Following on from last month, the Reg Brown postcard collection takes us back once again to 11 Lombard St. E.C. in London to the office of Guardian Insurance in May 1914 Waitresses at 11 Lombard St
Third Mess at 11 Lombard St
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epicted here, the Guardian Insurance waitress team comprising Miss Lawrence, Miss Moore, Miss Sunaway, and Miss Wilkes. The latter appears in the earlier photos, adopting an apparent supervisory role. Although Miss Wilkes bossed the Mess, it was Miss Sunaway who “arranged” the director’s dining room upstairs. IP’s Ladies’ Hair Fashion consultant informs that the 1914 styles stem from the Edwardian ‘pompadour’ era, and the last echoes of the need to support enormous hats. Hence that era’s “Ladies please remove hats” theatre signs.
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ast month in this series we saw “First Mess” sitting down for their lunch at a civilised 12.45pm. The unfortunates in “Third Mess” had to wait until 2.30pm before they could eat. We don’t know the names of any of the diners (or, indeed what became of them before the year was out given that World War One was only three months away) but a good guess can be made as to the identity of at least one of the waitresses. The one on the right features prominently in the “Lunch Mess” series. Could she be Miss Wilkes as featured in the next postcard?
The Kitchen at 11 Lombard St
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eanwhile, below stairs in the Kitchen we see Elsie; Annie, the Chief Cook; an unnamed Assistant Cook, and Dora Sunaway. That’s not a common name, and matches up with the previous postcard. Mother and daughter perhaps? The ancestry websites mention a number of Sunaway’s residing in Barking, Essex at this time, suggesting the pair could have been Fenchurch Street commuters? A wild, age-related, guess suggests the 28 year-old waitress in the above photo could have been a Clara Sunaway. MAY 2013 insurancepeople 17