**********  PAGE UNDER CONSTRUCTION **********


Shincliffe Women's Institute

List of Presidents

from 1918 to the present day

(Names in blue/bold provide links to a short biography below)



Elizabeth Antonia Ouseley 1918 - 1921


Elizabeth Antonia Ouseley (nee Greatorex) (1855 – 1950) had many establishment connections and lived to a ripe old age. Her grandfather was Charles Thorp, Archdeacon of Durham Cathedral, and the University of Durham’s first Warden when it opened in 1832. Her aunt, Jane Long, and the daughter of Thorp, lived across the street in Laxey Cottage during the Ouseleys’ early years of marriage. Her father was Edward Greatorix who went on to be the vicar of St. Bartholomew’s in Croxdale i.e., Sunderland Bridge.


Elizabeth married the Reverend John Grove Ouseley on 19th June 1900. Her forty-fifth birthday had occurred just four days earlier. Ouseley was some nine years her junior but must have known the family for some time. His father was a vicar in Norfolk. The 1891 Census records him visiting the Rectory at St. Bartholomew’s. Mrs Ouseley’s brother was also a vicar in the Church of England and in 1911 she was visiting him in his parish in Dinsdale near Darlington.

John Grove Ouseley had taken his degree in 1890 while being a student at Hatfield Hall. He was ordained in 1891 before being appointed as the Curate to St. Bartholomew’s. He was appointed to Shincliffe in May 1900, just a few weeks before his marriage to Elizabeth.


The Ouseleys’ term in Shincliffe was not without controversy, especially at the beginning. There were complaints from some in the village that there were “popish practices” being enacted in St. Mary’s. Tuesday, 11th December 1900 saw a meeting convened in The Oddfellows’ Hall which was attended by notable village residents such as Thomas Ford of the Sawmills, Samuel Fenny of Wood View, and Mr Hodgson of the Post Office. The allegations centred on the introduction of candelabra on the altar and a “procession of altar boys” which had taken the place of the old choir.


Despite the opposition that he faced initially, Ouseley retired from his post in 1928 on the grounds of ill-health and it was greeted with dismay by the parishioners. The couple retired to Bamburgh where John Ouseley died in August 1933. Elizabeth then moved to Belford where she could be found in the 1939 Register. She died in 1950 and is buried alongside her husband in Bamburgh. 


Lucy Luxmoore 1921 - 22


Lucy Luxmoore (nee Lees) (1880 - 1965) was born in Shropshire where her father was a magistrate.


The Gentlewoman of 19/9/1906 reported that she was engaged to be married to Dormer Treffrey. She had changed her name from Lees to Luxmoore upon inheriting property. Her grandfather was the Reverend John Luxmoore. We must presume that the engagement was called off for some reason as Lucy married Allan Aylmer Wilson in Oswestry in September 1909. Either that or she and Treffrey divorced soon after. He was to die in WW1 in France on 15th September. Treffrey’s mother was descended from Danish nobility and her sister was married to Lord Garvagh.


Treffrey attended the funeral of Lucy’s father in November 1906, and which also saw Lords Harlech and Kenyon around the graveside. George John Dumville Lees had died following an accident while riding with the Tannat-side Harriers Hunt. He was an active member of this group and had written what became known as a standard book on hunting with hounds. Lucy was often present at hunt balls held in Shropshire.


The parents of the young couple were good friends despite the distance from Durham to Oswestry in Shropshire.


Allan Aylmer Luxmoore (1880 – 1969) had been Allan Wilson and, unusually for the time, adopted his wife’s adopted name when they married. They were certainly living in Shincliffe in 1911 and had four servants with them. Lucy’s father-in-law, John George Wilson, was a successful lawyer in Durham employed in the firm of Wilson, Ormsby and Cadle. He was a notable athlete for Oxford University and was the Under-Sheriff of Durham for forty-six years. His business was situated at North Bailey (Allan Luxmoore worked out of these offices as well) and the property is now student accommodation.)


Lucy’s brother, Lieutenant Charles Cunningham Dumville Lees, had been killed on board HMS Verulam in September 1919 when the ship hit a mine.



