Flight Sub-Lieutenant Noel Stafford Wright, Royal Naval Air Service

Flight Sub-Lieutenant Noel Stafford Wright, RNAS. Source: The Sphere, 24 November 1917.

The war memorial at Wool (Dorset) commemorates eleven men from the parish that died during the First World War. Nine of these served in various regiments of the British Army, two in the Royal Navy. The first naval casualty was Able Seaman Reginald Gordon Hansford, who was serving on HMS Black Prince when it was sunk at the Battle of Jutland on the 31st May 1916 with the loss of all on board. The second, and the only officer casualty from the First World War named on the memorial, was Flight Sub-Lieutenant Noel Stafford Wright of the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS).

Wool War Memorial (Dorset)

Flight Sub-Lieutenant Wright of No 1 Naval Squadron, Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) was killed on the 18th September 1917, when his Sopwith Triplane collided with a Spad S.VII being flown by Captain John Manley of No. 19 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps (RFC), who also died. Both are buried in Bailleul Communal Cemetery Extension in France.

This post will explore the lives and service of both Flight Sub-Lieutenant Wright and Captain Manley. Wright was just eighteen years old when he died, while Manley was twenty. Wright had only relatively recently arrived at the front, while Manley was more of a combat veteran, having been severely injured during a raid on Cambrai in July 1916. While serving in different squadrons, both were based at Bailleul at the time of their deaths. The amount of information available varies, but it was helpful that both officers had lengthy obituaries published in local newspapers, and some information about the work of their squadrons is available from official records and historical works.

Lower Heyford: War Memorial in the Church of St Mary (Oxfordshire)

Both Wright and Manley are buried in Plot III of Bailleul Communal Cemetery Extension in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France (III. C. 252.; III. E. 185.).

In Dorset, Flight Sub-Lieutenant Wright’s name can be found on the war memorials at Wool and at the Thomas Hardye School in Dorchester.

Captain Manley’s name appears on several war memorials in the UK, including the memorials at Lower Heyford (Oxfordshire), Taunton School (Somerset), the R. Shop memorial at the Great Western Railway’s Swindon Works (now in the STEAM Museum), and in the framed and printed memorials for GWR workers that can be found at a number of railway stations all across the GWR’s old railway network.

Flight Sub-Lieutenant Noel Stafford Wright, RNAS:

Grave marker of Flight Sub-Lieutenant N. S. Wright, RNAS, Bailleul Community Cemetery Extension, Nord (France)

The death of Flight Sub-Lieutenant Wright of the Royal Naval Air Service was reported in the Western Gazette of the 28th September 1917 [1]:

WOOL
FLIGHT-SUB-LIEUTENANT NOEL WRIGHT KILLED IN ACTION. – The inhabitants of Wool and of the whole neighbourhood have heard with the deepest regret that Dr. and Mrs. W. Southey Wright of The Firs, have received the sad tidings that their second son, Noel Stafford Wright, flight-sub-lieutenant, of the Royal Naval Air Service, was killed in action at the Front on September 18th. A fine, handsome fellow, although still extremely young, and of a most engaging disposition, he won the affection of all who knew him, and his death will be deplored by many friends besides his immediate family and relatives. He had passed his qualifying examinations, and by his skill and boldness as an airman, showed much promise in his profession. Dr. and Mrs. Southey Wright have two other sons. The eldest, Fred, in the Dorsets, has since early in the war been on foreign service, and gained speedy promotion, and the youngest, Barr, is at Clarence School, Weston-super-Mare, in which town his mother is at present staying. The warmest sympathy is felt with Dr. and Mrs. Wright, who are so well know [sic] and so much respected in and around Purbeck, in the grievous bereavement which has fallen them.

The RNAS Registers of Officers’ Services (ADM 273/12/91) provides some basic information about Flight Sub-Lieutenant Wright’s service career [2]. Noel Stafford Wright joined the Royal Naval Air Service on the 21st January 1917, less than a month after his eighteenth birthday. He was at first appointed a temporary Probationary Flight Officer, which was the RNAS equivalent of a midshipman. Like many other RNAS pilots in training, he at first went to Crystal Palace, which the depot for newly entered officers and which could provide preliminary training in technical subjects and in discipline. On the 17th March, he moved to Chingford (Essex), which was one of several schools used for preliminary flying training. On the 2nd June, he moved on to Cranwell, the RNAS central flying school, for advanced training — which would have included courses on cross-country flying, navigation, engines, aerial gunnery, bomb-dropping, photography, and wireless telegraphy [3]. The British Official History of the air war notes that RNAS pupils had to graduate at Cranwell before they could be ranked as Flight Sub-Lieutenant and receive full flying pay [4]. On the 23rd June, an entry in the register notes that Wright was a, “G Pilot, Good & keen Officer.” He was promoted Flight Sub-Lieutenant on the 18th July 1917, after passing his graduation examination at the second attempt. He was recommended for the Scouts, and on the 10th August moved (or was posted) to Dover. The final entry in the register simply reads: “18.9.17 Telegram Dunkirk:- Killed on patrol.”

Bailleul (Nord). Detail from Trench Map 28SW; Scale: 1:20000; Edition: 9A; Published: September 1918; Trenches corrected to 25 September 1918: https://maps.nls.uk/view/101464921 Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland (Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

In France, Flight Sub-Lieutenant Wright had joined No. 1 Squadron, RNAS, which was for most of 1917 equipped with the Sopwith Triplane. The commanding officer of the squadron at the time Wright joined would have been Flight Commander Roderic Stanley Dallas, an Australian fighter ace [5].

According to the squadron summary of events (AIR 27/1177/1), No. 1 Squadron, RNAS was based at Bailleul from the 1st June until the 2nd November 1917 [6]. There were three aerodromes at Bailleul, the Town Ground Aerodrome and the East and Asylum Aerodromes. Mike O’Connor, in his Battleground Europe book on airfields and airmen in the Ypres sector, states that No. 1 Squadron, RNAS was based at Bailleul East Aerodrome, which he notes, “never seems to have progressed beyond the stage of having tented types of hangars and tents for the personnel” [7].

The British Official History of The War in the Air says that in 1917 the squadron formed part of Eleventh Army Wing (in 2nd Brigade, RFC) , which provided support to the Second Army during the Third Battle of Ypres [8]. Mike O’Connor adds the detail that, “1 Naval Squadron had been loaned to the RFC when they had a critical shortage of decent fighters to combat the much superior Albatros scout.”

Sopwith Triplane. Source: San Diego Air & Space Museum (via Flickr): https://www.flickr.com/photos/sdasmarchives/8518483563/

The Sopwith Triplane was a single-seat fighter aircraft armed with a synchronised Vickers machine gun. It was the first triplane aircraft to enter operational service with British forces. As its name suggests, the Triplane had three wings and it proved to be a highly-manoeuvrable aircraft with an exceptional rate of climb and a high service ceiling [9]. It also formed the inspiration for the development of the Fokker Dr.I (Dreidecker) for the Imperial German Air Service, a type of aircraft famously used by Baron von Richthofen, the Red Baron.

