Marian Harriett Caldecott who was initiated into the Golden Dawn at its Isis-Urania temple in September 1892 and took the Latin motto ‘Ad sidera sursum’.  Her address at that time was 56 Addison Mansions West Kensington.  She doesn’t seem to have been a very active member, and her membership was described as “in abeyance” by June 1895.

 

I thought for a long time about how to present the information I’d found, about Marian Caldecott’s life, because there was so little of it.  In the end, I decided to take Marian as an example of what you’re up against when you try to trace the lives of the majority of people who have lived.  

 

I find the people of the Golden Dawn a fascinating group.  But except in a very few cases their lives have not been thought of as important enough for their stories to be kept.  Most people have not been.  It’s bad enough with the men of the GD but it’s even worse with the women and Marian Caldecott is typical: I could find plenty of information on the web and elsewhere about the men in her life; but almost nothing about Marian herself.  What to do, in such a case?  Well, the reaction of most historians of the GD has been to look again at the members that are well-known and leave the others untouched, as too difficult and obscure to follow up.  Before the arrival of the WWW, that was definitely the sane choice.  However, the web is here now, and I’m taking a different option: I’ve studied what’s known about the significant others in Marian’s life and hoped to spot Marian in the background.

 

Marian’s family, the Brinds.

 

A website for the Brind family was not quite as helpful as I had hoped but it did show that the family had been living in London at least since the 17th century; and that several of its members had worked as goldsmiths or silversmiths and been members of the Goldsmiths’ Company.  The practical artistic skills seem to have given out in the family by the late 18th century but an interest in art and a connection with the Goldsmiths’ Company continued.

 

Charles Brind was born around 1788 and is thus of an age to be Marian’s grandfather but I think it’s more likely that he was her great-uncle.  When Charles Brind died in 1848 he named Marian’s father as his executor though I haven’t seen the Will so I don’t know if he was also one of the beneficiaries.  It seems to have been Charles Brind that started the family wine and spirits shipping business, which during the 19th century operated from various addresses around Bishopsgate in the City of London and which was still going in 1913.  He was a member of the Goldsmiths’ Company and served one year as its Master, the most senior elected officer.  He collected paintings, particularly works by 17th century Dutch artists such as van Ruysdael, Wynants, Steen and members of the Maas (sometimes spelled Maes) family.  However Marian’s father, as executor, sold some at least of these in the years after Charles’ death, and gave two more to the National Gallery, so there may not have been very many left in the family for Marian to see as she grew up.

 

Marian’s father

 

Frederick William Brind (known as William) was born, probably in London, around 1924.  If Charles Brind was Frederick William’s father, he was not living with Frederick William’s mother Ann on the day of the 1841 census.  Ann Brind and her children were living in Islington. Besides Frederick William Ann had two other sons, Edward and Charles, and one daughter, Susan.  Even if Ann was a widow by this time, she seems to have been comfortably-off: she employed one servant.  All three of Ann’s sons went into the family wine and spirits business. Frederick William was working in it by 1851, probably by 1849 when he continued the family tradition by accepting an invitation to become a member of the Goldsmiths’ Company.  To the various census officials he spoke to between 1851 and 1891 he described himself as a wine merchant, but in fact he was involved in a number of business ventures. 

 

The biggest, and the one that gave him most trouble, was the Patent Woollen Cloth Company, whose main line of business was making felt carpets but which also produced table cloths, curtains, and cloth for upholstery and industrial cleaning. It seems to have been a pretty big firm.  It operated two mills, the Elmwood Mills at Camp Road Leeds and one in Borough Road south London.  It had a large warehouse in Cheapside and offices at 8 Love Lane Aldermanbury in the City of London.  It sent examples of its products to the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1868 so perhaps it sold them overseas as well as in the UK.  The firm was founded in 1845 and had rather a chequered history, going bankrupt twice.  Exactly when Frederick William Brind got involved, I’m not sure.  I don’t think it was in the early years because his name doesn’t appear in legal notices and adverts from the 1840s, but it was before 1859, when he was granted a patent for some particular improvements to sewing machines.  He was still involved with the company over 30 years later, when he was one of the people who attended a meeting in 1893 which put it into voluntary liquidation.  I wasn’t clear from the information I found about this process whether he was a director, just a shareholder, or a creditor; I suspect he was all three.  He was one of the three men chosen to oversee the liquidation process.  The company survived this second bankruptcy, moving into new areas of production by starting to made making heavy-duty felt for use in the construction industry.

