Max Gate

Whatever happened at Max Gate now that her master was dead, Nellie knew she would not be working there for much longer; she would have been thinking about how to keep her pregnancy a private matter.

Nellie’s employment at Max Gate was full time and she lived in. Her hours of work being 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. with one half day off during the week and she had either Sunday morning or Sunday afternoon off  leaving little time for romance. Besides her employer the only other male in the household was the gardener Mr. Bert Stephens: he didn’t live in. There was a procession of distinguished men who regularly visited Hardy and later in her life Nellie commented about some of them quite warmly but most likely the father of her child was a lad from Dorchester. Whoever he was Nellie kept his identity to herself.

The widowed Florence Hardy shut up Max Gate and moved to London where in the closing days of August 1928 she took a flat or suite of rooms at the Adelphi Terrace. She wrote to Nellie telling her she needed the companionship of someone she could trust– Nellie later said this was quite a change of heart for, at Max Gate, Florence trusted no one. Mrs Hardy would have been surprised and taken aback not to have received a reply to her offer of a position.

For Nellie this was a dream job, an opportunity to be reacquainted with her mistress’s celebrity friends from the literary and artistic worlds, albeit from below stairs. So what kept the maid from skipping to the post box with a letter of acceptance?

While Florence was moving into her London accommodation her maid was in Dorset County Hospital, Dorchester where, on the 28th of August 1928, she gave birth to a baby girl.

A member of the extended family has told me “…her family wouldn’t let her keep the child and it was given to….” The birth was registered on September 20th and a certificate issued by the Registrar Mr F.J.Kendall.  In the margin of the certificate is a one word declaration signed by the Superintendent Registrar, Mr Henry Osmond Lock: the word is “Adopted.”  The arrangements for the adoption were well advanced before the arrival of the child who filled a gap in the lives of the adopting couple and ensured the child would be out of sight if not out of mind.

Nellie’s dramatically altered circumstances meant that later when she opened her front door and saw the mistress of Max Gate on the step she could accept Florence Hardy’s repeated offer to join her in London. The move from the steady pace of life in the County town to all the excitement and hurly-burly of life in the capital was just the tonic Nellie needed and she would be free of all the knowing glances and gossiping neighbours speculating in whispers about who was the father of her child.

In case you are wondering, Nellie named her daughter Florence Maxina Eunice, which tells us something of how she felt about her time with the Hardy’s, but later in life she said her days at Max Gate were not the happiest of her life. The inclusion of Eunice in the child’s name confirms Nellie knew who was going to bring up her child. We are left to wonder if Nellie followed her daughter’s life from a distance and if she knew the girl married and had four children.

The extent of Hardy’s fortune came as a complete shock to the two women but the gaiety of London life brought about a dramatic change in Florence. She became an altogether happier, less inhibited person, able to spend her miserly husband’s legacy. During this time Florence forged a friendship with Sir James Barrie, for whom Nellie would cook simple dinners at their flat. When a later quarrel ended the friendship with the author of Peter Pan, Florence and Nellie returned to Max Gate and soon after Nellie left Max Gate for good.

In the spring of 1941 Nellie’s mother passed away. Later in her life Nellie recalls that Hardy would often ask her to post letters for him at the General Post Office in South Street, Dorchester. Florence Hardy used to apologise for this cycle journey into the town, but Nellie didn’t mind because it gave her a chance to look in on her Mother for a few minutes.

In one edition of the Dorset Yearbook there is an article, which is the story in effect a biographic testimonial as related to a woman called Hilary Townsend, by Nellie towards the end of her life when in service caring for the author’s invalid mother. Despite becoming more infirm through arthritis she rarely left the old woman’s side, and still carried out all the domestic duties. One day she told her charge’s daughter: “If I stopped coming to you ma’am I shall die – I know I shall.”

Indeed, her words proved to be a self-fulfilling prophesy. One Saturday in 1977 Nellie Titterington missed her regular visit, saying that she was unwell. By Monday she was dead. The following day, the 24th of May, her younger sister Margaret Grace Hocking went to the Registrar’s office to record that Ellen Elizabeth Titterington a domestic servant of 1 Marie Road, Dorchester, had died.

So departed a highly intelligent, ever cheerful, unforgettable domestic servant who would be delighted to know that people are still talking and writing about her.

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[We have looked at the Hardy biographies (Seymour-Smith, Millgate & Tomalin,) the Monographs, Dr Marguerite Roberts work ‘Florence Hardy & the Max Gate Circle’ and Hilary Townsend’s article in the Dorset Year Book series as well as civil registration and census records and found nothing to suggest Florence Hardy knew about Nellie’s child.]

[We have placed a photograph of Miss Titterington in the photo section.]

She was a domestic in a class apart: a kindly, no-nonsense servant living towards the tail end of the age of domestic service. But Nellie Titterington was not just another woman in service in a household of the gentry or privileged upper class. She was privy to the private life and foibles of Dorset’s – and one of the worlds – most noted literary figures. For Nellie was the last, the longest serving, most understanding and probably the best parlour maid Thomas Hardy employed in his household.

