Etheldreda Janet Laing, née Winkfield (1872–1960)
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Etheldreda Janet Laing (née Winkfield), artist and photographer, lived at Bury Knowle House in Headington from 1899 to 1923 and took early colour photographs of her daughters there between 1908 and 1915:
An exhibition of her work was held at Headington Library in Bury Knowle House in February 2019.
Etheldreda’s childhood
Etheldreda Janet Winkfield was born in Ely, Cambridgeshire on 30 June 1872. She was the daughter of the Revd Richard Winkfield (born in St Martin-in-the-Fields, London in 1836/7) and Sarah Janet Nunns (born in Burslem, Staffordshire in 1835/6). Her unusual first name is explained by the fact that from 1870 to 1894 her father was Headmaster of King’s School, Ely, which had its origins in a religious house founded by St Etheldreda of Ely (died c.680).
Etheldreda’s parents were married in the West Bromwich area in 1864 and had the following children:
- Marian Stephanie Winkfield (born in Stony Stratford, Bucks in 1866/7, registered Potterspury district first quarter of 1867)
- Richard Ernest Winkfield (born in Stony Stratford, Bucks in 1867/8, registered Potterspury district first quarter of 1868)
- Thomas Hugh Winkfield (born in Stony Stratford, Bucks in 1869, registered Potterspury district second quarter of 1869)
- Etheldreda Janet Winkfield (born in Ely, Cambridgeshire on 30 June 1872)
- Edward Guy Nunns Winkfield (born in Ely in 1873, registered there third quarter)
- Elinor Beryl Winkfield (born in Brighton in 1874, registered Steyning district third quarter)
Etheldreda’s parents lived at Stony Stratford in Buckinghamshire for the first five years of their marriage, but at the time of the 1871 census her father was Headmaster of the King’s School in Ely and Vicar of Chettisham. The family lived at the school, and Etheldreda was born at Ely in 1873.
The 1881 census shows Etheldreda (8) staying at the seaside at Grafton Villas, Hunstanton, Norfolk with her mother Sarah and her older sister Marian (14) and younger brother and sister Edward (7) and Elinor (6). Her father and brother Thomas (11) were at home at the school in Ely, and her older brother Richard (13) was away at boarding school (Cordwallis College in Cookham, run by the Revd Thomas J. Nunns, doubtless a relation of his mother).
Ten years later in 1891, Etheldreda (18) was at home with her father at the school in Ely: she studied drawing in Cambridge before her marriage, which may explain why she was not away on holiday with her mother and siblings. She continued with her art, working as a miniaturist.
In 1894 Etheldreda’s father was appointed to the living of Dry Drayton in Cambridgeshire, where he remained with his family until his death.
Etheldreda’s husband
Charles Miskin Laing was born at Lower Road in the port of Rotherhithe in London on 8 February 1863 and baptised at All Saints Church there on 29 April. He was the son of Charles Parkinson Benjamin Laing (a master mariner born in Witham, Essex in c.1815) and Mary Ann Lawson. His parents were married at Rotherhithe in the first quarter of 1862, and he was their only child.
The 1871 census shows Charles aged 8 living with his parents at 12 Lee Terrace, Lewisham, London with three servants (a cook, parlour maid, and housemaid).
Ten years later in 1881, Charles’s father, now described as a “retired sailor”, was at home in Lee Terrace with two servants, while Charles (18) and his mother Mary (56) were away, staying with two servants at Rose Bank in Shanklin on the Isle of Wight. Later that year his father died at the age of 66 (registered Lewisham fourth quarter of 1881).
On 15 October 1881, when he was 18, Charles was matriculated at the University of Oxford by Magdalen College. He gained his BA in 1885, and his MA and BCL in 1888, and became a barrister-at-law.
In 1889, while he was still single, Charles look out a lease on 6 Rawlinson Road in North Oxford, and the 1891 census shows him living there with his widowed 66-year-old mother Mary and three servants. Within a few months, his mother was dead (registered June quarter, 1891).
As well as working as a barrister, Charles was an Oxford City Councillor for the North Ward from 1890 to 1900, and Chairman of the Conservative Party in the City from 1897 to 1920.
