Description:
Black and white photograph mounted on thick card showing a group of three woman and two young girls. The photograph has a white border on the top and bottom. On the mounting card someone has written in blue ink above the photograph " Ross-on-Wye Doctor's House" followed by a cross and below the photograph "me about 50 years ago". Written in the same hand on the bottom white border of the photograph is "cook and parlour maid". Oddly, the women are all dressed in long heavy overcoats and hats whereas the girls are wearing dresses. The woman on the left is wearing a nurse's head-dress and the woman on the right is wearing a cloche hat the styles of which were in fashion during the 1920s. Behind them is a row of high town buildings - the one on the left having an elegant gothic arch doorway.
The building with the gothic arch doorway is situated in St. Mary's Street, Ross-on-Wye. This photograph was taken to the side of the steps that lead up from St. Mary's Street to St. Mary's churchyard.
The annotation and cross above the photograph appears to indicate the location of a doctor's house in Ross-on-Wye. The Electoral Registers for Ross during the 1920s do not show any person with a title of doctor residing in St. Mary's Street. A Kelly's Directory for Herefordshire published in 1926 shows a list of medical officers for the Dispensary and Cottage Hospital in Gloucester Road. On this list is H. L. D'Olier Duckworth who is shown on the 1925 Electoral Register as residing at 6 St. Mary's Street, Ross.
In 1930, a picture of Mrs Duckworth appeared in the Ross Gazette (February 6, 1930, page 7) when she played the role of "Queen of the Fairies" in a Ross Operatic and Drama Society production of "Iolanthe". The picture confirms the woman on the right in this photograph to be Dr Duckworth's wife, Sylvia.
It is therefore reasonable to assume that the two girls are Dr. Duckworth's daughters, Joan (the older one on the left) and Sylvia.
The nurse, (who has been described here as the "parlour maid") is also shown in her full uniform in Photograph No.2. The cook (who must be the woman standing in the middle) could be the person the Duckworths appointed when they advertised the position in the Ross Gazette in 1924 (February 7, 1924, page 4):|
"WANTED, experienced General, good cook; help given. - Duckworth, St. Mary's Street, Ross".
In conclusion, this photograph is of Mrs Sylvia Duckworth, her two daughters, Joan and Sylvia, and two members of their domestic staff taken beside the wall in St. Mary's Churchyard overlooking St. Mary's Street.
DR. HENRY LAUNCELOT D'OLIER DUCKWORTH (1889-1959)
Dr Henry Duckworth was born and studied in Ireland before taking up a position at Cheltenham General Hospital. During the First World War he served as a surgeon in the Navy.
In 1919 he appears to have moved from Cheltenham to Ross to set up a partnership with a Dr. Allen Adair Dighton who had taken over a practice at Palace Pound. The following year he married Sylvia Boyle in his home town in Ireland, and then the year after, when his partner Dr. Adair Dighton left Ross, took over the practice. In 1928 he moved his family to "Pendeen" in Suffolk Road. He retired in 1958 but sadly, only a year later, died four days after his 70th birthday.
(Sources of Information: Ireland Civil Registration Births Index (Ancestry website); Herefordshire Electoral Rolls (Herefordshire Archives and Records Centre); Ross Gazette)
