songs. Norman Gale. London. Alston River. 1905.

A Norman Gale Treasury. Selected by Albert Broadbent. Manchester. Albert Broadbent. 1905.

Frolics in Catland. Illustrations Louis Wain. Norman Gale. Raphael Tuck & Sons Ltd. London. 1905.

A Book of Quatrains. Norman Gale. Old Bilton. Rugby. 1909.

The Happy Family. Illustrated by Louis Wain. Prose and verse, Norman Gale and others. Raphael Tuck & Sons Ltd. London. 1910.

Father Tuck’s Annual. Illustrated by Louis Wain. Prose and verse, Norman Gale and others. Raphael Tuck & Sons Ltd. London. 1912.

Kits and Cats – With Louis Wain in Pussyland. Illustrations Louis Wain. Norman Gale. Raphael Tuck & Sons Ltd. London. 1912.

Cats of Many Lands. Illustrations Louis Wain. Norman Gale. Raphael Tuck & Sons Ltd. London. 1912.

Song in September. Norman Gale. London. Constable. 1912.

A Country Muse: A Selection. Norman Gale. Grant Richards. 1912.

Solitude. Norman Gale. London. B T Batsford. 1913.

Country Lyrics, Selected from A Country Muse and Orchard Songs. Norman Gale.  London. Harrap. 1913.

Collected Poems. Norman Gale. London. Macmillan. 1914.

A Famouse Bookshop. Norman Gale. Rugby. George E Over. 1914.

Curly Heads and Long Legs. Stories by Edric Vrendenburg and Others, with 13 verses by Norman Gale. Illustrations by Hilda Cowham. Raphael Tuck & Sons Ltd. London. 1914.

Music in Pussyland. Illustrations Louis Wain. Norman Gale. Raphael Tuck & Sons Ltd. London. 1915.

Merry Times with Louis Wain. Illustrations Louis Wain. Norman Gale. Raphael Tuck & Sons Ltd. London. 1916.

A Merry-Go-Round of Song. Norman Gale. Old Bilton. Rugby. 1919.

Such Fun. Illustrations Louis Wain. Norman Gale. Raphael Tuck & Sons Ltd. London. 1920.

Play Fellows. Illustrations Louis Wain and others. Norman Gale, Hilda Hart, Grace C Floyd. Raphael Tuck & Sons Ltd. London. 1920.

Verse in Bloom. Norman Gale. Old Bilton. Rugby. 1925.

A Flight of Fancies. Norman Gale. Birmingham. Kynoch Press. 1926.

Messrs Bat and Ball. Norman Gale. Old Bilton. Rugby. 1930.

Unpigeonholed. Norman Gale. Bexhill on Sea. 1935.

Close of Play. Norman Gale. Rugby. George E Over. 1936.

Remembrances. Denys Heatherford [Norman Gale]. Torquay. Devonshire Press. 1937.

Brackenham Church. Norman Gale. Oxford. Shakespeare Head Press. 1938.

Love-In-A-Mist. Rugby. Norman Gale. George E Over. 1939.

EDMUND MARTIN GELDART (1844-1885)

 

THE MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF

EDMUND MARTIN GELDART

BY

BARRY VAN-ASTEN

 

The Norwich born ‘Evangelist’ Edmund Martin Geldart (1844-1885) will be familiar to admirers of the poet G. M. Hopkins as they were good friends at Oxford and Hopkins mentions him several times in his correspondence. As a child, Geldart, born on 20^th January 1844 (he was Christened late in life on 26^th January 1859 at Bowden in Cheshire), was so pale he came to be known as ‘ghost’; he had the usual boyhood, delighting in cruelty and enjoyed trapping frogs in flower pots before skewering them with a pointed stick until his older brother, William (1842-1858) came and cut them in half with his hatchet (‘A Son of Belial’. 1882. p. 8); he lived a sort of church and chapel existence with his parents Thomas Geldart (1809-1877) and Hannah Ransome Geldart nee Martin (1820-1861); Edmund was the second born child to the Geldarts after William, and other siblings were: Henrietta Maria (1846-1847), Ernest (1848-1929), Mary Constance (1850-1925), Emma Agnes Helen (1852-1874) and Francis (1857-1932). The family were living in Greenwich until they moved to Waterfield Terrace in Blackheath where they stayed two years before moving to Reigate in Surrey, a place young Edmund came to love and call ‘home’ where they had a ‘doll’s cemetery in the garden’ and where he symbolically executed his Governess, Miss Atkinson, known as ‘mad Atky’ by beheading an effigy of her – apparently she witnessed it and took it all in good spirits!

