New Update 21 October 2023. I’ve had such a lovely email from a lady who lives in Horsham, Sussex about Ann (Rosemary) and Liz has been kind enough to let me share her memories with you all:

“I just wanted to say how much I loved reading your page about Anne Scudamore 💙 From about 1979-83, she was my wonderful music teacher at Holy Trinity School and I adored her. As a child you never realise how brilliant teachers have been in their own lives do you, and she was amazing. Prior to teaching me, she also taught my eldest sister a good few years earlier, and it is thanks to her that we both kept on with our music practice for the school orchestra. I played Cornet and my sister played Clarinet. (I’m 56 now) Thank you again for your wonderful ‘Waffles’ and work“.

So now we know that Ann was a super Music Teacher as well as a really lovely lady, thanks so much Liz.

Second UPDATE 10 May 2020, please look further down this Blog for new information about Mary Scudamore, who was a Teacher.

Update, 24 August 2019.

I have had a distant family member make contact with me, which has been lovely. He is related via the Tiley side of the family and lives in Ontario, Canada. They hadn’t realised that Anne had passed away until they saw my Blog. Unfortunately, they don’t want to take on the collection as they are not descendants of the Scudamore’s. But the wonderful thing is they have shared a photo of Anne with me, and happy for me to share it, taken when he and his wife made a visit to the UK a few years ago, amazingly she is showing them her collection of family history related photos and records, that I now have, it’s such a lovely photo, and so good to be able to see Anne.

The story of my find

One Sunday back in February we went on a visit to our local Bridport Antiques & Vintage quarter and I found this large collection of old photos, lots of CDV’s, Cabinet Cards etc about 250 in total, and the connecting ephemera. I initially thought, what a terrific find! But my joy has changed as I began to find out more about the family of Scudamore and especially the lady the collection belonged to.

I  started a family tree on Ancestry with the basic names & then I found something which made me so sad. There is a lady Anne Scudamore with a tree on Ancestry with matching names & also some matching old photos, originals that I now have. She hadn’t logged in for over a year, and the tree didn’t have many people on it, so I realised these may have come from a house clearance & she had sadly passed away. After checking I realised that this was the case, very sad.
So now I felt that I must try to finish what Anne had started, and I hope that I have achieved that, maybe eventually getting this collection back to someone in the wider family.

As I continued the research of this family I found the obituary of Rosemary Anne Scudamore who owned these family treasures, she sadly passed away at the age of 87 last 28 July 2018, in hospital in Devon, she is at rest near Sidmouth, not too far from us, so we went to visit Rosemary Anne Scudamore (known as Anne) & her family a week later at the Sidbury Cemetery near Sidmouth, Devon where they lay at rest. Was good to be able to visit her.

There are some lovely views from Sidbury cemetery at Sidmouth, it’s a very peaceful and quiet place to rest.

Anne’s parents grave (Above) and the note she left in 2017.

This is Anne’s two sisters together next to Anne.

I telephoned Potbury’s Funeral Directors on 9 August and they said that Anne’s headstone is ‘in progress’. Hope it’s completed soon.

I was surprised as I found out more about the family, Rosemary Anne, known as Anne was one of three sisters, none of the sisters ever married or had any children, so I had no descendants to find from their branch.

The eldest of the three sisters was Mary Doreen Scudamore. Born 12 May 1924.

Newspaper report: Gazette, London. Deceased Estates Claim expires 22 July 2005 SCUDAMORE First name: Mary Middle name(s): Doreen Date of death: 9 November 2004 Person address details: 75 Kenton Court, 356 Kensington High Street, London W14. Occupation: French Teacher.

UPDATE Information: I was thrilled this week to receive lovely emails from two of Mary’s former pupils Marc and Simon, here’s what they had to say:

“Just read through your wonderful material on the Scudamore Family”

Marc: Mary was my French teacher and form teacher 1971 to 1977 (Marc) photos:

Simon: He and I were two of the top French students in our year group at Battersea Grammar School in Streatham, I was there 1970-77.
Mary was never my form teacher (Simon) but did teach me from 1973-1977 (O and A Levels), in both of which I got decent grades (AA at O Level).
I had already developed a love of the French language before she started teaching me, and also the people and the country, but she developed it much further, enabling me to win a number of French prizes during those years as well as the local Education Authority’s travel scholarship in 1976 which meant I spent that whole summer (8 weeks) in different parts of France. After school, I went on to major in French and German on a language for business further education course, all exams of which I passed (Institute of Linguists among others), and in fact, I am still in contact with a French family I met on a student exchange with Lambeth’s twin town, Vincennes, a suburb of Paris, when I was about 15. Sadly, my French has been used little over the last 40 years, but when I am in France I discover it’s still mostly there.
Much of that was down to Mary, although it’s also true to say that I had started learning French at the age of 7 and actually stayed in contact with the man who taught my class French at a prep school in Harrow when I was 8 until he passed away in the 1990s.
You’ll appreciate, I hope, that Mary came in for a lot of ribbing at the school, all of it, I’d like to think, out of typical schoolboy fun, good humour and pranks, but, and I say this with the greatest of respect of course, as a middle-aged woman teacher in a school full of 600+ teenage boys, that was only to be expected.
If I were to rank her among all the teachers I had during my school days, she would be very high up the league table.
There were, of course, some other French teachers in the school. In the staff photo below, the other two who taught me during my time there were Len Turner, who in the staff photo Marc has included is two to her right (as you look at the picture below) with the glasses (who was also an old boy of the school) and Peter Smith, who I believe was head of the department, who is third from the right in the front row.