 

One thing led to another, no doubt.  In 1869 Frederick William Brind was approached by the British Imperial Insurance Corporation of Manchester which was about to open a London office in Old Broad Street, very near premises of Brinds the wine merchants; he agreed to join a group of men who would oversee the workings of the new branch.  I presume buying or being given shares in the Corporation would have been part of the deal.  He may also have owned shares in the Midland Railway.

 

Marian

 

On the day of the 1841 census, Charles Brind had been living in the household of a Mrs Elliott, in the new north London suburb of Stamford Hill.  In 1848 Frederick William Brind married Mrs Elliott’s daughter Mary Ann.  Their elder daughter Marian Harriet was born in 1850.  On the day of the 1851 census Frederick William, Mary Ann and Marian were living at 52 Stamford Hill with a cook, a housemaid and a nursemaid - a large staff for such a young couple.  A second daughter, Amy Alice, was born in 1852, but the family was broken up in 1854 when Mary Ann Brind died. Frederick William’s mother Ann, and his younger brother Charles, had already moved out of London to Sydenham, and in the wake of his wife’s death, left a widower with two small children, Frederick William moved to the south London suburbs too.

 

In 1861 Frederick William Brind married Julia Mary McRae in her local church in Upper Holloway, north London.  Reading between the lines of the few sources I’ve found, I’ve come to think that - although this was no wicked step-mother relationship - Julia Mary and her two step-daughters wasn’t particularly close.  During their years without a mother, a bond had been forged between Marian and Amy that would have been beyond Julia Mary’s ability to break even if she had wanted to do so.  It lasted until Amy’s death: possibly not even excepting the period of Marian’s marriage (I don’t have any evidence for where Amy was living then) they always lived together.  The day of the 1861 census came three weeks after this second marriage and found the larger family shaking-down together at Weldon Lodge, Lawrie Park Beckenham: Frederick William, Julia Mary, Frederick William’s mother Ann, Marian and Amy; a cook, nurse (perhaps for Ann, who was 70 now, rather than the two girls) and housemaid.  Frederick William and Julia Mary had three children: Walter, who died aged only a few weeks, in 1863, within a few weeks of Ann Brind’s death; Frank (born 1866) and Julia Margaret (born 1869).  The family moved, firstly to 2 Annandale Bromley, where they were living by 1871; and then, around 1879, further out of London again, to Chelsfield near Orpington, where they leased Chelsfield Lodge.

 

Dependent on the censuses for my information on Marian’s youth, I haven’t been able to come by much information on her education.  I can say that on the days of the censuses in 1861 and 1871, the Brind family was not employing a live-in governess.  Of course, censuses come 10 years apart so they might have employed one for nearly a decade without my being able to tell; but it’s just as likely that Marian was sent to a boarding school for a while - two or three years seems to have been typical - but I haven’t found any details of exactly how and where she was educated.  From what little I have been able to find out about her, it looks as though she did not take part in any of the campaigns to broaden and deepen the education of women, so perhaps she was usually content with the education she had received.  Free from governesses (if she had any) or finished with school (if she was sent to one) Marian spent her teens and twenties living the life led by the middle-class women of Britain, still residing with her family, helping in the home and doing the social round and either caring for ailing parents, and/or waiting to be married.

 

She did marry.  It was while the Brinds were living at Chelsfield that they met Randolph Caldecott.

