I didn’t think Mum and Dad had had any interest in pursuing the mystery of his birth, but when Nigel sent me what documents he had gathered after Mum’s passing, I was surprised to find that, along with the original, there was a modern certified copy of Dad’s birth certificate. Having started using Ancestry.com to make some initial investigations, I was initially dumbstruck that the website only offered images of the certificate’s ledger index pages, not the certificates themselves, and if I wanted to see the details on any particular certificate I would have to pay £50 for each one. At some point, Dad’s birth certificate had been ordered, and the details were transcribed onto a modern form. This was dated 2011, so it was quite some time after Dad died.
Apart from the obvious stuff – his mother’s details and the absence of a father – the certificate gave me two valuable pieces of information to pursue.
Under ‘When and Where Born’, Dad’s birthplace was listed simply as 28 Marloes Road. A simple Google search revealed that Marloes Road was in Kensington, and that had formerly been the location of St. Mary Abbotts Hospital. Prior to 1912, the buildings had been known as Kensington Workhouse, and at the time of Dad’s birth it consisted of two elements – Kensington Institute for the former workhouse inmates, and Kensington Infirmary. Kensington Infirmary was administered by a body called the Kensington Guardians, who by all accounts were a very enlightened and socially progressive group. On either side of the turn of the 20th century, there were continuous improvements to the hospital as it transitioned away from the ‘poorhouse’ model, improvements which notably including enhancements to care for maternity cases and nursing mothers. It is highly likely that this was my Dad’s birthplace.
The second piece of information really set the ball rolling. Rose’s place of residence is given as 28 Drayton Gardens on the certificate. This is also in Kensington, and a 15 minute walk from the hospital in Marloes Road (a 5 minute drive today). But more importantly, this info would help me find clues to the philandering master of the house, from whom Dad got his incongruous name.
Researching the address, I first discovered that in 1911, the house was occupied by a Ralph and Sylvia Gosnell, and their three staff. Obviously too early to include Rose Willimer – who would have been only 15 years old – and no help in filling out the story.
However in the 1921 Census, there she was ! Listed as a servant, and residing at 28 Drayton Gardens, where the head of the house is a man called Edgar Lionel Hereford, listing his occupation as ‘composer of music’. This was not what I expected, and seemed at odds with everything I had heard about this episode. I had pictured the provocateur as a pantomime villain in a tailcoat, twirling his waxed moustache as he leaned on the mantelpiece, leering at the pretty young maid. Reverting to Google, I discovered that Edgar had left his military family in Scotland to study at the Slade School of Art, and had become quite good. In 1921 he was sharing the house in Drayton Gardens with another artist, called Rudolph Ihlee, who was much more accomplished. In 1922, the pair left England and took up residence in France, in a region called Pyrénées Occidentales. They stayed there painting landscapes of the local scenery until the outbreak of WWII.
Rudolph Ihlee is quite a distinguished artist of some renown – enough for a biography of his early life and his sojourn to France to be written recently. It also had not passed my attention that his name – Ihlee – could easily fit the description “Ely or Eli or something” which Mum had mentioned…
Rose had been living in the house when Dad was born in July 1919, and was still there during the census of April 1921, two years later. I couldn’t work out when she had arrived, but she certainly went back after her illegitimate pregnancy. Clearly there was no stigma or shame from her employer – unless the relationship was deeper than a professional one. And the phonetic nature of that name – Ihlee – was very intriguing. If only there was some way to find out more about this individual…
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