Lillian Florence (Meacham) Gunn (1886 - 1973)

Born Oct 1886 in Maidstone, Kent, England

Ancestors

Wife of Herbert Hughes — married 1907 (to 1922) in Kensington, London, England

Wife of Battiscombe George Gunn — married about 1926 (to 1940) in Beirut, Lebanon

Wife of Alexander Annand Grey Clarke — married about 1940 in Ploughley, Oxfordshire, England

Descendants

Died 2 Jun 1973 at age 86 in Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Janet Gunn [send private message]

Biography

She was born in 1886, in Maidstone, Kent, England, to English parents. Her father was a brewery chemist and manager, and both her parents were serious amateur artists. When she was about 8 her father was hired to be a brewery manager at Olsson’s in Cape Town, South Africa, and the family moved there, by ship. Each year they traveled, by ship, for their holidays, either to England, Scotland or Italy (where her parents took painting holidays).

When she was a teenager, she was sent to London to finish her training as a concert pianist, at the Royal Academy of Music (she made her solo debut, and won two gold medals, and never played a piano seriously again). She was a member of the Fabian Society, and the Theosophical Society, and was friends with H.G. Wells, G.B Shaw, etc.. This is when she probably first met my grandfather, Jack. In 1907 she married the musician, composer, and collector of Irish folk songs, Herbert Hughes. A year later she had her first child, Pat (later known professionally as “Spike”) Hughes. He later gained fame as a jazz musician, as a music reviewer, and an expert in opera.

By 1910 her marriage with Herbert was falling apart. None of the family stories or autobiographies are willing to state a reason for the falling out. But a memoir by Herbert's daughter from his second marriage, Angela Hughes, points out that he was very neat and tidy (and Meena was not) and that he would not accept a dinner invitation unless his second wife, Suzanne, was able to join him. ^[1] Meena was a very independent woman, and would never have been happy with a husband who expected her to adjust her social schedule to his.

In 1910 she found herself pregnant by Herbert, and did not want the child. She apparently attempted an abortion. It was not successful, but the child was born with health problems, and died at the age of 3.

In 1911 she was living in Barnet, Hertfordshire, with her 2 young children and a maid. Her two sisters, Belle and Wendy were visitors. In the census form she first wrote her last name as "Meacham", but the crossed it out and wrote "Hughes".

By 1912 her marriage with Herbert had completely fallen apart (though they did not divorce until 1922), and she had no real source of income. She moved, with Pat, to Sicily, where the cost of living was much lower, and she could support herself and Pat on a small stipend from her father, and the money she made from making and selling wooden toys. She later moved to Fiesole, outside Florence, and made frequent trips between England (where Pat was packed off to boarding school at age 5 or 6) and Italy. In 1915, after the outbreak of World War II, Pat and Jack Gunn (who would later become her second husband ) travelled through war torn Europe to join her in Fiesole.

Not long after, she decided that mainland Europe was not a safe place to live during a world war, and she and Pat sailed to South Africa, where they lived with her parents for a year or so. The trip took three or four weeks each way. They travelled quite extensively in South Africa.

While the war was still being fought, they returned to England, and she began living with Jack. Tiring of the occult, they dabbled in Buddhism, and became interested in psychoanalysis. In the 1921 census she is listed as Meena Gunn (even though she was still married to Herbert Hughes), living in Ditccling. Sussex, with Battiscombe Gunn. Jack resumed his career as an Egyptologist, making frequent trips to Egypt, and she accompanied him on some of them. In 1922, when Tutankhamun’s tomb was discovered, they were living in Berlin. Also in 1922, she was divorced from Herbert. In 1924 Meena was studying under Freud in Vienna, and a year or so later she was studying under Sándor Ferenczi in Budapest. This was the one subject which maintained her interest, and she was still a practicing psychoanalyst into her 80s. She and Jack were married about 1926, in Beirut Lebanon.

Jack was working at a “dig” in Saqqara, Egypt. The site included the remains of 4 thousand year old workmen’s houses, and it was easier to put a roof on the existing mud-brick structure, than to build new housing, or live in tents. By 1928 they were living in Cairo, where Jack was a curator at the Egyptian Museum, and her second son, Iain, was born there. Of course, northern Europeans did not stay in Egypt over the summer, so each year they travelled either to England or Europe. Iain remembers celebrating his second birthday (May 1930) in the Alps.

In 1931 Jack was appointed curator of the Egyptian collection at the University of Pennsylvania Museum, in Philadelphia. But Meena did not like the American summers, so she returned to England, with my father, each summer.

