The rather shaken and stirred papers of George and Kittie Calderon were finally married and chronologically sorted five years ago, and the surviving 247 books of their library were carefully flipped through revealing fascinating photographs, visiting cards, notes and even letters. I was therefore flabbergasted to discover, when I was recently reading Kittie’s copy of the 1924 Chekhov volume, that she was using this as a bookmark:
It was not surprising that it had never revealed itself before, as it is thin, pressed absolutely flat, and was tucked right in the seam between pages. Naturally, it was instantly captured in a polyester sleeve (in which it was scanned above), catalogued and filed.
It is interesting. We don’t actually know where George was on 5 October 1913. On 23 July he and Kittie had left for Foxwold and the beginning of their summer holidays. A month later they were at Acton Reynald for the popular celebration of the coming of age of Sir Roland James Corbet, Nina’s son Jim. In my biography I’ve written that they probably returned to Hampstead as usual in September. This half-a-cheque would seem to corroborate that. For if George made it out on 5 October and it was cleared by Lloyds at Hampstead on 8 October, the chances are that it was signed in Hampstead for some service or commodity obtained in Hampstead. Not long after, George was definitely at home in Well Walk, preparing for a theatre production of his Maharani of Arakan.
Most interesting of all is the fact that George’s bank was based in Norwich. He had a bank account in Oxford when he was a student there, but we don’t know with which bank. The letters ‘AIN’ before ‘NORWICH’ on this 1913 cheque suggest that in 1913 he was banking with Barclays & Company Limited at Bank PLAIN, Norwich.
Why would George do this?
Kittie’s first husband, Archie Ripley, had been related to the famous Gurney bankers of Norwich through his mother. When he died in 1898, a trust fund was set up for Kittie that was administered by her solicitor William Ripley in Norwich and the investments in it were managed by Gurney’s Bank. In 1896 Gurney’s and other banks were merged into Barclays & Company Limited. Norwich, then, was where Kittie’s capital and credit lay, and this cheque is perhaps further proof that George had made a ‘prudent match’.
Related
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
George Calderon c.1901
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
Captain of the 11
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
George Calderon, 1912
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
‘Things are still coming up’
The rather shaken and stirred papers of George and Kittie Calderon were finally married and chronologically sorted five years ago, and the surviving 247 books of their library were carefully flipped through revealing fascinating photographs, visiting cards, notes and even letters. I was therefore flabbergasted to discover, when I was recently reading Kittie’s copy of the 1924 Chekhov volume, that she was using this as a bookmark:
It was not surprising that it had never revealed itself before, as it is thin, pressed absolutely flat, and was tucked right in the seam between pages. Naturally, it was instantly captured in a polyester sleeve (in which it was scanned above), catalogued and filed.
It is interesting. We don’t actually know where George was on 5 October 1913. On 23 July he and Kittie had left for Foxwold and the beginning of their summer holidays. A month later they were at Acton Reynald for the popular celebration of the coming of age of Sir Roland James Corbet, Nina’s son Jim. In my biography I’ve written that they probably returned to Hampstead as usual in September. This half-a-cheque would seem to corroborate that. For if George made it out on 5 October and it was cleared by Lloyds at Hampstead on 8 October, the chances are that it was signed in Hampstead for some service or commodity obtained in Hampstead. Not long after, George was definitely at home in Well Walk, preparing for a theatre production of his Maharani of Arakan.
Most interesting of all is the fact that George’s bank was based in Norwich. He had a bank account in Oxford when he was a student there, but we don’t know with which bank. The letters ‘AIN’ before ‘NORWICH’ on this 1913 cheque suggest that in 1913 he was banking with Barclays & Company Limited at Bank PLAIN, Norwich.
Why would George do this?
Kittie’s first husband, Archie Ripley, had been related to the famous Gurney bankers of Norwich through his mother. When he died in 1898, a trust fund was set up for Kittie that was administered by her solicitor William Ripley in Norwich and the investments in it were managed by Gurney’s Bank. In 1896 Gurney’s and other banks were merged into Barclays & Company Limited. Norwich, then, was where Kittie’s capital and credit lay, and this cheque is perhaps further proof that George had made a ‘prudent match’.
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