Yeovil's Virtual Museum

Edmund Hugh Rundle

Photographer

 

Edmund Hugh Rundle was born in the spring of 1877 in Yeovil. He was one of the five children of saddle maker John Rundle (1843-1891) and Eliza née Smith (1841-1915). John had a shop and workshop at 112 Middle Street next-but-one to the corner with Union Street and the family lived above it. Edmund was listed in both the 1881 census (as a three-year old) and the 1891 census (as a 13-year old scholar).

On 18 September 1910 at East Coker, Edmund married Ethel Maud Black (1880-1945). On his marriage certificate Edmund gave his occupation as an ironmonger, and his address as East Coker. They had no children. By the time of the 1911 census Edmund and Ethel had moved to Bristol and were living at 55 Ashton Road. Edmund gave his occupation as an engineer's clerk.  Their first son, John H, was born in 1914 at Willesden, northwest London, followed by Donald P who was born in the spring of 1919 at Brentford, Essex.

In December 1919 Ethel, of 'no fixed abode', made an application against Edmund (who by this time was running a shop in Montacute) under the Married Women's Act on the grounds of "persistent cruelty". A deed of separation was granted to Ethel, who was awarded custody of their two children, while Edmund was awarded occasional access to the children and ordered to pay ten shillings a week.

It is likely that Edmund died in 1934 at Maidenhead, Berkshire, since Ethel was described as a widow in 1939 when she was living in Bishops Stortford, Hertfordshire, with her son Donald. Ethel died at Bishops Stortford in 1945.

Bearing in mind the above information, the photograph below by Edmund was probably taken between 1900 (when he would have been 23 years old) and 1910 (when he moved to Bristol after his marriage). There is no other information concerning Edmund as a photographer, and he may have had a temporary photographic studio in his mother's china and earthenware shop at 103 Middle Street.

 

 

From my collection

The only known photograph taken by and signed by Edmund Rundle - it dates to between 1900 and 1910.

 

From my collection

Enlargement of the name on the photograph. That the surname looks like Randle, rather than Rundle, is because the head serif flourish on the right upright of the letter 'u' (very similar to the head serif flourish on the left upright of the adjacent letter 'n') reaches across to the left upright, making the letter appear to be an 'a'.

I initially thought that the name was CH Rundle, but on closer examination, and comparison to 'standard' Blackletter Gothic letters, illustrated at left, it becomes clear that what I initially interpreted as a capital 'C' is, in fact, a capital 'E'.