Nicholls & Payne

[adrianjohn]

I'm trying to trace any relatives of LUCIE LAVINIA NICHOLLS.  She was born in Birmingham in 1870, worked as a nurse, and died in Cowley Road Hospital, Oxford on 7 July 1955.  The informant for her Death Certificate was her niece G. C. PAYNE of Rockley, Cumnor, Oxford.  She had close family ties with the PHIPPS family of Cowley - FREDERICK PHIPPS was licensee of the Nelson Inn and also had a market garden.  LUCIE was unmarried.
I believe that LUCIE may have spent some time in SPAIN, around the early 1920s as she is Informant on the Death Certificate of IDA MAY PHIPPS who died of cholera while nursing in Madrid in 1921.
Lasting gratitude for any help! 

[Sandymc47]

Hi there,
I have just looked at the 1871 cencus and found the following, so lots of neices
and nephews must have come from that family if all the children lived.

Thomas Nicholls  Head  36  Jeweller    born Birmingham
Henritte                       39                        Wolverhampton
Walter S                      16
Sidney F                       12
Alice M                          11
Edwin W                         9
Henrriette                       7
Clara J                            3
Lucie L                            1
all the children born in Birmingham.

Saw the Probate and she seems to leave the Money to a Bank unless they couldnt
find anyone to give it to at that time?

Hope this helps

regards Sandymc

[adrianjohn]

Thanks for the reply Sandymc.

I have a pretty comprehensive tree of the Nicholls/Phipps families, but frustratingly it's mostly just  names on the Nicholls' side - not much substance.
I was hoping that if I posted here someone might make the 'Payne connection'.
I haven't seen the probate you refer to - I couldn't see it on Ancestry or FindMyPast.  There are several Nicholls entries, but none specifically for Lucie Lavinia.

Thanks again. Much appreciated.

[Sandymc47]

Hi there,
I found the Probate on A.  Its only a short thing but definitely is your Lucie Lavina Nicholls

If you see her death at the top of the page like I did, I then trolled down and she is on
again either on that page or page 2 and it says Probate.

Now you have mentioned you were specifically looking for the Nicholls and Payne connection
we can have a look at that too.  Have you any idea what the first name of the neice was
or even her age, as that would help to search for the Paynes better.

regards Sandymc

[Pennie]

Think I might have solved this one (sort of)!

I checked the British Telephone Directories database on Ancestry for Cumnor in 1955 and found listed an F.J. PAYNE, Engineer of Rockley, Cumnor.

According to FreeBMD, I think this is the Francis J. PAYNE who married Gladys O. GAYTON (Oxford RD) in 1955.  (Could the "O" on the death certificate have been misread as "C"?)

I could find no birth record for Gladys, so thought it might be her second marriage and looked for a Gladys marrying a GAYTON, and found ...

1927 (Headington RD) - George F. GAYTON m. Gladys O. PHIPPS

There's your PHIPPS connection!  George and Gladys had three children - John F. (1928), Peter M. (1930) and Margaret A. (1939).  The first two were registered in Headington RD and the last one in Oxford RD.

Hope this may help!

Pennie

[adrianjohn]

This is brilliant - thank you both so much for your help!

Pennie: You found the missing piece in the (ongoing) puzzle: I hadn't realised that Gladys had a second marriage. As I wrote earlier, I have a tree for the Phipps/Nicholls going from 1761 to the present, but it's always those 'little' pieces that can elude one - possibly through looking too hard!

Searching the Phipps' line has taken me to the battlefields and cemeteries of WW1 to research Frank Phipps and to Madrid and the British Cemetery there to follow Ida May Phipps.  The British Cemetery is a fascinating place - take a look; you can link through Google. Or www.britishcemeterymadrid.com. I do a fair amount of research for them.

I don't think I'm going to be able to find any more about the connection between Lucie and Ida. Lucie was Ida's aunt and I think that they nursed together for private employers.  Unfortunately there's no-one left to provide any more oral history.

So many thanks once again
Kind regards
Adrian