Frank William Baillie was born at Harleston, Norfolk, on 12th January 1869. He was fourth of nine children, five daughters and four sons, born to William Rolland Baillie and his wife Anna Maria (nee Campling).
Frank’s father –William Rolland Baillie.
William Rolland Baillie was born on 13th January 1832 on the Kuruman Mission Station in South Africa, the son of the Scottish Missionaries Rev. John Baillie and his wife Beatrix (nee McLaws). His parents were members of the London Missionary Society. The head Missionary at Kuruman was the Rev. Robert Moffat who was later to become the father-in-law of the Explorer Missionary Dr. David Livingstone when he married Rev. Moffat’s daughter Mary. Rev. Moffat signed William Rolland Baillie’s birth certificate.
Rev. John and Beatrix Baillie spent seven years in South Africa before returning to England. They went firstly back to Scotland before Rev. John Baillie became Town Missionary at Ipswich, Suffolk, about 1838. They lived in St. Nicholas Street and that is where their children were raised. They spent the remainder of their lives at Ipswich and are buried in Ipswich Cemetery.
William Rolland Baillie was brought up in a religious manner. He married Anna Maria Campling, daughter of Abraham Campling and Mary (nee Fisher), at St. Clement’s Baptist Chapel in Norwich, in 1863. Anna’s father, Abraham Campling, was a draper. William became a partner in the business. They had two shops in The Thoroughfare in Harleston. As well as being a businessman, William was described as a man given to study. He was a Deacon of the Harleston Congregational Church and very involved in Church Affairs. One can imagine all his and Anna’s children were brought up in a similar manner. As their children became adults, they worked in the family business as shop assistants.
Gertrude Jane Cowling Chase was born at Halesworth, Suffolk, on 11th August 1870. She was the third of 12 children, six boys and six girls, born to George William Chase and Sarah Ann (nee Cowling).
Although her father George William Chase was from a Bungay family of butchers, farmers and innkeepers, at that time he and his wife were living at The Thoroughfare in Halesworth where he was following the occupation of a draper. After a brief sojourn in Hanley, Staffordshire, where George William Chase was still working as a draper, the family returned to Bungay where George took over his late father’s butcher’s shop and The Queen’s Head Inn in the Market Place.
Frank William Baillie married Gertrude Jane Cowling Chase at St. Mary’s Church, Bungay, on 17th October, 1898.
Their daughter Hilda Mabel was born at Harleston on 30th July 1899. A son George William Godfrey followed on 20th September 1900.
On the following 1901 census, Frank and Gertrude were living at The Thoroughfare, Harleston. Frank was recorded as a boot and shoe factor on his own account. Their daughter Hilda was aged one year and son George aged six months. Eighteen-year-old Flossie Renner was employed as a mother’s help.
In a letter written when she was aged 89, Hilda recalled when they were small both she and George both attended their Aunt Maria Florence Baillie’s school at Harleston. Hilda could not remember much about it except staying the week and going home in a pony cart. She said that it must have been whilst the family were living at Redenhall. Frank’s sister Maria Florence did run her own school at Harleston for several years.
Shortly after that census was recorded Frank and Gertrude moved to 24 Rectory Street in Halesworth, Suffolk, where Gertrude gave birth to son Frank Walter on 19th June 1904. Frank’s occupation was given as outfitter (Master). Hilda said the family then moved around a lot and she and George went to separate schools. The family lived at Norwich; Peterborough; Howe, Norfolk; King’s Lynn and Wisbech.
Frank’s father died in 1909, by which time he had retired from the business. All his family had gone their separate ways. Following his father’s death, Frank’s mother Anna Maria went to live with her daughter Maria Florence, now a Schools’ Attendance Officer, at Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire. Two sisters had both gone into nursing. Another had married Rev. Sidney Bowskill and they were serving as Baptist Missionaries in the Belgian Congo. His brothers were working in the drapery trade.
In 1911 Frank and Gertrude were living in an eight-roomed house at 39 Norwich Road, Walsoken, Wisbech, Cambridgeshire. Frank’s elder brother Samuel Rolland Baillie and his wife and family were also living in the Wisbech area. Both brothers had had a complete change of occupation and were working as manure agents. Frank and Gertrude’s youngest child Robert Chase Baillie was born at Wisbech on 12th September 1912.
In 1914 Frank and Gertrude moved to Middleton, Suffolk. Hilda did not explain the reason for so many moves around the countryside. It can only be assumed that it was due to work opportunities – or the lack thereof. Shortly after moving to Middleton, Frank broke his ankle and could not get about. When he had recovered he worked as a Manager at a men’s outfitter’s shop in Saxmundham.
George was in the Army at the end of the First World War. He had joined the Hertfordshire & Bedfordshire Regiment and was posted to India. It has not been possible to trace his Army Records. His regiment is now part of the Anglian Regiment and they could not provide further information. Neither Hilda nor his brother Robert were able to give any further details.
Hilda, aged 19, had enrolled in the Women’s Royal Air Force at Ipswich in February 1918. She was demobilised at Eastchurch in July 1919. She started her Nursing training on 4th January 1921 and was made a sister when she was 24 years of age.
