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England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Kent => Topic started by: kasden on Saturday 11 August 12 07:02 BST (UK)
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Hello I have found a postcard among papers that was sent in 1929 as a birthday greeting to a Miss Tenn..or Fenn...or Lenn...the old writing is difficult to read.
It looks most like Tenn to me though.
It was sent to 31 Cheretow? (I think) Gardens Folkestone,Kent and expressed birthday greetings from "Mary".
As I am in Australia I am wondering if anything on the Tenn..Fenn..Lenn (it is one of those names) family can be provided.
The post card has 2 halfpenny stamps on it and was posted on the 11th Feb 1929.
Many Thanks
Kasden
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I think the address would be Cheriton Gardens. ;)
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I thinkyour best bet wouldbeto post the image on the deciphering board (or even here)- otherwise it would be purely guesswork as to what the correct surname is.
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Penn, Senn and Lenn are all 'proper' surnames, as is Senn. The capital S and L can be easily confused. Of course there is also a T ..... Which can be confused with an L or an S .... ;)
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Thanks for the tip on the Address...yes it does look like Cheriton Gardens now that you mention it ...it sure helps if you know the locality like a native :D..being in Australia I don't have that advantage.
The rest of the address is quite legible and so it reads 31 Cheriton Gardens,Folkestone,Kent.
The name however is Tenn as far as I can ascertain, as Ive compared how the Mary who sent it has written her L,s clearly in the message and they look quite different to the recipients surname letter.
Wish the christian name of the recipient had been included..but seeing as the front of the postcard birthday greeting depicts a little girl of about 8 yrs on a decorative bridge with white doves"and some Gold writing saying Many Happy Returns, I would hazard a guess that the recipient may have been a child herself.
The message reads "Many Many of them,Lots of Love from Mary
I was hoping to solve this little family puzzle....
Cheers Kasden
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There doesn't appear to be anyone with the surname Tenn living in Folkestone in the 1911 census (which, although not very close time wise, is the closest we can get) :-\
Can I just confirm something? The card is addressed to "Miss Tenn", but how does Mary, the sender of the card address Miss Tenn? Doesn't she begin the letter with "Dear X"? Seems odd as she informally signs her name "Mary" .... :-\
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I have located Cheriton Gardens (or part of it) in the 1911 census. I have seen Numbers 29 and 35, but not Number 31. Someone who is a better searcher may be able to locate it for you. I cannot see a surname anything like Tenn there though. It appears very well to do with many servants in some residences and many rooms. It is possible that Miss Tenn was a servant I suppose, and also possible that there may have been more homes built in the street between 1911 and 1929 (At the time of WW1? Not sure, maybe post war homes?).
Oooh yes, I have just had a look via google streetview ... very nice. :) It would have been a very prestigous road in 1929.
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Hi again everyone..and thanks so much for the interest...the sender of the postcard,Mary, does not address the recipient by any name at all...she simply writes this message "many many of them,Lots of Love from Mary"
The card is addressed "Miss Tenn
31 Cheriton Gardens
Folkestone Kent"
as I mentioned before it may have been sent to a child because the front of the card has a little printed verse in gold writing that says "May happiness bright
be yours today,like a star at night,shine oér your way with unclouded light"
there is a little girl in the picture standing on a decorative wooden bridge with a bouquet of flowers in her arms and scattered at her feet,along with 5 white doves.
She is dressed beautifully with large ringlets and a big satin bow.
So maybe Miss Tenn was a child of a well to do couple?
I really do hope that this mystery has an answer.
Kasden
P.S The card was posted on the 11th Feb 1929 at Folkestone Kent and from the mature hand writing it was sent by an adult
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I've had a look for Tenn, Lenn, Fenn, Jenn etc births in the first quarter of the year from 1918 to 1928, but there's nothing jumping out for births in Kent.
I think you should post an image of the name and address on the Photograph board under the Deciphering section to see if we can have a better guess at the name.
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I don't know if Ive done this correctly or not...or even if Im in the right place..however here is the images on the post card..hope that this is ok.
Kasden
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There's nothing showing up here I'm afraid kasden ... :-\
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FINN is a local name ???
Casalguidi :)
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Its definately not Finn...the "e " and double '" nn " are quite clear in ther name...the capital letters seems to be a T...but if you squint at it sideways with your tongue out if could be an F or even an errant letter L...don't you love a good enigma?? !! ;D
Kasden
Sorry I can't seem to attach the scan to my e-mail...am still on my learners permit on this computer. ???
