Helena Townsend (6C05)
| Date of Birth: | 31 Oct 1829 |
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| Date of Death: | 23 Nov 1915 |
| Generation: | 6th |
| Residence: | Glenmore, Queenstown, Cork & Sandy Bedfordshire |
| Father: | Doctor Edward Richard Townsend [6C00] |
| Mother: | Bath, Elizabeth Jane |
| Spouse: |
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| Issue: |
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| See Also: | Table VIC ; Lineage ; Ancestors' Tree ; Descendents' Tree |
Notes for Helena Townsend
Married 9 August 1849 (1). William Penrose (2) of Glenmore, Queenstown, Cork.
Helena died at Sandy, Bedfordshire. Page 588 of The Calendar of Wills and Administration 1858-1922 in the National Archives of Ireland records that probate of the will of "Helena Penrose of Rectory Sandy County Bedfordshire Widow", who died on 23 November 1915, was granted at Dublin on 28 February 1916, to "Louisa P Freeman married Woman Reverend Arthur Sloman and Helena M Penrose Spinster”. Effects £646 0s 2.
Of the children:
Louisa Penrose was born 1851 and married Charles E Freeman on 15 August 1885.
Elizabeth Jane Penrose (Bessie) was born 26 June 1853, married the Rev Arthur Sloman (3) 31 May 1885 and died 25 March 1927.
Helena May Penrose was born in 1862 and died unmarried in 1917 at The Rectory Sandy, Bedfordshire. Probate was granted on 24 March 1918 and the executors were the Rev Arthur Sloman and Charles E Freeman.
(1) Entry in the diary of Agnes Townsend [334] - 'August 9th 1849 Miss H Townsend married to Mr Wm Penrose.'
(2) U.H. Hussey de Burgh's ‘Landowners of Ireland 1878' records "PENROSE, WILLIAM H., Glenmore, Queenstown. Cork 587 acres £462. Queen's 492 acres £284." William died in 1898.
(3) The Reverend Arthur Sloman was a scholar of Pembroke College, Oxford and later, Master of the King’s Scholars at Westminster School. He was appointed Headmaster of Birkenhead School in 1886 and at his first school speech day in July that same year he said: “School life has become disorganised by the departure of three Headmasters in a little over two years. It is my task to bring a steadying and vivifying influence to bear on the School life.”
The late Lord Birkenhead, who was one of Sloman's pupils and a Government minister at the end of WW I and in the 1920s, spoke of Sloman's scholarship, charm of manner, example and personality. However he doesn’t seem to have been very strong on discipline or supporting his staff: This, and other reasons, may have led to the decline in school numbers to fewer than 100 with only two boarders, by the time he left in 1897. The “Birkonian” of April 1897 writes of “his aim to make every boy not merely a scholar, but, in the highest sense of the words, a gentleman and a Christian…”
Arthur became honorary Canon of Ely Cathedral, and later of St Alban's Abbey, and died in Jan. 1920.