"Memoirs of the Hartley Family of Bingley and Staveley,  Yorkshire"
by Minnie Growse (1864-1939),

Foreward
Introduction
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Low Hall
Notes
Hartley, Staveley
Hartley, Bingley

memoirs Continued 14

Frederic Hartleys

My dear Father was the last to pass over of his large family, He was the youngest to live.  He was tall and extremely handsome.  He was finely made and had beautiful long-fingered manly hands, with filbert nails.  He was very dark, and as a young man had thick rather wavy hair of a bright shade of brown.  He had brown eyes and a wonderful ruddy colour all over his face, though slightly more marked on his cheeks.  He carried himself very well and had a very dignified and aristocratic appearance,

When poor Sir Charles Slingsby was drowned, his sister the last Slingsby (Captain. Leslie's wife, who took back the name of Slingsby) offered by Father the Slingsby agency.  This was held by his grandfather James "t'owd parson of 'all", then it came to my Father, and then to my brother Fred, who still, in 1938, holds it,  (After Frederic Hartley's death, his son Douglas ffoulkes Hartley was agent to the Slingsbys until the states were wound up in the 1960s - Editor).  So ended generations of friendship between the two families.

On one occasion my father and sister Jessie were walking up  Kensington High Street, and were passing Barkers big store.  The old  commissionaire walking up and down the pavement gave a look at my  father and quickly ordered all other people off, and my father and  Jessie were the only people left and solemnly  pursued their way alone.  My dear old Daddy.  He never realized in the least what had happened  and calmly went on.  He was absolutely free from conceit of any kind  and I don't think he realized in the least what had happened and that  he had a striking appearance.  (He had been taken for King Edward).

Aunt Sarah often told me that the pretty Miss Gibbs' at the  Grange used to hide behind the curtains and call each other to look  at my Father.  "Quick, quick, he is coming,"  He was called Adonis by  some folks.  My mother was Elizabeth ffoulkes Swanwick and her people  the ffoulkes on her mother's side had known Aunt Maria-, and she asked my mother and her sister to come and stay at the Rectory and while there  she met my Father, who at once fell in love with her.  They had their golden wedding and adored each other to the last.

My beloved Mother died at the age of 76 on the 19th of November  1909, and my Father lived for one year after she left us.  He was very  ill on the anniversary of her death and we dare not mention it to him.  I went into the bedroom where he lay and found he had crawled out of his bed to get to my Mother's Church Services, which she read the very morning of her death.  This he placed on her bed just where she lay when  the call came for her.  It almost broke my heart to see it there,  I knew what my dear old Father felt - but he was to join her soon, and I am sure he realized this.  They would be together and find my baby sister Jane, and my dear brothers - Reginald, who died at school very suddenly of haemorrhage of the lungs when only 18, such a splendid fellow who was to be ordained.  Sidney who was the greatest joy to us all - a really splendid fellow physically and mentally.  He was a naval surgeon and a wonderfully popular man.-  He was drowned at sea with all hands in the Pacific en route for the Pitcairn Islands.  The blow to my parents and all of us was almost too much to bear,

(The Admiralty were absolutely callous over the loss of the Condor.  She was an old ship and had seen a great deal of war service and had just been refitted at Chatham Dockyard, and Sidney's last letter to his mother was written from there, saying she had just finished her trials.  He sailed a short time later, but she was lost with all hands. She had a well deck and the Admiralty had been warned that neither she nor her sister ship were likely to be sea-worthy.  In those days there was no radio equipment, so that no S.O.S. could be sent out, or information about her sinking could be received.  The news arrived when this writer was six,  she had never seen him, but she well remembers her unspoken reaction of furious indignation, very adult.  The carelessness of the Admiralty had meant the loss of her Naval uncle, and moreover he was also a surgeon - Editor).

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