| Notes |
A LITTLE HISTORY- EVELYN MARY BRANCKER
This information may not be totally correct but I am happy to be stood corrected
Acknowledgements
Felicity Laws ? researcher and fount of knowledge on our family tree
I got a certain amount from a long time friend of EMB, Joan Baldock, which started the trail in 1994
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EMB known to her ?youth friends? as ?Birdie? and to her grandchildren and everybody else as ?Bama?
She was born on 16-1-1887. She was educated at Cheltenham Ladies College.
Ted Wickham (TW) returned from Brazil on 24-1-1914, landing at Fishguard from the S.S. Hildebrand, whose passenger list showed his occupation as ?planter?
Evelyn Mary Brancker married Ted Wickham in April 1914 in Axbridge Somerset.
Both of their fathers were Vicars in Somerset. Events in their lives must be seen against this background about 100 years ago.
Our family had absolutely no knowledge of EMB?s first marriage to Ted Wickham. Joan Baldock was the only person that she confided in, hence a little knowledge after her death.
The following I gathered from some news paper cuttings of articles that she had written for the Sunday News in 1955. Probably a Kenya paper?
EMB/W and her new husband Ted went to Tanganyika, now Tanzania, in May/ June 1914, when it was German Territory.
She told Joan B. that Governor Schnee in Dar es Salaam, had warned them to go to Zanzibar or be interned, because war was coming.
Ted had a job on a coffee/sisal farm outside Dar-es-Salaam at a place called Soga. Life there was better health wise and away from the politics in Dar. They were not well received by the Germans at Soga being English. They had good neighbours, a Polish Count and Countess who managed to salvage a few of their worldly goods when they were interned. I don?t know how long they were there before they were interned at Tabora for the first time.
WW1 started on 4-8-1914.
By this time her marriage was not going too well as told to JB. No doubt internment put extra pressure on a troubled marriage.
Life in internment camps was tough. They seemed to have been put in trains moved a bit, dumped at a station and made to walk to the next place. This was all along the central railway line from Dar to Tabora. It was extremely hot and they had either bad food or little food. Water was not always healthy. At a place called Bugiri they had to sieve the water through cloth a few times to get rid of the worst of the ?wrigglers?.
Luckily they weren?t in Bugiri for long when shooting started, so they were told to ?be ready to move in half an hour?. They had had no food and were marched up a dry river bed in the dark with injuries to legs and ankles, ?like miserable sheep? to the next station called Kikombo.
They were mainly locked up in railway ?go-downs? which were warehouses frequently made of corrugated metal. One can only imagine the heat in those ?ovens?.
At Kikombo they were locked up for 36 hours in an overcrowded ?go-down? that was very hot, then loaded up on to a train ?like cattle going to slaughter?. She does not remember the journey too well as they were semi-conscious from heat exhaustion and taken back to Tabora for the 2nd time.
Whilst in prison at Tabora (I think) she gave birth to a little girl called Mehala (Mehala Mary W Wickham) on 3-6-1916. Life for new mothers and babies was hard as the Germans made little effort to clothe, feed or help.
Tabora was a huge camp with lots of other nationalities including Polish and a lot of Africans. In Tabora town there were Italian prisoners on parole. They proved very kind and good at bartering odd possessions for sugar and cigarettes and passing them through windows to the prisoners. The internees also discovered via the Italians that the Germans had been stealing all their Red Cross parcels and eating the food. She also met up with some old friends, no names but, thankfully at this point they were no longer under the care of a rather nasty German called Dorendorf
In the early hours of 14th September 1916 a rather hysterical scared person rushed into her room which was near the gate, shouted at her to take the keys and release the prisoners. During the night there had been quite a lot of shooting going on but the prisoners didn?t know what was going on. EMB took the keys and went back to bed until 6am as it was pointless opening the doors at 4am.
It turned out to be the British and Belgian (Congo) lot and they had no idea that there were any prisoners there. The Germans had disappeared into the night but were gradually rounded up and put under lock and key where the prisoners had been liberated from. Freedom at last.
EMB/W had a poisoned foot and a young baby so she was given a lift to Mwanza on Lake Victoria. The others had to walk. From there it was a fairly short time and she was in Nairobi and met up with the others.
