Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

Mary Mildred Raines (804)

1871 –14/06/1904

Born in Cornwall, married a farmer who moved to South Africa. leaving Mary in England.

• Jane Dickson

Plot 804 Mary Mildred Raines

Mary Mildred was born in Launceston, Cornwall in the first quarter of 1871, the youngest of the three children of Charles Lewis Atterbury Farmar and Emily Jane, nèe Fogo. She had an older sister Annette Emily Berkeley, born in 1864 and a brother Charles Edward, born in 1866. The 1871 Census shows them living in Higher Walk, Launceston.

 Her father Charles had been a professional soldier born in Blois, France, while her mother Emily was born at sea off Newfoundland. The London Gazette records that Gentleman Cadet Charles Lewis Atterbury Farmar, Corps of Royal Marines, was appointed Second Lieutenant on 29^th June 1848 and Captain on 25^th May 1859. He later served in the Royal Marine Light Infantry. Shortly after Mary’s birth, by which time he had retired from the Marines with the rank of Major, he was appointed Captain in the 2^nd Duke of Lancaster’s Militia.

 10 years later, the family had moved to 48 Gayton Road, Hampstead; her father by then an Honorary Major in the 2^nd Royal Lancashire Militia. On 30^th January 1882, an application was made for 10 year old Mary to join the North London Collegiate School, Camden; however, the application was later withdrawn and she did not take up her place. By then the family lived at Southcot, Lichfield Road, Cricklewood, Middlesex. They seemed to move house frequently and, between 1886 and 1892, Charles Farmar has Electoral Register entries in Itteringham, Norfolk for a house and garden near Blickling Mill.

 The Yarmouth Independent of 17^th May 1890 announced that a marriage had been arranged between Herbert P Raines of Bergh Apton, Norwich, eldest son of the late Mr Henry Raines, and Mary Mildred (Minnie) Farmar, youngest daughter of Major Charles Atterbury Farmar of Itteringham House, Aylsham. On 4^th June 1890, 19 year old Mary Mildred Farmar married 21 year old Herbert Percy Raines at St Andrew’s Church, Blickling, Norfolk. Herbert was a farmer.

 The Census of 5^th April 1891 records the young couple living in Langley Road, Bergh Apton, with Mary’s mother Emily staying with them, Sadly, as noted in the Norwich Mercury of 28^th March, Mary had been delivered of a stillborn son two weeks earlier, on 21^st March. Their household also included a visitor and three servants: a Cook, a Housemaid and a Nurse.

 The Eastern Daily Press of 12^th August that year advertised that the “very desirable farm” at Bergh Apton, in the occupation of Mr H P Raines, was to be let at Michaelmas (29^th September). The 212 acre farm of “excellent barley and root land” included a good house and modern farm buildings and 29 acres of “superior grazing marshes” in nearby parishes. A sale notice on 30^th September added that H.P. Raines Esq. was leaving Norfolk. In addition to 12 horses, pigs and “valuable prize fowls”, the sale included a list “nearly new and well-conditioned carriages and implements”. The reason for the move is unknown. Possibly it was influenced by the loss of their son; possibly, at a time of agricultural depression, especially in grain prices, Herbert’s Norfolk farming enterprise had not worked out.

 From 1^st April 1890, Herbert Raines had been a member of the Norwich branch of the Freemasons but he resigned in January 1892. It is not clear whether Herbert and Mary remained together but, after a short period in Sussex, where Herbert is named on Freemasons’ records in Lewes in 1892, he returned to his home county of Yorkshire. He is named on Freemason records for Filey, in 1893. In both Sussex and Filey, his profession is recorded as “None”.  Herbert is also named on the 1896 Filey, Yorkshire Electoral Register Lodgers’ List, having a “dining room and bedroom, second floor” at Grove Villa, Filey. However Mary, even if there, would not have been named, as women were not yet eligible to vote.

 Herbert and Mary seem to have had no more children. In the 1901 Census, Mary, a married woman living on her own means, was at 1 Park Place, Tormoham with Torquay, Devon, with her widowed mother Emily, head of the household, who was also living on her own means.

 Herbert Percy Raines has not been found in the 1901 Census. On 12^th May 1900, Mr H P Raines, a 31 year old married farmer, had sailed from Southampton aboard the Tantallon Castle bound for Cape Town, South Africa. Had he emigrated to South Africa without Mary, or did he return to the UK after this voyage? No other incoming or outgoing passenger lists naming him have been found but he did not resign membership of the Filey Freemasons until 1906.

 Mary died aged 33 on 14^th June 1904 from “Chronic granular kidney” and renal asthenia (weakness). She was buried in Plot 804 at Rectory Lane on 17^th June 1904, the service taken by the Revd. G. M. Custance, Curate of Shallam, Birmingham. However, her address was Haverstock Hill, Hampstead – so why is she buried here? The 1901 Census records her brother Charles, his wife Beatrice and their three children living at 20 Chapel Street, Berkhamsted, where Charles worked as a Banker’s Clerk. It was Charles, not Mary’s husband Herbert, who was present at her death in Hampstead, Charles who registered the death and presumably Charles who arranged for her to be buried in his home town of Berkhamsted. On her death certificate, Mary is recorded as the wife of Herbert Peter (not Percy) Raines, a Farmer – but that is an error.

 On the plinth, which once supported a stone cross marking Mary’s grave, are the words: “In/ loving memory/ of/ Mary Mildred Raines/ who died June 14^th 1904/ Father in thy gracious keeping/ Leave we now thy servant sleeping”.

 From July 1906, Herbert Percy Raines is named on the Freemasons’ Colonial and Foreign Membership Register for Beaufort West Lodge, South Africa. He had transferred from the Filey Lodge and was working as a Storekeeper. A 1911 Cape Province, South Africa Estates Death Notice Entry lists a Herbert Percy Raines, which is quite probably him.