Johnson County, Iowa

People of Johnson County

Richard Phillip Baker

1866 - 1937

His Ancestry & Life
By: Gladys Elizabeth Baker, 1997

Richard Philip Baker, second child and first son of Ellen Eley Baker and William Baker, was born at Condover, Shropshire (Salop), England, February 3, 1866.  His mother came from Derbyshire near Derby; his father from Stroud across the Medway River from Rochester, Kent.

Apparently the Baker lineage in England began with refugee Huguenots from France.  Because of continued religious persecution these French Protestants left France in waves, settling in the Canterbury, Kent area.  Most of them were skilled weavers.  In 1543 Henry the VIIIth, then endorsing Protestantism (Act of Supremacy) granted one group sanctuary in England, giving them the privilege of worship in a small crypt of Canterbury Cathedral, called St. Gabrielle's in the Crypt.  According to Frances E. Baker (R.P.B.'s daughter) who quoted from the Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed.  V:211. 191l.: "The Chapel of St. John or St. Gabrielle, beneath St. Anselm's Tower, is still in use for service, in which the French language is used.  It was devoted to this purpose in 1561, on behalf of French Protestant refugees, who were also permitted to carry on their trade as weavers in the crypt."  Frances visited there in 1954 noting this practice persisted.  Later there was a weavers house.

A family by the name of Nye (pronounced Ney), a Huguenot weaving family, arrived in England as immigrants in 1588.  Names of the Nye family appear in the St. Gabrielle records.  The Nyes settled in the Canterbury area.  A Madame Nye of Canterbury, for whom dates are unknown, was the progenitor of the Baker family.   When Frances and Gladys were visiting Wilfred Wright, R.P.B.'s first cousin, in 1928, he showed us a small water color of a lady he thought was Madame Nye.  The lady had dark eyes, dark hair in ringlets and was dressed in simple style.  The fate of this portrait is unknown.  Early in W.W.II Wilfred and his wife cleared their London home and put their goods in storage because of the bombing raids.  They then retreated to their home in Surrey.  Unfortunately the warehouse with their goods was destroyed in the Blitz.  If Wilfred removed the portrait to Surrey it probably is now with one of his two daughters or their descendants.

A daughter of Madame Nye, name unknown, married a Goodwin of Maidstone, Kent in 1790.  Their son Thomas Goodwin married Mary Hall, Maidstone, circa 1810.  A daughter of this union, Mary Goodwin, 1806-1876, and Richard Baker of Eden Bridge, Kent were united circa 1829 when they eloped to be married in St. Marylebone Parish Church, London.  They lived in Stroud, Kent across the Medway River from Rochester.  Here they raised four children: William, 1830-1874, R.P.B.'s father; Josiah, 1832-1850; Anne, a.k.a. Annie, 1835-1916 (?); and Mary a.k.a. Polly, 1842-1894.  In the churchyard at Stroud there is a tombstone with the names of Josiah, William, their mother Mary and sister Mary.  Mary Goodwin Baker's name appears twice; once as mother of Josiah and William, and again as wife of Richard; and Mary, sister of Josiah and William, 1842-1894.  F. and G. saw this marker in 1928 and G. photographed it.

Mary, a.k.a. Polly did not marry although she was engaged to a young man, who, returning from a business trip in Paris, overslept on the Channel ferry.  He rushed off in his carpet slippers whereupon Polly who had gone to meet him at Dover, returned his ring on the spot she was so offended.  Uncle Will's wife remarked on hearing this story, "What a lucky escape he had."
Annie, married Peter Wright, from the Isle of Aram off the coast of Scotland.  He was a wealthy brewer.  The Wright estate, "The Chestnuts", was in Clapton, a London suburb.  It overlooked the River Lea.  Aunt Mary took Frances and Gladys there in 1928.  Now part of a public park, Springhill, she could identify a shrubbery walk and some chestnut trees from the Wright home.

