CHAPTER ONE
My Father's family belonged to Teignmouth. They were seafaring men who owned and sailed their ships to Newfoundland, bringing salt fish from there where they sold in the Spanish and Mediterranean ports and then returned to Teignmouth. They cured their fish at Newfoundland.
A portrait of one of these owner captains, our great Grandfather, is now in the possession of Newell Squarey at Bemerton, Salisbury. It was painted at Genoa. He (Robert Squarey) was drowned.
He apprenticed himself to a chemist in Torrington. He eventually set up business as a chemist in Salisbury Market Place. Until a few years ago his name was still over the shop.
I have a short account of his boyhood written by himself, which might be added to this. He was a man of strong character and intellect, which he handed down to his children.
He was much interested in politics and took an active part in Salisbury at the time of the Reform Bill. There is a small mahogany arm chair in the family "To the Father of Reform" carved in large letters across the back, which was presented to him by the Salisbury people at a banquet on the occasion of the passing of the Reform Bill [in 1832].
He (Robert Squarey), named after his father, was married in Salisbury Cathedral to Mary Ann Beale on August 28th, 1807, and I believe they went off on horseback, she on a pillion, after the wedding. I have her likeness, a copy from a miniature, an interesting, sad face with large eyes. She died when she was about 40.
After her death her daughter, aged 14, had to take charge of the house and do her best to mother her brothers and sisters.
In 1845 my Father came to Liverpool as managing clerk to a leading firm of solicitors, Messrs Duncan and Radcliffe. He brought his young wife with him, Georgiana Catherine Elwall. They lived in a small house in Rock Ferry. She died after the birth of her third and only surviving child; two boys died as babies.
Father, feeling brokenhearted, returned to Salisbury. His baby girl, called Georgiana Catherine after her mother, was taken care of by his widowed sister, Mrs Hodding (Mary) who lived in a beautiful farm house at Odstock, near Salisbury.
About a year after my father had left the firm, the senior partner, Mr Duncan, went to Salisbury to insist on his return to Liverpool on his own terms. He was persuaded with difficulty but consented at last and very soon became a partner.
In the meantime he had become engaged to my Mother, Eleanor Catherine Fulton, and together they turned their faces to the (as it seemed to them) far distant north country and took a house on Dacre Hill, Rock Ferry. His little daughter went with them.
My mother's father was Hamilton Fulton, an engineer. In his early life he superintended the making of the road between Conway and Holyhead under Telford and later spent ten or twelve years in America helping to mark out the boundaries of the Southern States. Mother was born Georgia and curiously enough was nearly named Georgiana Catherine, but the first name was changed at the last moment to Eleanor.
Her father was a pupil and great friend of the well known engineer, Sir John Rennie. On the night of Sir John's death Mr Fulton dreamt that they were climbing a steep hill when Sir John suddenly stopped and said, "Now, Fulton, you must go on by yourself, I can go no farther with you." Mr Fulton was then in America, Sir John Rennie in England.
My mother's eldest brother, Hamilton, married my father's youngest sister, Agnes Squarey, of whom her father said that she had so many suitors that he was quite ashamed to go out walking in the lanes round Coombe Bisset (where they had a small country house) because he was sure to come across some of them. She was a sweet woman. She lived to be 98 and died during the great war. She was rather deaf but otherwise had all her faculties. During the war her maid came running into her room. "Madam, the Zeppelin is overhead."
"What!" said Aunt Agnes, "A man under the bed?"
"No, madam, a Zeppelin overhead."
"Oh, is that all?" said Aunt Agnes!!
Father and his first wife went to Aunt Agnes's wedding from Liverpool, and travelled part of the way in one of the then recent railway trains with my mother and grandmother. They were in the same compartment. That was their first meeting.
