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View Full Version : Great Aunt Wenda !!!

Dick Wynne
09-17-2006, 08:25 AM
Fans of Albert Strange's Wenda design will be interested to learn this:

Wenda (to which my Constance is built) was commissioned from Strange in 1899 by Edmund Bennett, a Gravesend architect. I have been doing some research on Bennett to track down his descendents and find out more about the design, but so far have made little progress. In parallel with this, I was contacted a year ago by an Englishman living in the US, with some scans of Strange watercolours he had inherited, and we published these in our little magazine of the AS Association.

Then last week this contact emailed me, dropping in that his great grandfather, Edmund Bennett (!!!) was a close friend of Strange (who came from Gravesend himself), and attaching a photo of the two together, which I can't include here as the file format is a bit of a mystery. Somehow I had failed to even suspect this connection from his having the same surname! I was stunned to learn this, as was he to learn of my boat. I asked him who Wenda might be and he replied 'Oh my God - Great Aunt Wenda !!!'.

I am hoping that the Bennetts can locate any surviving correspondence regarding the commission, tell me whether she was ever built, and maybe even locate the original drawings, whose whereabouts are unknown. Watch this space!
StevenBauer
09-17-2006, 08:34 AM
Wow! We'll be watching. :)

Steven
Thad
09-17-2006, 10:30 AM
Fun!!!
Ken Hutchins
09-17-2006, 10:31 AM
Ah the fun of researching an old boat.:)
Hwyl
11-21-2006, 03:38 PM
We're still watching.

By the way, Gwenda is a popular Welsh name, in fact my sister is called Gwenda. I've always suspected that Stange's boat was a contraction.
bholderman
11-21-2006, 06:32 PM
Sir,

I work in file conversion and reprographics, what kind of file format is it?
Dick Wynne
11-21-2006, 07:14 PM
Sir,

I work in file conversion and reprographics, what kind of file format is it?

PM-ing you some technical stuff.
Steve Paskey
11-21-2006, 07:33 PM
Fascinating! I'm bad on the terms for family relations. If Edmund Bennett is the fellow's great grandfather, and Wenda is his great aunt, what's the relationship between Edmund and Wenda?
bholderman
11-22-2006, 11:29 AM
Sir,

I managed to convert your photos, check your email.
Dick Wynne
11-22-2006, 05:45 PM
Fascinating! I'm bad on the terms for family relations. If Edmund Bennett is the fellow's great grandfather, and Wenda is his great aunt, what's the relationship between Edmund and Wenda?

Wenda could be a daughter or niece of Edmund Bennett to qualify -- in fact she was his daughter. Here's one of the 3 photos Brad converted, the other two still proving recalcitrant on my PC:

http://static.flickr.com/118/303803481_eb05cd2358.jpg

A hitherto unknown (to me at least) photo of Albert Strange taken in the Bennett family's garden.
bholderman
11-22-2006, 07:14 PM
Sir,

Not sure why, but I made a begginer mistake. Once I manged the conversion I didn't verify it. Here are the other 2:

http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p267/bradholderman/thestrangefamily.jpg

http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p267/bradholderman/albertstrangeonboat.jpg
ingo
11-23-2006, 10:52 PM
Great!
JimD
11-25-2006, 08:07 AM
Coulda been a lot worse than Wenda - great aunt Bernice? :D

(With apologies to any forum members or family members named Bernice)
Andrew Craig-Bennett
11-25-2006, 08:37 AM
I rather like the picture of the Great Man at the helm in full regalia - reefer jacket, waistcoat, tie, yachting cap with white cover for summer and immaculate white shoes. The trousers even have a crease - and is that a stiff collar?

May we expect to see all members of the Albert Strange Association thus attired at forthcoming Meets?

(If so, Mirelle will continue to make a point of being in the vicinity! :D )
Dick Wynne
11-25-2006, 12:28 PM
I rather like the picture of the Great Man at the helm in full regalia - reefer jacket, waistcoat, tie, yachting cap with white cover for summer and immaculate white shoes. The trousers even have a crease - and is that a stiff collar?

May we expect to see all members of the Albert Strange Association thus attired at forthcoming Meets?

(If so, Mirelle will continue to make a point of being in the vicinity! :D )
Well, only this afternoon I acquired a Marks & Sparks dinner suit (as 2 or 3 hires would buy one anyway) and I think it would cut quite a dash on board Constance.

I particularly like the old-fashioned look being shot from right to left across the family group!
Andrew Craig-Bennett
11-25-2006, 12:52 PM
I particularly like the old-fashioned look being shot from right to left across the family group!

So do I!

The propagator thereof, complete with hand in coat pocket, is just as I imagine Miss Nancy Blackett!

(I am amused to see that the designer himself has spurned the deep, comfortable, cockpit and has perched on the coaming, in order, I assume, to see forward over the coachroof!)
Paul Fitzgerald
11-25-2006, 04:10 PM
That woman has a proprietary look in her eye.
Was that Wenda?
Is there more to the story?
Dick Wynne
11-27-2006, 04:16 AM
That woman has a proprietary look in her eye.
Was that Wenda?
Is there more to the story?

Well, my correspondent tells me the group is of the Strange and Bennett families. Strange's apparent age in the picture and our knowledge of his family suggest that the date could be the early 1900s, and those nearest to AS could be his daughter Dorothy (1884-1912, died from TB), Julia Strange, young Albert b1898, and perhaps his governess. None of whom we have other photos of. Leaving the young lady on the right, who cannot be a Strange. So she may well be Edmund Bennett's only daughter, Wenda. I'm told she was a feisty lady. To be confirmed!
Jeremy Burnett
11-27-2006, 05:03 AM
Andrew,I had the great pleasure of sitting in that exact position many times over during our ownership of the boat .(Cherub3 now Redwing).It was good to know that Alberts hand had held the same tiller.Sitting down in the cockpit with the high coaming behind ones shoulder felt very secure.