The Mystery of Mary Ann - looking for connections

One of the things I love about family history research (apart from the thrill of stumbling upon something surprising by accident, of course) is the buzz of gathering together those intriguing bits of information which, could, might, possibly, join together to reveal another long-hidden secret which has so far eluded me.

Mary Ann Diggory in later years

October's been one of those gathering months in my continuing quest to discover more in the intriguing story of my great aunt, Mary Ann Diggory, and what was behind her decision to walk out on her family in 1904, when she was 16. If you're unfamiliar with the background, my post The Mystery of Mary Ann, will fill you in.

After the thrill of unpicking the secret of Mary Ann's connection with Mary Downes in last month's post, I set-to with great determination to see what other gems I could crack.

Murrell Family

I decided first to focus on the Murrell family. Annie, as Mary Ann was generally known, had lived with the Murrell family for several years.

I'd learned from the Registration of Nurses records, that she was living with them at 68 Foregate Street, Shrewsbury in 1937 and was still resident in 1940, after they'd moved to The Gateway, Monkmoor, Shrewsbury. By 1943 she'd moved to her own house at 18 Woodfield Avenue, Shrewsbury, where she remained until she went into a nursing home in the 1980s, towards the end of her life.

Pontesbury connection

So how did she know the Murrell's? As nothing obvious linked her to Edwin Foley Murrell, and I'd drawn a blank on any mention of Annie in his will, I decided to concentrate on his wife, Alice Maud and discovered her maiden name was Randles. Alice's father was Edward Randles, a draper, who was born in Pontesbury in 1838.

The Pontesbury connection was interesting as Annie's mother, Eliza Roberts, had been born in Pontesbury in 1841, as had her brother, Jonathan in 1845 and her father, Timothy Roberts, in 1813. What's more, Alice Murrell moved to a nursing home called Cliffdale, also in Pontesbury, before she died in 1954.


Alice Murrell left a will and I sent for a copy, thinking, again, that Annie may have been mentioned in some way, giving a clue to their association. But no, Alice's beneficiaries were her two sons, her daughters-in-law and her sister, Marian Randles.

But what about Cliffdale House? Had she chosen it because of her family connections in Pontesbury? Or did she perhaps have links to Cliffdale House itself?

Medical link?

Cliffdale is currently a care home and their website told me that it had been a private residence up until 1945. I looked it up on the 1911 census and discovered a surgeon lived there, called Jameson. His first name was listed as Alfred but you might agree from looking at the entry below, that it doesn't look much like Alfred to me! (I'm still trying to work out what it is.)

But whatever his name, was this a link? Did Cliffdale, having a medical connection, have anything to do with Annie becoming a nurse?

And what about the rest of the Randles family? Did the Roberts family and the Randles know one another in Pontesbury? Or was this merely a coincidence?


I'm currently working my way through both families to see if I can tie them up in any way.

Then I plan to turn my attention back to those years after Annie left home but before she began her nursing training in Surrey in 1912. Where was she back then? I still haven't found her on the 1911 census. Was she hiding under an assumed name....?

Perhaps if I gather enough tenuous links, and with a fair wind and the odd lucky break, I might eventually manage to join up the dots! I'll keep you posted.

The Mystery of Mary Ann - secrets and lies

Mary Ann 2 years before she left home

As those of you who read this blog regularly know, one of my family mysteries is that of my great aunt Mary Ann Diggory, or Annie, as she was known.

Annie walked out of the family home in 1904, aged 16 and, it was alleged, never made any contact with her family until she was in her 90s when shortly before she died her local vicar tracked down her youngest and only surviving sibling, my grandmother, Edith Alice, ten years her junior.

The story has always intrigued me. Why did she go? Where did she go? And what happened to her in the intervening years from 1904 until 1982 when she sought out my gran. So since I began my family history research, it's been my mission to find out some answers.

It was no secret that Annie became a nurse, training at Reigate and Redhill Hospital, Surrey between 1912 and 1915.

In the previous post which I wrote about her, I said I'd learned that nurses were obliged to pay for their training and as Annie came from a family of six children and of modest means, I doubted it had been they who paid.

Annie had volunteered for the Red Cross during WW2 and I discovered that she'd given her next of kin, not as a family member but couple she referred to as "friends", Mr & Mrs Edwin F Murrell, of Shrewsbury, whom Annie had been living with in 1939.

Annie during her nursing years

I wondered if the Murrells had been Annie's benefactor and I sent away for Edwin Murrell's will, wondering whether Annie was mentioned in it. But, no. There was no reference to her at all.

However I have discovered something which blows apart the allegation that Annie had no contact with her family during her lifetime in previous years.

Ancestry.co.uk recently added a database of nurses's registration. Details gave qualifications, where qualified and the entrant's addresses. Annie's name appeared several times over a number of years, the earliest being 1925 when the record shows that by then she had returned to Shrewsbury and was living at 34 Bishop Street.

I decided to check the 1911 census (the closest I could get to this date) to see who was then resident at that address. I discovered a widow, Mary Downes, born in Leebotwood in 1846,  was living there alone and "on own means". So who was Mary Downes, I wondered? A check back to the previous census showed her at the same address. In the census before, in 1891, her husband was still alive, though then they were living in Cannock, Staffordshire, where her husband was a grocer.

Ancestry likes to be as helpful as it can and often makes suggestions as to other records which fit the person being investigated. I saw that a Mary Downes had died in 1935 and that her will was listed in the probate registry. I clicked on the entry and bingo! One of her beneficiaries was none other than Mary Ann Diggory!

But what was the connection? I knew from the 1891 census that Mary's husband was Samuel Downes so I searched the marriages on FreeBMD for Samuel Downes in Shropshire hoping that would give me more information. There was a Samuel Downes who'd married a Mary Finch but that didn't ring any bells.

Then another of Ancestry's prompts pointed me towards marriages across the border in Staffordshire and I hit the jackpot. Samuel Downes had married Mary Roberts, father, Timothy Roberts in 1890, in Sedgely, Staffordshire, the same place where Annie's family lived. Roberts was the maiden name of Annie's mother, Eliza. Elisa's father was also called Timothy and her elder brother, Thomas, had been born in Leebotwood, like Mary. Got it! Mary was Eliza's sister and therefore Annie's aunt!

While it's comforting to know Annie wasn't completely estranged from her family, I'm curious about who knew that Annie was living with her aunt. Was it a secret between the sisters, perhaps? Or was Mary the only family member not to turn her back on the young woman?

That, sadly, sounds like the case given that Mary died in 1935 and if bridges had been mended during her lifetime, Annie wouldn't have cited the Murrells as her next of kin during the 1940s.

But I still don't even know what her connection was with the Murrells! As ever, the mystery continues and the search for the truth goes on.

************************************************

I found Annie living with the Murrells on the 1939 Register. You can search the database via Findmypast website.

If you know when someone died, you can search the probate records and order a copy of a will via the government Probate website.

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!

*******************************************

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/