The mystery of Mary Ann

Mary Ann Diggory's story is one of those intriguing family mysteries about which no one ever spoke. And, of course, by the time I became interested enough to start asking questions, the main source of answers -  her younger sister, my grandmother - was no longer with us.

Mary Ann was the eldest child of Thomas and Eliza Diggory (nee Roberts) and was born in 1888. In the photograph below, taken around 1902, she's standing at the back, next to her sister Nellie (b. 1891). Her brother Tom (b.1893) is in the centre, twins Hannah and George (b. 1892) stand either side of the group and my grandmother, Edith (b.1898) is in the front.

Mary Ann standing at the back of the group.
Her youngest sibling, my grandmother, is beside their mother.

Walked out

As I've mentioned before on this blog, all I knew was that Annie (as she was known) walked out of the family home in 1904, aged 16, about two years after the above photograph was taken. That was the last anyone heard of her for almost 80 years, until my grandmother was contacted by the vicar of Annie's local church, shortly before Annie died in 1982.

Whether I'll ever discover exactly why she left all those years before, is questionable. I haven't been able to confirm the most obvious scenario, having come across no illegitimate babies with the surname Diggory, born within a few months of her leaving home, though, of course, that doesn't rule out such a possibility. At that time unofficial adoptions were common, so if Annie did have a child, he or she may be registered under a different name.

Lost in the census

Frustratingly I've not tracked Annie on 1911 census, either. There's someone of the same age recorded as Mary Annabel Diggory, who's a 'trained nurse' working as a servant in a care home in Hereford (as you'll see below, Annie did become a nurse so it's possible that her employer gave her that status and she called herself Annabel to disguise her real name).

Another possibility is a Mrs M Diggory, living in Kinnerley in Shropshire but she's only listed in a Summary Book, so there's no information about age. One other person, male, is mentioned as part of the household but I'd need more to go on to work out if it's Annie.

Nursing badges

One thing I did know, is that Annie was a nurse and had trained at Redhill Hospital. Recently, while sorting through my late Dad's things, I came across a little box of medals and badges, amongst which were three which had belonged to Annie.

In the left photograph is her S.R.N. (State Registered Nurse) badge, engraved with her name and registration number, dated 1923 when nurses were registered for the first time. On the right is an East Surrey Hospital Training School badge.


Another badge, beautifully set in enamel, has East Surrey Hospital's previous name, Reigate & Redhill Hospital around the edge, along with the date 1866. This is the year the original Reigate Hospital was established by Dr John Walters when money was raised to convert two cottages into a hospital. Five years later a new hospital was built on the edge of Redhill Common and the two names were combined.

I drew a blank searching for an image of this badge on the Internet so I consulted Surrey Archives. They believe it may have been produced as a commemoration piece for the 50th anniversary, possibly for fund raising purposes.

The Red Cross

Mary Ann Diggory 1888-1982

But why did Annie choose to train in Surrey when she lived in Shropshire? Perhaps it's tied in with an interesting fact I learned from  Michelle Higgs, author of Tracing Your Medical Ancestors (a copy of which I have on my family history bookshelf) who I often meet on Twitter's #AncestryHour.

Michelle tells me that nurses generally paid for their training. I can't imagine Annie's family having access to such financial resources, even if she had still been in contact with them, so my immediate thought was that she must have had a benefactor. And I have an idea who that may be. But more on that in a moment.

A few years ago I came across an article in a family history magazine about the British Red Cross. For a donation, family members could establish if their nursing ancestors ever worked with the organisation. I got in touch and found to my delight that Annie appeared in their records. These confirmed that Annie had trained at East Surrey Hospital between 1912 and 1915.  Also, they revealed that during WW2, Annie was appointed Sister in Charge at a Red Cross convalescent hospital in Childs Ercall, Market Drayton, Salop, serving for 2 years from 1941-43. Unfortunately, no one in Shropshire Archives is aware of the existence of such a hospital. It's possible Childs Ercall Hall may have been used for the purpose. Enquiries are underway...

