I belong to a number of online Aberystwyth history groups, and one post included two postcards which intrigued me. This is about the one with the least information, and to be honest, I thought I’d be able to write about both in one post because it gave so little away.

But, sometimes less is more. This is all I started with — the front side of the postcard and the sender’s first name!

I found a surprising amount of information about the writer of the postcard by fluke, which gained me access to the usual channels. What was even better was the insight I gained into the open access women enjoyed to education at Aberystwyth, almost as soon as the University College of Wales (UCW) opened in 1872.

There were trailblazers, of course, and Elsie is not one of them, but because of them and the encouragement of her family, Elsie was allowed to attend university and read for a Bachelor of Arts at the turn of the century.

Description: Black and white vignette photo with a linear view of Aberystwyth promenade along North Beach, from the relatively new Alexandra Hall to the Hen Goleg / UCW College building at the other end. Red title “Aberystwyth from Constitution Hill” providing a nice colour highlight, leaving room for the postcard message below. The sender has marked “x Hall” by the university residence and has identified the college in writing with a line to the roofline.

Stamp: None because I wasn’t able to get a photo of the reverse side of the postcard.
Date/Postmark: None, but it is safe to presume December (per message) and pre-1902 because the message is written on front not the back. Until 1902, senders were only allowed to write the address of the recipient. In the late 1800s, postcards were like twitter. 😊

Sender: Elsie [Mary Peake] — more on that in a bit…
Recipient Name: Auntie Anne (remains a mystery) and obviously, no address.

Writing: Black ink fountain pen with lovely upright handwriting.

Message: “Dear Auntie Anne…To Wish You a very happy Xmas and prosperous New Year. x — shows where I live —Alexandra Hall and we go up to College for lectures every day. I don’t know if you knew I was an undergrad at Wales. From Elsie.”

I searched for Elsie in FindMyPast. Because of the timeline imposed by the postcard, I knew she should turn up on the 1901 Census, and I was correct. Of the 180 names associated to Alexandra Hall on that census, there were only two Elsies — one a student and one a live-in staff member.

This gave me a full name and biographical information. Meet Elsie Mary Peake, ward of the college residence, age 20, born c.1881 in Derbyshire, England. Her occupation is listed as “Student of the univ coll wales aberystwyth”…

Alexandra Hall is on Victoria Terrace, also known as the the North Beach promenade. The railings outside, pictured in the landscape above, are where generations of students have “kicked the bar / cicio’r bar” — it’s a town tradition with various 19th century origins; the prom didn’t exist prior to 1870.

The residence is in the Ecclesiastical parish of Holy Trinity, which is a bit strange since St Michael’s at the College end of the prom is closer. Holy Trinity is situated on Buarth Hill (my side of town), by the similarly aged School of Art, originally built as the sciences department.

Alexandra Hall was named for the then Princess of Wales, Alexandra of Denmark when she opened the first female residence for UCW on 26 June 1896. She was wife of Edward VII and reigned as consort queen 1901-1910. This opening took place at the same time the university updated its charter to include a provision for gender equality.

Quoted from an article written by Callista Williams for WalesOnline:

“The establishment of an all-female hall both reassured anxious parents who feared university life would have a corrupting influence on their daughters, and solidified the position of women in higher education at Aberystwyth.”

By 1901, Alexandra Hall had 168 women residents. Most sources say women were able to enrol at the university from 1888; from 1898 women represented 45% of the overall student body. From 26 students in 1872 to nearly 10,000 in this year’s intake, Aberystwyth now enjoys a 52:48 ratio female to male students.

However, women were allowed to study music under Joseph Parry from the 1870s. The first woman to enrol in a non-music course was 16yo Louise Davies in 1884. Bravely, she was the only female student for 3 months before others joined her.

I was unable to find any personal record of Elsie’s life at the university, other than the 1901 Census, or a photo of her, but I can tell you a little about her background and where she went after graduation.

Elsie was born to watchmaker, William Henry Peake and his wife Eliza in Codnor, Derbyshire on 26 September 1879. According to the 1885 National School Admissions log book entry 1315, she was entered into the Infants Department of Codnor Gate National Girls’ School by her father in October of that year. The address is Chapel Street, Codnor; another source identified Mrs Eliza Dicken as the infants’ mistress.

On the 1881 census, Elsie and her two older brothers, Daulby and Austin lived with their mother (listed as head of household) on Heanor Road in the same town. Turns out that William’s horological shop was next to the Chapel on Heanor, which was also called Chapel Street by locals, hence the two names used in various government documents for the same address. There are some examples of his clocks on the Codnor history page.

Although absent for a time (probably overseas doing military duty), her father was still in the picture: he is listed in the 1891 Kelly’s Directory for the town, as a watch maker. He returns to the censuses in 1901, at which point he and Eliza are firmly ensconced at Chapel Street for the next two decades.

#9 Chapel Street is listed on William’s death certificate dated 1924, but probate documents say he died at a residence in Cambridge — his wife inherited. The children were obviously encouraged to go to university; the boys went into engineering and sciences, although one of them preferred music to selling lab equipment. More on that in a bit.

On 22 August 1902, the examination results for Coleg Aberystwyth, administered by University of London, were published in Welsh in “Y Llan a’r Dywysogaeth” (Church & State), listing Elsie as having passed English with Honours. A year later, she graduated with a Batchelor of Arts, Upper Division or a 2:1. She was 23.

Between her graduation and the next available census information, I couldn’t find a single reference to Elsie. In 1911, she was boarding with the Nightingale family at 18 Stanhope Gardens in Ilford, Essex.

On that Census, she is listed as a school teacher, as is their other boarder, Fanny Lodge. There is no information of which school apart from it being administered by the West Ham Education Committee (WHEC). However, by 1921, Elsie had moved up the road to #38, where she lived alone as the owner of the house and head of household.

She also ascended the occupational ladder to a job as Assistant Mistress (Vice-Principal) at the Central Secondary School at Stratford, London —under the remit of WHEC and possible the same school she worked at for the previous decade — which was almost a 4h round-trip commute by foot (or, according to Google Maps, a half hour cycle there and back).

And that is where Elsie’s trail ran out until I finally found her 1939 Registry entry — name spelled Elise!

It appears she retired to live out the next twenty years in her oldest brother’s house on Yannon Drive, in Teignmouth, Devon. She died, age 80, in 1959 at Newton-Abbott at the head of the River Teign estuary. Her brother survived her until around 1966.

This is the brother who switched from sciences to music, becoming a school music master in Derbyshire and eventually moving to Devon with his wife, Kate, to teach and play the organ. Christened Daulby, the house he, Kate and their child, plus Elsie lived in was called “Overtones”. I love that.

I am not sure when he added John as his first name, but it turns out John Daulby — pronounced as in the surround sound — is much more famous than his sister, even mentioned in a [pay-to-use] online Biographical Dictionary of the Organ. I found numerous news clippings celebrating the successes of his students. Every one gives credit to their organ teacher, John Daulby Peake.

It was delightful to find that while Elsie was reading her degree at Aberystwyth (and writing this blog’s postcard), her brother was over in the States working as organist at the Park Church, Elmira, south of Cornell University. In 1906, John was successful in getting innovative organ designer (pioneer of the electric church organ) and fellow Englishman, Robert Hope-Jones, to build a new organ in the church. And that is about as good a tangent to finish with!