Mother must have been a very bright and graceful girl. All through her life she had a great capacity for enjoyment and happiness. She never lost it even when she was 80. I stayed with her in her flat in London when she was nearly that age. One day she called me to come at once. I hurried into the dining-room and found her standing on a chair stretching as far as she dared out of the window to watch a flight of balloons. It was not long after my husband's [David's] death, and I felt old and tired beside her unquenchable "joie de vivre". Some of her grandchildren have inherited that precious gift.
Our father had a very lovable nature though he was reserved. He had a fine intellect. He loved the best of the classics, and fine poetry seemed part of him. He always had a book on his dressing table, often German. Goethe, Schiller or Heine, or an English one, but always good literature.
I am the second of my mother's children. Tucker Fulton, my brother was a year older than myself. When I was about a month old [January 1854] we moved into a large house in Lower Bebington. It was very new and perhaps still damp. The first night mother heard me wriggling about and on lighting the candle found that I was crying hard but quite without a voice, which must have been worrying for poor mother when she was so busy.
This house was very up to date. It actually possessed a circulating hot water system and a bath, and probably had, as many houses did at that early date, very defective drainage. More elaborate sanitation with real drainpipes and I suppose cesspools without traps had just come into use, and whole families were occasionally swept away by Diphtheria in consequence. We escaped, fortunately. Children came fast during the ten years that we spent there. We were very happy.
Looking back it all seems sunny and bright, though I do rememember winter evenings lying on my face on the schoolroom hearthrug reading by firelight and Tuck coming in crying, "Capelin for tea." I never heard of Capelin since. They were small dried fish from Newfoundland, very tasty when toasted.
We used to have a present every winter of a box of oranges from Malta from Mr Charles MacIver, who was a partner in the Cunard Company, a client of Father. Little did anyone think that I should be his daughter-in-law. I had two narrow escapes of not occupying that position. The first accident which might have prevented it being the occasion when the nurses blackberrying and left the perambulator with Maud and me in it at the edge of a quarry. The pram began to run down into it and was only just caught in time.
The second was when Tuck and I were playing with the swing in the back garden when I was about four years old. He was on the swing and told me to throw the puppy onto his lap. I tried and failed and the swing hit me on the forehead, cutting a deep gash which left its dent for many years.
We did not see much of Father except on Sunday. He worked very hard in the week but on Sunday he was free and took us children for a walk after dinner. I do not remember a wet Sunday. We led a very simple life and small things pleased us. One of our favourite walks was to the shore of the Mersey at New Ferry. The river was clean in those days, with crabs and anemones on the rocks, also wonderfully good clay which we brought home and made into cups and figures of sorts, and tried surreptitiously to bake in the oven. We went down to the shore to see "Great Eastern" before she laid the Atlantic cable. At low tide she was high and dry on the mud. We drove round her in sledges but this was much later.
She was a monstrosity of a ship for those or any days. She would look very queer now with her five little sticks of funnels.
We had a happy childhood helped by lots of imagination. We made houses for ourselves in overgrown ditches. Lost ourselves, or thought we did in a tiny wood just across the field in front of the house.
There were fairy rings in the field and I wondered if the fairies really danced in them. It does not take much to make children happy.
An old oak chest on the landing was sometimes a wreck and sometimes a desert island. The rocking horse on the same landing had a removable pummel and he rattled merrily with bits of pencil and marbles dropped through the pummel hole.
We nearly worshipped our father. Poor Mother was so busy superintending the house and making our clohtes that we did not seem to see a great deal of her. She must have had one of the first Wheeler-Wilson sewing machines.
I seem to see her now working it with a treadle. I am sure it could not have been good for her. She certainly dressed us very well, according to the fashions of the day. If I described some of our clothes, I am afraid my grandchildren would think them anything but beautiful.
I remember Maud and I having bright blue silk bonnets, very much wired and uncomfortable for our ears. We went to church in them and no doubt realised that pride must bear pain.
