Sometimes, you just have to go rogue.........

Muriel Swetenham

Perhaps no pig slogans appealed to Muriel when she signed her pig in the guestbook, or maybe she was left handed and found it easier to sign on a left hand page. Whatever the reason, Muriel did her drawing on an untitled page.

Muriel Gladys Chaplin was born in 1884, at Kibworth Hall, Kibworth Harcourt, Leicestershire. She was the second child of John Worthy Chaplin and Isabel Chaplin nee Thomson. John Worthy Chaplin had won a VC aged 20, when fighting in the Third China War https://vcgca.org/our-people/profile/1189/John-Worthy-CHAPLIN. By the time Muriel was born, Chaplin had become a Colonel on half-pay and the family had moved into Kibworth Hall where John and Isabel would remain for the rest of their lives.

Muriel seems to have enjoyed the 'County Set' lifestyle - the snappily titled Melton Mowbray Mercury And Uppingham And Oakham Newspaper lists a "Colonel Chaplin, Miss Chaplin and Captain Chaplin" as taking part in a hunt near to Kibworth (7th December 1907). Interesting, the same article also lists a Captain Swetenham taking part, so it is tempting to wonder whether this was the occasion where Muriel met her future husband. The timing would fit, because on 1st July 1908, Muriel married Foster Swetenham, Captain (later Major) in the Royal Scots Grays, and son of Edward Swetenham, QC and MP. The marriage took place in the fashionable St Peters Church, on Eaton Square, London. Captain Long D.S.O, son of Mr Walter Long M.P., was the best man.

Ten months later, the first of Foster and Muriel's children was born. John Edmund Swetenham was born on 11th May 1909 and christened a month later in Kibworth Church. Two further children were born to Foster and Muriel - Anthony in 1911 and Vanda in 1912. During this time, Foster was still actively serving in the Royal Scots Grays and the young family were living at Danesbury, The Mount, York.

Tragedy was to strike only 2 years later. On the 17th August 1914, two weeks after WW1 was declared, the Royal Scots Greys landed in France. On the 28th August, Foster was shot through the heart whilst engaged in dismounted action near St Quentin, in the battle of Mons. He was later buried in Moy-de-l'Aisne Communal Cemetery.

Muriel was thus left a widow, with three young children. In September 1915 she began volunteering as a VAD nurse for the British Red Cross. For the next 2 years, she volunteered for almost 1500 hours at Nunthorpe Hall, Yorkshire. The address that Muriel provided on her VAD record card in 1918 was 21 Talbot Square, Hyde Park and from electoral rolls and the 1921 census we can see that she remains there until 1923. On the 1921 census, Muriel is living in the house with Vanda and a live-in maid. 12 year -old John and 10 year-old Anthony were at Kent House School in Eastbourne.

In 1923, Muriel remarried, to George Jessel, one of the Jessel baronets of Ladham House, Goudhurst, Kent. They had two children, a daughter born in 1924 and a son in 1925. Sadly, their daughter died in May 1925.

Muriel died on 26th January 1948 at Crichton Royal Hospital, Dumfries. Crichton Royal Hospital was at the forefront of psychiatric treatment. The cause of her death was cerebral haemorrhage, post-operative shock, secondary to pre-frontal leucotomy.