At Reigate he attended an Independent chapel while harbouring a deep ‘fear of hell’ yet, ‘no love of God’ and ‘no sorrow for sin’ (‘A Son of Belial’. p. 53). Edmund attended the Merchant Taylor’s School in London when he was eleven before leaving London for Manchester, or Altrincham to be precise, where he became a great enthusiast of bug hunting and ancient Greek as opposed to Latin. He won a scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford in 1863 matriculating on 26^th March at the age of 19 and there are some marvellous descriptions of life at Balliol, or Belial, as he insists on calling it in his veiled autobiographical sketch, ‘A Son of Belial’ published in 1882 by Nitram Tradleg, which backwards reveals the author’s name, Martin Geldart, and portraits of his friends and masters alike, such as the great Benjamin Jowett (1817-1893), Professor of Greek and Master of Balliol, to whom he gives the name Professor Jewell – many of the stories of Jowett are familiar to those who have read wide on such subjects connected to Balliol and its scholars; there are also sketches of the theologian Canon Henry Parry Liddon (1829-1890), referred to as Canon Parry, and Vincent Stuckey Stratton Coles (1845-1929), the scholar, librarian and Anglican priest, Principle of Pusey House, Oxford from 1897-1909, given the name Vicentius Staccato, and of course Geldart’s ‘ritualistic friend’, Gerard Manley Hopkins known as Gerontius Manley – Hopkins rather unkindly described the ‘hagard hideousness’ of Geldart in a letter to his mother dated 22^nd April 1863 as having ‘grey goggle eyes’ a ‘shuddering gait or shuffle’ and a ‘pinched face’ and famously added that he ‘would not have had twenty Balliol scholarships to change places with him’, but despite this they became intimate friends (Hopkins spent time at Geldart’s family home in the summer of 1865 and was quite taken by Edmund’s younger brother, Ernest, born 1848, saying in a letter that he was ‘looking at temptations, esp, at E. Geldart naked’, see Robert Bernard Martin’s ‘Gerard Manley Hopkins: A Very Private Life’. 1991. p. 114)

Geldart, who regarded himself as an Evangelical, graduated from Balliol with his B.A. in 1867 (M.A. 1873) and took a teaching role at Manchester Grammar School and he seems to have suffered in 1868 some sort of nervous breakdown and so he went to recuperate in Corfu and spent three months in Athens. The account described in ‘A Son of Belial’ reveals something of Geldart’s mind at the time: ‘I had forgotten for the time that the British schoolboy regards his schoolmaster as his natural enemy; that he only respects the man who can and will thrash him; that it is war to the knife, or at least to the cane, in the majority of cases, until one or other is worsted. As I utterly and solemnly abjured the use of any hostile weapon, and was, moreover, of an exceedingly sensitive and nervous temperament, it is not, perhaps, much to be wondered at that in three days from my assuming office I was utterly and completely unhinged and broken down. The fiend like faces of my little tormentors (who meant no harm, God forgive them!) danced before my eyes.’ (p. 193-194) Geldart goes on to tell us that he spent three months undergoing the ‘torture of hydropathic treatment’ at Malvern. By New Year he was feeling well enough to travel back home to Bowdon, Cheshire, before embarking, in February, on the ‘Sidon’ for Corfu, where he suffered the ‘fear of getting drowned, and a few hours’ sea-sickness in the Bay of Biscay’ (p. 194). Strangely, Geldart was the only passenger onboard the Sidon on his fifteen day voyage in which he ‘learnt what solitude meant’, while ‘standing alone upon the deck, when the crew were partly asleep and partly withdrawn to the distance, out of sight of the man and officer on watch, and face to face with the winds and the waves.’ (p. 194-195) His sea-sickness began on the third day of the voyage, and ‘thanks to a glass of porter, I was soon myself again, having paid my tribute to Neptune for the first and only time in my life’. (p. 195-196). The next day he was fully recovered.

