Category: Cuthbert

Kitty Wins the Vote

~ Kate ~ Leave a comment

“…[a] remarkable feature of the election is the remarkable success of Mrs K. B. Cuthbert. That it is an achievement we do not think there is any dispute. When she entered the list two weeks ago, she was practically unknown, and it would have been a brave man who would have placed her fourth in the poll. But by Friday evening there were few islanders who did not know her, not only by name but in person.”

Canvey Chronicle, 6th April 1939

44-year-old Kitty, now a proprietor of a newsagents, had been living on Canvey Island for five years when she decided to run for the Urban District Council. “Up to the present I have taken the Englishman’s habit of just ‘grousing’”, she explained on her candidate’s handbill. “I now feel I have the time and health to TRY and do something about it.”

Kitty had moved to the island (from Lewisham) during a period of ill-health and unexpectedly gave birth to her second child just a few months afterwards (her pregnancy had been mistaken for gallbladder disease until the very last moment, resulting in an emergency c-section). Five years later, she was finally feeling in good health and ready for a new project. She stated in her handbill: “Public office is not new to me; During the four years of war I held a very responsible position at the Headquarters of the Australian Forces, and for nine years previous to coming to Canvey I held the position of Organising Secretary, Treasurer and Show Manager of a very large concern in London.” (This ‘large concern’ was the Lewisham & District Canine Society of which she’d been a founding member.)

Now, as the Canvey Chronicle put it, she “threw herself into the business of the election with energy and resource and in the short campaign established a strong position for herself.”

“I am of the opinion that a woman’s point of view can only be voiced effectively BY a woman,” she declared. “If YOU feel I possess the necessary abilities to represent you on your Council, I ask for YOUR VOTE AND SUPPORT. IF I am elected and fail to justify your support, YOU will know what to do when I come for re-election.”

Although a regular attendee of the Labour and Progressive League party meetings, she stood as an Independent candidate, as she felt there was a need for councillors who “are not tied to any interests or ‘clique’ and who will fearlessly express their views of the Island’s interests.” The Island population were soon to discover that Kitty was certainly fearless in expressing her view.

On the night before the election, several meetings were held. Kitty and another candidate, William Money, a 37 year old radio and cycles dealer, held their own meeting at the village hall. The chairman, a Mr Martin, opened the meeting by spreading a union jack upon the table, declaring “we are true Britons”.

After their meeting, Kitty and Mr Martin attended the meeting of the Progressive League at the local primary school. The Canvey Chronicle reported, “The hall was packed for the occasion and the speakers were given a good hearing without undue interruption.” That is, until the meeting was coming to a close, when Kitty rose and asked if she could address the meeting.

The chairman, Mr Mace, refused her request, and the meeting was declared closed. “Nothing daunted, Mrs Cuthbert mounted the platform and began to speak, amidst cheers and jeers”. The Charmain, and Labour councillor Mr Pickett “remonstrated with her”, and Kitty left the platform, only to stand on a chair and begin to speak. Mr Martin loyally waved his Union Jack in support. Amidst the noise as the audience filed out around her, her message went unheard, until somebody suggested they take the meeting outside, and “Mrs Cuthbert left the building followed by a crowd of her supporters.”

Despite not being able to take the platform at the Progressive League meeting, her fearlessness clearly made an impression on the voters, as when the results were announced the next day, she had taken fourth place and was one of the six new members of the Council. (There had been twelve candidates in all.) At the local Labour Party meeting the following week, the Chairman said he believed the “eve-of-the-poll meeting had contributed to her success”.

Kitty was present at this meeting, and thanked the Labour Party for their support, though she was “not a member of that body or any other association”. “Her policy was her own,” the Canvey Chronicles reports, “and she would stand by it whether she lost friends or not.”

She also attended the next meeting of the Progressive League, where she was congratulated by their Chairman, who said “she had put up a sterling fight… her achievement was wonderful.” He failed to mention the Progressive League meeting on the eve of the election at which they had denied her the opportunity to speak.

