Rouen Coffee Shop

[TJones]

I am researching the Coffee Shop at Rouen for a small booklet I am putting together to help raise funds for our Village Hall.  The Hall was built in1928 in memory of Lady Mabelle Egerton whose home was here in our village and who founded and ran the Coffee Shop. I have read several contemporary accounts by ladies who worked there and I have some great photographs taken by a lady who was there in 1917, but would appreciate any other information and help anyone might be able to supply.

 

I’m trying to find a map of just where the Coffee Shop was located, the sidings are about three miles long!  I know it was initially in a goods shed and that this was somewhere near Saint Sever Station (which was destroyed in the bombing in WW2 and never rebuilt). The Coffee Shop was later moved to a purpose built building and I know this was a little further from some of the trains as a small satellite stall was then set up called ‘The Shanty’ on Line 11.  Could anyone tell me where I might find the location of any of these buildings? 

 

I think it would also be nice to also remember as many of the ladies who worked there as I can find out about.  I have some names from the accounts I’ve read and some of the photographs I have are named, but frustratingly often these are only with initials and a surname, or even just simply initials. So if anyone has any names I would be very grateful to hear from you.

 

 

 

[GFW]

Hello,

 

Look at this address :

http://inspirationalwomenofww1.blogspot.fr/2016/07/lady-mabel-annie-brassey-egerton-cbe.html  with a photo

 

and this one :

http://www.scarletfinders.co.uk/149.html

 

Best regards,

Pierre

[TJones]

Thank you so much, yes I’d already found these two sites.  From The Scarletfinderrs site, I’m thinking that I need to go to the Imperial War Museum and see where the originals of this information came from.  There’s a mention of the ‘Coffee Shop Records’.  I’d love to track them down.

 

Trish

[HERITAGE PLUS]

There is a Medal Card for one of the ladies here:

 

http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/results/r?_q=ROUEN+COFFEE+SHOP

 

Dave

[TJones]

Thank you, this is a lady I haven’t come across before.  Mabelle Egerton too was awarded a medal, a CBE for her work in setting up and running The Coffee Shop.

[TJones]

I am having a problem locating the records of The Rouen Station Coffee Shop mentioned in the late Sue Light’s Scarletfinders article.  The Imperial War Museum say they have no records, there is nothing listed in the National or County archives either.  The running of the Coffee Shop came under the Church Army in 1917 but they have no records, neither do Mabelle Egerton’s family.

 

Could anyone please suggest where else I might look?

[Frank_East]

I wonder if the CWGC would be aware of The Coffee Shop in relation to their work in the St Severs cemeteries.Work would probably have gone on beyond the Great War period also.

[TJones]

Possibly, The Rouen Station Coffee Shop was open from December 1914 until April 1919. I’m aware of one grave in the military cemetery at Saint Sever, that of Dame Lucy Innes Branfoot who died of bronchitis whilst working at the Coffee Shop in 1916.

 

It may be worth an enquiry.

 

Thank you

[frev]

On 17/04/2018 at 16:33, TJones said:

I think it would also be nice to also remember as many of the ladies who worked there as I can find out about.  I have some names from the accounts I’ve read and some of the photographs I have are named, but frustratingly often these are only with initials and a surname, or even just simply initials. So if anyone has any names I would be very grateful to hear from you.

 

 

Hi Trish

One of our very important Australian ladies worked there for a very short while -  Mary Elizabeth Maud CHOMLEY, O.B.E [Secretary of the Australian Red Cross, Prisoners of War Department, London 1916-1919]

She crossed to France in September 1915 and returned to England at the beginning of December.

 

Table Talk (Melb, Vic), Thur 23 Sept 1915 (p.30):

SOCIAL

Miss Mary Chomley, who has been working in British military hospitals, has now gone to France.  Until last month Miss Chomley was assisting at the Robert Lindsay Memorial Hospital in London, over which Mrs Lindsay (who was well known in Australia as Miss Mary Clarke, and who even as a girl followed in the footsteps of her mother, Janet Lady Clarke, as a philanthropist) presided.  Miss Chomley is now working at Lady Mabelle Egerton’s canteen at Rouen.

 

 

Cheers, Frev

[TJones]

Frev, this is wonderful, I’ve certainly not come across this lady before.

 

Thank you so much for this information.

 

Trish

[TJones]

...and just been reading the thread about this lady - what an amazing person! I think she must have known Lady Mabelle Egerton, possibly through her hospital work. Mabelle was very involved with nursing charities.  How did she find time to work at The Rouen Station Coffee Shop along with everything else, the work there was very physical with long hours, but she sounds like just the person to fit in with the spirit of the place!

 

Trish

[frev]

Like many ladies of those times, Miss Chomley certainly was indefatigable - as to if they knew each other before the coffee shop, it's highly likely that their families would have mixed in the same circles when Mabelle's father Lord Brassey was the Governor of Victoria (between 1895 & 1900).  I'm actually doing some more work on my Miss Chomley file at the moment (it's at 52 pages!) - and hopefully I'll get it up on-line somewhere some day...