The Wrights had one son, Wilfred, who was R.P.B.'s first cousin.  Wilfred married May Hetherington of Birmingham.  They had three children: Dora Jean Temple; John Muir Hetherington; and Elizabeth Avril Goodwin.  Muir went to Burma to be a rubber planter.  He was killed during the Japanese invasion of W.W.II. Avril was a silver medalist at the London Conservatory of Music.  During W.W.II she and others, including Dame Myra Hess, played free concerts during the day.  People could come and go giving them a respite from the stress of the war.

Aunt Mary L. told us a story about Muir as a small boy.  A visitor asked him what he wanted to do when he was grown up.  Muir's answer was quick and to the point: "Get married and write checks like Papa."

Richard Philip's grandfather, also Richard, served as Beadle in Stroud.  For forty years or more he was secretary of the Kent County Cricket Club.  When he retired the Club presented him with a handsome silver inkstand.  Wilfred Wright, his grandson, inherited this.  Wilfred asked Frances and Gladys if R.P.B., or Dick as he called him, liked it.  He had sent it to him by Aunt Mary L. Baker when she came to U.S. in 1922.  Since neither one of us had ever heard of it we were a bit embarrassed.  We believe Aunt Mary L. gave it to Dick Baker, R.P.B.'s nephew instead of R.P.B. Its present whereabouts is unknown.  (It was given to nephew, Richard Goodwin Baker, and is now in the possession of his son, John.)

R.P.B.'s father, William Baker, 1830-1874, was born in Stroud, Kent on the Medway River.  Stroud is across the river from Rochester.  After elementary school he was largely self taught.  He became a professional organist.  His mother was said to be an accomplished musician.  William settled in Shrewsbury, Shropshire where he was organist at St. Mary's Church.  In poor health he was advised to accept a less confining position, so he became "Relieving Officer of the Poor" for Atcham Union, Shropshire.  It involved driving by horse and buggy over the shire to call on recipients.  This position was probably similar to that of a modern social worker.

In early life William had displayed some talent for painting.  At 18 (1848) he produced an oil painting of a view across the Medway River with a distant view of Rochester Cathedral and the Castle in the foreground.  At that time the Cathedral had a spire which the Germans razed in a bombing raid in W.W.I. Later it was replaced.  Aunt Mary L. gave this painting to Gladys when she came on a visit in 1923.  In 1984 she in turn gave it to Richard Goodwin Baker, her first cousin and R. P. B.'s nephew.  When William resigned as organist of St. Mary's Church he moved with his first wife and daughter, Ann Goodwin Baker, to nearby Condover.  There his wife died of tuberculosis.  She and an infant son are buried in St. Andrews Churchyard, Condover where there is a marker with their names.

In 1863 William married Ellen Eley from Derbyshire who was teaching at the Abbey School, Shrewsbury.  They had four children: Mary Louisa, Richard Philip, Ellen Stanford, and William.  William senior died in 1874 at his sister Anne Baker Wright's home, "The Chestnuts", in London.  The cause of death was an aortal aneurysm not angina, a misdiagnosis made earlier.  William is buried in Abney Park Cemetery, London.

Ellen Baker, nee Eley, was born at the family home, "The Hurst", in Smalley near Derby, Derbyshire, in 1827.  The Eleys had been freehold farmers there for over 300 years.  R.P.B. said he could trace the family back that far on tombstones in the churchyard, and undoubtedly the church records went back even farther.  Derby is the location of porcelain potteries.  The most famous began as Derby porcelain, then changed its name to Chelsea Derby in 1770, and finally under royal patronage became the well known Royal Crown Derby.  Ellen Baker had some Derby porcelain.  Mary L. Baker brought over two plates from the Baker home in 1922.  Gladys added a bowl, and cup and saucer purchased in antique shops.  These were all in a Bloor pattern of 1820.  Bloor was a famous designer for this porcelain.  When a pattern is successful the pottery continues to make it for some time making the age of these pieces difficult to determine, especially as there is no hall mark on the Eley plates.  All of these belong to the John Bakers now.

