Recently, my friend Margery Gretton was walking in Paddington Old Cemetery and was intrigued by the unusual name of Ada Eliza Strange Bodycoat which she found on a grave. .jpg)
The statue of an angel is on the main path from the gates in Willesden Lane, just before the chapels.
The side panels record Ada’s two children who are also buried here: Boyder Walter Charles, and Lady Gertrude Whaddia (in some accounts spelled as Wadia), who bought the grave for her mother.
This is the complicated story behind the people in the grave.
Ada’s early life and marriage
Ada Eliza Hawkins was born in Marylebone in 1882, the daughter of a farrier and smith, who shoed horses. On 17 March 1901 in St Peter’s Church Paddington, she married William John Strange, a shoeing smith like her father. Their only child, Lucy Gertrude was born on 12 June 1901. When she started at Moberly School on the Harrow Road in 1910, the family were living nearby at 78 Chippenham Mews. Two years later, at the end of 1912, William died aged only 35.
We meet the Bodycoats
The Bodycoat family originated in a small village called Tur Langton, near Market Harborough in Leicestershire. In 1844 they emigrated to Australia.
They settled first in Collingwood, Melbourne, before moving north to Wollert (believed to mean ‘where possums abound’ in the first Nation language). Here the Bodycoats set up a dairy farm.
In 1893, three Irish prospectors discovered gold in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia and it became a boom town. Four years later, following the gold rush, Walter Bodycoat and his family made the trek to the other side of the continent. His eldest son Walter, known as Wally, born in 1886, was a clever young man. He studied at the School of Mines in Kalgoorlie in 1909, and trained as a gold assayer, and mining engineer.
Wally Bodycoat and Ada
Wally led an adventurous life, travelling to Uruguay before settling in London, where he probably worked for a mining company. He made numerous trips to Peru, Ghana, and Cameroon. While in London he formed a relationship with the young widow Ada Eliza Strange, and in the short gap between his two 1913 visits to Ghana, a son was conceived. Walter Charles Bodycoat Strange was born on 14 June 1914. He was a keen chess player and there was a Richmond and Twickenham trophy named after him. For some reason he adopted the first name Boyder and he was buried in the Strange Bodycoat family grave in June 1951.
The relationship between Wally and Ada didn’t last. After one of his mining trips, Wally returned to England on 23 July 1914, and sailed back to Australia on 12 February the following year. In 1916 he joined the Australian Imperial Force and returned to England, serving in France, where he was wounded in action and awarded the Military Medal. He was discharged in 1919 and returned to mining, again travelling backwards and forwards to Ghana. In 1920 he married Katie Burt, from Cornwall, and they returned to Australia, where he bought a farm in Victoria and brought up their three children.
Ada’s daughter Gertrude and a wealthy Parsis businessman
Gertrude initially lived with her mother and in the 1921 census, aged 20, she was in a lodging house at 126 Albany Street Camden Town and gave her occupation as a hairdresser. We found it difficult to follow her twists and turns, and 1925 and 1926 she may have been living in Brighton as Gertrude Weintraub.
On 19 April 1928, in Brighton she married Nusli Pestonjj Ardesir Whaddia. We sent off for the marriage certificate, but this raised more questions than it answered. Both of them were divorced. He had married and divorced Eleanora Hammond. She said she was Gertrude Cohen, formerly Strange-Weintraub, the divorced wife of Joseph Cohen. Her mother Ada was a witness and signed her name as A.E. Strange-Weintraub. This was confusing as we could not trace a previous marriage or a divorce by Gertrude.
We found information about Nusli, who gave his name as Nusserwanjee Pestonjee Ardesir Wadia (otherwise) Nusli Pestonjj Ardesir Whaddia. He was born in Bombay to a wealthy Parsis family in the cotton business. He came to England and on 4 August 1911 aged 32, he married the Gaiety girl, Eleanora Hammond aged 24, who used the stage name of Poppy Hammond.
