Thomas LUNDIE
Thomas Lundy (Lundie)
1877 – 1952
Author’s note: updated story!
We originally researched Thomas’s life following an enquiry on behalf of a possible descendant in France. At the time, we were not able to prove a connection, and we published a short story based on the few facts that we had been able to establish. However new information has since come to light, in the form of an entry in the 1921 French census, and we now think it more likely than not that this Thomas Lundie was indeed the man who fathered a child in France in 1918. We have rewritten his story on that basis.
We are very grateful to his descendant Marc Gheeraert, his friend Nathalie, and also to family researcher Richard Renold, for their tremendous help in piecing this story together.
Early years
Thomas Lundie was born in Grimsby on 17 February 1877. His parents were Thomas Lundie, a chemist and druggist, and his wife Louisa Mary Tateson. He had four older sisters: Louise Mary, Clara, Catherine and Hannah.
When Thomas was just 6 months old, his father died (aged 42) leaving an estate valued at “under £4,000” for probate purposes, a considerable sum in those days.
1881 Census
The 1881 census finds Thomas, aged 4, with his sisters Catherine and Hannah at the family home at 16 Market Place in Grimsby, in the care of a housekeeper. Mother Louisa was not present, nor were sisters Louise Mary and Clara.
Sister Louise Mary was in an orphanage in Oxfordshire (the Radford Orphanage at Enstone where she was to remain for many years). Later censuses describe her as having a spinal disorder and being an “imbecile from birth”. We have not been able to find Thomas’s mother or his oldest sister Clara in this census.
1891 Census
By 1891 the family had moved to London where Thomas’s mother had purchased a private hotel in York Place, off Baker Street.
However Thomas is not there in this census. Nor is his sister Hannah, and we can find no trace of either of them in 1891.
Merchant Navy years
In 1893, Thomas, by now aged 16, signed up as an apprentice seaman with Thomas Guthrie of Glasgow. We have a copy of his indenture which he had left, along with other papers, with the mother of his child in France in 1918.
He qualified as a 2nd Mate in July 1897, having served for 3 years and 9 months on the square-rigged barque Earl Derby, out of Glasgow. His descendant in France has supplied a copy of Thomas Guthrie’s letter of recommendation:
From the same source we have a copy of this letter of recommendation for his 1st mate examination in 1901:
Lloyds List records that he received his 1st mate (steamship) certificate on 9 May 1901.
A change of career?
We have found no records of Thomas between 1901 and 1910, but in the 1911 census a Thomas Lundie aged 32 from Lincoln is a visitor in the house of gunmaker Henry Joseph Harriss in Chiswick. His occupation: gunmaker’s assistant. We think this is most likely him, and his application for appointment to the Army Ordnance Department in 1915 would suggest some skill in gun making.
A possible brush with the law
In March 1913 police raided an illegal gambling establishment at 92 Knightsbridge and arrested 17 people, one of whom was found to be carrying a loaded pistol. Among those arrested was the doorkeeper, a Thomas Lundie aged 36, described in court as an agent, of Park Road, Regents Park. We can’t be sure that this is our Thomas, but the age is right.
Marriage, and a son
On 3 December 1913 Thomas was married to Olga Cynthia Cuthbert, an 18 year old actress, at Paddington register office. On the marriage record, Thomas’s occupation was given as “commercial traveller”.
Olga was 6 months pregnant at the time of the marriage and a son, John Ivor Lundie, was born on 23 February 1914 at their home at 153 Church Street, Paddington. From the birth registration we learned that Thomas was a traveller for a firm of picture dealers.
War
From the private papers that Thomas left in France, we know that in early April 1915 he had written to both the Army Ordnance Department and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary seeking appointment as an officer and had been turned down by both (his address at that time was either 150 or 160 Brixton Hill). Shortly after this he enlisted in the army and was posted to the Army Service Corps. He disembarked in France on 6 August 1915. By the end of the war he was an Acting Warrant Officer Class II serving in the Expeditionary Forces Canteen unit.