During 1869 he was ordained deacon in the Anglican priesthood by the Bishop of Manchester, James Prince Lee (1804-1869) and became curate of All Saints, Manchester and in 1871 curate of St. George’s, Everton, Liverpool (he became a Unitarian the following year). Geldart wrote much on Greek and religious matters publishing such books as: The Modern Greek Language in its relation to Ancient Greek’ (1870) and ‘A Guide to Modern Greek’ (1883) and married Charlotte Frederika Sophia Andler (1841-1923) on 26^th June 1868 at Thorpe-Next-Norwich, Norfolk but she doesn’t get a mention by name in the volume, just the casual fact that he got married (they had three children: William Martin 1870-1922, Mary Charlotte 1872-1940 and Edmund Thomas, born 1873 who sadly did not live past his first year). Geldart, whose socialistic-style sermons disagreed with his congregation, was asked to resign from his position as minister of the Free Christian Church in Croydon and in a nervous state of health once more, he decided to go to France to stay with an old friend but was reported missing from the night boat to Dieppe, assumed drowned after committing suicide on Friday 10^th April 1885, he was 41 years old, the same age that his own mother, Hannah had died in 1861, in fact, on her 41^st birthday, on 29^th September after a mental and physical breakdown, suffering epileptic fits. Edmund was no stranger to death, he saw his younger sister, Henrietta, born in 1846 die in 1847 and his older brother William, born in 1842, whither away and die in 1858; three years later his mother departed in 1861, not to mention his own son, Edmund Thomas who died in 1873.

 ‘I suppose it was suicide’, writes Hopkins to his friend Alexander W. M. Baillee (1843-1921) on 24^th April 1885, saying that ‘his mind, for he was a self tormentor, having been unhinged, as it had been once or twice before, by a struggle he had gone through.’ Hopkins, who heard of Geldart’s death in the 20^th April edition of the Pall Mall Gazette, is referring to Geldart’s previous nervous breakdown of 1868; Hopkins also suffered from his own ‘struggles’ and thoughts of suicide, and he thought ‘A Son of Belial’ an ‘amusing and sad book’ and perhaps it is no coincidence that his darker poems such as ‘I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day’ were composed during this period, but for Geldart, the struggles ended just three years after ‘A Son of Belial’ was published which makes it all the more poignant for the reader.

Many of the newspapers carried the news of Geldart’s ‘Mysterious Disappearance’ such as ‘The Manchester Weekly Times’, on page six of its Saturday 25^th April 1885 edition which reports that the ‘Rev. Edward Martin Geldart, M.A. oxon, who was until a fortnight ago the minister in charge of the Free Christian Church, Wellesley Road, Croydon’ and who ‘formerly held a curacy in Liverpool – as an English Churchman, but entertained broad views, he went over to the Unitarians, and at the close of 1883 became the pastor of the above mentioned church.’ The article goes on to say that ‘his opinions on many subjects were regarded as strictly socialistic, and on many occasions he expounded those principles both in lectures and in the columns of the local newspapers. In consequence of the tone of his discourses he recently incurred the displeasure of his congregation and was allowed by the committee to resign. This is said to have preyed on his mind and owing to his depressed condition he was persuaded by his relations to go on the Continent for a while.’ Geldart had decided on a Mediterranean journey to visit Constantinople, ‘but his wife was averse to his going so far.’ And so Geldart made his mind up to go and visit a friend in France, M. Reiman who had been twenty tears a French Master in various colleges in Croydon. On the evening of Friday 10^th April, Geldart left home and travelled to East Croydon station and purchased a single ticket to Paris. He was ‘very unwell’ and his wife Charlotte accompanied him to the station and placed him in a carriage, asking a kindly gentleman who was travelling in the same carriage to accompany Geldart to the station. He travelled on the 8.19 p.m. boat train to Newhaven (which left London Bridge at 8 p.m.). At Newhaven Geldart gave up the first portion of his ticket. The following day, Saturday 11^th April, a telegram arrived at Geldart’s home in Croydon to say that a gentleman’s luggage (a portmanteau, umbrella, and walking stick) had been found on the tidal boat at Dieppe – these items left by Geldart show that he embarked on the boat at Newhaven and certainly did not arrive at Dieppe.

