Mavis Thomson

Mavis’s story is an interesting one but, unfortunately, from Mum’s accounts, it does not seem as if her life was a particularly happy one. I’ll begin this page with what I knew about Mavis before I started researching her history and then complete it with what I’ve since discovered.

According to the Thomson Family Bible, Mavis was born on 4 Nov 1914 and “arrived” on 30 Nov 1914. She lived with “the Aunties”, my Grandpa Baird’s maiden aunts, and was brought up as an adopted daughter. Mum always said that Mavis was born a Roberts and that her mother was an actress. She was engaged to be married and my Gran made her trousseau but the wedding had to be called off when it was discovered her fiancé was already married. Mum recalled her as a rather unusual character but felt she had had a hard life. Mum had been told that Mavis had managed to track her father down to New Zealand and had written to him. She had received a letter in return containing money and a note requesting that she made no further attempt to make contact.

Mavis died young, at the age of just 54.

Mavis’s death certificate records her father as Sydney Hugh Rabbitts (not Roberts as my mum had thought), a mechanical engineer, and mother Frances Grace Jackson or Boreham.

Her birth certificate shows that she was born on 4th November 1914 in Glasgow to father Sydney Hugh Rabbitts (mechanical engineer) and mother Frances Grace Jackson wife of Walter Herbert Boreham, chemist, who she declares is not the father of the child. At that time Frances already had three daughters by Walter.

Some further digging revealed that Sydney and Frances were cousins, his father and her mother being brother and sister. Just over a month after Mavis was born Sydney and Frances emigrated to Australia, marrying in 1915. They went on to have another daughter, Gweneth, in 1916.

It appears that Sydney and Frances’ marriage did not last as Sydney remarried in 1932.