Introduction to Joan's 'Scrap Book'

Joan Hyde circa 1935


'Joan Hyde (nee Hudleston) 1907-1992'

The above photo is of Joan Hyde (nee Hudleston) about 1935. This a set of pages on the life of Joan Hyde - my mother - (also a sister-in-law to Frank Hyde, the Engish painter (1849-1937) - who was a contemporary and friend of the famous American artist John Singer Sargent). Most of the components have been taken from articles on various relations she saved in a scrap book and a small collection of her personal photographs. I am heavily indebted to my sister Audrey Paterson (nee Hyde) for a lot of the information. Additional material will be gradually added to this web site - David Hyde - July 2003.

The following is a short autobiography written by her in 1982 when she was 75:

"I was born on January I8th. 1907 at Esher, Surrey, which is now a part of Greater London, but was then, when King Edward VII was still on the throne of England, a quiet little Country town.

My father, was Head Librarian of the War Office in Whitehall, part of the Intelligence Department. His grandfather was Josiah Andrew Hudleston ( the young man in the oil painting ) and my father was christened Francis Josiah, after both his grandfather and his father, Colonel Josiah Hudleston of the Madras Staff Corps ( Indian Army). My father and two of his sisters were born in India, but when the Colonel retired from the Army, the family went to live in Devonshire, England. As a matter of incidental interest, their beautiful home on the banks of the Madras River at Adyar, was bought by the Theosophical Society, and is still their headquarters, although many changes have been made to the building since my grandfather's time. Josiah Andrew Hudleston
Click on picture
for more details on
Josiah Andrew Hudleston
(1799-1865)

My father was educated at Newton College, Newton Abbott Devon. He was a scholarly boy and won several prizes in the course of his school career. His first job was in the Department of Egyptology at the British Museum and he later obtalned the post of War Office librarian. Not long after transferring to the W.O. he married my mother, Evelyn Ker-Fox (pronounced like CARR) whose family came from County Tyrone in Ireland.

Presentation salver I have in my possession a handsome silver salver presented to my father and mother on the occasion of their wedding by the staff of the Intelligence Department. My parents separated when 1 was only five, and for the next six years I spent a rather insecure and chequered life at a series of schools, sometimes as a boarder, and often regarded as something of a freak by my schoolfellows because my parents were separated!

Holidays were spent either with friends of my mother's or one or other of my kind godmothers or with the Peases, of whom later. My mother was very much involved with the Women's Suffrage Movement from 1910 to 1914 and belonged to the ,Women's Social and Political Union . During the first World War she was an officer in W.A.A.C. and later in the W.R.A.F.

The Peases lived in an old Regency house at Hampstead, North London; Mrs. Pease was "Auntie Win" one of my father's three sisters who had married Gerald Pease, a barrister. Their two girls, Purefoy and Monica, were about my age, and we were more like sisters than cousins. Many years later, Purefoy, who never married, left legacies to my own three children, David, Audrey, and Julia Hyde. Purefoy died in her early seventies. At the time of writing this (1982), her sister Monica (Mrs. Vincent ) is still living and has twice visited New Zealand.

To go back to my childhood, in 1918 when I was eleven, I was sent as a boarder to Oxford High School, and I can remember that we were given a Holiday to celebrate the first Armistice Day on November 11th. 1918. The years at Oxford were very happy ones; at 15 I gained an Honours pass in the Oxford. Senior Locals examination, of the same standard as the School Certificate of the present day and two years later I passed the Higher School Certificate examination. In 1925 I went on to Reading University, where I studied Fine Art and also attended lectures in French, English, and Psychology, gaining my Fine Art Diploma and one or two Craft Certificates in 1928.

During this period my father published two books of Military History, by no means dry volumes, but written from a light-hearted angle, enlivened by his keen wit and sense of the ridiculous. After his death in 1927 (at the comparatively early age of 59) a tablet to his memory was unveiled at the War Office Library by Lord Milner. Memorial Plaque Click on picture for more details on
(Frank) Francis Josiah Hudleston
The tablet reads:
"TO THE MEMORY OF FRANCIS JOSIAH HUDLESTON COMMANDER OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE CHEVALIER DE LA LEGION D'HONNEUR ASSISTANT LIBRARIAN AND LIBRARIAN AT THE WAR OFFICE 1895-1927 HISTORIAN SCHOLAR AND WIT OF INFINITE JEST AND MOST EXCELLENT FANCY".

I was still a minor, and at my father's request during his last days, I went to live permanently with the Peases at Hampstead, my aunt being a widow by this time. On a holiday in the South of France we got to know a Captain and Mrs. Bailey who lived at La Napoule, near Cannes, and their daughter Rachel. At the end of our holiday Mrs. Bailey (nee Gwendoline Hyde) gave us some gifts to take to her mother and her younger brother, who happened to be living in Hampstead at that time. The name of the brother was GRAHAM HYDE whom I married in Melbourne in 1935.

He was the youngest son of Captain John Francis Hyde ( 1824-1902) who had been the Squire of HYDE END, Brimpton, Berkshire. We came out to New Zealand the day after our wedding, and after spending a few months in Auckland, we went north and settled in Kerikeri, where we purchased land and Graham planted up a citrus orchard. He also made a very nice garden, which provided a pleasant playground for our three children, DAVID and AUDREY (fraternal twins) and their younger sister JULIA.

After 27 years in Kerikeri we sold the property, and retired in 1963 to live by the sea at Ruakaka south of Whangarei, where we are still living in 1982."

Note: If you can not see the navigation images on the left please click on the following hyperlink:   Joan Hyde's 'Scrap Book'

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