Rushden Research Group: Audrey Claridge -Samet

Researched by Kay Collins

Audrey Milicent Claridge

North Villa in North Street - later the Westward Hotel

Oliver Claridge, son of Ebenezer, shoemaker, married Norah, daughter of Charles Parker, a shoemaker at Higham Ferrers in June 1903. They moved to North Street to ‘Westward Ho’, where their daughter Audrey Milicent was born in 1910. Audrey was educated at St Andrews School in Bedford, and studied music there too. In 1924 she passed her pianforte Lower Division Exam, and the Higher Division Exam in 1925, and the Rudiments of Music in 1926. One of her diaries includes this list of her Christmas Presents in 1926, and ‘things to get at half-term’.

Things to get at half term

Bath Salts

Soap

Shirt

Ask about Blazer

Cream for hands

Book

Frame for Ben’s Photo

Torch and Battery

Razor Blade

Health Salts

Mother	Jumper, Suit, Coat
Father	£1, Hockey Stick, Tie & Hankey
Aunt Kitty	Hankies
Aunt Nan	5/-
Aunt Maud	Bracelet & Pencil
Aunt K.	Note Paper (A)
Aunt Effie	Note Case
Aunt Betsy	Chocolates
Bakers	Chocolates
Mrs Cave	Lacquer Bowl
Doris	Thimble Case etc.
Mollie	Shoe polisher
Vera	Dominoes
Louisa	Crystalised Fruit

The little diary kept by Audrey Milicent Claridge in 1926 when she was at school at St Andrews, Bedford, and the pages on which she recorded her Christmas presents and things she needed to get at half-term.

Audrey also had a camera and put some photos into a small album and captioned them too.

These are the first few :

Birthday cake - first picture taken!

Mother and Father (Oliver & Norah)

Vera, Miss Rands, Joan Claridge, Father, Mother – taken at Lilford

Dick Woodcock, Aunt Beaty

Believed to be Audrey M Claridge c1939 taken by
W Lacey

Audrey Claridge married Robert C Samet just before WWII, in the Spring of 1939. Together they founded the De Parys Hotel at Bedford. His family were also hotelliers at Hotel Alexandra, Brighton.

They had one son, Guy R C Samet in 1943 at Aldershot. A daughter Claire N B Samet was born in 1940 probably at Rushden.

Letterhead - the directors are B B Samet & R Samet c1947

Audrey M Godden

Her mother died in 1943 and her father died in 1944. In 1945 her father's will left all to Audrey and then to her children. Audrey was living at her former home, Westward Ho, in North Street. Perahps Audrey had converted the house into the Westward Hotel, as in 1950 a licence application was made by Peter Neville, but was granted to only serve residents of the hotel. Her brother George Claridge died in 1953.

Audrey was on board a ship in 1953, perhaps taking a cruise, before making her decisions for her future.

In 1954 Audrey was married to Phillip C Godden. [He had first married Doris Young in 1939, died 1954]

Her daughter Claire took her step-father's surname, but Guy probably stayed with his father [remarried in 1954] as he died at Bedford, aged just 18 in 1961.

Rushden Heritage centre put on a display of Maps assembled by Audrey, for one month only, in January 1998, exhibited by the Amenties Society.

Audrey Claridge (later Samet, then Godden) granddaughter of Charles and Mary Ann Parker, must have worked an embroidery in 1965 for the seat of her grandmother's old armchair, as Audrey or her daughter Claire Godden later wrote on the back of a photograph.

	Caption written by Claire

	Mary Ann reading as the photo above was taken about 1905 by Sam Powell - note the emboidery on her dress. Perhaps she worked it herself?

The Daily Telegraph, 27^th Dec. 1979

Death Announcement

Godden—On Dec. 25^th, in San Anselmo, California, after a long illness bravely borne, Claire May Samet, aged 39 years, only daughter of Robert Callaby Samet and Audrey Godden, and sister of the late Guy Samet.

George Herbert Claridge, brother of Audrey, continued the family business after his parents' deaths in 1910 and 1925. He lived alone in the family home in Hayway after his brothers and sister had all married. He remained there, with just the house staff until 1948. The house was sold to the town to become the Memorial Hospital, when he moved into a smaller house, in Portland Road, Rushden, where he remained until his death at the age of eighty years on April 9th 1953.

E Claridge & Sons

Obituary of Oliver Claridge

A Window

Family

A small archive of diaries and household accounts of Audrey Claridge is deposited
at Northamptonshire Record Office NRO Ref: 2012/115