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After a trip to Bombay when his parents disapproved of the marriage, the couple arrived back in London on 19 February 1912 and Whaddia left his wife at Victoria Station. With no means of support, Poppy returned to Bombay and made a court application for restitution of conjugal rights. The Indian Court decided that it did not have jurisdiction and dismissed the matter. Nusli then divorced Poppy in London in April 1914 on the grounds of her adultery in India with an Australian actor called Mark Anton (real name, Leopold Ritter von Plapart).
In his divorce application Whaddia said Poppy had an uncontrollable temper, used foul language and behaved in an insulting manner; she threw crockery, racially abused him and insulted his family. He even alleged that she had been in a private mental asylum, received cheques from other men in the name of Eleonora Stanley, had lived with a man named Gosschalk, and had an abortion. The divorce was granted with the final decree on 2 July 1917.
Married life
After their marriage in 1928, Gertrude and Nusli first lived at 14 Gloucester Square near Hyde Park. By 1934 they had moved to Flat 21, 11 Portland Place. Gertrude called herself Lady Whaddia, which seems to be an honorary Indian title that Nusli did not use. Several later newspaper stories call her a film actress, but we have not been able to substantiate this.
The marriage was not successful, and they separated in 1937, with Nusli staying at Glyn House 43 Burgh Heath Road in Epsom. Gertrude moved to 15 Westbourne Grove where in the 1939 register she was shown with her brother Walter Charles Bodycoat who was working as a hairdresser.
Gertrude’s life after her marriage failed
After the separation Whaddia originally allowed Gertrude £1,000 a year, which was later reduced to £684. Gertrude said she had also been promised a lump sum of £50,000 but this never materialized. Reluctant to give up her luxurious lifestyle, eating in expensive restaurants and going to gambling clubs like Crockfords with her rich friends, Gertrude soon ran into financial difficulties.
On the night of 17 March 1939, three masked men turned up at the Westbourne Grove flat. After the maid let them in, they forced their way into Gertrude’s bedroom and after hitting her, stole jewelry worth £1,480. In May the men were found guilty and sentenced to three and five years, while the driver received 18 months. The men claimed it was a fake robbery to allow Gertrude to claim the insurance money, but as there was no evidence this was the case, their story was not believed.
Gertrude on the right, with her maid on the way to court (1939)
Bankruptcy
By August 1942, Gertrude was bankrupt. Her address was given as 28 Alford House, Park Lane. Newspaper reports said that while she was married to Nusli, the couple spent £30,000 to £40,000 a year. At Bow Street court she was sentenced to imprisonment for bankruptcy offences, but probably won her appeal against jail. Fifteen years later her debts were paid in full, and she was discharged from bankruptcy on 15 February 1957.
There is an amusing story about Gertrude in The People newspaper in May 1966. She had ordered a packet of porridge from Fortnum and Mason in Piccadilly and a uniformed messenger promptly delivered the 1s 4d packet to her home. Left in a cupboard, the next day maggots emerged, crawling over her kitchen, which had to be fumigated by Westminster Council. Gertrude sent a £100 bill to Fortnum and Mason who denied direct responsibility, saying they had bought the packet from another shop. Lady Whaddia said she spent about a thousand pounds a year with Fortum and Mason and we believe they settled the bill privately.
Gertrude died on 22 August 1978 and was buried in the family grave. Her address was given as Flat 15 Georgian House, 10 Bury Street, St James SW1, and she left £10,832.
Whaddia’s life after Gertrude
Nusli Whaddia led an eventful life in Epsom after the separation. He hired a young 17-year-old Welsh girl called Phyllis Britton as a parlour maid. In August 1937 she stopped being a parlour maid and became a ‘guest’ of Mr Whaddia with a maid of her own. But she also became engaged to Alexander (Alex) Powell, a young miner in her hometown of Blaina Monmouthshire. She went home in Christmas 1938 and was due to marry Alex the following January. But she failed to turn up for the wedding instead returning to Epsom with her 15-year-old maid, Olga Bailey. Alex said that he had been offered £10,000 from Whaddia to break off the engagement. He received the cheque but had destroyed it.
