Lillian Newnham, the daughter of William Essex Newnham and Margaret Gill, was born in Guisborough, Yorkshire in 1879. Her parents had only moved to Yorkshire from Woolwich, London a few years before her birth and the rest of the Newnham and Gill families - apart from her mother's brother Edward who came north with them - remained in London.Census records show Lillian living in the Guisborough area with her family in 1881 and 1891 but after that no trace can be found of her in census, marriage or death records and she effectively disappears.
Except she doesn't. For in the belongings inherited from her nieces - my great aunts - she is ever present.
There are photos of a slightly austere but stylish woman in the 1920s, gorgeous Raphael Tuck Oilette post cards sent to her nieces in the 1930s and beautifully inscribed books given to her nieces and nephews as birthday and Christmas presents.