The Canvey Chronicle summarised Kitty’s response:

Mrs Cuthbert said the great pleasure to her was that she was going into the Council perfectly independently. She had got no governor. She got in by the voice of the people. She “popped out of the blue”, let people weigh her up, and had nobody to push her. She thought they would be good colleagues. If she agreed with what the League wanted she would back them up but she had got to agree.

I’m not sure how for long Kitty served as a councillor, but when she died in 1965, her son (my grandfather) Don received a letter from the clerk of the Council expressing their sympathies, acknowledging that she “served this district as a Councillor for many years” before she “retired from public service”.  “There are still a great many residents who will remember with appreciation her active interest in local  affairs and regard her death as a very sad loss to our community,” the clerk wrote. Interestingly, he also includes that “our present Chairman [Councillor G. A. Pickett] is one of the few Councillors left who was a contemporary of your Mother […] and he is particularly upset by the sad news”. This is the same Councillor Pickett who remonstrated Kitty when she took the platform at the eve-of-the-poll meeting in 1939, but presumably during the time they served together on the Council she was able to gain his respect.

I was lucky enough to find this letter from the Council amongst my grandad’s papers. I went to the Essex Record Office to see if I could discover anything more and was thrilled to find her original candidate’s handbill and a copy of the Canvey Chronicle from 6th April 1939 covering the election. I’ve quoted from both of these sources throughout this blog post. The newspaper also contained the below photo and caption which I ordered as a digital image from the Record Office.

Reproduced by courtesy of the Essex Record Office D/UCi 1/4/2

Canvey Chronicle, 6th April 1939.
Reproduced by kind courtesy of the Essex Record Office D/UCi 1/4/2

Kitty’s First Stand

~ Kate ~ Leave a comment

In September 1911, the following appeared under ‘Apprehensions Sought’ in the Police Gazette:

From the Police Gazette
From the Police Gazette 29th September 1911; accessed via FindMyPast

My great-grandfather Bernard Cuthbert was actually just 20 years old at the time. He had never been in trouble with the law before and came from a reputable family – his late grandfather had been the police superintendent of Braintree. 

The story is explained in an article that appeared in the Essex Times two weeks later. Bernard had been accused of stealing “a quantity of furniture, valued at £60”, from his former friend and landlord, Harold Wilson Walker. A 50-year-old travelling coal agent, Walker had been born in East London to parents from Derbyshire. He was married with three children, although he and his wife had been living separately for the last ten years. 

Walker was called upon first to explain his case. He said he had been on “friendly terms” with Bernard for “some time”. Three years ago, Bernard had introduced him to his fiancée, Kate (known as Kitty), and “after a time”, suggested there were “certain circumstances” that required them to marry, and asked Walker if he could help her obtain employment. The defence asked Walker to elaborate on these “certain circumstances”.

“Well, they were in dire straits; she was out of employment and in lodgings”, Walker said.

The defence pushed for further clarification: “Don’t let any misunderstandings occur. Were the “circumstances” anything to do with the girl’s condition?”.

“There was some suggestion of the sort,” said Walker. “They both admitted it.”

Walker was clearly implying that Kitty was pregnant when she married, however their first child was not born until the following year, eleven months after the marriage took place. It’s possible that Kitty had a miscarriage or wrongly believed herself to be pregnant, but the defence insisted there was “not the slightest truth” in Walker’s suggestion.

The defence asked Walker: “would it surprise you to know that Mrs Cuthbert is not yet 17, and she was not 14 when you were introduced to her?”. Walker replied that he was indeed surprised, and also to find out that Bernard was in fact not yet 20. 

