| Husband: | Horace Annesley VACHELL (1861-1955) | |
| Wife: | Eliza Lydie PHILLIPS (1869-1895) | |
| Children: | Lydie Lyttelton Annesley VACHELL (1895- ) | |
| Marriage | 28 Mar 1889 | Templeton, San Luis Obispo, California, USA |
| Name: | Horace Annesley VACHELL1 | |
| Sex: | Male | |
| Father: | - | |
| Mother: | - | |
| Birth | 30 Oct 1861 | Sydenham, Kent, England1 |
| Census | 19 Jun 1921 (age 59 yrs 6 mns) | Lyndhurst, Hampshire1 |
| The Cedars, Gosport Lane | ||
| Occupation | 19 Jun 1921 (age 59) | Novelist and dramatist; Lyndhurst, Hampshire1 |
| Employment: Own Account Place of Work: At home |
||
| Death | 11 Jan 1955 (age 93) | |
| Name: | Eliza Lydie PHILLIPS | |
| Sex: | Female | |
| Father: | - | |
| Mother: | - | |
| Birth | 23 Aug 1869 | |
| Death | 16 Aug 1895 (age 25) | San Luis Obispo, California, USA |
| Name: | Lydie Lyttelton Annesley VACHELL1 | |
| Sex: | Female | |
| Birth | Aug 1895 | San Luis Obispo, California, USA1 |
| Census | 19 Jun 1921 (age 25 yrs 9 mns) | Lyndhurst, Hampshire1 |
| The Cedars, Gosport Lane | ||
| Occupation | 19 Jun 1921 (age 25) | none; Lyndhurst, Hampshire1 |
HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL
In 1921 Charles Head and his wife Jane, née Hatten, were servants in the household of Horace Vachell - Charles was his butler, and Jane his cook. Their baby son John was living with them.
Vachell was born in Sydenham, Kent on 30 October 1861; he was educated at Harrow and Sandhurst. After a short period in the Rifle Brigade, he went to California where he became partner in a land company and married Lydie Phillips, his partner's daughter. His wife died in 1895 after the birth of their second child, Lydie Lyttelton Annesley Vachell.
He is said to have introduced the game of polo to Southern California.
After 17 years abroad, by 1900 Vachell had returned to England. He went on to write over 50 volumes of fiction including a popular school story, The Hill (1905), which gives an idealised view of life at Harrow and of the friendship between two boys.
He also wrote 22 plays, the most successful of which in his lifetime was Quinneys (1914), made into a film in 1919 and again in 1927. A 90 minute BBC television adaptation was broadcast in 1948 and another in 1956. The BBC also broadcast numerous radio adaptations over the years. 'Quinneys' was first published as a book by John Murray, London in 1914. It was "a book of friends; of quaint human characters against the background of a shop for faked antiques and genuine love." The same characters featured in three subsequent books and other magazine stories.
Another play, The Case of Lady Camber (1915), was the basis for the film Lord Camber's Ladies (1932), produced by Alfred Hitchcock but not directed by him. It was later adapted again as The Story of Shirley Yorke. Vachell's last autobiographical book, More from Methuselah (1951), was published in the year of his 90th birthday.
Although some fiction, like the stories in Bunch Grass (1912), is set in American ranching country, much of his writing concerns a comfortably prosperous English way of life which was echoed in Widcombe Manor, his beautiful old house near Bath, and his old-fashioned, distinguished appearance and manner. He was a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
He died on 10 January 1955 in Bath, and is buried in the churchyard of St Thomas à Becket, adjacent to Widcombe Manor
| 1 | Text From Source: Census England 1921 Address: The Cedars, Gosport Lane Place: Lyndhurst, Hampshire Name,Relation,Age,Sex,Marr/Orph'd,Birthplace,Nationality,Education,Occupation,Employment,Place of Work,Chd <16,Children's Ages Horace Vachell,Head,59y 6m,M,Widowed,Sydenham, Kent, England,,,Novelist and dramatist,Own Account,At home,, Lydie Annesley Vachell,Daughter,25y 9m,F,Single,San Luis Obispo, California, USA,,,none,,,, Charles Henry Head,Servant,25y 7m,M,Married,Canterbury, Kent, England,,,butler,,,1,1 Jane Head,Servant,31y 5m,F,Married,Sandford, Devon, England,,,cook,,,, John Head,servant's son,1y 8m,M,Both Alive,Sandford, Devon, England,,,,,,, There were two more servants - Daisy Miller, 32 a housemaid, and Laura Olden, 19, a kitchenmaid |