| Notes |
- We have a few rare insights into Walter’s life as a boy. A letter in the family files, the original of which was originally in the possession of Peter Topping, Walter Frederick Topping’s grandson, confirms that he was staying at 16 Canonbury Park, Islington on 27th June 1870, aged 13. (The house was no longer in his relatives' possession by the time of the 1901 Census.) We know from another letter, written towards the end of his life, that this was his first visit to the capital. He writes of the train journey to London via York, of a collision between a locomotive and a wagon whose aftermath he witnessed on the way, of his impressions of Islington (‘really you would think you were in the country’) and of his visits to London (‘I was under the largest clock in the world at the House of Commons’). He had the good fortune to see the Princess of Wales (Queen Alexandra) coming out of Malborough House whilst visiting the London parks. He concludes, ‘Georgi, James, Jeanie, Ada, Bertie and myself also old Aunt Jane send their kindest love, Your affectionate son, Walter. P.S. Aunt Jane could cuff Papa's ears for saying I was coming next Friday.’ None of these relatives or friends have yet been definitely identified, though Old Aunt Jane could be his mother’s sister Jane Notman.
Walter probably trained as a maritime engineer, the first of four of the Topping brothers to enter the shipping industry, possibly with the encouragement or support of their uncle, who was a successful marine engineer with a home in the Virgin Islands! Family notes link Walter to the Leven Shipyard, Dumbarton, on 4th November 1876, aged 19. Nearly 5 years later, on the 1881 Census, he is shown, aged 24, as a merchant's clerk living with his parents, three brothers and three sisters at 13 Loftus Road, London, Middlesex. An undated newspaper report of his wedding describes him as ‘Mr W.F.Topping of the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand’ and the registry entry from the wedding as ‘manager of a shipping company’.
In 1888 he was living at 2 Cambridge Road, Wanstead and the 1891 Census has him and Katherine with their first son, Walter Darling, aged 3, living in a house with a name which may be ‘Brentor’ in Cyprus Road, Finchley, north-west of Hampstead Heath and close to what is now Finchley Central underground station. At this point, Walter Frederick was working as a mercantile clerk. The household included Ada Littlechild, a 19-year-old servant from Hertfordshire and Emmeline Quick (18), a nursemaid from Somerset.
He next turns up, aged 40, as a passenger on the RMS Teutonic bound for New York, USA, docking there on 7th July 1897. We do not know where he set sail from, but the ship had been plying the route between Liverpool and New York since 1889. A fascinating letter to his son Kelman, written on board, gives colourful account of some of his fellow passengers, amongst them a war correspondent for a New York newspaper, and mentions the revolution which was then taking place in Cuba ‘where the natives have rebelled against the Spaniards’.
At some stage in his short life he was a secretary and, later, a manager for a shipping company in Vancouver, British Columbia. This has to have been before he set off for Mexico on his own (i.e. before 1897) since his letters to Kelman from south of the border refer to experiences shared in Canada.
On 16th July 1897 at 6.30 in the morning, by his own account, he arrived by steamer in Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico, having travelled via Washington, Atlanta, Montgomery, New Orleans and San Diego. He must have been in Ensenada on business with his shipping company since he refers in a letter to steamers and employees of ‘the company’. He put up at the Iturbide Hotel, which was then 10 years old, and in July 1897 he wrote to Kelman describing his office (‘a very nice office down town, there is an English clerk and 2 Mexicans in it. My table overlooks the bay and it is delightfully cool.’) and his working hours (‘My hours are 8 am to 12 and 2 pm to 6 pm. Two hours in the middle of the day for lunch. I intend to get up every morning at 6 am (as we used to do at Osborne Road. By the bye, I hope you are keeping that up) and go for a bathe, then breakfast at 7 and off to business, about 2 minutes walk. My evenings I will spend learning Spanish.’) The determination to learn Spanish implies an intention to stay in Mexico for a while.
Three months later, on the headed notepaper of the Mexican Land and Colonization Company Ltd., he wrote to Kelman about the progress he was making with Spanish (‘I think by Christmas I will be able to speak it fairly well. I practise a lot especially with the children, for I know they don't laugh at my mistakes.’). He was clearly missing his family and describes his ‘lonely walks on Saturday afternoons’. It was his hope that Kelman, his son, would join him soon.
Sadly, Kelman had to travel to the United States all too soon. Within 18 months of the letter just referred to, Walter's death from pneumonia would be recorded in San Fransisco. According to Peter Topping, Kelman's son, it was to Kelman that the responsibility fell to travel to San Fransisco to collect the body and to arrange for burial. Peter had this from his father; and yet, if the dates are correct, Kelman would have been only 12 or 13 at the time. This anomaly has yet to be resolved.
External Links
RMS Teutonic
Union Steamship Company of New Zealand
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1857 - 1898 (41 years)
Occupation
