Address: 43 Felton Street

Although her Birth Certificate gives her birth date as 13th May she always celebrated her birthday on the 31st May as did her twin William. They had always done so as long as she could remember and she thought that the Registrar had accidentally reversed the two figures when her mother registered her birth. Her mother was illiterate so she would not have been aware of the mistake. The probability that it was a mistake is reinforced by her baptismal record which give the date of her birth as 30th May. Her Birth Certificate shows that she was born at 5 p.m., half an hour before her twin brother William. She was very much taller than her brother and in her latter years put on weight which her brother didn't. He always looked very wiry. Alice always said when asked about their disparity in size that their sizes should have been reversed!

Address: Hoxton, London

Her twin brother William was baptised immediately after her. As well as her parents her siblings Rebecca, Caroline, Thomas, Charles, Louisa and Harriet would have been at the service but the names of the God Parents (if any) are not known.

Address: Hoxton, London

She was a firm believer in God and within the memory of her son Jack attended church whenever she could. She had brief flirtations with Spiritualism and Christian Science. The former because her first husband Horace Richmond was a Spiritualist and the second because her son Jack was sent to a Christian Science Sunday School when he was evacuated to Brighton and became a Christian Scientist until about the age of 16 or 17.

William was Alice's twin and was biptised immediately before him.

Address: Shoreditch, Middlesex

Her mother registered her twin brother William's birth at the same time

She probably started as soon as she left school at 14. It seems strange that should she should be working at an unskilled job when her mother apprenticed all her other children to skilled jobs. Perhaps she was showing already showing a religious inclination and was only filling in time until she could enter St Margaret's convent at the age of 16. Although the return does not say so she was almost certainly working at Tom Smiths at 67 Watson Street, Finsbury which is where she was working at the time of the 1921 Census. There is an interesting film on cracker making from the BFI archive on YouTube. Making Christmas Crackers (1910) although it is not from the Tom Smith factory.

In her reminiscences she never mentioned working as a cracker maker.

She was working as a cracker maker. Why she had nor been apprenticed like her siblings is not known. Perhaps she was already showing an inclination towards the religious life.

Address: East Grinstead, Kent

The reason for her entry are unclear but she would have had to be very religious and felt she had a vocation to do so. Almost certainly the arrangements would have been made through her parish priest. In the early 1900s the family attended St Saviour’s Church in Hoxton and several members of the family were baptised, presumably were confirmed and were married there. St Saviour was very High Church and was associated with the Catholic Revival within the Church of England, despite opposition from the Bishop of London, which resulted in an episcopal ban on the parish following a Corpus Christi procession in August 1917. St Saviour's became the focus for the movement for reunion with Rome known as the Confraternity of Unity when its secretariat was established at St Saviour's in 1929. The Church was badly damaged during the 2nd World War and never reopened. It is possible that the High Church ritual may have turned her thoughts towards entering a convent which was no doubt encouraged by her parish priest who almost certainly made the arrangements for her to do so. Later he became a Minor Canon at St Paul’s Cathedral. Alice's son Jack cannot remember his name but remembers meeting him when he was about 12 after a commemoration service at St Paul’s. To Jack he appeared to be very old.

Alice rarely spoke about her life in the convent but Jack had the impression that it was regimented, strict and hard. As she was not able to bring a dowry she was employed on domestic duties. Those who could bring a dowry undertook more gentile tasks such as needlework. Alice told Jack that she slept in a cell which in winter was bitterly cold; if she woke up feeling snug and warm in bed she was supposed to get out, kneel on the cold floor and say a prayer. When he asked her if she did, she replied “Of course.”