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The thing is, this could be a child of any age up to 12? Or even more. She may have been born anywhere, not necessarily Kent, and given we don't have her surname we are guessing wildly.
If its not Finn, I think Fenn is the most likely - more common than the others at least. But we don't have online voters' registers for Kent (unlike London) so I'm not sure how to proceed with this one.
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Mlle A C Fenn (french BA) was living at 31 Cheriton Garden, Folkestone in 1934. She was a french teacher.
http://www.rootschat.com/links/0pwy/
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Oh well done.
A*cestry is playing up at present, so I can't look for Miss AC Fenn who I should think may be in the 1911 somewhere - possibly 24 in 1934?
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Interestingly, there's a Miss Alice Amelia Fenn, a lady's companion, at 24 Clifton Gardens, Folkestone, in the 1911. But she's 54, single, born Alford Lincolnshire, living with widowed 73 year old Catherine Pigott.
Connected to the Fenn family of the card perhaps, or a coincidence?
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However, in the 1911, the road Clifton Gardens seems to stop at number 30, before turning into The Leas, which is (from Google maps) the road which runs along the sea-front.
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May be a red herring, but the family of Alice Amelia Fenn of the 1911 at 24 Clifton Gardens is an interesting one.
In the 1891, she is with her parents. The family is in Isleworth, Middlesex, and the father, George Fenn, is shown clearly as unmarried, an author, and his wife (clearly shown as this) also unmarried, and Alice Amelia is an Artist, Oil Colour painting, as are her two sisters Annie and Louisa. Her brother Clive is a journalist.
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The father of the family is George Manville Fenn - google him for more interesting information!
I will try and follow this family a little further - eldest daughter Alice Amelia evidently went to be a companion to Catherine Pigott in 1901, and is still there in 1911 in Clifton Gardens.
I wonder where the rest of the family were in 1911?
Clive and Kate, brother and sister, are still in the Isleworth house. Their father had died in 1909
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You people are completely AMAZING !!...and Im so appreciative of your help.
I would love to learn more about this very creative family...thanks so much.
Kasden
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Not sure it's the right family yet - haven't found the little girl the card is sent to!
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what does seem a good clue is that a Miss A.C Fenn did indeed live at the address at Cheriton Gardens.
I Googled her name and saw that a Miss Fenn was teaching French at Folkestone County School for Girls but I don't know when( it seems around WW2 or shortly after??) so I will see if the school will help me with archival records of its teachers.
Some 'memories' from óld girls'from that school mention the formidable Miss Fenn as a French mistress and that she studied chemistry in France until the commencement of WW2 when she came back to England to teach French.
One recalls that she had been decorated with the Croix Guerre but naturally all this will need investigating.Still don't have her Christian names...but a connection to the other Fenn family of artists/writers would be a lovely thing indeed if it can be proven.
I am well and truly hooked on this family now..please please continue to help me ;D
Kasden
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Oh well done re Miss AC Fenn. Whether they're connected or not, the Fenns in general seem to be interesting types!
I will have another look at the 1911 lady's family tomorrow. Another sister was also a companion in 1891, but I haven't followed them all yet.
Where did the card come from in the first place? Where did you come across it?
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I purchased the card (and several others) from a vintage dealer as part of a (believe it or not..a Girl Guide Challenge badge called The Dark Horse Venture that Im working on...yes even at MY age !!)..Iam a long standing member(30 yrs) of Girl Guides,an ex Guide leader in fact...Im now in what is called Trefoil Guild.
Part of the things we do is to follow and explore our areas of interest and mine is genealogy! Family history has always been a passion and I will be passing all this interesting stuff onto the younger Guides in order to show them that history is a living thing.
I hope to foster their interest in it too.
Kasden ;D
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lol..after all that info I should also have told you that the card was purchased here in Australia...Tasmania in fact...how it came to be in Australia is,of course, all part of the mystery.
Kasden
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Great detective work! :)
Maybe something to keep in mind is that although the card shows a girl on the front, and kasden is asssuming the receipient is probably a young girl, that may not be the case. A Fenn of any age at Cherition Gardens no matter what year, has got to be more than a coincidence.
If the card was postmarked 11 Feb, has anyone looked for the births of any Fenn girls around the 11th Feb? I have to go out shortly so haven't got time to look ....
