As always, a simple question - who was the Mrs. Yeld in this CDV? - reveals an unconventional family and one or two tragedies. Would you expect any less?
Mrs. Yeld here has been sat near the very end of our Portrait Photos drawer for years, and I wanted to see who she was and who she might be related to. It turns out she has three more family members here at Local Studies over at the opposite end of the alphabet. In the B sequence you can also see Richard, Elizabeth, and Agnes Bracken. Richard was her father, Elizabeth her aunt, and Agnes her elder sister. Mrs. Yeld was born Edith Annie Bracken and through an accident of fate ended helping to run a major manufacturing concern. Who were these four people? Why have their photographs ended up here? And who, who was responsible for the creative (and rather poor) touching up of poor Agnes's face?
Richard Bracken was one of sons of Jonathan Bracken, who founded the paper manufacturing firm of Jonathan Bracken and Sons in Luddenden. Their mill was at Dean Mills up at Booth, now demolished, and the family home would become Woodlands just down the hill. Here was where Richard raised his family and ran the mill alongside his father and his brother Jonathan the younger. The firm didn't flourish or prosper as much as it persisted; Jonathan in the early years nearly came to ruin, and his wife Grace had to borrow money from her brother to keep things going.
In 1846 Jonathan Sr. bowed out of the business and the sons went forward, but still not without difficulties. In 1847 Richard married Sarah Welburn of Selby. Sarah was the headmistress at a seminary school in Kirkby Malzeard and the daughter of a Customs and Excise Officer, so quite a catch in both intellect and wealth. She was eight years his junior and fully embraced her new family and business, to the point where she sold an estate that she had inherited to help purchase new boilers for the mill that would allow them to ramp up production and keep up with the times. When Jonathan Jr. died childless in 1870, Richard was left considering the future of the firm. And even more so when around that time he suffered a serious accident which would be described in very flowery detail by his future son-in-law many years later.
“I must mention the terrible night when Mr. Richard Bracken was later than usual in returning from Bradford market, when his horse came galloping home through the thunderstorm, terrified by the lightning, with a broken shaft hanging from the harness. A flash of lightning showed a dog and its owner by the wall near Jowler Mill. This Mr. Bracken saw for one moment, and next was violently thrown from his gig down the hill. Perhaps some of you are still here who went to find him. How with difficulty he got home and to his room, and how the doctor said that by her presence of mind in at once applying hot fomentations to the head, neck, and chest, his wife saved his life. But the question was, could his reason be saved, the injury to the head and spine were so great? The shock to his nervous system was such that he felt it to the end of his life, the wonder being that in spite of it he achieved so much; but he had naturally a strong constitution and vigorous brain.”
The 1871 Census shows him at some sort of hospital or health sanatorium at Ben Rhydding near Ilkley - the kind where you're called a visitor rather than a patient. He did return home eventually though and appears to have recovered himself sufficiently to continue having a significant influence over the business until his death in 1883.
What about his family though? Richard had two daughters and a son, Jonathan Herbert, but little Jonathan died at the age of two weeks old. Richard was left with only daughters. I say "only" because you know what it was like back then...and this plus his brother's lack of marriage or offspring would have focused his mind on ensuring that his daughters had an education and could potentially involve themselves in the future. It helped of course that Sarah was an educator and she would have been equally keen to make sure her daughters were capable of doing what would need to be done to keep things going.
Agnes Buckle Bracken was born in 1850 and Edith Anna in 1855 and both would be sent away to Lendal House in York to be boarded and educated. Edith was there in 1871 while Richard was recuperating and his nephew, Thomas Bracken Hirst, was running the mill. Thomas was actually born Thomas Hirst but later took on his mother Grace's maiden name (Grace was one of Richard's sisters) as his surname, in honour of the family business. Thomas married in 1874 and moved to Pontefract, though, so back to square one. Agnes and Edith stepped up and helped Richard continue to run the business while he recovered, and by 1881 he was back home.
The Bracken household must have been a difficult one for the daughters as Richard was still in need of care, and Sarah had lost her sight. Agnes moved out - we don't actually know where she was in 1881 - and Edith was living with her parents and her husband. We haven't mentioned him yet, but he wasn't Mr. Yeld, not yet. Edith first married Maj. Arthur Farrer, an officer and surgeon in the (British) Indian Army, at Bolton Abbey in 1877. His father Henry and her parents and sister all signed as witnesses. Arthur served abroad so his presence at the house in 1881 was probably a rarity rather than the rule. Edith appears not to have joined him and stayed home to help run the business and care for her parents.