 

Marian and Randolph

 

There’s plenty of information on the web about Marian’s husband Randolph Caldecott, and many websites have good reproductions of his art works.  In this account of Marian’s life I will  summarise the best biographical source I found, at the website of the Randolph Caldecott Society UK - www.randolphcaldecott.org.uk and let me say here how much I’m indebted to that website for details of Marian.  The Society says that Randolph was born in 1846 in Chester.  He had one drawing published as early as 1861 and was getting his work published regularly in a variety of magazines by the late 1860s but he didn’t give up his job in a bank, to work full-time as an artist, until 1872.  As part of this big change in his life, he also moved to London, the centre of the book illustration world in the UK.  He was best known in his life-time and is most appreciated now for the series of children’s books he illustrated for the printer Edmund Evans - two books each year from 1877 until his death; though he also illustrated travel books; continued to have work published in The Graphic and other magazines; and exhibited some paintings at the Royal Academy.  He moved in artistic circles in London, and knew Dante Gabriel Rossetti, George du Maurier, Millais and Leighton (Randolph did some work on Leighton’s spectacular house in Kensington).

 

It seems from a talk given by a local historian to the Randolph Caldecott Society that Marian Brind and Randolph Caldecott are not likely to have met before 1879.  Their romance must have moved very swiftly, then; and there must have been no problems on either side with the finances, at least, of a marriage.  For they were married, in Chelsfield Church where Frederick William was a church warden, on 18 March 1880.                           

 

How much the Brind family knew about Randolph Caldecott before Marian married him is an interesting question; because Randolph and Marian’s married life was dictated as much by Randolph’s health as by his work.  That’s not to say that he wasn’t as physically active as the next man - perhaps more so....BUT he’d had rheumatic fever during his childhood and this had left him with a weak heart and a tendency to bouts of stomach trouble.  Although he kept 24 Holland Street in Kensington as a studio, by the mid-1870s Randolph had realised that living in London made his health problems worse and had rented a house at Kemsing in Kent where he recover after time spent in the pollution of the city.  After their marriage, he and Marian spent time each year in both the properties.  They spent the winters around the Mediterranean, in accordance with what was the typical advice given by doctors to people whose health was problematic and who could afford to leave the British climate behind them.  The French resort of Mentone was one place they stayed.  In the new year of 1886 they made what turned out to be a disastrous decision, to go to the United States, combining a lecture tour with a few months in Florida, already known for its mild winters.  They had a particularly rough Atlantic crossing; and when they reached Florida they found it in the grip of unseasonally cold wet weather.  Randolph got ill, and died of heart failure on 13 February 1886, aged only 39.  

 

After Randolph

 

Randolph had a high opinion of his wife’s capabilities - and why not? she came from a family of business-people - he made Marian the sole executor of his Will.  I assume she was also its main beneficiary (I haven’t read the Will) but if she was, she inherited less money than you would think, leading me to suppose that Randolph’s illustration work had been paid by the picture, and didn’t involve his having copyright over any of the publications he illustrated.  However, she was well-enough off not to have to return to her family unless she chose to; and she did not choose to.  If Amy hadn’t been already living with Marian and Randolph during their married life she went to live with Marian in her widow-hood.  They were living in the flat in Addison Mansions that Marian told the GD was her current address by the day of the 1891 census.  By 1901 they had moved, to 30 Hampden House in Green Street Westminster, but by 1911 they were no longer living in London.

 

Between 1891 and 1893 the lease of Chelsfield Lodge ran out and Frederick William Brind, Julia Mary and Julia Margaret moved to St Leonard’s-on-Sea in Sussex.  As the journey from St Leonard’s-on-Sea to London was not an easy one, I think this was the point at which Frederick William retired from the wine merchants’ business (and perhaps from all his other business ventures).  He certainly thought of himself as retired by the time of the 1901 census.  The business continued, at least until 1913 with Marian’s first-cousin Ernest Walter Brind in charge.  Frederick William, Julia Mary and Julia Margaret had moved to 13 Maze Hill, St Leonard’s-on-Sea, Sussex by 1901.  They were still living there when Frederick William died in 1908.

