Both my grandmothers were children during the reign of Edward VII. My paternal grandmother Dorothy Mabel Angus (Granny Thomas) was born on 2 December 1897 and my maternal grandmother Eleanor Frances Ashton (Granny Goodfield) on 7 April 1898. Granny Thomas was the youngest of six and Granny Goodfield was the second of five.
We have many photos from immediate family to large gatherings. This small family group is the Angus family with Granny Thomas front right leaning against her father’s knee.
The photo below is the Ashtons with Granny Goodfield in the second row from the back, fourth from the left, with long wavy hair tied with bows.
I think both photos were probably taken in the first 10 years of the twentieth century. At the time younger boys wore Eton collars for these formal occasions while little girls and very small boys wore dresses, often white. The older girls and women wore long skirts and high necked blouses with loose fitting bodices.
The big question is, were my grandmothers Edwardians in their outlook and values? Both grandmothers had experienced Edwardian childhood and many of their aspirations and expectations reflected that time.
They both came from families that valued education. John Mortimer Angus had an academic/university career and David Ashton was a schoolmaster/headmaster. My grandmothers went to school until their late teens, where they won prizes, and then on to university. By that stage they both lived in Cardiff and were undergraduates at Cardiff University; Granny Thomas was a modern linguist and Granny Goodfield a scientist. They vaguely remembered each other and I recall Granny Thomas (who was conscious of her more robust figure) saying how glamorous Granny Goodfield was, as a very slim, almost elfin, young woman.
They both suffered the loss of a brother. Granny Thomas’s brother Norman Angus was killed at the Battle of Arras in 1917 aged 27, which apparently contributed to her leaving university before graduating and in 1920 marrying my grandfather, David Arnold Thomas. Granny Goodfield’s young brother David Ashton died aged 10 or so soon after the end of WW1; we thought it was Spanish Flu but later discovered he died of meningitis.
Did ‘Edwardian’ mean anything to me as a child? Not really, but I remember what my grandmothers had in their houses and talked about, as well as their social expectations.
Granny Thomas’s style of home was strongly influenced by Edwardian traditions as well as the architectural movements of the time. Her furniture was oak and mahogany, including tallboys, wardrobes and chests of drawers. There were glass fronted bookcases and my grandfather had a roll top desk, all Edwardian in style.
Overall the feel was substantial and heavy, ideal for their relatively large house.
The house that I remember most clearly was 1 Llandennis Avenue that my Thomas grandparents had built for them in the 1930s, to a design of my grandmother’s, with features reflecting the impact of the Arts and Crafts movement. As you approached the front door there was a solid porch — a very Edwardian feature — and you stepped into a spacious hall with a well-proportioned staircase that took you up to a landing/balcony.
As a very small child I remember visiting Great-Granny Ashton (seated front left in the Ashton family photo above), my Granny Goodfield’s mother, an old lady in a long black dress sitting in a room fairly full of traditional dark furniture, probably more Victorian than Edwardian. I sat on a child’s chair that we now have, shown below (only 25 inches from floor to the top of the back and rather the worse for wear – not surprisingly as it is over 100 years old).
Granny Goodfield’s houses were also full of furniture but they seemed light and airy by comparison. She had gate-legged tables that could fold up easily, comfortable chairs, and plenty of things such as old plates on display (often riveted together where they had broken) and books everywhere.
This table is one that I have inherited.
She also liked cushions, rugs and shawls, so there was a ‘draped’ feel to the soft furnishings. In retrospect she was on the ‘Arts and Crafts’ side, informal and creative.
At the time that my grandmothers were children the British Empire was in full swing. With present-day awareness of outcomes of occupation by a foreign power, it is easy to forget how people thought at the time about the empire. There was pride in the economic, political and administrative changes the British achieved overseas as well as employment opportunities and infrastructure, education and health improvements for the local populations. It was normal to have family and friends working abroad as part of the British establishment. Granny Thomas had family in administrative and teaching jobs in countries in Africa, and two generations (great-great-aunts born in the mid-19th century and great-uncles and cousins born 30 or so years later) were Baptist missionaries in India. A large number of British households had souvenirs, ornaments and furniture from ‘the colonies’ as they were known at the time. I remember a resonant elephant bell that was fun to ring and an Indian brass table/tray that stood on a folding stand. We also have several inherited small ebony elephants as well as a slightly wobbly bedside table of Indian origin.