After all that things suddenly are a lot vaguer ? no more newspaper cuttings
I think she was in Kenya for a while but have no idea for how long.
She and Ted had a second child called Peter, born in Nairobi on 26-3-1918.
Things went downhill and at some point she divorced Ted Wickham. A terrible disgrace for EMB/ W as she left him.
This is now, how we in Tanganyika came to understand a sad situation. We understood EMB brought the children back to the UK because the situation in Tanganyika was tough and she needed help with the welfare of Mehala and Peter. Her ex in-laws told her if she left them there she need not bother to go back for them. Her own father was dead by then.
We had no idea what had become of TW after internment, although JB told of a mutual acquaintance having seen him in Palestine in 1917 and the Forces War Records show him having served as a Temporary Lieutenant in the Kings African Rifles (KAR).
However we do know that TW was killed by an elephant in Nyeri on 19-9-1926. Felicity found the announcement in ?The Official Gazette of the Colony & Protectorate of Kenya?
Mehala?s family understood from her that EMB had ?abandoned? the two children and they lived with their father until he sent them back to the UK with a nanny.
However, Felicity?s research shows them to be on a ship?s passenger list, Mehala aged 9 and Peter aged 7. They were travelling with Reginald Trelawney Wickham and his wife Olive. He had been a civil servant in Uganda. There is also an Edith Wickham who was Ted?s half sister and she would appear to have been living with Ted to help with Mehala and Peter?
They arrived into the UK on 16-8-1925 with an immigration stamp on the passenger list.
They would therefore have been in the UK when their father Ted was killed.
Felicity also found that prior to 1927 children went to fathers automatically in the event of divorce.
EMB had in the interim married Nino de Luigi on 30-3-1921 in Nairobi, and their marriage certificate shows her to have been divorced.
They had two children ? the eldest, Giovanna Maria known as? Nina?, and Mum, Margherita Francesca known as? Marghie? or ?Buggie? by her grandchildren.
They lived in various places including on the Kenya /Tanganyika border area of Taveta. Nino was an engineer on a big sisal estate belonging to the famous ?Cape to Cairo? Colonel Grogan (I think) (Mombasa side).
They also lived near Korogwe. Possibly on another sisal estate.
For a time they ran the Namanga Hotel on the Kenya/Tanganyika border (South of Nairobi) where, in his spare time, Nino was an honorary game warden working towards Amboseli. They also ran a health clinic for the Masai as they frequently had ?run ins? with lion etc. This was an exciting time for Nina and Marghie, as Namanga had a lot of game including leopard that used to hang around at night trying to get the pet dogs. It was also dangerous to get back to their rooms as the buffaloes could be grazing nearby and be totally invisible. Mum always remembered it as good place to live. She was a bush baby by nature I think.
Another stop for them was Arusha. Here they ran a garage opposite the famous New Arusha Hotel (NAH). This was in 1930 according to David Read who grew up in and around Arusha at the same time.
Arusha was the midpoint between Cape Town and Cairo.
The NAH was run by Raymond and Marjory Ulyate and they used to take walking and vehicle safaris to Serengetti with the help of Kenyon a son.
WW2 started on 3-9-1939.
Then on 10-6-1940 Nino was interned because he was an Italian living in British Tanganyika. It was decided that all Germans, Polish, Italians etc, were to be interned in South Africa to stop them being troublesome. They left a HOT Tanganyika by sea and arrive in SA in mid-winter and were taken to a prisoner of war camp at Koffiefontein in the Orange Free State. A very cold place in winter and they had no warm clothes. Nino got bronco pneumonia and died on 1-8-1940.
EMB/de Luigi was also interned along with Marghie, I think, at Lushoto in Tanganyika?s Usumbara Mountains.
I don?t know a lot about their time there, but as ever not easy.
Nina married John Laws, a surveyor, and had 7 children: Daphne, Helen, Peter, William, Joan, Ann and Felicity. They remained in Tanganyika, also farming, for many years before returning to the UK. Nina died in August this year, 2014.
After the war Marghie was married to Kenyon and they were allocated farm land at West Kilimanjaro. Ken had been in the KAR, but had been invalided out with a burst appendix. For the rest of the war he went on to run farms with Italian prisoners of war. The prisoners were happy to work rather than go back into the war or back to Italy. Some never left. Ken and Marghie had 3 children, Robin, Phyllis and me, Sally. Mum died in June 2013.
