Mrs Jessie Lupton née Ramsden aka Mrs Arnold Lupton, 73, (1859-1938). It is The Times listing of dinner guests that gives us the fuller name of Mrs Arnold Lupton, though as Arnold died in 1930, the guest list might have chosen to drop his name from hers (though I believe Mrs Arnold Lupton would be still be perfectly acceptable for a widow).[2] [3] Arnold was a Liberal M.P., an engineer in the mining and coal business and an academic. Jessie involved herself in political life and was active in the Anti-Vivisection Society. The current Duchess of Cambridge is a descendant of the Lupton family.

Our puzzle is seeing if Jessie can lead us to the identities of Frank Marshall, on this table. My puzzling over her possible Marshall connections has thrown up some intriguing connections and here I report on what is Work In Progress: on 29th July 1905 Mrs Lupton attended a wedding in Cirencester as did a host of Marshalls, including a Mr and Mrs Frank Marshall (though he would be 86 at the time of this dinner), when a Miss Laura Beatrix Marshall married one Bruce Swanwick.[4] The Swanwicks lived at the Royal Agricultural College Farm, Cirencester, the Marshalls at Gayton Hall, Ross-on-Wye. Bruce was a first cousin, once removed, of the wonderfully named Frederick Tertius Swanwick, (the third son) who, it emerges, was the husband of Helena Swanwick née Sickert, the pacifist and feminist writer (and sister of Walter Sickert) who also wrote for Time and Tide.  Helena was the first editor of Common Cause and Editor of Foreign Affairs – the latter point noted on page 27 of the Centenary Edition of Time and Tide recently published by the Nottingham Trent University project, as introduced by Eleanor Reed in her page on this site.

Frederick’s sister, born in New York, was christened Sarah Lupton Swanwick (1843-1924) – which was also intriguing. Further sleuthing showed that Mrs Lupton’s husband Arnold was a second cousin once removed of Bruce Swanwick, the above bridegroom. This explains why Mrs Lupton was at the wedding (and all those Marshalls).  It may therefore lead to Frank Marshall, though as yet there is no obvious Miss Florence Marshall in that family at the right time (though we do have another possibility with a Lupton connection).  

Sarah Swanwick’s middle name of Lupton was no doubt a nod to the fact that Arnold’s father Arthur Lupton married an Elizabeth Wicksteed, whose brother Charles Wicksteed married Arthur’s sister Jane Lupton. (Sarah’s eldest brother was Herbert Swanwick Wicksteed). This was a close family in other ways as Elizabeth and Charles Wicksteed’s father, John, married a Swanwick (Bithia) whose brother Joseph Swanwick married one Hannah Wicksteed. And yes, that was another brother and sister marrying sister and brother. The latter couple were the grandparents of Fred Tertius and Sarah Lupton Swanwick. Sarah herself, perhaps not surprisingly, wrote a significant tome on her family ancestry.[5] It’s a wonder they didn’t unite their names under simply Swanwicksteed – that was irresistible.

I said this was a puzzle. Meanwhile, in 1911, in New Zealand, one Lupton Arnold Wicksteed (1876-1947), a great-grandson of John Wicksteed and Bithia Swanwick, (the parents-in-law of Arthur and Jane Lupton), married an Edith Marshall.  Is your head spinning yet?

SEATED BESIDE

Both Tom Callaghan, given her husband was a mining engineer, and Gwen Davies, philanthropist, might have been appropriate partners in conversation, and if Florence Marshall is the Florence Elsie Marshall of the Parsons Green School then there would have been a strong connection, and possibly with Frank Marshall too, whoever he is. She would be comfortable sitting anywhere I suspect.

WHAT’S ON HER MIND?

Not sure really. Good causes to support?  If we have the right Florence Marshall, looking to make some introductions for the young student.