She was part of my life for 6 years (Marc) …. It is odd that as a pupil you cannot imagine your teacher being a human being…. It is only when we acquire age/experience that they become human beings…. Your web site added to my understanding… An interesting anecdote for you is that a pupil called …. Upfold commented back on Facebook that she called him Upton for 5 years….. I then found that there was a Wiltshire village of “Upton Scudamore”

Huge thanks to Marc and Simon for getting in touch and kindly letting me share these photos and memories with you all.

Then second born Muriel June Scudamore. Born 19 June 1925.

She became an amazing Pioneer! I have included the whole page about Muriel June Scudamore from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists as it would have been impossible to leave anything out. It was on RCOG Heritage Collections Blog on 20 Feb 2017.

“The weeks leading up to International Women’s Day are the perfect time to launch our newest regular feature: Pioneers, where we highlight innovators from within the fields of obstetrics and gynaecology. We’ll celebrate the lives, careers and achievements of these medical titans, with profiles of 16th century midwives, 20th century Members and Fellows of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and those in-between.

Our first Pioneer is Dr (Muriel) June Scudamore (1925-2008). Dr Scudamore was a consultant gynaecologist who trained at Bedford College for Women and then at University College Hospital in London for five years, where she obtained the McGrath Scholarship in Obstetrics and Gynaecology in 1949. A recognised figure in her field, she was awarded the Kathleen Bush Harman Prize, which was presented to her by the British Medical Association in 1956 for her research work aimed at the reducing maternal mortality.

After posts at hospitals in Bath, London, Birmingham, Sheffield and Manchester as house surgeon, general surgeon, and clinical pathologist, she won the Rickman Godlee Travelling Scholarship of the University College Hospital. She combined this with an appointment as Research Fellow at the University of Chicago clinics. She became the protégée of Professor William Nixon of University College Hospital, who became her mentor and championed her illustrious career. Her research work included the study of Exfoliative Cytology (the study of cells).

Photograph from the Hamilton General Hospital, Ontario, Canada, showing Dr June Scudamore in her Department of Exfoliative Cytology (1965-1968).

Dr Scudamore became a full-time cytologist in 1960 at the Hamilton General Hospital in Canada and in 1965 became Head of Department of Exfoliative Cytology at the Henderson General Hospital as well as a Research Fellow at the Ontario Cancer Foundation.

On her departure from this position in 1968, she set up her own Physicians Cytology Laboratory, where she developed new techniques in the early discovery of cancers. These techniques were used all over Ontario, saving the lives of thousands of women. She lectured in Ontario and Chicago, presented papers, organised workshops and meetings, to develop these new methods of detection, which are now part of the early treatment of cancer in Canada and worldwide.

Her papers reveal her artistic abilities. In a letter dated 26 July 1949 Professor Nixon notes that she was of great assistance providing illustrations for medical publications produced by his department at University College Hospital.

Dr Scudamore was elected to Membership of the International Academy of Cytology, as well as to the Fellowship of the RCOG in 1975 and to the International Academy of Cytology in 1976. She was also a member of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. She returned to England two years before her death in 2008.

Her papers were donated to the RCOG Archive by her sister in 2008 and became available to the public for research in 2011.

Dr June Scudamore

• Educated at the University of London (1944-1949) and graduated with the Magrath Scholarship in Obstetrics and Gynaecology.
• 1955 admitted to the Membership of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.
• 1956 presented the Katharine Bishop Harman Prize by the British Medical Association for research work aimed at the diminution of loss of life and health associated with child-bearing.
• 1957-1958 awarded the Rickman Godlee Travelling Scholar of University College Hospital Medical School, combined with the appointment of Resident-Fellow at the University of Chicago Clinics, studying cytology.
• 1959-1960 undertook an internship at Hamilton General Hospital, Hamilton, Ontario.
• 1960-1965 worked as a full-time cytologist at Hamilton General Hospital.
• 1962 presented a paper at the First Annual Meeting of the Canadian Cytology Council on ‘A two year cytology service’.
• 1965-1968 became Head of the Department of Exfoliative Cytology and Henderson General School of Cytotechnology, as well as Research Fellow at the Ontario Cancer Foundation, based in Hamilton.
• 1975 elevated to Fellowship of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists
• 1976 became a Fellow of the International Academy of Cytology”

