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Miss Beatrix ELRINGTON (1862/3–1929)
St Paul section: Row 47, Grave J24½

Beatrix Elrington was born in Compton, Surrey in 1862/3 and baptised there on 26 April 1863. Her parents were Frederick Robert Samuel Elrington, a Colonel in the Rifle Brigade (born at the Tower of London on 15 April 1819) and Emilie Jane Best (born at Compton, Surrey in 1838/9). Her parents were married at Guildford near the end of 1859 and had the following children:

• Ralph Elrington (born in Compton, Surrey in 1861 and baptised there on 27 July)
• Beatrix Elrington (born in Compton, Surrey in 1862/3 and baptised there on 26 April 1863)
• Alice Elrington (born in Gibraltar on 17 March 1864)
• Sarah Elrington (born in Chester in 1868/9 and baptised at St Mary’s-on-the-Hill Church there on 1 February 1869)
• George Henry Elrington (born in Seale, Surrey in 1870 and baptised at Compton, Surrey on 11 September)
• James Elrington (born in Selling, Kent in 1872 and baptised there on 13 October)
• Dorothy Elrington (born in Alverstoke, Hampshire in 1873 and baptised there on 14 September)
• Frances Elrington (born at Vernon Hill House, Bishop Waltham, Hampshire in 1875/6 and baptised there on 4 August 1876)
• Lettice Elrington (born at Vernon Hill House, Bishops Waltham, Hampshire on 21 January 1877 and baptised at Upham, Southampton on 27 September 1877).

Beatrix’s parents began their married life her mother’s home town of Compton, Surrey, but they were in Gibraltar by 1863; in Chester in the late 1860s, and at Seale in Surrey in 1870.

At the time of the 1871 census Beatrix (8) was living at Luton House at Selling, Kent with her parents and next three siblings. The family had a cook, housemaid, and two nurses. Her older bother Ralph (9) was a pupil boarding at Green Court, Canterbury with the Revd Francis A. Smith (Rector of St Peter’s & Holy Cross Church, Canterbury).

They were living in Alverstoke in Hampshire by 1874.

In 1875 Beatrix's father bought Vernon Hill House at Bishops Waltham in Hampshire, where he and his wife remained for the rest of their lives.

At the time of the 1881 census Beatrix (18) and her seven younger siblings were all at home at Vernon Hill House with their parents and their governess, The family was looked after by seven servants (a cook, two grooms, two nurses, and two housemaids). Her older brother Ralph (19) was boarding as a student at the Royal Indian Engineering College at Cooper’s Hill near Egham in Surrey:

At the time of the 1891 census Beatrix (28) was paying a visit with her sister Alice (27) to Winchester, where they were staying with a retired general, William Forrest, and his wife Tempe. Her parents were home at Vernon Hill House with Sarah (22), George (20) who was an Engineering student, James (18) who was a student, Dorothy (17) Frances (15), and Lettice (14)

Her brother George Elrington became a Roman Catholic in 1894, entering the order of Preachers (Dominicans) and was ordained priest in Belgium in 1900. He took the name Aidan as his middle name.

Her next brother James Elrington set sail for Hobart, New Zealand at the age of 22 on 22 February 1894. He died at his parents' home at Vernon Hill House, Hampshire at the age of 25 on 14 July 1897.

On 2 August 1899 at St John's Church, Eastbourne her older brother Ralph Elrington (38), described as a Superintendent, Indian Telegraph Department but then staying at Vernon Hill House, married Ada Cecilia Dowker (31), the daughter of General Howard Codington Dowker of South Elms, Eastbourne.

In 1901 Beatrix (38) and her unmarried sisters Alice (37), Dorothy (27), Frances (25), and Lettice (24) were at home at Vernon Hill House with their parents .

On 19 February 1904 Beatrix’s father Frederick Robert Samuel Elrington died at Vernon Hill House at the age of 84 and was buried in St Peter's churchyard, Curdrige, Winchester. His effects came to £13,058 10s. 11d.

Two of Beatrix's sisters were married in 1905 and 1908:

• On 26 January 1905 at St Marylebone Church in London, Dorothy Elrington, who was still living at Vernon Hill House, married Frederick William Whitestone, a land agent of West Station House, Micheldever, near Winchester and the son of the Revd. William Arthur Whitestone.
• In the second quarter of 1908 in Paddington, Lettice Elrington married Alexander John Peter Augustine Chodzko.

In 1911 Beatrix does not appear to have been in the country, and her mother Emilie (72) was on her own at Vernon Hill House with just one servant.

Beatrix's mother Emilie Jane Elrington died at Vernon Hill House at the age of 79 on 12 March 1919. Her effects came to £6,586 5s. 1d.

In 1914 Beatrix Elrington started working for the Korean Mission, and she travelled abroad: records show that she arrived in Canada in 1920, and came back to London from Yokohama in 1924.