Sopwith Triplanes serials N5493 and N6290. Source Australian War Memorial (Accession Number A05202): https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C38991

The Airmen Died in the Great War database records that Wright was flying Sopwith Triplane N5493 at the time of his accident. This seems to have been an airframe that had previously been used by the most successful Australian fighter ace of the war: Flight Lieutenant Robert Alexander Little of No. 8 Squadron, RNAS [10].

Family life and background:

Noel Stafford Wright was born at Carshalton (Surrey) on the 24th December 1898, the son of Walter Southey Wright and Caroline Maude Wright (née Corrie). The choice of first name seems to have been based on Noel’s date-of-birth.

Walter and Caroline had married at Marylebone (London) in the second quarter of 1897. They had three sons:

• Frederick Yelverton Wright, born at Carshalton in the first quarter of 1898; baptised 20th February 1898;
• Noel Stafford Wright, born at Carshalton, 24th December 1898; baptised 5th February 1899;
• Barry Edward Southey Wright, born at Wool in the second quarter of 1903.

At the time of the 1901 Census, the family were living at West Street, Carshalton. Walter Southey Wright was thirty-nine years old and working as a surgeon; Caroline Wright was twenty-five. Their two children at the time were: Frederick (aged 3) and Noel (2). The census also recorded the residence of a general servant domestic named Emma Puttock, as well as a visitor named Frederick A. Leonhardt (a parliamentary agent).

By the time of the 1911 Census, the family had moved to live at The Firs, Wool (Dorset). Walter Southey Wright, the head of household, was by that time forty-nine and working as a general practitioner (medical), while Caroline Maud Wright was thirty-four. Their two eldest sons, Frederick Yelverton (12) and Noel Stafford (13), were both still at school. They had also been joined by the seven-year-old Barry Edward Southey Wright. There was also a servant: Adelaide Holden, a twenty-year-old cook (domestic), who had been born at Plymouth.

The medal index card (WO 372/22/88696) of Noel’s older brother, Private Frederick Yelverton Wright [11], gives his service numbers as 2752 and 201004, which means that he would have been serving with the 4th (Territorial Force) Battalion of the Dorsetshire Regiment — although it is not clear whether he would have been with the first or second line unit (the 1/4th Dorsets served in India and Mesopotamia; the 2/4th in India, Egypt and Palestine). Frederick survived the war and was commissioned into the Royal Artillery in the Second World War.

Wool: Church of the Holy Rood (Dorset)

Walter Southey Wright, Noel Stafford Wright’s father, had been born at Marylebone (London) in the first quarter of 1862, the son of John Freeman Wright and Frances Wright (née Hookins). He was baptised at St Marylebone Parish Church in London on the 14th February 1862 (England Births & Baptisms 1538-1975; via Findmypast).

At the time of the 1871 Census, the nine-year-old Walter was living with his mother and a younger sister (Florence, aged seven), one of two households resident at 12, Jubilee Terrace, Portsea, Portsmouth. Also living with the family was Frances Wright’s sixty-three-year-old aunt, Frances Southey. Walter’s mother, Frances Wright, who had been born at Exeter, was described as a “doctor’s wife in practice.”

By the time of the 1881 Census, Walter Southey Wright was nineteen-years old and resident at Epsom (Surrey), at the Epsom Downs Royal Medical Benevolent College. The Medical Register for 1913 (via Findmypast) recorded that Wright had been registered on 24 June 1891, having qualified with a Lic. Soc. Apoth. Lond. (Licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries) that year. Walter Southey Wright married Caroline Maude Corrie at Marylebone (registration district) in the second quarter of 1897.

Caroline Maud Corrie had been born at Mallow (Co. Cork) in 1876 (Irish Births 1864-1958; via Findmypast). She was the youngest of the three children of Barclay Corrie and Julia Anna Florence Corrie (née Yelverton). Barclay Corrie had been an officer in the Royal Navy, but had retired in 1873 with the rank of Paymaster. I have compiled some information on Barclay Corrie and the Yelverton family in a fairly lengthy appendix to this post.

Caroline Maud Corrie featured in the 1881 Census, when she was five-years-old and living at “Silsoe Cott” in the High Street, Upton cum Chalvey (Buckinghamshire), a village that has now been largely incorporated into Slough. “Silsoe Cott” was the household of Caroline’s widowed grandmother, the seventy-five-year-old Hon. Louisa Yelverton, who had also been born in Ireland (Co. Mayo). The household also included: Florence Corrie, Caroline’s mother, her two older siblings (Florence, aged 11, and Yelverton, 10), and a domestic servant (Sarah Watkins, aged 37). The same census recorded Caroline’s father (a Paymaster RN, aged 41) lodging in London (51, Hindon Street, St George Hanover Square).

Things had changed quite considerably for Caroline by the time of the census a decade later. In 1891, she was living at the Manor House in the High Street, Seend (Wiltshire), a hilltop village between Melksham and Devizes. Caroline was fifteen years old and at school, but also now the adopted daughter of Mary M. Hamilton, a fifty-six-year-old widow (living on her own means). At the same time, Caroline’s father, Barclay Corrie, was still lodging in London (63, St Oswalds Road, Fulham).

Walter S. Wright died at Southwark (registration district) in the first quarter of 1929, aged 67. Caroline M. S. Wright died at Bournemouth (registration district) in the first quarter of 1936, aged 60. An obituary was published in the Cheltenham Chronicle of the 29th February 1936 [12]:

MRS. C. M. WRIGHT
Member of Well-Known Irish Family Dead
The death has occurred at Bournemouth of Mrs. Caroline Maud Wright, sister of Lieut. Yelverton Corrie, who died recently, and a member of an Irish family that has had a long association with Cheltenham.
Mrs. Wright was the widow of Dr. Walter Southey Wright. She was the youngest daughter of the late Barclay Corrie, R.N., one time Chief Justice of the Bahamas.
She was descended through her mother from the Yelverton family which appears in the Plantagenet Roll of the Blood Royal as of legitimate descent from King Edward III. Through her mother she was a great granddaughter of the first Baron Clanmorris.
Her only surviving sister is Mrs. Hadden, of Marlborough House, Montpellier, Cheltenham.

