Rosalie Riddick-Hall nee Powell
Granny Hall, my great great grandmother, not Rosalie, who was my great grandmother, looks a little like the Duchess in Tenniel's picture in Alice in Wonderland. Perhaps that is unkind, but there is slight resemblance. She sits on the beach on a deckchair in a heavy full length dress. She is wearing what looks like an upturned bowl on her head. The hat is covered in a scarf which is tied around her neck in a big bow.
She looks at the photographer unsmiling; judgmental; through a pair of gold wire-rimmed glasses. On one side of her is Auntie Connie with a spade, on the other side is great uncle Philip. Arthur with walking stick in boots flanks her on the right. Pretty and thoughtful, in a double breasted coat with a white bonnet, a beautiful dark skinned young woman stands on the left: Gertrude's daughter. Granny Hall's grand daughter.
Great, Great Granny hall was intelligent. When Captain Riddick left her he provided for her but not well enough for her to send Arthur to a good public school in England, so she sent him to a better school, a boarding school, in Germany.
Arthur had three sisters and they must have benefited from the absence of a patriarch. They look free, romantic and united: Gertrude, Lucy and May. There is a picture of them in front of me here dressed as druid priestesses. In another picture Granny Hall is with Lucy Hall in Germany. They are dressed in traditional German costumes.
Arthur had a brother too. William. He looks like an amiable cove. Kind, with a moustache and boater.
Gertrude, it was, who went to India and married an Indian gentleman, the secretary the the Maharajah of Gwalior. There is a picture of her in Clifton at 6 Hillside with her mother, brother, another sister and two children - they are obviously mixed race. This is about 1909.
My great grandfather married a corker. Rosalie Powell, (pronounced pearl). She is the cheerful one with curly hair. There is a picture of her with five sisters. She is the only one smiling.
Rosalie grew up in Bristol. Arthur Lewis was from Birmingham. Rosalie and her sisters lived next to the Barrauds. She wrote something about them and about Nipper. I wrote a riff on her memories.
But there were things I didn't know about Granny Hall that Colin told me.
Rosalie was a suffragette and worked with Emily Pankhurst. She wanted to study science at Bristol university but was not allowed to do so and so she hid outside the classroom in the Rhododendrons and took the exam independently. She passed and came first and was allowed to study science at the university. The first women to do so there.
She married Arthur and emigrated with him to South Africa, but in South Africa, single handedly (or so Colin suggests) she got the vote for (white) women before women gote the vote in the UK. She went to Cape Town to parliament and petitioned the MPs and won a famous victory when they agreed to her petition.
To auntie Connie, when she was thinking of what to do with her life she said:
'Dear, there are two professions which are still barred to women: the cloth, and law. I think you should follow the law.'
And she encouraged Auntie Connie to become a lawyer and sure enough, Connie became the first women attorney in South Africa.
Colin told another story. The postmaster general said that he would not go and fight in the war because there would be nobody left to look after the post offices and Granny Hall complained. She went to Jan Smuts and said.
'I will be postmaster general.' send these men off to fight.' And so during the war Granny Hall was the postmaster general.
I have some tapes of Granny Hall which were made my John and Nola, recounting some of the things she did. I thought Arthur was an impressive man, but I must say, my Great Grandmother was every bit as impressive as he was.
Colin said that Granny Hall taught him great respect for women and that one of Granny Hall's favourite people was my Mother, Eve Hall, because she was an activist and because she stood up for her political beliefs - stood up against Apartheid.
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