Alice Mary Flower

Mother of Colin Victor Batten

Born:

31 May 1911 Paddington, Middlesex, England

Married:

31 Mar 1934 Wesleyan Methodist Central Hall, Burnt Oak, Middlesex, England to Alice Mary Flower

Died:

6 Dec 1977 Edgware, Middlesex, England. Age 66

Cremated:

Hendon Cemetery and Crematorium

Cause of death:

Bilateral pulmonary oedema and left ventricular failure

Timeline

May 1911

1913-1914

1914-1917

1918-1927

1928-1932

1933

Mar 1934

1934-1935

Jul 1936

1939

1942-1977

Dec 1977

Born at parents' home at 23 Hethpool Street, Paddington, Middlesex [1]

Lived with parents at 47 Hall Place, Paddington, Middlesex [2] [3]

Lived with parents at 44 Amberley Road, Paddington, Middlesex [3] [4]

Lived with parents at 5 Brindley Street, Paddington, Middlesex [3] [5] [6] [7]

Lived with parents at 309 Watling Ave, Burnt Oak, Middlesex [8] [9]

Lived with parents at 122 Watling Ave, Burnt Oak, Middlesex [10]

Married Herbert Frederick Batten at the Wesleyan Methodist Central Hall, Burnt Oak, Middlesex [11]

Lived with husband at 26 Downhurst Avenue, Mill Hill, Middlesex [12] [13]

Birth of first child. Lived with wife at 26 Downhurst Avenue, Mill Hill, Middlesex. Worked as builder's bricklayer [14]

Lived with family at 5 Booth Road, Colindale, Middlesex. Worked as bricklayer [15]

Lived with family at 68 Tenby Road, Edgware, Middlesex [16] [17] [18] [19] [20]

Died at Edgware General Hospital from bilateral pulmonary oedema and left ventricular failure. Cremated remains interred at Hendon Cemetery and Crematorium [21] [22]

Biography

Early years

Paddington Canal - rear of Clarendon Crescent Paddington -1950.jpg

Paddington Canal, 1950

Alice's earliest days were spent on Hall Place. It was an impoverished area of Paddington Green, near the wharves and working areas of the Paddington Canal, an arm of the Grand Union canal [1] [3] [23].

Alice was the third child and daughter of Walter George Flower and his wife Ada. At the time of Alice's birth, Walter worked as a chaff cutter for the Paddington Borough Council. He would have used a chaff-cutting machine to chop straw and hay into chaff, an important source of horse feed, in an age where horses were still used in work and industry [1] [24].

In 1913, when Alice was two years old, her father Walter re-enlisted with the British Army and, when the Great War started in 1914, he was sent abroad, fighting in Malta and France [2]. This means that Alice's earliest memories would have predominantly been of her mother, Ada, and her two older sisters, Ada Matilda and Elsie.

Amberley Wharf, Paddington, 1969

While their father Walter was fighting in Europe, Alice lived with her mother and sisters on Amberley Road [2] [3] [4].

Amberley Road sat on the north side of the Paddington Canal, abutting Amberley Wharf. Asides from the wharf, Amberley Road also had a saw mill and the Amberley Road school for boys, girls and infants, probably where Alice and her sisters went to school [25].

Map of Brindley St, Paddington - 1900.jpg

Map of Paddington, 1900, showing Brindley Street - note how close it is to the Grand Junction canal

In early 1917, Alice's father, Walter, was discharged from the war due to rheumatism and, after his return, the family moved 5 Brindley Street. Like Amberley Road, it ran right along the canal - this time the south side - and was in an impoverished area. The street was a densely-packed terrace row and had long been a 'slum' district [2] [26] [27].

Children living on Brindley and nearby streets would later remember fishing or swimming in the canal, or making rope swings and swinging around the gas lamps. As Alice and her siblings grew up, they would have also seen the opening of the Coliseum Museum in the early 1920s at the end of Harrow Road, near their old house on Amberley Road [28].

Brindley St (renamed Brindley Rd) Paddington - 1957.jpg

Brindley Street (renamed Brindley Road), Paddington, 1957

Leaving Paddington and marriage to Herbert Frederick Batten

After almost 10 years of living on Brindley Street, Alice - then 17 - moved with her family to the Watling Estate, in the outer London suburb of Burnt Oak in Middlesex [8].