On Wednesday 15^th April Mrs Geldart set out on a search of the various places around the south-coast to look for her husband but to no avail. She reported the circumstances to Scotland Yard and on Friday 17^th April she travelled to Dieppe (the Brighton Railway gave her a free first-class pass). The article goes on to say that ‘Mrs Geldart has two sons, both promising scholars at Whitgift College. He himself was Balliol scholar.’ The description of Geldart given by Scotland Yard reads: ‘Edmund Martin Geldart, age 41 years; height 5ft, 7 in, complexion fair, hair curly light brown, turning grey. Whiskers full and reddish; wears spectacles; clerical dress, soft felt hat, side-spring boots, flannel shirt, had in his possession a large gold watch, and black leather portmanteau, containing wearing apparel.’

On the afternoon of Saturday 18^th April Mrs Geldart returned to Croydon from Dieppe by the mid-day train. ‘She was painfully distressed and feared that the worst had happened. She brought with her her husband’s luggage including his walking stick and umbrella.’

And so the disappearance of Edmund Martin Geldart will continue to remain a mystery.

BETTY MAY GOLDING - TIGER WOMAN

 

NOTES ON THE EARLY YEARS OF

BETTY MAY – TIGER WOMAN

BY

BARRY VAN-ASTEN

 

‘My parents were nothing to brag about; they were shiftless and now and then they drank. It was a handicap for me that was balanced on the other side of the ledger, by a real asset. I was beautiful.’ (1)

 

Betty May’s volume of autobiography ‘Tiger Woman’ (1929) is an interesting read which focuses on the sensational aspects of her life but fails to give specific details of her family during the early years of her upbringing; in this fact the book is quite useless to historians who live and breathe data – names, dates and historical facts. Little is given away in the book, even John Symonds sheds no new light upon her, but she does give some tantalising clues as to their identities and being fond of solving puzzles I thought it would be interesting to dig through some skeletal remains and put some skin back on their bones! The first clue I had was on the marriage certificate for Betty’s marriage to Frederick Charles ‘Raoul’ Loveday on 3^rd September 1922 in Oxford where she states her father’s name and profession as: ‘George Golding (deceased), Artist’; well, as for his occupation she is half right for from reading her book ‘Tiger Woman’ he seems rarely to be sober! In fact, she paints a bleak picture of her home life in Tidal Basin, Limehouse, saying that her father left the family, wife and four children, to fend for themselves – ‘even the law failed to extract from him any contribution towards our support, although I believe he used to be sent to prison at intervals for refusing to pay anything towards his family’s upkeep.’ (2) She also mentions that her grandfather (George’s father) was a ‘Police Inspector’ and so I was able to identify George and his father from the census returns.

 

ROBERT GEORGE GOLDING (1847-1917)

 

Betty May’s paternal grandfather, Robert George Golding was born in 1847 in Purton, Wiltshire; the son of Robert Golding (1815-1912) and Jane Ricks (1817-1906) a dressmaker who were married in Cricklade in 1845, Robert had a sister named Elizabeth Mary Golding, born 1851 in Cricklade and two brothers both born in Cricklade, Mortimer Golding, born 1854 and John Golding, born 1856. Robert George Golding married Maria Keep, born in 1845, Newbury village, Woolhampton, Berkshire, on 15^th April 1867 at St Pancras, London (3); Maria was the daughter of John Keep, (1806-1874) born in Oxfordshire and Ellen Robbins, (1805-1888) born in Berkshire who were married at St Peters, Woolhampton on 22^nd June 1833; Maria’s siblings, all born Woolhampton, are: James Charles Keep (1838-1898), Henry Keep (1840) who married Charlotte Brunsdon in 1860; William Keep (1841-1898) who married Mary Jeffries in 1865 and John Keep (1844) who married Esther Jane Laver in 1877 and had at least nine children.