We had what were called "jentic" frocks. Magenta with a thin black stripe with detachable sleeves so that we could have them long for Sundays and bare arms to go to dancing class in. And weren't they chilly in the great bare unwarmed room in the Rock Ferry Hotel? Poor Maud, who was a chilly child, used to tuck her hands under her armpits to try to warm them until the dancing master rapped them with his fiddle bow.
When I was about three, Mother took Tuck and me and baby Maud to stay with her mother in London.
I have a faint recollections of getting into a cab at Euston with straw on the floor, very ridgy underfoot. I can smell the musty smell of it now.
When we arrived at Grandmama's we had grated ham on our bread and butter.
Very good! Grandmama (No "Granny" in those days) was rather an awe-inspiring old lady to us children, very dignified and imposing, always
dressed in rich black silk and a lace cap with little white side curls
coming out at the side of it, and lavender She had a large watch on a fob. It had an inner case. The outer one had
what we called Adam and Eve on it. Really I think it must have been
Paris awarding the apple to Aphrodite. Grandmama used to appear on the scene usually just before the arrival of a
new baby. I think she missed a great deal by being so dignified. We
treated her with profound respect. Our dear Aunt Agnes Fulton, however,
always said that she really was very kind and easy to get on with so
perhaps we did not do her justice. She certainly brought her daughters up
very well. Mother had been well educated by a dear Aunt Louisa Martin, who kept a
school in Carlisle. Mother told us how she journeyed up there in a coach
as a child, having been put in charge of the guard and no doubt been
befriended by fellow passengers. A two days' journey or more. Mother
spoke French well, with a good accent. She plays the piano well and sang
Italian songs. Everything she did with her hands was beautifully and
accurately done. She was very intelligent. I do not think she could have
had much time for reading when we were all young, but she made up for it
in later days. I think I must have been able to read when I was four years old. Father
did everything he could to encourage my imagination and love of books. I
read a letter of his to Mother not long ago. She was staying with her
Mother in London and we were home. He tells how in the early morning he
recited poetry to me and was delighted when I (aged 3 or 4) said, "Say it
again." He did say it again, and taught me little bits of poetry which
are among the few things I have by heart now. He gave me "Grimm's Goblins".
I now consider the stories attractive but very immoral. I saw nothing
wrong with them then. Tales of the Gods and Heroes came next, and a funny
old story called "Peter Wilkins", a classic in its way. Maud and I slept in the dressing room in little green bedsteads and over
mine was a small bookcase. "Smith's Classical Dictionary" was one of the
books which I used to read voraciously in the early morning when I was 7 or 8. "Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table" was another present from him.
To me Arthur and his Knights were real people. Later came Tennyson and
the Waverley novels, rather small print they were but that did not
matter. I had read them all before the end of the year when I was 13. I have a recollection of refusing to say what G-O spelt at a very early
age. It was a fit of pure obstinacy for being told that I was not to
leave the room until I spelt it and seeing the rest of the party filing in
to dinner I shouted "GO" through the bannisters. I was a fat, little, greedy thing and once ran twice round the kitchen
garden for a taste of bacon fat off my cousin, Bob Squarey's breakfast plate. We had a young governess called Miss Pritchard. She was good to us except
that she took us too long walks sometimes and much too fast. I remember
often lagging behind and calling, "Wait for Edie!", but vainly if
Miss Pritchard was on her way to her dressmaker and meant to be home in
time for lessons at 10.30. She did not understand Georgie, I do not know how it was for they were real
friends after they were both married. Georgie was a very thoughtful, not
over happy child. Tuck was a fragile little boy and very sensitive. He
and Mother had a very bad time a little later when he went to school with
Miss Pennington in Highfield as a weekly boarder and came home on Saturday.
Monday was a very black morning for them. A baby who came after me
named Agnes died when about nine months old. Then came Maud, also a
rather delicate child who has, however, stood the battle of life wonderfully. Another child called Elaine died about the same age as Agnes. I
am sure that neither of these children would have died of convulsions
in these enlightened days. Miriam was a dear little old-fashioned soul with the lightest flaxen hair.
