The Bergh Family Records
Francis Rattray Bergh
Period I
The Best Years of our Lives 1876-1904
- 1875
- This Story, of necessity, will open a little earlier.
Grandpa (H.J.B.) was appointed assistant manager of the
London and Lisbon Corkwood Company, and in February he came
home to England to fetch the family back, they arrived in
Portugal during March and having taken a house in Almada, he
and his wife, Mary, at once set about making a 'home'.
Mary had brought her youngest baby, Harold, born the previous
November and the family were united with the arrival of the
other children, Meggie, Jeanie and Hal. The house in the
Rue do Paco was substantial and from the back of which
access could be obtained to the cliffs overlooking the river
Tagus. Tragedy, which was to haunt Grandpa's early life
soon overtook the family, baby Harold, only a year old,
died of Acute Gastro-Enteritis on the 19th October. He
was buried in the British Episcopal Cemetery in Lisbon on
the 22nd October, 1875.
- 1876
- On the 13th February, 1876, Francis Rattray was born in
the Almada house, and Mary, his mother must have had her hands
full with growing children and a new baby to rear,
things were not too easy at this time in Lisbon and an
English clergyman was not available for the christening of
the infant, Francis Rattray, so the ceremony was carried
out by his father in the house at Almada.
- After the christening a document was drawn up and duly
signed by those present. It reads as follows:-
- 1877
- In November, 1877 Rose Annie was born.
- 1879
- And in 1879 Grace Amy arrived only to meet her ultimely death at
- 1880
- the age of nine months in the following June.
- The house in Almada was not big enough to cope
with this large and expanding family so a move was made to
a larger house in Cacilhas, again overlooking the Tagus but
on the other bank, and in October of this year another
baby boy, Rowland Houghton, was born.
- 1882
- On 2nd February, 1882 tragedy once again overtook
the family, poor Mary worn out by rapid and successive
pregnancies, she had already had six children, died in
childbirth on the 2nd February from haemorrhage. Dad was,
of course, only six years old. His mother's sister,
Auntie Annie, came out and looked after the children for
a year and from then onwards they were in the hands of
various governesses, so from the age of six my father was
brought up without that love and devotion which only a
mother can bestow.
- Dad has often told me of his somewhat hazy
recollection of life as a child in Portugal. Grandpa was
busy at the cork factory but found plenty of time to spend
on his hobbies of carpentry and science. As the children
grew up he was, perforce, obliged to amuse and entertain
them, and the latest invention The Magic Lantern soon
became a household word, Grandpa giving shows and making
most of the slides, model engines were made with the
help of the children. Dad told me he could remember a
very large room stretching across the whole width of the
house in which they could play games and in which was
hung a swing or a trapeze, sewing and needlework for the
girls and stamp collecting for the boys, all were indulged
in, but amongst all this frivolity there was a victorian
atmosphere of religious severity, and prayers read by
Grandpa were the order of the day. Boys will be boys
even in Portugal in 1884 and Dad could remember his joys
and delight at 'escaping' and playing, bare footed in the
streets, with the Portuguese boys. This house at Cacilhas
was so near the river that Dad remembers it was possible
to dive or jump from the window over a narrow roadway into
the Tagus. It was about this time that Dad was given the
name of 'Saint' by his father, probably because of his
angelic face and curly hair; this name persisted throughout
his father's life but by his brothers and sisters he
was always called 'Frank' or 'Francis' and later when he was
married, Mother called him 'Rattray'.
- 1887
- For the next five years and until March, 1887 Dad
led the usual young boy's life, he was taught by governesses
but had to amuse himself a good deal, by this time he
had an excellent knowledge of Portuguese, however Grandpa
decided school was indicated and in March, 1887 Dad was
brought to England and joined his brother Hal as a
boarder in a school in London, Paradise House School,
Stoke Newington.
He also saw his grandfather,
Samuel Oldfield, in the house at Highbury a few days
before he died. Paradise House School was a small boy's
school of about 150 boys, it was originally founded as a
school for the sons of Quakers and in Dad's days at the
school there was a strong Quaker influence. Many years
later Dad sent me to the same school and I was there for
three years 1915-1917 in which I tried to follow in his
footsteps. The school even then still retained its
Quaker influence. Whilst I was there I can remember being
called out by the headmaster and introduced to a Mr Plowman,
who had been a contemporary of my father's at the school.
Many years later in 1907 my father wrote a short history
of Paradise House School and its associations,
this appeared in two numbers of the School Magazine
'The Paradisian'. In it he states that the house was first
occupied by Samuel Hoare in 1750 and was in fact a private
residence until the year 1876 when it was bought by Mr Sharp
and opened as a school, Mr Sharp being the first headmaster
and he was 'head' the whole time Dad was at school
and eventually retired in 1895, handing over the school to a
Mr White; incidentally Mr White was still headmaster in
the first year that I went as a pupil to the school.
