Crownbrook, Mayow Road, Christmas 1904

[Aquadroplet]

I am looking for the location and pictures of the house, Crownbrook, Mayow Road. Emily (Faber) Rieder and Andre Rieder were living there in 1904 when their second son, Noel Alexander Rieder, was born on Christmas Day.

Noel later changed his name to Noel Alexander Gillespie.

Gillespie traveled to Syria with his mother when she taught at the Mission School in Jebail. During her tenure there she befriended T. E. Lawrence.

Following the first World War, Emily met Albert Schweitzer at the time he was giving concerts in England to benefit and allow him to re-open his mission hospital. Emily arranged for Noel to travel with Schweitzer to Lambarene in 1924. A description of this trip may be found in the Wisconsin History Magazine at http://content.wisconsinhistory.org/cdm ... 5730&REC=1

Noel later completed his studies at Oxford when he wrote the first doctoral thesis accepted by that university regarding anesthesia. He became an anaesthetist at London Hospital and Shadwell Childrens Hospital. In 1936, Gillespie hosted the visit to England of Ralph Waters, the founder of the world's first academic center for the study of anaesthesia. During this visit Waters met Robert Macintosh who became the first Nuffield Professor of Anaesthetics at Oxford. The Waters-Macintosh friendship resulted in the modeling of Oxford's Nuffield Department of Anaesthetics after the Wisconsin Department of Anesthesia.

Gillespie was a friend of Tubby Clayton and involved with Toc H. Noel was also a Boy Scouter.

In 1939 Noel moved to Madison, Wisconsin where he studied under Ralph Waters at the University of Wisconsin and later joined the faculty there.

Gillespie died of a heart attack on August 21, 1955 in Madison.

Any information about Gillespie's birthplace would be much appreciated.

Thanks, Mark aka "Aquadroplet"

[Steve Grindlay]

Mark, Crownbrook was at 25 Mayow Road. The house was demolished and replaced by a housing estate, probably in the 1970s. Andre Rieder and his family were only there for a short time as by 1906 Kellys directory has him at Branscombe, 75 Mayow Road. That house does survive, opposite Mayow Park.

I don’t have early pictures showing either house but this view, along Mayow Road with Perry Vale in the distance, shows the garden gate of Crownbrook on the right. It is one of the gates nearest to the camera, but difficult to be sure which:


This view also only shows the garden gate of Branscombe, on the left of the picture:


Branscombe still survives. I grabbed this image from Google Streetview. The house is on the left, paritally hidden by the tree:


By the way, do you happen to know how long Andre and his family lived in this area?

[Aquadroplet]

Steve,

Terrific help, thank you.

Andre was Alsatian by birth (family home at Wesserling, Alsace) and was an "agent for printed cottons" according to Noel's birth certificate. Emily was an American from an apparently wealthy family just north of New York City.

Noel's younger brother, James F. Rieder (2/23/03-1/31/04), died before Noel was born, I think, of tubercular peritonitis.

An entry in Emily's diary on April 9, 1909 says, "Andre met me Terminus. Confessed all. Ready to do what is right." The Terminus was a Paris hotel. It is not clear to me what the problem was; Noel later mentions in his own diary that his father was an alcoholic. By late August 1909, Emily and Noel have traveled via the Orient Express and boat to Jabail, Syria, where she took a teaching position at the American Mission School. She and Noel left Syria in May 1912.

Andre died while traveling in South America in January, 1912.

So, I don't have the exact dates the Rieder family lived in Sydenham, but it was not a long time.

Would Branscombe have been a lesser dwelling than Crownbrook?

Again, thank you for your help. The images are very interesting.

Mark