Captain John Manley, RFC:

Grave marker of Captain J. Manley, RFC, Bailleul Communal Cemetery Extension, Nord (France)

The other pilot involved in the accident in which Sub Flight Lieutenant Wright died was Captain John (Jack) Manley of No. 19 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps. Captain Manley came from Oxfordshire, and a long obituary was published in the Berks and Oxon Advertiser on the 28 September 1917 [13]:

WALLINGFORD.
[…]
DEATH OF CAPT. MANLEY. – We sincerely regret to record the death of Capt. Manley, second son of Mr. J. S. Manley, who was for many years resident at Newnham Farm, which occurred on the 18th inst., at the Front in France. As will be seen from the following details he was a plucky patriotic young fellow, and did “his bit” in a way that entitles him to unreserved admiration. After completing his scholastic education he entered the Great Western Railway works at Swindon with the view of becoming an engineer, but soon after the war broke out he wrote to his father saying that he felt it was “his plain and simple duty to join the army” before married men were called upon to do so, and asked his permission to qualify for service in the Royal Flying Corps, saying he was both “ready and willing” to go. His father then sent him to Hal’s Flying School at Hendon, and he soon got his certificate, was accepted by the War Office, went into military training, got his wings and commission, flew across to France in a Sopworth [sic] machine, and was soon fighting in the air. It was not long before he was severely wounded in the face and arm, very severely in the latter, when 35 miles over the German lines, near Cambrai. But notwithstanding this he brought his machine and observer safely back before he collapsed. He was in hospital in France for three weeks and was then brought to London. After some eight months acute suffering he recovered sufficiently to do good work as an aeroplane instructor at Lincoln, where if he had chosen to do so he might have remained. But he chose rather to return to the seat of war, where he again distinguished himself, in a powerful scot flying machine, in a very short time destroying three enemy machines, and as his Commanding Officer reported doing “wonderful work.” He was killed in an unfortunate collision with one of our own machines, to the great grief of his comrades and in fact all who knew him. The coffin he was buried in was made by the men of his own squadron, and the service was conducted by the Chaplain, with as much care as if the internment was taking place at his own home while the position of his grave is specially noted. We are sure the young hero’s family will have the very hearty sympathy of the entire neighbourhood in the loss of such a splendid character.

A shorter obituary appeared a few weeks later in Flight magazine [14]:

Captain Jack Manley, R.F.C., son of Mr. and Mrs. Manley, of Caldicote, Heyford, Oxon., was born in 1897, and educated at Taunton School. He then entered the Great Western Railway works at Swindon, to learn engineering, but feeling it “his plain and simple duty” to join the Army, he obtained his pilot’s certificate, and was gazetted in March, 1916. He was severely wounded in a flight on July 20th, 1916, and with one arm useless brought his machine and observer back, and landed safely. After a few weeks in hospital he was brought to the R.F.C. Hospital in Bryanston Square, where, after much suffering, he recovered. He then took up work as an instructor, but later returned to the front, where he did much good work on a scout machine. He was killed on Sept. 18th.

Given the long recovery period, Manley’s injuries in July 1916 were obviously very serious. Wartime medical records (MH 106/1774) provide the additional information that the nineteen-year-old Second Lieutenant J. Manley was admitted to Queen Alexandra’s Military Hospital at Millbank (London) on the 2 August 1916, being discharged on the 6 December 1916 after being treated for 127 days with a gsw (gun-shot wound) in his left arm [15]. At the time he was five months into his service, but had spent just two with his unit. As the obituary suggests, however, that was not the end of the matter. Although I have not been able to consult the original, another Ministry of Health document in the National Archives (MH 106/2204/252) records that Second Lieutenant J. Manley of 70 Squadron, RFC was admitted to Reading War Hospital on the 22 February 1917 [16]. This specifies that his injuries were a gunshot wound and compound fracture of the left humerus, the wound being sustained at Cambrai on the 20 July 1916.

Sopwith 1½ Strutter. Source: San Diego Air & Space Museum (via Flickr): https://www.flickr.com/photos/sdasmarchives/8518484151/

No. 70 Squadron, RFC had been formed at Farnborough in April 1916 and until 1917 flew the Sopwith 1½ Strutter. During the summer of 1916, the squadron was based at Fienvillers, north of Amiens. No. 1 Flight of the 70th had arrived at the front in May 1916, as was reported in the British Official History [17]:

In May, too, there arrived the first batch of tractor aeroplanes to be received by the Royal Flying Corps fitted with the so-called interrupter gear [a synchronising mechanism enabling a Vickers machine gun to be fired through the aircraft propeller]. These were the first of the famous Sopwith two-seaters (1½ Strutter), brought out from home of Flight of No. 70 Squadron fitted with 110 h.p. Clerget engines, on the 24th of May.

Spad VII. Source: San Diego Air & Space Museum (via Flickr): https://www.flickr.com/photos/sdasmarchives/7680036942/

When Captain Manley returned to the front in 1917, he joined No. 19 Squadron, RFC, which was equipped with the SPAD S.VII. This was a single-seat biplane fighter designed by the French SPAD (Société pour l’aviation et ses dérivés) company, and also flown by aces like Captain Georges Guynemer of the French Air Service. The aircraft gained a reputation as a sturdy and rugged aircraft, although it was only armed with a single Vickers machine gun [18].

The Spads of No. 19 Squadron were equipped with 150 horse-power Hispano-Suiza engines; their armament was one fixed Vickers gun. An improved type, mounting two fixed Vickers guns, and equipped with the 200 horse-power Hispano, was brought into general use in November 1917.

Mike O’Connor provides an account of the decision by the RFC to use the SPAD VII [19]:

The RFC were quick to realise the potential of the design and within days [of its first flight in April 1916] asked for three examples of it. The first machine was delivered on 9 September 1916 and flew with 60 Squadron for a month before being sent to England. Further examples followed, but delivery was slow due to the French having to supply their own units as well and 19 Squadron were not fully equipped until February 1917, when [Major Hebert Dunsterville] Harvey-Kelly arrived [as commander]. The only other RFC squadron to have a full compliment of Spads was No. 23 who received all theirs by April 1917. Such was the need for fighter machines, contracts were placed by both the RFC and RNAS with British firms to manufacture the Spad under licence. Some British-built samples reached RFC squadrons in France but had a poorer performance than the French examples and were nose heavy. They were not greatly liked and a decision was made to supply only French-built aeroplanes.

In February 1917, No. 19 Squadron was based at Vert Galand, part of 9 (Headquarters) Wing, RFC. O’Connor reports that while the squadron escaped fairly lightly during most of April 1917 — the RFC’s “Bloody April” — it lost three SPADs on the 29th April, when a patrol happened to run into Von Richthofen’s ‘circus’ [20]. Major Harvey-Kelly was one of those shot down and killed. On the 31st May, the 9th Wing moved north to support the offensive around Messines. No. 19 Squadron was based at Liettres aerodrome, being used in a ground-attack role at Messines and the opening of the Third Battle of Ypres. As the latter battle continued its grim progress, the 19th moved to Poperinghe on the 14th August, coming under the command of 22nd (Army) Wing, 5th Brigade, RFC.

