This second Blog about the Burke and Grubbe families is to share with you the few old photos that are largely unnamed, a mix of ones I found and ones I bought on Ebay with these four letters, I chose these four letters particularly because of their content being family related and interesting, I was also thinking they made a nice addition to the small collection of old photos relating to the families.

This CDV above looks like a Vicar, I have tried to tie in a family member from the Burke’s or the Grubbe’s with records from Oakham area to be able to identify this chap, but no luck so far, unless I’ve missed something?

This is the first letter 15 Dec 1899, written to Constance Mary Grubbe. Constance was born on 21 Apr 1859 and had a Private Baptism, often this happens just after a birth at home (this 1st Baptism was on the 3 Jun 1859 in Little Milton, Oxford) this usually happens when there is doubt the child will survive, Constance was a few weeks old by 3 June, so maybe she had become ill, often after there is another baptism in a Church after if the child does survive. As in this case, Constance had her 2nd Baptism at St George the Martyr, Queens Square, Camden, London on 2 Dec 1859. Helpfully also on the 2nd Baptism they wrote the birth date for Constance too. Here are the two records below found on Ancestry:

This first letter was written 3 days after the death of John Eustace Grubbe, Constance’s father who had died on 11 December 1899 in Southwold, Suffolk, at the age of 84. These are my photos of them both.

The letter was written and signed by Nanny Wakefield, I cannot find her listed in the 1861, 71 or 81 census records with the Grubbe family but as they had homes in London as well as Suffolk and also her Mothers family lived in Oxford she may have been known to Constance from one of these places. BUT if you look at the address Nanny Wakefield wrote from Sedgwick House, Kendal then we have the link! The Wakefield family owned that house! Here’s their family tree:

Mentioning her Mother Julia Catherine (Hall) “I would like so much to send my love to her if I may” ending in “Good bye dear Constance & I wish I could tell you better how much I feel for you, Ever yrs affect ali, Nanny Wakefield”

These two young boys above and below are unnamed, so do they belong to the Burke or Grubbe family? Both a mystery, although they look like siblings, photos taken at the same time, unless someone recognises them of course.

The second letter dated 17 May 1901 from Horsendon House is from ‘Sister Julia‘ to ‘My Dear Constance‘ Now this was a puzzle as Horsendon House was in the Grubbe family for several generations up until 1841 when John Grubbe sold it before emigrating to Canada. Constance in this letter is Constance Mary Grubbe b 1859, the same recipient as the first letter, the writer her sister Julia Harriet Grubbe was born in 1846, eldest of the 12 children of John Eustace Grubbe and his wife Julia Catherine (Hall) So what was Julia doing at Horsendon in 1901?

By reading the letter carefully I think I have worked it all out!

This is the main text of the letter: ‘I don’t think there is much to say but I think you may like a letter. It is very cold this morning & dull but I hope will get warmer by & bye. Mary has Miss Summer come over from Ashford to see her (it is now just ten o’clock) so I am going for a little walk on my own account & intend to explore the fields to Bledlow. Yesterday I had a very nice afternoon with the girls & their Governess, we went to the woods by the cross. I had tea in the schoolroom with them. Mary is very busy as usual. I am going to Ealing tomorrow afternoon. Francis seems to be getting all right but is not to return to school at all at present & then is to go to one at the seaside. Mary seems to think she would like to come & see us when the move to Easby is going on (more on the move later) & that she will like to bring Agatha but the date seems very uncertain, so we must make our arrangements & have her if convenient when the time comes. No more news so goodbye & with much love, believe me, yrs affec:t Sister Julia‘.

If you look carefully at this 1901 census below recorded on the 31 Mar 1901, just a few weeks before this letter, the family Jacques was living at Horsendon House, described here as ‘Main House’ in Horsendon. Looking through the Newspaper Archives I found reference to the Grubbe ladies attending a Garden Party and Grubbe family members at various other events in or at the house with the Jacques family, including a dedication of a window in the Church there, where there is a Grubbe window and also a Jacques window, I think that as Julia mentions staying with Mary, who is I believe is Mary Clara Jacques (Partridge) who was born at Horsendon, and obviously like the Grubbe family have strong links to the area. So I think the families are very well known to each other, not just through their links with the Horsendon Church. Here on the census also you can see who Julia likely had spent the afternoon before with, mentioned in this letter, two young girls Agatha (Agatha Mary Leonora Jaques) and Ethel, Leonard Jacques niece, and their Governess Mary P Stephens.

