12
Sep
2021
Ratlinghope 1899
A small packet of loose photos, labelled ‘Ratlinghope 1899’ exists among the box of Downing archives. Continue reading →
08
Aug
2021
Eleanor Gill Welch
Eleanor Welch was born in Handsworth on 15 Dec 1884. She appears in three photos taken by Mary Downing in the late 1890’s. Up until about 1895 the Downings lived in Church Lane Handsworth around half a mile from the Welch household. Continue reading →
06
Aug
2021
William Lyon Browne
William Lyon Browne was born in about 1845 and was a corn merchant from Shrewsbury. He had extensive business dealings with William Edmund Downing and the Downing’s malting business. This included social gatherings and shoots in Church Stretton and Ratlinghope from about 1880 to 1900. Continue reading →
05
Aug
2021
Caroline Hamilton Herbert
Carrie Herbert was born in London on 18 Apr 1873. She features on a number of early Downing photos, taken by Mary Downing in the 1890’s. Continue reading →
14
Jul
2021
Hubert (Hugh) Broughton Showell
Hugh Showell was the son of John Henry Showell, the younger brother of Hannah Pitt Showell. As such he was a first cousin to Noel Downing. His maternal grandfather was William George Webb of Wordsley, Stourbridge, famous and wealthy for the Seed Business that bore the Webb name. Continue reading →
27
Jun
2021
Manor House, Ratlinghope
Photographs show that the Downing family had a developed pattern of making visits to Ratlinghope in Shropshire from as early as 1899 right up to 1939. Continue reading →
03
Mar
2021
16 Woodbourne Road, Edgbaston
The first family home of the Noel and Molly Downing was 16 Woodbourne Road, a large house in Edgbaston. The house is situated within two miles of both the centre of Birmingham and the Downings’ Maltings in Smethwick. Continue reading →
02
Mar
2021
47 Selwyn Road, Edgbaston
The family of Noel and Molly Downing lived at three addresses in Edgbaston and Harborne from 1919 to 1945. For about eleven years, 1919 to 1930, they lived at 16 Woodbourne Road. Continue reading →
24
Feb
2021
Major Bill Shaw, DSO
William Shaw was born on 1 Jun 1878. He served in the Navy (to 1908) and the Field Artillery (First World War) and was a good friend of Noel Downing‘s family. Continue reading →
07
Feb
2021
Joyce Mabel Foulds
Joyce Foulds was born in 1913, the daughter of a surgeon in the Royal Army Medical Corps. She married Archibald Agard Evans on 20 Aug 1938. Continue reading →
07
Feb
2021
Nancy Merrial Grazebrook
Nancy Grazebrook was the oldest child of Willie Grazebrook and Daisy Downing born on 5 Feb 1905. She lived to the age of 95. Continue reading →
06
Feb
2021
Rastit Family of Marseille, Sep 1938
Pamela Downing spent nearly four months in France between 1 September and 20 Dec 1938. A number of annotated photos have survived. Continue reading →
01
Feb
2021
Hélène Fruytier (née Cordier)
Hélène Cordier was born in 1917 and spent time in England in 1936 and 1937, some at the home of the Downing family. She became a lifelong friend of the eldest daughter Pamela Downing. Below are some photos that have survived. Continue reading →
22
Jan
2021
Aileen Mary Moriarty
Aileen Moriarty was a nurse, who served alongside Molly Evans and Clarice Molloy at the Queen Alexandra Hospital at Dunkirk, 1917-1918. Her father Arthur Stephen Moriarty, an Indian Civil servant, had died in 1900 when she was five. The Moriartys were Oxford educated, half Irish, born in France and Catholic. Aileen’s uncle, Louis Martin Moriarty (1855-1930) was French master at Harrow School and seemingly the only teacher who Winston Churchill got on with! Continue reading →
16
Jan
2021
Mary Elizabeth Segrave (née Dehane)
Mary Elizabeth Dehane was the first cousin of Henry Evans. After the Evans family left Pendeford Hall in about 1860, the bachelor Henry continued to live in the Tettenhall Road with his mother, Mary Evans, nee Shaw-Hellier. Mary Elizabeth Dehane had married Captain Henry Segrave of Ely House, Tettenhall Road on 21 Nov 1850 and were close neighbours as well as cousins. Continue reading →
13
Jan
2021
3 Paragon Buildings, Cheltenham
For nearly twenty years a number of the Marten family lived in Cheltenham, in a place they called ‘Lamberhurst’. It was in fact part of a Georgian Terrace in Bath Street called 3 Paragon buildings. Significantly, it was very close to Cheltenham College, the boys’ school. Continue reading →
10
Jan
2021
Mary Elizabeth Lloyd (née Edginton)
Mary Edginton was the youngest daughter of Robert William Edginton, an Edgbaston Doctor and Elizabeth Baker Showell, his wife. She was born on 10 Jul 1890 and married Ernest Robert Vivian Lloyd in 1918. She was a first cousin to Noel Downing. Both their mothers were daughters of the brewer Walter Showell. Continue reading →
08
Jan
2021
Mary Lucy Segrave (née Harwood)
Mrs Segrave appears on two photos in the family albums. She was an American born in Baltimore, Maryland in about 1865 and married Charles William Segrave on 27 Apr 1893. Continue reading →
05
Jan
2021
George MacPherson of Edinglassie Lodge
George MacPherson was born on 28 May 1851 in Edinglassie Lodge, Aberdeenshire. He became an Ironmaster and industrialist based in the West Midlands, living in Lloyd House, Penn. Continue reading →
01
Jan
2021
Elizabeth Dekeuwer
Isbergue Marie Elizabeth Dekeuwer was born on 7 Aug 1900 near to Dunkirk, France and came to England as a Nanny to the young Downing family in Edgbaston in the 1920’s. She was affectionately known as ‘Nan’ and features in numerous family photos. Continue reading →