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Brian Ahern
Member
Username: brian_ahern
Post Number: 325
Registered: 12-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, December 5, 2006 - 1:48 am: | 
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Here's a page discussing the brave, tragic military service of Frank Bernard Wearne, Edith Pears's brother:
http://www.fylde.demon.co.uk/wearne.htm
It's complete with photos of him and a few anecdotes of his last days. |
Martin Williams
Member
Username: martin_williams
Post Number: 77
Registered: 3-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 4, 2007 - 9:49 am: |
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That's extraordinary - I was under the impression that VCs were awarded only very, very rarely...so for ex-pupils from one school to win FIVE...wow! By the sounds of it, they more than deserved them. What a bloody conclusion to the so-called 'Gilded Age'.
Did I read somewhere that, aside from Sir Cosmo and Lady Duff Gordon, the Pears were the only other English couple travelling in first-class? Julia Cavendish was American by birth, so I don't know whether she and Tyrell would qualify.
Although my own interest chiefly revolves around the grander first-class passengers - the DGs, Noelle Rothes, the Wideners, the Astors et al - I have a special affection for Thomas and Edith Pears. They would not have been considered 'Society' and, under normal circumstances, would not have associated with either English aristocrats or American multi-millionaires. I see them as representatives of the prosperous middle-classes, living quietly in unglamorous Isleworth but enjoying the fruits of their labours whenever possible. A voyage aboard the 'Titanic' - very much akin to a stay at the Ritz - was, I assume, a treat indeed. We'll never know but, as always, I can't help but wonder how they regarded their more celebrated shipmates - whether Edith felt self-conscious when she saw the couture gowns worn by the other ladies to dinner or if Thomas smoked a cigar with Benjamin Guggenheim. Or perhaps, as is always the risk, I'm seeing class barriers where none, in fact, existed. For all I know, the Pears might have felt right at home! |
sashka pozzetti
Member
Username: sashkapozzetti
Post Number: 51
Registered: 3-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 4, 2007 - 11:08 am: |
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I suppose that considering the other passengers included Lucile who was a working re-married middleclass divorcee, and Guggenheim was travelling with his 'barely concealed' mistress, things in first class weren't too formal!! |
Martin Williams
Member
Username: martin_williams
Post Number: 78
Registered: 3-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 4, 2007 - 12:32 pm: |
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Yes but...'formal' is only a relative term, isn't it? In my earlier post, I took Thomas and Edith Pears as examples to illustrate my point that the social dynamic in first-class was actually much more varied and complex than most people imagine (or as James Cameron showed in that maddeningly simplistic film of his!) There was almost as great a difference between Colonel Astor and Thomas Pears as there was between Thomas Pears and the humblest steerage passenger. Fifth Avenue and Newport are a long, long way from Isleworth! And I very much doubt that Edith bought her clothes on the rue de la Paix. I can't help but wonder how all these various individuals related to each other during the voyage. Maybe I'm much more conscious of the nuances of class and background than the passengers were themselves. But, from everything I've read about life in 1912, I bet I'm not.
So I wouldn't necessarily say that things in first-class were informal. The dressing for dinner, the complicated etiquette, the observation of certain customs - this is what makes the idea of a 'Gilded Age' so appealing from the perspective of the casual, 'anything goes' twenty-first century. Yet if any of us on this board were asked to live under the same conditions as our great-grandparents (with all the moral, social, technological, even sartorial, restrictions that would entail) most of us wouldn't last a day. On another thread, we've been busy speculating on the exact nature of the relationship between Benjamin Guggenheim and Leontine Aubart. On the basis that they were NOT married, but were travelling together - and setting the individuals in the context of the period - we've put together a scenario in which she is a 'kept woman' and possibly even a high-class prostitute. Yet, today, this arrangement wouldn't raise so much as an eyebrow.
Oh, 1912 was formal alright! |
sashka pozzetti
Member
Username: sashkapozzetti
Post Number: 52
Registered: 3-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 4, 2007 - 2:10 pm: |
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So how formal was the "lapin Agile"?!!!! |
Martin Williams
Member
Username: martin_williams
Post Number: 79
Registered: 3-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 4, 2007 - 2:39 pm: |
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Or should that be - what kind of woman did Benjamin Guggenheim meet there? Not somebody he'd introduce to his wife, that's for sure.
