Laburnum Terrace

Ethel & Georgina Rutter of 14 Gloucester Road, Thornbury

Win Jenkins told us she remembers delivering newspapers to the house when it was occupied by a Miss Rutter, a teacher at the school at Gillingstool, and her mother.  She also recalls they had two lodgers, a Miss Gale and Miss Jones, both teachers at the school.  

According to the electoral registers, the house was occupied from 1927 to 1937 by Ethel Francis Howell Rutter and Georgina Louisa Rutter. 

It was quite a struggle finding more information about these two ladies.  We discovered that Georgina Louisa was the eldest of the two, and the mother of Ethel. 

Although we never found Georgina in 1881 or 1891, we did track her down in the 1861 census which shows her as aged 8 living in Donhead St Andrews in Wiltshire, where she was born.  Her  parents were John Howell, a National Schoolmaster, Parish Clerk, and Assistant Overseer, and his wife, Jane.  Georgina also appears in the 1901 census where she is shown as living at 45 Chepstow Place, Paddington.  She was described as married, aged 48 and working as a 'monthly nurse' for Elsie Farrer with whom she was living.  Georgina's birthplace was given as Donhead St Andrews, Wilts.  There was no sign of her husband or children. 

We found the marriage of Charles Joseph Rutter and Georgina Louisa Howell in Wakefield in September quarter of 1873.  We also appear to have found an unusual reason (given below) why the family did not live together.

Charles Joseph Rutter was born in Peckham Rye, Surrey, and in the 1871 census, two years before his marriage, he was working as a corn merchant's clerk and boarding at a house in Wakefield in 1871.  In the next census (1881), we expected to find the family together but Ethel Rutter was living in the small village of Donhead St Andrew, Wilts.  She was aged 2 years and born in Wakefield.  She and Henry C Rutter aged 6 were visiting Samuel Howell, a thatcher, and parish clerk and his wife, Caroline. 

We never did find a census where Ethel was living with her father.  In 1891 she was visiting a family of Revilles in Lambeth. In 1901 she was boarding at a house in Sherbourne, Dorset where she was an assistant schoolmistress. 

Ethel's father, Charles Joseph Rutter, was an accountant lodging in Lambeth in Surrey in the 1881 census but there was no indication of why he was not living with his wife or family.  We may have finally solved the mystery when we found him in the 1891 census.  He was then living at Nether Hallam in Sheffield and his occupation was rather unusual; he was a Roman Catholic Priest which might indicate why the family had broken up.  However by 1901 he appears to have given up the occupation and is shown as 'living on his own means' in Nether Hallam.

John Nicholls, the son of the headmaster of the Council School, remembers Miss Rutter as Headmisstress of the Infants School part of the Council School. He described her as small with grey hair in a bun and a pince-nez. He said that she always seemed to dress in dark green, except on Sundays when she dressed in black to go to Church. He said that she seemed very serious and very old, "until you took account of her mother, Mrs Rutter with whom she lived in Gloucester Road. John Nicholls was under the impression that Mrs Rutter had been a headmistress too and described her as usually in black with a "pudding basin hat" and a walking stick.

This page was last updated: 04/09/2008