We thought her in looks like Grandmama Fulton. She died when she was
nine years old of Appendicitis, which was not a recognised disease then. Arthur came next. I remember him as a baby with a very loosely fixed
head which had to be held on. He grew up into a delightful boy and man.
He died in 1922. Ethel (now Lady Thorne) and Lancelot were also born in Bebington, so it can
easily be seen we had a strenuous time in those ten years there. Lancelot died in 1929. One of Maud's and my early recollections is being taken out of bed to
look at the great Comet in 1858. I was four and Maud three years old.
It was Donati's Comet. The comet stretched from side to side and had a
real tail as a comet should have, but seldom does. I do not think there
has been one to compare with it since. Another event which impressed itself on my memory was hearing of the
death of Prince Albert as we came out of church on December 14th, 1861.
Everyone seemed sad about it. One day Mother took Maud and me to a church bazaar. She gave us 6d
each to spend and we wandered round and eventually I chose a dark
brown tea plate because I thought, on it, Miss Pritchard would not noticehow much treacle I had. Maud chose a tiny basket with a cottom wool mouse
on it with pink eyes. I thought her very foolish. Imagination has its disadvantages. I was always a poor sleeper and used
to lie awake terrified lest the boiler which was in the kitchen under
Maud's and my room should blow up, working myself into such a state of
nerves that I woke poor Maud and we used to shout to someone in turn,
till Nurse or Mother came in. I felt ashamed in the morning and
never told anyone what I was afraid of. I wanted a pair of wings and imagined myself with a coloured pair
for weekdays and white for Sundays; also, having short, cropped hair,
I wanted long hair down to my knees, and fancied walking downstairs
with my hair trailing the step behind me.
I imagined lovely fairy places etc. Our black cat I pretended to think
of as a Prince in disguise named Camaralzaman, and imagined that if the
skin were slit I should see gold and silver lace showing through. When we walked to Rock Ferry we passed the gate of a nursery garden.
Just inside was a cave cut in an earth bank used, I suppose, for keeping
a wheelbarrow in it. I feel that if only I could go into it I should
surely find myself in a cave of the gnomes lit up by jewels etc. One day we children were told that on Saturday we were going to see
Hengler's circus in Liverpool. In those days the circus was a huge tent,
round of course. We were enthralled. Suddenly there was a cry of "Fire!"
Fire in a crowded tent might have been an appalling catastrophe. As it
was people lost their heads and clambered down into the arena. Miss Pritchard who was in charge of us said, "Sit still, children." We sat. In
another minute the Manager came forward clutching the collar of a man.
"There is no danger," he said, "the fire is out. This man had a lighted
pipe in his pocket and it set his coat alight. It was very quickly
extinguished." Miss Pritchard behaved with great presence of mind. When I was a little girl, my head full of fairy tales, I used to see
wonderful things in the folds of a curtain or in the heart of a fire. We had a doll's house and enjoyed cleaning it out, and I can remember
the stale sickly smell of it when my head was in one of its rooms, and I
remember a bit of one of Beethoven's Sonatas which Georgie was practising
while I scrubbed the floors. We were taken to church when we were very small. Bebington church is
beautiful and very old and interesting. In those days it had real old-fashioned shut-in pews, dark wood. Ours was in the South East corner
square and very comfortable, with a filled-in doorway in the wall which
was long ago the priest's entrance, and a little niche in the wall where
the Holy Water used to stand. We kept our books in it and it had a
carved oak door to it. We could not see over the side of the pew as
children. I sat on a stool at Father's feet and he gave me a bit of paper
and pencil, or a pin to prick holes in the paper to while away the time.