Interestingly in the letter, Julia also mentions a move to Easby, so looking at the 1911 census for the Jacques Family they are living in a home at Easby, Richmond Yorkshire, where Leonard Jacques was born, so he’s gone ‘home’ Their home is called Easby House/Hall, just as splendid and here’s what I found on Wikipedia that explains the history of the two families: ‘Leonard Jaques (1839–1916) was born in 1839 in Easby. In 1864 he married Agatha Eliza Boddam, daughter of Colonel Alexander Boddam-Whetham of Kirklington Hall. The couple bought Wentbridge House near Pontefract and had two sons there. Unfortunately, Agatha died in 1882. In 1885 Leonard married Mary Clara Partridge (1848–1932) who was the daughter and sole heiress of Rev. William Edwards Partridge owner of Horsenden House. When her father died in 1886 Mary inherited the Horsenden Estate and this property then came into the Jaques family‘. Another extremely well known family. Here they are in Easby on the 1911 census:

This beautiful hand coloured CDV below is also one of my finds, a member of the Burke or Grubbe family?

Just two pages of writing on this third old letter written from Risby Rectory, Bury St Edmunds on 31 October 1903. It is all about the funeral of Mary Symonds (Edwards) the wife of Edward Symonds the Vicar of St Giles, Risby, Bury St Edmonds, Suffolk.

Here are the family at the Rectory in the 1901 census. Mary died on the 26 Oct 1903.

This is some of the letter: ‘it was such a beautiful day and we lined the grave with ivy, ferns and moss and all round the top we put white flowers and maidenhair fern. Such beautiful flowers were sent, wreaths and crosses. She loved them so and now the grave is covered with them. It is quite close to the garden on the left hand side as you go to the Church, so we shall pass it every time we go to Church. It is so hard to realise it. The last fortnight has been like years, she was so good and patient and I dare not think how we shall miss her. Uncle Edward is so good. With Love. Yours affectionately, Mary Symonds.

A beautiful description wasn’t it. This written I believe by Mary E Symonds, who was Rev Edward Symonds niece, a daughter of Edwards brother, Dr Edmond Symonds who was a Doctor, Physician and Surgeon, and his wife Fanny Turtons (Archbell) who had married in South Africa in 1882. The two nieces were living at the Rectory in 1901, Mary and Cecily were both born in Orange River Colony, South Africa, it would be the obvious connection, although I have no recorded proof of this yet, just the marriage in South Africa. What had happened to Edmond and his wife that their daughters were living at the Rectory I wonder? Then when I was researching for more information I came across this super database, so here’s a full Biography all about Edmond, lovely to find he was a keen Ornithologist and they had five daughters! Link here:  Southern African Science

Now we have the last letter, the latest in date 27 Feb 1909, written to ‘My dear old Dabbity?’ written by Laurence Carrington Grubbe 1854-1912, a well known Suffolk Artist (son of John Eustace Grubbe and Julia Catherine Hall) he was writing to let his family know of his engagement to Marie Ellen Seymour Lucas 1879-1951, over 20 years his junior and also an Artist. They went on to marry just a few weeks later in London Lawrence was 54. They had one daughter Margaret Julia Marie born 17 Feb 1911. She also became an Artist.

