Miss Mary Bragg
(1854-1942)
March 1863

Volume 10, page 139, sitting number 12,923.

[The sitter is only identified as 'Miss Bragg' in the Silvy daybooks. She was accompanied to the studio by her mother, whose portrait is the next entry in the Silvy daybooks. Although she is only identified as ‘Mrs Bragg,’ she had sat for Silvy previously (sitting number 12,760), on which occasion she was identified more fully as ‘Mrs John Bragg.’]

‘John Bragg, Esq., of Porchester Gardens, Bayswater, [married] Eleanor Robinson, youngest daughter of the Rev. R. Otway Wilson, B.D., incumbent of St Paul’s, Poole’ on 5 August 1852 at the parish church of Swanage, Dorset (Carlisle Journal, 13 August 1852).

Their only child Mary Elizabeth Bragg was born on 10 October 1854 at 1 Porchester Gardens, Bayswater (Morning Post, 13 October 1854).

The family appear on the 1861 census living at 1 Porchester Gardens with three servants. John Bragg gave ‘Broker’ as his profession.

John Bragg, ‘late of the Stock Exchange,’ died ‘very peacefully’ on 20 October 1868 ‘at his residence, 1 Porchester Gardens, Bayswater’ (Illustrated London News, 7 November 1868). He was 72 years old. His estate was valued at £30,000.

In 1871 Mary and her mother Eleanor were living at 14 Howley Place, Paddington. The household included a cook and a housemaid.

On 21 June 1877 at St James’s in Paddington Mary Elizabeth Bragg married Percival Bowen, son of Reverend Percival Bowen.

In 1881 the couple were living at Milton Lodge in the Shropshire village of Stoke St Milborough with their children Mildred (2), Aubrey (1) and Leila (4 months). Also present were Percival’s widowed mother and four live-in servants, with more in nearby buildings. Percival gave ‘Gentleman Farmer 56 acres’ as his profession. Another three children were born later.

Percival Bowen died, aged 60, at Milton Lodge on 15 September 1900. He left an estate valued at £5871.

In 1911 Mary Bowen was a widow living with her daughters Mildred and Leila and three servants at Burwash in Sussex.

Mary Elizabeth Bowen ‘of Youngs Garden Burwash Sussex, widow, died [on] 2 November 1942 at 71 Egerton Road, Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex.’ She left an estate valued at £7770. She was 88 years old.

[The dog seen here on the chair in this portrait is a stuffed prop that belonged to the studio. It appears in dozens of other Silvy portraits, always in exactly the same position.]