I have been on holiday in Devon. A happy side effect is that I was able to visit what I believe to be the property that ‘Mrs Stewart of Torquay’ lived in from at least 1914 until her death in 1925.
It is rather unlikely that George Calderon ever went there, as Mrs Stewart, née Vale, was part of Kittie’s life, not George’s. She was the mother of Kittie’s ‘T’other’, her intimate friend Nina Corbet.
Mrs Eliza Stewart was born in London in 1841, but lived with her parents in Canada until about 1870. She was actually referred to as ‘Canadian’. In 1870, I believe, she came to Britain with her three-year-old daughter Nina to introduce the child to her grandparents, Henry and Jane Stewart, at their estate in Fife. The Stewarts, however, had no time for Eliza, as they did not think they would ever need a female heir (Nina) and they did not approve of their younger son’s marriage in Canada anyway. This son, James Affleck Stewart, had died at Brantford, Ontario, three weeks before Nina was born.
The upshot of all this, according to family lore, was that Eliza Stewart was banished to Torquay and thereafter only ever referred to as ‘Mrs Stewart of Torquay’. Nina was educated in various places. She visited her Stewart grandparents every so often, then moved to St Andrews at about eighteen following their deaths.
But when did Eliza Stewart buy — or rent — the property in Torquay? The only documentary evidence we have come up with so far for her residing here dates from 1914, but we are digging deeper. The fact that she does not appear for Torquay in the 1891, 1901 and 1911 censuses is explained by her paying extended visits to her daughter and grandchildren at various addresses in London.
To be rigorous, we also cannot say for certain that Mrs Stewart lived in the building pictured by me below, as the property with its name has a complicated history and may have had other wings. We can say, however, that this is part of the house that ‘Mrs Stewart of Torquay’ owned or rented. And a present occupant told me last week that a Canadian one-cent piece has been found in the garden…dating from 1868!
Kittie Calderon (born in the same year as Nina, 1867) probably first met Mrs Stewart at St Andrews in the 1880s. She would have visited her at Torquay with Nina in the 1890s and 1900s, especially after becoming godmother to Nina’s daughter Lesbia. In 1921, Nina’s second husband, Reginald Astley, telegrammed Kittie from Lugano to go immediately to Torquay to be with Mrs Stewart in the event of bad news about Nina, who had appendicitis. Nina died in Lugano on 5 August 1921 and Kittie stayed with Mrs Stewart for a long time afterwards. Nina’s death was the worst blow dealt Kittie since George’s death at Gallipoli; she seems, in effect, to have had a nervous breakdown.
Kittie was deluged with letters of condolence after Nina’s death and some of the writers saw her as a ‘second daughter’ to Mrs Stewart. We know from redirected letters that Kittie regularly stayed with her in the 1920s and nursed her through her last illness. Mrs Stewart died at Torquay on 24 November 1925.
There are at least two good outcomes from this difficult tale. First, in 1872 Nina’s uncle Robert Stewart died childless, the Fife estate eventually passed to Nina, who came of age in 1888 and married Sir Walter Corbet, and because Nina’s sons predeceased her the estate remained in the female line for two generations. Second, it was her daughter, Kittie’s godchild, who inherited Kittie’s worldly goods in 1950 and preserved the Calderon archive from which my biography takes its inspiration.
I shall shortly turn back to the third draft of my Introduction. I have come to the conclusion it is the most difficult part of the book to write.
For the archive of posts since 31 July 2015, please click here.
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Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
Captain of the 11
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
George Calderon, 1912
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
George Calderon c.1901
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
Mrs Stewart of Torquay
I have been on holiday in Devon. A happy side effect is that I was able to visit what I believe to be the property that ‘Mrs Stewart of Torquay’ lived in from at least 1914 until her death in 1925.
It is rather unlikely that George Calderon ever went there, as Mrs Stewart, née Vale, was part of Kittie’s life, not George’s. She was the mother of Kittie’s ‘T’other’, her intimate friend Nina Corbet.
Mrs Eliza Stewart was born in London in 1841, but lived with her parents in Canada until about 1870. She was actually referred to as ‘Canadian’. In 1870, I believe, she came to Britain with her three-year-old daughter Nina to introduce the child to her grandparents, Henry and Jane Stewart, at their estate in Fife. The Stewarts, however, had no time for Eliza, as they did not think they would ever need a female heir (Nina) and they did not approve of their younger son’s marriage in Canada anyway. This son, James Affleck Stewart, had died at Brantford, Ontario, three weeks before Nina was born.
The upshot of all this, according to family lore, was that Eliza Stewart was banished to Torquay and thereafter only ever referred to as ‘Mrs Stewart of Torquay’. Nina was educated in various places. She visited her Stewart grandparents every so often, then moved to St Andrews at about eighteen following their deaths.
But when did Eliza Stewart buy — or rent — the property in Torquay? The only documentary evidence we have come up with so far for her residing here dates from 1914, but we are digging deeper. The fact that she does not appear for Torquay in the 1891, 1901 and 1911 censuses is explained by her paying extended visits to her daughter and grandchildren at various addresses in London.
To be rigorous, we also cannot say for certain that Mrs Stewart lived in the building pictured by me below, as the property with its name has a complicated history and may have had other wings. We can say, however, that this is part of the house that ‘Mrs Stewart of Torquay’ owned or rented. And a present occupant told me last week that a Canadian one-cent piece has been found in the garden…dating from 1868!
Kittie Calderon (born in the same year as Nina, 1867) probably first met Mrs Stewart at St Andrews in the 1880s. She would have visited her at Torquay with Nina in the 1890s and 1900s, especially after becoming godmother to Nina’s daughter Lesbia. In 1921, Nina’s second husband, Reginald Astley, telegrammed Kittie from Lugano to go immediately to Torquay to be with Mrs Stewart in the event of bad news about Nina, who had appendicitis. Nina died in Lugano on 5 August 1921 and Kittie stayed with Mrs Stewart for a long time afterwards. Nina’s death was the worst blow dealt Kittie since George’s death at Gallipoli; she seems, in effect, to have had a nervous breakdown.
Kittie was deluged with letters of condolence after Nina’s death and some of the writers saw her as a ‘second daughter’ to Mrs Stewart. We know from redirected letters that Kittie regularly stayed with her in the 1920s and nursed her through her last illness. Mrs Stewart died at Torquay on 24 November 1925.
There are at least two good outcomes from this difficult tale. First, in 1872 Nina’s uncle Robert Stewart died childless, the Fife estate eventually passed to Nina, who came of age in 1888 and married Sir Walter Corbet, and because Nina’s sons predeceased her the estate remained in the female line for two generations. Second, it was her daughter, Kittie’s godchild, who inherited Kittie’s worldly goods in 1950 and preserved the Calderon archive from which my biography takes its inspiration.
I shall shortly turn back to the third draft of my Introduction. I have come to the conclusion it is the most difficult part of the book to write.
For the archive of posts since 31 July 2015, please click here.
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