The services were long - Litany, Commandments and a thirty minute sermon. The Rector, Mr Fielden, was one of the old squire parsons who went abroad
in the winter and hunted when at home. It was said that he was not above
hurrying into Church with his surplice thrown over his 'Pink'. For some unknown reason, I was not christened until I was nearly a year
old, and sat bolt upright on Mr Fielden's arm for the ceremony. The old church looked lovely at Christmas with its pillars wreathed with
holly, and a bit stuck into the flame-shaped wooden ornaments on the pew
doorposts. They must have been used in old days, I think, for candles to
light the church. There was one pew, large and square, with a stove in the middle of it, at
which the occupants could warm their feet. One day, as we came out of church Father was greeted by a friend, a
Mr Aspinal. He was rather a timid man and was very worried because someone had given him a great Mastiff, surely as a practical joke! Neither
he nor any of his family dared go near it. It was shut up in a stable
and they fed it through the roof with a pitchfork. Father asked to see
the dog and Mr Aspinal was horrified when he opened the door and walked
in. The poor dog was, of course, delighted to see a friend and Father
was so sorry for him that he offered to take him away there and then, to
the immense relief of Mr Aspinal. So we children proudly walked home
into Bebington beside Caesar, as he was called. He lived with us for
many years, mostly chained up in the back garden, poor old fellow!
He used to accompany us on our Sunday afternoon walks with Father. It
must have been a Red Letter Day for Caesar as well as for us children. When we were quite small we used to go each year in June when Father
had his holidays to Betws-y-Coed, which was a most primitive little
place, frequented only by artists and fishermen. There was no railway
nearer than Conway; the rest of the journey was in a carriage of some
kind. We lodged with Mrs Hughes whose house was conveninetly placed with
a door on either side of the Toll-bar so that we were never obliged to
pay toll! What was more important to us children was that it was close
to the bridge with the lovely river running under it. On arrival we were
always greeted by kind Mrs Hughes with cap strings flying, and a lovely
smell of bacon and eggs following her out of the house. After tea, we elder children made straight for the bridge and the other
side of the river, where we spent most of our days playing in the pools
and hopping about on the stones. Sometimes, I sat listening to the waterfall; the sound of the water was always associated in my mind with the
'Sound of many waters' in Revelation. Occasionally we went with Father, and followed him at a respectful
distance as he fished up the river. One proud day he caught a salmon and
we children were allowed to carry it home. The Royal Oak Hotel had its signboard (painted by David Cox) hanging outside the door. Father used sometimes to see him painting under a green
umbrella. There was no English service in the little dear old church, so we
children used to be taken in our best clothes to the Welsh service. The
sermon sounded most impressive in Welsh! Sometimes we went for picnics up on the mountains, taking our dinner with
us, and sometimes begging for a little oat-cake from one of the cottages.
It was kept in thin big pieces up in the rafters - not a very appetising
idea it seems now, but we never thought of germs. It must have been a very good holiday for Father; just what he needed
after strenuous work in Liverpool. The simplicity and beauty and freedom
from excitement was after his own heart. Mother, I think, enjoyed it too, but she must have been very glad to get
to her roomy comfortable house by the end of the holiday. There again I
never remember wet days, though there must have been many. There were some mysterious holes in a flat stone by the river, which
George Borrow says in his "Wild Wales" were bored by miners for a gunpowder
train for explosion in honour of the Sebastopol victory. He says,
however, that they made a mistake in the date. When I was about seven, Father felt rich enough to buy (probably second
hand) a pony and trap. A funny little vehicle on two wheels with seats
for two children in the back, into which they had to be lifted as there
was no door. What a joy for the lucky pair driving through the country
lanes behind Father and Mother! One wonderful journey Georgie, Tuck and I, when we drove to Betws-y-Coed
all the way, staying the night at the Black Lion at Mold. Tuck actually
got out on the balcony and sat on the lion's back, daring fellow! We crossed in a flat ferry boat at Queensferry. There was no bridge then.
