Sarah LIDDAMORE

1859 - 1953

Written by her daughter Louisa Chapman.
 
Mother's father was Head Gamekeeper to the Duke of Grafton (Euston Hall, Suffolk), her brother-in-law (Edmund SYMONDS) keeper at Holkham Hall (Norfolk). She went to keep house and look after his two children when her older sister Hannah died, and her younger sister Mary Ellen (Aunt Nell to us) went with her and taught small children from the Estate in a room provided by the Countess of Leicester. Mother still has a fine woollen paisley shawl given to Nell (Mary Ellen) by the Countess. They both left when their brother-in-law wanted mother to marry him, and went to London 'in service'. 
Then mother tried nursing at St. Georges Hospital but her country roses soon faded and she was sent to take sea salts at Margate. But she was not to return to London as she met an Isle of Wight railwayman (George Newnham) when working at Cosham near Portsmouth with a distant cousin who kept an ale-house for dockyard workers who were able to buy drinks on their way to work in those days. We did not learn much about their life together as mother was reluctant to talk of her first husband in the home of her second. In any case it was a very short association. She had only lived on the Island (Newport or Rhyde) as a married woman for three months when her husband suddenly died after an attack of influenza . His mother and sister appeared so jealous of her that she walked out, leaving the contents of the little home for them to squabble over, only taking with her the black marble clock, which was still in my old home when I left to get married in 1924, and for years after that. 
The next big change for mother was to Cane Hill Coulsdon as a nurse in the big Mental Hospital there, transferred to the Holloway Sanitorium at St. Anne's Heath, Virginia Water, and met there dad's two sisters Betsy and Jenny. They were also on night work, and consequently I presume mother became aquainted with their brother William. Her first married name was Newnham (no issue); her second Chapman.
She was always of an independant frame of mind and voted Liberal in spite of my father, who voted Conservative under the well known views of the Countess (de Morella) of Wentworth, where he was employed. My sister Dorothy and I had to make red & yellow rosettes for work people to wear. This reminds me, that before the school sports which took place in the Vicarage yard (now taken into the Churchyard), we girls at school had to cut coloured stiffened muslin and sew it up into small bags for sweets which were given to each child before going home. Mother sent us with enamel mugs for our tea, which annoyed brother Will so much that he kept dashing the offending object on the ground all the way to the field! He was a good natured big brother and always put a bar of chocolate by our pillows on his return from the little Egham Cinema, the Gem, on Saturday evenings, but he did exhibit temper when things went wrong eg. he would throw his beloved cycle down when the first attempt at mending a slow puncture proved unsuccessful.
We had candles to take to bed, but the living room was well lit by a double-burn hanging lamp. This was bought by mother when she realised how dangerous the standing lamp was as the table was covered in the afternoon and evening when the meal had been cleared away by a red chenille cloth edged with bobbles so attracrtive to little fingers.

Perhaps an added attraction to my mother was the fact that William was a gamekeeper as her own father and all four brothers folowed the same occupation. The family records, ranging from 1853 to 1884, are written in a copy of the New Testament bought by my mother from the old home in Suffolk after her mother's death.
Anna (not Hannah) Liddamore, July 6th 1853 (inseerted below this entry the sad note Died September 30th 1879): William - Jany 10th 1855 : George - born Sep. 22nd 1857 : Sarah (our mother) - born Oct 3rd 1859 : James - born Dec 20th 18861 & died July 25th 1870 : Ellen - born Feb 10th 1864 : Anne - born May 6th 1866 : Harry - born October 16th 1868. - - - (Anna's children?) Anna Louisa Symonds born Nov 12th 1875 : William James Symonds born Aug 3th (sic) 1878. - - - James Liddamore Feb born 17th 1828 : Maria Goddard born Nov 9th 1831. - - - Robert James Liddamore born Mar 10th 1884. 
We know nothing more of Robert, but he may have been the illigitimate son of Ellen. She called herself Mary Ellen in later life, but was just Aunt Nell to us; was much attached to her mother & visited us two or three times a year; married very late in life and lived in rooms at Ocklynge, Eastbourne. Died in a nursing home at Haywards Haeth, very sad and confused.

I, the third child, was born in a keeper's cottage at Callow Hill, but removed to Bagshot Lodge on the main Southampton Road from London, a milestone just nearby proclaimed the fact that it was 21 miles from Hyde Park Corner, definitely count.. in those early years of the century. Dad was night watchman at 'the big house' then so mother and we three children were responsible for opening the big gates when the family went out or visitors came in, during the day. Keys hung in the porch.

Notes
1. Questionable that her Father James was Head Gamekeeper. 1851 census a Gardener, 1861 a Gamekeeper, 1881 a Rat & Mole Catcher.
2. Edmund SYMONDS - 1881 census shown as a Vermin Killer, residing at No 93 New Holkham.
3. 1881 census show the two girls at Holkham with Edmund Symonds, Sarah described as a Housekeeper, Mary E. as a Visitor.

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