Hearing about the aborted marriage Nusli returned to England from overseas. In January 1939 the press covered the story of the ‘runaway bride’. Phyllis gave her version of the story to The Daily Express, making it sound as if Mr Whaddia had merely offered her interim shelter when she told him she had cold feet about marrying Alex Powell, who, upon being jilted, joined the Army. During the press interview she said that Mr Whaddia was the most wonderful man she had ever known.
On 23 September 1939 Phyllis gave birth to a son called Ardesir Whaddia. On 20 November 1939 she changed her name by deed poll to Phyllis May Whaddia. A second child, Norman Nusli Whaddia, was born in early 1944.
In 1943 Henry Victor George Newell, a soldier, was billeted at Glyn House. One day Whaddia heard him talking to Phyllis in endearing terms, he reported him to his Commanding Officer and Newell was posted overseas. He returned, and in April 1944 Phyllis secretly married Newell.
On the morning of 12 January 1949 Whaddia took a cup of tea to Phyllis and found her dead in bed. It was determined that she had died of acute heart failure, aged just 28.
Phyllis Dixey
In 1960 Nusli was living at ‘The Retreat’, 45 Downswood Epsom Downs. He clearly liked actresses and showgirls and now another Phyllis enters the story. She was Phyllis Dixey, the famous burlesque dancer, known as the ‘One and Only Phyllis Dixey’. She worked as an actress in the 1930s, and then in 1939 she and her husband Jack Tracy devised a fan dance routine. This became a sensation during the War, and books of nude photographs such as ‘Phyllis in Censorland’, became best sellers. In the 1950s she performed in Paul Raymond shows.
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1955 Poster (Wikipedia)
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Phyllis Dixey (Getty Images)
She last appeared in 1958, and went bankrupt the following year with debts of £1,312 and assets of only £4. Phyllis told the Brighton tax court humorously, ‘she had stopped taking it off and become a hotel cook instead so that she wouldn’t be stripped of everything again by the tax man’.
Phyllis and Jack eventually went to live and work for Major James Molyneux and his family at Loseley Park near Guildford. The country house estate became famous for its milk, cream and ice cream. Jack delivered milk around Guildford. Phyllis was employed to cook lunch for the family but often helped Jack out with his round. She had every Thursday afternoon off and went to visit her godfather ‘Uncle Norman’, to take him to his weekly séance. This was actually Nusli Whaddia.
It had been Uncle Norman who had paid for Phyllis’s first dance classes in the West End when she was young. They had remained very close, and it was Uncle Norman, now in his 80’s, who invited Phyllis to move in with him, but without Jack, on the pretence of needing someone to look after him. Short of money, Phyllis and Jack decided that it would be for the best and so on 26 November 1960, Phyllis moved to ‘The Retreat’ with Whaddia.
But in March 1961 she was diagnosed with cancer. Jack stayed in close contact with Phyllis, meeting her in a café in Kingston, during her battle with the cancer that eventually spread throughout her body. She died on 2 June 1964, at the age of 50 years old.
Seven years later, Nusli Whaddia died at ‘The Retreat’ on 17 October 1971.
In 1978 Thames Television produced a drama documentary on the life on Phyllis Dixey. She was memorably played by Lesley Anne-Down.
When we started the research, we could not have guessed the amazing story that lay behind the people buried in the Paddington grave.
Here is a Pathe Film clip of Phyllis Dixey in 1944 at the height of her fame.
Sources:
Linda Jackson has a very well-researched article about Whaddia on the Epsom and Ewell History site here.
On the same site there is an excellent article about Phyllis Dixey by Hazel Ballan.
Richard James looks at chess and the life of Boyder Walter Charles Strange Bodycoat.
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