House History - Part 4
The First World War
Hello to all you lovely new subscribers! I hope you’re enjoying finding out more about this old house. I’m gradually working my way back through time and discovering all I can about the inhabitants along the way. If you’ve missed anything or need to catch up head to my main page where you will find all my previous posts.
So last time I told you about all the people who came and went during World War II. While war raged on in Europe and many UK cities were bombed, this area and this house became a refuge for people. There was an American air base very close by in Atcham and many of the officers were given lodgings at local houses. I’ve heard that lots of fun was had with many parties taking place at the air base.
But now we go back to the year 1939 when war was declared. At that time this house was lived in by a widow Mrs Kathleen Bailey. She lived here with Hilda Jones, the cook, Alice Hall, the parlourmaid, Edward Norton, a schoolmaster, and five others including Joseph and John Joyce. Some of the records are still closed so I can’t see their occupations. Presumably, though she would have had somebody working on the land and gardens. Kathleen was the widow of The Honorable Herbert Crawshay Bailey. He was a barrister, a Justice of the Peace and a Commissioner of the Board of Control. I suspect he retired here from London with his family and probably knew Baron Barnard who owned the estate and this house. Kathleen then stayed in the house for a few years after his death in 1936. Once the war started things would have been quite different and a lot of people would have come and gone. (Incidentally, Kathleen and Herbert’s son became the fourth Baron Glanusk and his son is the current Lord Glanusk.)
Before the Baileys and throughout the first world war the house was lived in by the Sowerbys. Mr Sowerby was the land agent for the estate and came here as a forester. He brought with him Jane’s grandfather. You can read all about Jane in my last post. I know they were here in 1913 because I found these old receipts at the back of the cupboards in the old estate office.
Mr Sowerby was known as the Colonel and he was married to Muriel who was a whiskey heiress from Scotland. Jane told me a fascinating story about Mrs Sowerby. Apparently one of their sons went to Oxford where he got into some trouble and ran up some gambling debts. Mrs Sowerby knew the Colonel would be furious so she sent Jane’s grandfather off to Oxford with some of her jewellery. Apparently, the debts were paid and the Colonel never found out! Women may not have had much power back in those days but they knew how to handle things :-)
In 1921 the Sowerbys had three young children at home. They had a nurse and nursery maid, Eleanor and Helen and then there was Mary the parlourmaid, Annie the housemaid, Rose the scullery maid and Blanche the cook who came from Yorkshire. They also had Muriel’s mother staying with them from London along with her ladies maid May. What a busy house it must have been! This was a time when the servants were up and down those back stairs all day long and the gentleman retired after dinner to the smoke room. I still don’t know exactly which those rooms were as the bell system doesn’t work but one of these days I will have to try dismantling it and following the wires to see where they all go. It’s quite a job and will make a huge mess but worth it I think!
I can’t imagine what it was like here during the first world war. I guess a lot of the young men were gone. The Colonel would have been in his 40s and so possibly he went to war as well. I’d love to find some old photos of them. Apparently, much of the family emigrated to what was then Rhodesia and so I think old photos would be hard to trace from them. Given that the servants’ bells are still there I think the house would’ve mostly been the same. Certainly, the estate office was much as it was when we moved in. I suspect the bell on the roof worked and was used to call in the workers. I imagine it as a gentleman’s office with an open fire, leather armchairs and decanters of whiskey. This is the feeling I want to give it as we renovate. We are doing the bathroom first and I can’t wait to show you what we have planned in there!
So that’s the history back to 1913. I can go a bit further back and tell you about the family before the Sowerbys who were here for quite a few generations. I’ll get onto that next time. In the meantime, I’d better get back to pointing and gutters. Have a great week :-)
Fab 👍x