When Ellen was five years old (1832) her father held her on his shoulders to see the first train in England; this she remembered clearly.  She later attended Whitelands, the Government Teachers' Training School for secondary teaching.  It was a five year program with five girls in the first class which she ranked at graduation.  Whitelands is now part of London University.  In Shrewsbury she is remembered by a plaque as the first "Certificated Teacher" there, according to Mary L. Baker.  From 1851 to 1863 she taught at the Abbey School.  The Abbey, long gone, is known today through Ellis Peters' stories of Brother Cadfael who had detective prowess in the 12th Century.
Shrewsbury also had potteries whose products were called Salopian.  Aunt Ellen S. Baker gave Gladys one small vase which she gave to Mary Baker Hess in 1970. (Passed on to her son and daughter in-law, Charles and Wilma, circa 1982.)  It was a blank - plain white - to be decorated elsewhere, a common practice among potteries.  Many blanks were sent to China.

After her husband died Ellen Eley Baker closed the small school for farmers' daughters she held in a room of the Condover house and moved her family to Shrewsbury where she taught in the Darwin Elementary School from 1876-1892.  In Shrewsbury the family lived in a house called "The Mount" which was on the Severn River.  One year the directors of the Darwin School decided that boys as well as girls should be taught to knit and sew, much to her dismay as R. P. B. recalled.  After this had been in practice for some time she concluded that some boys did well, others did not, just as girls performed.  Her son William recalled that she taught him speed reading by writing on a window shade, then snapping it up to test his memory.  After retiring she moved to Barnwood, near Gloucester, to live with her daughters.  She is buried in Barnwood Cemetery.

Ellen Eley's sister Alice married Sir Joseph Middleton of Derbyshire who owned coal fields near Leeds.  Alice died leaving four little girls who were given to her sisters to raise.  Mary Middleton was about eight when she came to live with Ellen Eley.  They lived at the Abbey Teacherage until Ellen married in 1863, then at Condover.  In 1867 (circa age 22) she married Francis Goyne of Shrewsbury.  He was a well known insurance broker and CPA with international connections.  R.P.B. was always impressed that his cable address was simply "Goyne, England" because the name was so unusual.  Aunt Mary L. remembered the wedding and watching the young couple drive away in a coach and four.

The young Goynes set up housekeeping at 7 Dogpole Street in Shrewsbury.  Dogpole is a corruption of "ducking pool".  In the small square opposite the house there had been a pool in which the village shrews and others were ducked.  This old house was the first one in the parish of St. Alkmund.  Its church was not far from the larger church of St. Mary's where William Baker had once been the organist.

In 1928 Mary M. Goyne was still living there with her daughter May Goyne Pryce and granddaughter Dorothy when Frances and Gladys visited them.  Dorothy, about the same age as Frances, showed us over the house.  It had six rooms in two to a floor.  The windows were casements with small leaded panes fastened with wrought iron hooks.  They did not fit very well!  Back of the kitchen were three sculleries, the oldest of which had a lead sink with the date 1619.  There was no electricity; we used candles or lamps.  Aunt Mary L. told a story of visiting there when Dorothy was 10 or 11.  Her mother wanted something from her bedroom to show Aunt Mary so Dorothy was requested to take a candle and fetch it.  Dorothy grumbled "It's Dorothy, Dorothy all day long." Aunt Mary seeking to soothe said, "in my business it's Miss Baker all day long."  Dorothy's rejoinder was "Yes, but you are coming to the end of it and I am just beginning."

There was a story about Mary M. as a small child that I have always taken "Cum grano salis".  Apparently she stood too close to a fireplace so her pinafore caught fire.  One of her ears burned, but eventually it was replaced by new tissue.