Nellie Tetterington’s story begins with her birth on the 30th of March 1899 at 5 Brownden Terrace, Fordington, Dorchester. She was named Ellen Elizabeth but known as Nellie. Her parents were John Joseph and Mary Ada (nee Masters) Titterington: her father, a house painter was born in Malta in 1871; he was the son of an Irish soldier who was stationed there. Her mother was born in 1874 at Tolpuddle.  Nellie had an older brother, William, and three younger siblings Doris, Henry and Margaret.

Nellie is likely to have been a bright, high-spirited and pretty child, active and interested in everything and everyone around her. Certainly as an adult she had an interesting life, which she talked about almost incessantly. Nellie was said to have been “alert and neat, with a clean, well cared for complexion and white hair set off with hats.”

What is known is that in the last year of the First World War, when she had just turned eighteen, young Miss Titterington had made up her mind to enlist in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. Having filled out her application documents she left them on the mantelpiece, intending to discuss her move beforehand with her mother. Next day however, an interfering aunt had it in mind to post off the forms without any prior consultation or authorisation from her niece. Only a week later Nellie was amazed to find call-up papers in her letterbox; soon after she was to find herself serving as an orderly to a WAAF officer.

Following the Armistice, Nellie remained in the officer’s service as housekeeper after the officer had moved to a new home in Kent. But Dorset-born people living away from their native patch are especially prone to homesickness, and the officer’s servant was no exception. Put simply, in Nellie’s case the pangs of loneliness she felt emanated from the feeling that she was too far and remote from her beloved mother.

Then in 1921 Nellie’s prospects rose dramatically. Through an acquaintance, Alice Riglar, who appears to have been in service at Maxgate, Thomas Hardy’s country home near Dorchester, she learnt that the position of parlour maid at the house had fallen vacant. Alice then initially recommended Nellie for the position to Hardy, and then informed her of her recommendation in a letter. Before Nellie could begin the job however, Alice wrote again, saying she had second thoughts and asked Nellie not to come after all. It seemed that Alice, concerned about the gloomy, oppressive atmosphere at Max Gate (due mainly to the several trees Hardy had planted so close to the house when moving in) warned Nellie that it would not be “the best of places” as it had “an air of silence.” However, by then Nellie had made up her own mind and was in no way dissuaded by her friend’s misgivings. She therefore left the service of her WAAF officer and returned to Dorset.

Miss Titterington was soon to find Hardy an introspective man who, she said, regarded women not as women but as “shadowy figures fitting into a space like a jigsaw.” Nellie studied him intensely and in time came to understand and respect the writer’s intensely introverted nature. But she also discovered that Hardy was mean with money, had no hobbies and never discussed politics with anyone, though he had a deep, almost mystical reverence for nature.

His parsimony became apparent when Nellie learnt that Hardy would only give each of his staff a Christmas bonus of 2s/6d in an envelope – and even then the cook was instructed to leave hers unopened until later in the day. Hardy’s wife Florence later secretly topped up these bonuses to 10/-. Nellie also spoke of one particular winter evening when Florence had accompanied Lawrence to an event at Glastonbury, leaving Hardy alone with his servants. On this occasion Nellie had stoked up a particularly good fire in the dining room but on checking on its progress a little later she found Hardy removing the coals lump by lump with the tongs and arranging them neatly on the hearth!

Nellie also responded positively to the great man’s love of nature. At one time Max Gate had five owls roosting in the trees over winter and the parlour maid would fetch Hardy to see them. Once, when a hare from adjoining Came Wood strayed into the garden Hardy, Nellie and the gardener together caught it in a net; but then the writer lifted his corner of the net to let the animal escape. On the day of her master’s funeral Nellie noticed that some of the mourners were wearing red fox hunting jackets. Had he been able to see them, Hardy, a fervent abolitionist regarding foxhunting, would have been incensed.

There was one animal at Max Gate however that Nellie probably lost no love over but had to suffer not gladly all the same: Hardy’s rough-haired terrier Wessex. The dog was of a disposition that was both peculiar and nasty, being fiercely protective of his master and as jealously suspicious of most other people as he was evidently devoted to Hardy himself.

Nellie’s approach to dealing with her mistress took much the same form as that towards her master. Florence Hardy was a socially insecure woman with a difficult temperament and other clearly discernable faults. Almost madly suspicious, she would trust no one else with the house keys, and would often accuse one or other of the servants of breaking something or even stealing it. Over time Nellie became accustomed to her awkwardness, and came to pity this second-time-around wife, who married Hardy after the death of his first wife Emma. One particular skill Nellie possessed was flower arranging. Yet when, as often happened, a visitor asked Mrs Hardy in Nellie’s presence who was responsible for the floral display the parlour maid would silently dare the mistress of the house to take the credit for the work. Florence, though much younger than her husband, was nevertheless accustomed to reading whole tracts of books aloud to him in the evenings. It was this devotional side of her nature that made Nellie feel sympathetic towards Florence.

Thomas Hardy died on Wednesday, January 11th, 1928. The following morning Nellie cycled over to ‘Talbothays’ at West Stafford to deliver the news of Hardy’s passing to his sister Kate. Away from Max Gate she had time to think about a growing personal problem.

Nellie was pregnant.

To be continued…..