My grandmother talked about George Egerton Claremont, killed in the War, mother Mrs Golding Bright last at 75 Ridgemont Gardens, Gower Street, London.

I could never work out who this was but today was fortunate to find the following information:

SECOND LIEUTENANT

GEORGE EGERTON CLAIRMONTE

GLOUCESTERSHIRE REGIMENT

DIED ON 25 SEPTEMBER 1915 AGE 19 at Bois Hugo

LOOS BRITISH CEMETERY

PAS DE CALAIS FRANCE

Son of Egerton Clairmonte and Mrs. M. C. Golding Bright (formerly Clairmonte), of 59, Ridgmount Gardens, London.

That doesn't quite tie in with 75 Ridgemont Gardens but perhaps it's near enough, going by the fact that my grandmother was in her mid 80s when she gave me the information.

As George Egerton Clairemont was killed in 1915, when my grandmother was 17, I wonder if he was a boyfriend - or perhaps a relative.   

Maybe the latter is more likely, given the following information: when my grandmother married she stated that her father was George Egerton Gasper (not on her birth certificate where the space for father was left blank).

However George Egerton Clairmonte's mother was a very interesting character who had an eventful, if unconventional, life.  Over the years she lived in New Zealand, Chile, Wales, Ireland, Norway, New York and Germany.  (See: http://www.1890s.ca/PDFs/egerton_bio.pdf and http://www.millstreet.ie/blog/2011/10/20/a-millstreet-love-story)

She was a writer whose fiction firmly opposed the conventional morality that she believed had been constructed by men to keep women in subordinate roles of limited agency.  She didn't believe in gender equality, believing women to be superior to men.


Here are a few links to information about her life.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Egerton

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Egerton#cite_note-6

http://www.thepeerage.com/p41595.htm

http://sources.nli.ie/Search/Results?lookfor=%22%20Golding-Bright,%20Mary%20Chavelita%22&type=subject

Obit: The Dublin magazine, Vol. XX, Ser. New, No. 4, pp. 67-68, October-December, 1945

Incidental information: Mrs Golding Bright was in the 1929 to 1941 telephone directories as residing at Ridgemount Gardens Museum (Enfield, World’s End) – found on internet. Local history people up there have no knowledge of this museum, unfortunately.