But we're getting off the topic of this particular thread, which is Thomas and Edith Pears. |
Brian Ahern
Member
Username: brian_ahern
Post Number: 410
Registered: 12-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 4, 2007 - 3:33 pm: |
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Martin - it's such a breath of fresh air to have someone discussing passengers whose stories I've always wanted to delve into. The Pearses were among the passengers I put as favorites on that thread, precisely because they weren't typical. My sense is that British travelers of their type generally preferred Cunard, leaving White Star to the showy Americans.
I'd say they belong to the class represented by the characters in "Howards End" (I assume you've read that? There's that great line after Colonel Fussell has offered to rally the county families for miles around to call on Margaret. Foster says something like, "Whether Colonel Fussell, who was garden seeds, could do what he offered, Margaret doubted. But so long as Henry mistook them for the county families when they did call, she would be satisfied.")
I guess there were a fair amount of British businessmen on the Titanic who could also be said to typify the British middle class. But married couples and families of the type were more rare on the Atlantic, since America was not a great tourist destination for the British.
It's only fairly recently that I've come to realize how interesting the moneyed middle class of Britain is, with its own pride and snobberies. It can seem like there is so little rhyme or reason to it! Reading about British social life and marriage - both fictional and actual - throughout the 20th century, it seems like lineage and all the rest of it mattered to such a brutal degree in some cases and so surprisingly little in others. |
Martin Williams
Member
Username: martin_williams
Post Number: 80
Registered: 3-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 4, 2007 - 5:58 pm: |
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Forster's 'Howards End' is a magnificent book which was later turned into an equally magnificent film. I first read it when I was in my teens but returned to it last year and was simply blown away. It isn't an easy read by any means but when you 'crack it' - and I've only just scratched the surface, further readings will yield greater and greater riches - it simply takes your breath away.
It may be a truism but the English middle classes are, as you say, a law unto themselves; they always have been and they always will be. The nuances and gradations separating the various levels WITHIN that one social group are just as pronounced as those separating the very rich from the very poor. The professional middle class, for example, is very different to the industrial middle class, the urban from the rural, the progressive from the conservative. In 'Howards End', the conflict is between the artistic, literate, liberal-minded Schlegels and the money-making, philistine Wilcoxes. On both sides, the various characters engage in a frantic struggle to connect - 'only connect' being the central message and a concept which, with my interests in the arts AND in people, I try to live up to everyday.
I can't help wondering how the Schlegels and the Wilcoxes would have behaved on if they had been on the 'Titanic'. With their notions of masculinity and gallantry, I like to think that Mr Wilcox and Charles would have 'gone down like gentlemen', like Major Butt and Benjamin Guggenheim, having first shepherded their women to the boats. But they could just as easily have taken advantage of their first-class status to board one of the first boats away. We're only discussing fictional characters, of course, but such a discussion casts an interesting light on late-Edwardian society, which was poised to undergo all the upheavals and revolutions the twentieth-century could throw at it.
I would heartily recommend J.B. Priestley's 'The Edwardians' to you, if you have not yet read it. It is a lively, informed panorama of an entire age and Priestley takes particular care to cast an ironic but affectionate eye over the middle-class world (or, rather, worlds) of his youth. And then there is Vera Brittain, of course - her 'Testament of Youth' is a wonderful, poignant evocation of just that milieu from which the likes of Thomas and Edith Pears sprang.
I apologise that my contributions to any of the discussions I've engaged in so far are lacking in 'evidence' and hard facts. It seems to me that there are countless individuals posting on this board who can command far more information than I, some derived from months and years of painstaking research. Nevertheless, I find it really fascinating to hear the thoughts of fellow board-members on subjects, issues and personalities which have intrigued me since I first became gripped by the 'Titanic' story as a child. |
sashka pozzetti
Member
Username: sashkapozzetti
Post Number: 53
Registered: 3-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 4, 2007 - 6:18 pm: |
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Howard's End is a wonderful book and film. Some of it was filmed near to where the actual 'Howards End' is. E. M. Forsters other books are also very interesting to read , and to learn from. Passage to India is good, because the class issues are laid bare in conrast to the customs of a foreign land. Maurice will be interesting to anyone who has posted on Gays on the Titanic, and is interested in middle class attitudes to sexuality. I would not read his short stories again though they are really strange! |
Brian Ahern
Member
Username: brian_ahern
Post Number: 411
Registered: 12-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 4, 2007 - 7:07 pm: |
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The book and the movie are both simply beautiful. The book especially I would fail to do justice to.
