Gertrude Carr
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Gertrude Kent Carr (1871 - 1955)

Gertrude Kent Carr
Born in Norton, Derbyshire, Englandmap
Ancestors ancestors
Wife of — married 7 Nov 1898 in St Lukes, London SW5, Englandmap
Descendants descendants
Died at age 83 in Kensington, London, Englandmap
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Profile last modified | Created 30 Nov 2018
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Biography

by Richard Oliver, grandson

Gertrude Kent Carr (named for her mother’s mother, Gertrude Kent) was born in Norton near Sheffield in 1871, went to Sheffield High School and later attended Somerville College in Oxford, where she studied Logic and Political Economy. These subjects were perhaps not the best choice for a young woman whose natural inclinations were all towards imaginative thinking and creative writing. In the former subject her tutor noted: “Very disappointing.... almost entirely confused.” In Political Science the comment was: “does not appear to have any real grasp of the subject.”

What does this matter? Gertrude went on to become a successful writer. In general she could turn her hand to anything in the writing line - magazine articles, critical essays, theatre reviews - but her word-skills (which she would bequeath to her children) led her in time to fiction, and a score of novels appeared under her masculine-sounding nom-de-plume of “Kent Carr”. She favoured the younger reader, and produced numerous stories of boys’ public schools with titles like “Playing the Game” and “Not Out”. Historical adventures and romances represented another lucrative line for her, and “The White Hawk”, set in the Spanish Netherlands in the sixteenth century, is something of a classic.

Gertrude Carr’s marriage to Edwin Taunton Williams, later to be known as Edwin Oliver, took place in November 1898 in Earls Court, West London - an area they would inhabit for most of their married lives, or at least when circumstances allowed. Initially, they lived in the Queen’s Gate Gardens mansion, but over the period of the Great War they moved to Strawberry Hill, near Twickenham. In 1920 they moved back to Earl’s Court, to “Kensington Mansions” in Trebovir Road, and were there for some twenty years. However, when I was about six or seven - at the height of the Blitz on London - a German land-mine descended in the street outside their flat.

There was time, before the detonation, to evacuate the people, but not their belongings: thus everything in the front rooms was blown to smithereens, and most of the family paintings vanished in a storm of fire and steel fragments - the portrait of Dr. Rice Williams with his ruffles and eye-patch; William Oliver’s group portrait of his family. What were saved included a couple of his smaller pictures, somewhat chipped - perhaps by flying glass - and I have them today in my home.

After they were “bombed-out” - in the Second World War sense of the term - Granny Oliver went off, for the best part of a year, to stay in Ireland with her daughter Marjorie, and took a lot of persuading to return to England and her husband. There is ample evidence in family correspondence that their marriage was at times precarious and unhappy, though it lasted over fifty years - in those days, people stayed married, no matter what.

At the war’s end, Granny was bullied into resuming her marital duties in England, and the old people were bundled into “rooms” in Hayes, next to West Drayton, till the War finally ended. They then moved back to their old West London haunts, to Philbeach Gardens in Earl’s Court, where Edwin died five years later. Thus, death did them part.

It seems that Gertrude, when young, had flaming red-gold hair, doubtless a throwback to her Viking forebears. However, this had faded to white by the time I knew her, and my recollections of Granny Oliver are all from my senses: visually, as a round, rather shapeless old lady in long garments, indoor and outdoor; and smelling vaguely old-ladyish, though how to define that I am at a loss: lavender, perhaps? Talcum powder - or camphor on her clothes? She is said to have been incurably sentimental and unshakably superstitious, with a horror of “unlucky” things like the colour green, or opals, or peacocks’ feathers, and a firm belief in her psychic powers - what she called her Hour of Blessed Sight. Her only son, Jocelyn, adored her, but acknowledged her flaws: “I can visualize no limits to her selfishness, nor to her self-dramatization; poses, poses all the way.”

One family legend relates how she stuck pins into the eyes of a dummy representing her husband’s boss - believed to have been one Walter Guinness, proprietor of the Outlook = after Edwin had lost his position there - and the wretched victim at once went blind. “Most gratifying”, I expect she said - it was one of her sayings. She once told my fortune, in a soft, cloying voice that I can still almost hear, with its hint of flat Yorkshire vowels, and advised me, “daa-ling: never be ashamed to say, ‘I caan’t afford it’”. Evidently she had had to overcome that inhibition in her own home life.

Gertrude outlived her husband by five years, dying in 1955. But what lives they had! Living through the first half of the twentieth century, they knew marvels their parents could never have imagined: the telephone, the motor-car, the wireless, universal electric power. They also lived through two ghastly World Wars and experienced aerial bombardment, by zeppelin and aeroplane and ballistic missile. (by Richard Oliver, 2023)

Sources

  • GRO INDEX : Births Dec 1871 Carr Gertrude Kent Ecclesall B. 9c 256
  • GRO INDEX: Marriages Dec 1898 Williams Edwin Taunton & Carr Gertrude Kent Kensington 1a 204
  • GRO INDEX : Deaths Mar 1955 Oliver Gertrude K 83 Kensington 5c 1327




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DNA Connections
It may be possible to confirm family relationships with Gertrude by comparing test results with other carriers of her mitochondrial DNA. However, there are no known mtDNA test-takers in her direct maternal line. It is likely that these autosomal DNA test-takers will share some percentage of DNA with Gertrude:

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Categories: Norton, Derbyshire