Debes Davies, Rachel

Rachel (Rachael) Debes Davies

Born July 12, 1869 to William Simpson Holden and Sarah Hane Ruchardson in Bolton, Lancashire and died on April 29, 1939 in Winchester, Hampshire. She married Thomas Harold Davies in 1902. They had two children: Rachael Jeanette “Netta” Debes Davies (1905-1984) and Denis Richardson Debes Davies (1907-2000).

Rachael “Netta”, married Maurice William Claye (1904-1986) in Stockport, Cheshire. Rachael and Maurice had two children, Jean R. Claye(b.1941) and Timothy JN Claye (b. 1946). Denis Richardson Debes Davies married Lesley Kathleen Kemmis-Betty (1904-1977). They had six children, Sheila R, Diana, Alan N, Kathleen M., John R., and Rosemary.

Wellcome purchased a set of gold weights (copper alloy weights to measure gold from Akan-speaking West Africa) from Rachel Debes-Davies in 1929. Fowler Museum Curatorial and Research Associate, Gassia Armenian, corresponded with her grandson, Alan Debes (from email with Mr. Alan Debes April 18, 2019)

In his correspondence with Armenian , Mr. Debes indicates that Rachael Davies, his paternal grandmother, “used the hyphenated surname Debes-Davies when it suited her.” She was married to Reverend Thomas Harold Davies, known as Debes in 1918, just after World War I. Mrs. Debes-Davies was the second wife of the Reverend, whose first wife had died during childbirth leaving him with a three-year-old daughter and a newborn son. Rachel, who dropped the “a” from her name, took excellent care of these two children. In time, they had two children, Rachael Jeanette Debes Davies (1905-1984) known as “Netta” and Denis Richardson Debes Davies (1907-2000).

According to Alan Debes, Denis’s son, Denis studied at Queen’s College, Oxford and received a degree in Chemistry, “having never had a Chemistry lesson in his life!” Netta went to school, as well. Her best friend was Lesley Kemmis Betty, who spent many vacations at the Rectory with the Debes-Davies family. Everyone was hoping that Denis and Lesley would marry, soon. Their hope came true and in April 1932, Denis and Lesley married. By that time Denis was promoted to the position of Manager in the Imperial Chemical Industries and he had adopted the family name of just Debes. The couple had six children, Sheila R., Diana L., Alan N. and Kathleen M (Alan and Kathleen were twins) John R. and Rosemary (John and Rosemary were twins).

To link the Debes-Davies family tree to the gold weights, it is important to take a step back and review the family tree of Lesley Kemmis Betty (Alan’s mother, Rachel’s daughter-in-law). Lesley was the daughter of William Rowland Kemmis Betty and Alice Melvill. Alice was born in The Cape, South Africa and brought up in a large family, in Johannesburg. There she met William, who had arrived from London as an orphan. They married in 1894 and had three children. One of them was Lesley, Alan’s mother. William was a self-taught mineralogist in the gold, copper and diamond mines of Johannesburg. The Kemmis Betty family returned to England in 1911 bringing with them money, jewels, Ashanti stools, Ashanti gold weights and other collectable items. William and Alice gifted the Ashanti gold weights to Reverend and Mrs. Rachael (by this time she had reverted to her name with an added “a”) Davies for their hospitality to Lesley during the school holidays. According to Alan Debes, Rachael, his paternal grandmother, “was not especially fond of them and needed the money.” At the same time, Mr. Debes remembers very well a pair of Ashanti stools “carved out of a single block of hardwood” in their home.

In her letters to Wellcome, Rachel mentions “my brother in law has left me for disposal about 400 brass gold ashanti weights” (letter dated February 20, 1929, Wellcome archives WA/HMM/CO/Chr/F.1:Box114)—this use of brother-in-law is quite confusing, as Kemmis Betty was Rachel’s son’s wife’s father (or said another way, Kemmis Betty was the father of Rachel’s daughter-in-law), but one can only assume that given the letter’s short length, Rachel was using this shorthand to easily refer to the complicated familial ties. According to the email exchange with Alan, Rachel received the weights from William and Alice Kemmis Betty as a thank you for caring for their daughter, Lesley Kemmis Betty, during school holidays. According to Alan Debes, Rachel, “was not especially fond of them and needed the money,” and she offered them for sale to Wellcome in 1929.

Wellcome Collection References:

WA/HMM/CO/Chr/F.1:Box 114