Sashka, another reason I find Maurice interesting is that it deals with the contrasts between the upper classes (the Durhams) and middle classes (the Halls) more than Howards End does.
Martin, I've taken note of those recommendations. Thank you.
And, as it happens, I have in idle moments pictured the Wilcoxes and Schlegels on the Titanic. When you think about these richly drawn characters placed in that context, it drives home the endless number of ways in which the disaster was a horrible, complex human event.
I think Charles Wilcox (he of the "What's the point of being kind to servants? They don't understand it.") would have taken a seat in a lifeboat as his right if he'd had the chance at one. If on dry land, however, he would have been singing the praises of the upper class Anglo Saxon males who, of course, dutifully and bravely met their deaths. With Henry, it could have gone either way, IMO.
I think Margaret and Helen ultimately would have done as they were told and taken their seats in a lifeboat (it was only feminists on dry land who said Titanic's women had done all women a disservice by following the 'women and children' first rule). But it would have created all kinds of emotional turmoil for them. I think Margaret especially would have been horrified to leave Tibby behind (who would have quite happily hopped into a boat if allowed to, but unlike Charles would not have had the cojones to jump into one on his own initiative a la Hugh Woolner). Margaret also admires masculinity and gallantry(and even Helen starts off thinking Tibby would benefit from the Wilcoxes' influence).
Oh, and Martin, this might sound obligatory but everybody with an interest in dialogue brings something to the board, even if their body of knowledge isn't as extensive as yours. Look at the discussions you've created and furthered already. This is what I tell myself when feeling like a piggybacking hack because most of my research is conducted on Google. |
Martin Williams
Member
Username: martin_williams
Post Number: 81
Registered: 3-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, April 5, 2007 - 3:47 pm: |
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Thanks for this, Brian. My thoughts are pretty similar to yours!
The theory that wealthy Americans preferred travelling on White Star vessels, whilst the British usually opted for Cunard, is one that I've heard ventured a couple of times now and I'm curious to know if it's mere conjecture (although it would make a kind of sense) or whether this was accepted as a 'fact' at the time.
In this particular instance, how would Thomas and Edith Pears have come to be travelling on the 'Titanic'? Would they themselves have selected the ship or would they merely have told a travel agent the date on which they wished to sail and he would have taken it from there? Nowadays, one aircraft is very much like another, so it's just a matter of convenience. But back then, each liner had its own character so an element of personal preference may have entered the equation. |
sashka pozzetti
Member
Username: sashkapozzetti
Post Number: 56
Registered: 3-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, April 5, 2007 - 3:58 pm: |
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When I fly I choose an aircraft based on the price, where it goes from, and what I think of the service. Nice food, facilities,flight times and a safety record help me decide. I expect the Pears considered some of the same things. Some people like to go by a national Airline, like you suggest might happen with Titanic, others don't care. On a long Journey I would think the rooms and food would be one of the main things. |
Brian Ahern
Member
Username: brian_ahern
Post Number: 412
Registered: 12-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, April 5, 2007 - 8:07 pm: |
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One thing I've wondered about is how switching bookings from one ship to another worked, especially since people seem to have often switched from one line to another.
There was the couple whose name I forget who reportedly booked one of the the mega-suites before switching to the Mauretania. The Harts were, according to Eva Hart, switched from the Philadelphia.In 1915, there were the people who switched from the Lusitania to the New York because of the submarine warnings.
I can see how switching from one IMM line to another would gain you a rebate, but Cunard of course wasn't part of IMM.
In terms of selecting liners, my impression is that some people put more thought into it than others. I wonder if, here again, you could go into a White Star Line office and come out with a ticket for a ship belonging to another IMM line.