In January 1910, when Bernard asked Walker for his help obtaining employment for Kitty, her family were experiencing a difficult time. Her father had been a soldier for many years but in 1906 was finally discharged due to his struggle with alcoholism. The family were forced to return from Scotland, where he had been a sergeant instructor with the militia, to Southend-on-Sea where Kitty’s mother’s family lived. (Bernard, although born in Walthamstow, had moved with his family to Southend a few years previously.) When Kitty’s father left them in 1909, her mother was increasingly reliant on her parents to support her and the children. But in February 1910, Kitty’s maternal grandfather died, aged 73. In desperation, Kitty’s mother went to court to request her absent husband provide financial support to her and their two young sons. Under the Summary Jurisdiction (Married Women) Act of 1895, a wife might obtain a court order if she could prove her husband’s “wilful neglect to provide reasonable maintenance for the wife or her infant children whom he was legally liable to maintain”. The Act specifically referred to infant children; at fourteen, Kitty would have not been considered a financial dependant, and in court was described as earning her own living. While her mother was successful in her claim, the court order was made for the maintenance of only two children – Kitty’s young brothers, aged two and four. 

I suspect that her family’s situation is the ‘certain circumstances’ that led Kitty and Bernard to feel that they needed to marry as soon as possible, and reduce the financial burden on her mother. Her young age would have been a factor too – as a fifteen year old girl living in lodgings, away from home, she would have been in a vulnerable position. Bernard would have been keen to marry her as soon as possible so that he could take care of her, but at only twenty himself, working as a paper hanger, he was not in a position to offer her a secure and comfortable home. This was the situation with which Walker offered to assist. 

Marriage certificate for Bernard Cuthbert and Kate Beatrice Williams
Marriage certificate of Bernard Cuthbert and Kate Beatrice Williams, from family collection

On the 3rd of April, 1911, Bernard and Kitty were married at St Katherine’s, Hatcham. They both gave their ages as 21 (the age at which one could marry without parental consent), although he had only just turned 20 and she was just sixteen. Bernard described himself as a builder like his father, though the court referred to him as simply a paper hanger. Kitty, perhaps out of pride or a sense of loyalty, stated her father’s occupation as ‘non-comissioned officer’ though it had been six years since his discharge and he had more recently been employed as an engine fitter. Bernard and Kitty gave their address as 153 Pepys Road, a boarding house down the road from the church, although neither appear on the 1911 census return which had coincidentally take place the previous night. The witnesses were Annie Margaret Wilshere, a lodger at the boarding house, and Frederick Charrosin, who worked at the post office but was an organist and choir member at the church. 

Continuing his statement, Walker explained that “after the ceremony”, they all went to live at the house he owned at 17 Forest Drive, Manor Park. The Cuthberts were to have the “run of the premises and the exclusive use of a bedroom”, at the cost of 10s a week rent. Not only that, but Walker employed Kitty as a housekeeper, paying her 2s 6d a day in return for breakfast and supper. This meant that Bernard and Kitty were effectively living there rent free and receiving 7s and 6d a week as payment for Kitty’s housekeeping duties. It must have seemed an ideal situation for the young couple, who could now live together in security and comfort. Manor Park was technically part of the county of Essex, but was already effectively a suburb of London, popular with aspiring middle class commuters.

Walker claimed that he purchased a ‘quantity of furniture’ for the house, to be used by all three residents. He said after a “dispute”, he returned home on the 13th of September to find Bernard and Kitty missing, along with most of the furniture. The following morning he received a postcard from Bernard, explaining he and Kitty had left with the furniture, and that they were now living at 149 Grange Road, Bermondsey. This was the basis of his claim that Bernard had stolen his furniture.

The defence now presented their case. Mr Stern, the defence lawyer, suggested that Mr Walker was making false accusations to take revenge on the couple, after he had made “overtures” towards Kitty and been rejected. “It was inconceivable that [Bernard Cuthbert] could have any felonious intent to removing the furniture, considering he wrote to the prosecutor the same night telling him where he and the furniture could be found”, he reasoned. 

