Appendix E: Biographies

Maingay1

William Maingy (St. Peter Port, Guernsey 8 May 1791 – Tunbridge Wells 24 April 1862) was the son of Thomas Maingy (1756–1835) of Havelet, and the eldest of ten children of his marriage to his second wife, Anne le Cocq. In order of birth, he was the middle brother of three male siblings, the others being his half-brother, Thomas (1781–1859), and his biological brother, Bonamy (1795–1861).2 In appearance and character, he reminded Anna Whistler of John Winstanley and seemed “to appreciate Debo as that kind Uncle did when we were in England” [in 1843].3 See Images 258–264 of many of the Maingay family members.

“In the 18th century,” the Maingy family’s profits came from the sales of wine and spirits to Cornish smugglers and “from privateering during … the American War of Independence, and the French Revolution.”4 As “the wine trade … had suffered an economic slump after 1815,” William went into “wool trading in partnership with [a] John Thomas.”5 Their premises in 1823 were given as 17 Basinghall Street in London, where they were “paying $80 a year rent,” which “went to Christ’s Hospital under an endowment by Lady Anne Bacon.”6

In 1817, William Maingy married in St. Peter Port Eliza Lamb (Piette House, St. Peter Port, Guernsey 16 January 1801 – London 28 June 1877),7 daughter of George Lamb (b. 2 March 1766; bap. Rye 10 March 1766; d. Guernsey 19 April 1829) and Catherine Gosselin (Guernsey 15 May 1766 – d. 3 February 1850; buried Guernsey 8 February 1850). While living in England, they had four children: William Bonamy (b. London 14 October 1819; bap. London, St. Pancras Parish Church 17 October 1819; d. Boscombe, Hampshire 26 August 1902)8; Eliza Ann (St. Peter Port, Guernsey 12 February 1821 – London 20 November 1899); Emma Elizabeth (St. Peter Port, Guernsey 6 February 1826 – Tewkesbury 27 December 1904); and Charles George (St. Peter Port, Guernsey 21 October 1830 – St. Petersburg 27 January / 8 February 1843).

Sometime in 1827, the family was joined by Amelia Hooper (Sanford, Devon 1810 – Southwick Crescent, Paddington, London 15 January 1876), who became nanny to the children, and whom they affectionately called “Meely.” Her epitaph on the family tomb reads: “For 49 years a valued friend and nurse in the family of the above ‘Faithful unto death’.”9

In 1831, the family, including Amelia Hooper, but leaving William Bonamy in Guernsey to attend Elizabeth College, emigrated to St. Petersburg. There, William Maingy assumedly pursued “his wool factoring business.”10 They lived on Vasilievskii Island.11 The three youngest children were born there: Amelia de Jersey (St. Petersburg 20 October / 1 November 1833 – St. Petersburg 23 November / 5 December 1835), Frederick Thomas (St. Petersburg 1/13 May 1834 – London 11 October 1862), and Emily (St. Petersburg 23 January / 4 February 1836 – London 25 December 1890). Amelia de Jersey died there at the age of two years and one month.12

As “Britain lifted its embargo on machinery exports around this time, many entrepreneurs were looking for opportunities in Russia. One of the main areas was cotton technology, and the Ochta Cotton Spinning Mill was set up as a pilot project by the Frerichs brothers on the little Ochta River feeding into the Neva. They were partners in the De Jersey merchanting firm which had special interests in cotton and the Baltic trade.”13

William Maingy, “who had behind him his experience in the textile trade … was one of the Ochta Mill founders, (with twenty two of the original eighty seven shares, as detailed in his will dated 29th April 1862).” He later bequeathed “eleven of these shares to William Bonamy noting that the sum of 33,000 silver rubles Russian currency had been advanced for the payment, and he [put] others in a trust for his wife and daughters.” “Ochta … in 1860 … was the sixth largest spinning mill in Russia, with 67,000 spindles, and an estimated capital value of £49,000 sterling.”

