The Ricardos of Ray Mead Cottage

All Saint's Cemetery
Maidenhead, Berkshire, UK.

 

"In 

Loving Memory 

of

Albert Ricardo

of Ray Mead Maidenhead

Dec 23 1908.

And

Charlotte Frances Ricardo

'Daisy'

his wife

Sep 20 1906."

Albert Ricardo was born in Lambeth, London in 1820 to parents Jacob James Ricardo, a member of the London Stock Exchange, and Harriet Levy. Albert was a keen sportsman who played cricket and was a member for the I Zingari team and the Marylebone Cricket Club. He was also a steeplechase rider who went on to win the Cambridgeshire Stakes in 1847 on a horse named The Widow. Albert also enjoyed amateur dramatics and co-founded a society called The Windsor Strollers. Albert was an avid hunter and kept a pack of hunting beagles called the Ray Mead Pack for hunting hares.

Charlotte Frances Ricardo was born Charlotte Frances Tyrwhitt in Bridgnorth, Shropshire in 1828 to parents Sir Thomas John Tyrwhitte Jones, 2nd Baronet of Stanley Hall and a member of the British Parliament, and Eliza Walwyn Macnamara.

Albert is first found on the 1841 Census living at 5 Upper Eccleston Street, St George Hanover Square, London with his widowed mother Harriet and his siblings. On 6th of August 1850 Albert Ricardo married Charlotte Frances Tyrwhitt in St Goerge Hanover Square, London.

1851 finds the newlywed couple living at 3 Charles Street, Chelsea, London, where Albert is listed as a Merchant and Foreign Stock Dealer. Working for the family are Mary Ann Deighton a cook, Lousia Basaillae a lady's maid, Sarah Woods a housemaid, and Thomas Frys the butler.

In 1861 Albert and Charlotte are visitors at the home of Lady Eliza Webster, a fundholder, at Granard House, Putney Park Lane, Surrey. On the 30th December 1861 they celebrated the birth of their son Charles Tyrwhitt Ricardo.

The next record found in the 1881 Census. Albert and Charlotte have moved to Ray Mead Cottage in Maidenhead, Berkshire. Albert owned Ray Mead Cottage for his entire life. Living with them are their domestic servants, Charles Road, Annie Jones, Eliza Creed, and Emma Silvery.  Charles Ricard is away from home studying at The Royal Agricultural College, The School of Business and Entrepreneurship in Cirencester, Gloucestershire.

Albert and Charlotte Ricardo
at the doors of Ray Mead
Cottage.

In 1890 Charlotte Ricardo was involved in a carriage accident near the Red Lion Pub in Maidenhead. The Reading Mercury reports:

"ACCIDENT - On Tuesday afternoon, in endeavouring to avoid a collision whilst passing a van near the "Red Lion," the wheel of a light carriage driven by Mrs. Ricardo, of Ray Mead, came in contact with the kerb and overturned the carriage. Fortunately, Mrs. Ricardo retained possession of the reins, and the pony did not bolt. Assistance was rendered by P.C. Boulter and Mr, Simpson, but beyond being bruised and shaken Mrs. Ricardo was not injured." - Reading Mercury 1890 

The family including Charles remained at Ray Mead Cottage until Albert's death. Charlotte Frances Ricardo was to pass away on 20th September 1906 her obituary in the Slough, Eton, and Windsor Observer, read as follows:

"We very much regret to have to record the death of Mrs. Ricardo, wife of Mr Albert Ricard J.P., which occurred at her residence opposite Boulter's Lock on Thursday in last week, after a brief illness. Mrs. Ricardo was 72 years of age. She was a lady widely-known and universally esteemed, and her familiar figure and cheery voice will be greatly missed by frequenters of Boulter's Lock. By her death the Maidenhead Cottage Hospital, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, and other charitable and deserving causes lose and active and generous supporter, and her death will be heard on every hand with much regret. Mrs. Ricardo was one of those kindly, sympathetic, generous ladies a community can ill afford to lose, and Maidenhead will be poorer by her demise. Funeral to place at the cemetery on Monday last." - Slough, Eton, and Windsor Observer. 26th September 1906.

Albert was to follow Charlotte on the 23rd of December 1908. His obituary in the Australian Star for Sydney and NSW reads as follows:

"Mr. Albert Ricardo, of Raymead, Maidenhead, opposite Boulter’s Lock, died last month. Mr. Ricardo, who was 89 years of age, had been in ill-health for some years. Born in 1820, he spent the early years of his life in Paris. He was keenly interested in racing in France, and rode in the first steeplechase ever held in that country. Afterwards he raced in the old country, and in 1847 won the Cambridgeshire with The Widow.

A keen cricketer, Mr. Ricardo was an original member of the I. Zingari, which started as a dramatic as well as a cricket club, the members often associating private theatricals with the matches which they played all over the country. Mr. Ricardo captained the Zingaris for twenty years in their annual match on the last day of Ascot Week against the Household Brigade, at Windsor, and he played frequently with the old and famous Maidenhead Cricket Club, in which he always showed consistent form, both as a batsman and in the field. He was also a member of the Windsor Strollers, and for many years acted with them in their autumn plays in Windsor. In the ‘fifties and ‘sixties Mr. Ricardo and his wife—who was a daughter of Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt—entertained a great deal in their Maidenhead residence.
From his earliest days Mr. Ricardo had been extremely fond of the river, and only eight or ten years ago took a morning plunge in the Boulter’s weir, however cold the water might be. Indeed he gave up his morning swim only when latterly his infirmities compelled him.

As showing the change that has come over the River Thames, the “South Bucks Free Press” recalls that on a summer Sunday many years ago Mr. Ricardo was the only man out boating who took his skiff round to the lock. A man stopped him, and indignantly asked him whether he knew what day it was, telling him in very plain language his opinion of a person who used the river on Sunday. Where one boat was out on the river in those days thousands now pass through Boulter’s Lock in a season." - Australian Star 20th February 1909.

Charles Tyrwhitt Ricardo moved away from Maidenhead after the death of his parents. In 1911 he can be found living in a house names Ray Mead in Bembridge, Isle of Wight. He later renamed the home Catlands. Charles was to pass away in the Isle of Wight on 5th of January 1941.

For more information and photographs on Albert and Charlotte's life, please visit The Ricardo Album.