Agnes Elise Henrietta Merrick

Was known as "Aunt Issa" by her nephew Robert Gordon Stark and family.

The 1861 census records "Agnes Alice H" aged 5 living with her parents and three siblings at 30 Westbourne Park Terrace, Paddington, London (which became Porchester houses in 1912). This record states she was born in Liverpool, Lancashire, which would fit with her father being an East Indian Merchant. Less than four years later the family fortunes had changed irreversibly when her father died in Australia.

It seems that she lived for several years in the Tyrol before returning to England with her young son Siegfried in about 1895 after the death of her husband. This information comes from her nephew Gordon Stark's memoirs in which he wrote: I remember the day Sieg (1st cousin – Siegfried Richter, now E.S. Merrick) came from Tyrol with his mother, their first settling in England after his father’s death. I believe he was in Tyrolese costume. I was about 3 or 4 and he about 7, I suppose.

In 1898 following the death of Arnold Wienholt in Locarno she was named as Agnes Elise Henrietta Richter, widow, living with her sister Mary Helena and brother-in-law Mark Dugald Stark in Oxford.

The German surname Richter might have attracted persecution in England around the start of WWI, so in 1915 "Issa" took the name of Merrick by Deed Poll. Her niece, Helene Stark, in a letter from Oxford to her brother Gordon dated 19 November 1915, reported to Gordon: "Aunt Issa came round one night last week to see whether I could find the Merrick pedigree among your papers, as her lawyer was here and she wanted to establish her claim to the name and thought you must have more information than she had. In fear and trembling I looked into your box and as luck would have it found it. I have got it back now and all is well..."

In June 1917, Jack Stark wrote to his brother Gordon, who was on active service, to say that he and Nap (the youngest brother, Napier Stark) had gone into Oxford and had a gorge at Aunt Issa's before canoeing upstream on the River Cher to Magdalen Bridge and then going on to see their sister Junk (Helene). I had lunch again with A.Issa the other day. Turtle soup each time. I felt mean eating my brother, especially when I came to the little fleshy bits - all delicately hairy.

The England & Wales National Probate Calendar (online) records that at the time of her death on 9 March 1947 she was living at 76 West Cliff Road, Bournemouth. Probate was granted in Winchester on 16 June to Sir John Edward Siegfried Merrick. The deceased's effects were valued at £15,582 5s 11d.