 

Frank Brind had not wanted to join the family firm and - rather unusually for the times - his parents had allowed him to have his way, and to work as an architect instead. In 1891 he was learning his trade in London, working for the architects William West Neve and Ernest Newton, who had both been pupils of Richard Norman Shaw.  This was a job that Frank might have been offered through Randolph Caldecott’s good offices as they were just the kind of artistic people he knew but the Brinds probably didn’t.  Frank’s career in architecture never had time to develop, though: like Randolph, his health was poor, and he died in 1898 aged 32. 

 

When they left London, Marian and Amy did not join the rest of their family in Sussex, either to live with them or live near them.  They went to Kent, settling in Tunbridge Wells where they lived together until Amy died in 1931.  At first they lived at Balmoral House, 51-53 London Road (there’s now a block of flats on the site); later they moved a few streets to 2 Vale Road.  Marian still owned 2 Vale Road at her death, but she died in Lonsdale House nursing home, on 12 June 1932.  Following Amy’s death she had made a Will (or a new Will) in which she seems to have snubbed her half-sister Julia Margaret by not leaving her anything, though she left sums of money to people called Brind who were not nearly so closely related.  Julia Margaret had not married and she might have been glad of some.  Most of Marian’s money went to two charities: the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson hospital for women; and Miss Sheppard’s Annuitants’ Homes, of 27 Ossington Street London.

 

 

What to make of Marian Brind Caldecott?  It’s all too easy to define her with a set of negatives: she had no children, she never worked, she was left a widow after only six years of marriage.  You can make a bit more of her than that, though.  I think she inherited the Brind feeling for the arts and could have seen her destiny - once she had met Randolph Caldecott - as supporting him as a Victorian wife was expected to do as he continued to work as a self-employed man and in the face of uncertain health.  If she had any artistic talent herself, she never developed it.

 

What social circles did Marian move in, in the years when she was still living in London after Randolph had died?  She was not involved with spiritualism, at least not to the extent of being a member of any of the societies devoted to it.  And she was not a member of the Theosophical Society.  These were two groups of London-based people amongst whom you were likely to meet people who were members of the Golden Dawn.  However, I imagine that she was still seeing Randolph’s artist friends, and they too were a good way of coming across the GD; though I’m not going to hazard a guess as to who exactly it was she knew.  Having been initiated, Marian did start to work through the programme of learning required by the GD if you were going to take your membership seriously.  She reached the level referred to as 4=7 (you started as 1=10 and went up the numbers on the left, down the ones on the right, as you progressed in your occult education).  And then never went any further.  Why? Family troubles and obligations may have overtaken her: it was and is part of being a woman to have your time at the disposal of others.  And there may have been other reasons.  Several devout Christians did find the GD a little too pagan for their liking, and dropped out, and Marian may have been one of them.  But there was also the question of the education Marian had most likely had - it did not equip you for the intellectual study that new initiates were expected to follow.  Initiates were also supposed to be examined on what they had learned.  It was a very daunting prospect, especially for narrowly- and shallowly-educated women.  Another negative about Marian, then - she dropped out.

 

I think that the two charities Marian benefited in her will do indicate that she was aware of the disadvantages under which women laboured in late 19th century England (and still do).  The Elizabeth Garrett Anderson was a hospital founded by women for women, to counter the prejudices of the medical profession about women as patients and as practitioners.  And the Miss Sheppard’s charity addressed the results of the education of women for a life of continued dependence on the incomes of other people for the means to live, in a society where a large percentage of them would not marry or do paid work.  The ageing, unmarriageable spinster, or widow, trying to keep up middle-class appearances on a tiny and falling income was a stereotype of the Victorian period.  Though they had to go through the humiliation of applying for help, and being interviewed by its committee, Miss Sheppard’s charity gave some of these women a roof over their head and some dignity.  Perhaps Marian thought, of both the undertakings she chose to leave money to, ‘there but for the grace of God...’  Whatever feelings of sympathy and common cause with other women she had, or with the down-trodden generally, though, Marian didn’t go as far as to campaign for change.  She can scarcely have ignored the battle for women’s votes, but she played no prominent part in it either as suffragist or suffragette.  Nor did she get involved, as far as I can see, in any of the other campaigns that increasingly brought women into the public domain in the late 19th century, though these were many and varied and surely some must have aroused her sympathy and interest. 

