Tracing the lost family of Lady Valerie Meux
Lady Valerie Meux and her husband, Sir Henry, had no children, and therefore no direct descendants. I suspect this is why personal documents, letters and photographs of her are few and far between. They were all probably thrown away on her death in 1910.
That does not mean she did not have relatives. She did.
Research indicates she had three sisters and two brothers - and a step brother and step sister. And it is logical that these siblings had descendants and that some may well be around today.
But who are they? And where are they?
Well, I have found a man who says he is a relative of Lady Meux. But more of that later.
Valerie was born on 27 February 1852, in Crockernwell, Drewsteignton, Devon, England, 13 miles west of Exeter. She baptised Susan Langdon on 4 June 1852.
Her parents were William Langdon, born 1824-5, and Lydia Jane née Ellis, born 1826–7. She had three sisters Elizabeth, Mary Ann and Maria, and two brothers, William and John all born between 1850 and 1857.
Valerie would later describe her father as a ‘gentleman’ on her marriage certificate. The implication was, of course, that her family was of a higher social status than they actually were. William was a butcher, as was his father, a licensed victualler (publican) and farmer. Their pub was the Golden Lion Inn, sometimes known as Langdon’s Golden Lion Inn.
In 1861, the Langdon household also included a general servant, Rebecca Counter, then 13. Ten years earlier, the 1851 Census shows William and Lydia Langdon, daughter Elizabeth Jane and a house servant, Mary Pike, living in Crockernwell in a street or area called Higher Budbroke or Budbrook.
William died in 1861 leaving Lydia with six children to look after. Lydia took over the running of the pub but, at some stage, left Devon and by 1864 was in London and married William Harding Bowden in Holborn. They had two children together – Frances, born 1867 and William H., born 1871, both in Lambeth. By 1881, Lydia and William Bowden had moved to Battersea with Frances and William. By 1891, Lydia, aged 64, had moved back to Devon and was living in Plymouth with Frances and William, both single. Lydia was now a widow again following William’s death in 1888. The date of her death remains unknown.
Valerie’s brother William married Laura Tarr in 1884 and shortly after emigrated to New Zealand where they had eight children together. He died in Ashburton, Canterbury, New Zealand. His wife died in Ashburton in 1947. It was rumoured that Valerie paid for their passage.
In 1871, John Langdon, aged 14, was living at 8 Spring Terrace, Lambeth, with his stepfather William Bowden, and his sister Mary Ann, aged 12. Lydia, his mother, is not at the address. There also no sign of her daughter Frances, born in 1867. Searches for John after 1871 have so far failed. It is possible he followed brother William to New Zealand.
By 1881, Susan’s elder sister Elizabeth, born 1850, was living in Lambeth and working as a draper’s assistant. She married Arthur George Hawkins in 1882 and by 1891 they were living in Anlaby, Yorkshire, with two children, aged three and seven.
Arthur was employed as a butcher. Elizabeth died in 1897. Arthur was found back in London in 1901 and 1911 employed as a pub landlord at the Tyssen Arms, 25-27 Dalston Lane, Hackney E8. In 1911 his three children, now in their 20s, were still living with him. In the 1901 Census, it seems that Arthur remarried after Elizabeth died. His new wife was 18 years younger than him. She had vanished by the 1911 Census.
So some of the family stayed in England, while others went to New Zealand.
And it is to New Zealand we must look to, the home of Russ Campbell, an artist, the man who says Valerie Meux is her great-great aunt. And here is a YouTube video showing Mr Campbell on a visit to the Honolulu Museum of Art, now home to James McNeill Whistler's portrait of Lady Meux. The painting is officially called Arrangement in Black, No. 5 (Portrait of Lady Meux).
I have messaged Mr Campbell so, hopefully, we may be able to find out more about what happened to Lady Meux's relatives in New Zealand. Is it possible family papers and photographs may exist?
None of Valerie's blood family were mentioned in her will, published in 1911, and there is no evidence to suggest she kept in contact with them. But she did he leave £20,000 to the ‘children of my late foster mother’. Unfortunately, she never named the foster mother.
The matter of what should happen to the money eventually came before the courts. It was argued that foster mother actually meant her real mother and Mr Justice Swinfen Eady decided that was indeed the case. Susan’s mother would have been 85, if still alive, and, therefore, would probably know the whereabouts of the ‘children’ the money should be divided among. But there is no evidence anybody ever claimed the money. It does seems odd that Valerie would specifically state foster mother if she meant mother.
Another, Lady Meux mystery which remains unanswered ... so far.
Mr Campbell also a website and you visit by clicking here ... New Zealand Contemporary paintings by Russ Campbell.
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