POSTCARDS FROM THE PAST - EMILY MUNSON'S STORY

A follow-up of my earlier posted story POSTCARDS FROM THE PAST - Beginning a Grand Tour - explaining the background to what I hope will be a series of tales based on postcards sent to members of the household of John Stuart Mill's family..

EMILY WRIGHT MUNSON'S STORY

My name is Emily Munson. I was born Emily Wright in 1861 in the small but expanding country village of Wickhambrook in Suffolk, which was in the Risbridge area, near the busy town of Newmarket.  My parents were James and Susan Wright, who was born a Bocock. Like most of the folk in those parts, my Father worked on the land, doing his best to keep the ever-increasing family happy and fed. We were Methodists and I was baptised by the circuit Minister on his rounds in the hot August of that year.  I loved my big sister Sarah Ann, who was three years older than me. There were other siblings too, my little sister Alice and brothers George William and Charles Henry, who helped Father as he worked the land for the local farmer.

For as long as I can remember, our Grandfather Daniel Bocock had lived with us, as his wife had died long before I was born, so the small house was a little crowded, but no-one minded! Mind you, when Sarah Ann married a local carpenter, Charles George Burt and moved down to Sydenham in Kent, near London, it became a little more comfortable at home. Our Sarah had been a bit of a naughty girl; in 1881 she gave birth to a darling little daughter who she named Effie Claudia Wright, out of wedlock. It was a bit of a scandal; they sent the baby away to live with our now widowed Mum Susan and our sister, now Effie’s Aunt Alice Rebecca, who was only 20 and a Tailoress. The family was quite relieved when Sarah Ann married Charlie in 1889 and started her own proper family. He became a French Polisher too and did very well for himself.

In 1885, I myself had the misfortune to marry one Arthur Rumbelow Munson. But it didn’t work out, he didn’t treat me right and I wouldn’t stand for it. I’m not that sort of woman. Anyway he went off somewhere in Wales I believe. Good riddance.

So by the time I was in my 30s, I was once again on my own, and was lucky enough to be found a place of work at 119 Devonshire Road, Forest Hill, right next door to our Sarah, so you can imagine how I got the job! My employer was old Mr Francis Adams and his wife; he was long retired and quite well off too. They lived with their two spinster daughters Mary and Emma; pleasant enough girls but proper old maids. The Missus stayed on for a few years, but then she passed on too, and it was time for me to find another post, which I did without too much trouble, coming with good references from the sisters, who went off to live in a more modest house in Sydenham Park Road. It was a good position – especially as my niece, Sarah’s girlie Effie was working there too! Family is a wonderful thing.

My new placement was as Housekeeper to a Mr Benjamin A Richmond, who was a physician Surgeon. It was in a very smart part of South-East London, or Kent as we preferred to call it – Murillo House at Manor Park in Lee. The good doctor was very well off thank you very much, and it was a nice house to work in, especially with our Effie around to chat to. I was there a couple of years before he married Miss Gertrude Hopkins. Bit stuck up she was, didn’t get on too well with me but still I did a good job. When the kiddies, two little boys, came along, they decided to move to a bigger house in Rotherhithe, and I decided to move on too, and maybe better myself.  Thus began the best, most exciting part of my life.

Our Doctor Richmond was very well connected of course, and it was through him I was introduced to Mrs Mary Elizabeth Mill Colman, a lady from a very distinguished family. In fact she was a sister of Mr John Stuart Mill, who was involved with all the intellectuals of the day, writers, actors, scientists, and of course politicians. In fact I heard he was the first man to try to get us women the vote! Mrs Mill Colman was already a widow by the time she called me in for a proper interview; but I heard she had not been living much with her husband for years; maybe he didn’t much like the idea of women actually having thoughts in their head -.if so he had married the wrong woman! Mrs Colman and I got along just fine right away, and I soon packed up my bits and pieces and moved in with her household as her nurse, for by then she was already in her 70s, though still lively and with a constant stream of visitors.

Being wealthy as she was, Mrs Colman had more than one household; she lived part of the time in Knightsbridge in London, and part in her beloved Clifton in Bristol, where she had lived much of her life before marriage and had many friends there. She had a nice house in Beaconsfield Road, not too far from the centre of things. And of course, where she went I went too, as her Companion as well as nurse when required. This was at the end of the old century and the beginning of the 20th century, round about the time the old Queen died, and things were changing.  In Clifton especially, the Missus was always off out with her friends from the National Society for Womens Suffrage, where she was on the Committee, to this meeting or that; or they would come to her for tea and chatter away; such things I never expected to hear from respectable women in my lifetime! I must say I agreed with everything they said:  why should us women be considered too daft to vote? Or do anything without a man’s approval? 

Mrs Colman’s daughter Marion, a spinster about my own age, lived with us too. Bit of a strange one she was, friends with all sorts of actors and singers; fancied herself a bit as an opera singer too. But her being there (when she wasn’t off with her artistic friends in London)  made it easier for me to have the odd day off; I had made friends of my own in Bristol, my dear Alice used to come down on a Sunday and we would go for a walk down to Broadmead, near the suffragette meeting room,  and look in the big shop windows, and just look at the grand folk passing by. Nice tea shops there too, it was good to be waited on for once!. All the time I was hoping Marion would be looking after her Mother, as she was getting a bit shaky – after all she was getting on a bit in years! And I always enjoyed all the postcards from my nieces and nephews; they even wrote to Mrs C sometimes, and the girls were very interested in all the goings-on of the gentry especially the Suffragette movement.

Mrs Mill Colman moved around a bit, even in Bristol; game old bird she was, right until she passed away in 1913 at the ripe old age of 90 – or so she said! She left me a little bit of money, and I reckon I could have easily got another position in Bristol, with all the ladies the Missus had known, but after a bit I decided to move back to Kent, South East London as it had become.

My sister Sarah’s family still lived over that way, and I had quite liked the Lee Green area too when I worked for Doctor Richmond, so I found lodgings in Garlies Road in Forest Hill, near the Horniman museum, and did a bit of domestic work when I could find some. Got on fine with my landlady Esther Summers and her old man Charlie, and stayed there until after the second war (which was not very pleasant actually, too much bombing round there). 

The day eventually came when I felt I needed a little more help, me old legs being what they were and me pushing 90 (fancy that!). I moved in with my niece Amy Burt, a relation of our Sarah’s,, and her friend, a widow Eleanor Kellaway... The house was in Bovill Road, Honor Oak Park, right handy for the new cemetery! William and Eleanora Kellaway lived there too, it was really quite a nice place to live, and I shall be very happy to spend my last days there, near my family, being looked after for a change instead of doing the looking after!

Emily got her wish, and passed away in 1954 whilst living at 119 Bovill Road, Honor Oak Park, with her niece Amy. She was 93 years old.