Unusually, his entry on the 1914-15 Star medal roll (compiled in July 1919) includes an address:
This was the home of Olga’s grandmother Thirza Marsh Baker Davis, alias Madame Kiero, who had declared on her 1911 census return that she derived her income from “occult science” and had several court appearances as a result of her fortune telling activities in Southend.
A son born in France
Here Marc takes up the story:
“During the First World War (1914–1918), my great-grandmother ran an inn called L’hôtel du Lion d’Argent in Étaples, near Le Touquet in France, with her two sisters.
British, Australian, and other military camps were based in Étaples, and British soldiers often came to drink at the inn.
Officer Thomas Lundie met my great-grandmother, and from this relationship my grandfather Max was born on May 23, 1918.
They stayed together for two or three years, then Thomas is said to have returned to England, leaving my great-grandmother as a single mother. Thomas already had a son in Great Britain.
My great-grandmother later married François Gheeraert, who officially recognized Max as his son.
All the documents I own, as well as a photograph of Thomas Lundie, come from Max. Thomas Lundie left the documents at my great grand-mother’s hotel.”
Here is the photo:
But we think that Thomas did not return to England, or at least not permanently.
There is this entry in the 1921 census for the village of Polincove in the Pas de Calais:
We believe that this is Thomas Lundie from Grimsby (mis-transcribed here as “Remby”), and he has a femme (wife) Juliette Dubois from Boulogne. The “A” indicates that they were of UK nationality. Thomas was working for F N Pickett et Fils, which owned several ammunition destruction plants in Belgium and France.
Post WW2
We can find nothing more on Thomas and Juliette until 1945 when they appear in the London electoral register at 14 Fairfax Road, Hampstead. They then moved to 176 Westbourne Grove, where Juliette died on 21 October 1947, aged 51. On her death record Thomas is described as a stationery clerk at the Board of Trade.
Thomas Lundie died at Horton Hospital, from coronary heart disease, on 24th November 1952. The hospital recorded his name as “Lundy”. The death registration confirms his address as 176 Westbourne Grove and his late employer as the Board of Trade. He was aged 75.
Thomas Lundie was buried at Horton on 28 November 1952 in grave 1490c.
What became of Olga?
Olga appears in London electoral registers under her stage name Olga Berry, at 35 Maybury Mansions in Marylebone. In the 1921 census, she completed the form (addressed to “Mr Berry”) as Olga Cynthia Lundie, married, film actress, but annotated that with “Stage Name Olga Berry”.
Shortly after this (or possibly shortly before – no marriage record has been found), Olga married a Turkish diplomat, Ahmet Naci Kenter, and moved to Istanbul, where she converted to Islam and changed her name to Nadide Kenter. She was the mother of Turkish actress Yildiz Kenter. Accounts of her life published in Turkey mention that she was a widow when she met Ahmet Naci Kenter.
What became of John Ivor?
Jack was in a convent in Ramsgate in the 1921 census (the only boy). The census is noted “father dead”. Turkish sources say that he went to Turkey with his mother circa 1921. At some point he returned to the UK and joined the British Army. He attempted suicide in 1934:
Returning to civilian life as an electrician, Jack married Violet Mallard Lorraine (Babe) Dunbabin in 1936. He claimed that his father Thomas Ellery Lundie (we do not know where Ellery comes from) was deceased, but had been an Officer in the Merchant Service. In the second world war Jack served in the Royal Navy as a sub-lieutenant. After Violet’s death in 1947, he emigrated to South Africa and remarried there. He served in the South Africa Navy as a reserve officer.
It seems that Jack genuinely believed that his father was dead.
Why would Thomas have let it be known that he was dead in 1921?
A good question. It is dangerous to speculate but here is a possible scenario: what if John Ivor was not his natural son (was the father an Ellery perhaps?) ;and that the marriage to Olga had not worked out. Then, having settled into life with Juliette in France, he wanted to cut his ties to Olga and Jack; and Olga wanted to end the marriage quickly so that she could convert to Islam and marry Ahmed Nacu Kenter. But this is just speculation.