Column: ‘Pioneering Ruth was a first for Colchester’

RESEARCHING local history is like meeting the Colcestrians who walked the streets before us.

Often there are notable figures to be talked about, and other times there are those that should be celebrated but have faded into obscurity.

In the case of Ruth Davis, that is exactly what happened.

Known only as Miss Davis, Colchester’s first female town serjeant, I had to find out more about her.

In 2017, an article appeared in the Gazette, when then mayor Julie Young was looking to name the female town serjeant, pictured helping mayor Allen Aldridge to don his mayoral robes in 1916.

Julie was hopeful to name her in time for the International Women’s Day celebrations that year.

The plea did manage to put a name to the picture, and now we knew her to be Miss Ruth Davis.

Ruth was acting town serjeant while William John Lambert was away fighting in the First World War.

She was appointed in February 1916.

Fast forward to 2021, and a chance meeting with Paul Lind, the current town serjeant, in the town hall.

Mystery women - Colchester’s only female town serjeant with mayor Allen Aldridge

After discussing Ruth Davis and the bare facts known about her, I set about researching in more depth.

The first step was to look at the 1911 census and the 1939 register.

There were no Ruth Davis or Davies on either document.

I next made several trips to the library’s local studies section, where I spent hours looking through Benham’s almanacs and Kelly’s directories, along with minutes of the council meetings.

Nothing further was found, and she continued to remain a mystery.

The next step was the online newspaper archives.

There were many newspaper reports on the appointment of Ruth Davis as female town serjeant, including one in May 1916 in Woman’s World where they report that the ancient town of Colchester had made a record by appointing a woman as the town serjeant.

How then had she simply been forgotten?

I was so determined to find out more about her, but I had nothing more than a name and the fact she had at least six brothers.

Reports in the papers mentioned she had five brothers away fighting and that one brother had been killed in action by February 1916.

More searches came up with nothing.

With all avenues exhausted, I asked a friend for help.

Gazette columnist Sharon Mooney

Sarah Demelo joined in and tracked a different news report from the Essex County Standard.

This mentioned that Ruth lived in Crouch Street.

So, I now knew where she had lived.

A further check of the 1911 census for Crouch Street showed Thomas Robinson, a dental surgeon.

His sister-in-law, Vivienne Mary Davis, was living with the family.

He also had a daughter called Ruth Vivien Robinson. Could she be named after an aunt?

More tracing revealed that Thomas’s wife, Elizabeth (nee Davis), did indeed have a sister called Ruth who was born in 1896.

Bingo! Had I found Ruth?

She is certainly the right age.

She had brothers who had been in the military, including one who sadly died in January 1915.

In 1939, she was still a civil servant and living in Westminster.

She married William Statham in 1949 and a great nephew remembers her well and recalls fondly that she was a livewire, very confident and no shrinking violet.

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And that she was most unlike his other aunts in the 1950s.

He also is 99 per cent certain that the photo of town serjeant Ruth is indeed his great aunt and provided me with a photo of Ruth and husband Bill on their honeymoon in 1949 to compare.

Thomas Robinson was Ruth’s brother-in-law, and he was also the brother of Catherine Buchanan Alderton - Colchester’s first female mayor.

That is an interesting connection indeed.

Colchester’s first female town serjeant, appointed in 1916, was connected by marriage to Colchester’s first female mayor, appointed in 1923.

A family of firsts, and now Ruth deserves to take her place in the line of notable women in Colchester’s history.