Edwin Payne & Florence

see Family Tree

(generation 20 EP&F Florence = Edwin)

Florence Emily was born during 1871 in Coventry, the daughter of Henry and Ann Salisbury and the granddaughter of John and Esther Whitehouse. After her parents separated, she went to boarding school with her older sisters. She recollected that the sisters hated end of term 'because they had no home to go to'. In the early 1890s after she had finished her education and was living in Cheltenham, she and her sister Nelly were for a time music teachers.

About 1893, she went with her sisters to stay with Aunt Hardy and became a finishing governess in Europe. She was with families in Germany, Italy, Hungary, and probably Russia and France also, teaching painting, music, and, of course, English. She worked in many parts of Europe but she disliked the travelling part of her work. Between assignments Florence stayed with friends, relatives, or in hotels. Surviving postcards show that she was very well travelled in Europe and was in many ways more of a European than most English people today.

In October 1914, just after the outbreak of the First World War, at the age of 43, she married Edwin Frederick Payne. Their son Ivan recollected 'He was somewhat older than Florence, had children by a previous marriage, was a Chartered Accountant and by all accounts was a very kindly man.' Florence's step-children appear to have been called Herbert George Edwin Payne and Beatrice Georgina Payne. After their marriage Florence and Edwin lived in South London. Although Florence married so late in life she had a son, Ivan Salisbury Payne, born in 1917. In 1918, Edwin died of heart failure when he was being rushed to hospital in an ambulance on the way from Holborn Viaduct to St. Bartholomew's Hospital.

Florence widowed at 46 and with a one year old baby to look after, started a postal business as 'Madame Therese' selling hand painted silk buttons, brooches, handkerchief sachets, and the like, which she made herself at home. She took this up again from time to time in later years.

She met her second husband, William Allen Clement, because she had let a room to his niece Rosie Hale. They married during 1920 at Christ Church Wandsworth. Her son Ivan recollected ' he had been in moneylending most of his life, apparently. As early as I remember he ran Allen Wills Ltd. at 9 Wardour St., with just a typist and one outside man.' They moved from Crane Lodge, which was a very large property, to a smaller house at 51 St. James Drive, Wandsworth Common, living next door to a violinist, Alfredo Campoli. Her husband gave up his office about 1933 and tried to carry the business on from the St. James Drive house, but the business went down and down.

About 1947, they moved to Hastings to be close to Florence's sister Ethel. Her son said 'Florence was a very bad sleeper, was often still awake at 5am, and took special pills once a week as long as I remember to get one good night a week. She hated housework and tried various ways of avoiding it, but she worked a lot in the garden, and was a good cook although she didn't enjoy it.'

Florence and her husband both died in Hastings.

• Son, Ivan Salisbury, was born in 1917 in London. Family legend is that Ivan was a hyperactive child and that like his mother, he was an 'owl'. He used to do much of his studying in the early hours of the morning and would be full of energy when everyone else wanted to go to bed.
  
  In his own words, 'I can't comment on family legend, but only wish I were still hyperactive! ... I took a B.Sc(Eng) in 1937, did two years apprenticeship, and went pretty well straight into the army on the outbreak of war. I got into Tobruk just as it was surrounded, came out on a destroyer 6 months later in time to join the 7th Armoured Division for the 1941 offensive and the rest of the Desert War. Then back to Cairo. Back to the UK in June '45 as captain. Shortly before I was demobbed I bought an old fishing boat .... I spent my demob leave converting her.'
  
  After 3 years of living on the boat, mainly on the Thames at Richmond, he lived in Harrow for a few years before moving to the Basingstoke area where he worked with Lansing Bagnall for 24 years.
  
  In 1971, he had a major coronary, the same age at which his father died from the same cause, and after working part-time for a couple of years, it seemed sensible to retire and live cheaply in a warmer climate. He bought an old farm house in Spain and after spending a few years renovating this he moved to a more modern villa. He then returned to the UK, mainly for health reasons, where he subsequently died.