Florence Louisa Barclay (nee Charlesworth)

Timeline Career Books Husband and children Probate See also: Punch articles mentioning Florence Barclay Chautauqua The Huguenot Cross Photos of Florence Barclay's children Cyril Barclay's wedding The Cresta Run Census records connected with Beddomes Wikipedia article on Florence L. Barclay Wikipedia article on Vera Barclay The Life of Florence L. Barclay by one of her daughters Books by Florence L. Barclay, on Project Gutenberg Timeline Year Event Relationship 1862 Florence Charlesworth born in Jersey 1881 Maria Amelia Charlesworth dies mother 1881 Marries Rev. Charles Barclay husband 1882 Magdalen Florence Barclay born daughter 1883 Muriel Alice Barclay born daughter 1884 Cyril Charles Barclay born son 1885 Ursula Margaret Barclay born daughter 1886 Guy Charlesworth Barclay born son 1893 Vera Charlesworth Barclay born daughter 1894 Claudia Lilian Barclay born daughter 1900 Angela Barclay born daughter 1900 Rev. Samuel Charlesworth dies father 1921 Florence Barclay (nee Charlesworth) dies

Career

As a child, Florence Charlesworth used to stay with her grandfather Richard Beddome - see census records connected with Beddomes.

Florence Barclay was a popular novelist. See Books by Florence L. Barclay, on Project Gutenberg. The most popular book was "The Rosary".

See The Barclay Voice for a comment about an inherited family trait!

An aunt of hers, Maria Louisa Charlesworth was also a novelist. Two of her daughters were writers as well, one wrote a biography of Florence Barclay, and Vera Barclay wrote children's books. Florence's father also wrote a life of her mother, and other books.

Forence Barclay was close to her sister, Maud Ballington Booth (nee Charlesworth), who was also a writer. See Maud's page for an account of her turbulent life. Florence visited her sister in 1909, where she went on a Chautauqua tour with her.

The "Life of Florence L. Barclay" by one of her daughters mentions that Florence Barlcay enjoyed it when Punch wrote articles about her.Here are two Punch articles mentioning Florence Barclay.

The Books of Florence L. Barclay

I have given the dedications because my mother Celia Dibblee, the grand-daughter of Florence Barclay, told me that the books were dedicated to the children of Florence. This seems to be only partially true. There are no books dedicated to Magdalen, Ursula or Guy. I cannot guarantee the rest of the names or initials are right, but they seem to fit.

Florence has also dedicated a book to her mother, who died long before she started writing, but not to her father, who died in 1900. She also did not obviously dedicate a book to her sister, Maud, although the two sisters were close, and Florence visited Maud in America in 1909. Perhaps "One woman who said "I go not"; but afterwards repented and went" is a reference to her. I have no idea who Catherine is.

Husband and Children

Husband: In 1881, she married Rev. Charles Wright Barclay (1853-1926).
Children:

The names in brackets are the family nicknames.

See also Photos of Florence Barclay's children.

Rev. Charles Barclay and Florence Barclay, with their five oldest children, Magdalen, Muriel, Cyril, Ursula and Guy - 1886

Florence Barclay, with the three youngest children, Vera, Claudia and Angela - 1901

One of Florence's daughters wrote "A Life of Florence Barclay" and in it, she says "We were, I suppose, what is called 'naughty' children: and inclined to be rebellious against grown-up authority."

These children were my great aunts and great uncles (apart from my grand-mother, Claudia, of course). As a very young child, I seemed to have an excessive number of great aunts and uncles, and could never work out who was who. Two do stand out, though. Vera Barclay was known to me as Aunt Bay. 'Bay' stood for Baby. That seems odd as several children were younger than her. But if you look at the birth dates, you can see that Florence Barclay was producing babies at the rate of one a year. Then there was a gap between Guy (born in 1886) and Vera (born in 1893), so when she was born, she would have been, indeed, the baby of the family. (There is a family story that after Guy was born, the family doctor gave strict instructions to the father, Rev. Charles Barclay, that there were to be no more babies for a while, for the sake of Florence's health.) I remember my great aunt Bay, and I enjoyed reading some of the books she wrote, especially "They Met a Wizard", which had a lot about strange natural history in it. Vera also wrote "The Mystery of Mortimer's Wood" under the name Margaret Beech, and this is dedicated to my mother, Celia Dibblee (nee Packe) and her brother Anthony (see right). She also wrote a short story about the Cresta Run, which she knew well, as the family spent holidays at St. Moritz.

I also have fond memories of my great uncle Cyril. He was a vicar, but had a hobby of conjuring tricks, which made him a favourite relative for a small child. He showed me a wonderful trick of how to make a sixpenny disappear (a small silver coin in those days - see my website on Pre-decimal Sterling). It involved hiding it under a thruppent bit, a slightly bigger coin, which had been hollowed out, so the sixpence fitted inside it. After showing me the trick, he then gave me the special thruppeny bit as a present, which was so kind of him (see below). He also carefully taught me the correct way to play "Find the Lady" - a card trick where two cards are held in one hand and one in the other. One is a queen. The trickster lays down the cards quickly, face down, and the punter must guess which is the queen. There is another story that Uncle Cyril would travel by train to Newmarket, to go to the races. Sometimes he would meet card sharps on the train, who summed him up as a harmless vicar - a possible victim. But they would find, unaccountably, that at the end they were the losers rather than Cyril!

		Right way up, showing sixpence disappearing under thruppence
		Upside down, showing how sixpence fits inside hollowed out thrupppence

I was unaware that Cyril Barclay had been to Australia, or that his wedding seemed have caused some interest there. See accounts of Cyril's wedding.

Geoffrey Rogers' grandson tells me about the marriage of Magdalen Barclay and Geoff Rogers: "The 'pedigree of Lt Col TWL Hughes' (prep by Gwynedd achives) a cousin of my grandfather Geoffrey swarbreck Rogers records the date of their marriage as 30/3/1916 in India. He talked a lot about a hill station called Landsdowne which was a summer base for the Indian regiment he was part of (39th Garhwal Regt.) and they were married there. (St Mary's) Madge was a 'fishing fleet' bride and older than Geoff. I think she had an uncle who was a civil officer in India. I am a little confused about the date as the Garhwal regiments were in France from 1914 and I know he was seriously wounded in 1915. I vaguely remember him telling me how he was involved with raising additional regiments so I guess he returned to do this and got married too. The Garhwalis were initially a part of the Gurkas and were also recruited in Nepal. They remained in India and he fought in Afganistan amongst other places. Both children were born in India but they sold up and left in the 1920's and went to Finland looking for a cure for Meg's polio before settling in Norfolk."

FLorence Barclay gave a Huguenot Cross to her youngest daughter, Angel Whitcombe. Florence claimed that she was descended from Huguenots, and this had been passed down through the family, mother to daughter. I have my doubts! See here for photo of the cross, and a discussion of this.

Probate

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