General Chat

Hi Bridget, Many thanks for the latest instalment. Have a good holiday (hope the research goes well), and we`ll be waiting for the next chapter when you get back. :-) Rebecca (another avid Mary May reader!!)

Hello Bridget, It would be very cruel on your part to abandon the story of "Mary May Griffiths"as some of us are hooked. Enjoy your holiday! Lindy;-))

Yes, yes,yes Bridget and thank you. Norah

Yes please carry on with the story Bridget. I am enjoying reading about Mary May. Have a lovely holiday, Sue

For those kind folk who wished to know more about Mary May Griffiths here’s another extract from the notes I compiled on her. (Please, please let me know when you have had enough, I would not wish to bore anyone!) Mary May had left The Queens employment to return home to nurse her sick mother. Anna Griffiths (Mary’s mother) died in 1902 shortly after Mary’s return home. She was buried in the little church in Penally, the chapel she and her husband (Mary’s parents) had worked so hard to establish. The year 1905 saw the now well-known butter expert appointed to superintend yet another model dairy. Sir Earnest Cassel, a millionaire and an intimate friend of King Edward resided at Moulton Paddocks, Newmarket. He was also the proud owner of a model dairy, based perhaps on the one he had seen at Balmoral during one of his frequent visits there. A very pretty bungalow was built for Mary close to the dairy. In letters home to her father it appeared Mary May was very happy in her new post, therefore, it is really surprising to note that sometime between 1905 and 1909 she left Newmarket and travelled to Warminster where she was employed as matron or housekeeper of St. Boniface’s College. (We had hoped to go and see if this place was still standing, maybe someone can tell us a little about it?) Her scrapbook gives no clues or indication for this sudden change in a very successful career. We think this placement came about because of her connection to a titled family back home. Perhaps one of the biggest disappointments in our research on Mary was failure to find any information on how she met her future husband. How or where did they meet? The first indication we get on this matter is an announcement in the College magazine (found in scrapbook) of her leaving the school to marry a Mr. Ingram Clarke of Cannock. Old newspaper cuttings show Mr. Clarke to be a very distinguished and handsome man with a beard. (At this point I think I fell a little in love with him myself! naughty Bridget!) Further on in our inquiries and again from newspaper cuttings, we established he was a very kind and good man who gave up a lot of his time to sit on school boards and charity committees, he took a devoted interest in them. There are many suppositions on our part as to how they met. Was he a board member of the college where she worked and did they meet there? We established Mr. Clarke was an ex-army quartermaster, having spent 22 years in the Queen’s Own Staffordshire Yeomanry. Another possibility is, that he could have been stationed at the large army camp quite near to Mary’s old home in Penally, did they meet there? We shall never know. What we do know however is that they married on the 6th Jan. 1909 at St. Luke’s church, Cannock. As we needed to be in the Staffordshire area to delve into records we took the opportunity to visit the church of St.Lukes. It is a truly beautiful old church, standing in its own gardens and gracing the very heart of Cannock. The church lacks the space to hold its own records and files. We travelled to nearby Stafford and had no problems obtaining the marriage certificate of Mary May Griffiths and Ingham Clarke. Many more exciting finds lay ahead for us. Not sure if you wish me to continue with this story, I am off for 2 weeks holiday in Ireland where I hope to find out more on my own family. Untill then, Love, Bridget