Tozer, Mrs Beatrice

Tozer, Mrs Beatrice, Edgehill, New Road, Teignmouth

Beatrice Cordelia Tozer, née Langley[1] (1872 – 1958) was born on 12 January 1872 in Chudleigh. She was the elder daughter of William Savage and Cordelia Langley. William was a lieutenant colonel in the Royal Artillery and had married Cordelia Mitchell in 1871. Beatrice had a younger sister, Rosalind, born in 1876 (q.v.). In 1891 the family were living in Leigham Street in Plymouth, close to the Citadel, one of the bases for the Royal Artillery. William was not listed on the census, but his sister Edith was living with Cordelia and her daughters.

Beatrice was a talented violinist from an early age, studying in London with Joseph Ludwig and August Wilhelm, and debuting at the Crystal Palace in 1893. Her career is best documented in the entry for her in Music and Gender on the Internet[2] She played at a Prom Concert in 1904[3] and was co-founder of the Langley-Muklé string quartet, one of the well-known all-women string quartets of the 1910s.[4]

In 1896 Beatrice married Basil Tozer, a journalist, born in Teignmouth, though professionally she was always referred to as Madame Beatrice Langley. They appear always to have treated Teignmouth as a second home and in 1901 they and their two sons Philip and Leonard were living with Beatrice’s parents and Rosalind at Edgehill, New Road, Teignmouth. The two boys were also resident with Rosalind and their grandparents at 2 Barnpark Terrace in 1911, suggesting that they might have been brought up in Teignmouth while Beatrice pursued her musical career as a concert violinist which required her to be performing in London or on tour abroad. Their London home in 1911 was 15 Pond Street, Chelsea.

Tozer frequently offered to play at concerts in  and around Teignmouth in aid of local good causes, particularly during the years when her children were young when she seemed to spend months in Teignmouth between her tours abroad, to Canada, South Africa and the United States. She is mentioned as playing at a Newton Abbot concert in aid of the Great Western Railway Widows’ and Orphans’ Fund in 1901[5]; at the Teignmouth Assembly Rooms for the Eliza Bain fund in 1902[6], for example; and also as organising a concert in Teignmouth in aid of the local hospital in 1903.[7]

Tozer became involved with the movement for Women’s Suffrage in London. She appears to have been a supporter of the Actresses’ Franchise League, founded in 1908, whose membership was open to all those in the performing arts, and for whom she chaired a debate and acted as hostess at At Homes held in the Criterion Restaurant.[8] She also played at the Scala Theatre as part of the entertainments organised in London for the census resisters, along with Ethel Smyth.[9] When the Land’s End to London contingent of the Great Suffrage Pilgrimage arrived in London in July 1913 and the Western Times noted that ‘Madame Beatrice Langley, handsome in a navy-blue coat and skirt and tan Tagel hat with black ostrich plumes, who had made a hurried journey across London on purpose to join the party from her native town, was walking with the Teignmouth banner …’[10]

The Langleys senior died in 1913 (William) and 1915 (Cordelia). Beatrice was still featured as playing at concerts for wounded soldiers in Teignmouth in 1916 [11]..Although she gave up professional playing for teaching when affected by arthritis in the 1920s, and moved to Tunbridge Wells, where she was living in 1939, she came back to Teignmouth at the end of her life. She died at her home, Eastbrook House, Buckeridge Road, Teignmouth on 11 May 1958, leaving effects worth approximately £840.

 

 

Entry created by Julia Neville, November 2018


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

[2] ‘Beatrice Langley’, article in Music and Gender on the Internet, available at http://mugi.hfmt-hamburg.de/old/A_lexartikel/lexartikel.php?id=lang1872 . Accessed 16 Nov 2018.

[3] The Strad, May 1904, p.165. https://archive.org/details/stradvolumes01unkngoog/page/n6 Accessed 16 November 2018.

[4] Laura Seddon, the Instrumental Music of British Women Composers in the early twentieth century, PhD Thesis, City University, 2011, p.205. Accessed 16 November 2018.

[5] WT, 11 Oct 1901.

[6] WT, 17 Dec 1902.

[7] DEG, 27 Jun 1903.

[8] CC, 26 Jan 1911; The Vote, 6 May 1911, 24.

[9]Votes for Women, 31 Mar 1911, 428.

[10] WT, 29 Jul 1913.

[11] WT, 14 Sep 1916.

 

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