The Remarkable Widows of Melksham

IT’s easy to find news articles about men who’ve been leaders of industry, science and education, but little is reported about the women who carried on after their deaths and whether they continued their husband’s legacy or began their own.

Take, for example, Margaret Maxwell (Langton) Warren, the wife of Frederic Warren, who, along with his brother George, managed a steamship company in Liverpool and Boston, Massachusetts. In the early hours of 3rd September, 1901, Frederick headed to his summer home near Boston and was thrown from his runabout as it shied from a passing team. He hit his head on a stone wall and never regained consciousness. Widow Margaret moved back to England and she settled at Shaw Hill House and later Gifford Hall.

World War I broke out within the next decade. Sons Guy and George entered military service; daughters Margaret and Edith joined their mother in Red Cross service. You’ll spot the women in various historic Melksham photos, but little attention has been paid in recent years to their enormous contribution to the local war effort, such as the use of the family chauffeur and limousine for ambulance service. Mrs Warren was assistant commandant of the Melksham Red Cross Hospital, and for her services, she was given the OBE in 1921.

Thomas Marshall Sturge took his cabinet-making business to New York and was clearing timber from his lands in 1852 when he was struck by a falling tree and killed instantly. He was 32 and left widow Emma Sophia (Mundy) Sturge with five young children under the age of eight. Emma moved back to Gloucester to live with her in-laws until she moved to Melksham in 1871 and opened a ladies’ boarding school at Agra House in The Spa. The school relocated to The Lawn on Spa Road, where she remained the proprietress until her death in 1894.

Frederick Thomas Swanborough was a clerk at the Avon India Rubber Company when he married Amy Knowles in 1898. Within the next decade, he worked his way up to become managing director of the company; his patent (645) for Golf Balls was sealed in May 1915. Two months later, after a brief bout with septic meningitis, Swanborough died, aged 44. Frederick’s son Oswald followed in his father’s business and Amy Swanborough, his widow, remained on the board of directors. Amy became very active in local politics and defeated Labour candidate George Ward in 1928 for Wiltshire County.

She’d also served on the Melksham Urban Council and was appointed a county magistrate in 1933. She was a school governor and involved in too many organisations to list here, but her 1954 obituary honoured her service by stating, “Mrs Swanborough devoted a great deal of her time and energies for many years to many forms of public work in her adopted county of Wiltshire and in the Melksham district in particular.”

Richard Heald Ludlow Bruges, magistrate and owner of several large properties, was the son of William Heald Ludlow Bruges of Seend Mansion and Justice of the Peace. Richard caused quite a stir in 1881 among the Victorians with his scandalous accusations against the Countess of Lonsdale. So lewd were the charges he made, they were considered to be libellous, and women had to be escorted from the court in order for the lawsuit against him to continue. His friends testified as to his unsound mind after he had been previously thrown from a dog cart, which they believed would help to explain his unfounded charges against the countess. He pleaded guilty, apologised, admitted he was suffering from brain disease, and was discharged on bail. Two months later, he married Lisette Henrietta Hamilton.

Lisette was widowed 26 years later, in 1907 and moved to Jersey, in the Channel Islands. She lived there until her death in 1932. In her will, she left a legacy of nearly £200,000 to the hospital, through which investments brought in £3,000 annually. The newspapers recorded Melksham Cottage Hospital as “one of the richest institutions of its kind in England” as a result. With this enormous legacy, Melksham Hospital on Spa Road was built. The will had one stipulation: a wing, or addition to the hospital, must be erected at a cost not exceeding £10,000, to be named the “Richard Heald Ludlow-Bruges Ward.”

Pictured: Pierrot performers for the Red Cross c 1918; back row – to the right of the two nurses: Edith Hamilton Warren, Margaret Maxwell Warren, matron Ada Mary Bevan, and Guy Langton Warren.