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Herbert Elgee was a chartered engineer who lived with his family in Budleigh Salterton at 9 Copplestone Road from 1927 until his death in April 1957; his younger daughter Cecil Isobel Elgee, who was an accomplished artist, continued to live in the house until her own death in February 1984.

Herbert Elgee was the son of Captain (later Lieutenant Colonel) Charles Elgee of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers and his wife Elizabeth (nee Schoales). Herbert was one of six children and he was born in December 1867 in Jubbelpore, India. The family returned home shortly afterwards.

Herbert was educated at Bedford School and rowed for the school as stroke in regattas at Henley and at Barnes & Mortlake during 1885 and 1886. He then went to Trinity College Dublin, was captain of the Dublin University Boat & Rowing Clubs, and graduated B.A.

In 1891 he started employment with the civil engineers Sir John Jackson Ltd. After a period of apprenticeship he became an assistant engineer and worked at several projects including the Barry Graving Dock, the Prince of Wales Pier at Dover, and the Hudson Dock extension in Sunderland.

While working in Dover 1897 he married Beatrice Isobel Payne and they had their first daughter Beatrice Mabel in 1899. In 1903 his second daughter Cecil was born also in Dover.

Elgee then spent much of the rest of his working life on major projects abroad. Around 1902 he was in South Africa working on the Admiralty Harbour Works at Simon’s Town (completed in 1910). He moved on to Singapore and the rebuilding of the harbour, and then to Victoria, British Columbia 1913-1917 as manager for the project to build a breakwater at Ogden Point.

During his time in Canada in WW1 he joined the Royal Engineers. The family left Canada for Liverpool in February 1917 (The Daily Colonist 7th February 1917), and he was appointed as a Temporary Acting Captain in August 1917. He served until 1919.

In January 1920 he was elected a Member of The Institute of Civil Engineers. He moved to Bombay in 1921 as Deputy Chief Engineer on the Back Bay Reclamation Project and in 1924 took over as Chief Engineer and saw the work through to its completion in 1927. Herbert, his wife, and two daughters then returned from Bombay to Plymouth and soon afterwards came to live at 9 Copplestone Road. Shortly after their return to England the eldest daughter left for Cape Town where in March 1928 she married Thomas Olphert in the Anglican Cathedral. She lived in South Africa until her husband’s death in 1967, making occasional visits home to see her parents; she returned to Budleigh to live with her sister until her own death in 1979.

Both of Herbert’s daughters had been at a private school in Plymouth at the time of the 1911 census. After schooling, at the age of 18 in 1922, Cecil joined her parents and sister in Bombay and studied part time at the Bombay School of Art. Her artistic talent was put to good use when she was employed by the Oxford University Press to illustrate some of their school books. She made a particularly useful set of illustrations of different castes and religious groups. She also produced two illustrated books, with her sister providing accompanying verses. When the family returned to Devon in 1927 she attended the Exeter Art School and contributed paintings to the Exeter Arts Society exhibitions. During WW2 she was a VAD at the Royal Naval Hospital in Plymouth, and the training she received allowed her to be enrolled as an assistant nurse on the UK & Ireland, Nursing Registers in 1947. The training then came in useful when she later nursed her father and her elder sister at home in Budleigh.

Cecil contributed illustrations to several publications including two Christmas designs and a sketch for “Once Upon a Ward: V.A.D.s' Own Stories and Pictures of Service at Home and Overseas 1939-1946”, and she collaborated with the children’s author Doris Rust providing illustrations for “Tales from the Pacific”, “A dog had a dream”, “A tale of three rivers and other stories from Wales”, “Tales from the Australian Bush” and “Tales of magic from far and near”. More details of her life and art can be found at Fairlynch Museum and in a Michael Downes’ blog (1).

Cecil’s mother Beatrice died in July 1940 and her father in April 1957. Her elder sister died in November 1979 and Cecil in February 1984.

Researched by Roger Lendon, © March 2017

Sources

(1) http://budleighbrewsterunited.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/people-from-past-7-cecil-elgee-1904-84.html

Also:
Family information from Ancestry.co.uk , Fairlynch Museum & Google
Rowing information: 03 July 1885 - Morning Post & 02 August 1886 - Sporting Life
Army career: Army Lists & London Gazette
Herbert Elgee’s working life is summarised in “Who's Who in Engineering: - Graces Guide 1939”. Additional information came from, “The Directory & Chronicle for China, Japan, Corea, Indo-China,etc  1912 Singapore”, the  “1926 India Year Book”, and various newspaper accounts of work carried out by Sir John Jackson Ltd.

[Note by Moderator: Cecil was known colloquially as “Moppy”]

BS-B-00080 Biography