12 May 2020

59. Alfred and Elsie Squire of Surrey

Alfred Eustace Squire was born in Wandsworth, London on 5 March 1885. His parents were John and Harriet Squire.

Elsie Mary Le Brun was born in St Helier, Jersey on 20 February 1888. Her parents were Moses and Esther Le Brun.

Alfred and Elsie married in St Helier on 12 June 1913.
Alfred and Elsie's Wedding
They had two children:
  • 62.1.1 Joan Squire (1913). Joan died in 1913.
  • 62.1.2 John Rupert Squire (1915)
More on these individuals in Chapter 62.

Before he was married, Alfred had been at home with his widowed mother in Kingston. He was already a manager at a paper merchant's office. Elsie had been at home in Jersey, having completed her University degree. The photo shows her (left) with William (standing), Isobel and her husband Donald Mills, John De Gruchy Le Brun, Esther their mother, and Amy Le Brun; Amy and John’s daughter Amy.
Elsie and Le Brun family, 1908
(key and credit)
Antoinette Herivel recalls that Elsie was very gifted and went to London University, at the time of the suffragettes, and studied English with one of the WW1 poets.

The Slade School of Fine Art, founded as part of UCL in c. 1870, was one of the first higher education establishments to accept women. A contemporary picture shows plenty of respectable young ladies! I don't know that Literature was taught but there was a prominent war poet - Isaac Rosenberg - and a history of producing suffragettes, e.g. Mary Lowndes, Ernestine Mills, Georgina Brackenbury and Olive Hockin (who studied at the Slade from 1904-1911). Update: I've found a philosophy book of Elsie's inscribed UCL, October 1908.
Slade School of Fine Art, 1905 (credit)
The hypothesis that Elsie went to Slade, allows a glimpse into the art world of the time. And the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was founded in 1903, the year in which Elsie turned 18. Two years later, they convinced the Liberal MP Bamford Slack to introduce a women's suffrage bill: the publicity spurred rapid expansion of the group.
Statue of Emmeline Pankhurst, Westminster
by Arthur George Walker (my photo)
WSPU Poster (credit)
 ~~~
Through these pale cold days

What dark faces burn
Out of three thousand years,
And their wild eyes yearn,
While underneath their brows
Like waifs their spirits grope
For the pools of Hebron again—
For Lebanon's summer slope.
They leave these blond still days
In dust behind their tread
They see with living eyes
How long they have been dead. 
(The last poem written by Joshua Rosenberg before he was killed on 1 April 1918.) 
~~~ 
Pan! Pan! O Pan! Bring Back thy Reign Again Upon the Earth, 1914 by Olive Hockin Leared (credit)
During WWI, Alfred was a 2nd Lieutenant (from August 1916) with the Royal Flying Corps.
His duties appear to have been technical, and ground-based, indeed Farnborough-based. Farnborough was where the Royal Aircraft Factory had developed from the Army Balloon Factory by 1912. A nondescript but Grade II* listed building of 1911 survives.
Royal Aircraft Factory, 1911, HQ of Airship Co, Royal Engineers (my photo)
Farnborough is where Britain's first aeroplane flight took place, in 1908, by S F Cody, who became a national hero.
Cody Memorial, Farnborough (my photo)
And Farnborough is where planes like the SE5A, "the nimble fighter that has since been described as the 'Spitfire of World War One'", were designed, (sometimes) built, and repaired.
Royal Aircraft Factory SE5A, 1917 (my photo)
Alfred was with H. Reeve Angel at the time of his enlistment, and he stayed with them for his whole career, and was a shareholder.

Henry [Harry] Reeve Angel had been a commercial traveller in the paper trade. In about 1908, he started in business as the UK agent for the Finish Kymmene newsprint company. He founded H. Reeve Angel & Co in 1912, sharing 110 Fenchurch St, London with Frederick George Angel & Co, starches and chemicals, but soon moved to 14/15 New Bridge Street. The company was sole United Kingdom representative for ‘Desvernay & Cie. Grandsons and Successors to Conte & Cie., Paris’, featuring their crayons, pencils, etc; also Canson papers [still going]. The business advertised over many years as sole representative for J. Whatman papers, ‘As used by the foremost artists for more than a century and a half’. Angel died at 9 Bridewell Place in 1934, leaving an estate worth the considerable sum of £43,771. (Thanks to National Portrait Gallery, quoting The Year's Art and The Studio).

