Ingress Abbey

[Sue Mackay]

Well, I though the 1939 register would hold few surprises for me, as so many of my ancestors were in the colonies, but today has thrown up a surprising result for my mother.

My parents married in 1938 in South Africa and came to London for my father to study at RADA. When war broke out he was turned down for the army because of his asthma and he joined the London Auxiliary Fire Service. When the 1939 Register first came out I found him in St.Pancras with his fire service colleagues, obviously on duty. There was no sign of my mother at any of the addresses I knew them to have lived at in London, but as she was born in October 1915 I assumed her record would be closed and I left it alone for the time being.

With the opening of records today to FMP subscribers I had another look for Mum, and the search box this time had the facility to enter an exact date of birth. I found her almost immediately, with the correct date of birth and the correct profession of "pianist before marriage" (she was a music teacher), living with various other people at Ingress Abbey, Swanscombe.

I googled Ingress Abbey 1939 and it came up with pictures of a Naval Training College. Later on it seems to have been an auxiliary hospital, and at first I thought that was where she had been sent after she was badly injured in the Blitz, but that was two years after 1939. I would love to know what she was doing there, as I can't remember her ever mentioning the place. Does anyone know exactly what went on there?

[thewideeyedowl]

Hi Sue

Ingress Abbey seems to have had many incarnations, e.g. stately-ish home, convalescent hospital and naval training college.

During WW1 it was a VAD hospital but closed on 31 December 1918. In 1920 it was sold, for £30,000,and became the Incorporated Nautical Training College - this seems to have been initial on-shore training for naval personnel. It continued as a naval college until 1968, when it became a training college for the Merchant Navy. All this info was gleaned from this web page: https://ezitis.myzen.co.uk/ingressabbey.html.

Britain from the Air gives a beautiful picture of the place in May 1939.

So it rather looks as if your mother might have been doing some initial naval training?! (About which you had never heard....?) Perhaps she was then turned down? Plus, training establishments might also have needed civilian clerical staff, in which case she might have had some sort of secretarial job there? I really do not know anything about naval admin (but I am sure someone will be along to correct me very soon....).

Swooping off.

Owl

[Sue Mackay]

Looking again at the entry, I can see that the secretary of the Nautical Training College was living in the Annexe, several entries down. Of those listed at the Abbey whose entries are not closed, we have a pianist (my mother), a dance teacher, a dancer and a dressmaker. I wonder if perhaps they were there to organise some sort of theatrical entertainment? My father was at drama school as well as being in the fire service, and she had been involved in amateur dramatics in South Africa.