Misses Jane and Frederica Broke

Identified in the Silvy daybooks as ‘Misses Broke, daughters of Capt. Horton (R.N.),’ these are Jane Anne Vere-Broke (born 1853) and her younger sister Frederica Mary Horatia Vere-Broke (born 1854). Their father was Captain Charles Acton Vere-Broke of the Royal Engineers, who died on 7 September 1855. His widow, Anna Maria (née Hamilton), remarried in London on 1 December 1859. Her second husband was Captain William Horton of the Royal Navy, later Rear-Admiral William Horton C.B., who thus became the girls’ step-father.

The two girls appear on the 1861 census, visiting their aunt Louisa Broke (their mother’s sister-in-law) in Bath. Both girls were born on Zykanthos, the third largest of the Ionian Islands.

On 22 October 1878 Frederica (Freda) married Sir Lambton Loraine, 11th Baronet and a Captain, later a Rear-Admiral, in the Royal Navy. They had two sons, Eustace and Percy. The family appear on the 1881 census, visiting Freda’s mother and Captain Horton at The Hall in The Park, Little Livermere, Suffolk. Jane was still unmarried and living with her parents at the age of 28. The following year, on 10 October 1882, she married James St Vincent Saumarez, 4th Baron Saumarez. They had one son and three daughters. In 1918 Jane was invested with the Order of the British Empire for her work during the war with the Red Cross. She died on 17 January 1933, aged 79, at Shrubland Park, near Ipswich, in Suffolk.

Frederica died a few days later on 24 January 1933, aged 78. The death was registered at Bosmere in Suffolk, the registration district which covers Coddenham and Shrubland Park, so the two sisters possibly died at the same address.

Photographed by Camille Silvy on 12 March 1861.