In 1935 Jack was appointed as professor of Egyptology at Oxford. Although he had a strong “public” school education, he had never attended University, so they had to give him an honorary MA before they could hire him as a professor. The whole family moved back to England.

Meena remained in England, except for holidays in Europe, until the 1950s.

Meena and Jack were divorced in 1940, and Meena remarried, to neurologist Alex Grey-Clarke (who died of meningitis a few years later) about 30 years her junior.

In the late 1950s Meena traveled to Vancouver (west coast of Canada) to visit Iain and his family, and then moved there (in her mid 70s) in 1960, just as Iain moved to Yorktown, New York, (east coast of the US) where he went to work for IBM research.

In Canada, she was living in a small, run down, house on a farm owned by a Mennonite family. She had approximately 20 un-house-trained, unfixed, Pekinese dogs, and at least one dead puppy in the deep freeze. The owners apparently believed they were doing “God’s work” by looking after this eccentric old woman.

In 1965 she decided she wanted to live nearer Iain's family, living in an “in-law apartment” for a few months, and then she bought a house of her own, in Lake Peekskill, a summer community. This meant that the water lines were above the frost line, and the water was shut off all winter. She dealt with this by asking her (mostly schizophrenic) patients to bring gallon milk bottles of water with them when they came for their appointments.

After 3 or 4 years, she (in her 80s) moved to England, but there was a 6 month quarantine for dogs. After about 6 weeks she decided that the dogs were miserable without her (really she was miserable without THEM), and changed plans, moving back to the Mennonite farm outside Vancouver, and became a Canadian citizen. She suffered a stroke, and died there in 1973.

• Birth: reg. Oct 1886, Maidstone, Kent^[2]
• Baptism: 7 Oct 1886, Maidstone, Kent^[3]
• Death: 2 Jun 1973, Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada^[4]

•Family 1 Herbert HUGHES, b. England , d. Unknown

Married 1907

Children

1. Patrick Cairns HUGHES, 1900-3, b. 19 Oct 1908, England , d. 1987, Unknown (Age 78 years)

• Family 2 Battiscombe George GUNN, b. 1883, England , d. 1950, Unknown (Age 67 years)

Married Bef 1928

Divorced 1940 [1]

Children

1. John Battiscombe GUNN, b. 1928, Cairo, Al Qahirah, Egypt , d. 2 Dec 2008, New York, New York, United States (Age 80 years)

• Family 3 Alex Gray CLARKE, b. England , d. Unknown

England & Wales births 1837-2006 Transcription

First name(s) LILIAN FLORENCE

Last name MEACHAM

Birth year 1886

Birth quarter 4

District Maidstone

County Kent

Country England

Volume 2A

Page 696

Record set England & Wales Births 1837-2006

Category Birth, Marriage, Death & Parish Records

Subcategory Civil Births

Collections from Great Britain, England

© brightsolid online publishing ltd

England, Births & Baptisms 1538-1975 Transcription

First name(s) Lilian Florence

Last name Meacham

Gender Female

Baptism year 1886

Baptism date 07 Oct 1886

Residence Maidstone, Kent, England

Place Maidstone

County Kent

Country England

Father's first name(s) Charles Stephen

Father's last name Meacham

Mother's first name(s) Florence

Mother's last name -

Record set England Births & Baptisms 1538-1975

Category Birth, Marriage, Death & Parish Records

Subcategory Parish Baptisms

Collections from England, Great Britain

Index (c) IRI. Used by permission of FamilySearch Intl

1891 England, Wales & Scotland Census Transcription

Earl Street, Maidstone, Kent, England

Household Members

First name(s) Last name Relationship Marital status Sex Age Birth year Birth place Occupation

Charles Stephen Meacham Head Married Male 30 1861 Lichfield, Staffordshire, England Brewer

Florence Meacham Wife Married Female 35 1856 Lichfield, Staffordshire, England -

Lillian Florence Meacham Daughter Single Female 4 1887 Maidstone, Kent, England -

Hilda Isabella Meacham Daughter Single Female 0 1891 Maidstone, Kent, England -

Rose Vallins Servant Single Female 19 1872 Pimlico, Middlesex, England General Servant Domestic

Lydia Whitley Scott Servant Single Female 25 1866 Wimbledon, Surrey, England Mothers Help

