Edwin Langale Christie

An inked inscription verso in a period hand identifies the sitter as ‘Edwin Christie [of] Fulwood Park.’ The inscription also gives the date, November 1869.

Edward Langdale Christie was baptised on 23 April 1863 at St Paul’s, Prince’s Park, Liverpool. He was the youngest son of Robert and Elizabeth MacKnight Christie of Fulwood, Lancashire. Robert Christie was, according to his son’s baptism record, a ‘merchant,’ though the 1861 census lists him as a ‘Produce Booker’ and in 1871 he gave his profession as ‘Booker Produce Grain Cotton.’ Elizabeth MacKnight Christie was born in Edinburgh, which probably explains why she dressed her son in full Highland fig.

On 2 December 1884 at St Paul’s, Knightsbridge, he married Mary Robinson, youngest daughter of Henry Robinson of Boreham Wood and Basing House, Banstead, Surrey.

The couple appear on the 1891 census living at Turville Court at Henley-on-Thames in Buckinghamshire with their two young daughters. Edwin gave ‘Living on own means’ as his profession.

Their marriage was not a happy one and eventually Mary Christie sued for divorce. ‘Mr Justice Herridge, in the Divorce Court, heard the undefended suit of Mrs Mary Christie, asking for the dissolution of her marriage on the grounds of the alleged cruelty and adultery of her husband, Major Edwin Langdale Christie. Petitioner said she was married to respondent in December, 1884, and there were two children. […] Almost from the commencement, said witness, her husband ill-treated her, and used to bully and nag her. He was an extremely bad-tempered man, and threw his boots at her. He often put her out of the room, twisted her arm, and struck and kicked her.

‘Respondent (witness added) used to terrify her and her two daughters by making them ride dangerous horses. This kind of treatment continued throughout the married life. […] He pressed his lighted cigar on his daughter’s hand, and in 1908 he ran after his daughter and dabbed her hand on a boiling-hot kettle. Another time, in the night, he went and alarmed his daughter by telling her that her mother was going to commit suicide, which was untrue. In 1915 respondent was in command of the Detention Barracks at Lewes, and, when he visited witness at Chelsea, told her he had “contracted the worst disease a man can get.”’ The article concludes with some details of Major Christie’s infidelity. Needless to say, ‘[h]is Lordship pronounced a decree nisi’ (Pall Mall Gazette, 16 March 1921).

Edwin Langdale Christie of 108 Lotts Road in Chelsea died, aged 76, on 22 September 1939 at St Stephen’s Hospital, Chelsea. He left an estate valued at £3560.

Mrs Mary Christie ‘of The Little House, Stow-on-the-Wold’ died on 29 May 1945, leaving an estate valued at £11,398.

Photographed by G.E. Alder of Cheltenham in Gloucestershire.