Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

Bertha Terrell (660)

30/12/1850 –01/06/1904

Lady's companion and mushroom farmer

• Jane Dickson

Plot 660 Bertha Call Terrell

 Bertha Call Terrell, known as Beatie, was the second daughter and third child of Robert Hull Terrell, a Solicitor of Gray’s Inn Square, London and his first wife Anne Mandell nèe Kingsbury, who had married on 6^th January 1846 at St Mary’s Church, Putney. Robert was the son of John Terrell, also a Solicitor and Anne the daughter of Thomas Kingsbury Esq.

 Robert and Anne’s three children were all born in St Pancras, London. Their son Reginald John was born in 1847, followed by Maude Annie in 1848 and Bertha Call on 30^th December 1850. The 1851 Census shows them living at 11 Mecklenburg Street, St Pancras.  Robert was 32, Anne 36 and the children aged 3, 2 and 3 months. The family had 3 servants: a housemaid, a nurse and a cook.

 Bertha’s mother Anne died, aged 43, on 27^th January 1859 when Bertha was just 9 years old; their address was then Hunter Street, Brunswick Square, Bloomsbury. Maude, 12 and Bertha, 10, both Scholars, were at 38 Hunter Street, Bloomsbury with a cook and a housemaid for the 1861 Census.

 In 1866, Bertha’s father Robert married Anna Jenkins. They had one son, Ralph John Terrell, born in the final Quarter of 1867. In the 1871 Census, 20 year old Bertha, a Scholar, was with her father, step-mother and 3 year old half-brother at Sid House, Salcombe Regis, Devon. She did not marry and, 10 years later, was a companion to Mrs Evelyn H Archibald, wife of John Archibald, physician and surgeon, living at Lynton House, Brixton Rise, Lambeth. The 1891 Census records her, aged 40, living on private means, visiting her sister Maude and her husband Professor Gerard B Brown in Edinburgh, where Gerard was a Professor of Fine Art.

 A notice in the London Gazette of 14^th September 1894 gives the following information: “… the partnership heretofore subsisting between us the undersigned, Joseph Richard Crank and Bertha Call Terrell, carrying on business as Mushroom Growers, at East Acton, in the county of Middlesex, under the style or firm of Call and Company, has this day been dissolved by mutual consent. All debts owing to and by the said late firm of Call and Company will be received and paid by me, the said Bertha Call Terrell, by whom the said business will in future be carried on…”

 By 1901, Bertha had moved to West Hertfordshire. She was a lodger in the household of Thomas L Orchard of Sebright Road, Boxmoor, living on her own means with no mention of her mushroom growing enterprise.

 On 1st June 1904, 53 year old Bertha Call Terrell, by then of 56 London Road, Boxmoor died at “Braeside”, Kings Road, Berkhamsted. On 4^th June 1904, she was buried in Plot 660 at Rectory Lane Cemetery, the funeral service conducted by The Revd. H Constable Curtis, Rector. She left £2923 18s. 7d and Administration (with Will) was granted to Wallace Herbert Squire, pianoforte manufacturer.

 The inscription on her headstone reads: In loving memory of/ Beatie/ second daughter of/ Robert Hull Terrell/ born December 30^th 1850/ died June 1^st 1904/ The Lord lift up the light of thy countenance/ and give thee rest”.