Joseph Middleton, Mary's father owned the Middleton Colliery near Leeds in the Peverill of the Peak region.  One of his employees, John Blenkinsop, invented the rack railway in which a toothed rack is engaged by a cog-wheel in 1811.  An engine built according to this plan by Mathew Murray, also of Leeds, began to haul coal from the Colliery to Leeds (1812) a distance of 3 1/2 miles.  Fifty years later an American, Sylvester Marsh, employed this rack system for the cog railway on Mt.  Washington, New Hampshire.  The gradient there was nearly 1 in 2 1/2. (See: Ency.  Brit. ed 11, 22: 936. 1911).

R.P.B. was always impressed that Joseph Middleton encouraged Blenkinsop to patent this invention in his own name.  Most owners would have taken the credit for themselves.  Besides being the basis for the Mt.  Washington cog-wheel railway it is also the basis of the San Francisco cable car.

Aunt Nellie told Frances that the traditional friendships and intermarriages were among four Derbyshire families: Eleys, Middletons, Stevensons and Stanfords.  Aunt Nellie's middle name was Stanford.  She also said there had always been a Joseph Middleton, I have always thought it strange that there were no stories about these families, especially the Eleys.

William and Ellen Eley Baker had four children, all born in Condover two years apart.  Mary Louisa Baker, 1864-1954, was the oldest.  She was educated in local schools of Condover and Shrewsbury with further training under the guidance of Frank Goyne.  In order to help the family financially she went to work in a bank when she was fourteen.  She seems to have been exceptionally gifted with monetary work.  In those days everything was guineas, pounds, shillings and pence.  Later she became a book keeper for Denton and Holbrook in Shrewsbury, then moved to their Gloucester store where she was eventually head buyer for cloaks and mantles.  She lived in nearby Barnwood.  She told us she always kept a bag packed in case she had to leave for London on a buying trip unexpectedly.  She had friends in London who kept her apprised of the imminent death of Queen Victoria.  She immediately went to London where she purchased everything needed in black for the official mourning.  This was quite a scoop for she was ahead of inflated prices and scarcities.

Aunt Mary L. visited United States twice: 1913 and 1922-1926.  She did not find the Midwest climate agreeable so returned to England.  At one time she planned to be married but her fiancee expected her to keep on working and contribute to the household.  This did not suit her so she broke the engagement!  Thinking she was to be married she had purchased a copy of Mrs. Beeton's "Household Management".  It was a first edition but far from a first printing.  She gave this book to the Richard Philip Baker family.  Later Gladys B. gave it to the John Bakers.  When she and Frances wanted to amuse themselves they used to read it for instructions on the duties of the butler, footmen, valet, lady's maid and directions for polishing the silver, brass, and kitchen stove.  The recipes were of the ilk - "Take a dozen eggs, a pound of butter" etc.  R.P.B. told us that Aunt Mary L. had invested heavily in Japanese bonds, as did many British.  These were a great loss after W.W.I.

In her final years when she could no longer live alone she stayed with a trained nurse and her family.  She had her own room and bath.  The family had a little girl of about 10 who was especially fond of Aunt Mary, always came to see her directly when she returned from school to visit and sometimes for help with her homework.  Until the last she kept her financial acuity.  Her last week she instructed her broker to buy a certain stock.  At her death its value had increased sufficiently to pay her funeral expenses.  When Frances and Gladys took a summer tour to Europe in 1928 they left the tour when it reached England.  Aunt Mary took over.  She was an excellent guide.

The Baker home in Condover was a half-timbered Tudor house.  William's mother made a wool worked representation of the house which Aunt Mary gave to Frances.  It now belongs to the John Bakers.  She also gave us a very old pair of brass candlesticks, Georgian, from the Eley family (now with Michael Baker)* and Ellen Eley's small, round brass alarm clock.  It wound by a key; for years it did not work then someone suggested the clock maker in Old Amana, Iowa.  He kept it running for years.  Aunt Mary L. said this clock was Ellen Eley's bedside clock all the years she was teaching.

