Kathryn Graves tells us about a pair of twins who spent a lot of their lives near Chesham
Evie and Bessie with their father Richard, and elder siblings; courtesy of Kathryn Graves
The Bangay twins were part of the large, extended family of the remarkable self-made man Richard Bangay. Richard was the illegitimate son of a dairy maid from Norfolk who was first a farm labourer and then a miner, but ultimately, he became a much-respected doctor. Evie’s and Bessie’s mother, Agnes Dorrington, was from a family of wealthy Manchester cotton merchants. Richard was their doctor.
Shortly after their marriage, Richard and Agnes moved to Lyme Regis for the sake of her health, as Agnes had been suffering from Tuberculosis. This seems to have done the trick, as they went on to have a large family. Evelyn and Bessie were born in 1889, the last of seven children. They lived in an 18th Century seaside villa called Belmont, with their parents, step-sister, four full siblings, an exotic aunt from Buenos Aires and cousins from Whitby and Cheshire. It was a wealthy household, with eight servants including a ‘French Maid’ called Marie Redard (she was actually Swiss).
The Bangay twins lived in a busy and forward-thinking family. Richard initiated The Belmont Lectures in Lyme Regis, which were given on a wide variety of topics by leading minds of the day, including William Morris and Joseph Lister. Richard was a keen socialist, encouraging education for all, no doubt, based on his own experiences of what an education makes possible.
By 1901, the family had moved to Finchley when the twins were eleven. Only six years later their mother, Agnes, passed away. Richard then moved to 136 Tilehurst Road, Reading with Bessie and Evelyn. They seem to have settled back into country life; we find them breeding and selling hens, and even winning prizes in poultry competitions at the 1908 and 1909 Tilehurst Horticultural Shows.
Aged seventy-seven, their father decided to become a locum in the mining communities of Wales, taking Evelyn along for company. Bessie moved to Chesham, while her sister and father were in Wales and then later in St. Helens. Family recollections suggest that while Evelyn had ambitions to become a doctor, Richard’s progressive attitudes only reached so far and he forbade his daughter from attempting to enter the profession. Evelyn and Bessie then lived together in “Tilehurst Cottage” on White Hill in Chesham, with the help of one servant. When their father finally retired, aged ninety, he moved in with them until his death, aged ninety-eight, in 1931.
Coming from a household with a strong socialist ethos, and having the luxury of an independent income, it isn’t surprising that both sisters played an active role in the community. Bessie volunteered at St George’s Church in Tylers Hill for seventy years. She started as a Sunday School teacher, but took on all manner of roles through the years. The sisters moved from White Hill to Church Cottage in Tylers Hill to be closer to church life. In 1917, Bessie was one of twenty-two women appointed by the Bishop of Oxford as Bishop’s Messengers. These were the first women to be appointed as lay readers in the Church of England and were permitted to run church congregations in the absence of male clergy due to the war. Initially they were only allowed to minister to women and children, but by the 1930s Bishop’s Messengers were permitted to preach to men.
In 1958, Evelyn was made a Serving Sister of the Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, which is a royal order of chivalry, dedicated to relieving sickness and injury. This appointment was confirmed by the Queen. In order to be selected for the order, people must generally have “acted in such a manner as to strengthen the spirit of mankind and to encourage and promote humanitarian and charitable work aiding those in sickness, suffering, and/or danger.”
Both sisters had a wide-range of interests. Evelyn was heavily involved in the Poetry Society and had a book of verse entitled “The Torrent Wide” published in 1918. The main theme of the poems was the great outdoors. The sisters were keen cyclists and in 1917 they cycled 350 miles from Chesham to the Lake District. Both sisters loved animals (Bessie was a vegetarian) and kept a pet owl by their front door. Bessie was passionate about drama, and staged a number of religious plays at St. George’s. She also helped to form the Ley Hill Women’s Institute, St George’s Ladies Cricket Club, a Girls’ Club, Mother’s Union and Women’s Fellowship.
Bessie and Evelyn never married.
The twins died less than eight months apart in 1987 aged in their late nineties and are buried together in St. George’s churchyard on the outskirts of Chesham. In a touching memorial, their headstone describes Bessie as a ‘Faithful servant of this church’ and Evelyn as her ‘constant companion and supporter’. When Bessie died, she was the last Bishop’s Messenger in England. The East window in St George’s is dedicated to Bessie; it contains images of her Messenger’s badge and swallows, in memory of Bessie’s insistance that the Church door be kept open to allow swallows to nest in the porch.
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