I think I personally would have wanted to mix it up as much as possible if I'd lived in the days of ocean travel |
Martin Williams
Member
Username: martin_williams
Post Number: 83
Registered: 3-2007
| | Posted on Friday, April 6, 2007 - 9:53 am: |
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Thanks, Brian. I imagine that I too would have been quite selective - I would much have preferred the 'Lusitania' to the 'Mauretania' (all that lovely plasterwork) but would have chosen an 'Olympic' vessel over either! I don't know how much experience the Pears had on the Atlantic but I'm guessing not much - so I doubt they compared the relative merits of this ship to that so closely. I imagine that they simply took advantage of a rare opportunity to cross by the swankiest means possible.
Reading her profile, it sounds as if Edith Pears was a VAD during the First World War - at least, this is my own understanding of 'Red Cross Nurse' (or was the Red Cross separate to the Voluntary Aid Detachment?) I think I'm right in saying that VADs were not paid for their services (hence the 'voluntary'!) This tended to mean that it was primarily upper- and middle-class women who joined up - those with the funds and the leisure to work for free. Poorer women were either forced to stay at home with the children or else took paid employment in a munitions factory or somewhere similar. Vera Brittain, the daughter of a comfortable middle-class family from Yorkshire, has left us with the best record of life as a VAD, in her 'Testament of Youth'. Other well-known women who did their bit for the war effort (and, in many cases, their 'bit' was actually rather a lot) included the Duchess of Sutherland ('so beautiful she made dying men want to live' - a useful qualification for a nurse), Lady Diana Manners and Lady Angela Forbes. I find it fascinating to consider the shock that so many of these privileged, protected women must have experienced, most doing hard, physical work for the first time in their lives and seeing terrible injuries at such close quarters. But then, I also believe that many were glad to have something to DO with their time - not just to distract them from the anxieties of the war but also to alleviate the boredom which had previously accompanied their enforced leisure. Noelle Rothes was a nurse too, I believe?
In the case of Edith Pears, the war (coming so soon after the 'Titanic') might have given her a new lease of life - this is the impression I get, at any rate. |
Bob Godfrey
Member
Username: bobgod1
Post Number: 3277
Registered: 11-2002
| | Posted on Friday, April 6, 2007 - 10:34 am: |
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VAD nurses were paid the standard rate for nursing employment, but those with independent means were encouraged to donate their pay to the Red Cross. It's true that some of the volunteers had never scrubbed a floor or made a cup of tea in their lives before, but the representation of social classes in the VAD detachments was probably not far different from that in the Nation as a whole. See my postings in this thread:
http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/discus/messages/5914/42459.html
and check out this link for recollections:
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWnurses.htm |
Bob Godfrey
Member
Username: bobgod1
Post Number: 3278
Registered: 11-2002
| | Posted on Friday, April 6, 2007 - 10:52 am: |
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Not all VAD members were nursing assistants, by the way. Edith Pears drove an ambulance, and later joined the Women’s Royal Naval Service (formed in 1916). |
Martin Williams
Member
Username: martin_williams
Post Number: 86
Registered: 3-2007
| | Posted on Friday, April 6, 2007 - 6:37 pm: |
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Well then, that answers a question I was about to ask about Violet Jessop: how could a woman of her background, a White Star Line stewardess, afford to work for several years without getting paid? Thanks! My perception had always been that most VADs were rather well-bred. Did anybody see 'The Roses of No Man's Land' on Channel 4, back in 1997? It featured the recollections of about a dozen women (by that time, VERY old ladies indeed) of their time spent nursing during the Great War. An incredibly moving, compassionate and inspiring story. Perhaps another documentary is due, detailing the activities of women in other areas of service during those dark days?
Anyway: back to Edith Pears. Solidly middle-class and well-provided for after the death of her her husband...well-educated too, by the sounds of it, if she spent time in France after Wycombe Abbey. What kind of life would she have lead at Mevagissey prior to the 'Titanic'? I wonder if the 1911 census could tell us - can it be accessed on the internet, does anybody know? I'm envisaging the Pears house as a substantial but unpretentious detached villa with maybe three live-in servants (cook, housemaid and parlourmaid - or, alternatively, a 'tweenie), besides an odd-job man twice a week. Thomas was at work all day so how did Edith spend her time? Her clothes would, I think, have come from a department-store or local dressmaker - no Lucile or Paquin for her! How far down the social scale did the practice of dressing for dinner extend? Ubiquitous at stately homes and in grand hotels - but in Isleworth? Yet Edith would have needed at least a couple of smart evening dresses during her time on the 'Titanic'...