Kasden, it would be really interesting to know how this card ended up in Tasmania! :o
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The idea that the card was sent to a young Miss Fenn was only a theory because it looks to be suitable for a girl..however Im open to any and all suggestions :).....I have e-mailed the head teacher at Foljkestone School to see if they can help in any way..even a christian name would be helpful.
Iam ,as ever, always appreciative of (and slightly in awe of) the depth of resources that the people of Rootschat have at their disposal.....and of the generousity of spirit in the sharing of them.
How the card landed in Tasmania...and where its been between Feb 1929 and now would be a saga all by itself...the more I learn....the more I WANT to know !!
Kasden
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This looks a likely candidate.
An Ada Constance FENN died in the June quarter of 1982 in the Shepway district of Kent. Her date of birth is given as 14th February 1899.
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Ada Constance Fenn born Jan qtr 1899 Elham Kent 2a 1072
However, can I just add that this lady was actually 30 for the birthday card date!
was it a joke, do you think? Or for someone else in the family? Just trying to check parents etc in the 1901 and 1911......
In the 1901 Ada Constance is, I think, with her parents Charlotte aged 43 born Whitstable, and William, 34, born Burham, Suffolk. William is a nurse to an invalid gentleman. The family is with Charlotte's mother Susannah Bussell, 63, a retired lodging house keeper, born Whitstable. They are in Folkestone, 27 Park Road.
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In the 1911, William and Charlotte are at 100 Radnor Park Road, Folkestone. He's shown as a retired farmer this time, and although they're shown as having had one child, still living, there's no sign of Ada.
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Can't see Ada in the 1911.
However, just randomly searching, she's still at 31 Cheriton Gardens in the 1950 phone book! And still there up to 1970.
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And so the mystery unravels..... :D...I don't think that the postcard/birthday greeting was a joke really.
It is very pretty, and would have been suitable for I child but also lovely in itself for any female.
Do you suppose that Ada Constances father was in any way related to those others Fenn's in the area..perhaps a brother?
Or were they all living in Genteel poverty?....seems as though there was enough money about to give Ada a good enough education to enable her to become a French teacher.
Im still waiting to hear back from Folkestone County School for girls as it was known in Ada's time.
She may even have been a pupil there herself at one time so I will send another query to them about this possability too.
Thank you so very very much for all your help with this...it brings this little picture card to life.
Kasden :)
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I will try and have a look at the Fenns (both sets!) further back. On the face of it they don't look connected, but it is a coincidence of names in very close proximity. Though, I suppose, nearly 20 years apart.
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I agree that the name and proximity of the two Fenn families could be co-incidental...but wouldn't it be a nice turn of events if Ada was related to the very talented Fenn authors/journalists and artists.....fancy the post card turning up in Tasmainia though after all those years..and dear old Ada reaching such a grand age of 83...I guess her effects were scattered after her death and somehow some of them travelled over here.
Kasden
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I have spent a very interesting evening following the large George Manville Fenn family through the censuses etc - I think there were 12 children, several of which died in infancy (I keep turning up other ones from baptismal records, some of which are born and die in between censuses) - but I haven't yet found them in Folkestone except for Alice Amelia in the 1911 just down the road.
There seems to have been only one son who survived to adulthood, and I can't find a marriage for him which might have produced a young daughter appropriate for the card.
So I'm thrown back on Miss AC Fenn, definitely at the right address just after the date of the card, and perhaps the sort of person who would appreciate a particularly pretty picture for her birthday.
Back to her family shortly.......
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Did William or Charlotte FENN leave a will? Was Ada listed as a beneficiary?
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Here's a link to a notice The London Gazette 13th April 1982, for people to make a claim on Ada's estate.
http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/48948/pages/5019/page.pdf
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Well done....Ada's life is a little less of a mystery now...Iam becoming quite 'fond'of the old gal.... :D
Kasden
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Yet another interesting evening, searching through the other Fenn family which, as I said before, unfortunately doesn't seem to be connected to the George Manville Fenns.
William Fenn came from Suffolk - I can't see him in the 1891 just ahead of his marriage to Charlotte Bussell, but I assume he must have come to Kent as that was where they married.
They had Ada Constance in 1899 as we have already discovered, and although I can see Charlotte and William in the 1911 in Folkestone, I still haven't found the 11 year old Ada Constance.