From St. Petersburg on 1st January 1835, Maingy & Co. sent a circular to the London Merchant Bank, Wm Brandt’s Sons & Co., informing them that they had opened a branch in Archangel, which would be run by Thomas Carew Hunt, whose own branch there would be closed. The circular also stated that “I, William Maingy, have written myself up at the Dooma (council) of this town, trading under the name of Wm. Maingy.” It is not clear in what commodities or services the various companies were trading, but both Brandt and De Jersey were reputable merchant bankers who backed a wide range of ventures and products, particularly sugar and cotton.14

On 22 June 1840, William, Thomas, and Bonamy “changed their name by Royal Licence” from Maingy to Maingay, “like most of the Guernsey members of their family.”15

William Maingay returned to England in 1843, probably “to prepare for the return of the whole family the following spring,”16 and “stayed at Wellesley House, a substantial villa on Shooters’ Hill, London.”17 He was followed by his family, who left Russia on 19/31 May 1844, except for William Bonamy, who stayed in St. Petersburg to look after the family’s business interests. Deborah Whistler (see Images 17–19, 21) visited them in 1846, during the year she spent in Preston with Anna Whistler’s half-sister and brother-in-law, Eliza Isabella (McNeill) (Wellwood) Winstanley (see Image 40) and John Winstanley. The Whistlers accompanied Emma Maingay back to Wellesley House in October 1847, after she had been absent for six weeks preparing for and participating in the wedding of Deborah Whistler and Francis Seymour Haden.

By the end of March 1851, the family was living in Tunbridge Wells: William (59), retired merchant; his wife, Eliza (51); their daughters, Eliza (30), Emma (25), and Emily (14); and three servants, including Amelia Hooper (40). Their address was 7 Belvedere Terrace in Church Road, opposite Holy Trinity Church.18

In 1861, they were still in Tunbridge Wells, but at 1 Belmont Terrace: William Maingay (69), shareholder; Eliza, his wife (62); their daughters, Eliza Ann (40), Emma (35), both born in Guernsey, and Emily (24), born in St. Petersburg; their son, Frederick (25), born in St. Petersburg; and four servants, including Amelia Hooper (50), born in Sanford, Devon.19

In Tunbridge Wells, William Maingay “was a diligent supporter of church and town activities,” such as the foundation of the church of St. John-on-the-Lew, which was consecrated on 5 January 1858. He was in 1859 treasurer of the Victoria Schools, which were run by the church. In 1860, he was a town commissioner.20

He died in Tunbridge Wells on 24 April 1862 and was buried in Woodbury Park Cemetery. His monument bears the epitaph: “Them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.” His estate amounted to under £4,000.21

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Eliza (Lamb) Maingay (see Image 259) was descended from James Lamb (1693–1756), mayor of Rye, who built Lamb House. “The only portrait of her shows a delicately boned almost gaunt woman with dark brown hair. From the style of hair and dress [it] appears to belong to the early 1840s.”22

Descriptions of her personality and character are to be found in the St. Petersburg diaries of Anna Whistler (see Image 1–5) and in the memoirs of a Woolwich friend of the Maingay family, Jane Connolly (b. 8 June 1841; bap. Woolwich 4 August 1841; d. Preston, Sussex 20 April 1922).23 The entries in Part I of Anna Whistler’s St. Petersburg diaries are based on direct contact with the family until they left St. Petersburg on 19/31 May 1844. Their imminent departure precipitated frequent meetings. Her comments about Eliza (Lamb) Maingay reveal a spiritual kinship with a “truly pious,” warmhearted woman, together with her husband not fond of parties, and generous in helping Anna Whistler shop because of her fluency in Russian. They conversed at dinner at the Maingays’ about the various churches and pastors in their lives and their departed little ones lost to death.

After their first meeting, Eliza (Lamb) Maingay sometimes sent books, such as Reade’s Christian Meditations, to Anna Whistler courtesy of Emma’s visit to Debo (see Images 17–19, 21), and spent two days introducing Anna Whistler to shops which she herself had found satisfactory for twelve years. Anna Whistler looked forward to sociables where she knew Eliza (Lamb) Maingay would be present. Eliza (Lamb) Maingay and the family visited the Whistlers at their dacha. She frequently begged and persuaded Major and Anna Whistler to allow Debo to spend whole days and nights at her home, especially as their day of departure approached. On that day, she gave a letter of farewell to Debo for Anna Whistler, not to be opened for a week.