EMB/deL also got a small farm there where she had some cattle in really thorny, stony country. It was a simple life she led. She, as many, had no electricity and her water came from a water furrow which ran past her back door, taken out of the river by division box. She loved to knit and kept us all warm with jerseys and Ken in socks. She had an enormous passion for cricket and there was nothing she didn?t know about it. She used to sit and listen to the BBC, especially for cricket, and knit.
I always thought it was a scary place as she used to sit with her front door open and look out towards Longido and Lengai mountains. The door would be left open until quite late as it was hot and she had ever so many leopards around for cats and dogs. She lived quite near the North River off Kilimanjaro.
EMB/deL also loved to go for an afternoon?s walk along the cattle tracks, midst stones and thorn bushes with her dogs.
She was attacked by Africans with machetes one night. They were looking for her shotgun which was under her mattress. Luckily for her, in the dark, they used the wrong side of the ?panga? so; she was bashed up, but otherwise OK. She was quite unfazed. How tough she was!
After that, Ken put ?weld mesh? on her windows. The leopards were known to come to the windows because her dogs were in her bedroom. They served a dual purpose as far as I was concerned.
She was a very important part of our farming community as she was such a character. She had various little cars that she drove around the district and to the Post Office. Later on in life her driving skills slipped a bit and we always knew when she had hit a rock (there were a lot) because there would be a slick of oil and her car with a damaged engine.
In due course the Tanzania Government decided that all land belonged to the Government. She was allowed to stay on in her house and have her little garden. She remained remarkably independent with the family in general keeping an eye on her, especially Marghie. We saw her most days even though the road to her house was not always very good - more than once going by tractor after a lot of rain.
Marghie and Ken supported ?Bama? physically and financially for many years with John and Nina helping out.
The day she died, she was rushing around to see Robin and wife Janet, then to the post office. She had been to see Phyllis and husband Bob before arriving at our house at about 9.30am. We had just finished spraying the cattle and said to her to ?come in for a coffee?. ?No, no, I have to go as I have no houseboy today and I have a lot to do?.
At about 10pm her houseboy and gardener arrived at our house, having walked about 5 miles through the river and countryside to get to Marghie?s house. They told how she had called them from her window and they ran to her. They knew she was in trouble so one held her hand whilst the other went and got her some brandy. They then just sat and looked after her until it was all over. Then they walked to tell us she had died. This was on 28-8-1973.
Due to there being no funeral directors, Phyllis, a nurse, Janet and I had to lay her out. Not nice, her being our ?Bama?. Next day she went, in her coffin, to Moshi church on the back of a Toyota Land Cruiser pickup truck. After the service a cousin offered the services of his covered Land Rover to take her to the cemetery. A little bit of dignity finally. She would have absolutely loved the whole thing.
She is now buried in Moshi cemetery in Tanzania along with many other people she knew over the years.
A couple of years later we all had our farms taken away by the Government and Marghie was relieved that ?Bama? did not have to do a massive move at her age.
We understand she never went back to the UK, but that there was some reconciliation with her mother who visited her in Tanganyika.
Brancker family background:
We have traced the Brancker family back to Thomas Brancker (1633-1676), a mathematician, teacher and ordained minister, whose pupils include Christopher Wren. The name Peter Whitfield Brancker recurs in succeeding generations, including a Lord Mayor of Liverpool in 1801 who was a noted slave trader. The family also included at least one other ordained minister before EMB?s father.
Peter Whitfield Brancker - EMBs father. He rowed for Cambridge from 1884 to 1886. They won in 1886. I have a lot of his medals at home.
He was Vicar of Corfe from 1897 to 1907. He then went to Brent Knoll until he died in 1919.
A couple of other particularly notable family members were:
Sir Sefton Brancker born 22-3-1877 was a cousin. He was totally mad about planes and flying. A terrible pilot due to poor eyesight but that did not stop him. He was a pioneer in aviation routes going all over Europe, India and Africa. In the then ?air force? he became Air Vice Marshall and later British Director of Civil Aviation
He got involved with airships but was not totally convinced by them. Someone called him a ?Coward? as he was unhappy with the way the R101 was being built. In the end he was on that last flight the saw the R101 crash at Beavais in France. He died there on 5-10-1930.