So far, I 've not been able to follow all of William's family, but Charlotte's mother, Susannah, was dead by 1911 so Ada isn't with her. Charlotte's other siblings seem also to have died with the exception of her sister, Edith Annie, who married a Mr Thomas Crust in 1885.
They had a son Frank Hubert T Crust, born c 1885, and the family is in Folkestone in the 1901. Thomas is a printer's foreman.
Frank Hubert T marries in Putney in 1910, and by then is an actor. And I can see him coming back from the US (although, frustratingly, not actually going) in 1923, still describes as an actor. He will be our Ada Constance's cousin.
I can't see either Frank Hubert T and his wife Mabel Ethel (nee Richmond) in the 1911, nor can I see (at present) his parents Thomas and Edith Annie. Which is irritating, because that is presumably one place where Ada Constance, aged 12, could be staying.
More searching required.
My own ancestry comes from Kent, and I keep expecting to see one of my relatives turn up in this search.
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curiouser and curiouser........actors now !..what an interesting family...and with yours coming from the area it could be one of those 6 degrees of seperation situations too (what fun that would be )....I wonder who raised young Ada if she is not with her parents when aged 11 ???...boarding school perhaps?... or...do you think she spent time living in France as a child perhaps?...
all speculation but she did apparently study there as a younger woman before getting her teaching post at Folkestone...just when she went is the question.
Kasden
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Did William or Charlotte FENN leave a will? Was Ada listed as a beneficiary?
Charlotte of 31 Cheriton Gardens, Folkestone died in 1939. She left £761 19s 8d to William, no occupation and Ada.
William of the same address died in 1841 leaving £6,388 14s 5d to Ada Constance, spinster.
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It seems certain, then, that the card was indeed to Ada Constance and that she moved with her parents to 31 Cheriton Gardens some time after 1911.
The other Fenn lady in the 1911 in Cheriton Gardens is a coincidence, though an interesting one from an interesting family.
Nobody can see Ada Constance in the 1911, though, can they (I have looked extensively and can't seem to turn her up, even though I've cast an eye over the rest of her parents' families).
As Kasden says, I wonder how she learned her French?
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I haven't been able to find her either. Can only assume she was in France. ???
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Some former students of Miss Fenn have left posts on the Schools memory Page (Folkestone County School for Girls ) and anecdotally they seem to recall that she studied Chemistry in France however they think she could not manage the French to English translation of the tricky subject well enough to teach it in England and so taught French instead...she must have spent some time in France,doing or studying something.
One student remembers a French official passing through the area by train after the war and stopping to speak with the gathered student body at the station..Miss Fenn was apparently 'pushed forward' and spoke with him....natural enough I supose as she was the French Mistress and likely the most fluent and capable one to address him.
Someone else thought she was decorated by the French during the war and the Croix De Guerre was mentioned however a quick search does not list her as a recipient and this seems to be a school girl's romantic idea of what her formidable French teachers past might have been.
What fun
Kasden
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Hi, I was once one of Miss Fenn's pupils, and probably made one of the postings on the page you found of memories. She had some of us round to tea in her house in Cheriton Gardens once - a largish Victorian villa with good quality old furniture, as I recall. (Worth a look on Google Maps Street View - though the actual house seems to have gone. I'd need to go down there for a close look, but I think it stood where there is now a block of flats. You can get an impression of the sort of house it was from its neighbours.) There was clearly some money behind her ownership of it.
The school was, at the time she was teaching there, Folkestone Technical School for Girls, later Folkestone Technical High School for Girls, before joining with the Girls Grammar School. They were not very good at keeping records of old staff, as I found when trying to get in touch with another retired teacher, and were very dismissive in their response to enquiries.
I was somewhat surprised at the story of the French President, the Golden Arrow train, and the Croix de Guerre, but it did make sense of certain things I remembered from her time there in the 60s.
She would often break off from the lesson plan and spend time telling us about all sorts of things, in French, which I unfortunately remember in English. From these I remember she told us about her oral English exam for her baccalaureate in France, in which she told the examiner she was born in Folkestone. She had been then, for some time, living in the south of France. You have seen the bit about doing a degree in chemistry, and not being able to relearn the terminology in English. I understood that she returned to England at the time of the invasion, but might be wrong about that.
