Biography of an ancestor

Ivy Grace was born on the 22 January 1898 [i], a particularly dry and mild month [ii] in Portsmouth, Hampshire. She was the seventh child born to William Henry (1863), an Inspector of Caulkers in Portsmouth Docks, and his wife, Annie Maria Frances (1864) [iii]. Ivy was born at home at 25 Liverpool Road, Fratton, Portsmouth, this being a very modest Victorian 2-bedroom terrace house in a popular area for dock workers. Ivy would have been in this house with her parents and siblings; William Alfred (1886), Annie Ethel (1887), Daisy Ellen (1889), George Archibald (1891), Maude May (1892), Elsie Violet (1894) and eventually Percival Albert (1902).   

The previous year, on the 22 June 1897, had been Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee[iv] and 4 days later on the 26 June there had been much excitement at the Spithead Navy Review[v] in celebration of this event. The Queen had been too frail to attend but the day had been presided over by the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) and there had been an unscheduled and dramatic appearance of the Turbinia [vi]. As an audacious publicity stunt, Turbinia, which was much faster than any ship at the time, raced between the two lines of navy ships and steamed up and down in front of the crowd and princes, while easily evading a Navy picket boat that tried to pursue her, almost swamping it with her wake.

Ivy grew up in, what must have been, a lively environment with so many people in a 2-bedroom home. She slept in a large bed with all her 4 sisters until they each left home, the earliest being Annie. Annie worked from home as a dressmaker until the day she was married on the 27 September 1911 to a young man who lived just 10 houses down the road. Annie came to be a favourite Aunt to Ivy’s children as Annie and Bert were never to have children of their own.

1911 was also the year that Will, her eldest brother, was married. He had moved out from the family home some years earlier to join the Royal Navy, eventually becoming Purser aboard the Royal Yacht HMY Victoria and Albert III.

When Ivy was in her teens there was a dramatic change to their family. One night, after the sisters had gone to bed, they were awoken by their father in tears. He sat on the bed and hugged them, telling them he loved them, and then left. He was never to be seen by them again and no trace has been found of him since that time.

The Great War broke out in the summer of 1914, when Ivy was 16. Most of her family were working in engineering or in the docks so were in reserved occupations. 1915 was, like 1911, to have two family weddings for Ivy; her brother George married Ada Mills and her sister Daisy married Harry New. In 1916 her sister Elsie was to marry Percy Davies and this left just Maude, Ivy and Percival at home.

Portsmouth was losing its men to the war and for the first time women were taken on in many different workforces. By 1917 there was an estimated 1750 female workers walking through the dockyard gates [vii]. One of these women was Ivy, who started work as a woman tracer in December 1916, just before her 19th birthday.

While Ivy was working in the dockyard she would have the opportunity to meet young men who were employed in work that restricted them going off to war. One of these was Fred who was working as a ship builder in the docks. Ivy and Freddie, who was 3 years older than Ivy, struck up a friendship and started courting. Freddie’s father owned a foundry in Unicorn Road[viii] and the family lived just round the corner in Unicorn Terrace[ix]. The foundry had changed from manufacturing parts for sewing machines into the manufacture of war components and his father and brother Len both worked there. Ivy would walk past the foundry on her way from home in Shearer Road to the dockyard, Unicorn Gate.

Freddie took Ivy home to meet his parents, brother Len and sister Muriel. Ivy transferred her affections to Freddie’s brother, eventually marrying Len on the 9th July 1921 [x] at St Bartholomew's Church, Portsea. Freddie must have forgiven Len for taking his girlfriend as he was a witness at the wedding, alongside Ivy’s eldest brother Will. Freddie did leave the country in July 1925 [xi] and lived in Hong Kong and China until 1935, marrying Maud in Hong Kong in September 1926.

Len and Ivy started their married life at 2 Bicton Terrace, Victoria Rd North, Portsea and it wasn’t long before Joan Ivy Grace, 2nd September 1923, and Gwendoline Mary, 7th May 1926, joined their family. By this time the family had moved to 98 Victoria Road North, Southsea. Little were they to know that their great grandson’s first property would be right behind the back garden of this house, made stranger because Gwen, his grandmother, had left Portsmouth by 1957, never to return.

The family foundry in Unicorn Road was doing well and Ivy’s Father-in-Law had purchased a car, a 1923 Arrol Johnston from Scotland, for £850 which would be around £43.5k in 2016. This car was used to go on family trips at weekends to places such as Butser Hill, part of which was owned by Len’s sister and her husband, Muriel and Ernest. Ernest had founded the Butser Turf Company in 1928 and this became a limited company in 1933.

Both Len and his father John were Freemasons and had been in the Portsmouth Lodge since 1915 for Len and 1916 for John. Their business connections enabled their business to prosper throughout both World Wars. Len’s father John died in 1932 at the age of 65 and Len took over the full running of the foundry.

Annie, Ivy’s eldest sister and 11 years her senior, was a constant visitor to the Ivy's home with her husband, Bert. Annie and Bert had married in 1911 but not had any children. They delighted in Ivy and Len’s family and were often photographed with them, enjoying their extended family. Annie and Bert went to live in Malta and this is where Bert unexpectedly died at the age of 50. Annie returned home, initially staying with Ivy and Len at 98 Victoria Road North and then moving to Portchester.