While the squadron were at Poperinghe, Captain Manley gained his sole mention in the Operations Record Book of No. 19 Squadron, RFC (AIR 27/252/1) [21]:

Poperinghe. 14 Aug. The Squadron moved to Poperinghe to take part in the second attack East of Ypres. This was the 5th Army Area so the Squadron came under the orders of the O.C. 22nd (Army) Wing, 5th Brigade, R.F.C.

[Poperinghe]. 16 Aug. E.A. [enemy aircraft] were so numerous on this date that combats went on almost continuously. One pilot, A.G.N. Pentland was during the day engaged with 9 enemy machines. Later on this pilot with Lt. A.R. Boeree attacked transport from 1,000 feet. Lt. H.C. Ainger after dispersing some infantry on the Ypres – Roulers Road, engaged and destroyed a two-seater D.F.W. over Passchendaele. About the same time Lt. J. Manley in conjunction with a Spad belonging to another Squadron encountered fifteen Albatross scouts. Manley, diving and firing at one brought it down out of control.

[Poperinghe] 26 Aug. At dawn six machines of the Squadron attacked the aerodromes at Bisseghem and Marche from a low altitude. On the return journey ground targets were attacked and several E.A. were engaged – one of whom crashed. During this attack five enemy machines were brought down.

The British Official History of The War in the Air recorded the role of No. 19 Squadron in attacking ground targets on the 16th August [22]:

Owing to the confused state of the fighting on the ground on the 16th, especially in the centre and on the right, the low-flying aircraft of the V Brigade could only partly co-ordinate their attacks with the advance of the infantry. D.H.5 pilots of No. 32 Squadron made a few attacks on strong points and on troops in trenches and shell-holes, but the main ground-target offensive was made by Nieuport pilots of No 29 Squadron, who made many attacks on the fronts of the XIV and XVIII Corps. German infantry in trenches and shell-holes in the front and support lines, on the march close behind the front, and bivouacked in copses, were assailed with machine-gun fire from low heights, usually 200-600 feet. Ground targets on the roads leading to the battle were also attacked by Spad pilots of No. 19, which had been transferred to the V Brigade from the head-quarters Ninth Wing two days before.

In September 1917, the Squadron moved to Bailleul and it would stay there until Christmas. The Operations Record Book does not specify the particular aerodrome, although O’Connor thinks that it was probably the East Aerodrome (where No. 1 Naval Squadron were also based) [23]. The Operations Record Book is extremely sparse on detail [24]:

Bailleul. Sept. Moving to Bailleul the Squadron came under the orders of the O.C. 11th (Army) Wing, 2nd Brigade and took part in the Second Army operations, carrying out offensive patrols and low-flying.

[Baileul]. 16 Sept. Lt’s. Pentland and Graham attacked the enemy trenches at 200 feet.

St.Marie Cappel. 25 Dec. The Squadron left Bailleul on Christmas Day.

Presumably, it must have been from Bailleul that Captain Manley made his final flight. The Airmen Died in the Great War database (via Findmypast) states that he was flying a Spad S7 with the airframe number B3503 when he collided with the Sopwith Triplane being flown by Sub Flight-Lieutenant Wright.

Bailleul (Nord). Detail from Trench Map 28.SW; Scale: 1:20000; Edition: 5A; Published: April 1917; Trenches corrected to 1 April 1917: https://maps.nls.uk/view/101464933 Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland (Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

It is not exactly clear where the collision of the two aircraft happened. Brian Bates’s book on Dorchester war memorials suggests that it was over Neuve-Église (Nieuwkerke) in West Flanders, but he does not cite his source [25].

Family life and background:

John Manley was born at Newham Murren (Oxfordshire) on the 5th July 1897, the son of John Lake Manley and Elizabeth Ann Manley (née Deverell). Newnham Murren is a village on the Oxfordshire side of the River Thames close to the town of Wallingford. At the time of the 1901 Census, the family were living at Newnham Farm, which is near the Thames and Newnham Murren’s Parish Church of St Mary (now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust). In 1901, Jack Manley was three years old, the second-youngest of four children. His father, John L. Manley, was fifty-years-old and a farmer (and employer), while Elizabeth A. Manley was forty-one. Aside from Jack, their children were: Hannah E. (aged 7), Anthony D. (5), and Edwin R. [Robert] (2). The household also included two servants and the infant son of one of them: Rose Bonner (aged 18, nurse domestic), Elizabeth Hoey (26, cook domestic), and Arthur G. Hoey (10 months). Arthur’s father was a soldier, based in India.

By the time of the 1911 Census, the family had moved to Potcote, Cold Higham, near Towcester (Northamptonsire). At the age of sixty, John Lake Manley was still working as a farmer, while Elizabeth Ann (Anne) was fifty-one. The census recorded that they had had four children, all of whom were still alive at the date the census had been taken. Their three eldest were still part of the household: Hannah Elizabeth (aged 17, no occupation), Anthony Deverell (15, at school), and John (13, at school). The household also included a relative: Robert Arthur May (15, at school), who was John Lake Manley’s nephew; and a servant: Emily Gayton (45, cook general domestic). I could not find John’s younger brother, Edwin Robert Manley, in the 1911 Census at all.

Lower Heyford: War memorial in the Church of St Mary (Oxfordshire)

Electoral Registers from 1918 show that both of John’s brothers served as officers in the Army during the First World War. The Absent Voters Lists 1918-1921 (available via Findmypast) link them to Caldecott House, Lower Heyford (Oxfordshire): Anthony Deverell Manley was described as a Second Lieutenant in the 3rd Battalion, Royal Dublin Fusiliers, Edwin Robert Manley a Second Lieutenant in the Labour Corps. Both survived the war.

Jack Manley’s father, John Samuel Lake Manley, had been born at Cheriton Fitzpaine, near Crediton (Devon) in the third quarter of 1850, the eldest son of Robert and Elizabeth Manley of East Farley. His father was also a farmer, e.g. in 1851 farming 85 acres and employing three labourers. The 1891 Census recorded that the forty-year-old John Saml Lake Manley was boarding at Farleigh, Cheriton Fitzpaine, the household of James and Jane Thomas. John was by that time also a farmer, but the census also recorded that he was a widower. The name of his first wife was difficult to track down, but The Oxfordshire Weekly News of the 14 April 1886 [26] reported the marriage at Torquay of John S. L. Manley (of Handborough, Oxon) to Ada, the younger daughter of Orlando Beater (and Abigail Beater, née Palmer), of Dublin (marriage records also give her name as Fanny Rosa A. Beater). The couple seem to have had at least one son: Robert Orlando Beater Manley, who was born at Church Handborough in 1887. The Bicester Herald of the 22 June 1888 [27] reported that Ada Manley (in BMD records, Fanny Rosa A. Manley) died at Handborough on the 10th June 1888. She was just 27. In 1893, John married Elizabeth Anne Deverell at Rathdown (registration district) , Co. Dublin (Irish Marriages 1845-1958; via Findmypast). Elizabeth had been born at 25, Upper Baggot Street, Dublin on the 7th January 1860, the daughter of Anthony Deverell, a tallow chandler, and Hannah Deverell (YM M3, YM Births 1859-1878, Religious Society of Friends In Ireland Archives; via Findmypast).

