Update: As of 21 August 2025, I’m thrilled to tell you this whole collection is now in the very safe hands of a lady and her family who are descendants📚

Chapter 7

The Ranking Family.

In the last Chapter, I ended with Emma Ranking and the photo of her daughter Lilian.

Now we shall move on to other Ranking family members that I have photos of.

Photographer Robert Faulkner (1823-1890) operated at 46 Kensington Gardens Square, Westbourne Grove, Bayswater, Kensington (on the back of the CDV below) from 1863 until the end of 1876.

Mr John YOUNG above was born in 1793 in Loddington, Leicestershire and he married Ann Mary RANKING on 26 June 1839 in Lewisham, Kent. As you can see from this marriage certificate below a George Ranking officiated at the marriage, I believe this to be Ann Mary‘s father George. John Young‘s father was also a Clerk and another John Young.

Ann Mary’s parents were George Ranking and Hannah HUNTER, they had married on 6 January 1785 in Holborn, Middlesex.

As you can see this couple married late in life for the times and I have been unable to find any children for them. On the 1851 census John is described as a Barrister, not in practice and then by 1861 again says a Barrister, not in practice but now he is a Magistrate for the County of Northamptonshire. This is the most probable death for him on 19 August 1867 in Tilbrook, Bedfordshire, at the age of 74. As you can see it just says ‘Gentleman’ with the Doctor present so I cannot be absolutely sure this is correct, but the most likely that I have found. Mr John Young is a very common name!

Ann Mary Young (Ranking) died on 2 March 1871 and left what she had to her nephew Augustus Ranking.

Augustus was one of her brother John‘s children, maybe a favourite. Ann Mary had two brothers George b1792 named after their father and John b1796/7, John was the only one of the three siblings to have children, he married Rosa Harvey (18 Oct 1805-5 Dec 1865) on 24 Nov 1824 in Norwich, Norfolk and the couple went on to have 7 children, family group sheet below, their only daughter, Emma, who I showed you the photo of in my last Chapter, was the Grandmother of Edith Cavell. John Ranking is described as a Merchant on census records.

Isn’t it just fabulous to be able to see the couple above!

Sadly by the time of Ann Mary‘s death in 1871, four of John and Rosa’s sons had died, leaving 2 sons Harvey and Augustus and 1 daughter Emma, who was the Grandmother of the paternal line of my couple. Rosa died on the 5 December 1865, she had already lost three sons, Gerald in 1854, Ernest in 1857 and George Edgar just a few weeks previously on the 8 October 1865.

The year after Rosa died another son John Harvey Ranking also died. In January 1868 John Ranking married again to Frances Eliza FEILDEN (1809-1889) in Hatfield, Hertfordshire. Frances was a widow previously married to Andrew Hamilton, they had had several children. John died on 24 February 1870 in Streatham, Surrey, at 73.

Next, we do have a CDV of Rev John Harvey Ranking the eldest of John and Rosa‘s children.

John Harvey RANKING was born in 1829 in Clapham, Surrey. He married Julia Louisa CRICKITT on 18 June 1858. He died on 14 March 1866 in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, at the age of 37, just a few months after his mother Rosa. I had to know why he died at such a young age and it was sadly Typhoid Fever, via the digital death certificate below. I found no children of the couple.

This next hand-tinted/coloured CDV is just delightful, there is her full name written on the back Constance Maud RANKING who was born on 30 March 1862 in Tooting, Surrey, so she’s likely about two to three years old in this photo her father was Harvey Ranking (he was a Foreign Merchant and Land Proprietor) another of John and Rosa‘s sons and her mother was Margaret Blake HUMFREY. Constance Maud had four brothers and three sisters.

Constance Maud died on 19 June 1882 in Maidenhead, Berkshire, at the age of 20, and was buried in Hitcham, Buckinghamshire. What an awful tragedy for someone so young, suffering for three months with ‘Tubercular Disease of the Brain’ which from what I can find out is likely to be ‘Tuberculous meningitis’ 

Next a beautiful Cabinet Card photo of Margaret Blake Humfrey, the wife of Harvey RANKING they had married in January 1860 in Norfolk, maybe this photo was taken before or just after the ceremony.

The newspaper report of the couple’s marriage on the 17 January 1860 at Wroxham, Norfolk. With the marriage by Harvey‘s brother Rev John Harvey Ranking.

