May Lilian Bond was born in 1906 in London, England. She was my grand-father’s (Leslie William
Bond’s) younger sister. May grew up in a
middle cla
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| Catford Tram |
May grew up in Catford, a district in south east London. It had been a suburb of London since the
mid-1800s.
In 1857 the mid-Kent railway line was constructed and the stop at
Catford bridge (so na
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| 89 Wellmeadow Road, Catford |
In 1911, the Bond family lived in a comfortable home on the aptly
named Wellmeadow Road in Catford. The
household had a live-in servant, common for the middle classes of the day, and
May attended school along with her brother Leslie.
Some time later, the family moved to Lewisham, a short trip from
Catford and another suburb of the bustling city of London.
May’s brother Leslie found a position as a clerk with Barclay’s
Bank and he was soon transferred to their new office in Genoa, Italy. Leslie’s parents and younger sister took a
European trip to see Leslie in 1925, leaving Southampton for Marseilles in May
and making their way to Genoa, returning to England a month later.
For a young woman, still unmarried and from a well to do family,
the chance for another trip to see her brother in Italy would have been too
good to pass up. She decided to venture
on her own in 1927, at the age of 21.
At this time the world was nine years past the worst global
pandemic since the Black Plague: the Spanish Flu. Public health had much improved and the
conditions that led to the spread of the Spanish Flu had disappeared with the
end of the war. Influenza commonly occurs
in the winter months. In the winter of 1926, a new
strain of flu was making the rounds in Europe, and by January 1927 had spread as far
as Egypt. The epidemic started with “dramatic suddenness” and the
strain was a virulent one, with Egypt reporting 38 dead of 171 people confirmed
to have contracted the virus. The worst
was yet to come in England.
By March, flu deaths in England were increasing in the larger
towns and cities, reaching 1,000 per week.
Complications leading to death were primarily respiratory in nature,
with many succumbing to pneumonia. The
Captain of the Woolwich Garrison, Captain R.R. Evans of the Royal Army Medical
Corps, studied the outbreak and described it this way:
The first case was admitted into
the Royal Herbert Hospital on December 16, and was quickly followed by many
more cases, evincing the fact that the disease had broken out in epidemic form… These first· cases were all characterized by suddenness of onset, severity of
symptoms and marked prostration; they had all been attacked only a matter of a
few hours before admission into hospital.
It seems that England took the brunt of this epidemic, and deaths
from that country were reported widely elsewhere. Nowhere else did
the death toll seem to climb as high, nor the outbreak last as long.
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| May's Death Certificate from Italy |
The lovely May Lilian Bond made her way to Italy to see her brother in
1927. Leslie adored May and no doubt
looked forward to the trip immensely.
While facts are unclear, family oral history tells us that sometime
during the visit, May contracted an influenza virus. Leslie was surprised at her sudden illness
and the rapid deterioration of her health.
This would be consistent with the strain making its way through England
and Europe that year. Leslie himself
recounted how he drove with his sister in the back seat through the busy streets of Genoa to the hospital,
fearing the worst for his sister whose health was failing so quickly.
May died in the arms of her loving brother on June 23, 1927 in
Genoa, Italy. The local administrative
office recorded the death of young May Lilian Bond, a well-off, unmarried
English woman, daughter of William and Lillian.
Leslie was bereft and even as he aged into his 90th year he
would recount the story of the harrowing journey through Genoa’s streets to try
in vain to save his sister.
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| I don't have a photo of May Lilian Bond. This photo has three generations of Bonds including May's immediate family: William Henry and Lillian, May's parents, Leslie, her brother, and Roy, who would have been her nephew had she survived. |
Sources:
Various
census reports
UK Foreign
and Overseas Registers of British Subjects
England and
Wales National Probate Calendar
Sunday
Times, Perth WA, January 16 1927
http://www.jstor.org/stable/4578178?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents Public Health Reports Vol.42 Feb 11, 1927,
No. 6 – Influenza in Foreign Countries
http://jramc.bmj.com/content/49/5/326.full.pdf+html
Report on the Influenza Epidemic Among the Troops of Woolwich Garrison During
the Winter 1926-27 by Captain RR Evans, Royal Army Medical Cops
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/3841310
The Argus, Melbourne Thursday March 3, 1927
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