mildred mallandaine + claude john ainslie
Mildred was born on 29 January 1884 in Calcutta, India to Alfred Mallandaine and his first wife Eleanor Cochran and baptised in the garrison church at Fort William on 26 March. Her father was an Army Bandmaster and served with a number of regiments in India from the early 1880s until he left the army in 1899 to work as a private bandmaster.
Mildred’s mother died in Bombay in 1900 and five years later, her father suddenly decided to marry his housekeeper and told his daughters that they would have to leave his house and find jobs to support themselves. Mildred found a position as a governess with a wealthy Indian family and cared for their daughter for almost two years before leaving to get married.
She married Claude John Ainslie in the Calcutta Registrar’s Office on 27 July 1907 and although two witnesses signed the register neither were Ainslie or Mallandaine family members; her father and brothers were based in Bombay on the other side of the country and Claude was the only member of his family in India.
Claude was born on 28 August 1881 at Hall Garth in Over Kellet, Lancashire to Aymer Ainslie and Mary Eliza Stevens. He attended the Charney Hill School in nearby Grange-over-Sands before leaving at 13 for the Serbergh School in Cumbria. By 1897, his family had moved to London living first in Chelsea before settling in a house at 53 Perham Road in Fulham. By the age of 20, Claude was already working as a secretary of a mercantile firm and his business interests took him to India two years later when he sailed to Bombay on board the Marmara on 31 December 1903. It is not known how Claude and Mildred met or why they married in Calcutta but when they did, Claude’s occupation was given as assistant in a merchant’s firm.
Mildred travelled back to England prior to the birth of her first child and Montague Reginald Aymer was born in a house on The Steyne in Worthing, Sussex on 20 September 1908. They returned to India, sailing from Liverpool on 25 February 1909, and settled back into life in Calcutta. On 24 August 1911, their daughter Joan Aymer was born in Darjeeling and baptised at the local anglican church dedicated to St Andrew on 11 September. It is not known if they moved to Darjeeling or if Mildred moved there temporarily in the later stages of pregnancy to avoid the heat and humidity of Calcutta.
Claude was still working as a merchant when he joined the Indian Army Reserve of Officers as a Second Lieutenant on 25 April 1916. He initially served with the Machine Gun Corps in Attock in present day Pakistan and in 1918, he joined the staff of the Rawalpindi Division who fought in the 3rd Afghan War in 1919. While he was still serving in the army, his wife and children returned to England and settled in Dibden near Southampton. Claude appears in the Electoral Register for Dibden in 1918 but is listed as an absent voter so he may have escorted his family back to England before returning to his duties in India.
Claude arrived back in England in October 1919 and the following year he appeared in the Electoral Register along with Mildred at Red Cottage in Buttsash near Hythe. In 1923, they were living at Verulam in Buttsash and from 1924 to 1931, they were living at Brookley House in the village of Brockenhurst in the New Forest area of Hampshire.
On 1 September 1934, their daughter Joan married Clinton Francis Grant Henshaw at the church of St Saviour in Brockenhurst. News of the event appeared in The Times newspaper on 3 September:
The bride, who was given away by her father, wore a parchment tinted satin gown with a train of old Irish lace lined with ruched parchment tinted chiffon. Her veil of silk net was held in place by a diadem of orange blossom and rosemary, and she carried a shower bouquet of cream roses. A reception was held at Morant Hall, Brockenhurst and later the bride and bridegroom left for their honeymoon in Derbyshire and the Lake District.
Clinton was born in Horsley, Gloucestershire on 8 April 1909 to Captain Lionel Henshaw and Norah Vine. He and Mildred had two children and in 1939, while Clinton was serving in the army, Joan was living at Newgate in Remenhan Hill, Henley on Thames with her two children, her mother-in-law and four servants.
1913 - 99
Claude and Mildred’s son Montague, known as Tony, married Frances Isobel Becher at St Mary the Virgin in Hambleden, Oxfordshire on 1 May 1937. Frances was born in Lucknow, India on 16 December 1913 to Maurice Becher, a lieutenant in the King’s Own Scottish Borderers, and his wife Violet Todd. She returned to England with her mother shortly after her birth and they settled in Penn near High Wycombe while her father fought at Gallipoli. He was killed in action on 26 April 1915 and six months after his death, his daughter Anne Violet was born.
Tony was serving in the army and within weeks of his wedding, he returned to his post in Karachi while Frances remained in England. Sady, Tony died at the British Military Hospital of appendicitis on 14 June 1937, just six weeks after his wedding and his son was born eight months later. Frances remarried in Westminster on 4 March 1939 to Philip Tyson-Woodcock. Philip was born in Oxted, Surrey on 8 February 1903 to the Reverend Edward Tyson-Woodcock and Edith Ford; he studied engineering but later worked as a paper manufacturer. After losing his first fiance in a car accident, he married Elizabeth Grenfell in 1929 and they had one daughter, Elizabeth Jane, but he petitioned for divorce and the decree absolute was granted in 1937.
Frances appears in the 1939 Register at the Royal Hotel in Mackenzie Street, Slough but she moved shortly after to Cote Lane in Westbury-on-Trym in Bristol and then to Oxfordshire where their son was born in 1940. They later moved to London and lived at 13 Donne Place in South Kensington for a number of years. Philip died in Florence on 5 April 1988 and Frances died in Chelsea on 19 February 1999.
Claude and Mildred remained in Hampshire but left Brockenhurst for the village of Holybourne near Alton. Claude died at The Lawn nursing home on 23 September 1964 and Mildred died on 20 October 1973 also at The Lawn.
Their daughter Joan Aymer died on 19 August 2006. She was pre-deceased by her husband Clinton in 1972.