Newspaper report: Dr Muriel June, M.B., B.S., F.R.C.O.G., M.I.A.C. Passed away on March 12th 2008. A Fellow of the Royal College of Gynaecologists, she was the second daughter of the late Arthur Douglas Scudamore and Dora Sarah Scudamore(Johnson) and is survived and much missed by her younger sister Rosemary Anne. Requiem Mass at the Church of the Most Precious Blood on Wednesday March 19th at 11 a.m. Interment at Sidbury Cemetery.

Rosemary Anne Scudamore. Born Oct 1931.

SCUDAMORE ROSEMARY (Anne). Died peacefully at The Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital on 28th July 2018.

Here are a few more of the family photos, these all have names on the back, although I have found a few errors on Anne’s tree sadly, where there are people with the same names but different generations, she has mixed them up. So ones that I’m not sure about I haven’t put on my Scudamore Tree because I don’t want others following the same mistakes.

The sisters Father was Arthur Douglas Scudamore in the 1939 Register he was Civil Servant (Staff Officer Ministry of Transport) Among the ephemera in the box was his birth certificate.

Above two photos of Arthur Douglas Scudamore as a child. Then also we have below his marriage to Dora Sarah Johnson, the sisters Mum, on 18 June 1921.

We also have a photo of an adult Arthur Douglas Scudamore here below:

There are also many more modern old photos, this one above taken on 27 July 1933 it says Granny & Grandad (Harry & Dorcas Johnson) Major (the Dog)Mum (Dora Sarah Johnson)& an unknown man.

Here’s a few more of the more modern photographs with names on:

Then above, going back another generation we have Arthur Douglas’s father Arthur Charles Scudamore and his marriage to Amelia Maria Tiley, the sisters Paternal Grandparents on 13 April 1879.

The couple below are the three sisters Paternal Great Grandparents, parents of Amelia Maria Tiley, Mary (Wiltshire) and James Tiley who’s occupation was a Butler.

My feeling is that this photo above was taken about 1886, so could maybe be her first born Mabel Helen, she would have been pregnant with Agnes, born at the end of 1886, at the time.

What a wonderful telegram to have kept ‘Many thanks for a Granddaughter’ it must have been sent by Arthur Charles Scudamore on the arrival of Mary Doreen Scudamore born May 1924, the first of the three sisters.

This is a beautiful photo of Arthur Charles Scudamore and his wife Amelia with their fifth and only surviving child as a baby Arthur Douglas Scudamore, the sisters father. The couple had four previous children, one daughter and three sons, three died as babies and one boy died aged 6 years old, five years before Arthur Douglas was born on 10 Nov 1896.

One of my favourite old photos is this particular CDV below left, named, of Sarah Scudamore 1835-1915, she married a chap called William Henry Symes 1835-1895 on the 12 August 1865, so this could possibily be around that time of her wedding, she was 30 when she married, Sarah was the sister of William Scudamore, who married Sarah Elizabeth Glass, and were another of the three sisters Great Grandparents. The photo on the right is William Henry Symes her husband, I have found no children for this couple.

Here now are some of the lovely Cabinet Cards in the family collection:

There are also several family letters that have been kept in the collection, some are really nice:

Below is a photo of her gravestone, she buried with two of her young children Leonard Charles 1888-1888 4 months old and Arthur Reginald 1884-1891 7 years old, her first two babies that died were Amelia Florence 1880-1881 and Arthur Ernest 1882-1882.

What an emotional journey this has been researching this family, some days I have just had to set it aside for a break, my one hope is that the information and the Family Tree I have compiled will result in this lovely collection being once again back with a branch of the family, I have a couple of leads to follow up on next week, so fingers crossed! If you know of anyone that might be descendants please let me know, my email address is at the top of my blog ‘Contact Me‘

This is the direct link to the tree on Ancestry:  Scudamore Family Lynns Waffles.

I believe these photos to be the three sisters with Anne in the seperate coloured photo, this first photo on the left taken before Anne was born of Mary and Muriel(June) with their Mum and Dad, Arthur and Dora.

For goodness sake people, PLEASE, PLEASE nominate someone to be custodian of your family treasures when you can no longer look after them! Or else they will end up in the hands of a stranger at a car boot sale or an Antique Fair, Fleamarket or shop.

Here is the second Blog about Ann, with Updates, I wrote in 2020: Ann Scudamore Part 2 Blog

Till next time then………