John Samuel Lake Manley of 72 Adelaide Road, Brockley (Kent) died on the 10th March 1930, at the Miller General Hospital, Greenwich, aged 79; Elizabeth Anne Manley of 3, Warnborough Road, Oxford died on the 19th September 1938, aged 78 (England & Wales Government Probate Death Index 1858-2019; via Fingmypast). Both John and Elizabeth’s probate records mention their youngest son, Edwin Robert Manley, who was by the 1930s working as a schoolmaster, but also Robert Orlando Beater Manley, a bee farmer. This was, if we recall, John’s son by his first marriage with Ada Manley (née Beater). At the time of the 1911 Census, Robert had been living at Bradley Farm, Cumnor (Berkshire), part of the household of his uncle and aunt, Frederick Arthur and Susan Lake May.

References:

Genealogical records from Findmypast: https://www.findmypast.co.uk/

[1] Western Gazette, 28 September 1917, p. 3; via British Newspaper Archive.

[2] ADM 273/12/91, Admiralty: RNAS Registers of Officers’ Services, The National Archives, Kew: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C9749832

[3] H. A. Jones, The war in the air: being the story of the part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force, Vol. V (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1935), p. 441: Internet Archive (University of Toronto): https://archive.org/details/warinairbeingsto05rale/page/440/

[4] Ibid.

[5] E. P. Wixted, “Dallas, Roderic Stanley (1891-1918),” Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol 8 (1981): http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/dallas-roderic-stanley-5868

[6] AIR 27/1177/1, Air Ministry: Operations Record Books, Squadron No. 201 Summary of Events, The National Archives, Kew: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/D8392430

[7] Mike O’Connor, Airfields and airmen: Ypres, Battleground Europe (Barnsley: Leo Cooper, 2001), p. 71.

[8] H. A. Jones, The war in the air: being the story of the part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force, Vol. IV (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934), p. 111: Internet Archive (University of Toronto): https://archive.org/details/warinairbeingsto04rale/page/110/

[9] Wikipedia, Sopwith Triplane: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sopwith_Triplane

[10] J. C. Little, “Little, Robert Alexander (1895-1918),” Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 10 (1986): http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/little-robert-alexander-7207

[11] WO 372/22/88696, War Office: British Army medal index cards 1914-1920, Medal card of Wright, Frederick Y Corps: Dorsetshire Regiment, The National Archives, Kew: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/D6021464

[12] Cheltenham Chronicle, 29th February 1936, p. 6; via British Newspaper Archive.

[13] Berks and Oxon Advertiser, 28 September 1917, p. 8; via British Newspaper Archive.

[14] Flight, No. 461 (Vol. IX, No. 43), 25 October 1917, pp. 1116-1117; via Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/Flight_International_Magazine_1917-10-25-pdf/page/n19/

[15] MH 106/1774, War Office: First World War Representative Medical Records of Servicemen, The National Archives, Kew; via Findmypast

[16] MH 106/2204/252, War Office: First World War Representative Medical Records of Servicemen, Folio(s): 553-554. Name: J Manley. Rank: Second Lieutenant. Unit/Battalion/Regiment: 70 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps, The National Archives, Kew: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C17177166

[17] H. A. Jones, The war in the air: being the story of the part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force, Vol. II (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1928), p. 162; via Internet Archive (University of Toronto): https://archive.org/details/warinairbeingsto02rale/page/162/

[18] H. A. Jones, The war in the air: being the story of the part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force, Vol IV (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934), p. 135, n. 1; via Internet Archive (University of Toronto): https://archive.org/details/warinairbeingsto04rale/page/134/

[19] Mike O’Connor, Airfields and airmen: Arras, Battleground Europe (Barnsley: Pen & Sword Military, 2004), p. 73.

[20] Ibid., p. 74.

[21] AIR 27/252/1, Air Ministry and successors: Operations Record Books, Squadrons, No. 19 Squadron: Operations Record Book, Summary of Events: Y, September 1915 – October 1939, The National Archives, Kew: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/D8409160

[22] H. A. Jones, The war in the air, Vol IV, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934), p. 177, n. 1; via Internet Archive (University of Toronto): https://archive.org/details/warinairbeingsto04rale/page/176/

[23] Mike O’Connor, Airfields and airmen: Ypres, p. 71.

[24] AIR 27/252/1.

[25] Brian Bates, Dorchester remembers the Great War (Frampton: Roving Press, 2012), p. 183.

[26] The Oxfordshire Weekly News, 14 April 1886, p. 5; via British Newspaper Archive.

[27] The Bicester Herald, 22 June 1888, p 8; via British Newspaper Archive.

Appendix: The Yelverton family

Noel Stafford Wright’s mother was Caroline Maud Wright (née Corrie), who was a ancestor through her mother’s line of the Yelverton family .The Yelvertons were part of the peerage of Ireland, but they also claimed royal descent (a newspaper obituary of Caroline simperingly noted that the Yelvertons had featured in “the Plantagenet Roll of the Blood Royal as of legitimate descent from King Edward III” [1]).

Caroline Maud Corrie had been born in 1876 at Mallow, Co. Cork. Her father was Barclay Corrie, who was by then a retired Royal Navy Paymaster from Devon. Her mother was Julia Anna Florence Corrie (née Yelverton), the daughter of the Reverend Benjamin Chapman Frederick Yelverton and the Hon. Louisa Catherine Yelverton (née Bingham).

Barclay Corrie had been born at Plymouth in the second quarter of 1839, the son of George William Corrie, a wine merchant, and Ann Corrie (née Peters). He was baptised at the Church of St Charles the Martyr, Plymouth on the 31st May 1839 (167/11, Devon Baptisms, Plymouth & West Devon Record Office; via Findmypast). At the time of the 1841 Census, the family were living at Buckwell Street, Plymouth.

The 1861 Census recorded Barclay Corrie as an Assistant Paymaster, 2nd Class, on board HMS Hectate, which was at the time of the census moored in Esquimalt Harbour, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island (British Columbia). Hectate was a Hydra-class paddle sloop, at that time being used to survey the coast of British Columbia [2].