She took groups of girls to Paris every Easter, and showed us around famous places, and shops. Every day a couple of us would be sent to the local boulangerie for long thin baguettes for breakfast, and on the last day, it was the turn of my best friend and me. "Vous etes avec Miss Fenn?" the woman behind the counter asked, and was thrilled at our "oui", turning to her other customers and speaking in very rapid Parisian French told them something very interesting at which they were all excited. We could not understand that taking a group of fifteen year old girls to a student's foyer without any other member of staff to help would have such a reaction, and could not think what they thought she was so remarkable for. She was also greatly respected by the foyer staff. This would make sense if she had been in SOE during the war.
I have been meaning to go to the Imperial War Museum to follow up for some time - I have just started brushing up my French, and started to search on line again, thus finding this page.
Many stories about SOE women include details of how it was their fluency in French that caused them to be recruited, and I find it hard to believe that the powers that be would have let someone as fluent as she was, with skill in chemistry, spend the war in Wales with evacuated schoolgirls. In fact, as I type this, I realise that some other members of staff told stories of the school during the war (such as the erupting sodium that had been buried under the tennis courts), but she never did.
I am now going to my fridge to eat, in her memory, a Petit Suisse cheese which she taught us how to eat, and which I bought on a visit to Calais the other week, which is what started me on French again - feeling I'd let her down. I'm building up to a Paris trip to whatever museum they have there to research further.
If you had seen her, you would realise that she was absolutely the last person anyone would imagine romantically to have been anything like Violette Szabo. She was very big built, back in the days when it was unusual to see anyone large, and not a fast mover. When it came to crawling through a brigand's cave in the Foret de Fontainbleau, she walked round the outside to meet us at the other end. (I have tried to remember if she said the cave had been used during the war as well as by the fabled brigands, but have no confirmation of that.)
It's going to be very useful to have her Christian names in looking for her history during the war, and I am wondering how that card got to Australia, as are you. I suppose that, if she had no near family, everything in the place would have gone to house clearance, but someone spotted it as collectable.
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Hello,..thanks for your reply re Miss Fenn...what a colourful character she has turned out to be...I look at the postcard with all sorts of unanswerable questions now but it still seems bizarre and amazing that it has turned up in Australia for me to ponder over !
Cheers
Kasden
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I've modified the above after thinking more carefully about her house - I'm not sure it is still there.
I've done a bit more research on the state visit of President Auriol. There are images in ebay of a programme for the 1950 visit (in Argentina!) which do not mention a stop in Folkestone. Sites about Pullman rail cars (!) specify the Orient Express as the train, not the Golden Arrow, and the programme has it leaving from Dover. It would be unusual, but not unheard of, to go from Dover to London through Folkestone. The programme gives the journey as 2 hours, and we used to reckon an hour and a half, so there could be time available. There is a Pathe news clip of the visit, which has the President arriving at Dover, and then skips to his being met at Victoria Station. (Folkestone trains usually go into London via Waterloo, but I expect they re-routed it out of politeness.) There is nothing about a stop in Folkestone. The poster on Friends Reunited names the President correctly, which I would suggest implies that the memory is more than fantasy. One point that needs checking is the location of the field. At the time I was at the school there was no field near the railway.
I'm very grateful for finding this site and your puzzle as it is going to give me the kick I needed to do the research. I live the other end of Kent, nearer London, which would be convenient for the War Museum, but means a whole day out to Folkestone, where I will try to get at the local paper archives - I now have a date for Auriol's passing the town, which will improve the search time. Isn't the internet wonderful? (I know the distances are nothing compared with Australia - my sister once met some friends out back of Perth just popping out to see neighbours about 200 km away, but now I'm retired I tend to follow teenage diurnal patterns, which does cut down the available time a bit!.)
I'm inclined to believe there was something she did during the war - though she would have been rather older than the women we have been hearing about recently. Her absence from the Croix de Guerre lists is curious, in the circumstances. But what is clear from those, and references in the press recently following the death of someone who definitely was out there, is that there were a lot of women sent out by SOE, and there are very few on the list. Most of the lists seem to be confined to people serving in the military, though.
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Yes indeed,the internet IS wonderful...and wouldn't the indominable Miss Fenn be amazed at the interest she has generated !!...I am looking at the postcard now and wonder again who the 'Mary' was that sent it to Miss Fenn.
It is not in a child's hand writing and was obviously sent to Miss Fenn on the occaison of her birthday as the message simply reads.......'Many many of them. Lots of love from Mary'......
There's a little verse printed in gold on the front that says ' May happiness bright be yours today.
Like a star at night shine o'er your way with unclouded light.