It was 1928 and the Watling Estate was a new-build council estate, which had opened its doors the year before. Although considered "working-class" by the more well-to-do inhabitants of the nearby suburbs Edgware and Mill Hill, it would have been greener, more spacious and altogether a lot nicer than anywhere the Flowers had previously lived. The design of the Estate had been influenced by the garden city movement and over 46 of the 387 acres of the Estate had been given over to garden allotments and parks. In fact, only a few doors down from the Flowers home on Watling Avenue, was the entrance to Watling Park [29].

Corner of Watling Ave and Orange Hill Road showing entrance to Watling Park.jpg

Corner of Watling Ave and Orange Hill Road, Watling Estate - the entrance to Watling Park is front left of the photo

One significant drawback, however, was the lack of facilities in the early years of the Estate. Initially, there were no shops, no pubs or even any schools. Many of the inhabitants of the Estate had - like the Flowers - moved from inner-city London suburbs and many of those families struggled with the isolation and lack of things to do. The opening of a main shopping parade on Watling Avenue in 1930 did help to alleviate things on that score, though [29] [30].

Alice was an athletic girl who cycled and played sports. When she met her future husband Herbert Frederick Batten, a bricklayer who lived around the corner on the Estate, they would often play tennis together [31] [32].

The pair were married on the Estate at the Wesleyan Methodist Central Hall on Thirleby Road on the 31st of March, 1934 [11]. Alice was given away by Mr Arthur Squire - it is not clear why Alice's father did not do this, although he and his wife Ada appear in the wedding family photo. As described in the newspaper article covering their wedding, Alice's wedding dress was a long, daffodil-yellow georgette dress that she paired with green shoes and a yellow crinoline hat. Her bridesmaids were her new sister-in-law, Iris Mary Batten, and Mr Squire's daughter Yvonne, dressed in green and carrying posies of spring flowers. Following the ceremony, the reception was held at Watling Centre where music and dancing continued into the night [33].

Batten Herbert Frederick 1934 - wedding to Alice Mary Flower.jpeg

Herbert and Alice exiting the Wesleyan Methodist Central Hall on their wedding day, 1934

Latter years

After their marriage, Herbert and Alice moved off the Estate and into the nearby suburb of Mill Hill. Two years after their wedding, they welcomed their first son Colin [14].

In 1939, they were living in Colindale and, by 1942, Alice, Herbert and Colin had settled into their "forever" home at 68 Tenby Road, an end-of terrace in Edgware. It was here that they welcomed their second child, a daughter. Both Colin and his sister grew up in this house [15] [16].

Batten Colin - with his mother Alice and wife Norma.jpeg

The picture on the left is 68 Tenby Road, Edgware as it looks now - it is the end of terrace home on the left-hand side. The picture on the right shows Herbert's son Colin, with Herbert's wife Alice and their daughter-in-law Norma sitting outside 68 Tenby Road in 1960. You can see that the house has not appreciably changed since the Battens lived there.

Alice's daughter remembered her mother as a very lovely lady, who liked needlework and reading, and who was in the habit of whistling when she was happy. Sadly, however, Alice's marriage to Herbert was not a happy one, although they never divorced [31].

Alice lived at Tenby Road with Herbert until her death of a heart attack on 6th Dec 1977. Her remains were cremated and interred at the Hendon Cemetery and Crematorium [21] [22].