 

JACK THE RIPPER

 

Betty fails to mention in her book Tiger Woman the connection to Jack the Ripper! There was real fear in Whitechapel during 1888 after the ‘Ripper murders’ became known and just five weeks after the slaying of Mary Kelly on 9^th November 1888, on Thursday 20^th December, Betty May’s grandfather, Police Sergeant Robert George Golding (26K) is on his beat with Constable Thomas Costello (194K) when at 4.14 a.m. Robert discovers the dead body of a woman in the yard between 184 and 186 Poplar High Street, called Clarke’s Yard, a builders- merchant; it seemed at first sight to Sergeant Golding that the Ripper had struck again. There were no visible marks to suggest murder, her throat had not been cut and there were no obvious wounds. The woman, it turns out was a well-known local Limehouse prostitute known as ‘Drunken Lizzie’; her name was Rose Mylett, born in 1859 who had been seen on Wednesday evening just before 8 p.m. in Poplar High Street near Clarke’s Yard talking to two men and later, on Thursday morning around 2.30 a.m. quite drunk, outside the George on Commercial Road with two men – it was the last time she was seen alive! The inquest was held the next day on Friday 21^st December by Wynne Baxter at Poplar Town Hall (and again on 2^nd and 9^th January 1889) and although a string mark was found around her neck suggesting strangulation it was not contributed to be a Ripper murder and Robert Golding came to the same conclusion.

Robert George Golding joined the Police Force on 29^th January 1866 – warrant number: 46955, and probably served at either Limehouse or Poplar Station. It can be seen in the 1881 census that Robert is an ‘Inspector of Police’ yet in the incident described above he is a Sergeant – Golding was promoted to Inspector in Y Division on 14^th April 1880 but was reduced in rank to Sergeant on 4^th November 1881 for ‘neglecting to properly visit the men on night duty, telling deliberate falsehoods respecting same, and returning to Station under the influence of drink’. That day, 4^th November, he was transferred from Y Division to K Division (Police Number 26K) as a Sergeant and instructed to report to Bow Police Station the following day, 5^th November 1881 where he would then be informed where he would be serving, either Limehouse or Poplar. He retired from the Police on 25^th April 1890.

 

Robert and Maria Golding had six children, all born at St Pancras: Maria Louisa Golding, born 9^th April 1868 (Christened 28^th June 1868) (4), Ellen Golding born 1870, George Golding, Betty May’s father, born 1871 (5), Florence Golding, born 1872 (Christened 12^th May 1872) [Florence married James Malcolm, born 1873 in Canning Town, London, on 4^th April 1896 in Whitechapel, they had a son named James Mortimer Malcolm, born 1897, Canning Town, vol 4a p 131], Henry Golding born 1874 [Henry married Eliza James at St Mary’s Church, Whitechapel on 23^rd February 1896; Eliza died in Lambeth aged 24 in 1899 (volume 1d page 212), Henry married again as a widow on 30^th May 1903 in West Ham, Essex to Mary Stalham, (Marriage April-June 1903, West Ham, volume 4a, page 286)] (6) and Edward Golding born 1876 [Edward married Elizabeth Tuck at St Mary’s Church, Whitechapel on 10^th January 1897 and they had five children: Florence Elizabeth Golding (Poplar 1897, vol 1c p 654) she died in Poplar 1897; James Edward Golding (West Ham 1898, vol 4a p 167)James possibly died in Poplar in 1902; Harold Clement Golding (West Ham 1901, vol 4a p 158), Harold died in Poplar in 1902 (vol 1c p 363); Albert Edward Golding, Poplar 1903, vol 1c p 628; Vera Golding (West Ham 1905, vol 4a p 292), Christened 12^th March 1905].

In the 1871 census the family are living in Gray’s Inn Lane, St Pancras; Robert George Golding is 25 and a ‘Police Constable’, Maria 25 and probably carrying their son, George; Maria Louisa is 3 and Ellen is 1; with the family are Robert’s brother, John Golding, 15 an ‘errand boy’ and Robert’s sister Elizabeth, 20 who is a ‘domestic servant’ (7). Ten years later in the 1881 census the family are now living in Upper Gordon Road, Enfield, Middlesex – Robert George Golding is 34 and an ‘Inspector of Police’, Maria 35, Maria Louisa is12, Ellen 11, George 9, Florence 8, Henry 6 and Edward 5; living with the family is Maria’s mother, Ellen Keep who is a widow of 78, and under occupation it states ‘Anuitant’ (8).

