Mysterious Disappearances And Suffragettes- Early Residents Of Victoria Road Marlow

Written and researched by Charlotte Day.

A couple of cottages named Victoria Cottages erected in 1872 were likely the first homes built in Victoria Road. They still exist today.

The first resident of Victoria Road Marlow who can be definitely named is a Mr E Savage who in May 1880 wrote a letter to the maker of a "Pectoral Syrup" extolling it's virtues as a cure for asthma, whooping cough and similar conditions. The writer was also impressed by soothing powders for children sold by the same maker. As a stated father of 8 children you could see how he might appreciate such powders! We can only hope all those children were not squeezed into his Victoria Road cottage as it would have been a small one. Perhaps some had, thanks to all that soothing medical attention, grown to adolescence or adulthood and moved out by the time their parents moved to Victoria Road!

On the subject of moving into or out of the street, the South Bucks Standard of 8th July 1892 contained an advert for a house contents sale at number 1 Victoria Road*, the resident William Ashby having "moved away" from the area. Behind this simple advert there was an alarming truth- William, a three weeks married insurance agent, had vanished into thin air shortly before the sale. He said goodbye to his wife one morning having told her that he was going to meet his Prudential Assurance Company boss in High Wycombe but was never seen again by neither her nor anyone else in the area. He did not turn up to the work meeting. No one could fathom why he would wish to leave his home, job and bride, nor did they think that he had any personal worries. The fact that she put the furniture up for sale almost immediately suggests that the new Mrs Ashby (Florence Ann nee Faulkner) gave up on her husband quickly. Financial distress may have been involved, though William was said to have been highly successful at selling insurance in the past two or three years. The items for sale suggest a comfortable income: a velvet covered drawing room set, tapestry carpets and a marble topped wash stand etc.

As a teenager in his native Northamptonshire William had worked as an under gardener so becoming an insurance agent was a step up for him. Prior to his marriage he lodged with the Everest family in nearby Glade Road, Marlow.

So where did William disappear to? The answer intriguingly was apparently Ireland. He married, despite already being married, a Bridget Kelly in Dublin in 1899 before returning to England with her to raise a family. The couple lived first in Yorkshire and then in Westmoreland and Lancashire with William reverting to his original occupation as a gardener. Florence herself as "Florence Ann Ashby or Faulkner" remarried in 1900 a shoemaker John Gibbard. This was back in Northamptonshire. Did she believe William dead? Perhaps the first marriage was annulled. William could be declared legally dead after 7 years of being missing. I only hope poor Florence found happiness after her distressing and humiliating desertion. The quick sale of the furniture may hint that Florence did in fact receive some communication from her husband saying he intended never to return even if she did not wish to make it public at the time.

Victoria Road is a few minutes walk from the River Thames. Today you would be surprised to hear that it had flooded but in 1903 overspilling river water reached the residents there. Mr T Coster an engineer who rented a Victoria Road cottage in the early 1900s specialised in building for customers in Marlow and elsewhere their own docks and boathouses to help them enjoy the river. He also serviced ornamental waterworks. 

Coster's business would not have caused much nuisance in Victoria Road itself but the residents did have some other commercial occupiers to put up with, most notably the steam powered chair making premises of the Buckinghamshire Chair Factory. A full post about that business by Kathryn is available here. Their premises included a saw mill. The working conditions were pretty awful, with improper sanitation, no ventilation for those working with the wood and flimsy buildings . Kathryn's post will tell you more. The company went out of business in 1912 but the Greenwich Sawmill Company took over from them and annoyed the residents of nearby Dedmere Road with the amount of sawdust which blew into their homes and gardens. The Mathew Couchman who in 1903 was a timber merchant and engineer with a saw mill in Victoria Road had a side line in milling barley or any other meal required by customers. 

Disturbance could come from other sources too- the artist's studio in Duchess Place in Victoria Road (near the corner with Dedmere Road, no longer used as a separate address) was used by the Women's Freedom League for a Suffragettes' meeting in 1912. Mrs Mary Sargant Florence chaired the event. 

Her studio was used in another radical way too- as the base for a Girls' Club. Not much radical in that you may think. But you could count on your hand the number of such organisations for girls as opposed to boys at that time. That young females should spend leisure time outside of their own home (as their brothers routinely did) and away from their families was hardly ever considered important. The club was aimed at working class girls and acted as an educational as well as social venue. The education of working class girls was one of the lowest priorities for society as a whole in that era. A more detailed post about the Girls Club will be published by Kathryn on this blog in the future.

*House numbers have been altered since. This number one is not the number one seen today.

Written and researched by Charlotte Day.

©Marlow Ancestors.  You are welcome to use my research for family or local history purposes with credit to this blog.

Sources:

Bucks Herald. 9th May 1885. South Bucks Standard 8th July 1892. British Library Archives via the BNA. 

Berkshire Chronicle 1st August 1903. As above.

"England and Wales Marriage Registration Index, 1837-2005," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:2DZ3-RL9 : 13 December 2014), William Lerson Ashby, 1892; from "England & Wales Marriages, 1837-2005," database, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : 2012); citing 1892, quarter 2, vol. 3B, p. 166, Northampton, Northamptonshire, England, General Register Office, Southport, England.