All this is pure speculation, of course. I could be completely wrong! What do other people think? |
Bob Godfrey
Member
Username: bobgod1
Post Number: 3281
Registered: 11-2002
| | Posted on Friday, April 6, 2007 - 8:34 pm: |
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The 1911 census will be a goldmine, but you'll have to wait four years for that one - the 100-year privacy rule applies. |
Brian Ahern
Member
Username: brian_ahern
Post Number: 413
Registered: 12-2002
| | Posted on Friday, April 6, 2007 - 8:38 pm: |
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My guess would be it was done among well-to-do middle class people like the Pears, but I guess I'm basing that opinion on movies (Howard's End, Enchanted April). I would bet that at least Tom and Edith's parents did.
I don't know enough about what would have been the typical staff of servants, but I'd bet they had whatever was suitable, with labor being so cheap.
So Isleworth was hopelessly unfashionable? Edith's education and Tom's car- and motorcycle-racing indicate that their lifestyle might not have been so very.....can't think of the right word - homely?
I like the scraps of info we have on them. The fact that Tom had one of his racing trophy/coasters inscribed with Edith's initials; Edith's "kindly but severe" mother presiding over a typically large Victorian family.
BTW, would Weycombe Abbey be sort of a female Eton? Other passengers to attend were the humbly-born Elsie Bowerman and the American (thus very humbly born) Lucile Carter. Though I think even further back then 1912, industrialists' sons and Americans were attending Eton. |
Martin Williams
Member
Username: martin_williams
Post Number: 87
Registered: 3-2007
| | Posted on Friday, April 6, 2007 - 10:08 pm: |
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Well, my impression (derived from goodness knows where) has always been that Isleworth is terminally unsmart. I've never actually been, and don't know anybody who lives there, so perhaps it isn't fair for me to judge. Maybe I should go and investigate one day.
Wycombe Abbey was not considered 'fashionable'. Which is not to say that it wasn't a good school - it was, very, and remains so to this day. And that was precisely the problem. It was the progressive middle-classes who placed the highest importance on a full and wide-ranging female education. Girls from the best families were educated by governesses at home or else attended small, unchallenging, unacademic seminaries with only a select handful of other 'young ladies'. A few months in Germany, Italy or, most usually, France would follow in which the girls would be 'finished' before their formal debuts around the ages of seventeen or eighteen. This remained the case well into the 1950s. So, although Wycombe Abbey WAS organised along the lines of a 'female Eton', the pupil base was far from being either grand or aristocratic (as Eton's most definitely WAS at this time).
Nowadays, however, things are different and the school is indeed considered very smart, both academically and socially. |
Brian Ahern
Member
Username: brian_ahern
Post Number: 414
Registered: 12-2002
| | Posted on Saturday, April 7, 2007 - 6:08 am: |
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Interesting! I don't know what the academic standard was for what I believe was a significant number of girls' schools in the US by the dawn of the twentieth century. I recently read a bio of Kate Chopin who was educated at Sacred Heart schools which, according to the biographer, taught girls things like mathematics and science that they weren't taught in other systems. I was surprised when reading up on a few nineteenth century Sacred Heart Schools that a surprising number of non-Catholics sent their daughters to them. There progressiveness no doubt had something to do with the fact that they were run by women. Chopin of course was born right around 1850. I don't know how different things were by 1912, but the Futrelles' daughter Virginia was a student at a Sacred Heart School when her parents were on the Titanic and I don't think they were Catholic. |
Martin Williams
Member
Username: martin_williams
Post Number: 88
Registered: 3-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, April 7, 2007 - 1:39 pm: |
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And then there were the female colleges at Oxford and Cambridge. I don't know much about these, at least from the top of my head, but you won't have to go far to uncover information about them. Vera Brittain went up to Oxford in the early days of the Great War, before becoming a nurse. And Elsie Bowerman (from roughly the same milieu as Edith Pears) was also at university - I need to check which college, full details are given in that fascinating ET article about her and her career with the suffragettes. (I'm intending to start a new thread about Elsie and her mother, as it seems there isn't one devoted solely to them - unless you can point me in the right direction...?)
