Caroline Mary (Burgess) Allen (1875 - 1953)

Born 30 Jul 1875 in Battle, Sussex, England

Ancestors

Wife of George James Allen — married 6 Jul 1908 in Liscard, Lancashire, England

Descendants

Died 9 May 1953 at age 77 in Ringwood, Hampshire, England, United Kingdom

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Geoffrey Allen [send private message]

Biography

Caroline Mary Burgess (known by her middle name Mary or its pet form Molly) was the second of four sisters born in Battle, Sussex, where her father Herbert Burgess had a draper's shop. He died of diabetes and/or tuberculosis at the age of 45, leaving his wife with three daughters and a fourth on the way. Molly later recounted to her son Robert her parting, at the age of 3, from her father who was leaving in search of a cure. "'When shall we see you again?', she asked, and he replied, 'Not tomorrow, or tomorrow, or tomorrow.' It was the last time she saw him."^[1]

Her mother Margaret Ann (nee Scholes), who came from the Manchester area, decided to move back there. With a sister, Emma Dunkerley, who had been widowed about the same time, and who had three sons, they set up a bakery specialising in home-made cakes; between them they brought up their seven children and gave them a good education. Mary and her sister Ada must have seemed quite emancipated, being trained as shorthand typists about 1900.^[2]

The Burgess and Scholes families were Unitarians, and it may have been through this connection that she met her husband, who was a convert to Unitarianism and became a lay preacher.

Sources

1. ↑ Letter from R.V. Allen to his brother C.B. Allen, 25/11/1986.
2. ↑ Memoir by her son, C.B. Allen, 1991.

• Personal communications from family members and family papers.
• Index to General Registry of Births, Marriages and Deaths in England and Wales.