My educated grandmothers would have thought of themselves as middle class. The social strata of their childhoods were fairly rigid and although everyone knew education was a way to achieve what you wanted (social mobility), it was not always available. My grandfather Goodfield, however, was an excellent example of someone who achieved great things through education after a rural childhood and a spell as a miner in South Wales, studying in the evenings before WW1, then being sponsored to go to theological college.
Both my grandmothers had ingrained views about people’s place in society. By today’s standards they made inappropriate comments about people, e.g. always wanting to know ‘what his/her father does’, and ‘how they made their money’. Those were the days when RP (Received Pronunciation) was an indicator of status; speaking with a regional accent doomed you to the lower classes. They both expected to have help in the house, as would have been the norm for Edwardian households with working class servants. Although Granny Thomas was relatively ‘hands on’ (I remember her cooking, and ‘bustling about’ as she called it, when we stayed), she had a nanny for her children as well as domestic help and a gardener. From the 1940s until she died in the early 80s it was clear that Granny Goodfield was very keen on someone else doing housework etc for her, mainly her children when they were young and later.
Continuing the social theme, an aspect of the middle classes in the early years of the twentieth century was that they always aimed to ‘keep standards up’ and do things that ensured everyone realised you ‘knew what’s what’ and associated with the right people. What now seem totally unnecessary rules were part of keeping society ‘as it should be’ and woe betide anyone who made even the smallest mistake. This was the background to many of the values and expected behaviours that my grandmothers adhered to. Granny Goodfield refused to visit me in my first property, a late nineteenth-century improved two-up, two-down terraced house in Cambridge, because she said it was where families with children who had no shoes lived!
Both grandmothers demonstrated the cultural background of their Edwardian childhoods when it was normal to learn musical instruments and to draw and paint. Granny Goodfield was a very good pianist but she preferred to play Beethoven and Schubert sonatas, so we did not spend much time round the piano singing children’s songs with her in the authentic Edwardian manner. In Granny Thomas’s house there were always books, paper and crayons, and games and toys, from croquet and clock golf to card games and bagatelle, which were good fun for all ages.
So were my grandmothers Edwardians? Do these reminiscences answer the question?
ADVERTISEMENT
SOME RESPONSES TO GEORGE CALDERON: EDWARDIAN GENIUS
‘This meticulous yet nimble book is bound to remain the definitive account of Calderon’s life’ Charlotte Jones, The Times Literary Supplement
‘The effort of detection, it must be said, was worth it. The biography is a delight to read.’ Emeritus Professor Laurence Brockliss, The London Magazine
‘It is a masterly synthesis of your own approach with scholarship and very judicious discussion of the evidence.’ Emeritus Professor Catherine Andreyev, historian
‘This comprehensive, meticulously researched and highly readable biography, which the author describes as a “story” rather than an academic biography…’ Michael Pursglove, East-West Review
‘A monumental scholarly masterpiece that gives real insight into how the Edwardians viewed the world.’Arch Tait, Translator of Natalya Rzhevskaya’s Memoirs of a Wartime Interpreter
‘The book is written with great assurance and the reader always feels in safe hands. I liked the idea of it being a story and I read it the same way I would read a novel.’ Harvey Pitcher, writer
‘Presents the Edwardian age, and Calderon in particular, as new and forward-looking.’ Emeritus Professor Michael Alexander, in Trinity College, Oxford, Report 2017-18
A review by DAMIAN GRANT appears in the comments to Calderonia’s 7 September post.
A review by JOHN DEWEY appears on Amazon UK.
