I have just received the most extraordinarily thoughtful present. For many years I have been researching and writing about Swindon Suffragette Edith New, who ranks as one of the most influential suffragettes along with the Pankhurst family and the Kenney sisters.
She scored a number of Suffragette firsts - the first to chain herself to railings as a form of protest, the first to break a window (at 10 Downing Street, no less) and the first Suffragette to go on hunger strike in a Scottish prison.
My research into the life and times of Edith New has involved giving talks and tours of the places associated with her here in Swindon and I was part of the Swindon Heritage team who installed a blue plaque on the house where she was born in North Street Swindon.
Edith was born on March 17, 1877, the youngest surviving child of Frederic James New and his second wife Isabella. Frederic died before Edith's first birthday, struck by a train while walking along the railway line to Toothill. Isabella was left pregnant, with three young children and her husband's daughter by his first marriage to care for.
Frederic, a railway clerk at the Great Western Railway Works in Swindon, had first married Sarah Sophia Ball at Christ Church, Swindon on April 19, 1870. He was 26 years old and Sarah was 22. Sarah was the daughter of William Ball, a master bootmaker, who lived in Wood Street with his wife and their family. The newly weds first home was in Wood Street, so most probably with the bride's family.
A daughter, Frances Jane New was born in January 1871 but sadly Sarah died on January 19, either during childbirth or shortly afterwards.
At the time of the census that same year Frederic can be found living at 24 North Street with his two month old daughter. His mother in law Sarah and his sister in law Annie were staying with him on census night.
In the summer of 1872 Frederic married for the second time. His bride was music teacher Isabella Frampton, the daughter of a local builder, but what happened to little Frances? Did Isabella take her under her wing, raising her with her own children. Perhaps her maternal grandparents took her in?
What we do know is that at the time of the 1881 census 10 year old Frances was a pupil at the Royal Masonic Institution for Girls at St John's Hill, Battersea Rise. The Royal Masonic School for Girls was founded in 1788 to support the families of members who had died or were incapacitated by illness.
Frederic was a Freemason belonging first to The Mersey Lodge, Birkenhead when he was working in the area in 1865. Returning to Swindon he then became a member of the Royal Sussex Lodge of Emulation and later The Gooch Lodge.
It was definitely an honour to be accepted into the prestigious Royal Masonic School For Girls, but I found one description that described the establishment as being less of a school and more of an orphanage. The girls were aged between 8-16 so it is likely Frances was admitted shortly after her father's death in 1878 and I can't help but think of that little girl sent so far from home when she had a large family living here in Swindon.
At the end of their school career the girls were placed in apprenticeships and Frances returned to a teaching position in Swindon.
Frances Jane New died on October 27, 1889 at 46 Victoria Street North, the home of her maternal grandmother Sarah Ball. She had been suffering from pneumonia for three weeks and had developed a pulmonary abscess ten days before she died. Isabella was with the young woman when she died and registered the death two days later.
Administration of Frances's personal estate of almost £350 was awarded to her stepmother Isabella New. Edith and her sister Ellen and brother Frederic are mentioned, described as 'Minors the Brother and Sisters by the Half blood and only next of kin.'
Frances was buried with her parents in a large family plot in Christ Church graveyard. The obelisk memorial was paid for by Frederic's friends and colleagues at the Railway Works. Isabella and Frederic's two children who died in infancy are also buried here and Isabella joined them when she died in 1922.
So what was the recently received extraordinarily thoughtful gift given to me by Noel Beauchamp - Frances Jane New's christening mug dated March 1, 1871.
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| Edith New |
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| The New family memorial in Christ Church graveyard |
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