When her sister Louisa became ill with the Spanish ‘flu her father insisted that she left the Convent to help with the care of her sister’s children. Jack gathers there was an argument between her father and the Mother Superior over her leaving. She never returned to the convent and eventually trained as a midwife. Jack has been unable the determine the exact dates of her entering and leaving the Convent. He wrote to the Mother Superior on two separate occasions asking for information but never received a reply so he has had to estimate the dates from other sources. Her sister Louisa died on 28th October 1918 so she must have left the Convent around this time (she was 22 at the time). When she entered is more difficult. According to the 1911 Census (taken when she was 14) she was employed as a cracker maker. It is unlikely that the Convent would have accepted her before she was 18 and then only on the recommendation of her parish priest and with her parents’ permission; it could have been as late as when she was 21 if she entered against her parents’ wishes.

Alice is working as cracker maker for the firm of Tom Smith

She was registered with the Central Midwives Board on 9 April 1925 after sitting the CMB examination. It is thought that she trained at St Thomas' Hospital in London and on the assumption that training took 3 years she probably started in 1922.

Address: Lower Rd, London, S.E.16

Alice’s Registration Number was 65746 and she qualified by CMB Examination. However, it is not known where she trained. She talked a lot about St Thomas’ Hospital and initially it was thought that she trained there. However, she also talked about her experiences as a midwife working in Rotherhithe. As none of the residential addresses given in the rolls put her within cycling distance of Rotherhithe it is more likely that she trained at the Bermondsey & Rotherhithe Hospital and her experiences related to her final year of training or shortly after she was trained when she was still resident at the hospital or its staff accommodation. The National Archives do not hold information on where individual midwives trained.

As she was instrumental in bringing Ethel up she would have alsmost certainly been invited and would have made every effort to attend despite living in Ramsgate

Before their marriage Horace was living in rented house at 3, Hassocks Road, Mitcham. Alice and her son Jack were living in a rented house at 8 Allen Edwards Road, Lambeth which she shared with her sister Harriett (Ett), Ett's husband Edward (Will) Mackellow, her brother William (Will) and her sister by adoption Louisa (Lou) Fippen.

After their marriage Horace moved to Allen Edwards Road because Alice, who was domicilary midwife, needed to stay in the area.

The whole family moved to 25, Rhodesia Road just before the house in Allen Edwards Road was destroyed by a direct hit in the Blitz.

They moved once again to 55 Binfield Road just before the house at 25 Rhodesia Road was destroyed in a bombing raid - just as the house in Allen Edwards Road had been.

On each occasion the reason for moving was that Horace, who was a Spiritualist, had a premonition that the houses would be destroyed.

Horace died in February 1947 at Binfield Road but Alice continued the tenancy.

Address: Monkton Combe, Bath, Avon

Her husband had died intestate and although his estate was very simple obtaining probate would have been simpler had he made a will. Her son Jack who had helped his mother to obtain probate on her husband's estate suggested that she should make a will. To avoid the expense of a solicitor Jack wrote out a simple holographic will (he probably obtained the wording from a book on making a will borrowed from the library) which he read out to his mother and she signed. Because she was virtually blind she would have been unable to read the document for herself but she trusted her son.

Cause: broncho-pneumonia, cerebral haemorrhage and diabetes mellitis

Address: Limpley Stoke, Wiltshire

Her son, Jack, had visited her the day before and found that she had been moved to her old room and was sleeping peacefully having suffered a stroke a few days before. During the visit he talked to her doctor who told him that his mother was seriously ill with pneumonia; he explained that he could administer antibiotics to cure the pneumonia but the prognosis after her stroke was not good and on his advice Jack agreed that antibiotics should not be given. In arriving at this decision he took into account her probable quality of life. After her husband's death she had expressed a wish to join him on a number of occasions. She had a strong faith and was convinced that they would be reunited in heaven. In addition her almost total blindness (as a result of taking the heart drug Eraldin) meant that she could not read or watch television and, as her mind was still active, this was a source of frustration. Virtually her only contact with the outside world were her son's visits and her only source of entertainment was her radio; most of the time she listened to Radio 4 and occasionally complained about programme repeats but more often she would want to discuss something which she had heard on the radio. I think that her son's first wife, Joan, visited her occasionally but his second wife, Heather, would not accompany him on visits because she said that his mother smelt of ‘old people’.