Studio photo portraits of Bernard and Kate Cuthbert c 1911

Kitty then took the stand, to explain the truth of their situation. She confirmed that she was sixteen years of age (and would turn seventeen that month), and that she had married Bernard on the 3rd of April, six months previously. She claimed that Walker had suggested that she and Bernard get married, after agreeing to lend them £20 with which to buy furniture. Two months after they moved in with Walker, he asked her if she would go to America with him, and “was very funny” after she refused. “Other scenes took place”, which she either did not describe or the reporter chose not to include, and finally, she told Walker “you have only got me here to ruin my life and when I think how near you have dragged me to the brink of destruction, I hate you”. This is what had led them to finally leave the house, taking their furniture with them. She confirmed that all the furniture they had taken, was now in their home in Bermondsey, and they “had not disposed of a single article”. 

The chairman was either completely convinced by Kitty’s evidence, or he had already made up his mind, as “at the conclusion of Mrs Cuthbert’s evidence, the chairman said the bench were satisfied no jury would convict prisoner and he was therefore discharged”.

It was a bold and courageous testimony from a girl not quite seventeen (and, perhaps unbeknownst to anyone but herself and Bernard, four months pregnant) standing up in court to defend her husband and challenge her harasser, at a time when women frequently had no voice. This was history’s first glimpse of the confident figure she would become. Just four years later, she was working at the headquarters of the Australian Imperial Force, in a role that required “considerable tact and diplomacy”. In 1921 she was in court again, this time standing up for Bernard’s sister Nell, accusing her brother-in-law of being a “scoundrel”, who had “treated [his] wife so disgracefully”.  In 1939 she ran for the Canvey Island Urban District Council, declaring “I am of the opinion that a woman’s point of view can only be voiced effectively BY a woman” – and won. 

As for Bernard, he was never again in trouble with the law, as far as I can tell.

Kitty & her Chow Chows

~ Kate ~ Leave a comment

I have always been interested in my family history, particularly my great-grandmother and namesake Kitty, and before I learnt how to find censuses and official records last year, I used to occasionally google Kitty’s name to see what I could find. A few years ago I discovered that the website ChowTales.com had some wonderful pictures of her, in connection with her very successful career as a breeder of chow chows. I recently decided to share some of my family photos of Kitty, her sons and the dogs, with Sandra of ChowTales.com, to say thank you for preserving and sharing a part of my family history.

You can read the wonderful post Sandra wrote about Kitty, (who bred her dogs under her married name of Mrs Bernard Cuthbert) here. Sandra has shared some wonderful articles about Kitty which have given me a lot of insight in Kitty’s life and career, including the first article about her (that I’m aware of) from 1927. She began breeding dogs from her home in Catford, London, and when the family moved to Canvey Island in 1933, they took their business with them and continued to have great success there. I was particularly moved to see this article from Sandra’s collection:

My great-grandfather Bernard Cuthbert was killed in an accident in 1958 and his death was a great shock to Kitty. They had been married 47 years, since she was 16, and had always had a very strong and close relationship. I’m lucky enough to have in my possession many handwritten letters from him to her, which show how devoted he was to her and how much he loved her, but nothing written by Kitty herself. So to see her own words here, about the effect the death of her husband had on her, means a lot to me.

Unlike his wife, Bernard seems to have been rather camera-shy, so I don’t have many photos of him. However I do have this lovely photo of the two of them at their son Don’s wedding in the summer of 1953.

1958 was not a good year for poor Kitty. Although it was the year that her first grandchild (my mum) was born, it was also the year of several deaths: her husband, her mother, and two of her sisters-in-law with whom she had been close. I’m glad to know that as well as her loyal son and beloved grandchild, she also had her treasured dogs around her to comfort her, as well as receiving many kind of letters of support from friends and clients.

So thank you, Sandra of ChowTales.com, for providing such valuable context for my family’s history!

