A cover addressed to Miss K. Hargrave, Broxholme Lincoln (with Waltham connections)1882.

An original cover from a letter sent from Grimsby to Miss Kate Hargrave, Manor House, Broxholme, Lincoln on 23rd December 1882. The sender remains unknown. Broxholme is a village and civil parish situated approximately 6 miles (10 km) north-west from Lincoln. Broxholme Manor Farm House, built in 1843, is a Grade II Listed Building as are nearby farm buildings.

Kate Hargrave was born in 1875 in Normanby-le-Wold, Lincolnshire. Her parents were George Henry Hargrave and Elizabeth Shipman Hargrave (née Kirke) who married in Waltham on 17th August 1871. Elizabeth Shipman Kirke (1849-1921) was the only daughter of Robert Kirke of Waltham Grange. George and Elizabeth had three children; Annie Kirke (1872), George (1873) and Kate (1875).

George Henry Hargrave died at Normanby-le-Wold on 15th January 1876, aged just 30. Kate was just a few weeks old. Mrs Elizabeth Shipman Hargrave is listed as a farmer (700 acres) at Normanby-on-the-Wolds in the 1876 Post Office Directory of Lincolnshire. Elizabeth married William Henry Twidale at Market Stainton on 18th June 1878. The family lived on the farm at Broxholme; Elizabeth’s three children and also the children she had with William at Broxholme. Lizzie, born 1879, (William) Stanley, born 1880, May, born 1881, Alice Hannah, born 1882, and Hilda Margaret, born 1883, died 1884. Another son, Harold Twidale, was born in Chelsea in 1884. Another daughter, Mary Beatrice Twidale, was born in Chelsea in 1887.

In 1888, William Henry and Elizabeth Shipman Twidale had given up farming (by 1884) and were boarding and lodging house keepers at 8 Brunswick Square, London. In 1901, William Henry was living on his own means with Elizabeth, Alice, Harold and Mary at ‘Ivy House’, Goodmanham Road, Middleton-on-the-Wolds, Driffield, Yorkshire. In 1911, William Henry was a jobbing gardener living with Elizabeth, Alice and Mary at 22 College Parade, Salusbury Road, Willesden, Middlesex. In 1921, William Henry was a retired farmer living with Elizabeth and Alice at their home ‘Oldlands’, Plumpton Green, Plumpton, Sussex. Their daughter, Lizzie Morris (née Twidale) and her husband Percival Bath Morris (born Whitby, a planter in South Africa) were visiting. (The address still exists.) (Mr & Mrs Morris left the UK on ships bound for South Africa in 1922 and 1930.). They died in Durban, South Africa in 1954 and 1965 respectively.

Elizabeth Shipman Twidale (née Kirke) died in Lewes, Sussex in 1921. It’s unknown where and when William Henry Twidale died, possibly in South Africa. ___________________________________________________

What happened to Kate Hargrave?

In 1891, Elizabeth Shipman Twidale (née Kirke) was visiting her father, Robert Kirke at Barnoldby Road, Waltham, together with her children Kate Hargrave, William Stanley Twidale, Alice Hannah Twidale, Harold Twidale and Mary Beatrice Twidale. Robert Kirke, born in Irby, was a famer and cattle dealer. His housekeeper was Anne Kirk Hargrave, Kate’s sister. (Annie Kirk Hargrave married Frank Hockney in old Clee in 1895.). In 1901, Kate Hargrave was a dressmaker boarding at 54 Upper Talbot Street, Nottingham. She was an employer. In 1911, she was a dressmaker boarding at Thorn Lea, Macclesfield Road, Wilmslow, Cheshire. It’s not known what happened to Kate after 1911.

Note: Company Sergeant Major William Stanley Twidale of the 2/7th Battalion of the Sherwood Foresters (Notts & Derbys) Regiment died of wounds in Etaples, France on 8th December 1917, aged 39.

Note: Harold Twidale emigrated to Canada in 1910. He served as a gunner with the 13th Battery, Royal Canadian Artillery. He died in Brantford, Ontario in 1964. He had two surviving sisters in South Africa (Lizzie and May) and one in England.

Note: Other ‘illustrated’ covers from the same original collection include one to Miss B. Kirke, 1 The Esplanade, Bridlington Quay (1878) and another to Miss K. Hargrave, Broxholme, Lincoln (1883), both posted in Grimsby. B. Kirke was possibly Bertha Kirke (1848-1898) of ‘The Firs’, Cheapside, Waltham, daughter of Samuel Wharton Kirke Jr (1814-1907), born in Irby and a retired hosier, of the same address. Bertha Kirke was probably the niece of Kate’s grandfather, Robert Kirke.

Was Samuel Wharton Kirke Jr (1814-1907) the mystery artist? Samuel Wharton Kirke Sr (1793-1875) was, according to his headstone, “An excellent musician of this parish” (Irby on Humber).

Research by Grimsby & Cleethorpes Museum.