I can't think of a single example of a girl from an established 'Society' family taking a degree during this period - again, academia was chiefly the preserve of women from the more liberal middle-classes. |
sashka pozzetti
Member
Username: sashkapozzetti
Post Number: 62
Registered: 3-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, April 7, 2007 - 2:15 pm: |
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Isn't Isleworth near two stately homes? Syon Park, and Osterley House? I wonder if a wealthy local family might have found themselves visiting either of them. Does anyone know what Isleworth was like at this time. I know that other similar suburbs of London were home of people like MPs wealthy lawyers etc. |
Martin Williams
Member
Username: martin_williams
Post Number: 90
Registered: 3-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, April 7, 2007 - 2:43 pm: |
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Osterley is a lovely house with fabulous Adam interiors - as late as the 1930s, it was the home of the Earls of Jersey. But it was not quite town and not quite country, making it far from ideal...well before the war, it was being surrounded by drab, suburban housing developments. Eventually it was just swallowed up by a giant estate of the decidedly UNaristocratic variety!
Now the house itself seems a bit forlorn, sitting as it does in a kind of municipal park. Kenwood in Hampstead has been much more fortunate.
I don't think the Pears would have been on visiting terms with the very smart Jerseys. Or with the Northumberlands at Syon. |
sashka pozzetti
Member
Username: sashkapozzetti
Post Number: 65
Registered: 3-2007
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 10, 2007 - 2:13 pm: |
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I am not sure about this. Lucile wasn't originally an aristocrat, and was even a divorcee, but she was allowed to socialise with the upper Crust. Is there any reason why the Pears couldn't have done? |
Martin Williams
Member
Username: martin_williams
Post Number: 103
Registered: 3-2007
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 10, 2007 - 4:42 pm: |
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No, I am not 'sure' either - I am only speculating.
But it would be quite wrong to see this in terms of what WOULD and what WOULD NOT have been 'allowed'. For all I know, the Jerseys and the Northumberlands welcomed the Pears with open arms - without further research, I certainly can't prove anything to the contrary. There was nothing to prevent a countess socialising with the wife of a soap manufacturer, if she so wished. Yet we have to bear in mind what would have been LIKELY at this period. Nothing encapsulates the class divisions of the Edwardian era better than the 'Titanic' - her chief appeal to somebody like myself. We're not just debating the differences between first-class and third-class here - the whole point of this discussion is to consider the more subtle nuances prevailing WITHIN the various social groups. And, in 1912, it would NOT have been usual for great ladies like the Countess of Jersey or the Duchess of Northumberland to associate on equal terms with the likes of Edith Pears.
Lucy Duff Gordon, although not born with a title, was unquestionably of gentle birth and would have been considered a 'lady' even BEFORE her marriage to Sir Cosmo. It seems that Edith Pears, although from an affluent background herself, was not from quite the same social bracket - the two cases are quite different and shouldn't be seen as equivalent. |
Bob Godfrey
Member
Username: bobgod1
Post Number: 3292
Registered: 11-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 10, 2007 - 7:14 pm: |
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The sad tale which follows may shed some light on the social standing of the Pears family and other wealthy 'tradesmen' of their era. Spring Grove House in Isleworth was the grandest of Thomas Pears' several childhood homes. Regardless of expense, his father Andrew had acquired a Georgian house with extensive grounds, demolished the structure and built on its foundations a huge Victorian pile with the intention of providing himself with a venue suited to a man with the highest of social ambitions. The grounds, complete with lake, were majestic and it came to Pears' notice that favourable comment had been passed even by the Queen, who admired them - in passing.
Pears had no problem attracting his friends and fellow industrialists to social gatherings at his magnificent new home, including concerts in the 'music room' which, complete with minstrels' gallery, was big enough to seat over 100 people. But for the ultimate test of his new social standing he planned a grand garden party to which he invited not just his established coterie, but the local nobility as well. Sadly on this occasion the "build it and they will come" policy didn't work, and the gentry stayed away in droves.
A sadder but wiser man, Pears moved out and the house eventually saw service variously as a hospital, a school and a Polytechnic. It's still standing, and now forms part of West Thames College. Interested parties can hire it for social occasions, but still with no guarantee that the smart set will respond to their invitations!
. |
Brian Ahern
Member
Username: brian_ahern
Post Number: 417
Registered: 12-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 10, 2007 - 8:06 pm: |
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Thank you very much for sharing that information gem, Bob.