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George and Kittie Calderon 1905
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
Captain of the 11
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
George Calderon c.1901
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
George Calderon, 1912
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
Guest post by Alison Miles: Edwardian grandmothers?
Both my grandmothers were children during the reign of Edward VII. My paternal grandmother Dorothy Mabel Angus (Granny Thomas) was born on 2 December 1897 and my maternal grandmother Eleanor Frances Ashton (Granny Goodfield) on 7 April 1898. Granny Thomas was the youngest of six and Granny Goodfield was the second of five.
We have many photos from immediate family to large gatherings. This small family group is the Angus family with Granny Thomas front right leaning against her father’s knee.
The photo below is the Ashtons with Granny Goodfield in the second row from the back, fourth from the left, with long wavy hair tied with bows.
I think both photos were probably taken in the first 10 years of the twentieth century. At the time younger boys wore Eton collars for these formal occasions while little girls and very small boys wore dresses, often white. The older girls and women wore long skirts and high necked blouses with loose fitting bodices.
The big question is, were my grandmothers Edwardians in their outlook and values? Both grandmothers had experienced Edwardian childhood and many of their aspirations and expectations reflected that time.
They both came from families that valued education. John Mortimer Angus had an academic/university career and David Ashton was a schoolmaster/headmaster. My grandmothers went to school until their late teens, where they won prizes, and then on to university. By that stage they both lived in Cardiff and were undergraduates at Cardiff University; Granny Thomas was a modern linguist and Granny Goodfield a scientist. They vaguely remembered each other and I recall Granny Thomas (who was conscious of her more robust figure) saying how glamorous Granny Goodfield was, as a very slim, almost elfin, young woman.
They both suffered the loss of a brother. Granny Thomas’s brother Norman Angus was killed at the Battle of Arras in 1917 aged 27, which apparently contributed to her leaving university before graduating and in 1920 marrying my grandfather, David Arnold Thomas. Granny Goodfield’s young brother David Ashton died aged 10 or so soon after the end of WW1; we thought it was Spanish Flu but later discovered he died of meningitis.
Did ‘Edwardian’ mean anything to me as a child? Not really, but I remember what my grandmothers had in their houses and talked about, as well as their social expectations.
Granny Thomas’s style of home was strongly influenced by Edwardian traditions as well as the architectural movements of the time. Her furniture was oak and mahogany, including tallboys, wardrobes and chests of drawers. There were glass fronted bookcases and my grandfather had a roll top desk, all Edwardian in style.
Overall the feel was substantial and heavy, ideal for their relatively large house.
The house that I remember most clearly was 1 Llandennis Avenue that my Thomas grandparents had built for them in the 1930s, to a design of my grandmother’s, with features reflecting the impact of the Arts and Crafts movement. As you approached the front door there was a solid porch — a very Edwardian feature — and you stepped into a spacious hall with a well-proportioned staircase that took you up to a landing/balcony.
As a very small child I remember visiting Great-Granny Ashton (seated front left in the Ashton family photo above), my Granny Goodfield’s mother, an old lady in a long black dress sitting in a room fairly full of traditional dark furniture, probably more Victorian than Edwardian. I sat on a child’s chair that we now have, shown below (only 25 inches from floor to the top of the back and rather the worse for wear – not surprisingly as it is over 100 years old).
Granny Goodfield’s houses were also full of furniture but they seemed light and airy by comparison. She had gate-legged tables that could fold up easily, comfortable chairs, and plenty of things such as old plates on display (often riveted together where they had broken) and books everywhere.
This table is one that I have inherited.
She also liked cushions, rugs and shawls, so there was a ‘draped’ feel to the soft furnishings. In retrospect she was on the ‘Arts and Crafts’ side, informal and creative.
