Papers of Mary Iris Newbery (nee Fairchild)

• Reference:GB 1199 C680
• Dates of Creation:1897-1949
• Language of Material:English
• Physical Description:
  0.01m

• Scope and Content

  Birth, marriage and identity documents of Mary Iris Newbery (nee Fairchild). Also one photograph (removed to 'P' series) and several badges (removed to 'B' series). 5 certificates, 1 identity card and 1 envelope.

  C/680/1: Memorandum from James G. Randall, Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages for the Sub-District of Hornsey in the Registration District of Edmonton, Middlesex, to Mrs A. Horatio Jones, 'Ullswater', Green Lanes; dated 4 May 1897. Mr Randall is awaiting a decision from the Registrar General on a matter about which Mrs Jones had consulted him [the registration of the birth of Mary Iris Fairchild, a foundling].

  C/680/2: Certificate of Registry of Birth. Intimating that the birth of Mary Iris Fairchild, who was found on 26 April 1897 in the front garden of 291 Green Lanes, was registered on the special authority of the Registrar General by James G. Randall, Registrar of Births and Deaths for the Sub-District of Hornsey, on 7 May 1897.

  C/680/3: Certified copy of the entry in the register of births for Mary Iris Fairchild, given at the General Register Office, London on 5 May 1947.

  C/680/4: Certified copy of the baptismal register entry for Mary Iris Fairchild, given by T. Harold Mallinson, Wesleyan Methodist Minister, on 14 October 1925. Mary Iris Fairchild was baptised by Joseph Dixon, Minister of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, Green Lanes, London on 8 May 1897.

  C/680/5: Certified copy of the marriage registration of Dennis Allen Newbery and Mary Iris Fairchild. The marriage was solemnized at St Vincent's Church in the parish of Newnham, Hertford, on 30 April 1949

  C/680/6: National Registration Identity Card in the name of Mary I. Newbery, issued on 23 May 1949. With brown leather slipcase.

  C/680/7: Envelope addressed to Miss Fairchild, War Memorial Hospital, Chase Side, Enfield, Middlesex and postmarked at Wellington, Somerset, 1 July 1942. Annotated on the reverse side, 'Birth Certificates [and] Marriage [ditto]'; 'Copy A H Jones Settlement'.

  Mary Iris Fairchild (1897-1988) was a foundling, left in the front garden of no.291 Green Lanes, South Hornsey, Middlesex on 26 April 1897, aged between two and three months. The owners of the house, a wealthy tea-merchant named Albert Horatio Jones and his wife, Kate Adeline, discovered Mary and received special permission from the Registrar General to register her birth. They did not adopt her as she was of uncertain parentage, but Albert Jones became her official Guardian and brought her up as his own. He and his wife gave her the name Mary Iris Fairchild because of the flowers where she was found and her fair complexion. Mary trained as a nurse at the Prince of Wales General Hospital, London from 1921-24, and registered with the General Nursing Council for England and Wales on 19 September 1924. She was then living at 48 Compton Road, Winchmore Hill, London. She later nursed at the War Memorial Hospital in Enfield, Middlesex. On 30 April 1949, at the age of 51, Mary married Dennis Allen Newbery, an agricultural worker who was eighteen years her junior. Both she and her fiance were living at Newnham Hall in Hertfordshire at the time of their marriage. Mary Newbery died in 1988. (RCN Archives AC 2011]

• Access Information

  This collection is available for research subject to data protection laws. Readers are advised to contact the RCN Archives in advance of their visit.