 

So what did Marian do with her life?  Especially after her husband died so young?  Of course,  you didn’t have to do anything much with your life if you were a woman with a reasonable income in the late 19th century; you could stick to the social round defined by church and afternoon teas, with a little gentle foreign travel if you fancied and could afford it; and no one would criticise you for it, they were more likely to criticise you if you departed from it.  But it’s just occurred to me, as I struggle to put together a good summing-up paragraph for Marian Caldecott, that she could have been active from morning until night for all her life, being a support to her friends and relatives or doing good in her parish or down her street, and now we would not know it.  Minutes of parish committees get to clutter up cupboards and are thrown away; house clearers put appointment books and account books into the skip instead of into the local record office; and lifetimes of quiet, non-world-shaking experience are lost to history.  Particularly the lives of women. Which brings me back to where I started with this biography. 

 

Pictures of Marian

 

It looks as though no photographs of Marian Brind or Marian Caldecott have survived: the Randolph Caldecott Society has certainly not found any.  However, members of the Society have identified two pictures of Marian amongst Randolph’s book illustrations, though neither are portraits as such, as she is not centre-stage in either.  There are reproductions of both of them on the paged dedicated to Marian at www.randolphcaldecott.org.uk.  The first is in Randolph’s travel book Breton Folk, in the illustration facing p96 and called The Gavotte.  Marian is shown on the right of the picture, watching the dancers.  The second is in the book The People which is full of sketches of people Randolph knew from Chelsfield.  A sketch-book annotated by Randolph indicates that the character illustrated in the book and called Mlle Marie, is Marian.  Her home in Chelsfield is in the background of this picture.

 

 

BASIC SOURCES I USED for all Golden Dawn members.

 

Membership of the Golden Dawn: The Golden Dawn Companion by R A Gilbert.  Northampton: The Aquarian Press 1986.  Between pages 125 and 175, Gilbert lists the names, initiation dates and addresses of all those people who became members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn or its many daughter Orders between 1888 and 1914.  The list is based on the Golden Dawn’s administrative records and its Members’ Roll - the large piece of parchment on which all new members signed their name at their initiation.  All this information had been inherited by Gilbert but it’s now in the Freemasons’ Library at the United Grand Lodge of England building on Great Queen Street Covent Garden. 

 

Family history: freebmd; ancestry.co.uk (census and probate); findmypast.co.uk; familysearch; Burke’s Peerage and Baronetage; Burke’s Landed Gentry; Armorial Families; thepeerage.com; and a wide variety of family trees on the web.

 

Famous-people sources: mostly about men, of course, but very useful even for the female members of GD.  Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.  Who Was Who. Times Digital Archive.

 

Catalogues: British Library; Freemasons’ Library.

 

Wikipedia; Google; Google Books - my three best resources.  I also used other web pages, but with some caution, as - from the historian’s point of view - they vary in quality a great deal.

 

 

Source for Marian Caldecott:

 

For the Brind family:

 

Brind family history website www.brind.tv/html/brind2.html.  Men in the Brind family who were goldsmiths or silversmiths and in the Goldsmiths’ Company begin with William Brind who was given the freedom of the Company in 1654.  Walter Brind b 1763 served as its Prime Warden in 1820.  NB there’s no mention on this website of Charles Brind who died in 1848; or of Marian’s father Frederick Williwm Brind.  There was mention of a family history compiled by General Sir John Brind published in March 1936 and described on the website as “thorough”. I haven’t been able to track down a copy of this work; it was probably a privately printed work for family members only.