If you take a look at the family group sheet below for Harvey and Margaret you will see that their Mothers have the same surname, Harvey, and yes they are sisters, making Harvey and Margaret first cousins.

The couple had eight children, one being little Constance Maud above. Family life wasn’t kind to them at all, before her death in 1927, Margaret had lost six of her eight children and George Harvey Ranking was killed in World War 1🌹 the last of the six. This is his grave at the Hermies British Cemetery, Pas de Calais, France. Four others were killed on the same day and are buried in the Hermies Cemetery, SERGEANT D GRIFFITH, Service Number: 16884🌹 PRIVATE J GIBSON Service Number: 15037🌹 PRIVATE J M BUCHANAN Service Number: 27418🌹 and DRIVER BERNARD HENRY Service Number: 92839🌹

“Source information. ID: 6640056
Reference: 1911gbc
Title: 1911 England, Wales & Scotland Census Transcription
Connected by: Brenda34854 on the CWGC website and IWM Lives of the First World War.UPP: GBC/1911/RG14/01965/0075/1
Brenda34854 has added all this additional information:
In 1904 George Harvey Ranking was ordained at Winchester Cathedral, becoming curate of Farnham, Surrey.
On 27 Nov 1906, he married Violet Evelyn Paget at the Parish Church of St Andrew, Farnham, Surrey.
In 1907 he became curate at Lambeth Parish Church. Four years later appointed curate-in-charge of All Saints Church, Woodlands, near Adwick-le-Street, and became the first vicar there in 1914.
From 1915 to 1917 Vicar of Parish Church of St Margaret, Fernhurst, Sussex. In March 1917 appointed Chaplain (4th class), to the Forces and crossed over to France.
George was killed instantaneously by a bursting shell, while carrying comforts to the wounded, near Havrincourt Wood, on the first day of the advance on Cambrai, on 20 Nov 1917. (Battle of Cambrai)

At the time, letters from the Rev Ranking from “Somewhere in France” were published in the Fernhurst Parish Magazines. (From records held in The Fernhurst Archive, Village Hall, Glebe Road, Fernhurst, Nr Haslemere, West Sussex, GU27 3EH.) Credit: © The National Archives“

Remembered 100 years on: Rev George Harvey Ranking

Harvey and Margaret’s two remaining children Rosa Isabel (1867-1945) and Florence (1873-1955) both married, Florence to Arthur Farquhar CHILVER, a Solicitor, they had two children, Guy Edward Farquhar Chilver 1910-1982, became a Professor of Classical Studies, University of Kent at Canterbury, England, 1964–76, was Author of “Vespasian” in Oxford Classical Dictionary and others. Their daughter Pricilla Margaret Chilver married a Solicitor Brian Davidson.

Rosa Isabel Ranking married Walter Dahlmann Rawson LUMBY on 19 April 1906. Walter was the son of Joseph Rawson Lumby, an English cleric, academic and author, more here:   Joseph Rawson Lumby. Walter was 17 years younger than Rosa, and they had two children, I was astonished when I saw that he had died as a young father on 18 July 1909. He was only 25. Luckily the British Newspaper Archive explained:

At the time of Walter’s death, the couple had one son Roland John Rawson Lumby (1907-2002) (Roland became an Engineer) and Rosa was 7 months pregnant with their second son that Walter was never to meet, Esmond Walter Rawson LUMBY was born on 27 September 1909 he died in 1972. On the National Archives site, I found: “Papers of Esmond Walter Rawson Lumby (1909-72), India Office official 1934-48, lecturer, Royal Naval College 1948-68, including copies of official information summaries on India, Pakistan and Burma, and papers relating to his book ‘The Transfer of Power in India’ (1954)“.

In the 1911 census below we can see quite clearly that Rosa certainly wasn’t short of money after his death, which would have been a huge help as a widow bringing up two young children, so I would think she faired much better than most others in the same situation back then, but money, as they say, isn’t everything and it’s such a tragedy that Walter and his boys never got to know each other.

Back in Chapter 5, I shared a lovely CDV of a young lady of a young lady “M.R. Oct 1865. by Edward William Michael Foxlee, 98 Cheapside, City of London, England.” If you compare very carefully the photo of the lady on the Cabinet Card above I’m sure now that the MR stands for Margaret Ranking.

At this point in her life, Margaret had had four children, two of whom had died, no wonder she was looking so very sad. She had her next child in 1867.

Chapter 8 will be about Margaret Blake Humfrey and her family.

Till next time then……..