After the Maingay family left Russia, Anna Whistler and Eliza (Lamb) Maingay used William Bonamy as a go-between to bring them letters from one another. Unfortunately, none of these letters are extant; the reason for the loss of most letters, including Mrs. Maingay’s, is that, as Anna Whistler said, only letters from Major Whistler (see Images 7–8, 21) were among the few she kept. In 1847, they met again, this time at Shooters’ Hill, when all the Whistlers were present in England for the wedding of Deborah Whistler and Francis Seymour Haden (see Image 20). As her 1850 diary shows, Anna Whistler continued to write to Mrs. Maingay by sending notes to her in her letters to Debo. Jane Connolly said Mrs. Maingay “was one of the group of Woolwich ladies devoted to good works,” and her “friends were the very good and religious people in the Wells.” In those “days of clergy worship,” “Mrs. Maingay and her family were ardent followers of [Rev. Capel] Molyneux” (1804–1877). She, as well as her daughters, were described as “highly cultured and accomplished. Books abounded in their house, and all the family were more or less musical and artistic.”24

Some time after the death of her husband in 1862, Eliza (Lamb) Maingay moved from Tunbridge Wells to London with Eliza Anne, Emma, and Emily. By 1871, they were living at 11 Nottingham Place, London: Eliza Maingay, head (72), “Living on Private Property”; her daughters, Eliza (50), Emma (45), Emily (34), also “living on Private Property”; and their servant, Amelia Hooper (60), “Annuitant.” By the time of the deaths of Amelia Hooper (1876) and Eliza (Lamb) Maingay (1877), they were living at Southwick Crescent, near Paddington. Eliza (Lamb) Maingay died here on 28 June 1877 and was buried in Woodbury Park Cemetery. Information about her on the tombstone says: “Sacred to the memory … also of Eliza widow of the above W. Maingay Esq. born January 13, 1799 died June 28 1877.” Her estate amounted to under £7,000.25

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William Bonamy Maingay (b. London 14 October 1819; bap. 17 October St. Pancras parish church; d. Boscombe, Hampshire 26 August 1904; see Image 260) was the first child of William and Eliza (Lamb) Maingay. In 1830, he “was enrolled in Elizabeth College,” in Guernsey, “rebuilt in 1826” and “educationally transformed,” of which his uncle, Bonamy Maingay, was “a director and treasurer.” “The curriculum had Latin and Greek studies at its core, but also included mathematics and commercial arithmetic, French and other languages, and surveying.” When the rest of the family went to Russia in 1831, he “must have been left behind in Guernsey, at least during school terms until he was 14, as he is recorded as a pupil there in 1830–33 in the Elizabeth College Register.” “There were many close relations with whom he could have lived, including his grandparents at Havelet.”26

We know little of his life in St. Petersburg, except from the letters of John Stevenson Maxwell of the U.S. Legation, until Anna Whistler begins to record in her diaries Deborah Whistler’s acquaintance with his sister Emma, and gradually with the entire family. William Bonamy became romantically interested in Deborah Whistler in 1844, but, given Major Whistler’s adamance that his daughter could have his permission to marry only if her suitor was an officer of the United States Army, he had no success (see the biography of Deborah Whistler in “The Whistlers as They Were in the 1840s”). We know that he made a stilted translation of the Russian romance “Chornyi tsvet” (“The Color Black”), which Debo sang at an evening event; that his sister Emma and Deborah Whistler were amused at his piano playing; that he had a barge on which he took his friends on excursions dressed in a sailor’s suit; and that, after the Maingay family left Russia in 1844, he was the frequent bearer of his sister’s and mother’s letters to and from Deborah and Anna Whistler on his trips between England and St. Petersburg.

It is not clear when William Bonamy Maingay left St. Petersburg to live permanently in England, but on 8 January 1857 he married Anna Maria Courtney (Dublin, Ireland 17 February 1833 – Boscombe, Hampshire 24 May 1910), “one of seven daughters and two sons of Henry Courtney, ‘gentleman,’ of 24 Fitzwilliam Place, Dublin, and Sydney Gosselin,” a very wealthy family with – on one side – Huguenot roots. They were settled in Tunbridge Wells at 3 Belmont Terrace by 1858, two houses down from the residence of William and Eliza (Lamb) Maingay. They had nine children, all born in Tunbridge Wells: Sydney Kathleen (March Qtr. 1858 – Norwich 26 July 1936), Courtney Cyril (March Qtr. 1859 – Houston, Texas 1 January 1902), Maude Evelyn (December Qtr. 1860 – Bournemouth 19 April 1936), Edward William (June Qtr. 1862 – Wrexham 21 April 1929), Bonamy Cecil (September Qtr. 1864 – Hampstead 13 August 1895), Annette Adeline (December Qtr. 1865 – Wells 15 April 1944), Henry Bertram (December Qtr. 1867 – Scarborough 17 November 1930), Mabel d’Olier (June Qtr. 1872 – Reepham, Norwich 30 April 1958), Wilfred Gosselin (5 June 1873 – Tunbridge Wells 21 August 1873).27 All were baptized at Holy Trinity Church. William Bonamy called their house “Strelna,” presumably after the town on the seventeenth verst of the Peterhof Road, where the palace of Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich (see Image 436) stood, suggesting that the dacha the Maingays had rented while living in Russia was located in the vicinity of that palace. It is not clear whether William Bonamy “had any sort of employment” after his marriage, for beginning with the 1861 Census he is listed as “shareholder.”28