All three family members are on the splendid Suffolk Artists Website: Suffolk Artists      here’s a copy of Lawrence’s biography “Lawrence Carrington Grubbe, was born at Southwold, Suffolk on 29 August 1854, seventh of the twelve children of wealthy John Eustace Grubbe (1816-1899), magistrate, parliamentary agent and mayor of Southwold, and his wife Julia Catherine, daughter of Revd George William Hall, DD, Master of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, who married in 1845. His father also had a house at 29 Holland Park, London where the family often resided. Educated at Eton and admitted to Trinity Hall, Cambridge on 3 February 1872. A captain in the 16th Regiment and on his retirement took up figure painting, exhibiting at the London Salon and in 1893 exhibited from 2 Margravine Gardens, Kensington at the Royal Academy ‘A Game of Draughts’ also exhibited from Southwold, Suffolk in 1907 and Hampstead, London in 1908. A member of the Ipswich Fine Art Club 1889-1905 from Southwold but does not seem to have exhibited. He married in 1909, Marie Ellen Seymour Lucas Grubbe, daughter of John Seymour Lucas [q.v.], who died in 1951. Grubbe died at his home at 96 Abbey Road, Hampstead, London on 11 January 1912, aged 57, and buried at Southwold, leaving a widow and a daughter Margaret Julia Maria Grubbe‘. Margaret married late in life to Kenneth Gilbert Hubbard when she was 63, she had no children previously.

These are two photos above, not mine, found on public trees on Ancestry, of Lawrence Carrington Grubbe. Below on the right is a portrait of Marie Ellen Seymour Lucas Grubbe, found in the British Newspaper Archives.

The letter was written to Hubert Henry Grubbe 1856-1937, who was one of Lawrence’s brothers, just two years younger than himself. Hubert never married or had any children.

The interesting thing in the letter I thought apart from the engagement was the fact that they had paid a visit to ‘Sir Walter Raleigh’s birth place and haunts’

This is some information below from the Encyclopædia Britannica

‘Sir Walter Raliegh was born about 1554 in Hayes Barton, near Budleigh Salterton, Devon, England, he died October 29, 1618 in London, an English adventurer and writer, a favourite of Queen Elizabeth I, who knighted him in 1585. He was accused of treason by Elizabeth’s successor, James I, then was imprisoned in the Tower of London and eventually put to death.
Raleigh was a younger son of Walter Raleigh (d. 1581) of Fardell in Devon, by his third wife, Katherine Gilbert (née Champernowne). In 1569 he fought on the Huguenot (French Protestant) side in the Wars of Religion in France, and he is known later to have been at Oriel College, Oxford (1572), and at the Middle Temple law college (1575). In 1580 he fought against the Irish rebels in Munster, and his outspoken criticism of the way English policy was being implemented in Ireland brought him to the attention of Queen Elizabeth. By 1582 he had become the monarch’s favourite, and he began to acquire lucrative monopolies, properties, and influential positions. His Irish service was rewarded by vast estates in Munster. In 1583 the queen secured him a lease of part of Durham House in the Strand, London, where he had a monopoly of wine licenses (1583) and of the export of broadcloth (1585); and he became warden of the stannaries (the Cornish tin mines), lieutenant of Cornwall, and vice-admiral of Devon and Cornwall and frequently sat as a member of Parliament. In 1587, two years after he had been knighted, Raleigh became captain of the queen’s guard. His last appointment under the crown was as governor of Jersey (one of the Channel Islands) in 1600.
In 1592 Raleigh acquired the manor of Sherborne in Dorset. He wanted to settle and have a family. His marriage to Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, possibly as early as 1588, had been kept a secret from the jealous queen. In 1592 the birth of a son betrayed him, and he and his wife were both imprisoned in the Tower of London. Raleigh bought his release with profits from a privateering voyage in which he had invested, but he never regained his ascendancy at court. The child did not survive; a second son, Walter, was born in 1593 and a third son, Carew, in 1604 or 1605‘. I didn’t know anything much about Sir Walter Raliegh and that he had links to Dorset where I live, always learning.

These next two CDV photos may have been friends or acquaintances, and even though we have names on them, I haven’t found a link to either family at all.

This last photo is wonderful, I love it, Grubbe family at leisure taken outdoors, photo on very thin paper and we don’t know who exactly they are, their outfits are lovely and having so many people in one photo is just great.

And so this concludes my two Blogs about the families of Burke and Grubbe, I could have written dozens of blogs about them as there is so much information out there about both of these families, but I hope you’ve enjoyed reading what I have shared with you, you never know I may come across more old photos or interesting letters from the collection on my travels.

Here’s the link to the public family tree on Ancestry: Burke and Grubbe Families

Till next time then…………….