Headmaster

VIVIAN GUY OUSLEY McLAUGHLIN, JP (1865-1917) was educated at Clifton College and Lincoln College, Oxford. In 1893 he married Edith Jane, always called Edie. She was the third child of William Martineau (1826-1915), a civil engineer, and his wife Margaretta Sarah, née Mason. Their fifth and last child won the Victoria Cross: although Horace Martineau (1874-1916) was so badly wounded that his arm had to be amputated, he rescued a corporal only nine meters from enemy trenches during the Boer War of 1899.

Edie (left) was born in Brazil, in 1866, six years after her father had built the 13 de Maio Park in the centre of Recife, the fourth-largest city in Brazil.

In the year following his daughter's birth, Martineau's dream child started to puff its way through Recife. Pictured below, it was the world's first steam locomotive specifically designed to run on city streets. Eight locomotives were built in Leeds for Martineau's Brazilian Street Railway Company. Recife's steam tramways were still running when World War I ended.

While studying at Oxford, Vivian evidently fell in with the wrong set, because he became bankrupt. In 1890 he was given a conditional discharge, but it did not become absolute until 1903. He was a schoolmaster with a house on Marlow Road, Maidenhead, Berkshire, close to Maidenhead College (which in 1993 merged with Claires Court Schools for girls) and closer still to Craufurd College (a science-oriented boarding school demolished in 1949 after serving as a mental hospital) but precisely where Vivian taught is not known. The house was named Brimfield, after the location of The Lydiates, his father's country seat.

Vivian also worked as a private secretary, according to the census of 1901, when he had three children and one on the way. The very next year he moved to Dulwich and set himself up as headmaster of Brightlands, a preparatory school sometimes confusingly called Brightlands College. The property (pictured on the right) was built, in the same street as Dulwich Picture Gallery, by Charles Barry Junior in French Second Empire style in 1862-1884. It was acquired by Dulwich College Preparatory School at the end of the second World War for use as a boarding house.   It is now a listed building.

Vivian moved Brightlands Preparatory School to Newnham-on-Severn, Gloucestershire, in 1908. It was in a large brick house, formerly called Riverdale, which had served as a girls school mainly devoted to teaching housewifery: for a charming account of the training click here. Brightlands fielded cricket, soccer and hockey teams, and boasted a full track and field program, although it had just three forms with only 19 boys in 1913. That year there were more than 100 pages in Vivian's annual publication Brightlands Chronicle, which detailed every match. Sometimes parents and old boys made up the numbers to play in local events. 

Brightlands remained a highly respected prep school until 1993 when it merged with St. John's-on-the-Hill, Chepstow. All of Vivian’s sons went to Brightlands, as did Stewart "Jack" Ritchie, grandfather of Guy Ritchie, my film director cousin. 

Vivian was given the additional Christian name Ouseley in honour of the Reverend Canon Sir Frederick Gore Ouseley, 2nd Baronet, MA DMus (1825-1889), Professor of Music at Oxford, who began composing at the age of three ─ Mozart began at four. At age six Ouseley played a piano duet with Mendelssohn.

It is likely he was chosen as Vivian's godfather. Ouseley was the founder and Warden of St. Michael's College for training choir near The Lydiates, the seat of Vivian's father, Major-General Edward McLaughlin. Ouseley was also Precentor of Hereford Cathedral where Vivian's grandfather, the Very Rev. Hubert McLaughlin, was a Prebendary.

In 1887 Edie's elder sister Eleanor Susan Martineau (1861-1952), also born in Brazil, was married to Lt. James Rawdon Stansfeld, Royal Artillery. They had two children, Leslie Rawdon, and Beryl Aldyth, who had a daughter Fredegonde (1923-1980) by the Marquis De Bucy (1864-1929), short for Sergius Mortimer Emmanuel Rouault De Longueville De Bucy, 11th Marquess of Bucy and Merval, Lord and Count of Longueville, 21st Lord of Gamaches, 17th Baron of Hericourt, 12th Marquess Roualt of Gamaches and Beauchamps and Viscount of Tilloy, 8th Count and 6th Marquess of Cayeu, a Spanish Grandee of the 1st Class, and an hereditary Papal Knight of the Golden Spur. A big game hunter, he served in the 12th Royal Lancers and became a Major in the SA Field Force during the Boer War. His wife Sybil Evangeline, née Richardson, gave him a son and heir in 1917.

Like Edie, who brought up her grandson John Ritchie, Eleanor brought up her granddaughter Fredegonde, but lied, saying that her mother Beryl had died in the blitz.

© 2006 G. Harry McLaughlin.
Reproduction or transmission, in whole or in part, for other than personal use is prohibited without advance permission from Dr. G. H. McLaughlin.