Agatha Juliet PERRY 1882 - 1927

Subject: Agatha Perry
Date: Unknown
Photographer: J Rayner, Khyber House, Whitby
Found: eBay

Today’s photo is another one I’ve had since 2009 without finding any information, somewhat the worse for wear I’m afraid. A few days ago I was looking through all my unclaimed photographs and on looking at this one it hit me that her name might not have been Perry-Knight as I had first thought. Perhaps it had been written in the American way of naming married women ie given name then maiden name then married name.

I checked FreeBMD for a marriage between an Agatha PERRY and a KNIGHT and this is the ONLY hit I had:-

Marriages Mar 1904
Knight   Charles Voughton   Gloucester 6a    431
Perry     Agatha Juliet         Gloucester 6a    431

And so I uncovered yet another extremely interesting family, or two, to research, presuming I have the right person, nothing is guaranteed though. I say this mainly because the photograph was taken in Whitby which is not even close to where Agatha was born & grew up for at least the first 10 years of her life.

Strangely it turns out that Agatha is the first cousin of Emma Phyllis Bernand (their mothers were Harvey sisters), the wife of John Graham Weall, a photo of whom I purchased in the same lot this photo was in and which I posted about back in 2009 here. Possibly they were both from the same deceased estate.
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Agatha Juliet Perry was born in 1882 in Gloucestershire where her father was the Vicar of Mickleton, the second child of William Vincent Blencowe Perry and Sarah Catherine Harvey.

Births Jun 1882
Perry   Agatha Juliet   Shipston 6d 671

As far as I can ascertain Agatha had just two siblings, Cecily Catherine Perry 1880-1919 who married Frank Mowbray Luce (ICS) in India, he was in the Indian Civil Service & was a joint magistrate & deputy collector, in 1911 they had been married 8 years with no children. After Cecily died in 1919 Frank married again to Ina Marion Clarke (FRCSI) of Rathdown, Dublin, Ireland, they don’t seem to have had any children so no descendants there.

Agatha’s other sibling was Arthur Clyde Perry (DSO) 1873-1945, a captain in the Army, he married Margaret de Winton who was from a rather illustrious background, her parents being Thomas de Winton & Barbara Peel of Wallsworth Hall in Sandhurst. In 1911 Arthur & Margaret had been married for 7 years without any children so I suspect no descendants there either.

Agatha’s husband, Charles Voughton Knight, was an MD and son of Joseph Knight and Mary Ferrier Holt, born in 1872 in Newcastle under Lyme. When Agatha died in 1927 the probate of her will went to Charles Voughton Knight MD and Geoffrey Charles Voughton Knight, solicitor's articled clerk. In the 1911 census they had been married for 7 years and Agatha is listed as having had two children who were both still living. They were Geoffrey Charles Voughton bn 1906 and John Voughton bn 1910. Charles died in 1947 & the probate of his will went to son John Voughton Knight a gas company executive official & Sir Robert Rollo Gillespie O’Brien a baronet, Sir Robert turned out to be the husband of a daughter of Charles’ sister Annie Adelaide Emma Knight who had married Norman Alfred Coghill.

In 1946 Geoffrey Charles Voughton Knight was living in Ceylon with wife Mary Constance & their two daughters who had been born there, one in 1938 & the other in 1946. I found a passenger list in 1946 of the family arriving at Southampton from Ceylon, the address they were going to live at was ‘Falkland House, Painswick, Gloucester’ which was the home of Geoffrey’s father Charles when he died in 1947. Geoffrey was living at ‘Orchard Cottage, Beenham Hill, Reading’ when he died in 1963. Nothing more is known about wife Mary Constance and their two daughters.

Back to Agatha’s parents – her mother, Sarah Catherine Harvey, was the daughter of the Rev George Gayton Harvey (son of James Harvey & Dorcas Catherine Clyde) and Sarah Frances Sheppard, born 1846 in Hailsham, Sussex where her father was the vicar. Sarah Catherine died in 1899 aged 53 and in 1905 William V B Perry married again to Adelaide Anne Mackenzie N Stephenson, I don’t know if she had been married before, the 1911 census shows that she had no children to this marriage. All I know about William Vincent Blencowe Perry’s parents is that his father was John Perry born in 1802 in Bishops Stortford, Hertfordshire (the son of George & Susan Perry) and his mother was E.C, full & maiden name unknown, he also had a sister named Mary.

References: FreeBMD; ancestry.com.au; familysearch.org

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If anyone knows anything about or is connected to the PERRY/KNIGHT/HARVEY families (or any of them) please do contact me, I would love to pass this photo onto a family member, even a distant one. Contact by email is preferable but if you are going to leave a comment please don’t forget to include your email address.

Dawn Scotting
pandora[at]kc.net.nz