Maud Bessie Ballantyne of Cecil Road Cheam 1905 Photo copied and cropped from The Past on Glass at Sutton Archives. Photographer David Knights-Whittome. Shared under the Creative Commons Non Commercial Licence.
Maude Bessie Ballantyne (Nee Rake) was born on the 15th January 1872 in St Martins, Middlesex and was the youngest child of Asher and Sophia Rake. She married Percy George Ballantyne on the 11th August 1897. The couple first lived in Kingston Upon Thames and then moved to Ivydene, Cecil Road Cheam. They had two daughters Marjorie born on the 17th May 1899 and Hazel born the 14th April 1911. By 1921 the family had moved to 20 Wordsworth Road, South Hill, Wallington Surrey. Maud died in January 1946 and her husband Percy four years later in 1950.
Marjorie Ballantyne (1899–1976). Photo copied and cropped from The Past on Glass at Sutton Archives. Photographer David Knights-Whittome. Shared under the Creative Commons Non Commercial Licence.
Marjorie Ballantyne pictured in the photo never married. In 1939 she was staying at The South Devon Hotel, Torquay with 13 other young women described as clerks. Many of the hotels in Devon were requisitioned by the Royal Air Force during World War Two and women worked extensively as clerks in Torquay, as part of the broader national effort to replace men who had left to fight. As a seaside town, Torquay, along with nearby Devon areas, saw women taking on clerical roles to keep local businesses, government offices, and war-related services running. Marjorie died on the 11th April 1976 at Stanway, Essex.
Her younger sister Hazel married Ernest Scot Lyster in 1947. Ernest died in 1962 and Hazel a year later in 1963.