Tunbridge Wells in 1909 Supplementary Notes Version 2
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Tunbridge Wells in 1909 Supplementary Notes Version 2. June 2012 This document contains the source references that were excluded from the main volume. It also provides an opportunity to correct errors that have been identified in the main volume, and to include references to new information. Should you find further errors - in the main document, or in these supplementary notes; or if you have additional information about 1909 that you would like to be recorded, please send details to: [email protected] Thank you The main source for Tunbridge Wells in 1909 was the Kent and Sussex Courier (Courier), as this was available on microfilm in TW Reference Library. Other local newspapers: Tunbridge Wells Advertiser, Tunbridge Wells Gazette and Fashionable Visitors List, and Tunbridge Wells Society are only available at the British Library Newspaper Collection. The Tonbridge Free Press (TFP) is available on microfilm at Tonbridge Ref. Library. Note that all dates are 1909 unless otherwise stated. Foreword (p1) - Christmas 1908 (p3) p3 The story of the ‘suffragettes’ is from the Courier Jan 1st p5. p3 The postmen - Courier Jan 1st p7. The telegraph-boys in Tonbridge - Tonbridge Free Press Jan 1st ? p4 Festivities at the Spa - Courier Jan 1st p5, Society Dec 18th 1908 p15. (Juliet Nicholson in The Perfect Summer (2008) describes a fancy dress competition at the Savoy Ball. Lady Diana Manners won 250 gns and a diamond and gold pendant for her representation of Velasquz’ ‘Infanta’) p4 Emmanuel Meal - Society Dec 26th 1908 p2. Courier Jan1st p7. Fund-raising dinner for Christmas1909 reported in Courier of Nov 26th p7. An Introduction to Tunbridge Wells (p5) p6 Medical Officer of Health Annual Report for 1909. Table XIX p6 The suggestion that other towns were more significant for ‘Anglo-Indian’ families comes from E. Buettner Empire Families: Britain and Late Imperial India (2004), eg p209. She does however have the story of Adelbert Talbot, who retired as British Resident in Kashmir in 1900. His search for a retirement home in England was done with care - he needed a certain status, but had limited resources. Barnes was rejected - ‘not a nice neighbourhood - mainly composed of Cockney villas’ (p192). The more desirable parts of London were too expensive. He feared that it might have to be the Midlands, but then found a suitable house in Frant. p6 Population figures for Tunbridge Wells as a whole were abstracted from 1901 census summaries on the histpop.org web-site, hosted by the Univertsity of Essex. p6 Population figures for St James’ Road were abstracted from the detailed 1901 census returns. p7 Details of HM Caley from B and G Copus’ chapter in Residential Parks (ed J. Cunningham). p41. p7 Reference to councillors’ preference for Cllr Marsh, from Advertiser article October 1908, in Borough Archives press cuttings. p8 Ratepayers League. Courier May 21st p7 reported that it had 2000 members - one third of the electorate. p9 Paget Hedges. Society Jan 2nd, p11. The story about him being snubbed in Leigh came from Christopher Rowley (local historian of Leigh). I found surprisingly little information about the history of Benson & Hedges, though the Ellis Island immigration records do record Hedges’ almost annual visits to the United States. p9 Spender-Clay. Society Dec 18th 1908.This includes the following description of Mrs Spender-Clay “without being a strikingly beautiful woman, Mrs Clay has attractive features, and a great charm of manner, and a restful way of talking”. There is an illustrated article in the Advertiser of Nov 13th 1908. A New York Times article of July 15th 1904, mentions that he resigned from the Guards in 1902 ‘after’ the ‘ragging’ scandal at Windsor. It is not clear whether he was involved in the scandal - the timing may have been coincidental. (The scandal involved senior officers being censured for allowing (perhaps encouraging) junior officers to impose excessive punishments on colleagues who didn’t conform to the behaviour expected of officers. p9 Lord William Nevill. See, inter alia, The Times Feb 16th 1898. p12. Nevill later wrote a book about his experiences in prison called Penal servitude (1903). He was in further trouble in 1907 The Times Apr 15th 1907 p14. p10 J Nicolson (The Perfect Summer p115) quotes Kipling, describing Churchill at the 1911 coronation, full of his own self-importance “like an obscene paper-backed French novel in the Bodleian”. How we became Royal (p11) p11 Formation of Advertising Association. From the Courier of May 22, June 19, June 26 1908, and the Advertiser of 31st July 1908. p12 Albert Dennis was brought up by his elder sister, Elizabeth, and her husband Ebenezer Waymark. In 1876 the Waymarks opened a small drapers shop at 78 Calverley Road (NB there were no buildings then between Five Ways and Monson Road). In the early 80’s they moved to no 2 Calverley Road, and by 1909 they dominated that corner site, which became known as Waymark’s Corner. Ebenezer died in 1892, and Elizabeth took over the running of the business. Albert, who had been involved in the firm since the late 1870’s was admitted a partner in 1900. The Drapers Record. Sept 18th 1909. See also Society 19th Dec 1908 p4. p12 Activities of the Advertising Assoc - these were reported each month in the Courier. Most of the details given here were taken from the report on 29th Jan of the association’s Annual Meeting. ‘Chess competition’ is perhaps the wrong term. It was in fact a ‘chess congress’, held in the town, with some hundreds of participants. p12 Holiday Whitakers - This was a short-lived publication. Whitakers’ own archive was destroyed in 1942 but there is a copy in the British Library. p12 Association for the Promotion of Tunbridge Wells (footnote). Described in an obituary for Mr Francis Boreham (its first secretary) in the Courier of Feb 5th 1932. J Nicolson (The Perfect Summer p226) talks of south-coast resorts having ‘Publicity Managers’. The Times disliked the term - an Maericanism. p13 Opera House. Papers relating to the application to call it ‘Her majesty’s’ are in the National Archives at Kew. HO144/603/B24574.See p151 for an earlier request. p14 Capstan cigarettes. The story about the request to call them ‘Royal George’ comes from WD and HO Wills and the Development of the UK Tobacco Industry BWE Alford. (2005) p217. p14-16The petition to the King and the various responses to it are at the National Archives. HO144/19776. Reports in the local newspapers can be identified from dates in the text. Streatfeild and Hardinge links to the King: Courier 26th Feb p7, Recollections of Three Reigns F Ponsonby (1951) pp254-5. p14 Duchess of Argyle - better known in Tunbridge Wells as Princess Louise, Marchioness of Lorne, daughter of Queen Victoria, who lived at Dornden in Rusthall in the 1870’s. p18 Note that George V’s coronation was in 1911, not 1910. January (p19) p20 Old Age Pensions. The numbers in receipt of pension within Tunbridge Wells come from the Courier 8th Jan p7. The statement about the unexpected levels of poverty, especially in Ireland, comes from the Annual Register, p30. Old Age Pensions had been paid in Germany since 1899, and were already available in New Zealand. The Advertiser gloried in the fact that although both parties had promised them, it was the Liberals who had delivered (Advertiser May 15th 1908, p9). Many Conservative MP’s were opposed. Col Warde (Medway - on p 92 I incorrectly state Mid-Kent) declared that he was against them (Courier 5th Feb p9), and Spender- Clay stated that he was in favour of Old Age Pensions, but “not of the present scheme by any means” (Advertiser Nov 13th 1908). Most Conservative MP’s would have preferred a contributory arrangement. The issue became heated later in 1909 when certain Liberal representatives suggested that the pension would be at threat if the Conservatives won the election. The Courier saw the danger in this and strenuously denounced what it termed the ‘Pension Lie”. p21 Mrs Collins may have been the oldest pensioner, but Mrs Skinner of Hollands Farm, Langton, at 105, was older. She was interviewed by the Advertiser on 26th March, but did not say very much. She said even less when interviewed again in March 1910. p21 The execution at Bethune. Arnold Bennett’s The Old Wives’ Tale, published in 1908 includes a scene at a public execution, though Bennett claimed afterwards that he had never personally attended one.Tressel in The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (1914) p21 blamed the press for this “undiscriminating hatred of foreigners”. Courthope’s speech about foreigners was reported in the Courier of 29th Jan p7. p23 The Servants’ Ball at Eridge was reported in the Courier of 8th Jan p7. p23 Society’s statement about unemployment came on 20th Feb. p24 Mayor’s Unemployment Fund. There are frequent references in both local papers to the funds collected, and the numbers who were supported. The Advertiser of 8th Jan gives other examples of the type of work that was funded. p24 Cabman’s shelter. There were proposals in 1908 for another shelter at the top of Mount Pleasant, though this was opposed by ratepayers (Advertiser, March, April 1908). At the same time the cab-drivers were opposing the granting of licences to taxi-cabs (ie motor taxis). p24 The newly-formed Right to Work Committee held an outdoor meeting at the corner of Lime Hill Road in October 1908. Despite the weather (it was raining) there was a fairly large crowd to hear the Secretary, Mr H Hesketh, declaim violently against the government, the Royal family, and the existing order of things generally (Advertiser.