O’Regan, Mrs Lilybelle

O’Regan, Mrs Lilybelle, Greenheys, Kingswear

Lilybelle O’Regan[1] (1875–1938) was born Lilybelle Holmes in Kowloon, Hong Kong, the daughter of Henry Holmes and Jennifer (Jeanie), formerly Kennard. Henry Holmes was a government solicitor in Hong Kong. In 1881 Lilybelle was living with her Kennard grandparents at Southfield House in Stoke Fleming together with her two brothers, Henry and Harold, and a cousin. Her father died in Hong Kong in 1899 and her mother in London in 1900.

In 1895 Lilybelle married Matthew O’Regan, an Irish ship’s surgeon in the Royal Navy, stationed at that time in the Royal Naval Hospital, Hong Kong. Their son Matthew Terence was born in 1901 in Bermuda, and christened in the Royal Naval Hospital there, and their daughter Lily was born in 1903 in St John’s, Newfoundland, and christened at St Thomas Anglican church.[2]

Matthew senior died of pneumonia in 1906 in Saltash, while serving on the Trafalgar. He left £2900. By 1911 Lilybelle and her two children were living at Greenheys, Kingswear, an 11-roomed house where they employed one resident servant. Matthew junior was attending Ridley House School in Kingswear, a preparatory school run by Canon Ridley, from which he succeeded in obtaining a scholarship to Kelly College in Tavistock in 1914.[3]

The Dartmouth branch of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) was a late foundation, not holding its first meeting until the end of 1913 when Helen Fraser spoke at a drawing room meeting.[4] ‘Miss O’Regan’ of Greenheys, Kingswear, appeared as the Dartmouth branch secretary in May 1914.[5]  (The ‘Miss’ was corrected to ‘Mrs’ in later editions.) O’Regan organised a garden party meeting at Gramercy Tower that July, where Ethel Mathieson (q.v.) spoke and new members were recruited, but once war broke out there are no records of any branch activity. Mrs O’Regan finally appears on the list of branch secretaries in February 1915,[6] after which her place was taken by Mary Hammond (q.v.).

Towards the end of the First World War O’Regan enlisted in the Women’s Royal Naval Service. Her enrolment date was 24 August 1918, and she served as an Assistant Principal at the Dover Hostel. She died in Sudbury, Suffolk, in 1938, where her daughter Lily, by then Mrs Stebbings, was living.

 

 

Entry created by Julia Neville, February 2019


[1] Census and family information from www.ancestry.co.uk except where otherwise noted.

[2] Information from notices in the British Medical Journal, cited in the entry for Lilybelle O’Regan available at

https://www.geni.com/people/Lily-O-Regan/6000000008871600213 . Accessed 24 Feb 2019.

[3] Devon and Exeter Gazette, 1 Jul 1914.

[4] Common Cause, 5 Dec 1913.

[5] Common Cause, 1 May 1914, 89, List of Branch Secretaries.

[6] Common Cause, 15 Feb 1915, 699.

 

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