MARY WALMESLEY
1890 – 1918


From the many family trees shown on Ancestry we learn that Mary was born on 24th January, 1890 in Brisbane, Australia to (Lt. Col.) Edward Joseph Druitt and Christina Mary Filumena, née Weld.

[The Australian Birth Index gives her name as Mary Magdalen Druitt but that middle name doesn’t appear again.]

She arrived in London on 10th June, 1891 and the family lived in Kensington at 91, Iverna Court.

She was married on 11th January, 1912 at Brompton Oratory to CHARLES TALBOT JOSEPH GERARD WALMESLEY (1881-1960) at a very high-class wedding attended by many nobles. After passing through a sword archway formed by members of the Berkshire Yeomanry they adjourned to the Hans Crescent Hotel for a reception.

[Further details may be found in The Globe, 11th January, 1912 , and the Newbury Weekly News and Clifton Society, both dated 18th January, 1912. The Wigan Observer of 16th January, 1912, and the NWN of 18th both give extensive lists of gifts received.]

The Walmesleys were a wealthy Lancastrian family who moved south in 1893 and purchased Inglewood House, Kintbury. CTJGW was later to inherit the estate on the death of his father, Humphrey Jeffreys Walmesley, in 1919, meanwhile the couple appear to have lived at Oak Lodge, Andover Road, Newbury. 

They had the following children:-
* Veronica Mary 1912-1927: born in Kensington, died in Bagnor, Wales. Buried in Newtown Road Cemetery close to her mother with an identical gravestone.
* An unnamed girl who was born but died within 30 minutes on 19th November, 1913. Also buried in Newtown Road Cemetery.
* Everard Jeffrey Joseph Gerard 1915-1990.
* Humphrey J. Gerard 1918-1919. He died on 17th February, 1919 at Ipswich.

MARY sadly died in the childbirth of HJGW on 3rd September, 1918 and was buried in Newtown Road Cemetery on 7th. The Reading Mercury tells us “Major Walmesley (D.S.O & M.C.), formerly of the Berks Yeomanry, who has been on active service since the outbreak of war, was unfortunately unable to return from France until after the funeral.” 

Her funeral was reported in the Newbury Weekly News of 12th September.

BDS

Post Script: CTJGW remarried in 1920 to Dorothy Mary Mayne (age 24) and went on to have five children by her.

The Inglewood Estate was sold in 1928: the house becoming a Catholic Training Centre known as St. John’s College.

He died in Plymouth on 12th May, 1960.

With grateful thanks to:-
The Wigan Local History & Heritage Society
The Hungerford Virtual Museum
Ancestry
The British Newspaper Archive

Sources: