Debt collecting might not be
an obvious career choice for genteel ladies but by 1915 the old social order
was on the way out as women took to the streets demanding equality and the
vote.
In 1903 Emmeline Pankhurst
established the Women’s Social and Political Union at her home in Nelson
Street, Manchester and at Oxford House, 57 Victoria Road, Swindon three sisters
established their own financial business.
The Institute of Chartered
Accountants in England and Wales set up in 1880, discussed admitting females in
1895. However it would be 1919 before
the first woman became a member.
Rosa, Mabel and Florence
Clarke were three of William Clarke’s four daughters. At the time of the 1881
census the family lived at 17 Wellington Street. William worked as an Iron Turner in the GWR
Works, but he was an ambitious, intelligent and determined young man.
Ten years later William had
moved his family up the social ladder and up the hill to a house in Victoria
Road where he worked as a solicitor’s clerk. Oxford House dates from around the
end of the 19th century when development at the northern end of
Victoria Street began. Known first as
New Road and then later as Victoria Street North the road was eventually
renamed Victoria Road in 1903.
When William died on December
16, 1898, the obituary in the Advertiser recalled how for many years he had
been employed as a mechanic in the GWR Works. ‘But eventually [he] resigned
his post to act as an accountant and debt collector. In the latter capacity he has worked up
undoubtedly the largest business of the kind in the county, and has been of
great assistance to the business men of the town,” the report continued.
The sisters took over their
father’s business following his premature death and in the 1901 census Rosa states
her occupation as accountant working from home ‘on her own account,’ Lily
and Mabel do not state an occupation.
Florence, however, who was staying with friends in Devizes on census
night 1901, also describes herself as an accountant.
Rosa died in 1904, leaving
the administration of her will to Florence.
The two remaining sisters kept Rosa’s initial letter R in the company
name.
While the campaigning
suffragettes boycotted the 1911 census, refusing to be counted without representation, Florence and Mabel Clarke are recorded still in business at 57
Victoria Road.
In 1918 Mabel died, leaving
an estate of £2,609 4s to her surviving business partner and sister Florence. Interestingly, when Rosa and Mabel died
neither sister received the press recognition that their father had.
Lily was the only one of the
four sisters to forego a career in favour of a husband and family. In 1901 she married Charles Rix Jeyes, a
quantity surveyor for the London & North Western Railway Co. At the time of the 1911 census the couple
were living at The Hollies, Priests Lane in Shenfield, Essex with their four
young children.
Florence carried on the
business following Mabel’s death in 1918 but by 1920 the North Wilts Trade
Directory records that H.T. Kirby, registrar of births and deaths, living at 57
Victoria Road.
The subject of numerous
unsuccessful planning applications in recent years, Oxford House today is boarded
up and derelict.
Number 57 in happier times as captured by www.cartercollectables.co.uk December 1983.
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