Ella D. Farrar (1866 - 1929) – journalist, writer and poet

With thanks to Debbie Cameron and Michael Day for their research into Ella D. Farrar 

WW1 poem found by Debbie and Biographical details found by Michael Day @bindonlane@mastodon.world@bindonlane

Ella D. Farrar was born in 1866 in Hartlepool, Durham, UK.  Her parents were William Farrar and his wife, Mary Anne Farrar, nee Edwards.   Ella had a sister – Hilda M. Farrar – who was born in 1869.  

On the 1881 Census, we find Ella boarding  - presumably at school – in Reweley House, 7, Welington Square, Oxford St Giles, Headington, Oxfordshire, UK.  It seems Ella may have been a teacher before becoming a journalist and writer.  

On the 1911 Census, Ella is described at a writer and sub-editor for the Amalgamated Press. By 1921, Ella and her sister were living in Hemel Hempstead, Great Gaddesden, Hertfordshire, UK, where Ella died in 1929. 

The poem was found by Debbie Cameron and posted on her Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/1468972083412699

“Forget-me-Not – A Pictorial Journal for the Home’ ,which began publication in 1891, was one of the many periodicals founded by Alfred Harmsworth. Along with “Answers” (1888) and “Comic Cuts” (1890), “Forget-Me-Not”(1891) was the backbone of what was on its way to becoming the largest publishing empire in the world, the Amalgamated Press. Alfred Charles William Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe (1865 – 14 August 1922), was a British newspaper and publishing magnate. As owner of the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror, he was an early developer of popular journalism, and he exercised vast influence over British popular opinion during the Edwardian era. Lord Beaverbrook said he was "the greatest figure who ever strode down Fleet Street."

“Forget-Me-Not” was based in London’s Tudor Street, which runs south to the Thames from Fleet Street, with the advertising sold by Greenberg & Co. just up the road at 80 Chancery Lane. The imprint reveals a third address, for “Forget-Me-Not” was printed by The Geraldine Press at 21 Whitefriars St, which runs parallel to Fleet St but nearer the Thames.

Like all the penny magazines, it was a cheap affair though, on newsprint with a greenish cover not unlike “Tit-Bits”, the model for “Answers”, for which Alfred had worked. The masthead page inside described “Forget-Me-Not” as ‘the most useful home paper’ and it carried fashion hints and articles on fancy work and households management, as well as fiction. The best illustrations were saved for the paper patterns that readers had to send for at a shilling or two each. None of the articles or illustrations carried a byline.

Most of the pages carried marketing messages printed at the bottom such as: 'Forget-Me-Not is a great help to young couples in all household matters’; ‘Home, Sweet Home [another Amalgamated title] is published on Fridays – 1d’; ‘Answers is the paper for a railway journey’; and ‘This paper is published every Thursday’. 

Amalgamated Press aimed to have a magazine for all types of readers with three women’s weeklies, the smaller format “Home Chat” making up the trio. 

One of the editors of Forget-Me-Not, a Hungarian called Arkas Sapt, has been credited with developing a new way of publishing several pictures on a spread, a technique that was to be vital in reinvigorating the Daily Mirror as an illustrated paper after its flagging launch.

Sources:  Find my Past, Free BMD

https://magforum.wordpress.com/tag/forget-me-not/

Ethel Stonehouse (1888 - 1974) – British poet

With thanks to Historian Debbie Cameron for finding this wonderful poem written after WW1 by Ethel, and to Philip Michael Tomaselli for additional information about Ethel.

Ethel was born Ethel Raine on 3rd June 1888.  It seems her father may have been Raine, Walter, J.P., M.P. Chairman of J. Raine & Son Ltd., Coal Exporters and Shipbrokers, Sunderland and Newcastle-on-Tyne, but I haven't been able to find that out for certain.  If anyone can help please get in touch.  

During the First World War, Ethel was as “a member of the British Security Service between 1915 and 1920, working in the Military Permit Office, which issued permits for civilians to visit the Military Zone in Northern France (also Egypt and other places under army control). This included a fast track system to allow relatives of soldiers in hospital in France who were dying to visit with the minimum of paperwork (which they had to complete on their way back...).

In 1920, Ethel married Daniel Wilfred Stonehouse (1883 – 1958), who had served in the Royal Garrison Artillery in WW1.  The couple had one son – Maximillian – born in July 1927 and  lived in Cottingham, Haltemprice in 1939.

Ethel died in 1974.

Here is the poem written by Ethel Stonehouse:

"Ave Atque Vale"  (Tr. From Latin Hail and Farewell)

When we have gone our different ways

And idle memory sometimes strays

To dim remember’d wartime days

When women toe’d the line,

We may from out some dusty nook

Produce this little Office book

And open it to take a look

For sake of auld lang syne.

We’ll think of when we had the ’flu,

The days we had to ‘muddle through’,

And all the work we used to do

To snare the wily Hun,

Of times when strafs were in the air

And worried secretaries would tear

Great handfuls of their flowing hair

And swear at everyone.

We’ll think with something like regret

Of all the jolly friends we met;

The jokes that we remember yet

Will once again revive.

Here’s to the book that’s just begun!

May it recall to every one

The jokes and laughter and the fun

We had in M. I. 5.

Sources:  Find my Past, Free BMD and

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/ethel-raine-the-untold-story-of-a-woman-who-spied-for-britain-during-the-great-war-10062876.html

Debbie Cameron’s original source:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/guardianwitness-blog/2014/nov/10/-sp-women-first-world-war-readers-stories-photos-memories?fbclid=IwAR2r-30voCS3HqJfw8Lx0YcOCCWvHDSAvZiG5UxFulxNKozlahjijf0kSsk

Here are links to Debbie Cameron’s Facebook Group Remembering British Women in WW1 – The Home Front and Overseas and her Weblog

https://historicalclues.blogspot.com/2022/01/a-family-at-war-and-beyond.html?fbclid=IwAR0HwllMT7VZlloljHWqsuSnb4Jc-L17iHmNGINaun2L7eVTrjDWOhEwAxA