Brookes is the Best

I saw the campus when it was very unglamorous.  Now it's
State of the Art- I like it.

The Brookes Bus- Sutdents and pensioners ride free.

Here we are in the old part of town.

And the sun came out-briefly.

Emma between her mum, and her mum's mum.

Begs the question...

From my Great Grandmothers account of her life I am left wondering...

Where did Cicely live when she was head teacher of Solihull Girl and Infant School?  Was she living with Ernest in Claverdon?  If so, how did she did get to work?  I note the journey is 40 minutes by train these days, but involves walking at both ends.  Did she drive?

What did Ernest do in Paris during the First World War?  When did he come back to the UK?

Was it really called The English Embassy?  British Embassy, surly?

And what about Mill Lane, Warwickshire?  Is it this view? (From Alcester)

Painting of Mill Lane by William Albert Green.

I note that if the law had not been changed, my grandmothers maiden name would have been Orton.

Other interesting searches question my family's use of spelling.  The baptism record at St John the Baptist says...

Cieley Annie Neale

Parents

Edwin, Sarah

Her birth record say Cycely Annie Neale born 1879. (may have been a poor copyist)

I think I shall visit Westwoods Heath with my mother to see the famous Coussmaker Graves, the plaque to Edmund Roy, visit the great house at Stoneleigh, and see the school.

Map of Neale Family Movements

I am guessing the following schools are the schools Cicely refers to.  She spells Boulton, 'Bolton'.  I am guessing this is a confusion, having a son-in-law from a town of that name.  Boulton is named after Matthew Boulton, Manufacturer and Engineer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Boulton.
Cicely describes her third school as Canterbury Road.  I can only find a school called Canterbury Cross, so I am guessing this is the one.

First School - Highfield Road - Saltley, Birmingham

Second School - Boulton Road - Handsworth, Birmingham

Third School - Canterbury Cross School - Handsworth

Derby Diocesan Institution for the Training of Schoolmistresses,
Uttoxetor New Road, Derby

Now a College for Business and Law

Names of equal status in our family:  Orton, Neale, Lucas, Singleton, Starr, Clark,

Cicely and Ernest Luas -Family Tree

To illustrate the people mentioned in Cicely's Memoir.

The Neale Family Tree

Ernest Lucas Family Tree

Some On-line search results.(1881,1891,1901 and 1911 census records)
Cicely Anne Neale.  Born 1879 - Stoneleigh/Westwood died 1970 in Lewisham, London. In 1901, aged 22, she is recorded as a school mistress.

Edwin Neale. Born 1846 in Chetnole, Dorset, Died 1941 in Warwickshire. In 1851 as a 4 year old, he is described as a carpenter's son (Dorset). In 1861, aged 13, recorded as pupil teacher in Somerset.  In 1871 he is living with his sister on the Bristol Road in Highbridge, Somerset and is a school master. I wonder whether their parents have died.  He is recorded as school master until 1901.  Then becomes a Contractors Clerk returning to Dorset. In 1911 Edwin is back in Warwickshire aged 64 and is living off private means.  Interestingly Chetnole is a very small village, but it has a Neal's Lane.  On Neal's Lane there is a listed House called 'Carpenters'.

Cecil Neale.  Born 1875 died 1951 in Warwickshire, Stratford Upon Avon. A pupil teacher in 1891 and school master in 1901.  In 1911 this becomes Frad Teacher (Could be Head Teacher?)

Christopher William Neale.  Born 1882 is in Dorset in 1901 as a journeyman wheelwright.  In 1911 he is a carpenter in Dorset.

In 1939 I glean that Cicely and Ernest lived in the District of Stratford Upon Avon (Claverdon) with two other anonymous names mentioned.

Cicely and Ernest Lucas do not appear on the 1911 census.  This could be because they had moved to France.  However I note that there was a Suffragette campaign at the time to boycott the 1911 census.

Brother Eustace- emigrated to America with the watchmaking industry.

Ernest (born 1878) has the name Lucas in 1901, and recorded as a 23 year old Wine Merchants Clerk from Coventry.

The records show an Ernest Medwyn Orton married a Cicely Neale in 1902 in Worcestershire.  Cicely says she was 21 when she was married, not 23 as this would indicate.  Birmingham was in Worcestershire at the time though.

Forward to Cicely Lucas - A Memoir

Cicely Ann Neal (1879-1970) was born in Westwood Health, what was then a rural part of Warwickshire, but is now a suburb of Coventry, close to the Warwick University campus.  Her husband, Ernest Lucas (1878-1951), was born under a shadow, as his parents, Eliza Orton and James Lucas (born 1854) were not married at the time.  They later married and went on to have eight children together.  Cicely herself was one of four children.  Her parents took charge of the new school house freshly built by Lord Leigh, for the village of Westwood Health.

St John the Baptist Church, Built 1842-44.  Architect- George Scott

The Westwood Heath School House.

Westwood Heath, in the days it was a heath

    

Picture from the 60's taken of Westwood Health School Children

I have a striking memory of a four year old boy, standing by a small table and chair, with light streaming through a grandly curtained Georgian window.  We were in the first floor hotel room my Great-Grandmother took on Blackheath High Street.  I was presented with an apple and apparently took lessons in reading and writing.  These memories contain not a jot of trauma, though my mother assures me this is true. 

When she died I also recall the ‘after the storm’ discussions between family members; humour, exasperation, pain, and admiration.  I understand her as an interesting, determined, wilful, self-centred and courageous person and this appears to be her own self-confessed position. 

My family moved to Hong Kong, and the next thing I knew was a story about how she had panicked while trying to cross Black Health High Street, traumatising an innocent driver by falling beneath his wheels.  

I pondered creating a title such as ‘Mon Combat’, but for someone who lived through two world wars, this seems somewhat distasteful.  I am left with ‘Memoir’.  This is enough.  

I note that her memoir is written for Elisabeth. This may because it was written in a response to my aunt’s request for ‘a story’.  My mother may warn that despite being a one time member of the communist party, she had her favourites.  As a local journalist in Warwickshire for many years, she had also perfected the technique of ‘journalises’.  I muse that she would probably not be happy with her great-grandson, after all these years, taking the liberty of becoming her editor, but as she taught me to read and write, she started it.  I leave you the reader to imagine how she may have responded.

Cicely Annie Lucas died aged 91.


Illustrations: This picture, painted by James Tissot, is likely not to be the picture Cicely saw in the Westwood Health School Room.  James Tissot painted religious paintings towards the end of his life.  These pictures were made into Lithographs in 1904.  He was an Anglophile, and lived in St John's Wood, London, for some time.  The story itself is fascinating as it links to a number of other ancient stories involving snakes.  It is also noted that the Hebrew enjoys the alliteration nehash nehoshet, or snake bronze.

Moses raising the Bronze
Serpent in the wilderness.
Numbers 21:4-9

My Great Grandmother Suffragette sash, courtesy of
Sara Wear, Warwickshire County Council