The company also had premises at 9 Bridewell Place from 1918. It's at this address that I find Alfred listed as a director in 1921. Harry is MD, and there is another director, "R J Angel" [There are many errors in the machine-OCR, so this may be Rowland Eric, Angel's son. The company is also at 7/11. Spruce Street, New York and is sole representative for Ralston, makers of the famous Whatmas drawing, ledger and writing papers and high-grade chemical filter papers. Also agents for the Finnish Papermill Association.

The company was sole United Kingdom representative for ‘Desvernay & Cie. Grandsons and Successors to Conte & Cie., Paris’, featuring their crayons, pencils, etc; also Canson papers [still going]. The business advertised over many years as sole representative for J. Whatman papers, ‘As used by the foremost artists for more than a century and a half’. Angel died at 9 Bridewell Place in 1934, leaving an estate worth the considerable sum of £43,771. (Thanks to National Portrait Gallery, quoting The Year's Art and The Studio).

In 1937, Alfred lodged a patent application in the US for a filtering device, which was granted. In 1950, there was a monopoly hearing in the US Congress, which involved a Reeve Angel joint venture, amongst others.
Alfred Squire's Patent
In 1974, Reeve Angel International merged with W. & R. Balston, and the brand name Whatman was incorporated to form Whatman Reeve Angel Ltd. The business is credited with the invention of the woven wire mesh used to mould and align the pulp fibres. This is the principal method used in the mass production of most modern paper. Vintage Paper Co have a great piece on how Whatman paper was made: "Over the years Vintage Paper Co has had the good fortune to handle paper from many manufacturers, both historical and contemporary and there is absolutely no doubt that J Whatman consistently produced the finest quality paper we have ever seen." Whatman ended paper making by hand in the 1950s and by the 1960s no longer made paper for art at all although there was an ill-fated 1980s relaunch. Reeve Angel branded filter paper lasted long enough to be applied to Chinese-made product.

Reeve Angel paper (for sale)

Whatman No. 4 Paper x840 (credit)
It rebranded as Whatman plc in 1990. The company was acquired in 2008 by GE Healthcare (a unit of General Electric) for c. £363 million. Last production at the Springfield Mill, Maidstone was in 2014, and it was knocked down in 2018, after 200 years. The local park is still called Whatman Park, and the Rag Room, which is listed, and chimney, was incorporated in the development.
Springfield Mill before it closed (Penny Mayes)
The completion of the sale of GE Life Sciences to Danaher Corporation for $21bn completed in 2020. It has rebranded to Cytiva, is at the forefront of the fight against Covid 19, and is committed to the Whatman brand products, manufactured from high-quality raw materials. Filter papers are used in vaccine production.
Rozel, the family home in Esher
Mum tells me that there Elsie played at the Clare Hill Golf Club at the end of the road. On at least one occasion, she won, and brought home an engraved plate as a trophy.

In 1938, they embarked upon the trip of a lifetime. They moved in well-off circles. A relative once asked if I'd inherited a Rolex (I didn't). Alfred may have been used to dealing with the American business. But - judging by the ephemera collected - it's not hard to see that they were thrilled.

Outward
At 15:47 BST on 20 April, the RMS Queen Mary steamed out of Southampton Harbour with Alfred and Elsie onboard. Each day, they selected from the menu, and, on each of the five evenings on board, found a personally printed version with their choices on their table.
RMS Queen Mary, their souvenir


Queen Mary (souvenir postcards)
Final Day Breakfast Menu
Restaurant (from the Ship Guide)
Final Luncheon Menu

