Cornelius Sisters

1920s

Robin Cornelius2 Oakley contacted our archive department over the summer, looking for evidence that his mother Pamela and two aunts, Dorothy and Bridget (Biddie), had attended Blackheath High in the 1920s. We weren’t able to find Dorothy, but her sisters definitely attended, Biddie joining in 1920 and Pamela in 1921 – and they went on to have some very fashionable and glamorous years after leaving! Here Robin shares some photos from his own collection and reflects on the lives of two Blackheath High girls 100 years ago.

My mother Pamela Cornelius (b.1915), and her older sister Bridget (Biddie, b.1912) lived just across the village at 38 Lee Terrace - their father worked as an insurance office manager in the City. After they left BHS, both were sent to a finishing school in Switzerland. On her return, my mother Pam enrolled first at Blackheath School of Art, and then as a student at Chelsea School of Art, where her teachers were prominent artists of the day such as Graham Sutherland and Henry Moore. Biddie became a leading fashion model in the 1930s, modelling for, amongst others, the famous fashion photographer Norman Parkinson whose work was published in Vogue.

In 1938 my mother married Gerald Oakley, who worked in the City as a chartered account. His sister Dora used to tell me how their friends were amazed that they got on so well together, her with a mischievous sense of humour and him very straight-laced and conventional. They lived initially in Greenwich, but the following year purchased a beautiful old Tudor farmhouse in the village of Hildenborough in Kent, which was where my three siblings and I grew up. She became a full-time mother and home-maker, which also involved keeping horses, managing a large garden, and being active in the social life of the village and wider neighbourhood.

The domestic idyll was shattered when my father died in 1 Cornelius3 959, the house and farm had to be sold, and she moved instead into the adjacent farmworker’s cottage. To support herself she returned to the passion of her youth, becoming an art teacher at a local secondary school, and designing cards for the Ward Gallery. She died in Hertfordshire in 1997 - life threw many challenges at her along the way, but she faced it all with great fortitude and humour.

Biddie worked as a fashion model for several years after she married Val Zethrin in 1939. He came from a wealthy Swedish family, and became well-known as a designer of top-quality handmade sports cars. They lived in a large house in Chislehurst, where he worked on constructing his cars in their garage. They had one son, Richard, born in 1945, who also worked in the motor car trade. After her husband’s death, Biddie retired to small flat in nearby Bickley, where she lived a quiet life, and she died there in 1999. She escorted me on several tours of family history locations in and around Blackheath, including on one occasion taking me on my first and only visit to BHS!