Eveline Beatrice Alice Warren 1876-1909

BY HEATHER R. GHEY BROADBENT

A QUITE COMMON PHRASE is, “You can choose your friends but not your relatives.” However, some relatives can be quite interesting. I heard about one of mine in the 1940s when visiting my paternal grandparents. A pen and ink drawing of Eveline Beatrice Alice Warren hung on their bedroom wall and my grandmother often told me fascinating tales of the cousin she called “Lena”.

As the years went by and that generation was gone, and then many of the next, various items that had belonged to the woman I had heard about as a small child came down to me. Again, even more years later, I had a frustrating time trying to clarify where Lena belonged in my ‘family tree’. Eventually I discovered that, although born in the same year as both my grandmothers, 1876, they were all friends since childhood and she was actually my great-grandfather’s cousin. This often occurred in an era of very large families, coupled with the fact that he was the first born of the eldest and she was born rather late in life to the youngest.

Lena’s mother, Frances, married George Warren on April 5th 1864, in the same church where I was much later christened, and my great-grandparents married there a year later. The couples were life long friends. George had an unusual career for that era. He was a telegraphist and worked for a time for the Royal Mail at the General Post Office in Southampton, England. In 1959, shortly before the death of Prince Albert, he was seconded to the Household of Her Majesty Queen Victoria at their home, Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, as H.M. First Telegraphist. He later toured with the Royal Household to all their palaces and houses until the volume of telegraphy work required additional people. After the death of Prince Albert, Her Majesty virtually retired to Osborne House and the Warrens acquired “Evelyn Cottage” close by in East Cowes, where Lena was born on May 7th 1876. That house is now the rectory for the East Cowes Church and the Royal Family Church in nearby Whippingham. When Lena was christened in July of 1876, Her Majesty and John Brown (always known as Her Majesty’s Loyal Servant) were her godparents. Her middle names, Beatrice and Alice, were in honour of the Queen’s daughters.



Her mother (who, according to the Queen’s diary, nearly died in January 1870) was frequently in poor health and consequently did not accompany her daughter on her travels as she grew up. When Lena was fourteen in 1890, and again when she was eighteen, she kept diaries of her tours. Recorded in a two volume bound diary, the first trip was to Scotland, escorted by her father whom Her Majesty had given permission to take leave from Balmoral to travel with her. The second single volume diary chronicled her Continental Tour.

Obviously self-contained, confident and well educated, it is very amusing to note the dramatic changes this young Victorian era woman undergoes between the ages of fourteen and eighteen. Her trip to Scotland entailed a ferry ride from the Isle of Wight to Southampton and 700 miles of long train rides to Aberdeen where she and ‘dear Papa’ visited the Telegraphist Office to advise her mother of their safe arrival. Lena was very impressed with the fact that there were several young women employed there as well as men. She also comments on the heavy baskets of fish carried by women, whose broad Aberdonian accents she could not understand, on the train from Perth to the Aberdeen market. Later, while staying at Albert House, Lena saw the Queen arrive at Ballater Station with Princess Beatrice and her husband, the Duke of Battenburg. The diary is full of references to long walks, meeting with members of the Royal Family and Household, and visiting John Brown’s grave. He had died when she was seven but she recalled his ‘kindnesses’ to her and their many encounters. She also visited his brother and his wife, and went to Crathie Kirk, near Balmoral.



One day Lena didn’t see her father at all as he was busy in his office sending telegraphs regarding the death of the Dowager Duchess of Ely on June 10th 1890. Shortly afterwards, she and dear Papa (later just ‘Dad’) began their tour and the diary gives us a rare sight of Scotland towards the end of the 19th century. On the island of Iona, she noted ‘bare-foot urchins’ selling seashells, feldspar and serpentine pebbles. The obvious poverty on the Hebrides really distressed her. Perhaps anticipating an audience for her recollections, and carefully attributing the source, she wrote of such places as Aberdeen, Perth, Holyrood Palace, the Forth Bridge and Edinburgh, and provides great details about the lead-up to and aftermath of the Battle of Culloden where Bonnie Prince Charles Edward Stuart was defeated, ending the Jacobite Rebellion.

Travelling principally by rail, but also by steamer, charabanc (an early type of tour bus), pony and trap, and ‘dogcart’ they covered a great distance and visited many sites of interest, the history of which she faithfully recorded, including battle grounds. She saw salmon leaping in the rivers and enjoyed Loch Ness. Shortly before making the homeward trip, they visited the Edinburgh Exhibition of 1890.

