Category Archives: Places

Wedding Bells

St Marys Church Islington, where Emily and Captain Weddall Married in April 1905

Emily became the second Mrs. Weddall on April 27th 1905. She and her new husband Captain Edward Weddall were married in St. Mary’s Church Islington, London. Unlike modern or society weddings of the day theirs was a simple affair. They exchanged vows without friend or family present, with just two witnesses one which was the church clerk.

Emily and Edward were married by licence, which meant in their case they were not “of the parish”. Emily gave the address of Waverly Terrace, Rathgar in Dublin, Edward gave a Yorkshire address.  They had to get permission from a bishop to get married. The other advantages to the marriage licence they could get married quicker than if they opted for the marriage banns which had to be read out in church at least three weeks beforehand.

As the bride and groom did not have friends or family present the still put the announcement in their local newspapers, the Beverley and East-Riding Recorder and the Irish Weekly Times.  This practice was common at the time, but also a good way of letting the wider world know of their exchange of vows.

 

Sources
Beverley and East Riding Recorder 06 May 1905
Weekly Irish Times 13 May 1905
http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/

Emily Gets Married

When Emily married in 1905 a time when big weddings were uncommon unless it was a society one. This was not so in Emily and Edward Weddall’s case. It was just the two of them with two witnesses and the Vicar. This austerity possibly extended to the bride’s dress. It was not that Emily was miserly, in fact the complete opposite could be said of her it was a sign of those times. Below is an article, The World of Women, from the same year taken from the Penny Illustrated:

We are so utilitarian in these days; if we purchase or learn anything, then that thing must be purchased or learned only if it is likely to prove useful. wear carrying this utilitarian principle to the bride’s dress and the writer takes the liberty of thinking that it it not entirely a wise step.

The argument in favour of this application of the “useful” to the wedding garments is this: The young people are not very well circumstanced it is therefore, better than the bride should have a wedding dress that will easily “come in” for ordinary wear, instead of spending money on a garment that must, in all probability be laid aside after the ceremony…

Yet is it not a pity to banish the poetry from the most solemn, the most important and most poetical of all events of a girl’s life…

Whatever Emily wore to her wedding it was certainly set off by a hat. Emily had a lifelong liking for millinery, wearing the biggest hat available, which usually dwarfed her tiny frame, nevertheless she wore them well.

Sources
The Penny Illustrated 3rd June 1905

 

 

 

 

The Bride to be arrives at Islington

The newly built Highbury Station where Emily arrived before her wedding in 1905

Emily Burke arrived in London in April 1905. She made the journey alone as her only remaining sister lived in Australia at the other side of the world. Emily perhaps at this stage was used of being alone and the journey to London to become the second Mrs. Weddall would not have fazed the “intrepid” Emily too much. This ‘fly by the seat of her pants’ approach shows up in Emily’s life on many occasions.

Emily knew the sea captain for about ten years before they walked down the Isle together in St. Mary’s church in Islington. They met at least once in France in 1896, when Emily made a collection for the families of the Kingstown Lifeboat Disaster of 1895. Edward Weddall made an ostentatious contribution to the fund. Maybe it was the sea captain’s way of impressing young Emily. It took it’s time but it worked and a decade after first meeting the couple married.

Old map of Islington

 

The Last Days of Darrell Figgis (3)

The photo below is of modern day Grenville St. Bloomsbury in London. Somewhere on this street Darrell Figgis spent his last night.

 

His last days were filled with misery after loosing his wife and the added trauma of the death and the circumstances surrounding it of his mistress. His friend  of many years, Frank Julian Maurice described the Figgis he encountered just before his death below:

On his last night he spent a few hours at the Automobile Club but not be persuaded to join friends for a drink instead he returned to his lodgings on Grenville Street alone.

His funeral was made more poignant by it’s austerity. Few mourners showed up, his family and one or two friends. His father seemed to be absent, this however could have been due to bad health, according to his brother Bryan. His mother an elderly woman made her way from Ireland accompanied by his siblings, to his burial at West Hampstead Cemetery. His grave would be all but forgotten for decades until it was rediscovered a few years ago.

Whatever was thought of him in life one thing that cannot be denied he was never dull, and he is perhaps remembered more that what written history would suggest. There is a rumor that fans leave cards and other offerings each year on his birthday.

Sources
Weekly Irish Times 07 November 1925
Taunton Courier, and Western Advertiser 04 November 1925

The Last Days of Darrell Figgis (2)

Darrell Figgis did not have a long life, it tragically ended when he was only 43, his last days marred with tragedy. A sad series of events that began a year before his death left those who knew him well not completely surprised, when his lifeless body was found by a housemaid in a Bloomsbury bedsit, London in October 1925.

After the breakup of his marriage a few years beforehand it seemed that his life began to slowly unravel. The tensions of the Revolutionary years along with physical and personal attacks not to mention long periods of incarceration all took a toll on the lives of the Figgis’. All that and the possible discovery that her husband proved too much for Millie.

Sometime afterward the break up of their marriage Figgis met dancer Rita North, who more than twenty years his junior, she became his constant companion and then his lover. It is impossible to say if that his affair with the young woman was the last straw for Millie. One November night in 1924 she hired a taxi to take her to the ominous spot of the Hell Fire Club in the Dublin Mountains. She did not get there, just before the cab left the outskirts of the city, Millie took out a gun, put it to her head and pulled the trigger. She did not die straight away but was taken to the Meath Hospital, where Emily once worked. She lasted the night but died the next day.

Figgis somehow put the pieces of his life back together. His relationship with his mistress continued. They were free now to marry if they wanted to but that was not to be. Within the year both she and he would be dead.

In October 1925 the couple arrived in London. Her with a secret Figgis claimed that he did not know. When she eventually told him she had already booked into a hospital to have a termination. Illegal in those days, when besides such an operation carried serious risk. unfortunately the risky operation proved fatal. She quickly developed toxemia and peritonitis and died as a result. Figgis was called as a witness in the inquest but he too died before the verdict:

“…Peritonitis following an artificial abortion, but there was not sufficient evidence how the abortion was procured.”

Sources
Birmingham Daily Gazette 20 November 1924
Birmingham Daily Gazette 28 October 1925
Hendon & Finchley Times 06 November 1925