Kitty in the First World War

~ Kate ~ Leave a comment
Kitty, front row centre, with colleagues in the Ordnance Section of the Australian Imperial Force Headquarters, around 1916. From my personal family archives.

My great-grandmother Kate “Kitty” Beatrice Cuthbert, née Williams, is one of the most interesting characters in my family history. A successful breeder of Chow Chows, a shop proprietor, a councillor, a defender of neglected wives and children, but before all those things, when she was 20 years old, she worked at the Australian Imperial Force headquarters in Westminster, London.

Kitty was obviously proud of this part of her life as she kept this reference letter for the rest of her life, and I found it among her old papers and photos. You can see a scan of the original document here, but here’s a transcript:

AUSTRALIAN ORDINANCE SECTION

27th September 1918

To all whom it may concern.

Mrs. K Cuthbert has been attached to this Section for nearly two-and-a-half years, and during that period she has discharged her duties in every respect in an able and conscientious manner. Her work required a considerable amount of tact and diplomacy and her missions to other government departments on difficult work have always led to success. I can recommend her as a splendid acquisition to any firm or Government Dept. knowing she is honest and straight-forward and full of ability. She is terminating her position here on the question of salary, and it is regretted that this Section has not the power to influence her employers to retain her services.

G E Blight Lt. Capt
pp LIEUT: COLONEL
A.D.O.S

In early 1916, when her service with the AIF began, Kitty was 21 years old, had been married for five years, had a three-year-old son, and had been earning a living since she was fourteen. Until the First World War, it was expected that women would give up work once they married, to focus on the unpaid domestic duties of the marital home, and with a husband bringing enough money in to take care of the family. Kitty, however, continued to work after the birth of her son, even though her husband, Bernard, didn’t enlist in the military until 1917.

One of Bernard’s letters home to Kitty suggests that her motivation to work was due to financial necessity. He writes: “[I] never thoroughly realised til now what a drawback I have been to you in so many ways. I have not even kept you for the last 2 or 3 years… I am going on for 27 and what prospects do I have when the war is over. No money, no job and one room. And the best wife in the world. I layed [sic] and cried for an hour or so to myself when I thought it.” Poor Bernard! As a self-employed painter and decorator (the family trade) in London, I imagine he was bringing some money in, especially once the war began and many younger men were enlisted. But the idea that his wife should also need to work was obviously hard for him.

Working Women in the First World War

Kitty wasn’t alone as a working wife. Women’s employment rates increased dramatically during the First World War and they were no longer limited to “women’s work” such as domestic service, but were able to take jobs in manufacturing, transportation and agricultural sectors among others. These jobs were often better paid than those in domestic service, and while some, such as factory work, were more hazardous, many women found that ironically the work was not as hard and the days not as long. In 1914, 24% of women of working age were employed; this rose to 37% by 1918, with an estimated 2 million women employed in roles traditionally taken by men. Not only that, but 40% of these working women in 1918 were married.

The government provided funding towards the costs of over 100 day nurseries across the country for the children of women who worked in munitions factories, although women employed in other sectors had to rely on their family and friends for childcare support. The General Post Office lifted their ban (which had been implemented in 1878) on employing married women. For the duration of the war at least, married women were becoming increasingly accepted into the workplace.

The Australian Imperial Force Headquarters

So, what was Kitty’s workplace like? The headquarters of the Australian Imperial Force (the main expeditionary military force of Australia) were set up in London in 1915, serving as a base for administration, finance and provisions, as well as being a “home away from home” for the 331, 781 Australian soldiers serving in France, plus 3011 members of the Australian Nursing Service. From mid-1916, for the next two years, there were never fewer than 50,000 Australian troops in Britain, excluding men on leave. If you’re interested in learning more about the experiences of the Australian soldiers, I highly recommend the article ‘London and the First World War’ by Elise Edmonds for the Imperial War Museum which features several fascinating excerpts from letters written by Australian soldiers about their time in London.

