Martin, Miss Edith, Torridge House, 19 Bude Street, Appledore
Edith Martin[1] (1888 – 1955) was born on 5 December 1888 at 7 Allan Banks, Newport, Barnstaple, the daughter of Samuel Hernaman Martin, Customs Officer, and Susan Martin, formerly Lee. Samuel had entered the Customs Service in 1867 in Plymouth,[2] then moved to Fowey in Cornwall, where he and his first wife Ann had two children. Ann died in 1886 and Samuel married Susan Lee the following year in Par. Edith was the oldest child of Samuel and Susan, and was followed by four other daughters: Winfred, Lilian, Hilda and Doris.
Shortly before Doris’s birth in 1900 Samuel was promoted to Superintendent of HM Customs at Appledore, and the family moved to Rock House, on the Quay at Appledore. Samuel held this post until his retirement in June 1910. As the Western Times made clear in reporting his retirement after 40 years’ service he became popular locally, as his ‘kind and genial manner won the respect of all with whom he came into contact, especially the sailors and men of the Royal Naval Reserve’, for which he acted as local registrar.[3] He was awarded the Imperial Service Medal for his service.[4]
Edith began her education at the Bear Street Schools in Barnstaple, where her admission is recorded in 1898.[5] In 1906 she qualified as a teacher by passing the examination for pupil teachers.[6] On the 1911 census, on which she is recorded at Torridge House, Bude Street, Appledore, living with her parents and four younger sisters, she is recorded as an Assistant Teacher, County Council. According to her grand-daughter she was a skilled pianist as well as a teacher, and she taught in Instow rather than Appledore, being rowed across to work each day.[7]
In 1911 the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies sent Marguerite Norma Smith, one of their organisers on an educational campaign in North Devon. Smith was pleased with the response they had in Appledore … ‘a mixed audience of townspeople and fishermen. When I asked for questions a man remarked, “There is nothing to say; it is all so plain and straightforward”.[8] The vicar, the Rev George Scholey, who had been in the crowd, approached her at the end of the meeting and expressed his support, which he then demonstrated by chairing two pro-suffrage meetings in the Church Schools when Smith came back to the district in June.
Smith records ‘the energy and help which Miss Martin has given’ and that ‘she had worked splendidly’, resulting in the formation of an Appledore branch of the NUWSS following those meetings with over fifty members.[9]. Martin agreed to take on the role of branch secretary for Appledore, and appears in that capacity in Common Cause through to 3 October 1913.[10]
No further information has been discovered about the Appledore branch or about Martin’s activity. The Bideford branch was reorganised in 1913 and seems to have extended its remit to cover Northam and Appledore.
Martin’s father had a stroke in the summer of 1913 and later developed sepsis which led to his death at the end of February 1914 and, as several of Edith’s sisters were married by that time, she may have been required to undertake additional domestic duties or even to have given up her post.
According to her grand-daughter Edith married Ernest James Harris in 1917.[11] She reputedly met him on a walking holiday and, after their marriage moved to live with him in London where they had two children, Doreen and Roy. It is believed that after her death in 1955 her remains were buried with those of her parents in Appledore.
Entry created by Marilyn Smee and Julia Neville, January 2019.
[1] Census and family information from www.ancestry.co.uk except where shown.
[2] The National Archive, reference TNA ADM 139/674/27323, gives his date of birth as 19 Jun 1849.
[3] Western Times, 21 Jun 1910; North Devon Journal (NDJ), 7 Apr 1910.
[4] NDJ, 7 Jul 1910.
[5] Devon Heritage Centre, 1450C/EAA/1, Bear Street Schools Admissions Register, 1884-1922.
[6] North Devon Gazette, 17 Jul 1906.
[7] Family information supplied by Patricia Outen, daughter of Edith’s son, Roy Harris, November 2020.
[8] Common Cause (CC), 11 May 1911, p.84.
[9] CC 29 Jun 1911, p.212.
[10] CC 4 Jul 1911, 681; 3 Oct 1913, p.454.
[11] Family information supplied by Patricia Outen.