Winifred Annette Bailey

Notes about William Bailey and Winifred Liddle

(supplied mostly by their daughter Mollie, and typed by Jack Gainford in late 2002)

William George Bailey was born at Fakenham, Norfolk, on 17 July 1890. In 2002, Jeanne Perry discovered that Will’s mother was called Maria and was a field (presumably agricultural) worker, whilst he (presumably Wills father) was living in the workhouse.

At one time Will was a footman at Alford Hall, near Castle Cary, Somerset. He met his future wife, Winifred Annette Liddle, at Kedleston Hall, near Derby, which was the seat of Lord Curzon. He was a footman and she was a parlourmaid. He had the offer of a job as junior footman at Buckingham Palace, but celibacy was a condition of the appointment, and he wanted to marry, so he had to let the opportumty go.

Winnie was born in 1890, in a house on the Hummersknott estate, Darlington, where her parents were in domestic service to the Pease family. She was the last of the children of James and Fanny Liddle As a child, Winnie used to play with the children who lived at the Lodge of the Convent on Carmel Road, but by the time of her marriage in 1914 the family had moved to Middleton Tyas, there to serve another branch of the Pease family.

Jobs were hard to get, so Will took the job of waiter at the Station Hotel, Newcastle on Tyne, and he was working there when he and Winnie married on 05 January 1914. Will was still working there when their son Arthur was born on 26 October 1914. (This next information came from Jack’s mother: Will was sacked from this job because he held out his hand for a tip: unfortunately for him, the person of whom he asked it was a director of the North Eastern Railway Company, owners of the hotel.)

From Newcastle they went to live at West Hartlepool, where Will got a job as a labourer in the rope works. They were there when Mollie was born on 23 May 1920.