Annie's British Red Cross records also noted that she'd worked at the Kent & Canterbury Hospital and the Princess Alice Hospital in Eastbourne. Although I haven't established exact dates as yet, I'm hopeful of tracking down staff records from the individual hospitals to learn more about her working life.

Secret sponsor?

But back to the mystery sponsor. On Annie's record notes was the name of her next of kin. Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that no one in her immediate family was named but instead Mr & Mrs E F Murrell, Shrewsbury were cited as 'friends'. The Murrell family were well known in Shropshire as nurserymen and award winning rose growers, running the prestigious Portland Nurseries, founded by Edwin Murrell (father of this Edwin F Murrell) in the 1830s.

Interestingly, the 1939 Register, taken on the eve of World War II, finds Annie living in the Murrell's family home in Shrewsbury. Was Mr Edwin Foley Murrell the person who paid for Annie's nurse training? As as a enterprising businessman, did he have contacts in Surrey? And what was Annie's connection with the family?

And if that's not enough to be going on with, what about those intervening years from 1904, between when she left home and started her training? What was she doing then? Where did she go? Were the Murrell's involved then?

As ever, there is so much more yet to find out about Annie and her life before she was reunited with my grandmother. But I'm on the case!

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If you've nursing ancestors there are several websites worth checking out:

The British Red Cross: http://www.redcross.org.uk/About-us/Who-we-are/Museum-and-archives/Historical-factsheets/Nurses-and-hospitals

The Royal College of Nursing's archive:
https://www.rcn.org.uk/library/services/family-history-and-research

Scarlet Finders has some very useful information on various sources: http://www.scarletfinders.co.uk/2.html

The National Archives holds some records along with helpful research guides:
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/patients-doctors-nurses/

Wedding Photo Quiz

With a family wedding earlier this month, it seemed a good time to dig around in our own archives and look at some of the old wedding photos we're lucky enough to have.

1. The first couple to star are my husband's grandparents, Albert Joseph Saunders, born in 1884 in London and Caroline Matilda Long, born in 1885.

Caroline was born and grew up in the beautiful historic village of Lavenham in Suffolk.  They were married in... well, perhaps you can guess? Answers on a postcard.. no, just joking. Answer is at the bottom of the page.

 Albert was a cabinet maker and made a lot of their furniture, mainly in mahogany. His apprentice piece was a small stool with a drawer in it and remains in the family.

2. I love this next photograph! It's of my own grandparents, Ernest George Shelley, known as George, and Edith Alice Diggory. George was born in Claverley in Shropshire in 1897, and Edith a year later, in 1898. She was grew up in the lodge house of Park Hall, Sedgeley, Staffordshire, where her father worked as a groom. Her brother, Thomas, worked in the house as a footman before the First World War. Park Hall is now a hotel. Love the hats, don't you?



3. Couple number three are my great uncle George Diggory and his bride Ethel Price. George was a twin. He and his sister Hannah were born in 1896, in the same lodge house as my grandmother.
















4. Moving on now, with my husband's parents, Dennis Percival and Eunice Irene Saunders, both born in 1914.

Dennis was a school teacher and a physicist. He built the family's first TV in his garden shed so that they and the neighbours could watch the Queen's coronation in 1953.

5. And then there's my parents, John Shelley and Patricia Barton, bless 'em, a decade or so later.










6. And finally, another of those mystery weddings. It's a picture from that bundle I mention in The Mystery of 138 photographs. I believe it's that of Mabel Maud Talbot and John Herniman Ben Mowels,  a conclusion arrived at due to a note on a scrap of paper I found in the same pouch as the photograph.

Interestingly, having studied it (with a magnifying glass - it's quite small) I think I can see Mabel's sister Nellie (Helena) peering out from behind the groom, wearing her signature Alice band. What do you think?

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Dates to photos - were you right?

