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>>>>> Curt L Falian & family at their home in Rottach - L to R. Mr Meredith, of Dobson & Barlows, Egern - Tegernsee - Bavaria - Germany. Austrian, W.H. Webster, & R.T Taylor (Brock & . . Daveys). Photo taken at Uchide, Between Osaka & . . Kobe. Sept 1931. <<<<<<<< >>>>>>>>>>>>> 
The death took place today at the Royal Infirmary of Mr William Henry Webster, of 19, Imperial Road, Edgerton.
Mr Webster, who was seventy seven, had been ill for a short time.
He was well known in businees circles as a representative of Messrs T. Walker & Son Ltd, Card Clothing Manufacturers, Brighouse, and was formerly Managing Director of Messrs W.H. Webster (Wirecards) Ltd.
Mr Webster had travelled extensively in the course of his business, having visited the Far East; before the First World War he was well acquainted with Russia, where his brother, Mr John Webster was a Vice Consul at Odessa.
He regularly attended Holy Trinity Church where he had been a Churchwarden, and was a member of the Huddersfield Lodge (290) of Freemasons. He was also Secretary of the Edgerton Bowling Club.
Mr Webster is survived by his widow, three sons and one daughter.
The funeral service At Holy Trinity on Tuesday will be followed by internment at Almondbury Cemetery.
Born at Mount Pleasant, Purlwell, Batley, Yorkshire on 13th November 1875, eldest son of W.H. Webster (1).
Went to Russia very young to join the business of his uncle, Richard Clayton Hartley Webster, co - founder of Kovalenko & Webster, Tug & Barge Owners & Coal Merchants, operating from the Black Sea Ports of Kherson & Odessa. As the latter`s sons all died in fever, John in due course became Manager of the Jute Works & the representative in Russia & Roumania for a British firm. He became Vice Consul in Odessa.
Uncle John described to us children how he was chased by wolves, when being driven in a horse - drawn Drosky (a kind of sledge; if three horses, it is a Troika). He said wolves only did this when they were hungry.
He had frequently proposed to his cousin Marie Wilhelmina Webster, as had a Russian that her Father wanted her to marry. She finally accepted & they were married in Odessa 3 - 16 September 1914. (The two dates are given as Russia still used the old Gregorian Calendar). After the deaths of his sons, her Father became a naturalized Russian. It was not considered safe for a woman to be on her own in those days, and the Russian was on his way to propose to her again , but John was warned & got there first & she accepted; they were married in the English Church according to the laws of Russia.
In 1917, due to the Russian Revolution, the Officers of the Imperial Army, were trying to escape by sea from Odessa, but they were caught by the Revolutionaries & tied together in groups, with heavy stones fastened to their feet. They were then taken to sea and thrown overboard, & later their dead bodies could still be seen floating upright, moving with the current.
For better class Russians it was essential to wear old clothes, & NO fur coat; a white collar or hands led to instant arrest. In Moscow people ate horse flesh, cats, dogs, & rodents; it was said that horse flesh tasted nicest.
By 1918 the Germans were advancing, so it was essential for John & Marie to leave Odessa via Siberia, as this was the only route open to England; it will be seen from the log that it took two months to travel from Odessa to London. They had to leave most of their belongings & assets behind, & presumably the Fairfax Sword & the India & Gold Rush letters from his Father.
They visited the Yorkshire & Derby relatives & Marie stayed in England whilst John returned in 1918 with the British Army as an interpreter, because of his fluent Russian. He went to Murmansk in the North.
In 1924 he set up business in Galatz in Roumania & again had to escape from Revolutionaries & again lost all by 1927. In 1936 he went to Russia for Cadburys briefly, - I have a postcard from Leningrad & the Kiel Canal. By now he was badly hampered by severe deafness, but in World War 2 he was again of use as a translator of secret documents; he met someone on a park bench & was given documents to translate & then return equally unobtrusively for the Foreign Office.
He was always very dignified & we all loved him. He had a very deep voice & in looks & writing he was remarably like my Dad., W. H. Webster 2. - but his writing was a lot heavier. He died of Bronchitis 17.1. 1953 in THE Great London Smog, when literally hundreds died, as it was so severe.
In Russia in winter it was necessary to wear very long heavy cloth coats lined with fur, & I still have a beautiful natural fitch fur cape made from the best parts of the lining of his coat, which he gave to Dad.
BE5CTEPA (Webster in Russian)
Born. Kherson, South Russia, 23rd August 1879.
Third child of Richard Clayton Hartley Webster & Emma Webster. She was the third surviving child, all of them girls. She was a brilliant concert pianist, tutored by Paderewski, and could easily have earned her living by it, but women of her position did not work in those days. She had three pianos, I am told, one to learn on, & a grand piano to entertain visitors, - all the pieces had to be played without music. No one was allowed to speak whilst she was playing, or she stopped immediately. She said that she regretted never going to school, as she just had governesses.
