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Draper and silk mercer John Atcherley and his wife Sarah (nee Barkley) had six daughters and two sons, all born in Manchester, Lancashire, England. Barkley and Clara died young (Barkley at the age of 14 in 1869, Clara in 1858, aged 1). Photographs of John and Sarah’s surviving son, Dr John Atcherley of Hawaii and his family, appear on a separate page. This page features photos of four of John and Sarah’s five surviving daughters – Fanny, Jessy, Rose and Lily – along with pictures of the children of the daughters who married.
Fanny Rose, nee Atcherley, and her children
Fanny Atcherley [
] (pictured above; born 9 December 1850) married Edward Paine Rose on 16 November 1870 (their story is told in Faith, hope and charity – Fanny Rose, nee Atcherley). Edward and Fanny had four children, all born at Bedford: Edward Barkley Rose (known as Barkley), Frank Atcherley Rose, John Leonard Rose (known as Leonard), and Isobel Gwendolen Rose (known as Gwen). Photographs of the three youngest children have survived.
Frank Atcherley Rose [] was born on 5 October 1873. The tiny tot you see above grew up to become a renowned surgeon specialising in diseases of the throat. He worked primarily at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. Frank married Marian Elisabeth Darling Harris in 1912 and had two children. He died in London on 30 May 1935. A detailed obituary from the British Medical Journal can be downloaded in PDF format.
John Leonard Rose [] was born in 1877. Like his brother Frank, he was educated at Bedford Modern School. While there, he made his mark as a rugby player and in rowing, and also played tennis and hockey. Leonard took the degree of Bachelor of Science at Manchester and became a chemical manufacturer, with a business based at Barking, Essex. Leonard died on 30 November 1945, at home in Bedford. He had been suffering from bronchitis for about four months.
Among the relatives and friends who attended Leonard’s funeral were his brother and sister-in-law, Mr and Mrs Barkley Rose. Barkley, who was born in 1871, was also educated at Bedford Modern School, before travelling to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) where he worked for a few years as an engineer. On his return to England he bought an engineering business in Southall, Middlesex, and later he became one of the directors of his father’s drapery business, E. P Rose & Son. He died at Ealing in Middlesex on 7 January 1946, just a month or so after Leonard had passed away.
Edward and Fanny Rose’s only daughter (pictured left) was known as Gwendolen or Gwen, although her name was written as Isobel Gwendoline Rose [] when her birth (on 15 January 1884) was registered.
After her early education at Bedford, Gwen studied at Girton College from 1904 to 1908, where she took the History Tripos.
Gwen died on 30 June 1910, at the age of 26. Floral tributes at her funeral included the following (details from the Bedfordshire Times and Independent of 8 July 1910): “With grief for dear brave Gwen,” from her loving father; “With fondest love,” from Barkley, Frank and Leonard; “Dearest Gwen, a loving last greeting,” from Aunt Lily; from aunt [Jessie], “With love and deepest sympathy”. There were many, many more, from relatives, friends, employees of her father’s drapery business, and on behalf of the following organisations: Bedford High School Guild (“In loving memory of their Treasurer”), the Girls’ Evening Club, and Bedford Town Band. As can be seen from the photo below, Gwen was a beautiful young woman. Her loss was felt keenly by her family and all who knew her.
Jessy and Lily Atcherley
Neither Jessy Atcherley [] (pictured above, at Harrogate, Yorkshire) nor her younger sister Lily Atcherley married. Jessy (her name was also written as Jessie) was born in 1859. After the death of her father John, Jessy lived with her mother Sarah and sister Lily, first at Withington, Lancashire, and then at Leamington in Warwickshire. Jessy remained in Warwickshire after her mother passed away, and was living at Hill Farm, Hunningham at the time of the 1901 census, and at Church Road, Claverdon in 1911. She later moved to Buckinghamshire and was living at Wood Cottage, Whiteleaf near Princes Risborough at the time of her death on 11 January 1944.
Lily Atcherley [] was born in (or just before) 1863. She is pictured above at Manchester in her younger years and below when she was nearly 80 years old, around 1940. She studied at the University of London from 1894 where she passed her BA examination in the First Division in 1898.
Lily twice appeared on the census at the home of her sister Fanny in Bedford: first in 1881, at the age of 18, and then in 1901, aged 38. On the latter occasion Fanny and her husband Edward were away from home on census night, and only Lily and her niece Gwen Rose were enumerated at 45 De Parys Avenue. Her whereabouts in 1911 are unknown, but she later lived in Essex, and her home address when she died – on 14 May 1954 at the age of 91 – was the same as that given for her sister Jessy ten years earlier. She did not end her days there however, as she passed away at Fulmer Grange Nursing Home at Stoke Poges in Buckinghamshire.
Rose Miner, nee Atcherley, and her daughter Gladys
Rose Atcherley [] was born in May 1861. She studied music at Stuttgart in Germany – the National Archives of Scotland has a letter written by Rose on 12 February 1886, to Charlotte Ainslie, in which she says that she attended a concert where she heard Professor Bruckner, first professor at the conservatorium, play with the orchestra.
Rose married Dr Frank Leslie Miner, a Canadian, at Leeds, Yorkshire, in 1886. The couple sailed from Liverpool, England to Boston, USA, arriving at the latter port on 1 October 1886, bound for Canada with 19 pieces of baggage. Frank and Rose Miner eventually settled in Honolulu, Hawaii, for a time, and their daughter Gladys Vera Miner [] was born there on 15 Jun 1889. The photograph above, showing mother and child, was taken in Hawaii.
In November 1900, Rose filed for divorce from Frank and the Hawaiian newspapers reported the case in full, sensational detail. Although the divorce was granted, Frank and Rose were recorded as husband and wife on the 1911 census of Canada, when they were living at Sutton, Brome, in the Province of Quebec. Frank Leslie Miner died at Honolulu, Hawaii, on 25 April 1931 at the age of 76. Rose passed away on 17 March 1939 at the home in Hillsborough, San Mateo, California which her husband had built. The photo of Rose Miner below was taken in San Francisco.
A big ‘Thank You’ to Barbara Lang for providing me with photographs of the Atcherley sisters (and of the children of the two who married) who appear on this page. The images are digitally restored versions of scans of the original photographs.
See the pages for Fanny Atcherley, Frank Atcherley Rose, John Leonard Rose, Isobel Gwendoline Rose, Jessy Atcherley, Lily Atcherley. Rose Atcherley and Gladys Vera Miner in the Atcherley Family Tree