Perhaps a fellow teacher??...who knows.
In any case it's a rather delightful thing altogether, and very much of it's time.
Good luck with your research...I'd naturally be very interested in anything you would be kind enough to share...Cheers
Kasden
P.S..Distances in Western Australia where Perth is situated can be vast indeed...happily for me I live on the east coast about an hour out of Sydney NSW in the suburbs so distance is not the 'tyranny'that it could be. ;D
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The puzzle about the proximity of the railway line has been solved on this page.http://www.warrenpress.net/FolkestoneThenNow/FolkestoneBuildings.html (http://www.warrenpress.net/FolkestoneThenNow/FolkestoneBuildings.html)
About halfway down the page, on the left, is a brief summary of the history of the movements of the school, initially in a building called The Grange, in Shornecliffe Road, where it would have backed onto the railway line, enabling the event described to be possible. As far as I recall - I travelled along that line twice a day during my schooling at the Tech - it is on an embankment, so dismounting and getting down to the field would have been a bit of a performance. I can't see that it would have been a surprise for Miss Fenn, if it happened. And someone had to teach the girls La Marseillaise. (Every year, on Bastille Day, we had a French assembly, with The Lord's Prayer in French, and the national anthem, which I can still sing.)
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I've been down to Folkestone today, and have good news, not so good news, and a feeling of sadness myself, having seen what has happened to the town. Once an elegant resort, backdrop to H G Wells stories, it is now tatty. trashy, with boarded up shops, dusty shops, loads of young mums smoking, and a museum which one could once spend many happy hours in but in which could now see everything in half an hour.
However, after a quick look at my childhood home, I tracked down Miss Fenn's, and photographed them. I had to go back to the first as someone was packing their car outside.
27 Park Road is a bungalow, and looks very unlikely for 1901, an interwar style tacked on to a two floor house which looks more fitting for date. I know Edwardian properties which look forward to the later style, so it isn't an impossible property. I checked the numbers to make sure it wasn't an insertion. There's no trace on the side of the taller property of any previous connection, nor any suggestion of, for example, bomb damage. It's rather a scruffy part of Cheriton, close to the railway line.
100 Radnor Park Road is a larger property, still modest, and has suffered from unsympathetic extension, probably to convert into flats. It is at the foot of a steep slope, almost a cliff, so its back garden is probably small. From its mirror image semi next door, it looks as if the back door was an entrance to a part of the property which could be used as a dwelling for a general maid - I've seen places like that in S E London, though they were usually bigger. Was there any trace of someone else there in the census?
31 Cheriton Gardens is now a block of flats which look vaguely 60s or early 70s. Blocky, cereal packet design, stretching back into what would have been the garden. At the time I visited, it was a split property. The electoral roll shows Miss Fenn, and a Marjorie M Hughman in 31, with a Frank R Mount and Kathleen A Mount in 31a. (I can't remember a Miss Hughman at school - and in the early days of Dr Who, jokes would have been made.)
I looked in the local papers for the dates of interest. Though the local gossip purveyor (example of style - people are complaining that council tenants can afford carpets and televisions while others who have worked to buy can't - plus ca change) wrote a lot about the Presidential visit as seen in Dover, nothing was reported about the account in Friends Reunited. I found, and photographed, what I think was probably the Grange site, and it is barely any distance from Folkestone Central station, so it could have been done, but there is no evidence in the Folkestone Herald that it was.
Under the guise of South Kent Gazetteer, there was a small ad report of Miss Fenn's death on April 7the 1982.
Fenn - On March 30th, 1982, peacefully after a long illness, Ada Constance, aged 83 years, of Folkestone. Former teacher of French at Folkestone Junior Technical School and a founder member of the Amities Francaises. Interred at Hawkinge.
I'm not sure about the school name having been that at any stage of the school's history.
So nothing about any wartime activities, unless the Amities conceal something interesting.
For 1981, the year before she died, her name is shown is shown at 10 Millfield, as given in the London Gazette notice posted above, which is just round the corner from her previous home, and is aka Red Lodge. I thought it might have been a care home - there's a number about, though it currently, despite being very large, seems to be in single ownership - but there is only one other voter there, a Winifred F Newing.
But, the electoral roll of 1929 for 31 Cheriton Gardens shows an undivided property having five voters: Miss Fenn, Charlotte Fenn, William Fenn, and also William Henry Blessley and Mary Ann Blessley.
