Description of documents concerning Bennett and Clare family by Angela Staniford
I've recently decided to once again browse through what stuff I was left with after 141 was emptied out, and as before got to wondering about that time when they were all young. Granddad and Millie I mean. There are quite a lot of items that shed a lot of insight into all the relationships. I think you have a copy of that photograph of a lot of the Bennet/Griffiths family don't you? The one with the numbered outlines explaining who is who? It helps a lot when you read this other stuff which is from the years 1908 to 1922 (roughly).
The earliest thing is an intriguing little post card (dated 1908) which is evidently from Millie to brother Stanley reminding him to send their mother a card for her birthday. (Nothing's changed there then). There is Will and Millie's marriage certificate from 1911. I think maybe you said that you'd sent for a copy of this? It shows granddad's father as a Gas/Stoker and yet he looks like the gaffer in that photograph we have of him at work. Collar and tie! Intriguingly the last will of Sarah Ann (our great, grandmother). It's dated February 1916 and leaves everything to Millie and she to be executor too. Isn't that strange when there was so many of them. Was Millie expected to share it out , or wasn't there anything to share? There is a typed copy of what was evidently a newspaper cutting recounting the funeral of Sarah Ann and it would seem that she too was also known as Auntie Annie. There is our granddad's discharge paper from the Territorials in April 1913. It makes them seem so close. There is Amelia's funeral bill dated 31st January 1922 showing her buried in Allerton Cemetery, Section 23 No 296. There is also Granddad's burial bill dated 31st December 1963 and with the same plot. What ever has happened to the cost of dying since then? What else, the bill for Aunty Bet's dental work in 1927. Compare that to the cost of funerals etc. No wonder Aunty Bet wouldn't go near dentists ever again. Then there is an undated Christmas card to Aunty Bet from the lady she cleaned for a couple of days a week in Ivanhoe Road. I seem to think that this lady was a doctor but maybe I've got that wrong.
A few other things are Granddad's pension credit, or could it have been a Christmas box which is dated two weeks before he died. There is a very interesting letter referring to his retirement from EDL on 7th January 1949. What do you think of the size of the fund compared to the weekly allowance? How does that compare to today? Funny, I remember him going to work and coming home for lunch when we were visiting. Looks like he worked until he was 66 if he was born in 1883. Do you have a date of birth Ron? Then there is a book of First W.W. war credits, a 141 rent book from 1936.
Now there is the poetry. In many ways they must have been more cultured than we are now it seems that loads of people did that then. I found this poetry which is very puzzling. It's dated 1910 which is a couple of years before Millie married Granddad and yet its clearly reflecting on the end of life. Hardly something that Millie would have been getting her head around as she prepared for marriage. Somebody else must have copied that out. On the internet I put in one of the lines from the poem and straight away came up with the piece , magic that facility on the internet , it was called "Marpessa" by Stephen Phillips. Mum read it and was very moved. "Look at the writing and the spelling she said that is unusually good". Actually she had a better appreciation of what the piece said than I did sobering to remember how much poetry her generation did at school compared to us. Suddenly it came to me the stories that I remembered overhearing between Dad/Aunty Bet/Uncle Charlie etc. Wasn't Sarah Ann illegitimate? Wasn't she privately educated by an unknown benefactor? Didn't she teach her minor husband, Benjamin, to read?
But no, I've just found the second poem which is dated just after the above and signed MB clearly Millie Bennett. You can see Sarah Ann's handwriting on her signature on the will is a different hand. So both these poems must have been copied by Millie (Amelia Bennett). I found this one on the internet also by typing in single lines. This one "A Women's Question" was by Lena Lanthrop, whoever she was.
I've run out of paper now so will have to stop here. There are a few other things , notably postcards written by our granddad to just about everyone at various times. These are a fascinating glimpse as to how he related to his family.
Hope you enjoy all of these,
Angela Staniford