Julia Anna Florence Yelverton had been born at Trieste (then in the Habsburg Empire, but now part of Italy) in around 1842. Julia Anna Florence, variously known as Julia or Florence, was the daughter of the Reverend Benjamin Chapman Frederick Yelverton and the Hon. Louisa Catherine Yelverton (née Bingham). The Rev. Yelverton was the grandson of Barry Yelverton, 1st Viscount Avonmore. The Hon. Louisa was a Yelverton several times over, being herself the daughter of John Bingham, the 1st Baron Clanmorris and Lady Anna Maria Bingham, who was another child of the 1st Viscount Avonmore. Julia Anna Florence Yelverton was, therefore, the great-granddaughter of the 1st Viscount Avonmore through both her mother and father’s lines [3].

The nineteen-year-old Miss Florence Yelverton featured in the 1861 Census as resident at 15 Clarence Street, Penzance (Cornwall), which was the household of her eighty-six-year-old grandmother Anna Maria, Lady Hammon. The household also included her mother, the Hon. Mrs Yelverton, at that time aged fifty-eight.

Julia Anna Florence Yelverton married Barclay Corrie, Esq., R.N. at Upleadon, near Newent (Gloucestershire), on the 5th August 1868. The 1871 Census found the couple living at Vancouver Villa, Roundham Place, Paignton (Devon). At the time of the census, Barclay Corrie was thirty-one and a “paymaster, retd.,” while Julia A. F. Corrie was twenty-nine. They already had two children: Florence A. L. L. (aged 1) and Yelverton B. H. (9 months), who had been born respectively at  Weymouth (Dorset) and Paignton. Also living with the family was Julia’s mother, the Hon. Louisa Yelverton, and three servants.

During the 1870s, the Corries challenged the financial settlement that had been made at the time of their marriage. This, and other disputes with the trustees of the settlement, were subsequently reported by the press. To cut a long (and rather complicated) story short, the Rector of Upleadon, the Reverend Andrew Sayers, was a relative by marriage to the Yelverton family. When Sayers became aware that Julia Yelverton was engaged to marry Barclay Corrie — a man who apparently came to the marriage with no money — he made it his business to ensure that her assets (seemingly income from property in Ireland) was settled upon her prior to the marriage. Barclay Corrie seems to have been mightily displeased by the plan, but a settlement was agreed on the date of the marriage, the Rev. Sayers and a Gloucester solicitor named Benjamin Bonner becoming trustees. The arrangement was described in a later legal case in the following terms [4]:

By another indenture, of 5th August, 1858, Julia [M. F. Yelverton] assigned, with the approbation of Barclay Corrie, her intended husband, all her equal moiety of the personal estate of the said Frederick B. C. Yelverton to the plaintiffs, Sayers and Bonner, to be held upon the trusts to be declared by a deed of even date. By the deed declaring the trusts, Barclay Corrie and Julia, for himself and herself, and their and each of their heirs, executors, and administrators, covenanted to settle all real and personal property (if any) not thereinbefore settled, to which Julia, or Barclay Corrie, in her right, should at any time during the coverture be entitled. The marriage was solemnised the same day.

Barclay Corrie’s displeasure with the settlement did not dissipate after the marriage and the couple persuaded themselves (at least) that it did not reflect what had been agreed prior to the marriage. One thing that apparently particularly irked Corrie was that the settlement enabled Bonner to charge for his services. Letters were exchanged, and in 1872 Bonner took the case to the Queen’s Bench. A report was published in the Western Times of the 20 April 1872 [5]:

PAIGNTON.
A THREATENED LAW STORM. – In the Court of Queen’s Bench on Thursday Mr Henry James, Q.C., M.P., moved for a rule on behalf of Mr. Bonner, solicitor, practicing at Gloucester, and the secretary of the Bishop of Gloucester, calling upon Mr. Barclay Corrie, a paymaster of the Royal navy on half-pay, residing at Paignton, in Devonshire, to show cause why a criminal information should not be filed against him in respect of certain libellous publications against Mr. Bonner and the Rev. A. Sayer [sic], of Upleadon Parsonage, near Newent. The learned counsel, with whom was Mr. Folkard, stated that in 1868 Mr. Corrie married a Miss Yelverton, and the Rev. A. Sayer and Mr. Bonner were appointed trustees of the marriage settlement. In 1869 Mr. Corrie took great offence at Mr. Bonner at not being allowed to receive the rents of certain property in Ireland direct, the money being paid to Mrs. Corrie, to whom the property originally belonged. Strong language was used, but a reconciliation was ultimately effected. In 1871 Mr. and Mrs. Corrie, being desirous of raising £300 under the settlement, communicated with Mr. Bonner, who assented to it. Although the latter was empowered under the settlement to make charges for work done by him, he employed a solicitor to raise the money, and an expenditure of £9 was incurred by the transaction. Of this proceeding Mr. Corrie had taken the most extraordinary view, for on the 16th February last he sent a letter to Mr. Bonner enclosing a newspaper extract of a speech in the House of Lords, in which the following sentence occurred: — “It is well known that if a low-class attorney sets himself to commit a fraud the first thing he does is to sit down and ascertain for himself what are the limits within which he must keep.” This, Mr. Corrie added, exactly suited a certain case in which Mr. Bonner had played an active part; and if his conscience did not hurt him on reading it, he was very much mistaken. He followed this up by two letters to Mr. Bonner and Mr. Sayer, in the former of which he wrote – “Why, in God’s name, don’t you give up the partnership? You have blasted our happiness, robbed us, and you will ruin us. Mrs. Corrie’s health is going from her by inches. We have signed our names authorising you to rob us, and you rob us accordingly. You have wife and family of your own, and, mark, you will have to pay the price of this damnable work. I say again don’t rob us, for God’s sake, and bleed us under the garb of our cursed legal cloak. I will bring you before the public in a way that you will regret to the longest day of your life. Being a respectable solicitor, you can rob me, and I have no way of bringing you to account, except by a Chancery suit, which I cannot afford. Why don’t you resign the partnership voluntarily?” Mrs. Corrie also sent a letter of complaint to the Bishop of Gloucester. Mr. James contended that these letters were indictable, and they had been so far made public that the trustees were very anxious indeed to give the charges in them a public refutation. After considerable discussion, their Lordships refused to grant a rule, being of opinion that although the letters were exceedingly intemperate, they were of a private character and not calculated to produce a breach of the peace, and were not, therefore, letters to justify a criminal information.

Alas, that was not an end to the matter. In May 1872, Bonner took his case to the Torquay magistrates, seeking the Bench to bind over Corrie to keep the peace towards him. In the meantime, Corrie had sent Bonner another menacing letter. A report of the new proceedings was published in the Torquay Times and South Devon Advertiser of the 18 May 1872, under the title, “Alleged epistolary violence” [6].

