A Bideford wedding and a teapot
In January 2023 a beautiful, early 20th-century, silver spirit teapot arrived at The Burton. Having left Bideford in the early 1920s, the teapot travelled on many adventures around the globe, finally arriving back in Bideford nearly 100 years later.
The history of the Rudd family
The Rudd family were Torrington born and bred. In 1891 they lived at no. 10 New Street. Both parents worked in the gloving industry. Bertie Rudd, Jeannette’s father, was a Manager at a glove factory, and Lucy Ada (his wife) was at home with their first child, Arthur. By 1901 Bertie was manufacturing silk gloves and Lucy Ada was now the glove manufacturer and employer.
By the time Jeannette was married, her mother had two glove-making factories in Bideford and Torrington and was supporting her family on her own. Jeanette was no stranger to travel from a very early age as she was born in New York. Bertie and Lucy had travelled there to explore starting up a glove factory, but it was not to be, and they came home. Jeannette was a pupil of Miss Doidge of Torrington until she passed the Preparatory Division of the Trinity College examinations at Edgehill College, Bideford. She later went on to train in London as a Physical Education teacher.
Women in business
L.A. Rudd Bideford Ltd and L.A. Rudd Ltd were owned and run by Lucy Ada Rudd, Jeannette’s mother. During the early 1900s, there were numerous glove manufacturers in Bideford, including Mr J. Jacksons’ glove factory (1908), W.E. Gillards, which made leather and then fabric gloves on The Strand, and F.A. Sudbury’s on Silver Street, which was sold in 1937.
Though it is not unusual for women of this period to be business owners, Lucy Rudd owned two successful glove-making enterprises.
The teapot’s journey back to Bideford
After their wedding, the couple moved to Yorkshire – where Edmund had grown up – taking their teapot with them, and they started a garage/mechanical business. In 1927 the opportunity arose for Edmund and his brother-in-law to move to Kenya and set up a farm. After the pair had bought some land, Jeannette and her sister Kathleen sailed to Kenya to join them, accompanied by their father-in-law, Dr Bedford Pierce.
By 1931, after a lot of hard work, they established a farm and homestead and the kettle was finally sent for – to join them in their new home. Jeannette and Edmund settled in Thomson’s Falls and were pioneers of pyrethrum growing, the flowers of which were used as a pesticide. Jeannette returned to the UK in 1964 bringing the teapot with her. In 1988, almost ten years after Jeannette’s death, her granddaughter Claire took the kettle with her to Australia – where she now lives.
The family felt that the teapot should return home to where its journey began. It travelled over 10,000 miles to England, returning to Bideford earlier this year.
Author: Nicole Hickin