Her wedding was such a spectacle that her dress and the bridesmaids’ dresses were taken to the mill the following day so that the “wives, daughters and sisters of the workpeople” could inspect them!
In 1883 Richard died and Sarah followed him in 1885. What burden this placed on Agnes and Edith is unknown, but Edith would not have enjoyed having five children to look after even with the relative wealth they had been left. Richard's estate of £1600 had been left to Sarah to administer, which she did not, so the sisters had to deal with everything after Sarah's death. More importantly than money though the sisters were given partnerships in Bracken and Sons, and also, Edith personally had lucked out with the passage of the Married Womens Act which meant that the property she inherited was hers and not her husband's.
Arthur died in 1888 and in 1891 Edith is living at Hollins with her two younger daughters, the older sons off at boarding schools. Agnes meanwhile was still at Woodlands but with her aunt Margaret Welburn there as well. Later in 1891 Edith remarried, this time to another Indian Army surgeon, Horace Parr Yeld. They probably already knew each other previously, and perhaps Edith was being practical marrying another doctor, as her youngest daughter Hilda had a developmental disability of some kind that would later see her institutionalised for the last few decades of her life. Horace seems a decent sort though and took an active interest in helping with the firm, and also provided some cash to help with further upgrades, as was apparently now the tradition when marrying a Bracken! When it was their centennial celebration in 1892, he and Agnes both gave speeches thanking the workers for their loyalty and dedication. There were some long-standing employees there, a good sign of a decent enough workplace, and Horace paid special heed to the "women of the firm" - both the wives, sisters and daughters of the workers and his own wife, sister-in-law, late mother-in-law and the many sisters of Richard and Jonathan Jr.
With the company seemingly to finally be thriving fully, the sisters took their leave of Luddenden and went off to enjoy the proceeds that came to them as Directors. Agnes used her money to travel and seems to have been particularly fond of Australia and New Zealand. Unfortunately travel would be her downfall. On the evening of November 12th 1898, the RMS Ophir was sailing down through the Red Sea towards a stop at Sri Lanka, on its way to Melbourne, and Agnes went onto the deck around 9pm for a stroll, leaving her maid in their cabin. She never came back. The maid raised the alarm the following morning after realising that Agnes hadn't returned and a search of the ship was made but she was never seen again. The ship's clerk made a notation in the logbook that this was a suspected suicide but the ship's Medical Officer, Thomas W. Bagshaw who had known Agnes previously and had seen her several times while on the journey stepped forward and stated that there was absolutely no way that this was suicide and that she must have had an accident.
What do you think; accident? Suicide? Heck, a murder?! Was her old friend Dr. Bagshaw trying to protect Agnes's family and her memory, or covering something more sinister up? Was the initial assumption of suicide some sort of mild misogynistic commentary based on her status as a 48 year old spinster? Anything is possible. But an accident on a ship's deck on a warm evening and possibly after a few drinks (another assumption...) is very plausible indeed. She left behind an impressive estate worth nearly £29,000.
Edith carried on after Agnes's death and continued to live off the proceeds of the mill as well as Horace's own income. Horace died in 1913 and Edith went to live with her eldest son, Arthur Gilbert Dacre Farrer, in Sussex. This Arthur also was Director of a paper mill, an affinity for the business clearly running in the family. Jonathan Bracken and Sons continued as a going concern until 1921. Edith died in Surrey in 1931, leaving an estate of over £10,000.
I can hear the reader saying "hang on, what about Elizabeth?", and you're right to ask as it's a surprise to find her photo amongst the other three, given her almost invisibility in all accounts of the family or firm in the newspapers. Elizabeth was one of Richard's older sisters, born in 1803 and a lifelong spinster. But this label and the note on the back might be an error. The older note is for a Mrs. Bracken, which Elizabeth decidedly was not. So maybe this was actually Sarah Welburn Bracken. But then where did the later note with Elizabeth's name and dates of birth and death come from?
Unfortunately librarians don't always have the answer! Maybe you do?
