Fiammetta Wilson

Issue 13, June 2019 The Antiquarian Astronomer 24 on the committee of the Lowestoft and District Field Club (1911–12) and its successor the Lowestoft and D istrict Literary and Scientific Association (1912–13 and 1913–14), of which he remained a member until 1920. 1 7 In some recollections by the Suffolk amateur astron - omer Roland Lebeg Townley Clarkson (1889–1954) in 1 951, Clarkson ascribes joining the British Astronomi- cal Association to Fiammetta’s encouragement. (Clark- son incorrectly remembers Fiammetta’s father as J. H. Worthington, not F. S. Worthington. There was a James Henry Worthington who was a member of the BAA at this time, but he is not believed to be related to the Lowestoft Worthingtons.) 1 8 Fiammetta’s two sisters were Janet Marion (1870– 1953) who in 1912 married John Joseph Jervase-Hatt (1868–1937), a civil engineer, and Beatrice (1879–1961), who married a solicitor from a Suffolk beer-brewing dynasty, Francis Alfred Worship Cobbold (1882–1947), in 1922. 1 9 1.2 First marriage On 1889 October 29 the 25-year-old Helen Frances (aka Fiammetta) Worthington married Herbert William Webster (1864–1922) at St Gabriel’s Church, Warwick Square, Pimlico, London. 2 0 Webster was a singer and music teacher who went to Magdalen College, Oxford, from where he matriculated in an unrecorded subject in 1883 October. His father was the Reverend John Webster (1826–86) and his elder brother, also a clergy- man, was another John Webster (1860–1937?). At some stage something went wrong with the rela- tionship, and eighteen years later, on 1907 February 1, Helen/Fiammetta initiated divorce proceedings against her husband on the grounds of his desertion and adul- tery dating from the summer of 1898. (As an aside, of the 644 divorces in England and Wales in that year, 52% were started by the male partner and 48% by the female.) 21 The decree final was granted to her on 1907 October 21. 22 Given the nearly ten years from the marital split to the start of proceedings it seems likely that the divorce was only undertaken so that the parties could be free to remarry. Indeed, Helen/Fiammetta married Sydney Arthur Wilson (1875–1925) early the following year, on 1908 February 29 at All Saints Church, St John’s Wood, London. It was at this point that she acquired the surname by which she became known in astron - omical circles. 1.3 Second marriage and a new name Her new husband, eight years her junior, was a clerk employed at the Bank of England. On the 1908 wed- ding certificate (Figure 2) Helen is described as ‘single and unmarried’ rather than the usual ‘spinster’, possibly implying that the registrant knew something of her marital history. Helen’s ex-husband was even quicker Fig. 1: Fiammetta Wilson c.1903. This, the only known portrait of her, was taken by the London photographic studio Lafayette, based in Bond Street, who were noted for their pictures of English high society. It was published in the scientific magazine Knowledge in 1915. Fig. 2: Certificate for the marriage of Fiammetta Waldahoff to Sydney Wilson on 1908 February 29. The certificate records that she had changed her name by deed poll to Fiammetta Waldahoff in 1901. At that time she was still married to her first husband, Herbert Webster. Issue 13, June 2019 The Antiquarian Astronomer 25 off the mark, remarrying sometime in the last quarter of 1907. 2 3 H elen’s new marriage certificate also refers to a sec- ond identity, that of ‘Fiammetta Waldahoff’. 2 4 Working back from the 1908 marriage, the only previous official record for someone of that name comes from the 1901 census when she was lodging at 25 Upper Baker Street, L ondon, describing herself as a professor of music and, quite fancifully, a Russian subject from Poland. She is also recorded as being 33 years of age, some four years younger than Helen would have been at this time. 2 5 A different source, though, describes her as being a native of Milan. 2 6 It turns out that Helen had adopted the name Fiamme