The 1891 census (9) is very important because it contains another clue to Betty May’s parentage. The Goldings are now living at number 1 Brunswick Street, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, London and Robert George Golding is 44 and a ‘Retired Police Sergeant’; Maria is 46, Maria Louisa is 22, single and living on her ‘own means’; Betty May’s father, George is 19 and single and works as an ‘Iron Plater’ on the ships; Florence is 18 and single, working as a ‘Packer in Confectionary’; Henry is 16 and single working as a ‘Railway Van Guard’ and Edward is 15 working as a ‘Labourer in Shipyard’. Also boarding with the Goldings is Ellen James, a 19 year old single woman born in London in 1872 who also works as a ‘Packer in Confectionary’ and was probably befriended by Florence at the workplace and the family took her in as a boarder. In her book Tiger Woman, Betty May states that her mother ‘had to work twelve hours a day at a chocolate factory’ (10) With this in mind I looked for a marriage between George and Ellen and found a George Golding marrying an Ellen James in the summer of 1891 in Poplar, London (11).

 

ELLEN JAMES

 

In finding Ellen James’s birth, she states on the 1891 census that she is born in London in 1872 so I checked a year either side (1871-73) for Ellen James born in the London area, with the mother’s maiden name I then found the parent’s marriages and located them on the census to 1) make sure I had the correct Ellen James and 2) to see if either parent had French lineage which I did not find (12). It is worth noting that many of the people on the census returns were illiterate, many of them not knowing the correct year of birth, place of birth or even their own name so one has to rely a little on intuition sometimes and errors can occur!

Ellen James was born in 1872 in Poplar (volume 1c page 729) [Mother’s maiden name ‘Abbott’]; she is the first born of six children to Sarah Abbott (born Stepney 1852) and John James who were married in Bethnal Green in 1870 (volume 1c page 604), the other children are: Eliza James born Poplar 1873 (volume 1c page 679), John Henry James born Poplar 1875 (volume 1c page 706) [he died in 1875], Henry James born Poplar 1877 (volume 1c page 745) [died Poplar 1877], Mary Ann James born Poplar 1879 (volume 1c page 689) and John James born Poplar 1880 (volume 1c page 667). I have found them in the census for 1881 living in Gaselee Street, Poplar, John James is 37, a labourer born in Devon, Sarah is 30, Ellen 10, Eliza 8, Mary A. 3 and John not yet one year old (RG11 folio 510 page 30); in the previous census of 1871 John, a 27 year old labourer and his 19 year old wife, Sarah, are lodging in Poplar at the home of Jessie Emms, a 42 year old labourer born in Poplar and his wife Mary and six children (Affiliate Image Identifier: GBC/1871/0585/0200).

Betty May says in Tiger Woman that her mother was ‘half French’ (p. 14) but I can find no evidence of that.

Betty May also says that she is one of four children born to George and her mother, and Betty was born Bessie Golding in West Ham in 1894 (13); the other three children born to George and Ellen Golding are: Ellen Golding, born 1891 in West Ham (volume 4a page 65), George Golding born 1892 in Poplar (volume 1c page 650) and Maria Golding, born 1896 in West Ham (volume 4a page 156). She paints a terrible picture of her squalid conditions as a child and her father, George seems to be a very unpleasant man - ‘if he saw a cat in the street he liked to pick it up by its tail and crash out its brains against a wall’ (14).

In time, even her mother, who had shown great strength in bringing up the children could not handle Betty and her brother so they were sent to her fathers ‘with a note explaining that henceforward we should have to live with him.’ (15) Conditions at her father’s were even worse and there was no parental love and by all accounts he seems to be living off immoral earnings and the place the children are living in is a brothel. One day, a police man comes to the home looking for George Golding – the police man turns out to be Robert George Golding, Betty’s grandfather, come to arrest George Golding which indeed he succeeds in doing and taken to the police station; the children, Bessie and her brother George are also taken with them. This must have occurred around 1899 or 1900 presumably as Betty is still quite young and she remembers being in the magistrate court and hearing the magistrate say, “And the little girl can go to her grandmother’s”’ (16, meaning her paternal grandmother, Maria. But shortly afterwards she is sent to live with ‘an aunt and her husband, with whom I lived on a barge for the next few years.’ (17. The next we hear about George Golding, according to Betty May is that he was ‘sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, after which he and his twin brother went out to Canada, and joined the mounted police, where they gained credit for their bravery. When the war broke out my father joined the first Canadian contingent that came over here. He never got to the front, however, where he would probably have done well, but catching a chill while in training on Salisbury Plain he died of double pneumonia.’ (18 I looked up the death of George Golding and found he had indeed died in Salisbury, Wiltshire in 1915 aged 43 (19.