The report is far too lengthy to transcribe here, but it does provide some additional details about the case. It confirms that the original settlement enabled Corrie to mortgage property to the value of £300, and that undertaking this had incurred a charge of nine guineas. Corrie had disputed this and then campaigned in an aggressive way in order to force Bonner and Sayers to relinquish their trust. The trustees, however, were not prepared to move over, as they felt that their responsibility should last as long as any children of the marriage continued to exist. The legal point seemed to be that the property had been settled on Corrie’s wife, so that Corrie himself would have no legitimate interest in it until after her death.

Corrie’s letters were also an issue. Mr Bonner’s counsel argued that “there were expressions in the letters which no gentleman, with the character and feelings of a gentleman, could sit under.” He also raised the possibility of violence or assault

The only charitable construction they could put on such language was that the defendant [Corrie] was mad, but whether he was mad or not he should be restrained.

Bonner had received a new letter from Corrie, dated the 26th April. An extract was read out at the court:

“You have failed in your duty – your solemn duty as a trustee; you have been wanting in that true sense of honour, straightforwardness, and a due regard to our interests, which is inseparable to the duties of a trustee. The deeds were never properly explained to us ere we signed them. You never properly uttered a word in explanation as to the insertion of a clause for costs; you never told us you could employ a solicitor to do most trivial services, and make us pay heavy expenses. You never told us you could write letters to the estate, and had power to refuse us copies, and that you had power to delay any proceedings which were for our benefit, and make us pay for the delay. You broke your solemn promise about the deed to be made by Mrs. Corrie; you never told us you had a bill of £140 and more hanging over our heads. We are not safe; you can rob us under the legal cloak about you. This bill of Thomas Smith’s [Bonner’s solicitor] is a form of extracting money from our pockets equal only to the manner employed by garotters; the same punishment given them should be awarded to you, with this difference – that it should be done on board a man-of-war, with a right and left hand boatswain’s mate. A man who would take in an unfortunate naval officer, unacquainted with the simplest forms of the law of the land, or the practice of equity, ought to be punished as I have described.”

Bonner denied Corrie’s claims that the settlement had not been properly explained before they were signed. He also claimed to be afraid that Corrie might commit assault, “He now stood in bodily fear of him, from the expressions used in his letters, particularly that which stated that if he did not finish the business he (defendant) would.”

Corrie defended himself in the court, aiming to show that “he had received great provocation on the part of Mr. Bonner.” There was apparently another suit pending in the Court of Chancery in Ireland for which Corrie had needed to raise security. Corrie claimed Bonner had delayed signing, thereby putting him to considerable additional expense. On the letters that he had sent, Corrie claimed “that as a naval officer he never intended or dreamt of thinking to inflict any bodily harm on the complainant.”

The magistrates dismissed the case, largely on the same grounds as the Queen’s Bench, i.e. that “they did not think there was sufficient ground, from the letters that had been read, to suppose that the defendant had any intention whatever of committing a breach of the peace; neither did they think there was any probably reason to suppose that the letters written would cause the complainant to commit a breach of the peace.”

In 1873, Bonner and Sayers sued again, this time wishing to be relieved of their responsibilities for the settlement — presumably by then having had enough of the bitter war of attrition waged against them. The Corries, supported by Julia’s mother (the Hon. Louisa), then counter-sued Sayers and Bonner, who found themselves in the suit effectively representing the interests of the Corrie’s infant children (Florence and Yelverton) against their parents. The Rev. Sayers died on the 25 November 1874, aged 73, leaving Bonner to continue the suit on his own.

A fairly succinct account of the case was published in the Pall Mall Budget of the 5th March 1875, which had presumably been first published in the Pall Mall Gazette [7]:

Vice-Chancellor Bacon [Sir James Bacon, Vice-Chancellor of the Court of Chancery] had before him on Tuesday the case of Sayers v. Corrie and a cross-suit entitled Corrie v. Sayers, the object of the first-named suit being to establish a marriage settlement, and the object of the second suit being to set aside the settlement on the ground that the husband and Wife had been entrapped into the signing of it. The facts were shortly these: — Mr. Barclay Corrie, a retired paymaster in the navy, who had no property, engaged himself to be married to a young woman named Miss Yelverton, .whose father was dead, but whose mother was living. Before the marriage Miss Yelverton went to live with the Rev. Mr. Sayers, the rector of a parish in Gloucestershire, who was a trustee of the will of Miss Yelverton’s father, Mr. Benjamin Bonner, a solicitor in Gloucester, being the other trustee. It was while Miss Yelverton was living at the house of Mr. Sayers that proposals were made by Mr. Corrie for his marriage with her. The settlement was executed in 1868. Mr. Corrie and Miss Yelverton were married shortly after the date of the settlement, and there are two children the issue of the marriage. Soon after the settlement was executed complaints were made by Mr. and Mrs. Corrie to the trustees that the latter had conspired to cheat them by the settlement, and that they had been entrapped by misrepresentations into an execution of the settlement. Mr. Corrie wrote very abusive letters to Mr. Bonner, and ultimately a bill was filed to set aside the settlement on the ground of fraud. Since the institution of that suit Mr. Sayers has died. The Vice-Chancellor said there was no ground for setting aside the settlement. The bill filed by Mr. and Mrs. Corrie would be dismissed, and the settlement would be confirmed by the decree of the court, and a new trustee must be appointed in the place of the late Mr. Sayers.

The demands of the two parties were outlined in a report of the judgement published in the Freeman’s Journal (Dublin) of the 3rd March 1875 [8]:

A very angry correspondence on the part of the plaintiff Barclay Corrie and his trustees under the settlement led to Mr. Bonner (then the sole surviving trustee) filing a bill to carry the trusts into execution and to obtain his release from his trusteeship, whereupon the plaintiffs jointly filed a cross-bill, by which they prayed that it might be declared that the two indentures of the 5th August, 1868, were null and void and might be delivered up to the plaintiffs to be cancelled, or that the said settlement of the 5th August, 1868, might be rectified by inserting therein an absolute power for the plaintiff Julia Anna Florence Corrie, notwithstanding coverture by deed, with or without power of revocation and new appointment or by will or codicil, to appoint the property therein comprised to any person or persona whom she might think fit, and in default of any exercise of this power of appointment then the settled property should go to and be held in trust for the survivor of the plaintiffs absolutely; […]

The case was heard at Lincoln’s Inn in February and March 1875 by the Vice-Chancellor of the Court of Chancery, Sir James Bacon. Neither party would have been entirely pleased by his judgements. Bacon concluded that Bonner “was right in asking that the trusts should be carried into execution,” but he also determined that Bonner could not be discharged, as he and a replacement trustee for the Rev. Sayers were “necessary to protect the interests of the wife.” However, Sir James also dismissed the cross-bill with costs, with some very severe comments on the plaintiff’s conduct:

He never saw so utterly baseless, unreasonable, and ill-advised a proceeding as this, and although it was said that the husband and wife had joined, yet these were the very parties who should not join. The wife should have been a defendant, and her interests represented.