Address: Trowbridge

Address: Limpley Stoke, Wiltshire

Her burial service was held at the church of St Mary the Virgin in the village of Limpley Stoke and she was buried with her husband William. There were few mourners; just her son Jack, his wife Heather,and his ex-wife Joan; her grandson Richard (Jack & Joan's son) and his wife Ruth; her granddaughter Alison (Jack & Joan's daughter) and a few of the staff from Waterhouse. Jack wanted to give an address on the life of his mother but Heather forbade it presumably because of the address he had given after Dad’s funeral had made it obvious that he had a good relationship with his parents whereas Heather had a poor relationship with hers. The fact that Jack was unable to give an address was a source of internal sadness as he thought so much of his mother who had been through so much for him. It was just another example of the relationship between Heather and Jack, and the extent to which he would go to keep the peace.

A few years later after jack and Heather had been divorced and Jack had married Pat, Pat encouraged him to have an inscription referring to his mother added to the headstone. The added inscription reads:

Also his wife Alice Eleanor

Born 13th May 1896

Died 17th June 1987

Her life a precious memory

Too dearly loved

to be forgotten

Her will left everything to her only son, Jack Peter William Ward. However, as she only had her state retirement pension and a small pension from the London County Council all her capital had been exhausted by topping up the rest home fees.

Horace Richmond (1866-1947)

Address: Lambeth, London

Harriet (Ett) was Alice's sister and Edward (Will) Ett's husband. Whether anyone else was present is not known.The marriage was one of convenience undertaken by Alice to 'give her son (Jack) a name'. It was certainly not for financial reasons. Alice was financially secure by reason of her job with the London County Council as a domiciliary midwife. Her marriage to Horace Richmond brought no financial advantage. Indeed Alice supported Horace who became, to use a modern term, a househusband and also created a wonderful garden. Horace was much older than Alice. Although he gives his age as 59 he was in fact 13 years older having been born in 1866.

How they met is not known - probably though an introduction agency. Although Alice had hoped to marry when Jack was sufficiently young not to remember his entry into their lives and so to accept him as his real father he does remember their first meeting. As he was only 4 he would probably not have remembered the visit except that Jack remembers Horace upsetting the teapot – probably due to nervousness – and trying to scrape up the tealeaves from the tablecloth with a knife. Whether this was also Horace's and Alice's first meeting is not known - it probably was.

After they were married Horace came to live at the house which Alice rented at 8 Allen Edwards Road. It must have been winter because Jack remembers that it was dark and he was still up. How much Horace brought with him is not known but Jack remembers a fireside chair with curved wooden arms and a backrest which could be adjusted by moving a round bar into one of three slots. Jack thought it was a new toy as it was possible, when the back was not in place, to roll the bar down the arms to where it could lodge in one of the three slots or, if it was pushed it hard enough, roll off the end of the arms – rather like a simple game of bagatelle.

Address: 8 Allen Edwards Road

The household consisted of Horace and his wife Alice, Alice's brother William and her adopted sister Louise Fippen. Just before the register was compiled 3 other members of the household – William and Harriet Mackellow, and Jack Richmond (Harriet was Alice's sister and Jack was her son) moved to Brighton to live with William’s brother and his wife (Harry & Francis Mackellow) as part of the voluntary evacuation from London.

William Charles John Ward (1897-1985)

Address: Selsey, Sussex

The best man, Jack Richmond, was the bride's son and the two witnesses were related to the bride; Louisa Fippen was the bride's adopted sister and William Dowell was the bride's twin brother and he also gave his sister away. It is thought that the ceremony was also attended by the Groom's only sister Gertrude Arnold and possibly by the Groom's friends and next door neighbours Fred and Pim Wilson. There was small reception afterwards at the Selsey Hotel and the honeymoon was spent at the groom's bungalow, Greenwood, East Beach, Selsey.