Like his father, he supported “church and town activities,” engaging together with him in getting the church of St. John-on-the-Lew built. He became “a Town Commissioner, serving on the Police Committee, while continuing to support Holy Trinity as Treasurer of the Parochial Provident and Clothing Club, and as Treasurer of the Church of England Education Society.” When living in London, “he was for many years on the Committee of the British and Foreign Bible Society.” “He became Hon. Secretary of the 17th Kent Rifles in the Volunteer Corps in 1863.”29

By 1868, he and his family were living at Marlborough House on Mount Sion in Tunbridge Wells. In 1873, they moved to London, where they presumably lived at Southwick Crescent, near Paddington. In 1891, William Bonamy and Anna Maria (Courtney) Maingay were living at 14 Kensington Crescent, London, with three of their daughters. The diaries of their daughter Annette Adeline show that during the 1880s her father paid annual visits to St. Petersburg in February or March, usually staying about a fortnight. By 1901, they were living in Boscombe, Hampshire; their house was called “Havelet.” Here, William Bonamy died on 26 August 1902. His estate amounted to about £25,257. Anna Maria (Courtney) Maingay died at Boscombe, as well, on 24 May 1910.30

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Eliza Anne Maingay31 (see Image 262) was born at St. Peter Port, Guernsey, on 12 February 1821. She was called “Nina” by the family. In St. Petersburg, Anna Whistler recorded that she found her the most interesting of the three Maingay daughters and hoped that Emma would “become the decided young Christian her sister Eliza is.” Eliza was a close friend of Miss McLean, the governess in the family of Varvara Alekseevna Olenina (see Image 306). On the family’s return to England, while living in Shooters’ Hill, they were “ardent followers” of Rev. Capel Molyneux, who preached “at Trinity Church, just outside the Arsenal Gates” from 1842 to 1850. On one occasion, when Rev. Molyneux fell ill and had to take leave, he was replaced by a young man of eloquence and charm, who won Eliza Maingay’s heart. Her father, who had been on a trip to Russia, returned two weeks before the wedding. On his way home through London, he was warned by a friend to check the credentials of the bridegroom-to-be. He found that the young man, although he came from “a good family and had a good education,” was not a clergyman, “had been convicted of some crime,” and was living “under an assumed” name. The “engagement was broken off,” and Eliza “had the courage taken out of her life” and retreated from it, never marrying. As Rev. Molyneux was canon of Trinity Church, Woolwich, from 1842 to 1850, and Eliza Maingay did not come to live in Woolwich until about June of 1844, it seems plausible that her encounter with this young man had to have taken place between 1844 and 1850.32

When the Whistler family brought Emma Maingay home to Wellesley House, Shooters’ Hill, Anna Whistler had another occasion to feel the admiration for Eliza Maingay that she had experienced in St. Petersburg. Eliza had a “district of poor cottagers” whom she visited. Anna Whistler found her attired in Quaker dress, “the picture of neatness and composure, looking so placid and with a heavenly expression on her mild, sweet face.” Eliza Anne asked Anna Whistler to take Bonnet’s The Family of Bethany to St. Petersburg as a gift to her friend, Mary Touchkoff, and a Bible for the Whistler home for couriers to read while they waited for answers to the messages they delivered. Anna Whistler felt regret that she could not spend several days in Eliza Anne’s company. After the death of her father, Eliza Anne moved to London with her mother, sisters, and Amelia Hooper. She died at Dorset Square, Marylebone, London on 20 November 1899. Her estate amounted to about £6,000.

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Emma Elizabeth Maingay (see Image 263) was born in St. Peter Port, Guernsey, on 6 February 1826. It is after the arrival of Deborah Whistler in St. Petersburg at the end of September 1843 that we begin to learn anything of Emma. Although Anna Whistler began to record at the end of November 1843 the Whistler family’s journey to St. Petersburg, their loss of Charles Donald, their reaction to the climate and the Neva water, it was not until late December 1843 that she recorded that on Christmas Day, when Debo took James (see Images 24–29) and Willie (see Images 27, 30) to the Ropeses to present some gifts, she stayed on to play duets “with a Miss Mengies.” This had to be Emma, and the entry shows that they met sometime within the first three months after the Whistlers’ arrival, but possibly for the first time, as the emphasis is on “a Miss Mengies.”