We felt immensely superior when we started, leaving poor Mother and the
younger ones to follow by train. Somewhere about this time, Henry Fawcett, later the blind Post Master
General, came to see us, or rather, he passed his hand over our faces. He
was a brave man. When accidentally shot by his Father, he determined for
his Father's sake, not to let his blindness interfere with his career. Also about the same time, Maud and I went to stay at Odstock, Uncle Elias
and Aunt Lavinia Squarey's house near Salisbury. Uncle Elias took us from
London, Father having brought us so far. We felt rather strange and shy.
Another gentleman friend of Uncle's was in the railway carriage. Uncle
produced a comb, and I was allowed to comb his hair while Maud attended to
the friend's locks. He also must have had a comb. We arrived at Salisbury in the dark and were hoisted up into a high dog-cart, and arrived very sleepy and were put straight to bed in, I think,
a four poster bedstead. Aunt Lavinia was kind but brusque and rather awe inspiring. She was quite
a character. We had a happy time. There was a tragedy while we were
there. A little boy fell into the mill stream and was drowned. The house smelt of apples. There was an apple room at the top of the
house and a secret passage somewhere, also a priest's hiding place up the
dining room chimney. We had the most delicious home-cured ham for breakfast, I have never
tasted any so good since. In 1862 Father was planning to build a house though we children did not
know it. On Sunday afternoons he used to wake us to see new houses in
course of construction. We wandered up skeleton stairs and across rafters
and had a lovely time. Why none of us ever fell through I cannot think.
One drawback to our happiness was that Mother always made us go out in
our Sunday clothes, which was risky on those adventurous walks, and one
day it led to disaster. Father collected us to take us home after a delightful scramble over one
of the new houses, when to our horror, we found that we were all, more or
less, smirched with tar - on our new black velvet jackets which had glass
buttons! Father and we felt very low about it, but Mother managed to get all the
tar off, so all was well. Another Sunday, Tuck thought the quicklime pit was hard like ice, and
tried to walk on it with the result that his socks came into holes though
Father took them and his boots off quickly and wiped his feet with grass. This may be said to be near the end of the first chapter, as 1863 we went
to live in our new house, Gorsey Hey, Higher Bebington. I believe Father
built it for £2,000, with three acres of land included in the cost! Before beginning a new chapter I must mention our irascible little music
master, Mr Sorge. He is amusing to look back upon, although we did not
think so then. We always thought he was very attentive to Miss Pritchard,
but I daresay it was fancy as she was a very correct young lady. One day
he got into a rage with me. I got down from the music stool, and walked
out of the room in a stately manner, I hoped. He must have felt rather
non-plussed, but he behaved much better after that to me. One day he made
me cry and brought out his own silk handkerchief to dry my tears, which
I really could not stand. He was enough to deter any child who was not a
genius from ever being a pianist. He gave me Mendelssohn's Andante
Capriccioso to learn when I was eleven, and expected me to play it to
Father who was very musical. It was cruel. Before we left Bebington, we all had whooping cough. When June came and
Father's birthday we all went to Corwen where there was good fishing. First we stayed in the hotel. I remember how when any of us had a
paroxysm of coughing we had to retire behind a very high leather screen
until we recovered. Then in a few days we took possession of a furnished house called
"Colomendy", which is still there, looking just as it did then. When the holiday ended, we elder children were sent to the Isle of Man to
stay with kind Miss Scrivener at Ramsey. We were very happy with her. When the time came to go home, we heard that we had a new sister, Ethel,
and we were to go into lodgings at Parkgate. We had a lovely time there.
Georgie had to go to the hotel every day to practise on the piano. I
expect there were few pianos in Parkgate then. Mother came driving over in our two-wheeled pony carriage to see us when
Ethel was a fortnight old; not too good for her. Another baby was born before we left Bebington - Lancelot; and soon after
that we went to Gorsey Hey. I think it was in 1863.