Paradise House was an old building but was well equipped
and besides a laboratory there were five courts, gymnasium,
playground etc. In the playground was an old walnut tree,
old in Dad's time and older still in mine! Whilst at
school Dad played football and became a proficient skater
but he was more interested in 'gym', as one would have
expected he was a brilliant scholar and reached the
Matriculation Class before the age of fifteen years. He
could also remember having attended several Quaker Meetings
but was not very impressed and he never became an ardent
follower of the Quakers. During the holidays Dad returned
to the family in Portugal so thus very many times did he
cross the Bay of Biscay. This was no luxury cruise for
the boats he travelled in were the cork boats of Bucknell's
one of the cork firms in Portugal, they were small cargo
boats but designed for taking six to seven passengers.
Dad continued his school life until 1890. In after years
when asked what he remembered best of his school days he
used to say the plunge into the icy water in the marble
swimming bath at school, and the sea trips home to Lisbon
for the holidays.
- 1890
- In 1890 Grandpa sold the house and furniture in
Lisbon and brought the children home to England. He took
a house at Wood Green and Dad was taken away from school
and installed as a clerk in the office of the Great Eastern
Railway. This was a grave error on Grandpa's part
as Dad was about to take his matriculation and was never
able to do so. Dad somewhat reluctantly began to take to
his new duties but he was only fifteen and found it very
irksome. Fortunately for Dad his Uncle, Herbert Oldfield,
approached Grandpa with a view to Dad going into his
Solicitors Office. Thus in February 1892 he left the G.N.R.
and entered on his future career, he passed the Preliminary
Examination in the same year. Grandpa came to an agreement
with Herbert Oldfield that the customary fees for an
articled clerk should be waived in Dad's case, as Dad was
his nephew and in return Dad was to work in the firm when
he became a qualified solicitor. Little could Dad or
anyone realize then that a very heavy millstone was being
hung round his neck and poor Dad was to suffer all his
life from this arrangement. Shylock's pound of flesh was
nothing to what Dad had to give and he had no redress.
After passing his Preliminary he went out to Portugal
again for a holiday and joined his father, who was staying
with Tio, they had a pleasant trip up country and slept
two nights in the open. After this pleasant trip he
returned to England and settled down to the hard task of
learning the law and passing examinations.
- 1896
- In 1896 the family moved to 32 Cromwell Grove,
Hammersmith. Dad's life was being now a daily routine of
office work and hard study in the evenings but he managed
to find time to become a member of the London Rowing Club
where he became an excellent sculler and he joined
Stemple's Gymnasium where he was able to keep up his 'gym'.
Here he was taught Fencing and quickly showed that this
was to be his forte, Dad took to fencing as a fish to
water. I think the mental concentration appealed to him and
he rapidly excelled himself, so good was he becoming that
he gave up all other forms of sport except his beloved
cycling and joined Macpherson's School of Arms thus he was
able to fence with masters and he eventually became a
first class fencer reaching the last six of the All England
Fencing Championships. It should be placed on record here
and now that it was at Stemple's Gymnasium that he met
Mabel Willis, the girl who was to become his wife and my
dear mother. During the next few years he made several
cycle tours of England with a school friend who died, and
then, later with Tio, his uncle at New Milton.
- 1900
- In 1900 Dad made one more trip to Portugal with
Herbert Willis, Mother's brother, and met his father again
out there. he returned to England in September and continued
with his work at the office. It was about then that he had
his first attack of migrane, that is an inherited phenomenon
and consists of a violent headache associated with vertigo
and vomiting, he had these attacks periodically for the rest
of his life and they caused him untold misery. Dad was now
enagaged to Mabel Willis and they had many happy days
together, trips on the river and journeys to Henley, where
Herbert Oldfield had a house and Dad was able to exercise his
skill at punting. Mother has told us all what a magnificent
punter Dad was. Dad had qualified as a Solicitor in 1897
when he was twenty-one years old, taking his examination in
the minimum time of five years and taking Honours in his
Finals, a wonderful achievement. He had then, as previously
arranged, continued in the Oldfields' Office as a fully
qualified solicitor but instead of an income equal to his
status he was graciously given a salary of £100 per annum
rising by yearly increments of £10, this was farcical even
in those days but Dad had no redress. It was not until he
had been engaged to Mother for some years and had reached the
age of twenty-eight years, that after much argument, he was
able to get his uncles to increase his salary to £250 per
year and it was on this small amount that Mother and Dad had
the courage to venture forth into the world and get married.
- 1904
- On the 8th June, 1904 Mother and Dad were married at
St. James's Church, Tunbridge Wells. It was a fashionable
society wedding attended by large numbers of relations and
friends. The reception was held at the Royal Mount
Ephraim Hotel, and afterwards Mother and Dad left for
their honeymoon in Paris. Pictures of the wedding show
Mother to be a beautiful bride and Dad a very good looking
young man with fair curley hair and blue eyes. The
wedding was attended by Grandpa and Dad's brothers and
sisters, the whole of Mother's family were present. This
must have been the happiest moment of Dad's life, he had
at last married the girl he loved so greatly and who
so greatly loved him and they were a perfect couple.
Copyright © Anthony Hickson
