Wednesday 15th January 2014
Bruce Chan, who lives in Toronto, Canada, writes ~
Hello, Mr. Howell,
I read the passage you cited from your book, Yesterday’s Warminster with much interest.
I have been doing research about Robert Henry Artindale in regard to his career in Shanghai from c.1870 to c.1890 during which he was a successful businessman and a prominent figure in the International Settlement there. While in China, he went into a relationship with a Chinese woman and they had two sons — Thomas Henry and George Richard. The younger George married an aunt of mine in Shanghai. He didn’t seem to have maintained any contact with his Chinese partner and hybridized children. It was only recently that I came upon materials on the Internet about his marriage to a young woman in London, and then about his relocation to Warminster via your website. I guess this past life of Mr. Artindale was unknown to his English friends.
As you are a local historian of Warminster, I am writing to seek your assistance in clarifying a mystery. According to the 1901 and 1911 Censuses, RHA was listed as living apart from his wife who was living in London (the former Mabel Ilma C. Handley), though both were entered as “married” and “head of household”. However, the Warminster Dewey Museum has online information indicating that Mr. and Mrs. Artindale was living at East End House, Warminster in 1911 and showing 2 photos of their housemaids and a boy in c.1930.
I would be very grateful if you could help me solve this puzzle, and also if you could locate a photo of Mr. and Mrs. Artindale.
Yours truly,
Bruce Chan
Toronto, Canada.
Danny Howell replies ~
To my knowledge, I can tell you that Robert Henry Artindale was born in 1846 at Habergham Eaves, Burnley, Lancashire, UK. He was the son of Robert Artindale and Charlotte Artindale (nee Thompson).
It seems that circa 1871 he was friends with a couple who had a baby daughter. Strange to say, he told the couple that one day he would marry their daughter. And he did. Her name as you know was Mabel Ilma Handley. She was born in Lambeth, London.
Robert Artindale went to China, where, you are telling me he married a Chinese woman and had two sons.
Robert Artindale returned to England circa 1890 and at the time of the 1891 Census he was living at 161 New Bond Street, St George Hanover Square, London, Middlesex. He married Mabel Ilma Handley (the girl who he had first seen when she was a baby), at St George Hanover Square London in 1891. She was then aged about 20.
Robert Artindale was a very wealthy man, able not to have to work again and with enough money to acquire his homes and cars, employ servants and spend his time doing whatever he liked in his role as a gentleman, mainly fishing and other country pursuits. In keeping with his status as a gentleman he would have had two homes, his main residence being his house outside of London in one of the shires, in his case Wiltshire, and his other residence being in London where he would go, usually taking his servants with him, when the London season prevailed.
Prior to living in Warminster, at East End House, 2 East Street, Mr. and Mrs. Artindale lived in a country house at Fisherton Delamere, a small village 10 miles east of Warminster, adjacent the A36 road near Wylye in the Wylye Valley. They had a considerable staff there.
Mr. Artindale would have from time to time gone up to London, sometimes with her and sometimes without her, although I have a good idea he preferred to be in Warminster. Mrs. Artindale liked to go to London to go shopping. She may have stayed on those visits in Mr. Artindale’s London residence if he still had one or she may have stayed with her brother Arthur Handley because he lived in London, or she may have stayed at an hotel. At the time of the 1911 Census (2nd April) she was staying at The Berkeley Hotel, 77 Picadilly, London, no doubt on one of her stays in London.
I can, however, assure that you that they did live together as man and wife, certainly during the 1920s and early 1930s (he died in 1933); their main residence being East End House in Warminster. They are remembered as an odd couple and of course, there was a considerable age gap (about 25 years) between them.
In 1988 I made a tape-recorded interview with Marjorie Yeates who in her younger days worked as a servant for Mr. and Mrs. Artindale at East End House, Warminster. I published the transcript of that interview in one of my books Remember Warminster Volume One. I have this morning added that transcript (in three parts) to my website, so that you (and now my readers everywhere) can read it online. I am sure you will find it a fascinating insight into the Mr. and Mrs. Artindale’s marriage and how they lived. To read it, click on this link:
http://www.dannyhowell.net/1988/05/life-with-artindales-at-warminster-by.html
The photos in the Dewey Museum, Warminster, are ones I donated to it. I have photos of Mr. and Mrs. Artindale, their staff and East End House, which I will add to my website in the next few days.
East End House no longer exists. It was demolished in the late 1930s. Its site and its extensive grounds are now occupied by a housing estate called East End Avenue. My mother, now in her 90s, remembers the house and gardens because as a child she lived in a small street off the opposite side of the road. As a child, she and her friends, would go into the grounds of East End House and “scrump” i.e. help themselves, to apples off Mr. Artindale’s trees until his gardener would spot them and chase them out. Every winter Mr. Artindale would generously donate coal for fuel to the poor people who lived in my mother’s street.
Robert Artindale died on 31st January 1933. He is buried in our local churchyard, St. John’s Church, Boreham Road, Warminster. He was a generous benefactor to that church. Probate for his will was granted at Winchester to Arthur Edward Handley, Jacob Kelk Marshall gentleman, and James Finch solicitor. Mr. Artindale’s estate came to £41,168 6s. 11d.
Mabel Ilma Artindale’s death was registered in the Hove, Sussex, registration district in 1948.
I hope all this answers your questions and that the interview I made adds more.
All for now, do keep in touch, and I will email you the links to the photos in due course.
With best wishes, Danny Howell.