The family were to enjoy another Naval Review, the Coronation Review of 20 May 1937. This time Will, Ivy’s brother, had been through his Royal Naval service and was now retired. His ship that he had previously served on, Royal Yacht HMY Victoria and Albert III, took part in this review and it was the last before she was scrapped two years later.

Ivy, Len and their two daughters invited Len’s sister and her family and Len’s parents over for the celebrations. A photograph was taken of them all outside the house together in the sun. These relaxed happy days were not to last too much longer.

There was tragedy to come in that Annie, Ivy’s sister, devastated the family by her suicide just a few weeks after this in July 1937[xii]. Unable to live without her precious Bert who had died the year before and feeling that there was nothing left in this life for her she poisoned herself with coal gas. This was just one of the many incidents and changes to affect their family during the next few years.

Len was making numerous business trips abroad for the foundry business and often Ivy would go with him. By 1938 they made a trip to Germany and Len came back to inform his family that he believed Germany was preparing for war from what he had seen there. How right he was! On the 1st September 1939 Ivy and Len would see themselves entering the second great war of their lifetime.

By the time war broke out in 1939 Ivy’s eldest daughter was just 16, exactly the age Ivy herself had been when the Great War of 1914 had broken out. Ivy's youngest daughter was 13, both too old to be evacuated from the area even though evacuation was being carried out for this world war. Joan joined the Army and became an ambulance driver and eventually Gwen joined the Land Army.

Ivy and Len, with their daughters, decided to move further away from the dangerous dock area of Southsea during the war and in 1941 moved along the coast to Emsworth. Thanet House was a large property in a vast garden, much grander than any property Ivy had ever lived in before. It even had a lift installed within it, something not normally found in a family home. Ivy was to employ house staff in order to maintain the property and entertained her husband’s Freemason and business colleagues to ensure the on-going success of the foundry, which had helped them to afford this impressive property.

Ivy stayed at home to manage the household and was very particular about matters such as laying a table and the cutlery to use; which glass should be used for what, how to polish and clean properly and other household matters. This may have been derived from this period of her life during and just after the war, when there was a fair amount of entertaining to do. She always ensured that her daughters and granddaughters were fully conversant with the correct way to behave. Her grandsons – not so much.

During the war Gwen used to cycle up to Portsdown Hill and sit watching the bombers coming across the English Channel and over Portsmouth. Whether her mother, Ivy, knew she did this is unknown.

The war passed and life at Thanet House moved on and the family went back to peacetime activities. Ivy’s eldest daughter Joan was enjoying riding to hounds and learning to fly planes. Her youngest daughter Gwen was running Girl Guides and very active in the Church. On the 20th January 1951[xiii] Joan married an RAF pilot, John, in Warblington. On the 2nd March 1957 Gwen married a Royal Navy officer, Michael, in Havant.

The foundry however foundered and in 1950 was auctioned in a liquidation sale. Len had had an accident at the foundry and was unable to work there afterwards. The company was still advertising for labour in February but was declared bankrupt in March and was up for auction in September. What happened here is unclear as Ivy eventually sold the land in the 70’s for their first offered price of £75k. How did the foundry get auctioned off but Ivy still able to sell it years later? The foundry was Unicorn Road and the site sold was Commercial Road, just a few yards away where the Cascades Shopping Centre is now. Was only part sold to pay the creditors? Further investigation required.

In 1951 Len and Ivy moved to 67 Mount Avenue, Westcliffe-on-Sea[xiv] in a fairly affluent area so must have had some funds left. Why Essex when their family had always been in the Portsmouth area? When Len died of pneumonia at the age of 66 in 1959 it wasn’t very long before Ivy returned to the Portsmouth area and bought Whisperings, New Road in Southbourne[xv]. By this time her two daughters had their own families. Joan and her husband John had 3 children and Gwen, after having had a miscarriage in 1958 now had 2 children with a third born in 1963.

Ivy lived a fairly quiet life in the 60’s. Her daughter Joan taught at the primary school next door and Joan’s children attended the school so she could see them often. Her daughter Gwen lived in Chessington in Surrey as Michael, Gwen’s husband, was now in the Metropolitan Police having left the Royal Navy when they married in 1957. Ivy didn’t get to see this family nearly so often and as they also didn’t have a phone then communication was harder.

The 70’s saw some of her grandchildren being married and her first great-granddaughter having been born. By the time of her death of cancer of the stomach, aged 77, on 1st March 1975 she was living with Gwen and Michael in Surbiton and died in Surbiton Hospital. She was buried, with her husband, at St Thomas a Becket Church in Warblington, Hampshire.

Ivy Grace – 1898 to 1975

[i] Birth certificate – civil records

[ii] Met Office: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/pub/data/weather/uk/climate/stationdata/southamptondata.txt

[iii] 1911 census and BMD civil records

[iv] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Victoria#Diamond_Jubilee

[v] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleet_review_(Commonwealth_realms)#Queen_Victoria

[vi] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbinia

[vii] http://www.ataleofonecity.portsmouth.gov.uk/topic/shipbuilding-the-dockyard/

[viii] http://pubshistory.com/Hampshire/Portsmouth1898/UnicornUnion1898.shtml

[ix] British Phone Books

[x] Marriage certificate – civil records

[xi] Khyber, Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company records

[xii] Death certificate – civil records

[xiii] Source – Roger Thompson, Joan’s eldest son.

[xiv] BT Phone Books - 1951

[xv] BT Phone Books - 1962