 

Information on Charles Brind found via www.nationalarchives.gov.uk in the Guildhall Library catalogue.  The Guildhall has the records of the company now known as Sun Assurance.  As Sun Fire Office, it insured Charles Brind of 14 Devonshire Street Bishopsgate, wine merchant.  Guildhall Mss 11936/478.

 

The Goldsmiths’ Company is on the web.  I couldn’t find any information there about any of the Brind family but at www.thegoldsmiths.co.uk/membership-governance there was general information about membership of the Company.  The membership is comprised of 1550 freemen and 285 liverymen.  It is governed by a Court of Assistants, with committees and a permanent staff.

 

Charles Brind’s art collection:

A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of David Tenniers by John Smith published 1831 p382 number 467 A Landscape; and number 468, a Hilly Landscape; are both owned by Charles Brind.

A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of John Wynants by John Smith published 1835 p247 number 66 is Sportsman and Travellers, now owned by Charles Brind.

The Mirror of Literature, Amusement and Instruction 1837 p322 report on the day in 1837 when the new queen Victoria gave an audience at the Guildhall.  Charles Brind lent a painting for the occasion.  P323 Charles Brind’s address at that time was Devonshire Street Bishopsgate.

Jacob van Ruisdael: A Complete Catalogue of his Paintings by Seymour Slive published 2001 p135 notes on Ruisdael’s Two Water Mills and an Open Sluice; bought by Charles Brind Antwerp 1838 sold at Christie’s 19-20 May [1840].

Literary Gazette and Journal of the Belles Lettres... 1840 p380 report on an art exhibition organised by the British Institution; Charles Brind was amongst those lending pictures for it.

The Art Journal volume 21 1840 issue of June [1840] p94 more coverage of the art exhibition at the British Institution p95 mentions a picture by Ruysdael, catalogue number 49, loaned by Charles Brind.

A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of Jan Steen volume 9 1842 by John Smith published p503 number 77 is Card Players; owned in 1831 by N Baillie but now (that’s 1842) owned by Charles Brind Esq.  Charles Brind also owns number 78, A Twelfth Night’s Scene.

Dictionary of Painters and Engravers by Michael Bryan published 1849 p427 has notes on several of the Maas or Maes family.  In the section on Nicholas Maas or Maes b 1632, a note that Charles Brind owned a painting by him called The Milk Maid.

Gentleman’s Magazine volume 185 1849 p102 death notices from January [1849] includes that of Charles Brind who’d died on 12 November [1848] at Stamford Hill; aged 60.

The Pharmaceutical Journal volume VIII no 6 issue of 1 December 1848 p253 discussing an outbreak of cholera which so far at least had not turned into an epidemic.  One of the few casualties amongst the middle-classes had been Charles Brind, who’d died of it on 12 November [1848] “after twenty-two hours illness”, at  Stamford Hill.  Brind described as “late Prime Warden or Master of the Goldsmith’s (sic) Co”.

House of Commons Papers 1845 section on Minutes of the Trustees of the National Gallery.  P22 at the meeting of April 1845 the trustees considered a letter from Frederick William Brind offering the National Gallery two pictures, one by Fuseli and one by Breughel, previously owned by “the late Mr Charles Brind”.  The Trustees decided that they would take the paintings, but on condition that Brind should understand that - with wall space at the NG now so short - they reserved the right to offer the paintings to other art galleries.

The Athenaeum no 1124 issue of 12 May [1849] p497 a reference to Dutch pictures owned by Charles Brind which were currently on show (before sale) at Christie and Manson.

 

MARIAN’S FATHER FREDERICK WILLIAM BRIND

Uppingham School Roll 1824-1884 published 1885 has Frederick Brind’s name on it.

Illustrated London News volume 4 issue of 16 March 1844 p176 an advert for the Patent Woollen Cloth Co as if it had only just been founded.

