researching for my third blog on the life of Mary Elizabeth “Mimi” Smith nee Stanley, I finally resolved one of the mysteries in Mimi’s life, the man that Mimi went to work for in North Wales, after the loss of her fiancé, a doctor who died of an infection at Woolton Convalescent Hospital on Allerton Road. I am proud to have discovered another mystery that to my knowledge hasn’t been solved yet to this date.
Mimi was a trainee nurse at about the age of nineteen and worked at the Liverpool Convalescent Hospital Allerton Road Woolton and in about 1927, Mimi fell in love with a young doctor and shortly after they got engaged. At about the same time a very rich industrial business magnate regularly visited the hospital to look over several of his employees who were under young Mimi’s charge. Shortly after their engagement Mimi’s fiancé contracted an infection from a patient and sadly passed away leaving Mimi distraught. It was after seeing young Mimi so devastated at the loss of her fiancé that the businessman suggested that Mimi accompany him back to one of his homes in North Wales, to take the position as his private secretary and Mimi agreed.
On Mimi’s Wikipedia site this gentleman is named as an Ernest Vickers and in my previous blog I explored this name without much success, only finding a heating and plumbing business by the name of Vickers & Sons Ltd in North Wales and an Ernest Vickers, an accountant living in a large residence at Aigburth Liverpool. These finds were all very inconclusive and the identification of Mr Vickers remained a puzzle with me till recently.
The Biography titled “John Lennon-The Life” by author Philip Norman names the industrial businessman as Lynton Vickers from Betws-y-Coed North Wales so I pursued my research again and bingo I find our business magnate, and he’s not Ernest Vickers nor is he Lynton Vickers but our man in question is a Mr Edward Lynton Vicars.
Edward Lynton Vicars was born on the 6th of May 1881 at 23 Mulgrave Street Toxteth Liverpool to Thomas and Amy Vicars nee Lewis. Edward’s father Thomas was born in Liverpool to Thomas Vicars from St Bees Cumberland who had travelled to Liverpool in the early 1850’s and opened a factory at 29 Seel Street Liverpool. Edwards grandfather Thomas invited his cousin also a Thomas Vicars to join his business and they founded the famous company T & T Vicars which originally made products such as cranes, windlasses and dockside equipment which suited the Great Port of Liverpool; however, the company soon became famous worldwide for producing equipment designed by themselves for quicker and easier production of biscuits.
The full story and history of the company can be found on the internet titled “The Story of the Vicars”.
Edward Lynton Vicars lived with his parents for at least over twenty years and by the time he was born his father Thomas was a managing director of the company living in large houses in the Liverpool area and then moving to Golborne near St Helens and it was to Earlestown the factory had relocated in 1867 adjacent to the main Liverpool-Manchester railway line. Edward went to university and studied engineering and then married Hilda Mabel Ketley (born two days after her husband on the 8th of May 1881) in 1908 at Kings Norton Worcestershire and in 1911 they had settled down at “The Beeches” Park Road Newton le Willows twenty miles east of Liverpool. Their first child was named Edith Hilary Vicars, and she was born on the 24th of January 1909 and their son Thomas Howard Mostyn Lynton Vicars was born on the 18th of June 1915.
The family had many large houses and in 1939 the family were living at 38 Victoria Road (Edward and son Howard) and 56 Park Road (Hilda and daughter Edith), Newton le Willows. They also owned a very large Gothic style mansion called “Coed-y-Celyn” in Betws-y-Coed a village at the gateway to the Snowdonia National Park and it was to this beautiful home that Edward L Vicars invited Mimi Stanley to stay, and she became his private secretary taking a sabbatical from her nursing career.
At the time Mimi went to North Wales Edward Vicars had already been made a sales and advertising manager for the company and was a wealthy man. When T & T Vicars celebrated its centenary year in 1949 Edward Lynton Vicars was made Governing Director and his son Mostyn was the Managing Director.
The family spent a large proportion of their time in the war years at Betws-y-Coed and Edward was an avid yachtsman and was vice commodore at the Royal Dee Yacht Club and member of local clubs such as Conwy. Tragedy struck for the Vicars family on the 22nd of December 1950 as Edward and Hilda’s thirty-five-year-old son Mostyn was found dead in his hotel bedroom at the Adelphi Liverpool and then in 1952 their daughter died on the 18th of July at the age of forty-nine at the Sandford Nursing Home Llandudno. Then the following year after suffering ill health possibly from a broken heart, Edward Lynton Vicars died on the 31st of January 1953 at his home Coed-y-Celyn Betws-y-Coed.
Coincidently Edith Vicars died at Sandford in 1952 where Lennon’s friend Jonathan Hague was born fourteen years earlier in 1938 and Edward Lynton Vicars was buried at St Tudno’s churchyard which is also the resting place for Jonathan’s father Anderson Hague who had died earlier in 1953 on the 12th of April.
When Mimi was staying at Betws-y-Coed as a private secretary to Edward Lynton Vicars, she certainly wouldn’t have been aware that only five miles down the road in the village of Llanrwst was the birthplace of her 2x great grandmother Elizabeth Morris nee Bridge and her 3x great grandfather Lynch Bridge. Mimi for certain would have loved the beautiful countryside that surrounded her compared to her home streets of Toxteth Liverpool.
I am more than happy that I have been able to solve the real identification of the mystery industrial business magnate that during her sabbatical in the very late 1920’s Mimi took up the position of his private secretary.
Edward Lynton Vicars 1881-1953
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