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My Grandmother – Lucy Vipond (Adamthwaite) Mawson

I will refer to my maternal Grandmother as Lucy to avoid confusion, although my brother and I called her Nanna. My great Grandmother Leeanna was always known as Grandma.

Lucy was petite, only 5 feet 2 inches tall, with very small hands and feet, In fact her shoes were only size “2”, which meant that the only shoes she could ever find were salesmen’s samples. She was a very warm loving person with unusual blue grey eyes. Always well dressed she never went out with out a hat. She had fine white hair; “thin and miserable” was how she described it, and the bane of her life. As it was as straight as a poker, she slept with the sides twiddled up in rags.

The photo on the right shows Lucy at school – she is in second row down, fourth from right)
Although not strictly a Cockney, [she wasn’t born within the peal of Bow bells] she had the wit and humour for which they are renowned, no one ever got the better of her verbally. She would often play the piano, was an avid reader she loved the cinema and gardening. Her favourite flowers were fuchsias and roses. In the summer there was always a large hanging basket in the porch of our house full of red geraniums white alyssum and blue lobelia. Lucy was forever rushing outside with a bucket and spade when the coalman’s horse and cart passed hoping to collect any steaming piles. Her other

passions were Kenneth McKellar, particularly singing My Love Is Like A Red Red Rose, Lord Byron’s poetry and the Band of The Royal Marines playing Sunset.

Lucy was a good plain cook and for her size she had a ferocious appetite, (in that area I think I definitely take after her). She loved roast beef and Yorkshire pudding with lots of gravy. Tripe and onions or jellied eels and mash were other favourites, which I also enjoyed. I particularly remember she couldn’t abide anything fatty. As far as I know smoking was her only vice, she smoked DuMaurier Cork Tipped Cigarettes. The only alcohol consumed while I was growing up, was Port and Sherry, mostly for visitors at Christmas. She called me her Precious Lamb.

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the house in Earl's Court
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Lucy (1886 -1963)

Lucy was born in July 1886 at Stockwell London, the eldest of John Alexander Adamthwaite and Leeanna (Fairey)'s four children. Her brother, John Allen (known as Laddie) followed in 1887, a sister Florence in 1891, (who died age 5 months), and a second brother Lionel Willie was born in 1894. Lucy loved reading which sometimes annoyed her mother, so she often hid behind long drapes on a window seat so her mother could not find her. At the time of the 1901 census, the family lived at 10 Earls Court Square (see left) not far from Kensington Gardens and the Round Pond where Lucy and her brothers often played. At this time, her father John Alexander's occupation was described as 'musician and caretaker'.

Lucy attended St Mary Abbotts Higher Grade School For Girls in Kensington, one of her achievements was a prize she won for French when she was 14 in 1900. [The prize was a French Dictionary published in 1899 which I have complete with the citation] She was also an accomplished pianist; she had the honour of playing for her school at the Albert Hall. I imagine she inherited her musical talents from her father, who was a military bandsman.

In her teens, Lucy suffered very badly at the hands of a dentist. Through infection caused by the lack of hygiene in his surgery she ended up in hospital and had to have a piece of her jaw removed. This left her with a facial scar and a great fear of doctors and hospitals that lasted all her life.

Some time after 1901, the family moved to Litlington, near Royston in Hertfordshire, where they ran a pub called The Royal Oak. This was where, in 1907 her brother John Allen died of TB, he was just 20 years old.

Laddie (1887 - 1907)

Lionel Willie (1894-1979)

Royston. A couple of months later Percy came home with the news that he had enlisted in the Army to fight in the Great War. He joined the Bedfordshire Regiment, I’m not sure when but he was promoted to sergeant before leaving for France. Like so many others he was sure that “The War would be over by Christmas “. Lucy said goodbye to him on the platform at Ashwell Station in Hertfordshire. [Ironically my mother said goodbye to my father one station up the line at Royston during the Second World War when he was on his way to North Africa].

Around the same time of Laddie's death, Lucy's father John Alexander Adamthwaite deserted the family and it was believed he went off to America. It’s possible he inherited money which paid for his passage. That year Lucy began work as a ledger clerk at The Dairy Supply Company in the City of London. It was here she met Percy Mawson who was a travelling salesman for the same company.

Lucy and Percy were married in April 1912 and later that same year, sick and penniless, her father reappeared. Her mother Leeanna wouldn’t have him back so he moved in with the newly married couple at their home in Station Road in Finchley. John Alexander Ridgeway Adamthwaite died at the Workhouse Isolation Hospital in Barnet in September 1912, from TB. He was interred at St Pancras cemetery on 25th September in grave 137.

Just six weeks after her father's death, Lucy gave birth to a son, Percy Gibson Mawson. He was born on 2nd November 1912 at 88a Station Road, Finchley and his father's occupation was described as Commercial Traveller (Dairy Utensils). But sadly, little Percy died of acute bronchitis and cardiac failure at the age of two months, on 7th January 1913. Lucy spent many weeks in bed before she gave birth to my mother in June 1914. By this time, Lucy and Percy had moved to

Grandfather Percy did come home on leave once, Lucy said he was covered in lice, he had to undress outside and have a scalding hot bath before she could kiss him. I have a postcard he sent her from France, when he was wounded and recuperating in a hotel which served as a hospital. He was killed in 1916; his grave is at Bienvillers-au-bois near Arras in Northern France. There are many Military cemeteries in that area.

left: Lucy and Percy at the Abington Rectory

right: Percy's grave at Bienvilliers