Ellen Stanford Baker, 1868 to 1950, a.k.a. Nellie, was born in Condover.  She, too, was the product of Condover and Shrewsbury schools.  She was primarily the home maker for her family, moving to Barnwood with her mother when the latter retired.  They lived there with Mary L.  Nellie was a natural nurse with some training.  When Ellen Eley died, she came to the*(This pair, one of two that came over with R.P.B. & William, is with the Charles Hess family.) United States, making her headquarters with William Baker, rector of the Episcopal Church in Bloomington, Illinois.  From 1909 to 1929 she was a staff nurse at Waukesha Springs Sanitarium, Wisconsin.  For years she was sole attendant for Mrs. Fanny Altheimer, nee Mandel of the Chicago Mandels Store, who was schizophrenic.  She had a real knack with these patients.  Once when cornered in a doctor's office by a patient out of control brandishing a knife, she said "Madam, did you know your petticoat was showing?"  This made just enough distraction so Aunt Nellie and the doctor seized control.  After retirement she joined Aunt Mary L. in Shrewsbury, England, 1929.  The two Aunties had a charming modern cottage in the country with bus service that gave them easy access to Shrewsbury for shopping.  As soon as W.W.II started, bus service was discontinued because of expected petrol shortages.  They had to move to Shrewsbury, already overcrowded with government people whose offices and records had been moved there from London on the assumption it would be free from bombing raids.  Unfortunately by then little decent housing was available.  They had only a very dreary old set of rooms heated by fireplaces.  Food was severely rationed and I suspect coal also was.  Frances and I sent as many food parcels as we could but I am sure that not all of them reached their destination as the submarine warfare was so active.  After the war the two Aunties stayed in Shrewsbury where they both subsequently died.

Aunt Nellie was the Baker relative we knew best for she often came to visit.  One year on the day before Christmas the doorbell rang and there stood Aunt Nellie!  There was great excitement for this was the first (and only time) we had a relative with us at Christmas.  It was on this visit that 929 Kirkwood (later 829) was dubbed "The old Baker place".  When Aunt Nellie gave the taxi driver the address that was his response, meaning it was an old house.  Aunt Nellie was very good to her two nieces, often sending unexpected and wonderful gifts.  One Easter there were two beautiful spring hats.

William Baker was the youngest of the four Baker siblings.  Strangely he was the only one without a middle name.  He was born in Condover in 1870.  His early education was in Shrewsbury schools followed by five years at St. Denstone, a Public School, in Staffordshire (1882-1887).

William and R.P.B. often visited the Baker grandparents as youngsters.  The latter related this story to us.  At the end. of the main meal grandmother B. would ask her husband if he would have more.  His reply never varied, "No, my dear, I have had ample and am well fed."  The two boys, between themselves, always called their grandfather "Old ample".

The four young Bakers were close friends and companions of their Goyne cousins: May, Ethel, and Frank, Jr.  Mr. Frank Goyne remained a friend and advisor.  When Anne Goodwin Baker, their half-sister left for Australia at age 17, Mr. Goyne accompanied her to the ship she sailed on.  He brought back word that she waved good-bye through tears.  She never returned to England, settling in Melbourne where she trained as a nurse.  Later she owned her own nursing home (hospital), expropriated by the government in W.W. I.

When R.P.B. emigrated to United States in 1888 Will accompanied him.  They spent their first winter in New Orleans living with Alfred Baker who was always called "Uncle".  If so, he must have been descended through a brother of Grandfather Richard.  The only photograph we had of him showed him in a uniform of the Confederate army.  When R.P.B. sent him a wedding announcement it was returned marked "Address Unknown."  I believe he was a banker with two children.  So Uncle Alfred remains a mystery.  Other Baker cousins do also.  R. P. B. told Frances of visiting a Baker cousin (sic) who was Canon Praecentor at Durham Cathedral in charge of training the choirs.  Another cousin was a fine silversmith.



Return to Biographies Index Page