On the substantive aspects of the case, Bacon concluded that Corrie’s motive for attempting to control his wife’s assets was financial, and would have not been in her best interests:

Then it was said that there should have been a power of appointment by deed, but that would have been irregular, and contrary to the sense and justice of the case. For what reason should there be such power? The only advantage to Mr. Corrie would be to enable him to raise money on ruinous terms. Supposing that Mrs. Corrie could give her property to her husband in case all of her children should die (a disagreeable thought to entertain for a moment), who would lend money on such security and upon what terms? To give such power would be to do a mischievous thing, and contrary to the settled practice of the court.

On the charging of fees by Bonner, Bacon declared that “it would be absurd to say that a solicitor must do such legal work as was necessary without charge.”

The dispute is difficult to disentangle in retrospect, especially without a better understanding of property and inheritance law as it stood at the time [9]. Barclay Corrie seems to have been capable of being an unpleasant person, but the underlying conflicts seem to have originated somewhere within the Yelverton family itself. Lindesay v. Yelverton, another case brought before the Vice-Chancellor’s Court in 1877, demonstrates some of the complexity of the Yelverton estates and the conditions applied to its inheritance over several generations [10]. While personality seemed to have played a part in the bitterness of the dispute, the case does seems to have been fundamentally about money, or the control of it. In his consideration of the legal case, Sir James Bacon assumed that Corrie’s ambition was to raise money against the assets of the settlement, thereby potentially putting his wife and children’s interests at risk. Barclay Corrie doesn’t come over as the most sympathetic character, but the machinery of law did not seem fit-for-purpose either.

Curiously, this dispute occurred less than a decade after a major public scandal involving another branch of the Yelverton family [11]. Major the Hon. William Charles Yelverton, another great-grandchild of the 1st Viscount Avonmore — and who would himself later become the 4th Viscount Avonmore — secretly married a woman named Maria Theresa Longworth in August 1857. Charles was an Irish Protestant and Theresa an English Catholic. Their Catholic marriage ceremony in Ireland (at Rostrevor, Co. Down) occurred at a time when the law did not accept the validity of mixed marriages conducted by Catholic priests. In June 1858, Major Yelverton married Emily Marianne Forbes (née Ashworth) at Edinburgh. After his former wife refused to renounce her status, the validity of the first marriage was tested in the courts. The initial trial in 1861 supported his first wife’s claim, but this was eventually overturned, after several appeals, by the House of Lords in 1864. The injustice demonstrated by the Yelverton case eventually led to the Marriage Causes and Marriage Law Amendment Act of 1870, which cleared up the status of mixed marriages conducted by Catholic priests.

The Corries had their third child in 1876, Caroline Maud being born at Mallow, Co. Cork. After the legal tribulations of the 1870s, Barclay Corrie seems to have mainly lived from that point on his own in London, while his wife and family were more peripatetic.

The 1881 Census, therefore,  records the family living at two separate addresses. Florence Corrie (aka Julia) and her three children were living at Upton cum Chalvey (Bucks), part of the household of Florence’s mother, the Hon. Louisa Yelverton. Meanwhile, the forty-one-year-old Barclay Corrie, described as a Paymaster Royal Navy, was lodging in London (51 Hindon Street, St George Hanover Square), at the household of Henry and Rosa Brown.

I was not able to find Florence (or Julia) Corrie at all in the 1891 Census, suggesting that she may have been living in Ireland or was elsewhere. This was the date that her youngest daughter (Caroline) was living at the Manor House at Seend (Wiltshire), the adopted daughter of Mary M. Hamilton. Barclay Corrie was, however, still lodging at London (63, St Oswalds Road, Fulham), a fifty-two-year-old retired Captain RN.

The 1936 obituary of Caroline Maud Wright claims that Barclay Corrie had at one time been Chief Justice of the Bahamas [12]. I can find no evidence of this anywhere, although there are some newspaper articles from 1893 suggesting that he was for a while Resident Magistrate on Watlings Island, Bahamas [13].

At the time of the 1901 Census, Florence Corrie was fifty-nine years old and living in London (8, St Augustine’s Road, St Pancras), at the household of her son Yelverton Corrie. At the same time, Barclay Corrie was still living in Fulham (boarding in an apartment at 48 Charleville Road). The census describes him as a sixty-two-year-old Fleet Paymaster RN, retired, but also now a collector for the Express Dairy Co., which seems like a step downwards. By this time, their youngest daughter Caroline was already married and living at Carlshalton with her doctor husband and two young sons.

While I could not find Florence Corrie in the 1911 Census, Barclay Corrie was still living in Fulham at that time (19, Rostrevor Road). The census described him as a seventy-two-year-old retired Fleet Paymaster RN.

Florence Julia Anna Corrie died at Rathdown, near Dublin, on the 15th May 1914, aged 72. Her daughters, Caroline Maud Wright and Florence Hadden,  were named as the beneficiaries of her will (Ireland Calendars Of Wills & Administrations 1858-1920, National Archives of Ireland; via Findmypast).

Barclay Corrie was to die in the same year as his grandson. He died at Fulham in the first quarter of 1917, aged 78.

References:

[1] Cheltenham Chronicle and Gloucestershire Graphic, 29 February 1936, p. 6; via British Newspaper Archive.

[2] Wikipedia, HMS Hectate (1839): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Hecate_(1839)

[3] Parts of the family trees can be traced via The Peerage website, e.g.: http://thepeerage.com/p794.htm#i7940

[4] Lindesay v. Yelverton. In: The Irish Law Times and Solicitors’ Journal, Vol. XII (1878), pp. 2-5; via HathiTrust Digital Library (Harvard University): https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.32044106251291

[5] The Western Times, 20 April 1872, p. 7; via British Newspaper Archive.

[6] Torquay Times and South Devon Advertiser, 18 May 1872, p. 3; via British Newspaper Archive.

[7] The Pall Mall Budget, Vol XII, 5 March 1875, p 33; via HathiTrust Digital Library (Cornell University): https://hdl.handle.net/2027/coo.31924069724734

[8] Freeman’s Journal (Dublin), 3 March 1875, p. 2; via British Newspaper Archive.

[9] Case files can be found at: C 16/854/C226, C 16 – Court of Chancery: Clerks of Records and Writs Office: Pleadings 1861-1875, Cause number: 1873 C226. Short title: Corrie v Sayers, The National Archives, Kew: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C7912261

[10] Lindesay v. Yelverton, op. cit.

[11] Wikipedia, Yelverton Case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yelverton_case

[12] Cheltenham Chronicle, 29 February 1936, p. 6; via British Newspaper Archive.

[13] For example: Colonies and India, 25 February 1893, p. 11; 7th January 1893, p. 13; via British Newspaper Archive.