On 18/30 January 1844, the Whistler family went to dine at the Maingays’ home, apparently meeting all the family members for the first time. Anna Whistler recorded that she “admire[d] Emma who is perhaps more talented [than her sister, Eliza] and is very pretty.” Throughout Part I of the diaries, after this meeting of the two families, there are numerous references to Debo’s spending the day or overnight at the Maingay home or Emma’s spending the day at the Whistlers’ home, for example, on 9 March 1844, and 22 March 1844.

Debo and Emma attended as spectators the wedding festivities of Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Elizaveta Mikhailovna (see Image 441) and His Serene Highness Duke Adolphe Wilhelm of Nassau (see Image 442) on 19/31 January 1844.

On 1/13 March 1844, Anna Whistler attended a rehearsal of the Imperial choristers with Debo and Emma, where the two young women appreciated the music as musicians, while she wept, thinking of the bliss of all the dead she had known.

Debo is also recorded in the diaries as having attended a performance by Clara Schumann (see Image 199) with the Maingays at the Smol’nyi Convent (see Image 147).

The imminent “departure of the Maingays for England induce[d] [the Whistlers] to meet them as often as possible” in many venues. Debo and Emma went together to a tea party at the Gellibrands on 22 April in honor of Ellen Harriet (Hall) Ropes’s birthday and wedding anniversary. Eliza (Lamb) Maingay called on 3 May to beg that Debo could come spend the night with all the family, an adventure that the weather prolonged into a stay of several days. Emma came out to the Whistler dacha on the Peterhof Road for a week, prompting Anna Whistler to record a very favorable assessment of her. She found Emma, who sometimes sat with her and read aloud from Christian works, “a very gifted girl,” whose “voice in reading is sweeter than at the piano.” She was very grateful that while Emma had come to the dacha to spend time with Debo, she also made time for Debo’s mother.

These visits to the dacha were the last Emma and her family made to the Whistlers, although Debo went to their home and spent their last night in St. Petersburg with them. They departed on the steamer on 19/31 May 1844. Debo saw them off and returned home with Emma’s picture, overcome by sadness. It is now that Emma’s brother, William Bonamy, who was remaining in St. Petersburg, began to act as go-between, appearing on 15 June at the Whistler dacha with a note from Emma, the first in a long correspondence.

When Deborah Whistler spent a year in 1845–1846 in Preston for her health’s sake, she visited Emma and her family at Shooters’ Hill. In 1847, the entire Whistler family were in Preston and, in preparing for Deborah’s marriage to Francis Seymour Haden, had Emma with them for six weeks. She was the only bridesmaid. After the Hadens set up housekeeping in London, Debo and Emma saw one another frequently until the latter’s death. Anna Whistler’s letters to James Whistler sometimes recorded that Emma was a guest at the Haden home and that she asked that greetings be conveyed to him.

Jane Connolly, writing of the Tunbridge Wells days, said that, while “all the family were more or less musical and artistic, Emma’s music was especially good. She played in a masterly way. She was very fond of pets, and had the gift of teaching them. Canaries understood almost every word she said, and often, when playing, her canary would be seen fluttering over her hands on the piano. When the movement was slow, it would perch on her hand. Dormice became intelligent with her, and squirrels who are shy of making friends loved her. They came when she called, and ate nuts in her hand.” She also mentioned that Emma arranged Shakespeare readings.

When the sisters moved to London with their mother, Emma helped her sister, Emily, with the orphanage that the latter set up.

Emma Maingay was the last surviving offspring of William and Eliza (Lamb) Maingay. She died on 27 December 1904 at Tewkesbury. Her estate amounted to about £4,000.33

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Charles George Maingay (see Image 261) was born in St. Peter Port Guernsey on 21 October 1830. He was therefore up to a year old when the family moved to St. Petersburg. He died there at the age of twelve years and three months, on 15/27 January 1843, and was buried on 19/31 January 1843, presumably in the Smolensk Cemetery, from the English Church (see Images 110–111), Rev. Edward Law (see Image 253) officiating. He died from a fall on the ice on the Neva, which suggests he may have been sledding down one of the ice hills, a winter feature (see Image 344).34 Anna Whistler described in her diaries a day spent there, with descriptions of Colonel Charles S. Todd (see Image 278), the American envoy; Richard Risley Carlisle and his sons (see Image 202), all acrobats; and James and Willie engaging in the sport.

