Emma Budgen (1861-1925) and George Alfred Reynolds Ince (1863-1951).
My great-grand aunt and uncle.
Emma Budgen was the oldest of Thomas Budgen and Maria Dolamore‘s children. She was born in 1861 in Worth, Sussex, and baptised in the village on 1 September that year, but went from humble beginnings to become the Mayoress of Reigate.
As a young woman she started out employed as a servant/nurse at the Station Road surgery in Reigate, as shown in the 1881 census. She married George Alfred Reynolds Ince at St Mary’s in Reigate on 23 December 1886. He was born in Stourbridge, Worcestershire, in 1863 and worked as a solicitor’s clerk, accountant and secretary to a co-operative society during his career.
George Ince was elected Mayor of Reigate in 1913 having been a member of the town council as a Liberal for eight years. He later became an Alderman and served for many years as a Justice of the Peace, hearing cases with fellow magistrates in the town. George served as Mayor for three consecutive years in the First World War and much was made in council reports of the time of the burden of the role in wartime, on top of the normal duties of his office. In 1916 George bought a long-standing bakery and confectioners in Bell Street, Reigate, called J Keasley and Sons, but some time after selling it he landed in court at the King’s Bench Division charged with misrepresenting the value, as reported in the 27 July 1923 edition of the Surrey Mirror.
Emma died on 4 September 1925 and the probate document listed her as living at 61 Deerings Road, Reigate, at the time of her death. Her obituary in the 11 September edition of the Surrey Mirror said that she’d suffered a long illness.
The report added: “She was a lady of rare gifts, of exceptionally refined character, and, until the last few years, when enfeebled health prevented active participation in affairs, a tremendous worker for all causes she deemed to be for the advancement of the Borough in which she lived nearly the whole of her life. She was keenly interested in all her husband’s activities in local and national affairs, and assisted him enormously in the hotly-contested municipal elections which the worthy Alderman had to undergo when seeking election or re-election to the Town Council. She was a well-known figure in the North Ward of the Borough, which her husband represented on the Council for many years prior to his election as an alderman. For some years she was a warm supporter of the Women’s Co-operative Guild, and was an active worker in the British Women’s Temperance organisation.”
The report praised her work as Mayoress during the war years and the support she gave her husband, who was also the Chief Magistrate.
“It was, however, in the founding and carrying on of the War Work Depot that the late Mrs Ince did her most useful work. Blessed of organising capacity in a marked degree, almost immediately after the opening of the war she founded, with the assistance of many willing workers at both ends of the Borough, workrooms for providing necessities and comforts for the troops.
“An accomplished needlewoman herself, combined with a cheerful spirit and natural gifts of a high order, she was the ideal Chairman of the organisation. The work accomplished is best told by a citation from the official record of the Director-General of Voluntary Organisations, which is as follows ‘The amount of money raised was £1,718 5s 7d; the summary of articles supplied: (a) To British combatant troops, 25,668, to British sick and wounded in hospital, 34,237, (c) to Allied countries, 8,856; total 68,761’. Upon the close of the Depot in 1919 the workers recognised Mrs Ince’s services by presenting her with a handsome silver rose bowl.”
Emma’s widower George married Dorothy Ferguson in Kensington, London, in 1928 and the 1939 Register shows them living at 61 Deerings Road in Reigate, he listed as a retired secretary of an industrial and provident society.
The Surrey Mirror of the 18 October 1940 reported on his decision to retire from Reigate Town Council, describing him as a ‘spirited combatant’ in the chamber. Reporting on his career, the paper said he had served between 1904 and 1926 and then from 1934 to his retirement. He had also served as a JP, a Surrey county councillor and as Chairman of the Redhill and Earlswood Common Conservators. He had also chaired Reigate’s Finance Committee, the Watch Committee, the Electricity Committee and the Highways Committee. He described his least pleasant experience as chairing the Military Services Tribunal during the First World War, a committee responsible for quizzing conscientious objectors on their opposition to serving in the armed forces. He told the newspaper that he resisted all attempts to get him to stand for Parliament during his career.
George died on 9 January 1951, leaving effects worth over £2,600.
George and Emma had four children but only three survived:
- Gertrude May Ince. Gertrude was born on 21 October 1889 and baptised at St Mary’s in Reigate. She was a milliner at the time of the 1911 census and married Sidney George Rawlins in the Eastbourne registration district of Sussex in 1915. He served in the Royal Engineers during the First World War but he later became a master bootmaker and settled with his wife in Whitstable, Kent. He died in 1952, Gertrude in 1969.
- Godfrey Herbert Ince. Sir Godfrey Herbert Ince GCB KBE, who was born in 1891, went to Reigate Grammar School from 1903-10, served in the Royal Field Artillery and was a lieutenant in the Royal Engineers during the First World War. He later became a senior British civil servant and during the Second World War was Director General of Manpower and largely responsible for mobilising the nation. Newspapers of the time report his attending conferences in Quebec in 1944 to determine British involvement in the war on Japan, for example. After the war he was appointed Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Labour. He was knighted in the new year honours of 1946 and was further honoured in 1951, becoming KBE GCB. Something of Godfrey’s character and views are revealed in a battle between him and the then President of the Board of Trade and future Prime Minister Harold Wilson MP over the Bernard Miles movie Chance of a Lifetime, which told the story of a group of workers who ditch their hated management only to be forced to work together – and bond – when a big new order comes in. Wilson forced angry cinema distributors to show it as a political/propaganda move but Sir Godfrey was appalled: “This film can do nothing but do harm to the cause of greater friendliness and understanding between management and labour. It will cause great resentment on the part of manufacturers and bankers, who are shown as being quite ready in their own selfish interest to sabotage the national effort. It will be welcomed by communists, for whom it will provide much ready made propaganda…” Wilson’s loyal civil servant commented: “I think Sir Godfrey Ince’s letter is thoroughly silly…I only hope no-one in the Rank Organisation will discover the Ministry of Labour’s attitude as they are already doing their best to damage the prospects of the film.” Sir Godfrey insisted the issue be discussed in Cabinet – and it was – but he did not get his way. Sir Godfrey, who had lived at Copse Hill in Wimbledon, retired from the civil service in January 1956 and became Chairman of Cable and Wireless. He’d married widow Ethel Doris Laycock (nee Maude) in Reigate in 1918. She died in 1959, Godfrey on 20 December 1961.
- Kenneth Fitz-George Reynolds Ince. Kenneth was born in 1901 and as a young man served with the Queen’s Royal West Surrey Regiment. He then became an engineer. He died young in 1927.
Sources: British Newspaper Archive, Ancestry.co.uk, Findmypast.co.uk, Surrey Record Office, Sussex Family History Group records. Various documents held by the National Archives