Typical Menu Cover (April 22),
Art from the ship by Anna Zinkeisen


Farewell Dinner Personal Menu Card
Presumably as an aide memoire, they ticked - on the list of cabin passengers - those they met on the voyage. I can't help noticing that Sir Harry Bellman MBE, chairman of Abbey National Building Society, was ticked. Abbey National were big rivals of C&G and Nationwide whose history I have shared. Air Commander A. T. "Bomber Harris", was not ticked. Harris may have been busy - it turns out that he was in New York to place the largest foreign order ever placed with an American Aircraft Company - for 200 Lockheed Hudsons (more here).
Lockheed Hudson (my photo)
But my attention was initially drawn to the List by a yellowing newspaper clipping tucked inside. "Samuel Goldwyn and Mary Pickford ["America's sweetheart"] returned yesterday on the Queen Mary from England, where they formulated plans with Alexander Korda and Douglas Fairbanks for the reorganization of the operating policy of the United Artists Distributing Company of which they and Charlie Chaplin are the owner-producers." Both were ticked. Chaplin of course, started work on The Great Dictator the following year.

New York
At 05:30 on the 24 April, the ship docked in New York. They didn't initially stay long, perhaps a night or two to get their land legs back. They did keep a programme from Radio City Music Hall for that week, suggesting they caught the show there.

The running order was first the Music Hall Grand Organ, played by Richard Leibert, then the Music Hall Symphony Orchestra, The Glory of Easter, an annual religious pageant by Anton Rubinstein (music here). Then this Disney cartoon Silly Symphony:

Then, a live Music Hall extravaganza, bringing to life Walt Disney's beloved characters. Mickey Mouse's stage debut, apparently. Then this, the 1938 Samuel Goldwyn film starring Gary Cooper, The Adventures of Marco Polo: 


Radio City (my photo)
New York Central System
The next day, they caught the train. In fact, Alfred and Elsie would have quite literally walked the red carpet, a concept which originated with the "Century", the train of tycoons. This was the flagship operation of the NYC, the luxurious first-class Twentieth Century Limited, operated on a crack 16-hour schedule between New York's Grand Central Terminal and Chicago's LaSalle Street Station (It's 700 miles, and these days takes about 23 hours). It was one of America's premiere passenger services (1902-1967), and the subject of pop culture lore (e.g. North by Northwest). In early 1938, the locomotive would have been Commodore Vanderbilt or similar. Later in the year, a streamlined art deco version took over. There is a film from the very early 1950s about the railroad here.
Commodore Vanderbilt pulling 20th Century Limited (International News)

Chicago
Alfred and Elsie stayed at the Drake Hotel for perhaps a week (although I have found some conflicting snippets, so there is a bit of guesswork). They also visited the Cape Cod Room at the Drake, a seafood restaurant famous enough to issue its own postcards (of which they kept several). And they saw the sites.
Union Station, Chicago (souvenir postcard)
Drake Hotel, Chicago (souvenir postcard)
Cape Cod Room (souvenir postcard)
On 1 May, they watched a Broadway preview at the Grand Opera House, Chicago, of the Cole Porter musical "You Never Know".
The cast featured Clifton Webb, Lupe Vélez, Libby Holman, Toby Wing (later replaced by June Havoc), and Rex O'Malley. It may have been considered a flop but there is a 2001 recording (17 short tracks) made available in March 2020. Let's Not Talk About Love is mainly about misbehaving, but mentions Nazis, and Sammy Goldwyn. 'At Long Last Love' from the show got to #3 in the charts. More here.
They paid their bill at the Drake on Monday 2 May, the night after the show, and headed back to New York.

New York
From 3 May to 7 May, they would (probably) have been at the Commodore Hotel, which was constructed in 1919 as part of "Terminal City," a complex of palatial hotels and offices connected to Grand Central Terminal Railroad. It suffered the indignity of a makeover by Donald Trump in 1980.

Apart from some scraps from the hotel and an events guide, there is only a single postcard - an aerial view of the Statue of Liberty. Something may have happened to all the others, of course, or perhaps I have the dates wrong. As well as Liberty (Chapter 51.2a), I have been fortunate to see a few notable survivals of the time. And I can be confident that we ate at one place in common - the Grand Central Station restaurant!

McSorley's Old Ale House (my photo)

Grand Central Station, 1913 (my photo)

Coney Island, Cyclone, 1927 (my photo)

Chrysler Building, 1931 (my photo)

Wisdom, Rockefeller Centre, 1933 (my photo)

Empire State Building, inside (my photo)

Empire State Building, 1931 (my photo)
On 8 May, they spent one night upstate at the Hotel Niagara, Niagara Falls, where Captain Webb met his end in Chapter 50.1d. The bridge familiar to the Captain was the world's first working railway suspension bridge. It was replaced in 1898 by the Honeymoon Bridge, the largest steel arch bridge in the world. On January 27, 1938, the bridge collapsed. There is a film of that too. Demolition of what was left of the bridge took place from February to April 1938. In fact, the couple probably flew over the Falls. We know that Alfred was familiar with planes, and the Douglas DC-3 was making it a practical proposition. (Smithsonian Magazine). Niagara Falls Airport had opened ten years earlier. They probably flew back to New York on 9 May.
DC-3 over Niagara Falls (credit)
Washington DC
Judging from the souvenir postcards, the couple also visited Washington DC (and Mount Vernon and Arlington?). This would have been another DC-3, from Newark Airport.
William Pitt Restaurant, Chatham (postcard for sale)
There is a bill from the William Pitt Tavern, Chatham, New Jersey on 12 May. This was known at least until the 1970s for its reasonably priced home-cooked food. In 1938, it was 85¢!
Douglas DC-3 (in RAF Dakota mode)(my photo)
There are very few clues from the last part of the trip - just a couple of collections of souvenir collections of views.

Washington DC (souvenirs)
New York
It seems likely that they had five nights in Washington before returning for a final night in New York. This might have been at the Waldorf-Astoria - they did at least call in, as Elsie kept a paper serviette! It was behind scaffolding when I was there, and is being refurbished again in 2020 but apparently has conserved its 1930s aura.
Hotel
Return
On 18 May, they returned to Southampton on the Normandie.
Normandie, from the welcome booklet



Normandie (souvenir postcards)
Whilst on board they attended a Charity Gala Concert compered by the actor Brian Aherne (Oscar-nominated the following year), and featuring Arthur Rubinstein on piano, both of whom were on the passenger list. Scanning through the rest of the passenger list, the name David Niven jumps out - but was it that David Niven? Yes - Getty Images have a picture of him waving to fans as he disembarked. In 1942, he starred in First of the Few (aka Spitfire), a Samuel Goldwyn picture which was enthusiastically endorsed by Churchill.
Spitfire Poster (RKO Radio Pictures)
With international tension already high in Central Europe following the German annexation of Austria in March 1938 and continuing unrest in the German-speaking border regions of Czechoslovakia, known as the Sudetenland, reports of substantial military concentrations in areas close to Czechoslovakia on 19 May 1938 gave rise to fears of an imminent German attack. In response to the reports, originating mainly from Czechoslovak intelligence sources, Czechoslovakia mobilised a number of military reservists on 20 May and strengthened its border defences. Alarmed by the developing situation, the governments of France (Czechoslovakia's main ally) and Britain warned Germany that they would come to Czechoslovakia's aid in the event of an attack.

Both ships went to America in the war where they moored up with Queen Elizabeth (Chapter 58.2e), before being refitted as troop carriers, a process Normandie did not survive. Queen Mary is moored in Long Beach, and still has the mural in the restaurant on which a crystal model tracked progress. The same artwork is on the cover of the Squires' farewell dinner menu, and can be seen in the restaurant picture above.
Queen Mary Grand Salon Mural (Florian Boyd)
Alfred died at Esher on 16 April 1944. Elsie lived until 21 September 1970, long enough for me to meet her, when I was very small.



Apparently, Elsie used to drive herself around in a big, old Wolseley, and was driven by her housekeeper, Jane Gregory's brother, William. It seems most likely that the pre-War family car would have been preserved through regular servicing - Mum confirms that it was this type. She still had the car when she died though, which would have made it over thirty years old.

Wolseley 18, 1937 (credit)

If you can help me add to this story, please let me know.

Next (Alfred's siblings)

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