Elsa took the stage name of Peggy Furber, after marrying Douglas Furber, who in 1917 hit the big time as a lyricist with the song The Bells of St Marys. His real name was Lewin Michael Sultan. Elsa, (Peggy) doesn't seem to associate with this name. Before this, as an amateur, he lists his profession as stockbroker. She seems to have fully assumed the stage name, and I have found details of their travelling to the U.S. many times, and of their son Mortimer (known as John). His real name was Mortimer Lewin Sultan, but again he appears not to have used this. In the 1939 census I find them living in Angmering on Sea, only five minutes from where my grandparents were living, as my family had retired to the Worthing area.
My grandmother married Major Leonard Cyril Hunter in London in 1935. His father Edward Cyril had moved to Staffordshire, and was an electrical engineer. I can only assume he left London partly as a result of the family hiatus caused by Edward his father, but sadly one upshot seems to have been a relative estrangement from the largely London based (at this time) Hunter family. I would dearly love to find out if in fact there were still family connections keeping some communication going. I find it interesting that Leonard Cyril, my grandfather, having trained as a chemist, found himself in London before 1935, surely he must have already been in touch or looked up his local cousins, aunts and uncles in North London? I do not know how/why he met my grandmother, Doris Florence Notson. My grandmother's family were Hancocks and Notsons, all established London families. I have discovered similarities in professions, through publishing and also the stage which could link them. My grandmother had an uncle (Tommy, not his real name) who was good friends with Dan Leno, and I have a picture of them together in a large group of Dan's Dainties, from 1900 in a charity cricket match.
Because my grandmother was such a young widow, and then remarried twenty years later, apart from my real grandfather's sister Cynthia, I cannot find anything, nothing, connecting her to the Hunter family, which is such a shame and so frustrating.
Interestingly if you have read Ferdinand Mount's great biography of his Aunt Munca: Kiss Myself Goodbye, she lived just around the corner from Peggy and Douglas, and being the show business types I feel they must have known one another, even if it was only in the local private club. I would love to know if this were true, they seem similar types. I would also dearly love to know, even if it was only up until my grandfather was killed in the war in 1943, if all the cousins were on good terms, or even all knew they were all living just around the corner from each other, I have no idea. It wasn't just my grandparents, but Emily Doris Hunter/Sawyer's descendents who had local connections as well: the Franklin Hepburns (descendants through the Sawyers) and of course Ellen Blanche, Edward's wife, and their daughter May Louise retired to Hove, and John Leslie appears to have gone as well. At the least, as Ellen Blanche was my grandfather Leonard's grandmother, and present at his parents wedding, and as she lived until 1935 ( the year my grandparent married) I feel there must have been some contact. I have searched and searched for a local newspaper article covering my grandparents wedding, which I assume would have been held in the Hornsey/Muswell Hill area but can't find anything.
Mortimer Furber was a musical conductor, I have found many entries for him in The Stage etc. In the early fifties he married the opera singer Gita Furber de la Fuente Chaudhuri. She lived to just shy of 100, they retired to Malta, and she passed away in 2017. They were at his parents house in Angmering for the 1939 census as well, and interestingly there are other De La Fuentes in the Worthing area, one of whom I know well, but I can't seem to link them.
Anyway, I hope this proves of interest. If anyone has any information linking any of the above, or better still correspondence from Edward Cyril Hunter of Staffordshire and /or Leonard and Doris Hunter of Sompting, West Sussex I would dearly love to see it!
Thanks for reading
Nickolas Couchman Hunter