Photograph of Charles Miskin Laing in 1916
Marriage of Charles and Etheldreda Laing, and their early years in Oxford
The forthcoming marriage of Etheldreda was announced thus in Jackson’s Oxford Journal of 20 July 1895:
The marriage of Mr. Councillor C. M. Laing, of this city, with Miss Etheldreda Janet Winkfield, daughter of the Rev. R. Winkfield, Rector of Dry Drayton, and niece of Canon and Mrs Bulstrode, is fixed for July 23rd, at Little St Mary’s Church, Cambridge.
A similar notice was placed in the Cambridge Weekly News, but that stated that the marriage would take place in Great St Mary's Church.
The marriage duly took place on 23 July 1895, and the couple moved into Laing’s house at Ashley Lodge, 6 Rawlinson Road), Oxford. The first of their two daughters was born there:
- Janet Marian Laing (born in Oxford on 18 January 1898).
Also in 1895 Etheldreda’s mother Sarah Janet Winkfield died in Cambridgeshire at the age of 65 (registered Chesterton, third quarter).
Life in Headington
In 1899 the Laing family bought Bury Knowle House in Headington (below, now Headington Library) for £5,000. It was then called The Beeches, and it was the Laings who gave the house its present name.
Jackson’s Oxford Journal of 13 January 1900 reports how Messrs Hill, Upton & Co of George Street had installed “a complete electric light plant, with engine, dynamo, and accumulators at Bury Knowle, for C. M. Laing, Esq.”. Charles Miskin Laing listed his only recreation as hunting in Who’s Who in Oxfordshire (1936), and would have made good use of the adjoining stables when he lived in Bury Knowle House.
After moving up to Headington, Charles Miskin Laing retired as city councillor for the North Ward “owing to change of residence”; but he had been elected Chairman of the Conservative Party in the city in 1897 and continued to serve in this post until 1920.
The 1901 census shows Etheldreda (28) living at Bury Knowle House with her husband Charles (38), who was still described as a barrister-at-law, and their three-year-old daughter Janet. They had five indoor servants living with them in the house, and a gardener living at the lodge on the London Road (on the site of the present public conveniences).
Their second daughter was born two years later, and was rather surprisingly baptised in Quarry rather than at St Andrew's Church:
- Iris Carola Laing (born at Bury Knowle House, Headington in 1903 and baptised on 16 June at Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry by her maternal grandfather Richard Winkfield, the Rector of Dry Drayton)
When autochrome plates first came on the market in 1907, Etheldreda decided to try her hand at colour photography, and had her own darkroom made at Bury Knowle House. Her favourite subjects were her two young daughters, and in 1908 she took photographs of them in the garden of Bury Knowle House: examples include Two girls on a balcony, Girl with a parasol sitting on a bench; Two girls together in a garden; Girl with a bunch of flowers.
At the time of the 1911 census Etheldreda and Charles Laing were again at home at Bury Knowle, with their daughters Janet (13) and Iris Carola (7), as well as five servants and a governess.
On 22 January 1913 a photograph of Etheldreda Laing out with the South Oxfordshire Hounds at Woodeaton was published in the Oxford Journal Illustrated.
Although Etheldreda’s husband Charles Laing was aged 50 at the outbreak of the First World War, he worked in a Red Cross unit in France in 1915, and was then attached to Cowley Barracks as Posting Officer to the 43rd area, holding the rank of Major.
The 1921 census shows Etheldreda (48) living at Bury Knowle House (spelt Berry Knowle) with her barrister husband Charles (57) and their daughters Janet (23) and Iris (18). They had six servants.
The Laings continued to live at Bury Knowle House until 1923.
After Headington
On 14 June 1929 Etheldreda’s father, the Revd Richard Winkfield, died at Dry Drayton, Cambridgeshire at the age of 92 after serving as Rector there for nearly 35 years (obituary transcribed here).
In about 1930 Charles and Etheldreda Laing’s elder daughter, Janet Marian Laing, became the second wife of Howard Montagu Bulmer de Sales la Terrière. They had no children.
Etheldreda's husband Charles was listed in the Who's Who in Oxfordshire published in 1936, but soon after this they moved to London.
Charles Miskin Laing was living at 218 Kew Road, Richmond when he died in a nursing home there at the age of 76 on 7 September 1939. His effects came to £12,364 9s. 1d. (An “In Memoriam” notice was placed in The Times seven years later on 7 September 1946.)