At the time that my grandmothers were children the British Empire was in full swing. With present-day awareness of outcomes of occupation by a foreign power, it is easy to forget how people thought at the time about the empire. There was pride in the economic, political and administrative changes the British achieved overseas as well as employment opportunities and infrastructure, education and health improvements for the local populations. It was normal to have family and friends working abroad as part of the British establishment. Granny Thomas had family in administrative and teaching jobs in countries in Africa, and two generations (great-great-aunts born in the mid-19th century and great-uncles and cousins born 30 or so years later) were Baptist missionaries in India. A large number of British households had souvenirs, ornaments and furniture from ‘the colonies’ as they were known at the time. I remember a resonant elephant bell that was fun to ring and an Indian brass table/tray that stood on a folding stand. We also have several inherited small ebony elephants as well as a slightly wobbly bedside table of Indian origin.
My educated grandmothers would have thought of themselves as middle class. The social strata of their childhoods were fairly rigid and although everyone knew education was a way to achieve what you wanted (social mobility), it was not always available. My grandfather Goodfield, however, was an excellent example of someone who achieved great things through education after a rural childhood and a spell as a miner in South Wales, studying in the evenings before WW1, then being sponsored to go to theological college.
Both my grandmothers had ingrained views about people’s place in society. By today’s standards they made inappropriate comments about people, e.g. always wanting to know ‘what his/her father does’, and ‘how they made their money’. Those were the days when RP (Received Pronunciation) was an indicator of status; speaking with a regional accent doomed you to the lower classes. They both expected to have help in the house, as would have been the norm for Edwardian households with working class servants. Although Granny Thomas was relatively ‘hands on’ (I remember her cooking, and ‘bustling about’ as she called it, when we stayed), she had a nanny for her children as well as domestic help and a gardener. From the 1940s until she died in the early 80s it was clear that Granny Goodfield was very keen on someone else doing housework etc for her, mainly her children when they were young and later.
Continuing the social theme, an aspect of the middle classes in the early years of the twentieth century was that they always aimed to ‘keep standards up’ and do things that ensured everyone realised you ‘knew what’s what’ and associated with the right people. What now seem totally unnecessary rules were part of keeping society ‘as it should be’ and woe betide anyone who made even the smallest mistake. This was the background to many of the values and expected behaviours that my grandmothers adhered to. Granny Goodfield refused to visit me in my first property, a late nineteenth-century improved two-up, two-down terraced house in Cambridge, because she said it was where families with children who had no shoes lived!
Both grandmothers demonstrated the cultural background of their Edwardian childhoods when it was normal to learn musical instruments and to draw and paint. Granny Goodfield was a very good pianist but she preferred to play Beethoven and Schubert sonatas, so we did not spend much time round the piano singing children’s songs with her in the authentic Edwardian manner. In Granny Thomas’s house there were always books, paper and crayons, and games and toys, from croquet and clock golf to card games and bagatelle, which were good fun for all ages.
So were my grandmothers Edwardians? Do these reminiscences answer the question?
ADVERTISEMENT
SOME RESPONSES TO GEORGE CALDERON: EDWARDIAN GENIUS
‘This meticulous yet nimble book is bound to remain the definitive account of Calderon’s life’ Charlotte Jones, The Times Literary Supplement
‘The effort of detection, it must be said, was worth it. The biography is a delight to read.’ Emeritus Professor Laurence Brockliss, The London Magazine
‘It is a masterly synthesis of your own approach with scholarship and very judicious discussion of the evidence.’ Emeritus Professor Catherine Andreyev, historian
‘This comprehensive, meticulously researched and highly readable biography, which the author describes as a “story” rather than an academic biography…’ Michael Pursglove, East-West Review
‘A monumental scholarly masterpiece that gives real insight into how the Edwardians viewed the world.’Arch Tait, Translator of Natalya Rzhevskaya’s Memoirs of a Wartime Interpreter
‘The book is written with great assurance and the reader always feels in safe hands. I liked the idea of it being a story and I read it the same way I would read a novel.’ Harvey Pitcher, writer
‘Presents the Edwardian age, and Calderon in particular, as new and forward-looking.’ Emeritus Professor Michael Alexander, in Trinity College, Oxford, Report 2017-18
A review by DAMIAN GRANT appears in the comments to Calderonia’s 7 September post.
A review by JOHN DEWEY appears on Amazon UK.
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