Mary Brancker CBE born 19-8-1914. Was a pioneering female Vet. She was given a choice of careers as her mother was financially stretched. Left school and qualified as a vet in 1937. With the onset of war she very quickly made her place in the profession. She got involved with veterinary politics. She eventually became the British Veterinary Assoc. first female president. At the age of 90 she went flying for the first time. Mary had a brother Henry Paul Brancker who was a pilot in WW2, killed over Holland. Mary died aged 95 on 18-7-2010.
- Notes on Evelyn Mary Brancker History
from Josephine Wesley, second daughter of Mehala Mary Whalley Wickham
Ted Wickham?s full name was Edmund Hugh Whalley Wickham.
Ted?s younger brother Reginald was known as Rex, his wife was known to us as Molly, our great aunt Molly, who lived into her nineties and had two sons , Anthony and David [who is still alive]. Ted died in a driving accident in Africa just before the 2nd World War and the two boys were brought up by their mother in Somerset as part of the extended Wickham family. David is very interested in the family history and he and his son Rex have a lot of detailed records.
The mother of Ted and Rex, Rose (?) Wickham died young, and our great grandfather, Archdale Palmer Wickham, married again and had three more children: Kenneth, Christine and Stella. Edith Wickham is not a name I have ever heard before.
I believe Mehala and Peter were taken home to visit their grandparents more than once: presumably on the trip in 1925 and also earlier than this as there are photographs taken in England at the Somerset vicarage dated July 1922 .
I have found one photograph showing children having a tea party on what was clearly a ship ? it would be hard to identify individuals but on the back is written ?Rex, Stewardess, Totie? matching the position of three figures in the picture. Totie was the nickname by which Mehala was known throughout her childhood ? I think it is Swahili for baby or toddler. The girl in the picture looks as though she could be about 9, so it could have been taken on the 1925 trip.
Rex worked as an Agricultural officer in (I think) Uganda until his death in the late thirties so he could well have travelled backwards and forwards on leave and taken the children with him.
There are several photographs of Mehala and Peter in England where they appear to be about 6 and 4. In one charming picture of Peter wearing a smock and with long fair curly hair he is holding a small cricket bat and ball.
There are many pictures when they were older children, often playing in the vicarage grounds or with their grandfather, and they always look very happy and carefree.
I can find only a couple of pictures taken in Africa, both taken around the same time. Peter is looking older, maybe 5 or 6, his hair is now cut shorter in a proper ?boy?s style?, Mehala could be 7 or 8. They are with their father and two other adults who could well be Rex and Molly and all appear to be holding small puppies.
I found one picture whose significance I had not recognized before: it is a wedding photo taken in a garden with a younger looking Ted in a smart suit with his bride in a wedding dress and hat, holding a bouquet. The back of the photo is marked ?Wedding Brent Knoll?, so this does definitely seem to be a photo recording the marriage of Ted and Evelyn in April 1914, and is the only picture I have seen of our grandmother.
I remember being told my mother she had a clear memory of living in Africa, of enjoying living in a hut/house with a mud floor where she could play and being disappointed when her father proudly had a wooden floor installed. She retained a few words of Swahili which she remembered speaking well to the servants and her nanny, and she was delighted in the last few years when she was living in the Abbeyfield Home that she could still exchange a few words with the Kenyan care assistants.
She spoke very little about her mother in our childhood, I don?t remember knowing anything about the story until the issue of the inheritance came up, but what she did say was that Peter was particularly upset and remained so. The impression was given that her mother left her father and that an Italian, who had maybe been in the internment camp had been involved. I think she felt rejected.
She did talk of the journey travelling back to England with Peter and a nanny. She had a very clear memory of being met by her aunt Stella, perhaps 15 years her senior, who came cycling to the station to meet them with her hair flying.
There was a strong feeling of disapproval of the marriage breakdown expressed by her grandparents but her childhood in Somerset seems to have been very happy ? the clergy families had a certain social status, generous sized houses and plenty of free time if not much money, so there were plenty of tennis parties, bathing trips etc. The fact that her grandfathers second marriage meant that she had relatively young aunts and an uncle, as well as her cousins, children of Rex, living in the extended family helped to form a large social group.
