Mrs Felix Bedingfeld
(1818-1910)
1 August 1865

Volume 13, page 15, sitting number 16,597.

Born on the island of Antigua in the West Indies in or about 1818, Mary Woodward Lightbourn Chads was the daughter of John Cornell Chads, who had served in the 1st West India Regiment until he retired to Portsea with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in 1843. He later served as President of the Council in the British Virgin Islands from 1852 until his death in 1854.

At Portsea in Hampshire on 30 April 1849 Mary married Felix Bedingfeld (1808-1884), a barrister formerly of Lincoln’s Inn who at that time was serving as the Master of the Superior Court at Port of Spain in Trinidad, a position he filled until 1854. He was subsequently Colonial Secretary and Member of the Executive and Legislative Councils of Mauritius from 1860 to 1868.

The couple appear on the 1881 census living at 58 High Street ('Pilgrim House'), Lymington in Hampshire. For his profession, Felix described himself as 'Superannuated barrister, Civil Service.' Also present on the night of the census was Mary’s unmarried sister Emma, aged 61.

Felix died, aged 76, at Pilgrim House on 7 December 1884, leaving an estate valued at £8476.

On the night that the 1901 census was taken, his widow Mary was staying at the Hans Crescent Hotel in Chelsea with her maid.

Mrs Bedingfeld died on 1 September 1910, aged 92, at Pilgrim House in Lymington. She left effects valued at £7476.