Much is known about the Shephard family. Henry Shephard, Ivy's father, had the distinction of being born at Windsor Castle, April 6th, 1874, where his father, Charles Shephard, was serving with the Grenadier Guards. Charles was born at Hitchin, Herts, April 8th, 1843, and married Isabella Pink at the Tower of London, June 6th, 1870. Isabella was born in Whitechapel, August 7th, 1842. Henry had a brother, Charles, and two sisters, Isabella and Elizabeth. Charles, the father, died young. The 1881 census shows Isabella, the mother, as a widow of 37 and the 1901 census shows her married again to a Mr Alfred While.
Henry Shephard married Blanch Valentine Hawkes at St John's Church in Chelsea, July 19th, 1898. Blanch was born at Chelsea, February 14th, 1878; she had 2 sisters, Mabel and Ellen, and a brother, Guy. Her parents were Samuel Hawkes, a coachman, and Ellen Sellwood; they married in 1875. Nothing more is known of Samuel Hawkes, but it is known that Ellen Hawke's father was Charles Sellwood, a landowner, and that he married Charlotte Woodward, January 28th, 1841. Ellen was one of 8 children. The 1801 census shows Charlotte Sellwood as a widow of 64. The 1901 census shows Ellen Hawkes as a widow of 53.
Henry and Blanch had 5 children, Harry, Bill, Sis (Valentine), Ivy and Fred. I grew up knowing that Uncle Harry had been sent to Ecuador, by a British firm, as a young man and had made a success of himself. He had married a Spanish lady, Silia, and had several children. Blanch made, sometime in the mid 1930s, a trip to Ecuador to stay with Harry, and his family.
Ivy was born June 24th, 1902 at Yeovil, Somerset. Henry Shephard had a small construction business there. It seems that the business failed and the family moved to London, where he was successful in founding a firm to make and sell baby perambulators.
Henry Shephard died at the age of 52, in 1929, from kidney disease. He had already retired and had built a house in Ruislip, Middlesex; it was named "Villa Ecuador" because their eldest son (and Ivy's brother), Harry, had made a life for himself in Ecuador. After Henry's death, Ivy's mother, Blanch, stayed in the Ruislip house and took in boarders. In the late 1930s, when I was in my early teens, I often visited my grandmother alone by taking the train from Dalston, where we lived, to Liverpool St. Station to Baker St. Station and from there to Ruislip. The whole journey took about an hour and a half, including a walk at both ends. For me the journey was always a great adventure.
Blanch died at Ruislip, February 21st, 1942. Herbert and Ivy and their 3 youngest children were living with her at the time of her death; they had moved from their London home because of the war. I was in the Air Force, and got leave to attend the funeral at the church in the Ruislip High Street, where both Henry and Blanch are buried.
Stanley Quinn