Finding a record of the divorce...

We are linked by blood, and blood is memory without language.

Joyce Carol Oates

I spent hours on my laptop last night following leads to find out more about the disappearance of Kathleen Argyle, my maternal great grandmother, from my grandmother Nellie's life.

And then I stumbled on a site that has divorce records.

William Argyle divorced Kathleen in 1902.

Oh my.
I had a moment of feeling shocked that she had not raised Nan, her little Nellie, she had not died but had got involved with Arthur Merchant, the co-respondent sited in the divorce.

Reference:	J 77/772/3487
Description:	Divorce Court File: 3487. Appellant: William Argyle. Respondent: Kathleen Arglye. Co-respondent: Arthur Merchant. Type: Husband's petition for divorce [HD].
Date:	1902
Held by:	The National Archives, Kew
Legal status:	Public Record
Language:	English

In the 1901 Census when Kathleen and little Nellie were living with her parents in Chirstchurch, Arthur Merchant was 23, the same age as Kathleen and a soldier from Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, at the Shoeburyness Barracks.


By 1911, Arthur and Kathleen are living in Eastleigh, about 30 miles north-east from her parents in New Milton, they are married and have been for 7 years. 

What is puzzling to me is the response to the question of the number of children. Kathleen has noted 3 children, one living and 2 dead. We know that her first daughter Edith died, but Nellie is certainly alive and well in South Africa at this point and William, which I am assuming is their child is 5. Does she not know how to deal with a child not living with her? And this little boy called William, the name of her divorced husband, all a bit odd.

Arthur is now a Blacksmith's Striker in the Carriage Department of a Railway Company. A striker would have been the blacksmith's assistant, working with iron using a furnace, anvil and hammer. 

Nolene's thoughts on the new insight about Kathleen:
'As William divorced her (appears to have been for infidelity) that may explain why he had custody of Nellie and was able to take Nellie to South Africa…………….Perhaps William went out to South Africa to establish a base and when he came back to the UK to collect his family he discovered that Kate had been seduced by an irresistible Royal Artillery soldier……………….'

Arthur John Merchant  in the England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1966 I am fascinated about all the information one can glean about our ancestors. Here is another snippet that Nolene sent to me from the National Probate Calendar, which is an index of wills. So Arthur died in 1957 and William inherits his estate. It looks like Kathleen died in June 1949 aged 71. She did not know her daughter nor did she meet her granddaughter, my mother Daphne Estelle who would have been 16 in 1949.  I will never know the real story but it has been an extraordinary search to learn this amount about Kathleen Guster/Argyle/Merchant.