Dolly Bond

This neat, serious and organised-looking young woman was identified in the 1970s Courier reprint of the group photograph as Dolly Bond. The surname Bond is associated with Southam due to Seth Bond, the renowned Charge of the Light Brigade soldier but finding more about this Miss Bond has proved tricky.

   The Red Lion landlord Harry and his wife Elizabeth had a daughter born 1899 and she was baptised Maud Lavinia.  Whether that eloquent pair of Christian names caused her to be called Dolly we did not know until the wedding of Maud Bond at Southam Parish Church was found reported in the Leamington Courier 2 May 1930 and her name ‘Dolly’ mentioned.[1]

   Dolly married Harold Rolph Cade (Rolph appears to be a family name), son of a well-established Lincolnshire farmer. The Cades lived in a big farm house where there was a housekeeper, and a ‘monthly nurse’ was appointed when a new baby arrived in the large family.  Harold was born in 1903 (four years later than Dolly) and as Private Cade he served in the Lincolnshire Regiment (25518) during WWI.

   At the time of their marriage Harold was working as a farm bailiff at Cold Hanworth, a village north of Lincoln. Later the couple lived in Meridan in North Warwickshire where Harold worked as a farm carter.

   The search for information about the Southam VADs is ongoing and we would be pleased to hear from anyone who can give more information about not only about Dolly Bond and her husband Harold Cade, but of others who as yet we may not have identified.  There were at least fifty VADs who were photographed together in 1917 (see Daisy Chamberlayne’s page).

[1] Research by Linda Doyle