Robert James Edmund Boggis , Rev

From "I Remember - Reminiscences of an octogenarian," written in 1947:

"What a contrast is revealed as I look back over the long period of three quarters of a century or more. Just fancy what life must have been like without cars and underground and with very few omnibuses and bicycles; without telephones and wireless; without cinemas and pageants; without typewriter and copying machines; whe no one smoked in public places, or ventured out with head uncovered; when short skirts and female trousers and painted lips were unknown; when almost every body attended church, and Sunday was observed with puritanical strictures - no work, no play, no worldly enjoyment; when 'OK' and Cheerio!' and 'So Long!' had not been invented - when there was no queueing, and we were not troubled by any thought of war;............"

"Sorry indeed was I to leave St Augustine's after my twelve years tenure of office............ But - to put it baldly - I had to leave, for I fell, and a lady was the cause thereof...... I had to make my choice between my beloved College and Miss Caroline Emily Skinner; and so potent were the virtues and charms of the latter that I tore myself away from the former, unwillingly indeed, but fully convinced both then and ever since that I made a wise choice....." (The College had a rule that any staff who married must leave).

This book is a very attractive read, well written and with a huge amount of information about life in Devonshire and the other places he knew. Strangely, there is almost nothing in it about his family, not even the names of his children or a note of their year and place of birth.


Effie Ray-Jones (nee Pearce):

"The Boggis family had a copy of the Skinner pedigree, which was exhibited one year in an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum" (NB: I asked the Museum about this and they made (they said) an extensive search of their records and found no mention of a Skinner pedigree. I have also been unable to contact any living member of the Boggis family to ask them about it (Alan Ray-Jones)