 

In searching for Betty May and the next chapter of her life on a barge I turned to the 1901 census and found a Bessie May, aged 6, born in Poplar living in Northfleet, Kent, with her Uncle, William Walker, 46, born in Gravesend, Kent in 1855 (Christened 8^th August 1855) who works as a ‘Waterman’ and her Aunt, Eliza Walker, 45, born in Limehouse, London in 1855 (20 Looking at the previous census for 1891 the Walkers were still in Northfleet, Kent, in Factory Road, and William is 36 and a ‘Bargeman’; Eliza is 35 and they have an 8 year old adopted child with them named Eliza Philpot (born 1883 in Middlesex) (21; the child ‘Eliza’ was born Eliza Emily Philpot in Poplar in 1882 (volume 1c page 722) and her mother’s maiden name is ‘Abbott’ – the little girl is actually the child of Betty May’s great Aunt Fanny, Ellen James’s (later Golding) Aunt Fanny Abbott (born Stepney 1854, volume 1c page 586); she married Stephen Walter Philpot, a ‘coppersmith labourer’ in Stepney in 1876 (volume 1c page 873) and they had two children: Eliza Emily and Charles Philpot, born 1885 in Poplar (volume 1c page 645); in the 1881 census they are living in Naval Row, Poplar, Stephen is a labourer and Fanny is 27 and with them are two children: Lily aged 3 and William, not yet one year old, both born in Poplar (RG11 folio 509 page 122). Unfortunately Fanny Philpot nee Abbott died in 1887 aged 33 in Poplar (volume 1c page 405) and in the next census of 1891, Stephen, a widow aged 38 is still living in Naval Row, Poplar with his daughter Lily E. aged 13 and two sons William H. aged 10 and Charles aged 6 (RG12 folio 334 page 10). The child Eliza was adopted by the Walkers [Fanny’s husband Stephen married a second time to Elizabeth Dowley in Poplar in 1891 and the son Charles is with them in the 1891 census]. The connection to the Walkers is that Eliza Walker is Fanny’s younger sister, Eliza Abbott born Stepney 1855 (volume 1c page 524) who married William Walker in Mile End in 1882 (volume 1c page 994) and they seem to have had no children of their own, so Eliza Philpot is actually Eliza Walker’s niece, and Eliza Walker would have been Bessie Golding’s great Aunt, not her Aunt. The 1911 census (still in Northfleet) tells us that William is 56 and a ‘Bargeman’ in the Industry of Cement and Eliza is 55 (22.

As for Robert George Golding and his wife Maria, it can be seen from the 1901 census that they are living in St Stephens, Upton Park, East Ham, Essex, Robert is 54 and his occupation since retiring from the Police is ‘Timekeeper at Warehouse’; Maria is 56 and their son, Henry Golding, is 26 and a ‘Labourer in Shipyard’. Living with them is Robert’s granddaughter, Gertrude Golding, 4 years old, born in Battersea, London, who is Henry Golding’s daughter whom he is caring for, his wife Eliza died two years previously [Henry will marry again in two years, 1903 to Mary Stalham] (23 Ten years later in the 1911 census Robert, 64, a ‘Police Pensioner’ and his wife, Maria, 66, are living in Tilehurst, Bradfield, Berkshire. (24

Robert George Golding died on 23^rd February 1917 in Reading, Berkshire, aged 70 (25; his wife, Maria Golding nee Keep, died aged 92 in Reading during the summer of 1937 (26

I have not concerned myself with Betty May’s time in Somerset and have only touched upon so many lives that she would have encountered as a child. I am confident as to her paternal lineage but there is that element of doubt as to her mother’s line, purely on Betty’s claims to her being half French but time may prove me wrong and that damn ‘Abbott’ may turn out to be a ‘Philpot’ after all!