I think we may have Mary, though what her relationship to the Fenns might be is speculative. Lodger? Servant?
When I was a schoolgirl, we used to joke about the generation who lost their chance of marriage in the first world war. Looking at those house sharers, it seem sintensely sad. I do hope that all the fuss about 14-18 that our government is determined to launch, I hope they remember the women.
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But, the electoral roll of 1929 for 31 Cheriton Gardens shows an undivided property having five voters: Miss Fenn, Charlotte Fenn, William Fenn, and also William Henry Blessley and Mary Ann Blessley.
I think we may have Mary, though what her relationship to the Fenns might be is speculative. Lodger? Servant?
Thank you for the update, it's been fascinating catching up with this family. The 1929 Electoral roll will be for our Ada Constance and Charlotte and William are her parents.
As you say the Blessleys may be servants of one kind or another - another set of people to research!
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27 Park Road
This wouldn't be the (now) Park Road in Cheriton but near/part of Radnor Park Road in Folkestone. I can't recall exactly but it may be that the stretch of Radnor Park Road from the late Castle Pub to the fire station traffic lights was formerly known as Park Road ............ certainly Jesmond Street was originally Park Street.
A fascinating area of research ....... Miss FENN was before my time at the school.
Casalguidi :)
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That's the stretch of Radnor Park Road that 100 is in, about three semis down from the lights by the fire station and the place for climbing over the Pent and catching fresh water shrimps by the conduit.
I wonder if 27 Park Road and 100 Radnor Park Road are actually the same property, renumbered when the road was renamed. Road name change would explain why it is so odd looking that the major road down the hill turns sharply into a minor more scruffy road. (Not apropos of Miss Fenn, for years there was a teddy bear on the outside window sill of a house on the right as one went up Radnor Park Road, looking down the hill as if waiting for someone.)
Forgot to add, I asked a local ex-Techie (we seem to get everywhere!) about Miss Fenn - she did overlap, didn't have any special memories, but is going to ask a contact in the Old Girls.
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Thanks Peneli...as stated before me, this has turned out to be a fascinating look at a very interesting lady and her life....there is,I feel, more to Miss Ada Constance Fenn.
How very bizarre it seems to me to be in possession of her postcard from Mary all the way over here in Australia..what a story it could tell !
Thanks everyone for your interest and help with this query..it brings Ada to life so to speak..I wonder what she'd make of us poking around :)
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Re the 1929 Electoral register
Death in 1931
Probate says
Blessley Mary Ann of 86 Bouverie Road, West Folkestone, Widow, died 5.12.1931. Probate to Robert Walter Hollyer Blessley, gentleman, £7011.
However I am wondering if this is the Mary of the card, as she is evidently an older lady and I cannot quite see that she would give her first name on the card - this is after all the days when all the neighbours were Aunt and Uncle, if not Mrs or Mr someone.
Her husband, if it is he, mentioned in the 1929 electoral register, apparently died before 1931.
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Oh forget that, a red herring I think
William Henry Blessley of 31 Cheriton Gdns Folkestone appears on the Probate records as dying 25th June 1936, with estate to Georgie Christiana Mary Horstmann, widow. £35k
I can't do any more research on these people just at the moment. Not sure how they are connected with Ada!
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It is odd, isn't it? With that amount at probate, unlikely to be servants. (But if servants, first name would be understood. Both a good friend and I have stories of relations in service being given alternative names to their baptismal ones as the employers felt those names to be au dessus de sa gare (ghastly Franglais pun probably not appreciated in the Amities Francaises, which I now suspect to have been a purely local group), and the names given were, in both cases, Mary. Obviously not Catholics.) I think I might have to go back and access the electoral rolls backwards to see when Miss Fenn (I really don't feel comfortable with Ada) arrived at 31, and when the Blessleys turned up. I suppose one possibility is that they were the people she was in France with.
Hang on, probably no use with regard to Miss Fenn as she would not have been eligible for the roll before 1929, because she would not have been old enough. She would have been going to become eligible by virtue of age in the same year that she would have become eligible younger by law. I wonder if the card is a reference to that coming of full citizenship in a jokey way, if references had been made in the household. Picture of a little girl being code for not being a little girl politically any more. (I personally would have felt rather cheated by that - I did, by the changes from 21 to 18, which meant I only had one vote before the younger people did without waiting.)