Like many artists she was highly tempremental, & upset many people by her tactlessness. She had lived in such a different world in Russia that she was highly critical of us less favoured members of the family in England. She laughed at Uncle Will Hemingway riding a bicycle, which was highly useful living in a small country village as he did. And she could not understand his daughter Joyce wearing boots, as she had no concept of the weather conditions when walking on the moors.
As mentioned in the notes on John Webster, it was not a good thing for an unmarried woman to be alone. She did not want to marry Kovalenko, so having accepted John`s proposal, when Kovalenko arrived with a bunch of flowers, it was too late & he wept over her & her Mother`s grave.
On an earlier occasion, on a balcony Kovalenko went down on bended knees to her, but in a cafe opposite, were friends of hers who just laughed at him. During the Revolution, as a Capitalist, Kovalenko had to sweep the streets and died with her name on his lips.
Marie had hesitated to marry John, because of the blood ties; her parents were cousins, as were she & John, but they had no children as she had a hysterectomy. The information about the engagement came to England on a postcard to E.B. Webster from Odessa, 15.-5-.1914. as follows:- You will be interested to hear that John & I are engaged, - Is`nt it too funny after all these years, but how absolutely lovely for me, - I wonder what you will say? I expect you will be most surprised as I was. Fondest love to all the family. Marie`.
So at the age of 35 she was married to John on September 16th 1914. Without doing this, she would have been a Russian citizen. The Kayes remember her as a very beautiful woman who always exquisitively dressed. She was deaf on the right side & said "the right side was the wrong side & the left side was the right side". Later ahe became severly crippled with Arthritis and needed a walking frame. After John`s death she turned to Spiritualism.
For many years Dora Bates (i.e. Born: Theodore Mary Platts), her niece, looked after her, until finally Dora went to visit her family in Zimbabwe, Marie went into a residential home, living to be almost 102 years old. She died in May and her birthday was in August. She was mentally alert to the end except for mixing up various members of the family, not surprising really, as there are a lot of us now.
Her very interesting accounts of Russia are all true facts, but written by her in story form. One thing not mentioned is that when I told her that Ann, my daughter, was in Brasil, she told me of her visit to Rio de Janeiro with her Father, a Consul at the beginning of the century, & how they could only visit the city during the day, as by night they had to retire to the hills, because of the prevalence of Yellow Fever at sea level.
Born 22nd July 1877 at Mount Pleasant, Purlewell, Batley, Yorkshire at 11 - 15 a.m. - 2nd son of William Henry Webster (1) & Sarah Jane Webster (nee Hemingway).
The old maps of that period show very few buildings & these are now replaced by houses built in the 1890`s onwards, which are now (in 1986), multiracially occupied by Pakistanis, Indians, & West Indians; these would have been a rare sight in those days.
The next address is 81, Warwick Terrace, Batley, a small terrace house to which Mrs. Webster possibly moved on the death of her husband.
W. H. Webster attended Batley Grammar School, which is several hundred years old. "In 1612 William Lee bequeathed land and money to the school. He bequeathed 6/8d, (about 20p new currency), to be paid to the preacher". The school is still one of the best in the area. He was awarded the Commercial Prize, a book called ` A Pictorial Museum of Sport & Adventure`.
He was brilliant at mathematics & could work out problems in his head, faster than others could do it on paper, more like the speed of the present day calculators (not invented then); he could even beat the Japanese with their abacus & they were amazed ! Nowadays they are quicker with them than we are with calculators.
His hobbies included running, & he was a member of the Dewsbury Harriers & he was a keen cyclist, doing 100 to 110 miles every Friday night after work, & they worked much later then. He kept a very interesting log book with all the details of his runs. The account states - February 27th 1894, solid tyred safety bicycle £3, lamp & front tyre etc, £1 - total £4. Sold April 1896 to C. Midgley 19/6d. March 1897 "Coventry Cross" Dunlop tyred No 12 geared to 63" wheels 28" £15. nett. May 1897 he got 70 gear fitted to above, 4s/3d. He logs miles ridden who with, weather, time taken ,& stops. The total distance he rode on his solid tyred bicycle was 1,013 miles. With his younger brother Bertie they had a weeks tour of Derbyshire in July 1897 whilst staying with relatives.
In addition, with John, his elder brother, he frequently walked the 16 miles to visit the Kayes, his cousins at the Bond House, Flockton, & the 16 miles back. We too, in our generation, all enjoyed our visits there, as there was always plenty of good food. Dad, (i.e. W.H. Webster 2.) visited them on his return from Japan, this time by car, dressed in a tussore silk suit & the Kayes said "He looked very fresh faced, young & debonair".
He worked at Critchleys, Card Makers, Batley, Yorkshire, & continued with them when they created a combine - Critchley Sharpe & Tetlows, at Prospect Mills, Cleckheaton, where he became Manager. His son, John Stanley Webster worked there for 24 years, after leaving school & on revisiting the area in 1988 to take photographs, we met the son of Jack Briggs, who worked with them; he knew many of their associates.
W. H. Webster travelled extensively all over Europe at this stage, especially to Russia, where he spent more than three months each year & whilst there he visited his brother John & other relatives in Odessa. (See Family Tree). I have many postcards dated from 1902 onwards, that he sent home from many countries, (see passport particulars).