Hilda Mabel Baillie
Nursing was to run in the family. Years earlier, Hilda’s father Frank’s sister Anna Beatrix Baillie had done her Nursing training at the London Hospital at Whitechapel. By the mid-1890s Anna was Matron of the Hospital of St. Cross at Rugby; from 1894 to 1925 Matron of Bristol Royal Infirmary and from 1924 to 1938 Matron of St. Monica’s Home of Rest at Westbury-on-Trym. Another of Frank’s sisters Constance was a nurse and served in France during WW1. Both Anna and Constance were awarded the Royal Red Cross Medal. Both were an inspiration to Hilda. Two of Hilda’s cousins also became nurses, as did her brother Robert’s daughter Brenda.
Frank and Gertrude moved to High Street, Yoxford in 1928, where they operated a sweet and tobacconist shop. The name over the shop door was Gertrude Jane Baillie.
The house had a front sitting room, behind which was a long kitchen which always smelled of gas. At the end of the kitchen was a storeroom for shop supplies and in front of that was the shop itself with its rows of shelves containing the large glass jars of sweets. Mrs Chapman lived in the house at the end of the block.
The shop awning was coloured cream and caramel. The Woodbine sign can be seen just beyond the awning. Next door was Mr. Starling’s butcher’s shop. The original gas street lamp stands on the footpath in front of the shop.
Frank and Gertrude’s son Frank Walter, always known as Walter, married Dora Gooch of Darsham at All Saints Church, Darsham on 31st March 1934. Dora was the daughter of Miles and Ellen Gooch of the Council Houses, Darsham. Frank and Dora lived at Great Baddow in Essex, and had three children, Joan, Robert and Diana. Sadly Walter contracted polio in the epidemic of the 1950s and was paralysed from the neck down. He spent 14 years on a respirator attached to his throat via a tracheotomy. He became very skilled in painting with a brush held in his mouth. In the photograph, note the photograph of his eldest daughter Joan, along with Walter’s paintings on the wall.
Whilst we saw little of Walter before his illness I do recall looking forward to his visits. In winter he wore a belted herringbone overcoat and trilby hat. He passed away in 1972 aged 68. Dora outlived him by thirty years, passing away in 2002 aged 91.
Frank and Gertrude’s youngest son Robert married Violet Cherry in 1934. They had three children, Donald, Brenda and Josephine. They lived next door to Frank & Gertrude in the end house of a row that was accessed from a lane beside Robert’s parents’ block and stretched down towards the river. Robert worked as a heavy transport driver. They later moved to the Beccles area. Violet passed away in 1982. Robert later married Peggy Howe.
Robert and Peggy lived in a bungalow at 11 Marsh View, Hulver. Peggy passed away in 2000. Robert was devastated and never got over her passing. He passed away two years later in 2002.
Robert Chase Baillie & 2nd wife Peggy in 1992
Frank and Gertrude’s eldest son George married Edith Evelyn Ruth Smith, known as “Cissie”, daughter of Chester and Edith Smith of Darsham, at All Saints Church, Darsham on 4th January 1941. It was a freezing cold day with snow on the ground. George’s brother Walter was best man. The bridesmaid was Cissie’s young cousin Molly Booth. At the time of their marriage George was then forty years of age and Edith was aged thirty.
George and “Cissie” lived at Darsham and had two daughters. During his lifetime George had mainly labouring jobs. It has been said at one time he worked on the fishing boats at Lowestoft. He was a skilled banjo and mandolin player and it has been reported he was a good step dancer. George, on banjo, Tom Thurston on mouth organ and Ernie Seaman on accordion played in the local pubs.
George was sexton at Darsham Church and he and his wife and daughter Mary were all in the Church Choir. The marriage foundered in the mid-1950s and they separated and eventually divorced. Their two daughters both emigrated to Australia in 1967. George died of a stroke in the Blythburgh Hospital on 7th March 1984 aged 83.
During World War Two both Hilda and Robert served in the Navy. Robert’s daughter Brenda wrote a very interesting account of her father for the BBC’s WW2 project. She also wrote another concerning Hilda. Hilda was in Queen Alexandra’s Naval Nursing Service. There was a caricature of her in her uniform hanging in the sitting room of the house.
Frank and Gertrude Baillie on their Golden Wedding – 17th October 1948.
Frank passed away on 18th September 1952. Gertrude followed three years later on 13th December 1955. They are buried in Yoxford Cemetery.
Hilda remained at the family home until she was in her eighties, eventually going to live with her niece Brenda. She passed away on 19th June 1989.
My memories of my grandparents Frank and Gertrude: They are not as detailed as I would like. Grandfather Frank was a large man who always wore a suit and waistcoat, complete with watch and chain. He was a man of few words. He wore a monocle in one eye. Robert said his father wore a glass eye as he had lost an eye in an accident when he was young. How it happened he did not know.
It was an era when children were seen and not heard. On visits to our grandparents at Yoxford my sister and I were often dispatched down the long garden to play on a swing which hung from a large tree near the river.
Granny was a small lady whom I loved. She was a great cook. I still remember her tasty rissoles and her toad-in-the-hole, which rose to great heights. Our Christmas present from our grandparents was always a Christmas stocking full of sweets from their shop. We were never spoiled by sweet treats during the year. Aunty Hilda helped her parents in the shop, had a great sense of humour and was much loved by everyone. Sadly I saw little of her after my parents separated.
This account is drawn from my own memories, official records and letters written by Hilda Baillie in 1988. Photographs copied on my behalf from the family collection with the kind permission of Robert Baillie.
Mary Felgate (nee Baillie) 2019.