This website, ww.findonvillage.com  created by Valerie Martin, contains scenes from her home village of Findon, West Sussex, U.K.

A LADY OF SUBSTANCE

Marguerite Laura (Margot) Douglas 1885-1963.

Copyright Valerie Martin 2001

After Edwin Douglas' death and the demolition of his home, Fox Down in Findon, I have found that his sons, James Sholto and Edwin Ronald built a property for their sister, Margot, to live in.  This was situated in Honeysuckle Lane, High Salvington. It was the first house on the left and she named it The Cottage.

In July 1996, one of my articles appeared in the West Sussex Gazette.  This was entitled "How An Artist Solved A Watery Problem" and featured the Findon artist, Edwin Douglas. 

This set Jim Stuart Douglas of Stane House in Coldwaltham, West Sussex thinking and he contacted me. He remembered he owned a painting by Edwin. He had, in fact, stored it for the last twenty years but not being particularly fond of it, he had kept it hidden in a cupboard. The painting was of a young woman with a black and white long coated dog, and had been left to him by his Aunt. She had originally purchased it at a jumble sale because she noticed the young lady in the picture was wearing a necklace featuring the "Douglas heart".  No one knew who she was at this point.

This is how this unframed painting executed by Edwin, signed by him and dated 1909, came to be rediscovered by me.  It had received an amount of damage over the years, amounting to two chips out of the canvas, a number of brown dots on the girl's blouse, and two splashes of what appeared to be emulsion paint. The painting obviously needed cleaning and relining. Edwin had entered an inscription at the foot of the painting but someone in later years had vandalized this in an unsuccessful attempt to obliterate the inscription and this was now unreadable.

In August 1996, I obtained a valuation from Sotheby's at Billingshurst who suggested John Covell's name for undertaking the restoration.  He was then living at Shipley and started restoration work for me and the inscription was deciphered as reading —

To Mate — Clara

From Boy — Margot

I can only assume that Margot asked her father to execute a portrait of herself and her dog named Boy. She then gave the finished article as a present to her friend Clara who had a dog named Mate. All of this is pure supposition on my part but it does bring an end to the mystery.   By October 1996 I had arranged for the unframed and restored painting to be framed by David Weston who lived at Woldringfold and "Margot" came back home to Findon from where she had started out in 1909.  

By the year 1913, Margot had become the Honorary Secretary to the Worthing Branch of the Women's Social and Political Union (Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst's Suffragette Society campaigning for the right for women to vote).

When Margot was 54 years old in 1939 she confided in her niece, Kitty, when she came to visit her at The Cottage. She told her that when she was a girl, she had been in love with a stable lad at the Downs Stable in Findon. This was obviously much to Edwin Douglas' consternation and he certainly did not approve of the young man for his daughter. The suitor gave Margot a gift of a ladies toilet set (hair brushes etc) and this, she told Kitty, had always held a treasured position on her dressing table.

As Margot grew older she had difficulty in negotiating the drive to The Cottage with her car and a neighbour had to turn it round for her on many occasions. She also planted a Douglas fir in the garden — unfortunately only 6 ft. from the house. As the years went by it grew — and was so large it was tapping on the windows of the house — and had to come down.

Over the years, Margot suffered from T.B. (as her mother and sister, Guendolen) had done, but she was admitted to the Midhurst Sanatorium where she recovered.

Her great friend was Nancy Price who resided at "Arcana" in Honeysuckle Lane.  Nancy would walk along to visit Margot wearing a colourful silk robe with her parrot called "Boney" perched on her shoulder.

In her garden at The Cottage, Margot had a pet cemetery. When she died the headstones vanished when they were taken away by the Douglas family before the sale of the house went through.

Margot's will was dated 31st August 1963 and amongst her bequests to great-nephews, nieces, nephews and friends, she left one hundred pounds to her friend, Nancy Price. The Cottage she left during her life time to Margaret Norman, her housekeeper, plus the sum of £2,000.

Margot was cremated and her ashes scattered on that part of the downland at High Salvington where she had been a protestor and had battled a determined campaign. She had been instrumental in preserving the area from builders in 1938 in conjunction with her friend Nancy Price who led a campaign to raise money to buy fields and woodland at the top of Honeysuckle Lane as a bird sanctuary.   This was when there had been much consternation concerning the town of Worthing expanding northwards onto the downland. Some sixty years on we must be grateful for their efforts because the encroachment of housing still ceases within a stone's throw of The Cottage.  The duty to protect the open space they strived to protect now rests with the Worthing Borough Council.

Continue if you would like to read about Edwin Douglas in the States.

This is Findon — www.findonvillage.com is a continually growing record created by Valerie Martin exclusively for documenting life in Findon.