This anecdote provides an opportunity to gauge one's own snobbery level: does one feel embarrassed for Pears or embarrassed for the gentry?
I personally am keeping mum!
BTW, Martin et al. - anyone who finds this subject interesting might find it worth their while to check out the thread on Catherine Cay in the Empress of Ireland section. That's an interesting example of a family that appears to be "old", while still having some industrial branches. In their case, the lines are a little more blurred. |
Brian Ahern
Member
Username: brian_ahern
Post Number: 418
Registered: 12-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 10, 2007 - 8:54 pm: |
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Finally managed to track down a partial family tree for the Pears Family: http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=oxladefamhist&id=I4288
Not even Tom's mother's maiden name is recorded, though it does contain the names of his siblings. The years of birth don't seem entirely reliable - Edith's is put as "abt. 1899" and, if the years for Tom's mother are correct, she had her first child at 15 and her ninth 24 years later. This is of course entirely possible, but I'm inclined to hope it wasn't the case. |
Bob Godfrey
Member
Username: bobgod1
Post Number: 3293
Registered: 11-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 10, 2007 - 10:15 pm: |
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The birth years are given as 'ABT' because they come from census returns which include age but not the date of birth. On the 1891 sheet the age for the eldest boy, Francis, is given as 20 but it's smudged and has probably been wrongly transcribed as 26 for that family tree. So his birth year would have been (ABT) 1871.
I suspect that the name 'Marion' for Thomas' mother was an affectation. The most likely candidate for Andrew Pears' bride is Mary Ann Hollingham, daughter of a master baker with a small shop in Brighton. "Fine house, but his people are in soap and hers in bread, you know".
. |
Brian Ahern
Member
Username: brian_ahern
Post Number: 419
Registered: 12-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 10, 2007 - 11:29 pm: |
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Once again, Bob, I'm impressed.
But wow! If that's true, even Andrew Pears' own set would have had reason to think he married beneath himself.
Actually, I'll have to poke around and get a feel for what "master baker" denotes. I was surprised in the past to learn that British butchers and grocers in the nineteenth century could become quite rich, though both of those job titles encompassed a little more than they do in modern US terms, I think. |
Martin Williams
Member
Username: martin_williams
Post Number: 105
Registered: 3-2007
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 10, 2007 - 11:53 pm: |
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Embarrassed or not, Brian, this is how things were! The gentry of the period (Tory to the hilt) could be far more unforgiving than actual 'high society' - the likes of Ernest Cassel found it far easier to get on in royal circles than if they'd sought the approval of the local squirearchy.
Grocers and butchers did indeed have scope to acquire great riches. If I'm not mistaken, even Jane Austen was aware of this, a century before the period in question. In 'Persuasion', Mr Elliot, Sir Walter's heir presumptive, weds the grand-daughter of a butcher, for the sole reason that she will bring with her a substantial dowry. |
Bob Godfrey
Member
Username: bobgod1
Post Number: 3295
Registered: 11-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 10, 2007 - 11:53 pm: |
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'Master' simply denotes that he employed people - two teenage boys in the bakery and a 15-year old 'housemaid'. The latter was probably a general skivvy who would have worked for her keep and a few shillings a week. It was quite common even for a working-class family to have an unpaid 'general domestic' in the household, often the daughter of a neighbour with a large family who was glad to have one less mouth to feed. Some were as young as 12.
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Brian Ahern
Member
Username: brian_ahern
Post Number: 420
Registered: 12-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 11, 2007 - 3:40 pm: |
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Another Austen conncection, Martin, is that the original Spring Grove House was owned by Sir Joseph Banks, whose wife was a Hugessen of the Knatchbull-Hugessen family, into which Austen's niece Fanny Knight married. I believe Sir Joseph was known personally to various Austen relatives, if not to her.
And you're right, Mr. Elliot's wife is a grazier's daughter and butcher's granddaughter. And James Joyce's Dubliners includes the story "After the Race", which is about the well-educated son of a rich butcher. And, actually, doesn't the father of Dobbin in Vanity Fair get rich as a grocer?