1. 1913 2. 1921 3. 1921 4. 1940 5. 1956 6. 1918

Memories with a Box Brownie

Reading Cathy Murray's Writing a Family History blog last month about days out and holiday snaps, I was reminded of this picture of me trying to get to grips with my granddad's Box Brownie. He'd bought the camera in 1922, apparently, which says something for the durability of technology in those days as I was born over thirty years later!

Box Brownie Camera similar to
my grandfather's.

 What I didn't realise until I looked up the history of the camera, was that marketing for it by the manufacturers Eastman Kodak, was based on the principle that it was so simple to operate, even a child could use it. In the first year it was introduced, in 1900, it sold over 250,000 due to its affordable price.

Cathy Murray's post showed photographs of her family taken in Blackpool in 1945 and 1946. It prompted me to dig around to see what early holiday snaps I had in our photograph archives and I discovered several. The theme of days-out continues with this picture of a whole community waiting for the train to arrive for a day out to Rhyl.

Waiting on Tettenhall Station, circa 1932

My granddad, Ernest George Shelley, is in the centre carrying my father (love the hat, Dad!) next to him is my great-grandfather, 'Granddad Digg' (Thomas Diggory) and on the far right hand side is my Great Aunt Hannah (Diggory).

From the opposite side of the family, there's this photograph of my grandmother, Winifred Griffiths with my mum taken around 1937. I'm not sure where it is (any ideas, anyone?) but you can see what look like beach huts in the distance to the left, and another building in the centre which might be selling teas, ice-creams or even the place where you rent deck chairs. The houses along the periphery are very close to the beach.

The picture below is my mum again, but years later with her aunt, Hilda Griffiths. 

This time, though, I'm fairly sure the photograph was taken at Llandudno, a place we often went as children. My grandmother Winifred, used to sing to holiday makers at The Happy Valley on the Great Orme. You can read about her on my post Strictly Music Hall.

We all know the frustration of finding unidentifiable old photographs but are we any better than our ancestors? What about those hundreds of photographs stored on computers and memory cards, labelled with nothing more revealing than P26488674... etc.? Now there's a nice engrossing task for a wet day!

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From Hall to Hovel

One interesting part of family history is discovering the places where our ancestors lived, using the census records.

A few years ago a family historian visited our village researching his Devon family who had lived in our cottage during the 19th century. He was delighted to discover the present inhabitants were fellow enthusiasts and we were similarly intrigued to hear about his family. He left copies of the census returns of our house with us, listing the people who'd lived there and he was able to take away a contemporary photograph of the 'old family home' for his records. Later he sent us a photo of our cottage taken in the 1890s, with the family dressed in their Sunday best standing outside.

One of my favourite old family photographs is this one of my great-grandparents, Thomas and Eliza (nee Roberts) Diggory in front of their home, with my grandmother, Edith Alice, aged about 14 years old. The architecture of the house has always interested me, as it's very industrial in style. So where is it?

The Wergs, near Wolverhampton?

On the 1911 census, which would be about the time this photograph was taken (if that wonderful hat of my great-grandmother's is any guide!), the family were living at The Wergs, near Wolverhampton. According to information I've come across online, it was an area which apparently attracted wealthy Black Country industrialists who made their homes there. Could it be this association which influenced the building style?

Another house, photographed below, again with my great-grandmother standing outside might be Nursery Walk, in Tettenhall, where she lived some years later. But the number on the door is 39, and her address was number 19. So where's this? The house next door has the word BREMALL carved into the lintel above the front door, though the photograph cuts off the word after it, which might have helped in its identification.

I've been lucky when visiting places where ancestors have lived to find many of them relatively unchanged, making it easier to imagine what it was like in their time. These have included a variety of housing from the lodge of big country house (Park Hall, now a hotel), to tiny workers cottages, rambling farms, a mill, a flat above old stables, a terraced house in a London street, a house in Bath and almshouses in a Suffolk village.

But whether the brick built house with the industrial style windows still exists, I haven't yet discovered. Is it, or was it, in The Wergs? Anyone recognise it? Suggestions please!