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An interesting post card post declaration of peace. I wonder what the sender's reference is regarding the statement, "Hope you won the medal..."?

John - the postcard was posted on 3rd July 1902 to Miss Lawton (possibly Launton) at Barthomley Rectory near Crewe. Dr Google tells me there is indeed a village called Barthomley near Crewe but the Rectory no longer stands.

Searching the British newspapers of 1902 for mentions of Barthomley Rectory surprisingly came up with this personal advert in "The Stage" of 24 July 1901:



In fact Miss Flo Merry placed numerous adverts in various newspapers during 1901, 1902 & 1903 offering her dramatic services and giving her address as Barthomley Rectory.

Looking more widely for "Miss Flo Merry" came up with adverts such as this in the Matlock Visiting List of 18 June 1902:



I also found this somewhat dubious mention in an advert in the Cambridge Daily News of 16 April 1901:



Given this new evidence I would be interested to read your thoughts on what "Hope you won the medal" might mean.

David

Hi David,
That’s interesting. “Flo” appears to be a common name in the world of burlesque for some reason. I wonder if the card was used at a later time; perhaps because it was at hand rather than for a specific reason. The phrase “won the medal” could be referring to something other than anything dealing with the ABW. Unfortunately, we’ll never know. I like your research; it shed light on and made a common post card most interesting. Thank you, John

John - your card is doubly special, not only for its reference to Peace but also because of whom it was sent to, she was rather special.

She was the step-daughter of the Vicar of Barthomley, who was also rather special, and her full name was Mary Emily Lawton although she was commonly known as Mollie. At the time the card was sent she was 20 but six years later she won several prizes at Crufts Dog Show, strictly her Chow-Chows Foo-Shan (dog) & Shoo-Shan (bitch) won the prizes. So I suspect about the time the card was sent she had entered one of her first dog shows and hence the reference to winning a medal!

However, Mollie went on to win her own medals - she is third from the bottom on this Great War medal roll.



Still working on the identity of Miss Flo Merry. Mollie had an elder sister, Gwendolan, and a younger half sister, Rhalou who was named after her Turkish grandmother. If Flo was one of them it has to be Gwendolan as Rhalou was only 12 in 1902.

David.

That explains a lot! How interesting!

Well John your post card leads to some fascinating people. Mollie (the recipient) through her mother, Maud Erskine, had Scottish aristocratic connections and her father was a major landowner in Cheshire. This meant Mollie was born in Lawton Hall, not far from Barthomley, where the servants outnumbered the family two to one. Her father died when she two, her mother remarried to the Vicar of Barthomley and then, after producing a daughter christened Ralou Zoe, died when Mollie was 11. So from the age of 11 Mollie was brought up by her stepfather, Rev George William Charles Skene (1845-1923).

The Skenes were something else as shown by this 1908 newspaper clipping. Zoe & Felicia Skene were George’s sisters making them Mollie’s step-aunts. The friend of Walter Scott was George's grandfather, and his son was George's father.



I have finally found the true identity of Miss Flo Merry and she was in no way related to the Erskine, Lawton or Skene families. According to the 1911 Census, Barthomley Rectory had 26 rooms so it looks as though George decided to supplement his stipend by taking in a lodger.

This 1905 newspaper clipping gave me the breakthrough:



From there I discovered Miss Flo Merry started out life as Evangeline Mary Thomas, the daughter of a Bristol bookseller. Her husband Henry Jasper Akerman was a widower and a soldier, he served in the Army Service Corps (Regimental number 6271) from May 1885 to May 1906. His service records show 5 years of the 21 were spent in South Africa from January 1900 to January 1905. So not only did he bring himself to the marriage but also two medals – the Queen’s South Africa Medal (Paardeberg, Dreifontein, Belfast & Cape Colony clasps) and & the King’s South Africa Medal (both date clasps). Here is an extract from his service records covering his marriages – you can see the date of his second marriage agrees with the newspaper clipping even if the Irish locations seem to differ and the newspaper used her stage name and the army her real name.



To complete Mollie’s story she emigrated to the USA in 1927 and died a spinster in a New York hospital in 1941 having celebrated her 60th birthday by a few days.

Regards, David.