JESSIE’S STORY SO FAR

Jessie was born in Leeds on 23^rd October 1859, the eldest of the 11 children of Lucy Phillips, dressmaker (daughter of a tailor) and her husband John William Ramsden, a photographic chemist (who married in Bolton Abbey). Jessie married Professor Arnold Lupton on 15^th December 1886. They had no children. The Lupton family historian described her late husband Arnold, (1846 – 1930), an MP, mining engineer, colliery manager and academic – as the “Achilles Heel of the Leeds Complete Suffrage Association” – reflecting his failure to vote for suffrage when an MP.[6] 

Nonetheless he was clearly a man with principles, being a passive resister during the Boer Wars and the Great War and in 1918 imprisoned under the Defence of the Realm Act, a teetotaller, and very controversially argued against vaccination. He probably would have liked to be at the dinner, given that in his will he specifically gave instructions for a good lunch to be arranged for mourners. In 1924 he was at the Fetters and Roses dinner for parliamentarians who had been imprisoned, attended by both Lady Rhondda and Helen Archdale. Mrs Lupton may well have been acquainted with Thomas Callaghan through her late husband’s mining interests.

Jessie / Mrs Arnold also appeared in The Sketch in 1909 amongst a group of ladies who were Vote Less yet Vote Getters (herself raising the flag in the Sleaford Division of Lincolnshire).[7] She was presented at court in 1906. In 1904 she was active in the Anti-Vivisection Society, hosting the annual meeting of the Leeds branch at her home, 6, DeGrey Road, being elected treasurer and expressing the hope that more could be done to educate “the man in the street”.[8] Vivisection was an important issue at this time. In 1910 she resigned the Presidency of the Sleaford Women’s’ Liberal Association, and clearly was active in public life, alongside her husband. In 1907 she is recorded as singing a little electioneering ditty at a Liberal Meeting.[9] Her husband Arnold was also a leading light in the anti-vaccination movement, and strong libertarian.

Another member of the Lupton family, Anne Muriel Lupton, great great aunt of Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge,[10], lived in “a sort of Boston marriage” with Enid Moberly Bell in Chelsea (7 Mallord St. SW3) who was head of Lady Margaret School in Parsons Green, 1917-1947, with Anne as a major benefactor. One Florence Elsie Marshall took over as head in 1947 and this Lupton link is so far the only reason that she may be the Miss Florence Marshall at this table. Anne was a second cousin once removed of Arnold (their common ancestor being born in 1748).  Anne’s three brothers all died in France in the War, in successive years, 1915, 1916 and 1917.

WHAT JESSIE DID NEXT

We have no further sightings of Jessie after the dinner. She and her husband lived at 7 Victoria Street, Westminster, her home when she died on 25^th November 1938.[11]  Jessie’s probate was awarded to one John Henry Wales Laverick, colliery manager and James Scott Duckers, solicitor. Laverick was a colliery manager near Sheffield, and had studied under Arnold Lupton.

BACK TO TABLE 15

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[1] The Sketch, 22.12.1909 Vote Less yet Vote Getters, Ladies well known in the world of politics. Image ©Illustrated London News Group/Mary Evans, sourced via the British Newspaper Archive.

[2] The Times, 24.3.1933

[3] The Mercury, Hobart, Tasmania, 24.4.1931 p2 accessed 10.4.2019 online from Trove, National Library of Australia

[4] Hereford Journal, 29.7.1903 page 3.

[5] See the recently republished: Sarah Lupton Swanwick, The Descendants of REV. Philip Henry, M. a: Incumbent of Worthenbury, in the County of Flint, Who Was Ejected Therefrom by the Act of Uniformity in 1662; The Swanwick Branch to 1899.

[6] Arnold Lupton, Wikipedia, accessed 10.4.2019

[7] The Sketch, 22.12.1909 Vote Less yet Vote Getters, Ladies well known in the world of politics

[8] Leeds Mercury, 14.4.1904, p4

[9] Lowestoft Journal, 3.8.1907, p2

[10] Kate Nicholl, Mail on Sunday, Mail online 28.10.2010 William and Kate set for palace kiss  Accessed 15.3.2018

[11] The London Gazette, 17.1.1939