Thanks, Bob. If Mary Ann Hollingham was Andrew Pears' wife, than it was a pretty lucky break for her, materially. |
Martin Williams
Member
Username: martin_williams
Post Number: 108
Registered: 3-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 11, 2007 - 4:28 pm: |
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My goodness me, you seem to have those genealogies well and truly at your finger-tips. I'm mightily impressed!
I've looked up pictures of Spring Grove House and it appears to have been an impressive residence for a would-be gentleman. In fact, I may have misjudged the position the Pears occupied in local society - they seem to have been rather more than moderately well-off. Positively rich is my impression! Thomas Pears grew up at Spring Grove, is that correct?
I've also looked up some pictures of turn-of-the-century Isleworth - it seems to have been quite pleasant back then. You live and learn! |
Brian Ahern
Member
Username: brian_ahern
Post Number: 421
Registered: 12-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 11, 2007 - 6:41 pm: |
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Bob, since you seem to be something of a go-to man on this subject, do you know if Edith maintained a relationship with Tom's family in the years after the Titanic?
Widows like Mary Marvin and Eloise Smith apparently became estranged from their husband's families pretty quickly. |
Bob Godfrey
Member
Username: bobgod1
Post Number: 3298
Registered: 11-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 11, 2007 - 7:23 pm: |
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I could only guess at that, Brian, but since they'd been married only 18 months and had no children the ties of kinship would not have been strong. Especially after Edith got her marching orders from her home, which belonged to the company and therefore to the Pears family! |
Brian Ahern
Member
Username: brian_ahern
Post Number: 422
Registered: 12-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 11, 2007 - 7:58 pm: |
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Yes, the affair with the house is something I've tried to avoid reading anything into, but the implication isn't a nice one. I've always chosen to assume that the Pears' hands were tied in some way. Accounts of just how much control the family retained over the company in 1912 seem to conflict, though most have it in their hands. |
Martin Williams
Member
Username: martin_williams
Post Number: 176
Registered: 3-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, May 5, 2007 - 11:44 am: |
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Yes, I think that the Pears' hands were tied too. They surely wouldn't have attempted to evict the grieving Edith out of spite! Unless more was going on behind the scenes than we know? Families and in-laws can be funny things.
Presumably, they found her somewhere else to live - or she was able to buy somewhere herself? Perhaps she didn't want to remain in a house which reminded her of all that she had lost. |
Bob Godfrey
Member
Username: bobgod1
Post Number: 3412
Registered: 11-2002
| | Posted on Saturday, May 5, 2007 - 12:11 pm: |
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Edith certainly was not short of the means to buy a house. Thomas left her around £15,000 at a time when a substantial middle-class home could be bought for a three-figure sum. Instead, she wisely accepted her father's suggestion that she should move in with Norah Crowe, a woman of her own age who was the daughter of a family friend and no doubt provided good companionship at a time when it was most needed. Years later Edith was introduced to Norah's brother Douglas, an electrical engineer. They were married in 1920.
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Martin Williams
Member
Username: martin_williams
Post Number: 177
Registered: 3-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, May 5, 2007 - 12:30 pm: |
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Thanks, Bob, for this explanation. Nice to know that Edith would have had companionship during such a difficult period in her life - at the time of the 'Titanic', she was only in her very early twenties. I'm thinking of my various girlfriends of the same age who share houses here in London and the support they find in each other. |
Brian Ahern
Member
Username: brian_ahern
Post Number: 460
Registered: 12-2002
| | Posted on Monday, May 7, 2007 - 6:37 pm: |
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Bob, could you clarify a couple of things? Did Edith move in with Norah Crowe soon after being widowed? Her ET bio makes it sound as if that arrangement came later.
Also, Tom's ET bio doesn't specifically state that his money went to Edith. I believe that formal marriage settlements were still a matter of course at this time. If a spouse died prematurely and left behind no children, there might have been contingencies in place that prevented their money going away from their blood relatives. Do you know the details of how things stood after Tom's death? |
Geoff Whitfield
Member
Username: geoff
Post Number: 1104
Registered: 11-2000
| | Posted on Monday, May 7, 2007 - 7:07 pm: |
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Brian,
Thomas Pears will was made out on 15th September 1910 and was fairly complicated. He left legacies to several people including Edith Pears.
If you want more information, contact me at:
ttatp@yahoo.co.uk
Geoff |
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