Law Journal 1845 p4 notices about bankruptcies included proceedings against George Jackson of Hertford, trading as the Patent Woollen Cloth Co of Love Lane, “woollen cloth manufacturers”.  No one called Brind is on the list of the firm’s creditors.

Strakers’ Annual Mercantile Ship and Insur Register 1862 p22 in the wine shippers and merchants list: C Brind and Co of 14 Devonshire Street; and F W Brind and Co of 9 Throgmorton Street.  It’s not clear to me whether these are two separate businesses; or whether - after Charles Brind’s death - they are one business now but with two premises.

A List of Wardens, Assistants and Livery of the Worshipful Co of Goldsmiths London issued 1907; p20 Frederick Brind admitted to the Goldsmiths’ Company in 1849; address at publication is 13 Maze Hill, St Leonard’s-on-Sea.  On p38 Ernest Walter Brind admitted to Goldsmiths’ Company in 1900; at 6 Gresham House Old Broad Street.  Seen at the website of the Allen Co Public Library (Indiana) Genealogical Section.

The Critic volume 10 1851 p423 adverts: including one for the Patent Woollen Cloth Co of 8 Love Lane Aldermanbury.  The company manufactures Royal Victoria brand felt carpeting; printed and embossed table cloths; curtains; and cloth for use in upholstery.  They were made at two locations: at Borough Road London; and Leeds.  The company’s warehouses were at 8 Love Lane, Wood Street.

The Economist issue of 1 May 1852 p500 another advert for the Patent Woollen Cloth Co but listing other items that it manufactures including felt for cleaning plate glass, steel, marble and tortoiseshell.  The address at Leeds is Elmwood Mills.  The Company has warehouses at 8 Love Lane Cheapside.

While scanning googlebooks I saw several other similar adverts for the Patent Woollen Cloth Co from early 1850s; but none from later - which may just be the result of googlebooks’ scanning processes not having done the later era yet.

Reports of Cases in Chancery volume 16 1852 p338 has a case involving the Patent Woollen Cloth Co’s shares, with a man called James Hay involved.

Chronological Ind of Patents Applied for and Patents Granted issue of 1859 p128 lists application number 2024 made by Frederick William Brind of 14 Devonshire Street Bishopsgate.  The device was nothing to do with being a wine merchant; it was for “improvements in sewing-machines”. 

Chronological Indedx of Patents Applied for and Patents Granted issue of 1860 p195 application number 2019.  The applicant is Edward Smith, described as “gentleman” but also as of the Patent Woollen Cloth Co of Love Lane.  His invention is for “An improved mode of manufacturing carpets”.  Date of application: 31 Aug 1853.

The Monthly (Alphabetical) Record of Births, Deaths and Marriages 1861: p246 on 12 March 1861 at St John’s U Holloway, Frederick William Brind of Weldon Lodge Sydenham to Julia Mary 3rd dtr of John McRae of Park Road Upper Holloway.

 

Catalogue of the British Section, Paris Universal Exhibition 1868.  Group III: Carpets, Tapestry etc p104 the exhibitors include the Patent Woollen Cloth Co of “Leeds”, which exhibited wool carpets etc.

The Railway News volume 12, issue of 21 Aug 1869 p181 financial news items: announcement that the British Imperial Insurance Corporation of Manchester had just opened a branch in London.  The branch would be governed by a local committee.  All members of it were given, including Frederick William Brind Esq of F W Brind and Co of Old Broad Street.

Journals of the House of Lords volumes 107-108 published 1875 p171 has Frederick Brind’s name in it in the margin, apparently against an Order concerning the Midland Railway.

Capital and Labour vol 2 1875 in a report of a tour of industrial sites in Yorkshire; one of the places visited by the group (I couldn’t see who they were) was the Patent Woollen Cloth Co works, described as in the charge of “(Messrs T E Clarke)”.