Alice Maud Howe Servant Single Female 19 1872 Ryarsh, Kent, England Nurse

England & Wales marriages 1837-2005 Transcription

First name(s) LILLIAN FLORENCE P

Last name MEACHAM

Marriage quarter 1

Marriage year 1908

MarriageFinder™ LILLIAN FLORENCE P MEACHAM married one of these people

William H Webberley, Herbert Hughes

District Kensington

County London

Country England

Volume 1A

Volume as transcribed 1A

Page number 303

Record set England & Wales Marriages 1837-2005

Category Birth, Marriage, Death & Parish Records

Subcategory Civil Marriage & Divorce

Collections from Great Britain, England

© brightsolid online publishing ltd

1911 England, Wales & Scotland Census Transcription

1 Fitzjohn Avenue Barnet, Chipping Barnet, Hertfordshire, England

Household Members

First name(s) Last name Relationship Marital status Sex Age Birth year Birth place Occupation

Lillian Florence Hughes Wife Married Female 24 1887 Maidstone Kent - (note, originally written as Meacham, then crossed out and replaced by Hughes)

Patrick Cairus Hughes Son - Male 2 1909 Barnet Herts -

Infant Hughes Daughter - Female 0 (under 1 month) 1911 Barnet Herts -

Cicely Simmons Servant Single Female 21 1890 Barnet Herts General Servant Domestic

Hilda Isabelle Meacham Visitor Single Female 19 1892 Maidstone Kent -

Gwenolen Emily Meacham Visitor Single Female 18 1893 Maidstone Kent -

Ethel Cooper Visitor Single Female 30 1881 Norwich Norfolk -

British armed forces and overseas banns and marriages Transcription

Source Gro Consular Marriages (1849-1965)

Archive reference MCON

Records year range 1926-1930

Record set British Armed Forces And Overseas Banns And Marriages

First name(s) Lillian F P

Sex Female

Last name Hughes

Marriage year 1926-30

Type Consular/Overseas

Country Lebanon

Marriage place Beirut

Page 445

MarriageFinder™ Lillian F P Hughes married

Battiscombe G Gunn

Place type Place

Volume 21

Line number 81

Archive General Register Office

Category Birth, Marriage, Death & Parish Records

Subcategory Civil Marriage & Divorce

Collections from Great Britain, UK None

© Findmypast

and

British armed forces and overseas banns and marriages Transcription

Source Gro Consular Marriages (1849-1965)

Archive reference MCON

Records year range 1926-1930

Record set British Armed Forces And Overseas Banns And Marriages

First name(s) Lillian F P

Sex Female

Last name Meacham

Marriage year 1926-30

Type Consular/Overseas

Country Lebanon

Marriage place Beirut

Page 445

MarriageFinder™ Lillian F P Meacham married

Battiscombe G Gunn

Place type Place

Volume 21

Line number 69

Archive General Register Office

Category Birth, Marriage, Death & Parish Records

Subcategory Civil Marriage & Divorce

Collections from Great Britain, UK None

© Findmypast

New York Passenger Lists & Arrivals Transcription

First name(s) Lillian F

Last name Gunn

Sex Female

Age 44

Birth year 1887

Birth place England Maidstone

Arrival year 1931

Arrival city New York

Arrival state New York

Arrival country United States

Ship name Aquitania

Role Passenger

Country United States

Film number 1756784

NARA roll number 5046

NARA publication number T715

Record set New York Passenger Lists & Arrivals

Category Travel & migration

Subcategory Passenger lists

Collections from Americas, United States

With Battiscombe G (47, Archaeologist) and John B (3)