Source information

Alice Mary Flower, England & Wales Birth Certificate, Registered 2nd Quarter 1911 in Paddington, Record no: 472, General Register Office [www.gro.gov.uk]
Walter George Flower, British Army WWI Pension Records 1914-1920, The National Archives of the UK, Ancestry [www.ancestry.co.uk]
Walter George Flower, London England Electoral Registers 1832-1965, Borough of Westminster, Ward of Paddington North, 1914, Ancestry [www.ancestry.co.uk]. Location of father is used as a proxy for location of Alice, as she was a minor at the time. Note that Walter was abroad in the army in 1914
Charles Flower, Baptismal record, St Mary Paddington Parish Register, 29 Jul 1914, Record no: 285, Ancestry [www.ancestry.co.uk]
Rose Eileen Flower, Baptismal record, St Peter Paddington Parish Register, 19 Jun 1918, Record no: 506, Ancestry [www.ancestry.co.uk]
Alice Flower [1921], Census return for Brindley St, Paddington, London, The National Archives of the UK, Ancestry [www.ancestry.co.uk]
Walter G Flower, London England Electoral Registers 1832-1965, Borough of Westminster, Division of Paddington, Westbourne Ward, 1927, Ancestry [www.ancestry.co.uk]. Location of father is used as a proxy for location of Alice, as she was a minor at the time
Walter George Flower, London England Electoral Registers 1832-1965, Parish of Hendon, Ward of Burnt Oak, 1928, Ancestry [www.ancestry.co.uk]. Location of father is used as a proxy for location of Alice, as she was a minor at the time
Walter George Flower, London England Electoral Registers 1832-1965, Parish of Hendon, Ward of Burnt Oak, 1932, Ancestry [www.ancestry.co.uk]. Location of father is used as a proxy for location of Alice, as she was a minor at the time
Alice Flower, London England Electoral Registers 1832-1965, Parish of Hendon, Ward of Burnt Oak, 1933, Ancestry [www.ancestry.co.uk]
Herbert Frederick Batten and Alice Mary Flower, England & Wales Marriage Certificate, Registered 1st Quarter 1934 in Hendon, Record no: 9, General Register Office [www.gro.gov.uk]
Annie Batten, London England Electoral Registers 1832-1965, Borough of Hendon, Ward of Mill Hill, 1934, London Metropolitan Archives, Ancestry [www.ancestry.co.uk]. This record is for a "Henry and Annie" Batten. However, given this is the very same address that Herbert and Alice lived at in 1935-1936 and the surname is the same, I do believe this entry is for Herbert and Alice. Perhaps it was their pet names or perhaps poor handwriting / admin meant Herbert and Alice got translated to Henry and Annie.
Alice Batten, London England Electoral Registers 1832-1965, Borough of Hendon, Ward of Mill Hill, 1935, London Metropolitan Archives, Ancestry [www.ancestry.co.uk]
Colin Victor Batten, England & Wales Birth Certificate, Registered 3rd Quarter 1936 in Hendon, Record no: 74, General Register Office [www.gro.gov.uk]
Alice M Batten [1939], Register return for Booth St, Hendon Metropolitan Borough, The National Archives of the UK, Ancestry [www.ancestry.co.uk]
D. Batten, England & Wales Birth Certificate, Registered 1st Quarter 1942 in Hendon, Record no: 373, General Register Office [www.gro.gov.uk]
Alice M Batten, London England Electoral Registers 1832-1965, Borough of Harrow, Ward of South Stanmore, 1946, London Metropolitan Archives, Ancestry [www.ancestry.co.uk]
Alice M Batten, London England Electoral Registers 1832-1965, Borough of Harrow, Ward of South Stanmore, 1951, London Metropolitan Archives, Ancestry [www.ancestry.co.uk]
Alice M Batten, London England Electoral Registers 1832-1965, Borough of Harrow, Ward of South Stanmore, 1956, London Metropolitan Archives, Ancestry [www.ancestry.co.uk]
Will of Joyce Ethel Batten, National Probate Calendar, Dated 6 May 1966, Proved 7 Nov 1974 London, UK Government [probatesearch.service.gov.uk]. Gives address for husband Herbert Frederick Batten, used as proxy for location of Alice.
Alice Mary Batten, England & Wales Death Certificate, Registered 4th Quarter 1977 in Hendon, Record no: 90, General Register Office [www.gro.gov.uk]
Alice Mary Batten, England & Scotland Select Cemetery Registers 1800-2024, 6 Dec 1977, Ancestry [www.ancestry.co.uk]
Paddington: Paddington Green, A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 9, 1989, British History Online [www.british-history.ac.uk]
Walter George Flower [1911], Census return for Hethpool Street, Paddington, London, The National Archives of the UK, Ancestry [www.ancestry.co.uk]
Amberley Road, W9, The Underground Map [www.theundergroundmap.com]
Paddington: Westbourne Green, A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 9, 1989, British History Online [www.british-history.ac.uk]
Brindley Street, W2, The Underground Map [www.theundergroundmap.com]
Unfamiliar streets: Paddington 1959, The Library Time Machine, The Royal Borough of Kensington and Royal Chelsea Local Studies [rbkclocalstudies.wordpress.com]
The Watling Estate: Burnt Oak, Municipal Dreams, 30 Sep 2014 [municipaldreams.wordpress.com]
History, Watling Estate, Wikipedia, Last edited 26 May 2024 [en.wikipedia.org]
Conversations with D. Herbert (nee Batten), daughter of Alice Mary Flower
Conversations with Rose Fanshawe (nee Flower), sister of Alice Mary Flower
Batten-Flower, Hendon and Finchley Times, 6 Apr 1934, page 6, FindMyPast [www.findmypast.co.uk]