Kelly’s Dir of Leather Trades 1880 p548 the Patent Woollen Cloth Co’s mill is at Elmwood Mill, Camp Road Leeds.

London Gazette 11 July 1893 p3982 legal notices, section on bankruptcies of companies.  Notice re the Patent Woollen Cloth Co of 8 Love Lane Aldermanbury.  An Extraordinary General Meeting of the company at that address on 14 June 1893 had agreed to put the company into voluntary liquidation.  Three men were chosen to be its liquidators:

            Henry Phillips Whisson of 8 Conduit Street, as chairman of the company being liquidated

            Frederick William Brind of 1 The Lawn, St Leonard’s-on-Sea, “Gentleman”

and       George Walter Knox of 16 Finsbury Circus, chartered accountant.

The liquidators would register a new company, to be called The Patent Woollen Cloth Co Ltd.  It’s not clear to me from this notice whether Frederick Brind is a creditor, a shareholder and director; or all three.  I suspect he’s all three.

Empire Review volume 7 1904 p269 advert from The Patent Woollen Cloth Co Ltd for its “pure wool in the form of sheets which show considerable elasticity even after subjection to severe pressure”; it was already being used on railway bridges.

The Builder 1905 p279 reported that the journal had been sent samples of “impregnated felt” by the Patent Woollen Cloth Co “of Leeds”; for use in the building industry.

 

Chelsfield:http://www.randolphcaldecott.org

 

Via www.randolphcaldecott.org.uk again, the text of a talk to the Randolph Caldecott Society given by Geoffrey Copus on 19 September 1996.  The talk was entitled Randolph Caldecott: the Chelsfield Connection.  Copus seems to live in Chelsfield and explains to his audience that he’s a local historian, not an expert on Caldecott.  He says Caldecott moved to Kemsing, about 7miles from Chelsfield, in 1879.  He couldn’t find out how Caldecott and Marian met, but Caldecott married Marian Brind in Chelsfield Church on 18 March 1880.  The Brind family were living at Chelsfield Lodge at the time, having moved there in the late 1870s; by 1879 Frederick William Brind was a church warden.  Chelsfield Lodge was still there in 1928.  Copus searched the local Record Office but couldn’t find the lease of the Lodge by the Brind family though he did know that the Brinds leased Chelsfield Lodge from the freeholder, Thomas Waring of Woodlands.  Copus searched for a photograph of Marian, to illustrate his lecture with, but couldn’t find one in his local sources.

 

Marian’s half-brother Frank Brind:

Wikipedia on the architects William West Neve and Ernest Newton, both pupils/assistants of Richard Norman Shaw who then went into business together in 1877 at 4 Chilworth Street; from 1878 at 5 Bloomsbury Square.  In 1893 William West Neve and Frank Brind (described on this web page as “a relative of the client”) were working on designs for remodelling Chelsfield Church.  The designs are now in the archives of the archbishopric of Canterbury.  According to Geoffrey Copus, the alternations to the church were never carried out.

 

Marian’s cousin Ernest Walter Brind:

A List of Wardens, Assistants and Livery of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths London issued 1907; p20 Frederick William Brind admitted to the Goldsmiths’ Company in 1849; address at publication was 13 Maze Hill, St Leonard’s-on-Sea.  On p38 Ernest Walter Brind was admitted to Goldsmiths’ Company in 1900; at 6 Gresham House Old Broad Street.  Seen at website Allen Co Public Library (Indiana) Genealogical Section.

 

For Marian’s husband Randolph:

The most detailed account of his life was at the website of the Randolph Caldecott Society UK at www.randolphcaldecott.org.uk.  The website also had a page on Marian, where I found the details of the two illustrations by Randolph in which she appears.  Randolph Caldecott’s web page on Wikipedia didn’t add much to the Society web page’s information and read as if it had been based on it. 

 

Plenty of Randolph Caldecott’s illustrations can be seen on the web.

 

Copyright SALLY DAVIS

30 July 2012