Would it be a good idea to access forwards as well, to get the war years? The rolls are a bit of a pain - the more recent ones have street indices as to which section to look in, the earlier ones do not, and they keep changing the area codes, so having found it once, there's no use using the same code in another book. I hope the librarians will let me get them out of the cupboards myself, so as not to bother them too much.
Odd Mary Ann Blessley being at a different address for probate with William still at 31 Cheriton Gardens. Presumably a nursing home wouldn't be given as the address for probate, would it? It's just round the corner, anyway. And they obviously aren't husband and wife.
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William Henry Blessley, born 1841 in Middlesex, was an Architect.
Still tracking him down to find out when he got to Cheriton Gardens.
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William Henry was married to Susanna, who was 15 years older than he was. No children, travelled widely, in 1911 in Brighton, just the two of them.
I think the lady to whom he left his money may be a niece or some such as one of his sisters was called Georgiana
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And the Mary Ann Blessley of 1929 is William Henry's sister in law, widow of his brother Robert Knott Blessley. The Robert Holyer Blessley she left her money to is her son.
Still no clearer how they ended up in Folkestone with the Fenn family. All were in Brighton in 1911
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Posted something obviously inaccurate. I googled, and found somebody has posted information about a William Henry Blessley with a father William, and a mother nee Mary Ann Pine on Ancestry.com. I suppose it isn't impossible for the brother to have found a wife with the same name as his mother.
Robert Knott was also an architect, practising in London, and then Sussex. He did the Grand Hotel in Eastbourne. There's a William Henry in Middlesborough in 1868. Both did church architecture, plans available. I can't find William Henry practising in Folkestone or Brighton.
Thought I had a brilliant idea of searching on French google, in French. Mais non, rien.
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I can only sit and watch in fascinated admiration !!!....soon enough I think that all there is to know about Miss Fenn and her friend the mysterious Mary will be revealed...I should think that the postcard is a birthday greeting undoubtabley..it wishes her 'many many more'..and is written in a lovely handwriting.
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Long time no time to go down. However, I have picked up some other snippets which may encourage a positive interpretation of the SOE connection. Someone who grew up in Dover when I was there who I met by chance recently had become a teacher of French himself - there had been an organisation of such people, and the president of it had been involved in training people for SOE during the war. And my sister told me that at Dover Grammar School when she was there, there were two teachers, a married couple, also teaching French, who went about with the Legion D'Honneur flashes in their tweed buttonholes, and were not as close mouthed as some have been about war time work. (Four years after her, my other sister knew nothing about them.)
So, any war work connection becomes more likely than that it was imagination.
Someone suggested that railway signallers might have information about the train business, and I have contacted a group of enthusiasts - unfortunately that was a dead end.
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I might be of some use here concerning the formidable Miss Fenn. I just happened to look for Folkestone Technical high school for girls as I remembered it as my eye was operated on and I was not able to read. I was a boarder in july 1955 and 1956 because my mother was an English teacher in Paris and my uncle ,a professor at Mc Gill (Canada) was Miss Fenn's godson during WWII ,originally a lecturer at university in Rennes ,he had enlisted in the British Army and as he was bilingual ,and knew Caen and its surroundings,he was airlifted several times in France before DDay . I know he was in the BUFFS.
Miss Fenn and her friend ,Miss Mary O' Neill loved my uncle. and after the war he would come to see them on his paid leave from Montreal and would spend nearly as much time with them than with my grandmother!
I enjoyed being a boarder the first year because I was a lonely girl brought up by my gran(fther died before my birth ) There were cookery lessons,scripture, Tennis,Speech(I'm sorry I'm late Miss Kay but I missed my train to-day!=
The second year I was a bit bored because the girls in the dorm were ony interested in boys and I was 13 and never been kissed.
The last time ,I went to Cheriton gardens was 61 or 64 and I remember it was Wimbledon and they were watching tennis and eating strawberries and cream--
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so now the mysterious 'Mary" in the postcard has been identified as Miss Mary O'Neill, Ada Fenn's good friend !.
What an interesting lady Miss Fenn must have been, and what stories she would have been able to tell!. I am still a little amazed at the wealth of information that my initial enquiry has produced....I still have the postcard that initiated it too, I have no idea what to do with it but I would be more than happy to pass it on to any family member of either lady (if indeed one still exists) should they wish to have it.
I know that I would love to be given a 'relic' such as this from any one of my own ancestors.
Thanks for the up date on Miss Fenn and Co:
Regards
Kasden