"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 8

The Addams

Aunt Char. often went to London to stay with her Aunt Charlotte Mrs, Addams, her mother's sister.  She was one of the Miss Bishops,  Two had married Addams and two had married Hartleys. This makes the family relationships rather complicated,  (Note 7),

Dr. Addams who one of the Miss Bishops married was a  Q,C. and a most brilliant man.  It was said that he would have been made a peer but for his appalling temper.  When driving in his red robes on the way to Doctor's Commons and his carriage was blocked his rage was really dreadful.  He would put his head out of one of the carriage windows and in the strongest language hurl abuse at Stone his coachman - who never moved an eyelash.

On one of Aunt Char.'s visits to her Aunt, Aunt Char. eloped with her first cousin Richard Addams " I think he was 21 and Aunt Char a year or two younger,

Dr. Addams (my great uncle by marriage) was Dr. Flare in the famous novel "Ten Thousand a Year".  He was quick and witty and extraordinarily clever.  On one occasion he was having an argument with legal men who did not take his point of view.  He called out "I am a Triton among minnows".  Lord Brougham answered quickly with his ready wit "I have not much knowledge of heathen myths, but I fancy a Triton is a creature always depicted as blowing its own trumpet,"

Dr. Addams lived in a large house in Marylebone Road, then a fashionable quarter.  Here he kept great state keeping a butler and footman and so on.  The old butler had been there until he was hoary with years.  Dr. Addams spoke so quickly one could  hardly follow him, Old Brown drawled out every word with an impassive and unchanging face. Ay cousins told me their conversations were funny beyond words.

The Doctor went on Sundays to church.  He read the prayers aloud a good sentence in advance of the padre and when he himself had finished he shut his book with a bang in the middle of the service.  He would say in a somewhat subdued voice, "That's for dinner Bell?"  She was his last surviving daughter and kept house for him.  "Duck and green peas Father" in a whisper.  "Duck and green peas - a very good lunch too".  Poor Bell, she must have suffered acutely.  Coming out into the crowd by the door he would proddle the fine ladies with his stick to make room for him and hurry them up,

Dr, Flare was indeed a terror.  He was wealthy and brilliant and I suppose that covered his eccentricity to a large extent.  He seems to have been very sweet to Aunt Char. after the shock of the elopement simmered down.  Her husband (my Uncle Richard, who was of course by Father's first cousin too) was an absolute dear.  He and Aunt Char. had six children rapidly following each other, and their faithful old nurse used to say - "Never mind.  The sharper the shower the sooner it's over."

I first stayed with Aunt Char. when I was nine years old.  Her two sons, Jim and Dick, chose to live a free country life in Yorkshire near us, rather than live in state in the splendid house Uncle Richard had bought.  It was 79 Addison Road, Kensington,  They preferred their fast-trotting cobs to their father's carriage and pair, which Stone drove until /unt Char, was a very old lady.  Finally the family of Addams pensioned him.  Naturally then he lived I think to be quite 90, and Aunt Char. into her 90th year.  She lost five of her six children before she herself was given peace.  She was a dear thing and a perfect picture, She finally lost the use of her legs and used to be carried'  up and downstairs and also into the carriage for her daily drive - she had a bell always by her side - and one day she rang and rang - and in a house full of servants nobody heard or came.  She had not walked for two years, but she got up, tore across that big dining room, down the hall to the top of the kitchen stairs and in a voice of thunder called the servants. Then I came on the scene a terrified group surrounded her while she scolded them for the "impertinence" in not coming.  She never walked any more.

Uncle Richard used to be wonderful to me when I went to stay at nine years old.  He used to take me out for the day and let me do exactly as I liked and stuff tarts and things to my heart's content in the Baker Street Bazaar (long since demolished).  He told me I could choose anything I liked,  I was absolutely thrilled but also overcome.  I longed for a round brooch on one of the long tables set out with tempting things - but it was I feared too expensive.  It was silver with Scottish pebbles in the middle, a large cairngorm all dazzling yellow.  Oh I dare not choose it lest I was too greedy, but the kind uncle guessed and bought it,  I think it cost 3/6d, but that was wealth indeed,

I used to stay in the housekeeper's room while the others dined " then I had a smart frock put on and went up to dessert.  Now I came in for my own, for Uncle and Aunt let me have anything I fancied and I had a royal time.  I took presents back home to my family and came back feeling I had indeed seen the world and was very superior.

Poor old Uncle died of a paralysed throat and in the midst of great luxury almost starved to death.  He was a King's proctor and received a pension of £700 a year, when King's proctors were abolished.

The only son (or child) who survived Aunt Char. was her first-born, James Bishop.  He married first Gertrude Henderson, the daughter of a Colonel Henderson,  She died leaving one little boy, who was never really right and only lived to be eleven,  Jim married for his second wife Amy Hartley, a fine handsome sweet woman - the daughter of Dr. Joshua Hartley of Malton,

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