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c.1877 – 1952
A Request for Help
We started to research Thomas’s life following an enquiry on behalf of a possible descendant in France. We have not been able to prove a connection. We have not been able to discover very much about him at all, but future researchers may be able to add to this story.
Thomas Lundy died at Horton Hospital, from coronary heart disease, on 24th November 1952. He was aged 75. From his death certificate we learned that he was a retired Board of Trade messenger, and that he had lived at 176 Westbourne Grove, London W11.
Research in the London electoral registers disclosed that his name was recorded there as Thomas Lundie, that he had previously (in 1945) lived at 14 Fairfax Road, Hampstead, and that there was a Juliette Lundie with him who did not appear in the registers after 1947. We found that Juliette had died at 176 Westbourne Grove on 21st October 1947 aged 51. She was Thomas’s wife. On her death record Thomas is described as a stationery clerk at the Board of Trade.
We could find no record of Juliette Lundie prior to 1945, no confirmed record of Thomas prior to 1945, and no record of their marriage. Neither of them appear in the 1939 Register. It seems likely that they had married overseas and had come to the UK, perhaps from Europe, during the war.
That is as much as we have been able to discover about this Thomas Lundie, working backwards from his death. Future researchers may discover more from the 1951 census and his hospital records – neither of which, under current law, will be accessible until 2052.
Thomas was buried at Horton on 28 November 1952 in grave 1490c.
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But what about the potential French connection?
This concerns a Thomas Lundie who was born in Grimsby in 1877 (the right age) who had qualified as a first officer in the merchant navy in his 20s (a potential Board of Trade link).
During the First World War he had served as a Warrant Officer in the Canteen unit of the Army Service Corps (forerunner of the NAAFI), and had been based at Etaples where he formed a relationship with a young French woman who bore him a son, Max, in 1918. Max’s great grandson is keen to know what happened to his ancestor.
We do not know for sure what became of that Thomas. He had married a young actress, Olga Cuthbert, in London in 1913 and they had a son John Ivor (Jack) Lundie born the following year.
In the 1921 Census, Olga is recorded as married, but Jack’s census record (at a convent in Ramsgate) is noted “father deceased”. Shortly after this, Olga married a Turkish diplomat and accounts of her life published in Turkey mention that she was a widow.
Jack’s marriage record notes that his father was deceased. Yet we can find no record of that Thomas Lundie’s death. So we cannot rule out entirely the possibility that he was the man who died in Horton Hospital in 1952.