The Luxmoores lived in Prospect House, Prospect Terrace, for a number of years and had two sons, Edmund (1914 – 1997) and Michael (1918 – 1940). Edmund became a solicitor based in Darlington and lived for a while in Staindrop Hall. Michael married Anne Warner in Bromley, Kent, in April 1940. He was a Second Lieutenant in H.M. Army (Royal Artillery) and was killed at Dunkirk in May of that year.


Alan and Lucy Luxmoore were living in Burnopeside Hall in 1939. They lived later in Herdsman’s Cottage, Burn Hall, where they both died. 


Margaret Driver
1922 - 25 and 1928 - 30


Margaret Driver (nee Ivison) was the daughter of a coalminer from Willington. She lived in Robson’s Houses (now Terrace, probably No. 1) in 1901. She married Joseph William, a draper, in Lanchester in 1898. At the time of this Census, they had two children, Walter, two, and Hilda, seven months. Ten years later and the family were still in Shincliffe though the location is not clear. There were two more children, Tamar, 8, and Wilfred, 6. There was also a servant, Hannah Thompson.


Margaret died in 1932 at the age of fifty-three and Joseph remarried to Agnes Mary Martin in 1934.


It was Walter, the oldest child, who would go on to marry Beth and she ran the garage next to The Rose Tree for many years. In part, this because her husband died in December 1941. In the 1939 Register, they were living in 2 Poplar Terrace. His brother, Wilfred, was to follow in August 1942 having lived in 5 Hillcrest. 


Florence Evelyn Blagdon
 1926 - 27 and 1930 - 31

Florence Evelyn Blagdon (nee Mason) (1882 - 1968) was married to the leather manufacturer George Blagdon whose family had been in the business for some years in Durham. The factory was based where the Milburngate shopping centre now stands. The couple married in Balham, Wandsworth, on 7th October 1913 and by 1920 lived in what is now 7 Wood View but was then known as Number 1. They had previously lived next door at what is now Number 6. Their neighbours would have included John Morton Carr (headmaster of Shincliffe C of E School at Number 4), the Fennys (owner of a shop in Saddler Street and which sold leather goods, now Number 5) and Laurence Mackay (of Mackays carpets at what is now Number 2, before he moved to Laxey Cottage).


Florence hailed from Oswestry.  Her father, Richard Hopley Mason,  was a “Brass Founder” and she was a near-contemporary of Lucy Luxmoore who also lived in the town as a young girl. It is quite possible that they knew of each other before both ended up in Shincliffe. Her father was also a Mayor of Oswestry Borough and her grandfather, Thomas Mason, had been an Innkeeper in the town. She was one of ten children.  


She is featured in the 1901 Census living in Jarrow as a nurse. Ten years later she was living in 16 Old Elvet in a boarding house kept by a Mrs Hinnigan. By 1915, a son, George, had arrived and George Senior had attested to affirm that he was ready to fight for King and Country. He did so later in the war, fighting with the York and Lancaster Regiment.


They moved to Gilesgate towards the end of the 1920s and George died in 1944.


Her son, George, took over the business but it was demolished in the 1960s to make way for the new shopping centre and roadworks in Durham City.

At the time of her death, Florence was living in Seahouses in Northumberland. 




Edith Mary Porteus 1931 - 34


Edith Mary Porteus (nee Ward, 1878- 1947) was raised in Newcastle. Her father was a commercial clerk in coal while her grandfather, Benjamin Ward, was a “druggist” (chemist). He was trustworthy on a commercial and social basis as he was voted on to the board of the Royal Arcade Permanent Benefit Building Society in Newcastle as a trustee.


Her husband, William Cruddas Porteus, was eight years older than Edith and Clerk to the Durham County Education Committee. His father had been a bookseller and stationer based in Gateshead. They had a son, Allan Cruddas Porteus (1912-2001), who attended St. Chad’s in Durham and eventually became a vicar in the Church of England. It was in this role that he and his mother could be found in 1939 in Tynemouth, his father having died just a few years before. He married Annie Nesbitt in 1947. 


Share by: