The Ancestry of Nanny Eileen Spencer
(1918-1995)
Eileen Spencer as a young girl growing up in Dovercourt
Red haired Eileen was born only two weeks after her parents Southampton registry office wedding. She is remembered as a tall, skinny long legged girl who could run like the wind.
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My beautiful red-haired nanny Eileen Spencer
During the wartime, Eileen's sister Joyce died of tuberculosis, and it was Eileen who went to identify her body. An x-ray revealed Eileen to also have a shadow on one of her lungs. But the good air of the Welsh mountains gave her the strength to overcome this.
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Eileen Spencer, like my other granny, had part Irish ancestry, her matriarchal line being of small hill villages overlooking the ancient Bog of Allen in Westmeath and very little more to this Irish side can I yet discover. In one census even it is said that Cork is the place of origin rather than Westmeath, for which nothing may yet be known for sure.
Mary Dolan's parents and grandparents lived through and survived the potato famine, in which over a million people died, and a million fled the country. Their own county of Westmeath lost a quarter of its population through starvation, disease and immigration.
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Of Eileen's English heritage some of her family were Essex seafarers (maybe) and others were boiler makers (for sure) in London during the Industrial Revolution. Further back they were in rural Kent, and their original village, Pluckley, still has the repute of being the most haunted place in England. Two friends I have known some years in the south of France also turn out to have ancestry from this strange tiny village. I have visited it and it is most picturesque. One of my ancestors, George Maxted, died there falling off a hay bale, being pierced into his entrails by a stick (somehow fitting for a village where malevolent spirits may lurk).
Pluckley village, where our ancestral Maxteds came from, is said to be the most haunted village in Britain and is so picturesque it was chosen as the setting for The Darling Buds of May. Two of my friends, Ian and Jeremy, also have ancestors from this village, their shared ancestors being the Kingsnorths.
Mention of a crime, unspecified, was made against George, which appears to have been connected to his capacity as a gardener at the grand mansion of the local Dering aristocrats
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In a list of baptised gypsies of Kent there are many Roberts mentioned, this being the maiden name of Elizabeth Maxted, and some Maxteds also were recorded to have been gypsies.
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Elizabeth Mugway, my great great great great great grandmother, was acquainted with a murder victim Hannah and her killer Samuel, for which she had to give evidence at a trial and inquest.
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Elizabeth Maxted, as it was revealed in the details of the census of 1851, was blind by the age of 62.
Elizabeth Green was alone, with no sign of her husband, working as a laundress to support her young children.
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Charles Maxted's dear wife, my ancestress, Sarah (née Green), died at just the age of 43 from childbirth complications, having developed septic poisoning. Their son William got severely burnt from an exploding tar barrel.
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Young Eileen and her brother Victor
It was nearly always someone's birthday and the Spencer's had a large house that was good for parties, a dining table for ping pong, and lots of rooms that were good for hide and seek. They were a very communal family..
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Florence was a barmaid in Southampton during the time of the 1st world war and it was during this time that she became pregnant. Only two weeks before her daughter was born did she actually marry the child's father.
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Eileen's father Percy Spncer
Percy Spencer, my great grandfather, had a pet monkey, up until it bit someone and consequently had to be put down. Percy was chief chef on a passenger boat which prided itself on fine dining.
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The sisters had a wonderful time socialising in the war, with so many young French and other foreign men to meet at dances and for drinks in the pub. All were desperate for a good time, because they only knew they were here for today, with no guarantee they would be around for tomorrow.
This is the result of my challenge to find out where our Maxted descendants, a family that originated in the little Kent village of Pluckley, had got to by the time of the 1921 census.
SUSIE HARRISON ---------- DAVID HARRISON ---------- EILEEN SPENCER ---------- PERCY SPENCER & FLORENCE MAXTED ---------- WILLIAM MAXTED & MARY DOLAN ---------- CHARLES MAXTED & SARAH GREEN ----------
Charles Maxted's parents: GEORGE MAXTED & ELIZABETH ROBERTS
Sarah Green's parents: HENRY GREEN & ELIZABETH HARDING
Elizabeth Robert's parents: CHARLES ROBERTS & ELIZABETH MUGWAY
Charles Maxted's parents: GEORGE MAXTED & ELIZABETH ROBERTS
Sarah Green's parents: HENRY GREEN & ELIZABETH HARDING
Elizabeth Robert's parents: CHARLES ROBERTS & ELIZABETH MUGWAY