Bessie Stanley was just 9 when she received a postcard album for Christmas 1914. Bessie was the oldest child of John Stanley, the shopkeeper who ran the village Post Office in the small County Cork town of Timoleague. Bessie – whose formal name was Margaret Elizabeth – was clearly a collecting fan and over her lifetime amassed a huge collection of postcards, dating from the turn of the 20th century, through the turbulent years of WW1 and the War of Irish Independence, changing technology and then the Second World War. Bessie married Thomas Kingston and took over the running of the Post Office in Timoleague after the death of her father. She remained behind the counter of the Timoleague Post Office until her death in 1977. How do I know so much about Bessie? Well that’s a bit of a mystery. Her postcard collection, along with some family photographs, turned up in a charity shop in suburban Glasgow in the autumn of 2020, over 40 years after her death. With no known connection to the west of Scotland, how the collection ended up here is a real puzzle.
Family History and Connections
Along with the picture postcards and birthday, Easter and Christmas postcards, Bessie’s collection contained some intricately embroidered postcards of the type sold in the First World War. This example is a particularly nice one, and is unusual in that it commemorates the 1900-01 South African War, more commonly known now as the Second Boer War. Bessie wasn’t born at the time of this conflict and had no known connection to the regiment depicted, the Hertfordshire Yeomanry. Perhaps the sender just liked the picture?
The reverse of the postcard reads: Heathburn Hall. My Dear B. Thank very much for PC you are very thoughtful. How are you all? It is ages since I heard from any of you. Tons of love to you all and including Maysie, hoping you have enjoyed Easter by this, Ethel.
The Maysie mentioned on the card is Bessie’s younger sister, Mary Stanley. But who is Ethel, who clearly knows the family well? The first clue is Heathburn Hall, the place the card was sent from. Heathburn is a large house to the south of Cork city, 40km by road from Timoleague. Frustratingly, there is nobody by the name of Ethel in the right registration district on either the 1901 or 1911 Irish census. Heathburn Hall at that time was occupied by the Shaw family. The head of the Household, Frederick George Shaw was a retired Army officer from Hounslow in Middlesex, who unusually for the period gave his religion as “agnostic”. There were seven servants working in the Shaw household in 1901 and a similar number in 1911, so there is every probability that Ethel missed being enumerated on the census in Heathburn. Frederick Shaw sold the estate in 1918 to the Bateman family and moved back to England, where he died in Sussex later that same year.
Ethel remains a mystery, but clearly had a friendly relationship with the Stanley family. These WW1 embroidered cards are collectable, but for family historians have a different value. They give us a real insight into the lives of everyday people, over a century ago.
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