The 1939 Register (taken on 29 September) shows the newly widowed Etheldreda Laing living at 218 Kew Road, Richmond with her unmarried daughter Iris and their servant.
In 1940 in north-east Surrey, her daughter Iris Carola Laing (37) married Captain Donald Alexander Frazer. They do not appear to have had any children. They were living at 5 Morpeth Mansions, London SW1 when on 15 June 1955 he died at King Edward VII Hospital for Officers in Beaumont Street, London W.1 at the age of 59. His effects came to £4013 1s. 11d., and his widow Iris was his executor.
On 30 May 1958 at the Catholic Church of St Peter and Edward, Westminster, Mrs Iris Carola Frazer, née Laing (55) who still lived at Morpeth Mansions married her second husband, the widower Sir John Randolph Shane Leslie, 3rd Baronet of Glaslough (72). He styled himself Sir Shane Leslie and was the cousin of Sir Winston Churchill and an Anglo-Irish diplomat and writer.
Etheldreda Laing died at 5 Morpeth Mansions, Westminster at the age of 88 on 22 December 1960. The following death notice was published in the Daily Telegraph on the following day, with a quotation from Deuteronomy 33:27 at the end:
LAING.— On Dec. 22, 1960, at 5, Morpeth Mansions, S.W.1, ETHELDREDA JANET LAING (née Winkfield), widow of Charles Miskin Laing, D.C.L., and most dearly loved mother of Marian de Sales la Terrière and Iris Leslie. Underneath are the everlasting arms.
Her effects came to £2,489 17s. 3d.
The following “In Memoriam” notice was published in The Times six years after her death on 21 December 1968 remembering both Etheldreda and her husband:
Etheldreda Janet Laing. Dec. 22, 1960. Charles Miskin Laing, Sept. 7, 1939.
To their beloved and living memory.
Etheldreda Laing's two daughters
Janet Marian Laing (born 1898), Mrs de Sales la Terrière
At the time of the 1939 Register Janet de Sales la Terrière was living on her own at 52 Broadwalk Court, Kensington and described herself as the manageress of a dress business who was seeking work. The Second World War had just started, and her husband Lieutenant-Colonel Howard Montagu Bulmer de Sales la Terrière must already have been mobilized.
After the war Janet and her husband lived at the village of Hanley Castle near Malvern, Worcestershire. They remained here until 1951, when they purchased Upper Court, a Georgian manor house at Kemerton, Gloucestershire.
Janet's husband Lieutenant-Colonel Howard Montagu Bulmer de Sales la Terrière died in Tewksbury Hospital on 22 January 1964, and his obituary appeared in the Tewkesbury Register & Gazette on 31 January 1964. His effects came to £33,381.
Janet Marian de Sales la Terrière died on 5 September 1985 at Campden Lodge in Hanley Swan, a village near Malvern, Worcestershire, at the age of 87 and was buried with her husband at St Nicholas's churchyard in Kemerton (see grave). Her effects came to £180,687.
Iris Carola Laing (born 1903), Lady Leslie
Iris had become Lady Leslie on her second marriage in 1958. She was evidently artistic, as she illustrated her husband’s book The cuckoo clock and other poems.
Her second husband Sir Shane Leslie died at 16b Palmeira Court, Hove, Sussex on 14 August 1971. He had converted to Roman Catholicism while at Eton, and a requiem mass for him was held at Westminster Cathedral on 12 October 1971. His effects came to £11,590.
Iris, Lady Leslie died at 81 Dyke Road Avenue, Hove, Sussex on 14 March 1994, and her forthcoming funeral at Castle Leslie in Ireland on 24 March was announced in the Daily Telegraph. Her effects came to £242,471.
Links
- Wikipedia: Etheldreda Laing
- For Charles Miskin Laing, see:
Oxford Journal Illustrated, 9 February 1916, p. 9
Gaskell: Oxfordshire leaders, pp. 227–8
Who’s Who in Oxfordshire, 1936 - The Telegraph, 6 June 2015: “Etheldreda Laing: portraits from a pioneering photographer”
- Family album of photographs of Janet Marian Lang (later Mrs de Sales la Terrière) as a child, 1898–1903, given by her sister Lady Leslie to the Science Museum (object 1980-990)