Later he had his own mill at Brighouse, Yorks. (Bird`s Royd) - pulled down now, & at Croft Mills, Almondbury, now empty. Then he had a big one at Bradley Mills, which overlooked the Huddersfield Town Soccer ground at Leeds Road; we kids thought it great to be able to watch matches free, but the players were very small from that distance.
He always had a fund of amusing stories & anecdotes to relate & kept a little book of them. One rather terrible one was that, one night when he was in a taxi in Tokyo, it ran into a man; the car mascot caught the man on the forehead, and blood shot out, so did the driver & Dad. The driver bundled the man into the taxi and drove off leaving Dad behind. He said that the man`s body would probably be found in the river next morning.
All his life, he kept his slim, tall upright figure, remaining at 10 stone, 4 lbs from his marriage to his death, whereas Mum looked at food & put on weight and always had a problem. Some of us take after one & some the other for that. He was 5 feet 8 inches tall and his passport says with grey / green eyes and dark brown hair.
In later life he was a keen bowler and Secretary to the Edgerton Bowling Club. He was a Freemason at the Huddersfield 290 Lodge. Their reputation for helping needy members did not apply here.
We all felt that Dad would live in to his 90`s as he was so fit physically & mentally, working right to the end, but after a minor car collision, he developed carcinoma of the gall bladder and died aged 77 on September 20th 1954 at the Huddersfield Royal Infirmary. Also Mother required much help in her latter
There was a serious slump at this time & big firms threatened to stop his supplies of raw materials if he did not join their combine, so reluctantly he joined Card Clothing & Belting, & became a Director of the firm & visited Japan for them. The firm did not realise the difficulties of dealing with the Japanese, as they still lived in a medieval world in 1927. Even today in 1988 they rarely accept imports. His firm found a technical loophole in Dad`s agreement whilst he was in Japan, and he returned home to find he had no job, & not allowed to work in competition, i.e. he could not work at all. After a very difficult period he joined T. Walker & Son of Brighouse, as a traveller & his faithful customers still supported him loyally. He worked there until his death in 1954.
To return to his personal life. - his Father W. H. Webster (1) died in 1896, so Dad helped to support his Mother & Sister Emma financially; when he first married, he only earned £3. per week & was still paying 15/-. i.e. a quarter of his income to her.
By 1909 there are Postcards to Nurse Whitney C/O the Barbers, the Cottage, Bakewell, Derbyshire, & on the 20th of September 1909 he married Ethel Blanche Whitney. The employees presented him with a <<<<<<<<<<< something missing here !!!!! >>>>>>
A Photocopy of Mr Webster`s Calling Card.
Born 3rd November 1878 at Purlwell, Mount Pleasant, Batley, Yorkshire at 1. a.m. 3rd of 7 children to W.H. Webster (1) & Sarah Jane Webster, nee Hemingway. Little is known of his early years, except for his bike trip to Derby with his brother Willie. On 14th September 1905 he married Rachel Annie Walker of Batley Carr, Yorkshire, second daughter of Tom Walker at Holy Trinity Church, Batley Carr.
They emigrated to Canada, arriving in Halifax in April 1907 aboard the `Parisian` and went to Winnipeg on the recommendation of a friend of Willie`s. He was Alf Oldfield, General Manager S Inst. CE (Eng) Civil Engineer and Architect of Oldfield & Company, Consulting Engineers & Architects & was told that if he worked hard he could make a lot of money, as Canada is a good country.
They had one child, a daughter Kathleen, born 29th March 1909 and Annie brought her to England as a baby to visit relatives; Bertie never returned to England.
They lived in Winnipeg until about 1912, but Annie found it too cold, so they moved to Victoria, B. C. (British Colunbia) where it is milder. Her letters home to us were always signed Annie but over there she started calling herself Pat.
Bertie was in the Civil Service but became badly crippled with Pagets Disease & in great pain & unable to lie down, so they became custodians of Helmoken House, built in 1852 for Dr John Sebastian Helmoken from London, England, who was a pioneer physican & legislator who helped negotiate B.C.`s union with Canada. It is now a great tourist attraction in the centre of what is now a large city.
Bertie`s granddaughter said he was great fun to be around. He died 19th November 1966 & Annie died in the 1970`s, she did not answer letters towards the end, & she said she was housebound, but a friend from England went to visit her & always found her out and about. Her hubby Bertie thought she was the most beautiful thing that ever walked on two feet.
Their daughter Kathleen married Dow H. Gregg, a dentist & citizen of the U.S.A. They lived in Chicago & had a daughter Gloria, born in 1932. Kathleen died of Leukaemia in 1945.
Gloria married (1) Charles Arthur Jennings. They had a daughter Dana Kathleen born 11th December 1960 & (2) married Don Bright Buckley. They live in Salisbury Connecticut & deal in antique furniture. They visited relatives in the U.K. in 1982 & 1987. In 1988 Dana married Frederick W. Rohn of Connecticut.
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