Louisa and Arthur Benjamin Rickards were born in Stretford, Lancashire in July, 1856 and were both baptized there on the 7th August.
They were youngest of the four surviving children of William Henry Rickards and Ellen (née Royle). Their mother died when they were just four-years-old.
Both the twins marriages ended in divorce during 1890's. The story of Louisa's rancourous split from her husband Henry Worrall was recently retold on these pages; what follows concerns the other twin, Arthur Benjamin.
Arthur Benjamin Rickards studied law and qualified as a solicitor after a brief flirtation with a military career. In November, 1880 he married Jane Elizabeth Funnell in Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester and shortly after moved to the London area to further his legal career, settling first at 3, Disraeli Villa, Disraeli Road, Putney and later at Castelnau Villas, Bridge Road, Barnes, Richmond-upon-Thames. In 1893 he moved again to Sunbury-on-Thames and made acquaintance with Mr. Henry James Moseley.
At some point thereafter Mrs. Rickards began an extra-marital affair with Mr. Mosely. The adulterous couple eloped, travelling to the United States on the German-Lloyd steamer “Spree”. On her return to England his wife claimed that she and Mr. Mosely had travelled as “brother and sister”. Arthur Benjamin was not satisfied, however, and after pursuing his own enquires he petitioned for a divorce citing Mr. Mosely as a co-respondent.
The case was undefended and on the 28th October, 1896 was brought before the same judge, Sir Francis Jeune, who had heard his sister’s first hearing. The damning piece of evidence submitted was a receipt from the Commercial Hotel in San Francisco
which indicated that the eloping pair had shared a room. That proved sufficient for the judge to grant Arthur Benjamin a decree nisi with costs awarded against the co-respondent in absentia. It was reported that Mrs. Rickards and Mr. Moseley had left for South Africa.
In the years following his divorce Arthur Benjamin’s legal career continued to prosper and he began to represent a number of clients in the entertainment field. (1) It was in mixing in these circles that he met his second wife, an actress, Kate Florence Davis who he married in the St. Giles district of London in the December quarter of 1899. In the 1901 census Arthur Benjamin and his new wife were recorded as living at 35, Rosendale Road, Lambeth, London.
A decade later they were at 13A, Ravenstone Street, Wandsworth, London, where Arthur Benjamin died in the September quarter of 1919. His widow outlived him for more than 40 years before she passed away on the 24th August, 1962 at the Mount Vernon Hospital, Northwood, Middlesex. At the time of her death, Kate Florence was living at 41, The Chase, Eastcote, Pinner, Middlesex.
Some of Kate Florence Rickards/Davis’s early life was revealed when, aged 83, she was called a witness in a sensational case in the High Court on the 1st February, 1951. She gave evidence for a mammoth 6 hours asserting that her friend and fellow actress Evelyn Lyster (alias Eva Raines) had married Mr. George Charles Wentworth Fitzwilliam in Scotland while she was appearing in Glasgow in the “Beggar Student” during late September, 1886
The case was to decide the legitimacy or otherwise of Mr. George James Charles (Toby) Wentworth Fitzwilliam and his claim to be the heir presumptive of the Earldom of Fitzwilliam.
Pictures; Commercial Hotel, from Tony Goulding, "The Beggar Student" 1913, picture from U S Library of Congress ID ggbain 12775 by Bains News Service 1st January, 1913 in the Public Domain, Wentworth Woodhouse by Andrewrabbot, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license
Notes:
1) One of Arthur Benjamin’s clients was Mr. Fred Storey a well-known Music Hall comedian of the time. As the solicitor for The Music Hall Artistes Alliance he appeared in his defence at Clerkenwell Police Court on Tuesday 29th January, 1907, on a charge of disorderly behaviour, arising from an incident on the picket-line outside The Islington Empire the previous evening during The Music Hall Strike of that year.
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