Her brother Ralph Elrington served as a Second Lieutenant in the Indian Labour Corps in the First World War.

Some of Beatrix's siblings continued to live at Vernon Hill House until 1919.

By 1928 the Misses Elrington (Beatrix and probably her sisters Alice and Dorothy) were living at 96 Southmoor Road in Oxford. Beatrix died there in 1929:

† Miss Beatrix Elrington died at 96 Southmoor Road at the age of 66 on 18 August 1929 and was buried at St Sepulchre’s Cemetery on 21 August (burial recorded in the parish register of St Paul’s Church).

Her death notice in The Times of 20 August 1929 read:

ELRINGTON.—On Aug. 18, 1929, suddenly, at 96, Southmoor-road, Oxford. BEATRIX ELRINGTON, eldest daughter of the late General F. R. Elrington, C.B., formerly of Vernon Hill House, Bishop’s Waltham, Hants. Funeral from St. Paul’s, Oxford. 2.30 p.m. to-morrow (Wednesday). No flowers, by request.

Her effects came to £3,757 6s. 4d., and her executors were here brother Ralph Elrington, Esq. and her widowed sister Dorothy Whitestone.

Her obituary by A. L. Sharpe in The Morning Calm (the quarterly magazine of the Corean Mission) of October 1929 read as follows::

MISS B. ELRINGTON

There can be only words of highest praise for those who knew Miss Elrington as a missionary worker.
   She was at work among the Japanese in Corea when I was sent there for the same purpose in 1909, and she was there working when I left in 1914, and or those five years we were in close co-operation. I never ceased to admire her zeal and self-sacrifice. She knew down to the smallest detail the circumstances and difficulties of all those with whom she was connected; and she never hesitated at any deprivation or discomfort to herself, if thereby she could help on one of her enquirers or catechumens, and such help was continued until it was no longer needed.
   She would herself admit that she did not get a mastery of the language, but her keenness carried her over that difficulty, at lest I never could see that it lost her any converts.
   And I should like to add a word about her loyalty to me. Things were not working very smoothly when I took charge, and I felt bound to make some alterations which I knew were distasteful to all concerned. But she acquiesced most readily in all that I proposed, and went from Seoul to distant places and worked alone there without a murmur.
   I am thankful to know that the Japanese among whom she worked fully appreciated all she was doing for them, but what the work in Corea owes to her, especially the local churches of Fusan and Taikyu, will not be fully known till all things are revealed.

---

Beatrix’s seven surviving siblings

• Ralph Elrington (born 1861) and his wife Ada had no children. He died at Mavis Bank, 25 Bodorgan Road, Bournemouth on 26 September 1934 and is buried at Wimborne Road Cemetery. His effects came to £10,002 7s. 1d. His widow Ada Cecilia Elrington was living at the same address when she died at Chawson House, Landsdowne Road, Bournemouth on 2 May 1947.
• Alice Elrington (born 1863/4) never married. In 1911 when she was aged 47 she was head teacher of a small school in Kent. In 1939 she was living alone with a servant and a lodger at 96 Southmoor Road, Oxford. She died at the Cranmer Nursing Home, Malvern at the age of 100 on 2 November 1964.
• Sarah Elrington (born 1868/9) is hard to trace after 1891.
• George Henry Elrington (born 1870) obtained a doctorate in natural sciences at Louvain University and became a Roman Catholic priest. At the age of 50 on 29 September 1920 he arrived in Boston, Massachusetts with a final destination place of Providence, Rhode Island, giving his last residence place as Rome. By 1923 he was the first Superior of Blackfriars, Oxford (founded in 1929). He died at the age of 71 on 14 March 1942 and was buried four days later in Cambridge City Cemetery (Grave 9540).
• Dorothy Elrington, Mrs Whitestone (born 1873) and her husband Frederick had one child, Nicholas Elrington Whitestone, born in 1906 in Winchester. Her husband died in Winchester at the age of 36 near the end of 1906. At the time of the 1911 census Dorothy (36) was living alone in Bournemouth with her young son and a servant. She was named as Dorothy Mary Whitestone when she died at 96 Southmoor Road, Oxford on 7 April 1938.
• Frances Elrington (born in 1875/6) never married. She appears to have lived in Jersey with her sister Mrs Chodzko, and was with her at the time of the 1911 census. She died at St Brelades, Jersey on 31 August 1939.
• Lettice Elrington, Mrs Chodzko (born 1877) and her husband Alexander (50), who was described as a retired master mariner, were living in Jersey in the Channel Islands at the time of the 1911 census with their sons Anthony Victor Robert Chodzko (7) and Francis John Anthony Chodzko (5), plus her sister Frances (35) and a nurse. Her husband died in Jersey on 13 July 1927. Lettice lived in London in the 1930s, and her home was at 33 Birdhurst Road, Croydon when she died on 18 May 1972.