Gabby Germain (gabby_germain @t ymail.com) of Perth, Western Australia writes: I am very interested in any photos or information about the Vaisey family - Arthur William and wife Esther Vaisey and their children. I believe Arthur was a practising solicitor around the 1880's in Tring. I am interested in this family as I found a photo album in an antique shop here in Perth with at least 100 original photos. To preserve the photos, I have photographed them and notice names written on the back of some of the photos. I would like to know more about them and perhaps meet some living relatives. I am trying to find some information on how this album ended up here in Perth?

The name Vaisey appears as the name of a solicitor in Tring for 100 years and for this reason, working with member of the Tring and District Local History and Museum Society and others it has been decided to document the family in some detail.

 (V or V means buried or remembered in Tring Cemetery)

Alfred William Vaisey

Arthur William Vaisey (1851-1939 V) was the son of  Thomas & Emma Vaisey and was born at Stratton, Gloucestershire. He studied law and married 22 year old Esther Bevir (1850-1925 V), daughter of William Laurence Bevir (a solicitor) at Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire in 1876. As a recently qualified solicitor he was looking for a suitable practice and moved to Tring, where the towns respected lawyer, John Shugar, had recently died. They had 2 sons and seven daughters, all born in Tring.   The 1878 Hertfordshire directory records  "Shugar, Vaisey and Vorse, solicitors, High Street, Tring" with Arthur living at 4 Park Street. By 1882 he had built a house, Holly Field, in the fashionable Grove area of Tring. He had an office in the High Street, and the 1890 directory describes him as "solicitor & commissioner for taking oaths & clerk to the local board & vestry clerk".

By 1912 he had taken his son Roland on as a partner and the directory entry reads "Vaisey Arthur William, solicitor & commissioner for taking oaths (firm A W Vaisey & Son), clerk to the Urban District Council, vestry clerk & clerk to the Guardians of Berkhamsted Union, to Berkhamsted District Council & to the Tring Urban Local Education Sub-committee, Western Road & 207 High Street, Great Berkhamsted." By 1922 he had another partner and the entry read "Vaisey Arthur William, solicitor & commissioner for taking oaths (firm A W Vaisey & Turner), clerk to the Tring Urban District Council, vestry clerk & clerk to the Berkhamsted Guardians & Rural District Council District Council & to the Tring Urban Local Education Sub-committee, Western Road & 213 High Street, Berkhamsted.

His wife Ester died in 1925 and he died in 1939 and was buried in Tring Cemetery.

Arthur's Children

Harry Bevir Vaisey  (1877-1965 V) married 1903 Eleonora, the daughter of the Rev William Quennell, who had been vicar of Tring between 1881 and 1892. He studied law and became a High Court Judge, was knighted in 1944 and among other activities was chairman of the Herts Quarter Sessions between 1944 and 1958. He was buried in Tring Cemetery. He had two children. Juliana Margaret Vaisey (1904-1958 V) and Arthur William Vaisey (1905-1998). A biography (a picture) is included in Further Tring Personalities, he is listed in Who Was Who and there is a Wikipedia page.

Roland Maddison Vaisey (1887-1918 V) and also studied law. He married in 1911 and went into partnership with his father as A. W. Vaisey and Son. He married Violet Landon (1885-1980 V) in 1911 and he became a Captain in the Royal Field Artillery during the First World War, being killed in France in 1918. His widow continued to live in The Bungalow, Miswell Lane, Tring. They had three children Aileen Vaisey (1912-1945 V), Elizabeth Vaisey (1914 - who probably married Rowland E Hill in 1939) and John R M Vaisey (1916-1941 V).

Violet Vaisey was born in 1880 and married John Brook Scrivenor at Tring in 1907. They had children Thomas Vaisey Scrivenor (1908-1998) and Phebe Scrivenor (1910), both born at Batu Gajah, Malay States.  In 1953 Thomas Vaisey Scrivenor became Deputy High Commissioner for the three South African territories, Bechuanaland, Basutoland and Swaziland. He was knighted in 1960 and a detailed obituary was published in The Times of 20th January, 1999.

May Vaisey was born in 1885 and  married Daniel Frederic Slemeck at Tring in 1913. He was a curate at Tring and after the marriage became the Vicar at Aldershot. Their children were Daniel Christopher (1915-1977), Margaret (1916), Arthur G (1917), Roland H (1920) and Mary (1925). Daniel Christopher Slemeck studied law and joined the practice of Vaisey & Turner at Tring. He became a 2nd Lieutenant in the Hertfordshire Regiment in 1939 and after the war was made an honorary Major. I am not certain when he joined the practice - but he was the solicitor I used when buying a house in Tring in 1964.

Iris Vaisey was born in 1892 and married Allan McVie at Tring in 1921. I have not traced any children.

The other four daughters all reached adulthood but never married. They were Margaret (1878-1953 V), Lilian (1881-1973 V), Veronica (1883-1962 V) and Olive (1889-1982 V).

See The Gravestones, Vaisey, Tring

If you can add to the information given above tell me.