 

Anyway, just checking through my database, I found another of our ladies for you:

 

 

STIRLING, Alice Mary

 

Born on the 8^th of August 1884 in Nth Adelaide, SA – daughter of (Sir) Edward Charles STIRLING (d.1919, see ADB on-line) and Jane GILBERT, who married in 1877 in SA

 

Siblings: Harriet Adelaide 1878 – 1943; Anna Florence 1879 – 1939 (Mrs S Russell-Booth); Jane Winnifred 1881 – 1925 (Mrs T. Brailsford Robertson); Nina Eliza Emmeline 1888 – 1976 (Mrs A.F.M. Jaffrey)  [also 2 brothers who died young]

 

WW1:

1915: (from July, for 3 months) Canteen worker in Lady Mabelle Egerton’s soldier’s canteen at Rouen, France [The Rouen Station Coffee Shop]

1916: on Staff at St Dunstan’s Hostel, London (for blinded soldiers and sailors)

https://discoveringanzacs.naa.gov.au/browse/groupstories/9037

1916: Orderly and driver with the Scottish Women’s Hospital – America Unit 1/8/1916 – 1/1/1917 Serbia

War worker, Dartford, England

 

Died on the 26^th of April 1925 at a nursing home in Marylebone, England – from an ingestion of poison

 

 

The Register (Adelaide, SA), Thur 29 Jul 1915 (p.11):

Australians at the Front

A Soldiers’ Canteen

Lady Mabelle Egerton is running a soldiers’ canteen at Rouen.  It is open day and night, for the convenience of the troops.  She employs 20 women upon it.  Among the voluntary workers is Miss May Stirling, daughter of Professor Stirling, of Mount Lofty.  Lady Mabelle Egerton is a daughter of Lord Brassey, and was one of the three Sunbeam children familiar to readers of Lady Brassey’s accounts of the travels of that famous yacht. “Tab,” “Mab”, and “Munie” were the nicknames of the three children.  ………………………………………………..

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/59422842

 

The Sun (Syd, NSW), Sun 21 Nov 1915 (p.19):

SOCIAL GOSSIP

Miss Mary Stirling, daughter of Professor Stirling, of Adelaide, has just completed three months’ work at Lady Mabelle Egerton’s canteen in Rouen, and has left for Paris, where she intends to stay for some time.

 

The Register (Adelaide, SA), Mon 22 Nov 1915 (p.4):

CONCERNING PEOPLE

Miss Mary Stirling, daughter of Professor Stirling, C.M.G., is recuperating after three months’ work in Lady Mabelle Egerton’s canteen at Rouen.  As the canteen is kept open day and night for the convenience of the soldiers passing through, much strenuous work is entailed, and the helpers are changed every quarter.  Lady Mabelle Egerton is the elder daughter of Earl Brassey, and is one of the three children who sailed the world in their father’s famous yacht.  She is a widow, and her only son, Capt. Charles Egerton, is at the front.

 

Queensland Figaro (Brisb, Qld), Sat 2 Sept 1916 (p.18):

BRITISH AUSTRALASIAN

Miss May Stirling, daughter of Professor Stirling, of Adelaide, is going to Salonika, as orderly, with the Scottish Women’s Hospital.  Miss Stirling has been in England for more than a year, and has done very varied and useful war work.  She was for three months at Rouen working in Lady Mabel Egerton’s canteen, and she has since been V.A.D. at St Dunstan’s, besides having done a great deal of regular hospital visiting among the Australian soldiers.  She has also worked for some time at a Belgian food supply depot in London, so she is in good training for the rather strenuous work that may lie before her in Salonika.

 

The West Australian, Sat 23 May 1925 (p.11):

A DRUG TRAGEDY

Australian Woman’s Fate

London, May 21

An open verdict was returned at the inquest in Paddington (London) on Alice Mary Stirling.  It appears that Miss Stirling went to a nursing home in Marylebone (London) after an attack of influenza.  She complained of sleeplessness and pains in her head.  A medical practitioner prescribed for her medinol and aspirin, and she was found unconscious on the following day, and died at midnight.

The analyst for the Home Office said that he found twelve grains of veronal in her internal organs.

A post-mortem examination showed that poisoning was the cause of death.

The Coroner remarked that Miss Stirling must have smuggled the hypnotic drug into the nursing home, but there was no evidence to show why it was taken. – Reuter.

[A London message of April 29 reported: - At an inquest in Paddington (London) concerning the death of Miss Alice Mary Stirling (lately of Adelaide) it was mentioned in evidence that she had suffered recently from influenza and insomnia.  She entered a nursing home on Saturday, as she was suffering from a stye in one of her eyes.  A doctor prescribed drugs, and after the first dose the patient became unconscious.  Dr Bronte (the Government Pathologist) deposed that death was due to insensibility which followed a hypnotic stroke, the cause of which could not be stated without an analysis.  The Coroner adjourned the inquiry for that purpose.]

 

A War Worker

Adelaide, May 22

Miss Alice Mary Stirling was the fourth daughter of the late Sir Edward Stirling, of Mount Lofty.  For the past two years Miss Stirling had been travelling abroad in company with the Misses Russell.  She was an indefatigable war worker, and took part in many movements in aid of wounded soldiers.  She began an active career in that respect soon after the outbreak of hostilities, travelling from London to Rouen (France), where she was engaged in canteen work.  On returning to London she joined up with the staff in St Dunstan’s Hostel for blinded soldiers and sailors.  After having spent some time at that work, Miss Stirling joined the Scottish Women’s Hospital, and she acted as an orderly in the hospital near Salonika.  Among her other duties there was the driving of motor vehicles.  After a period there she returned to England, and took up work in Dartford.  She came back to Australia about the time the war ended, and she left for Europe some two years ago.

 

 

Cheers, Frev