Postscript

Summary

Edward and Charlotte stayed on in Bedford until their Golden Wedding anniversary in 1903. After some discussion within the family it had been agreed that, as they were now well into their seventies, they should move close to their two surviving daughters, now both living in Nottingham. Accordingly they moved immediately after the anniversary celebrations. When the time came to leave Bedford ‘a presentation to my husband’ Charlotte noted in her fourth diary begun at the time, ‘was made by a deputation of workmen from the Britannia Works … a beautifully illuminated and framed address which they presented with kind words’.

Once in Nottingham Charlotte remained very active with a variety of good works, and they both went twice more on energetic holidays in Switzerland, as well as returning to their old haunts in the woods around Woburn. Lottie and Hattie had both married professional men in the 1890s and settled in Nottingham with their respective husbands Alex Morton and William Hamilton. Hattie quickly started a family, but Lottie remained childless. By 1900 the two families each occupied one of a pair of large late Victorian semi-detached houses in an exclusive development then on the northern edge of the city.

In the summer of 1916, at the height of the First World War, first Edward and then William Hamilton died. A year later Charlotte went to live with her daughters, who had connecting doors built between the two parts of their joint home. She continued to write her diary, now much concerned with current events, right through until the end of the war. On 11 November 1918 she rejoiced to be able to write: ‘What a wonderful record … that with 8 Grandsons all with one exception on active service … not one of my children are amongst the mourners!’ She ended in her ninety-first year with the sad news of the death of her beloved Florence, Will's wife, from Spanish flu in 1919. Will himself had lost his parliamentary seat in the Conservative debacle of 1906, and turned his great talents to his scientific researches - being elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1916 - and later on to psychology.