19th September 1931

Also

Passenger Lists leaving UK 1890-1960 Transcription

State New York

First name(s) Meena

Last name Gunn

Gender Female

Age 44

Birth year 1887

Marital status M

Occupation HFE

Departure year 1931

Departure day 22

Departure month 9

Departure port Southampton

Destination port New York

Destination NEW YORK

Country United States

Destination country United States

Ship name Aquitania

Ship official number 135553

Ship master's first name R B

Ship master's last name IRVING

Shipping line CUNARD

City SOUTHAMPTON

Ship destination port NEW YORK

Ship destination country USA

Ship square feet 10590

Ship registered tonnage 20800

Number of passengers 497

Record set Passenger Lists Leaving Uk 1890-1960

Category Travel & migration

Subcategory Passenger lists

Collections from Great Britain, England, United States, Americas

Transcriptions © brightsolid online publishing ltd

People with same last name on this voyage

State First name(s) Last name Title

- Battiscombe Gunn -

- John Gunn -

Passenger Lists leaving UK 1890-1960 Transcription

State New York

First name(s) Lilian

Last name Gunn

Gender Female

Age 45

Birth year 1887

Occupation HWIFE

Departure year 1932

Departure day 29

Departure month 11

Departure port Southampton

Destination port New York

Destination NEW YORK

Country United States

Destination country United States

Ship name Majestic

Ship official number 146555

Ship master's first name E L

Ship master's last name TRANT

Shipping line WHITE STAR

City SOUTHAMPTON

Ship destination port NEW YORK

Ship destination country USA

Ship registered tonnage 56620

Number of passengers 179

Record set Passenger Lists Leaving Uk 1890-1960

Category Travel & migration

Subcategory Passenger lists

Collections from Great Britain, England, United States, Americas

Transcriptions © brightsolid online publishing ltd

With John age 4

Address Godstone Green, Surrey

Also

New York Passenger Lists & Arrivals Transcription

First name(s) Lillian Florence

Last name Gunn

Sex Female

Age 46

Birth year 1886

Birth place England

Arrival year 1932

Arrival city New York

Arrival state New York

Arrival country United States

Ship name Majestic

Role Passenger

Country United States

Film number 1757005

NARA roll number 5267

NARA publication number T715

Record set New York Passenger Lists & Arrivals

Category Travel & migration

Subcategory Passenger lists

Collections from Americas, United States

With John B (age 4)

Glen Riddle, PA, USA

New York Passenger Lists & Arrivals Transcription

First name(s) Lilian Florence

Last name Gunn

Sex Female

Age 47

Birth year 1886

Birth place England

Arrival year 1933

Arrival city New York

Arrival state New York

Arrival country United States

Ship name Majestic

Role Passenger

Country United States

Film number 1757162

NARA roll number 5424

NARA publication number T715

Record set New York Passenger Lists & Arrivals

Category Travel & migration

Subcategory Passenger lists

Collections from Americas, United States

With John Battiscombe Gunn, Age 5

Nov 29 1933

1939 Register Transcription

Clarke (Gunn) Household (4 People) 27 Field Lane , Letchworth U.D., Hertfordshire, England

First name(s) Last name(s) DOB Sex Occupation Marital status Schedule Schedule Sub Number

Lilian Florence Clarke (Gunn) 17 Sep 1886 Female Psychologist Married 213 1

Alexander A G Clarke 22 Sep 1909 Male Medical Practitioner Single 213 2

Rosina Vincetn (Shipley) ? Dec ? Female Housekeeper Domestic Married 213 3

Sorry, this record is officially closed. Check if you can open a closed record.

Ref: RG101/1619J/024/11 Letter Code: DELI© Findmypast Ltd

England & Wales marriages 1837-2005 Transcription

First name(s) LILIAN F P

Last name MEACHAM

Marriage quarter 4

Marriage year 1940

Spouse's last name Clarke

District Ploughley

County Oxfordshire

Country England

Volume 3A

Volume as transcribed 3A

Page number 5380

Record set England & Wales Marriages 1837-2005

Category Birth, Marriage, Death & Parish Records

Subcategory Civil Marriage & Divorce

Collections from Great Britain, England

© brightsolid online publishing ltd

British Columbia, Canada, Death Index, 1872–1992 Transcription

First name(s) Lillian Florence

Last name Gunn,

Sex Female

Age 86

Year 1973

Death date 6/2/1973

Place COQUITLAM

Province British Columbia

Country Canada

GSU microfilm number 2050138

BC microfilm number B13325

Record set British Columbia, Canada, Death Index, 1872–1992

Category Birth, Marriage, Death & Parish Records

Subcategory Civil Deaths & Burials

Collections from Canada, Americas

This record was previously hosted on mocavo.com

Sources

1. ↑ "Chelsea Footprints a Thirties Chronicle" by Angela Hughes, 2008, Quartet Books, London
2. ↑ England & Wales Civil Registration Birth Index 1837-1915, ancestry.com: Lilian Florence Meacham, Oct-Nov-Dec 1886, Maidstone, Kent 2a 696.
3. ↑ England Select Births and Christenings 1538-1975, ancestry.com: Lilian Florence Meacham, baptism 7 Oct 1886, Maidstone, Kent, England. Parents Charles Stephen Meacham & Florence. FHL Film Number 1835480.
4. ↑ British Columbia, Canada, Death Index 1872-1990, ancestry.com: Lillian Florence Gunn, age 86, died 2 Jun 1973, Coquitlam. Registration Number 1973-09-008212. BCA Number B13325. GSU Number 2050138.

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