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Frederick Thomas Maingay35 (St. Petersburg 1/13 May 1834 – Hanover Street, Hanover Square, London 11 October 1862) was the third and youngest son of William and Eliza (Lamb) Maingay. In recording the Whistler family’s visit to the Maingay home in St. Petersburg in February 1844, Anna Whistler only mentioned, and that erroneously, that Freddy was between James and Willie in age, whereas he was two months older than James. In October 1847, she recorded that James and Willy went off after lunch with Fred “to the nut trees” at the Maingay home in Shooters’ Hill.

In 1851, Frederick had “been one of three private pupils of the Rev. Pelham Maitland incumbent of Fradswell in Staffordshire. He matriculated on 8th March 1854 and was on Wadham College, Oxford, books till 1858, though he did not take his degree. In 1861, he was living again with his parents, with no profession given.” He died on 11 October 1862, while in London, from “Delirium Tremens a week certified.” He was buried in Woodbury Park Cemetery with his father. They shared the epitaph “Them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.” His estate amounted to under £5,000.

At some point beyond his boyhood, Frederick Maingay published a poem entitled “A Picture,” which is a paean to his mother evoked by a photograph of her in his possession.

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Emily Maingay,36 called “Lille” and “Lily” by family and friends, was the youngest Maingay child (see Image 264). She was born in St. Petersburg on 23 January / 4 February 1836. She is also the daughter through whom many details about the family come to light. This is due to the fact that while living in Tunbridge Wells she became close friends with the abovementioned Jane Connolly, who later published a book of memoirs.

Emily Maingay was eight years old when the Whistler and Maingay families met in St. Petersburg in 1844. Anna Whistler mentions her only by name in recording that they dined on 18/30 January at the Maingay home. In October 1847, after the marriage of Deborah Whistler and Francis Seymour Haden, the Whistlers accompanied Emma Maingay back to Wellesley House, Shooters’ Hill. Emily was now eleven. Anna Whistler pointed out in her diaries that “little Lillie clung to her sisters.”

Over the years, Emily Maingay and Jane Connolly made visits to Deborah (Whistler) Haden in Sloane Street and especially enjoyed themselves if she played the piano. But they were afraid of “old Mrs. Whistler” and did not go if “[they] knew she was there.” James Whistler also alarmed them, if he was at the Haden home, because one “never knew what he might do or say.” “His rapid movements, the weird white lock of hair, and the intonations of his voice made [them] feel he was scarcely human,” but they were also aware that “he enjoyed [their] foolish fears.”

Jane Connolly pointed out that when Emily grew up “she showed a marked artistic talent.” “She painted sometimes in water-colour, and a little in oils, but in the end she scarcely did anything but etching. Her style was dainty and delicate, the drawing true. She had a strong sense of humour which made her work delightful. One set of sketches on the old-fashioned crinoline she had lithographed. The beauty of her lines was quite lost in the process, but the wit and originality of the story could not be spoiled. Many years later, she etched the story of some Christmas robins, which she sold for the orphanage she had started. But the best of all, her ‘Life of Saint Severity,’ has never been reproduced.”

After the death of her mother in 1877, Emily moved with her two sisters to Dorset Square, “and it was in adjoining New Street that [she] developed her orphanage, eventually occupying two houses there, training girls for domestic service … in 1898 she was interviewing candidates and acting as secretary to Edward Rudolf, co-founder with his brother of the Church of England Waifs and Strays Society … Not long before her death [she] donated the orphanage buildings and a substantial endowment to the Society.” “She had heard one or two sad stories of the desolate condition of servants’ children. This awakened [her] interest, and she started a home for these little ones … where they would have care and training. The parents paid what they could. Often, when out of a place, the mother could pay nothing, but the child remained in the home just the same. [Her] skilful fingers made the garments; one seldom saw her without a little frock or cloak in hand.” Although “for many years before her death she suffered from a cruel internal illness which kept her constantly on the sofa,” Jane Connolly pointed out her accomplishments “as an example of what is possible even for a delicate woman to do.”

Emily Maingay died in London at Dorset Square on 25 December 1890. Her estate amounted to about £3,695.

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Anna Whistler’s opinion of the entire Maingay family was that at their home Debo was “delighting and delighted, such companions will give her a distaste for those [that] are less improved.”37

Notes