The Australian War Memorial website notes that employed in the records office here was a “large number of girls, whose labour was as effective as that of the soldiers, and much cheaper.” This ties in with the implication in Kitty’s reference letter that she was dissatisfied with her pay and is consistent with the fact that women were vastly under-paid at this time. They may have been paid more than they would have been in domestic service, but in almost all sectors they were being paid less than a man would be in the same job. While Kitty clearly excelled in her role and impressed her supervisors, it seems she was not prepared to be paid less than she knew she deserved, and the AIF were not prepared to increase her pay when there were so many women out there in need of work.

After the War

As the war ended, many people felt society should re-establish traditional gender roles. Many women had been employed on the understanding that their contract would last only for duration of the war. The Restoration of Pre-War Practices Act 1919 required returning soldiers to be given their pre-war jobs back, and 750,000 women were made redundant in 1918. While the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 made it illegal to prevent women from joining professions and vocations and be awarded degrees based on their gender or marital status, the law was broad and seldom invoked, and commercial companies were not generally prevented from adopting unofficial bans on employing married women. Even the General Post Office was able to reinstate their ‘marriage bar’ upon the end of the War, and it was not permanently lifted until well after the Second World War.

Many men blamed women for the rising levels of unemployment, and even among women there was resentment and rivalry. One woman, Isobel M Pazzey of Woolwich, felt so strongly about the subject of married women in the workplace that she wrote to the Daily Herald in October 1919, stating that “No decent man would allow his wife to work, and no decent woman would do it if she knew the harm she was doing to the widows and single girls who are looking for work. Put the married women out, send them home to clean their houses and look after the man they married and give a mother’s care to their children. Give the single women and widows the work.” This was typical of the prevailing opinion of the time so it’s no wonder Bernard felt it a personal failing on his part that his wife should have to work.

Personally, with what I know of Kitty’s life and personality, I don’t think she resented working. She was tenacious and confident, and probably found her role at the Australian Imperial Force Headquarters rewarding and challenging. She went on to run her own business (more than one, in fact), and serve on a district council, and it doesn’t seem as though she could have been content living the life of a housewife. In a time where society was trying to cling onto outdated gender roles and expectation, Kitty and many other women, were driving it forward.

The beginning

~ Kate ~ Leave a comment

I don’t know why it took me so long to actually start researching my family history. It’s a topic that always interested me, and every now and then I’d google the names of my great-grandparents, but aside from a couple of photos of my great-grandmother, I never found anything. I knew my grandad had been researching our family history in the 1990s, and I knew his papers would still be around somewhere, but it never really occurred to me to look at them.

During the first lockdown last year, I googled my great-grandmother again and this time Ancestry came up. I signed up for a free trial and found all kinds of information I never realised was so easy to access. I naively resolved to find out “everything” before the end of my two week trial… and now nine months later I’m still learning more about my family history everyday, not just on Ancestry but on other sites too.

When I told my mum I was researching our family history, she gave me my grandad’s notebook and papers. There were birth, marriage and death certificates, copied out census records, printouts of microfiche, pages of scribbled notes. He had filled out a pedigree chart of course, but to my surprise he’d even done one for me. I was a young child at the time and he never showed it to me, but it was like he knew I would need it someday.

Going through all my grandad’s notes and knowing I’m carrying on his research makes the whole process of researching my family history even more personal and rewarding. Back when he was doing this, he didn’t have the internet to help him. He had to visit or write to record offices for information. I have the benefit of online indexed transcriptions from all over the world, which makes things easier in a lot of ways but a little overwhelming in others. Whenever I find more evidence to back up what he already found, or something that confirms a hunch of his, or something that eluded him, I feel so proud, and I know he’d be proud of me. I wish I could talk to him about it all and show him what I’ve found and tackle those stubborn brick walls together.