121-year-old postcard delivered to Welsh financial institution results in sudden household reunion

A 121-year-old postcard that ended up in the fitting place on the flawed time has introduced far-flung relations collectively for the primary time. 

Earlier this month, a postcard dated Aug. 23, 1903, and affixed with a King Edward VII stamp, arrived on the Swansea Constructing Society, a member-owned monetary establishment in Swansea, Wales.

It was addressed to a “Miss Lydia Davies” at 11 Cradock Road. Right this moment, that is the constructing society’s tackle, however a century in the past, it was the positioning of a number of rows of homes. 

Now, the cardboard’s author and recipient have been recognized, and their descendants — 4 cousins, most of whom did not even know one another existed — have met for the primary time on the West Glamorgan Archives in Swansea.

“It is fascinating,” archivist Andrew Dulley, who helped unravel the thriller and host the reunion, instructed CBC. “It form of underlines, for me, the significance of historical past.”

Discovering new household

In an interview with CBC Radio’s As It Occurs final week, Henry Darby, a spokesperson Swansea Constructing Society, described the postcard as “one thing that must be in a museum.”

On the again is a hand-written message, penned in cursive, and signed “Ewart.” It reads, partly: “Pricey L. I couldn’t, it was not possible to get the pair of those. I’m so sorry, however I hope you might be having fun with your self at house.”

Darby took the mysterious missive to the West Glamorgan Archives, the place Dulley and his colleagues helped recognized the cardboard’s recipient as a Lydia Davies who lived in a home at 11 Cradock Road in 1903 along with her mother and father and 5 siblings.

Her father ran a tailoring store on the bottom ground of a row home, and the household lived above it. Lydia would have been about 15 or 16 on the time, Dulley says.

The postcard’s author, he says, was Lydia’s 13-year-old brother, Ewart, who doubtless despatched the cardboard from Fishguard, Wales, whereas visiting his grandfather on summer season vacaion. 

When Ewart apologized for failing to accumulate “a pair of those,” Dulley says he was doubtless referring to postcards. 

The entrance of the cardboard contains a black-and-white illustration of a stag, a copy of The Problem by British painter Edwin Henry Landseer.

Dulley says it was one in every of a number of postcards based mostly on Landseer’s work in circulation on the time. And Lydia, in line with her descendents, collected postcards.

Ewart’s grandson, 65-year-old Nick Davies of West Sussex, England, was among the many Davies descendants who met on the archives on Wednesday in a gathering organized by BBC Wales.

“It is like a household reunion the place the one connection you’ve gotten is a standard ancestor courting again to over 100 years in the past,” he instructed BBC.

Additionally current had been Lydia’s grandnieces, Helen Roberts, 58, and Margaret Spooner, 61, from Swansea, the granddaughters of David Stanley Davies, Lydia and Ewart’s brother.

Roberts instructed Sky Information she has lengthy been piecing collectively her household historical past on-line, and somebody despatched her a narrative concerning the postcard after connecting Lydia’s identify to Roberts’s household tree on Ancestry.com.

Additionally readily available was Lydia’s great-granddaughter, Religion Reynolds, 47, from Devon, England, who says she had no concept she had such an prolonged household. 

“It’s totally thrilling to satisfy the kinfolk,” she instructed BBC. “I am unable to wait to see what extra we are able to uncover about our household.”

Outstanding story, unremarkable postcard

Dulley says probably the most fascinating factor concerning the postcard is that it isn’t notably fascinating in any respect. 

“The factor that I am discovering odd, in a means, is that there is nothing quintessentially exceptional concerning the postcard itself,” he mentioned. “It is the form of factor individuals ship to one another. It’d as nicely be a textual content message these days.”

Regardless of headlines a couple of postcard arriving 121 years later, he says it is doubtless Lydia obtained all of it these years in the past, and it later ended up again within the mail. 

“It is a good, quaint little story that, in form of some rural Welsh sorting workplace, this factor’s been sitting on the on the shelf for 120 years, however that did not occur right here,” he mentioned. 

As an alternative, he suspects it obtained misplaced when the outdated home on Cradock avenue was cleared out, and later ended up within the arms of a postcard seller. 

The phrases “Fishguard Pem” are scrawled on the again of the postcard in pencil, in a distinct handwriting from Ewart’s, which Dulley mentioned is “the form of factor a postcard seller does.” 

What’s extra, he says he spoke to a postcard collector who claims to have noticed the cardboard in query just lately on eBay as a part of a bulk assortment.

Lastly, the phrase “UK” within the tackle was written with a ballpoint pen, which did not exist in 1903, suggesting somebody added it later. 

His principle? Somebody purchased the postcard and determined to pop it again within the mail, or instantly within the constructing society’s mailbox, “for fun, mainly.”

The entire story, he says, is a testomony to the ability of historical past.

“Whether or not it is modern or not, it does unite us. It is throughout us. And the stuff that we hold is vitally vital, not only for leisure causes, however as a result of it informs who we’re. It tells us who we’re,” he mentioned.

“It contains hidden histories that are not talked about fairly often. And it is the supply materials that we are able to use to search out out these hidden histories about sections of the inhabitants that do not get talked about fairly often.”

In an announcement on its web site, the Swansea Constructing Society mentioned: “It is heartening to know that with out the neighborhood’s involvement, this 121-year-old story would possibly by no means have been uncovered, reuniting a long-lost household.”