One noteworthy aspect of the diary is that, although beautifully hand written, the volumes are professionally bound. To my fourteen year old eyes, I thought the introductory pages were very ‘Victorian’ and ‘flowery’. For example, “Thanking Her Majesty for allowing her father ‘time off’ to accompany her on the Tour.” I did not learn for some time that the volumes had subsequently been read by the Queen, Lena’s godmother.

The second diary details a Continental Tour with ‘dear Aunt Nellie’ (Eleanor) whom I suspect she ran rings around. As previously mentioned, the difference between a fourteen year old and an eighteen year old, even in that era, is quite dynamic. For example, Lena comments on the good looks of young men she encounters, some who turn up again during their travels. As the trip starts, after the ferry ride from the Isle of Wight, they visit French friends in Southampton who are also friends of the Levy family they plan to visit in Paris. Lena apparently spoke excellent French and good German, probably because it was a principal language of many visitors to the Royal Family. It is obvious from the start that Aunt Nellie cannot keep up with the exuberant, long distance walking, opera and museum attending eighteen year old. They spend time with the Levys, especially André (attending medical school and years later her fiancé), his sisters Madeleine and Manon, and younger brother Pierre. They visit many Parisian sites and events that are described in great detail.

Then Nellie and Lena began their tour. Her nineteenth birthday was spent in Nancy; then off to Strasbourg where they visited the Kaiser’s Palace; then, briefly, Offenburg where the only thing that impressed her was a statue of Sir Frances Drake whom she claimed (to my surprise) as a ‘much esteemed and many greats Uncle’ (admittedly, Drake is a family surname). Their next stop was Zürich where, in the hotel, she found a magazine article about Osborne House. The diary continues with a host of other places visited —Constance, Baden, Neuhausen, Lucerne, Rigi, Interlaken, Berne, Lausanne, Geneva and Chamonix. Lena actually walked up Mont Blanc and only occasionally admits to being tired, but Aunt Nellie participated less and less and frequently retired early. On May 23rd 1894 they were back in Paris with the Levys, where the diary often comments on André, his good looking friends, and his attendance at either the school of medicine or the Hospital Beaujou. Shortly before returning to Britain she saw a performance by Sarah Bernhardt but did not seem overly impressed.

On June 16th they made the journey home, visiting briefly again in Southampton. Lena had very few months before tragedy struck. First her mother, Frances, passed away at age 58 on September 5th 1895 and then, six and a half months later, her father, George, also 58. Her Majesty was away from Osborne House on both occasions and there is no indication that she read the second diary, but her official representative went to both funerals and wrote to inform Her Majesty of the events. Later the Queen paid for the monument in St. Mildred’s, Whippingham, churchyard which mentions George’s ‘zealous and faithful service’. Lena’s distress was also emphasized in the letters. Shortly afterwards, and probably in lieu of her father’s pension, the Queen awarded Lena 20 pounds sterling for five years. She apparently used it wisely (perhaps assisted by aunts and uncles and the sale of ‘Evelyn Cottage’) and by 1909 was living in Paris, already had her BA and was attending the School of Medicine there, training as a Doctor. She lived in an apartment nearby at 238, Bd. Raspail.

On about July 1st 1909, Lena and fiancé André were working in a laboratory in the school when there was an explosion. In spite of extensive research it was impossible to determine what had occurred—perhaps due to reluctance on the part of the school that such a thing could happen. As a result, on July 4th Lena died in her apartment with André and a Mr. Hoffman present. When I heard about this in the 1940s, my grandmother thought André had also died. Apparently he did not.

Over many years much research has failed to locate any more information, only that Lena was buried in Mont Parnasse Cemetery. However, personal inquires in the 1970s caused great consternation to the Cemetery Board as she had recently been re-buried in a communal grave at the Cemetery de Père Lachaise and the first burial site had been resold long before the 2008 date in the 99 year contract. This may have occurred because the monument notes her as unmarried and an orphan. Interestingly, Lena had visited cemeteries in Paris in 1890 and was not impressed. There is, however, a memorial stone to Lena at the foot of her parents’ graves in Whippingham.

From visits and correspondence (that included my research information) with an historian at Osborne House and the present Evelyn Cottage residents, more information has come to light. Also, over many years, small items that belonged to Lena have come to me. In the 1980s I received a small box initialled E.B.A.W. that contained, among old hat pins, a tiny jet disc with a miniature clover leaf decoration and a tiny central pearl—it was the missing piece of a broken mourning brooch that I had intended, but failed, to throw away for many years. Is this a case of how ‘good things come to those who wait’?