Miss Ella Smith
(1835-1920)
19 March 1861

Volume 2, page 330, sitting number 2612.

Miss Ella Smith appears on the 1871 census, living with her father, Charles John Smith, and her mother, Frances, at 35 Eaton Square in London. Also present on the night of the census were her sister, Constance, aged 40, and her brother, Charles, aged 25, both unmarried. At the time of the census, Ella was 36 years old, so she was born in or about 1835; she gave Crosby in Lancashire as her place of birth.

On 4 June 1872 at St Paul's in Knightsbridge she married the Reverend George Arthur Festing (1834-1894), since 1867 the Vicar of Clifton-with-Compton in Derbyshire. He died at Clifton Parsonage near Ashbourne on 4 September 1894. 

'The deceased gentleman was present at the Sunday school treat at Clifton on the 29th ult., and it is thought that he took a chill through being on the damp grass. He went to Ashbourne the following day, but later on he began to feel the effects of a severe cold, and subsequently had to go to bed. [...] The news of his death came very unexpectedly and suddenly, and caused a great shock to the whole neighbourhood. The deceased was highly esteemed for his many good qualities. Many are the evidences of his kindness, and his memory will long be cherished by his parishioners. Unfortunately he never enjoyed robust health and for many years now has been obliged to have a curate. His enfeebled health compelled him to take a long holiday every year in a warm climate, and for many years he went to Italy. In the spring of this year he went to Algiers, and returned much benefited by the change. In fact, he was looking much better just before his death than he had been for some time past' (Derby Mercury, 12 September 1894).  

I can find no record of Ella Festing's death. She appears on the electoral register for many years after her husband's death. From 1898 to 1915 she was living at Epsom in Surrey. I can't find her on the 1911 census but she is probably the 'Mrs Festing' who appears in the 1911 Census Enumerators Summary Books living at Woodcroft on Oatlands Avenue in Walton-on-Thames. In 1919 and 1920 she is on the electorial register for Chertsey in Surrey, a registration district which includes Walton-on-Thames. After that, she disappears. 

[From an album compiled by Edmund Baskerville-Mynors, Rector of Ashley in Wiltshire.]