Septimus Berdmore
(1829-1906)
13 April 1861
Volume 3, page 80, sitting number 3011.
[The Silvy daybooks identify the sitter as Septimus Beardmore. The sitter's clipped signature accompanies his portrait and this clearly shows that he did indeed spell his surname this way at one time.]
Born Samuel Beardmore at Chudleigh in Devon in or about 1829, he was the seventh son of Joshua Beardmore, 'Landed Proprietor and Proprietor of Houses' (1851 census), and Marianne Dorothea née Cox. One of his older brothers was the civil engineer Nathaniel Beardmore (1816-1872).
In 1859 the Illustrated Times (2 July 1859) mentioned 'Mr Septimus Beardmore, well known as a skilled and enterprising civil engineer.'
When the census was taken in 1861, one week before Septimus’s visit to Silvy’s studio, he was a 31-year-old civil engineer lodging at 27 Albion Street in Paddington.
He was also an author and published at least four novels: Reca Garland, or, The Rise and Fall of a Bank of Deposit (1862), Skating on Thin Ice (1863), Crossing the Bar (1864) and Colston (1869), all of which showed the influence of the sensation novel. His pseudonyms included ‘Keith Home’ and ‘Sept Owen.’ He also contributed articles to the Quarterly Review and the Westminister Review which were collected together and published as A Scratch Team of Essays (1883). This last was described by the Sporting Times (13 October 1883) as ‘a tasteful and ingenious little work by Mr Septimus Berdmore, which, as the title implies, deals with a variety of subjects from geography to gastronomy.’
In 1879 he married Marie Mathilde Duke (née Muntz), widow of John Henry Duke, whom the 1861 census records as a ‘Proprietor of Houses & Director of a Public Company.’ Born in Frankfurt in or about 1832, Marie had at some point become a British Subject.
In 1881 the couple were living at an address in Church Street, Staines, in Surrey. The household included two servants, specifically a cook and a housemaid. Septimus gave ‘Retired Civil Engineer’ as his profession.
That same year Septimus Berdmore ‘of the Brewery House, Staines’ was declared a bankrupt (Surrey Advertiser, 18 April 1881).
In 1884 he published The Principles of Cooking. According to the Sporting Gazette (14 June 1884), ‘This gentleman knows all about it. He has endeavoured to impart some of his special knowledge to his fellow creatures […] and cannot fail to do much good.’
In 1885 he gave a lecture on ‘Gordon, Egypt, and the Soudan’ at the Old Town Hall in Reading, which the Reading Mercury (4 April 1885) reviewed at some length.
Marie Berdmore died in a fire on 4 November 1899 at 24 Carlisle Mansions, Victoria Street, London; her estate was valued at £2131.
‘Shortly after midnight on Saturday a fire broke out at No 24, Carlisle-mansions, Carlisle-place, Westminster, the residence of an elderly lady, named Mrs Septimus Berdmore. It appears that the lady retired to rest about half-past eleven, and shortly afterwards the servant, who slept in the next room, was awakened by the screams of her mistress. Hastening to her apartment, she was horrified to find Mrs Berdmore wrapped in flames, and an ottoman, on which she had apparently been reclining, was also alight. The servant quickly snatched some blankets from the bed and smothered the fire. The flames had spread to some of the furniture, but they were extinguished by the night watchman. Nothing could be done to save the life of the unfortunate lady, who died shortly afterwards in great agony. A candlestick, containing a half-consumed candle, standing near the ottoman, was the only indication of the cause of the fire’ (London Evening Standard, 5 November 1900).
In 1901 Septimus, now aged 71, was lodging in the village of Dunsden in Oxfordshire. The head of the household, Henry Taylor, was a ‘Farm Labourer,’ so presumably this was quite a humble abode.
Septimus Berdmore ‘of Somming-common Kidmore End Oxfordshire’ died, aged 77, on 3 April 1906 ‘at Emmer-green Caversham Oxfordshire.’ His effects were valued at only £8.