There is no doubt that the loss of her mother did scar her, but with so little knowledge it is impossible to know the full twists and turns of the story. I am also sure that the early and unexpected death of our father was an additional blow that made it hard to think of her youth and the loss of her father ? all these tragedies may have been related in her mind.
I have not yet put my hands on the document which recounts the story of Ted?s botched attempt to escape from the internment camp ? it is in one pile or another and I will search it out. It shows him as an adventurous but modest, humorous young man appreciative of the kindness of the German officer who on his recapture gave only the most minimal punishment and was concerned about his welfare.
The theme of clergy marriages in the West Country is interesting: Ted son of a vicar marries Evelyn daughter of a neighbouring vicar, Mehala grand-daughter of a vicar marries Jack Trevaldwyn, son of another vicar. Martock, East Brent, Brent Knoll, Marldon are all so close to each other; social life must have been dominated by the county and the church and maybe some marriages took place just because of these limited horizons.
- History of Evelyn Mary Brancker by Sally Copp
EMB/deL also got a small farm there where she had some cattle in really thorny, stony country. It was a simple life she led. She, as many, had no electricity and her water came from a water furrow which ran past her back door, taken out of the river by division box. She loved to knit and kept us all warm with jerseys and Ken in socks. She had an enormous passion for cricket and there was nothing she didn?t know about it. She used to sit and listen to the BBC, especially for cricket, and knit.
I always thought it was a scary place as she used to sit with her front door open and look out towards Longido and Lengai mountains. The door would be left open until quite late as it was hot and she had ever so many leopards around for cats and dogs. She lived quite near the North River off Kilimanjaro.
EMB/deL also loved to go for an afternoon?s walk along the cattle tracks, midst stones and thorn bushes with her dogs.
She was attacked by Africans with machetes one night. They were looking for her shotgun which was under her mattress. Luckily for her, in the dark, they used the wrong side of the ?panga? so; she was bashed up, but otherwise OK. She was quite unfazed. How tough she was!
After that, Ken put ?weld mesh? on her windows. The leopards were known to come to the windows because her dogs were in her bedroom. They served a dual purpose as far as I was concerned.
She was a very important part of our farming community as she was such a character. She had various little cars that she drove around the district and to the Post Office. Later on in life her driving skills slipped a bit and we always knew when she had hit a rock (there were a lot) because there would be a slick of oil and her car with a damaged engine.
In due course the Tanzania Government decided that all land belonged to the Government. She was allowed to stay on in her house and have her little garden. She remained remarkably independent with the family in general keeping an eye on her, especially Marghie. We saw her most days even though the road to her house was not always very good - more than once going by tractor after a lot of rain.
Marghie and Ken supported ?Bama? physically and financially for many years with John and Nina helping out.
The day she died, she was rushing around to see Robin and wife Janet, then to the post office. She had been to see Phyllis and husband Bob before arriving at our house at about 9.30am. We had just finished spraying the cattle and said to her to ?come in for a coffee?. ?No, no, I have to go as I have no houseboy today and I have a lot to do?.
At about 10pm her houseboy and gardener arrived at our house, having walked about 5 miles through the river and countryside to get to Marghie?s house. They told how she had called them from her window and they ran to her. They knew she was in trouble so one held her hand whilst the other went and got her some brandy. They then just sat and looked after her until it was all over. Then they walked to tell us she had died. This was on 28-8-1973.
Due to there being no funeral directors, Phyllis, a nurse, Janet and I had to lay her out. Not nice, her being our ?Bama?. Next day she went, in her coffin, to Moshi church on the back of a Toyota Land Cruiser pickup truck. After the service a cousin offered the services of his covered Land Rover to take her to the cemetery. A little bit of dignity finally. She would have absolutely loved the whole thing.
She is now buried in Moshi cemetery in Tanzania along with many other people she knew over the years.
A couple of years later we all had our farms taken away by the Government and Marghie was relieved that ?Bama? did not have to do a massive move at her age.
We understand she never went back to the UK, but that there was some reconciliation with her mother who visited her in Tanganyika.
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1887 - 1973 (86 years)