 

 

NOTES:

 

1. ‘The Angel Child who “saw Hell” and came back’. By W. B. Seabrook. The Salt Lake Tribune, Salt Lake City, Utah. 19^th August 1928.
2. Tiger Woman – My Story by Betty May. Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd. 1929. All quotations taken from the 2014 edition by Duckworth Overlook. London. Quotation p. 13.
3. Marriage St Pancras, April-June 1867, volume 1b, page 25.
4. Maria Louisa Golding married Arthur Johns (born 1864, Limehouse) in 1894 – they had 5 children: Louisa Johns born 1900 (Christened 2^nd October 1900), Bessie Florence Johns born 23^rd October 1894 (dying 29^th September 1978 in Vancouver), she married Hamilton James Wardlow; John William Johns (1895-1916), Able Seaman (service number J/14548) HMS ‘Defence’ Royal Navy, died 31^st May 1916 aged 20; Florence Johns born 1895 and Ivy Johns 1907 (Christened 28^th July 1907) – 1970.
5. George Golding Birth 1871 St Pancras (Mother’s maiden name: Keep), volume 1b page 76.
6. Henry and Eliza Golding had two children both born in Lambeth: Gertrude Louise Golding born 1896 (volume 1d page 355) and Henry Golding born 1898 (volume 1d page 396); Henry and his second wife had six children: Hilda Mary Golding born 1904 West Ham (volume 4a page 173), Lydia Golding born 1906 West Ham (volume 4a page 316), William Robert Golding born 1908 Whitechapel (volume 1c page 243), Florence Golding born 1910 Whitechapel (volume 1c page 260), Harry Golding born 1917 Lambeth (volume 1d page 514) and Ivy Golding born 1918 Lambeth (volume 1d page 394).
7. 1871 Census for England and Wales. Affiliate Identifier GBC/1871/0218/0108.
8. 1881 Census for England and Wales. RG11, folio 1393/18, page 29.
9. 1891 Census for England and Wales. RG12, folio 334/11, page 15 and 16.
10. Tiger Woman. p. 14.
11. Marriage April-June 1891, Poplar, London, volume 1c, page 912.
12. Ellen James – a) born 1871 Bethnal Green, mother’s maiden name: Harrow. Parents: Anna Harrow and Henry James married Bethnal Green 1865 (1c 604), b) born 1872 Poplar, mother’s maiden name: Abbott. Parents: Sarah Abbott and John James married Bethnal Green 1870 (1c 604), c) born 1872 Lewisham, mother’s maiden name: Adshead. Parents: Hannah Elizabeth Adshead and John James married St Georges’s Square 1867 (1d 191), d) born 1873 Shoreditch, mother’s maiden name: Philpot. Parents: Clara Lydia Philpot and Frederick James married Bethnal Green 1878 (1c 780). Although the ‘Philpot’ connection seemed likely due to the little girl, Eliza Philpot on the 1891 census, I dismissed it after looking at census returns for the family.
13. Bessie Golding, birth October-December 1894, West Ham, Essex, volume 4a, page 114. Mother’s maiden name: James.
14. Tiger Woman. p. 21.
15. ibid. p. 19.
16. ibid. p. 24
17. ibid. p. 24.
18. ibid. p. 25.
19. George Golding, death January-March 1915, Salisbury, Wiltshire, volume 5a, page 288.
20. 1901 Census for England and Wales. Schedule Type 188, page 32. In the 1861 census William Walker is 6 years old living in Stable Row, North Aylesford, Kent with his family: father, James Walker, 34 a ‘Lighterman’ born in Northfleet; mother, Ann, 32 born in Colchester, and siblings, Mary A. 8, Sarah S. 4 and Frances C. 2 (1861 Census, RG09, folio 472/13, page 18). In the 1881 census the Walkers are living at The Shore, North Aylesford, Northfleet, Kent – Ann, 51 (widow), William 26, single and a ‘Lighterman’, Hannah N. 18, James Chas 16 a ‘Labourer in Chalk Works’, Esther Amelia 13, Charlotte 10 and Clara F. Ann’s 3 year old grand daughter (1881 census,  RG11, folio 874/14, page 21)
21. 1891 Census for England and Wales. RG12, folio 649/84, page 23.
22. 1911 Census for England and Wales. RG14, folio 495, page 1.
23. 1901 Census for England and Wales. Schedule Type 256, page 39.
24. 1911 Census for England and Wales. RG14, folio 263, page 1.
25. Robert George Golding, death January-March 1917, Reading, Berkshire, volume 20, page 585.
26. Mary Golding, death April-June 1937, Reading, Berkshire, volume 2c, page 351.