| Notes |
- Annie was almost certainly born in Orwell, Cambridgeshire, since she appears with her family on the 1881 Census aged 2 months old living at 19 High Street with her 3 sisters, all aged under 7, and her parents, then aged 26.
Ash family lore places Annie in domestic service in Hornsey, where her future husband was living just before their marriage; but the 1901 Census suggests that the family who employed her lived, in fact, in Marylebone. Annie Breed, born in Cambridge (the only one on the census that fits her dates) is in service with a Jones family at 17 Titchfield Terrace, Marylebone. She was 20 at the time.
The Joneses turn out to be no ordinary family. From the 1901 Census, we know that the household comprised Mrs Jane Eliza Jones, her three daughters Winifred (20), Ethelwyn (18) and Jenny (12), her son Oliver (2), a governess, Ethel Le Leleur (18) and four servants, of whom Annie was one. There was also a visitor, whose name (Montague Leveaux), together with the unexplained absence of Mrs Jones’ husband, triggered a search for further information. It led to the following disoveries.
Annie was working for one of England’s best-known dramatists, Henry Arthur Jones (1851–1929). He is recognized for his pivotal role in elevating British drama from melodrama to serious social and moral inquiry. Jones’s plays often combined well-constructed plots with a strong moral purpose, embodying the conservative Victorian ethic while engaging with new social issues like female independence and sexual morality. His stance contrasted with that of contemporaries George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells, with whom he sparred publicly on politics and the purpose of drama. Oscar Wilde famously quipped that the main rule of playwriting was not to write like Henry Arthur Jones. He stands today as a transitional figure linking Victorian melodrama with the more psychological realism of early 20th-century British theatre.
Jones’ plays were widely performed in the United States, and he himself travelled there several times during his career to supervise productions and lecture on drama. His correspondence and essays reveal that he maintained active links with American academics and theatre professionals, influencing discussions about realism and ethics on the stage. It is, perhaps, significant that his play ‘Mrs Dane’s Defence’ toured the United States from December 1900 to April 1901 with a London cast. This may explain his absence from the 1901 London Census.
As for the identity of the Jones’ visitor on census night (Sunday 31 Mar 1901), Montague Vivian Leveaux was a stage actor, theatrical producer, and member of the Touring Managers’ Association in London. In 1902, he would marry Ethelwyne Sylvia Jones, who became an actress and performed in some of her famous father's plays. The marriage did not last. She divorced Leveaux and, in December 1913, married Angus McDonnell (1881–1966), son of the Earl of Antrim. She also had an eight-year-long affair with the author W. Somerset Maugham, culminating in her rejection of his marriage proposal.
Annie Breed would have been in a position to witness the courtship between Ethelwyne and Montague. We do not know how long she stayed with the family, but the dates suggest that she must have met her husband-to-be, Fred Ash, while she was in service with them. Family oral history then places her in Camberwell (26 Badsworth Rd, Camberwell SE5 0JY) between 1902, the year of her marriage, and 1906, when she, with her husband and two young sons, Frederick John and Albert, moved to Eltham. At some point in her life, Annie worked for the Post Office there.
In later life, she was known to take an interest in Theosophy.
Transcript of an interview with Brian Ash, Annie’s grandson
‘Grandma Ash lived on until 1964 and I can remember many occasions in my twenties sitting and talking with her about her life and beliefs. She had left school at about the age of 14 and went into domestic service. She was living in London when she was married in 1902. At some point she worked in the Post Office and I'm not sure whether this was after she was married and came to live in Eltham, or at some earlier point. I got the impression she was the person who managed the family finances.
‘Annie Ash had ambitions for her two sons, who must have done reasonably well at the local school. (Frederick) John eventually went on to an apprenticeship at the Woolwich Arsenal and his brother Bert qualified as an architect.’
Transcript of an interview with Frederick John Ash, Annie’s son, in 1974
‘After the First World War, mother bought a house because father had a business, a farrier's business before the war, but that broke up because of the war; there wasn't enough work. I think he worked in the dockyard as an inspector, I suppose. He managed to save some money and started his business again after the war at Catford. In the mean time, mother was interested and she bought the house further up the road. That house, when it was finished in 1914, was £250. Mother bought the house in the 1920's for £700. It had gone up that amount, you see! Eventually when she died in 1964, it was worth nearly £3,000. That was the difference between 1920 and 1964. Now it must easily be worth £10,000. It was a fairly large house but semi-detached, there was no garage and no paths through the garden, although it was considered quite a nice house, you still had to leave the dustbin in the front garden once a week.’
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1881 - 1964 (83 years)
Census
