Lady Eleanor Margaret Barry - Expired Suddenly in a Train

Monument to Eleanor Margaret Barry, Bray Parish cemetery, Holyport Berkshire.


"In the memory of Eleanor Margaret dearly loved wife of Sir Edward Barry. B. 11th February 1916."


Eleanor Margaret Barry was born Eleanor Margaret Scott in 1866 in India to Colonel Courtenay Harvey Saltron Scott and his wife Margaret Julia Colquhoun.  She was the elder sister of Adelaide Louisa Flowerdew Lowson.

The earliest record of  Eleanor in the United Kingdom is the 1881 Census, where Eleanor is living with her parents and siblings at 17 Eccleston Square in Westmister area of London.

On 10th February 1891 married Sir Edward Albert Barry, second Baronet of st Leonard's Hill and Keiss Castle. In 1893 their first child Cicely Eleanor Barry was born

In 1901 Eleanor can be found on the census living at Ockwells Manor in Bray Berkshire with her children Margaret Colquhoun and Edward Courtenay Tress.  Unfortunately I am unable to locate either Cicely or Edward Albert on the 1901 Census.

In 1911 Edward and Cecily are back in the family home along with Rosamunde who was born in 1901.

Sadly Eleanor was to pass away suddenly on 11th February 1916.  The Slough, Eton and Windsor Observer reported on the 19th February 1916,

"WINDSOR.  Death of Lady Barry. Expires suddenly in a train.

We regret to record the death of Lady Barry, wife of Sir Edward Barry. Bart, of Ockwells Manor, near Windsor, which occurred with painful sadness whilst travelling on the Great Eastern Railway between King's Lynn and London, on Friday afternoon, 11th February.  Sir Edward, who had retired from the Royal Berks Yeomanry Regiment with the rank of Lieut-Colonel, took a temporary commission as Major or second-in-command on the outbreak of the war, and he has recently been quartered at King;s Lynn with the 2/1st Regiment of the Berks Yeomanry, together with his son Lieut Courtenay Barry

In celebration of their silver wedding anniversary on Wednesday in last week, Lady Barry travelled to Lynn to spend a few days with her husband and son, and was returning with Sir Edward when she had a fatal seizure, the rupture of a large blood vessel internally causing failure of the heart's action and almost instant death.  On arrival and Liverpool-street terminus, the railway officials lent every assistance, a doctor being summoned and the body conveyed to the mortuary in close proximity.

The inquest held by the Deputy-Coroner for the City on Monday, when the evidence of identification was given by Sir Edward Barry, and the medical testimony showed that her deceased Ladyship passed away practically without pain and instantaneously.

The jury returned a verdict of Death by Natural Causes."



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