Noddall, Miss Frances

Noddall, Miss Frances, 10 Higher Summerlands, Exeter

Frances Mary Noddall[1] (1859-1950) was born in 1859 in Gosport, Hampshire, the daughter of Commander Cornelius Noddall, RN, and Sarah, formerly Evans.  In 1861 Cornelius is shown as living in Royal Clarence Street, Gosport, employing three servants, with his daughters, Elizabeth (born in Plymouth) and Frances. A younger sister, Kate, was born three years later, also in Gosport. Cornelius was employed at the Royal Clarence Victualling Yard.

When Cornelius retired, with the rank of Captain,[2] the family moved to Torquay. He died there in 1874 and in 1881 Sophia, Frances and Kate were living with Sarah, now widowed at 24 Belgrave Terrace, Torquay. A contemporary photograph of Belgrave Terrace is available on-line at https://www.francisfrith.com/uk/torquay/torquay-belgrave-terrace-1889_21461 [3]  The family are described as living on their own means.

At the 1891 census Frances and Kate were both staying with a Dr and Mrs Landers in Kensington, described as ‘visitors’. Sarah was boarding in Hammersmith.

At the time of the 1911 census the three Noddalls, Sarah, Frances and Kate, were living at 10 Higher Summerlands, Exeter. Kate was described as a teacher at Exeter High School (the Maynard School), and it is likely that it was this appointment which brought the family to Exeter. In this twelve-roomed house they employed a cook and a housemaid, and also provided lodgings for three other Exeter High School teachers, Dorothy Richardson, Agnes Scott and Freda Hübner, and one pupil, aged 9, Kathleen Cardew. The house, destroyed during the Second World War, had a ‘fair-sized’ garden behind it.[4]

Frances Noddall joined the Exeter branch of the NUWSS and became a member of the committee. She is referred to in that capacity at the meeting with Countess Selborne of the Conservative and Unionist Women’s Franchise Association in 1912[5] and her re-election is noted in 1913.[6] She also assisted as steward and helper at the SW Federation meeting in Exeter in May 1913[7] and at the Fete held by the branch in July 1914.[8]

During the war Noddall is mentioned as one of the women helping at the NUWSS’s Toy Factory project.[9] The family vacated No 10 Lower Summerlands in order to allow its occupation by the Episcopal Modern School for Girls, which had been evacuated from its permanent premises to make space for a Red Cross Hospital for wounded soldiers.[10] They moved in to No 9, next door.

Sarah died in 1921 at 9 Lower Summerlands Exeter. The sisters moved after that to Torquay. Kate died in 1932 at Stretton, St George’s Crescent, Babbacombe, and Frances died there also, on 6 October 1950. Her effects were valued at approximately £9900.

 

Entry created by Julia Neville, October 2018


[1] Family and census information from www.ancestry.co.uk .

[2] Gazetted on 14 Oct 1867, https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/23311/page/5500/data.pdf Accessed 1 Oct 2018.

[3] Francis Frith Collection. Accessed 1 Oct 2018.

[4] J.H. [Jessie Headridge], Labuntur Anni, Wheaton and Co., Exeter, 1932, p.20.

[5] Devon & Exeter Gazette (DEG), 1 Nov 1912.

[6] Western Times (WT), 19 Feb 1913.

[7] WT, 27 May 1913.

[8] DEG, 10 Jul 1914.

[9] WT, 28 Nov 1914. For more information on this project see the biography of Devon Suffrage Activist Mary Willcocks.

[10] J.H., Labuntur, p.32.

 

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