What we know about Wilfred Ansell Argent

 

  

According to his birth certificate, Wilfred was born on the 2^nd July 1877 at 26 Roseland Terrace, Stratford, East London. His name was registered as Wilfred Ansell Argent but his father’s name was given on censuses as William Benjamin Ansell, a broker’s clerk. His mother was Emma, née Faber. The name Argent seems to have originated with Wilfred’s grandmother’s maiden name. She appears to have born his father William out of wedlock and his name was given as Ansell after she married a Thomas Ansell a year later. The name Argent only appears on the certificate for William’s marriage to Emma Faber in 1864. The family are to be found living as Ansells in Bethnal Green in 1871, in Wanstead, East London, in 1881 and in Prittlewell (Southend-on-Sea) in  1891  and 1901.  The 1901 census, however, has a Wilfred Ansell Argent working as a railway clerk in Prittlewell Essex and claiming to be 28 and born in Stratford. This would put his birth at 1873 but he may well have lied about his birth wanting to seem older than he was.  Ships’ manifests later confirm the identity of Wilfred as the Wilfred Ansell Argent born in Stratford in 1877.    

    

To date we have not been able to trace Wilfred in the 1911 Census and his next appearance in our records seems to reflect an astonishing change of fortune for in 1921 he is found owning a river steamer named the Loong Mow in Shanghai. This ship was built in 1920 for Mackenzie & Co, Shanghai, for work on the Upper Yangtze and Argent was MacKenzie’s local manager.  The ship seems to have been well-known for its unusually luxurious passenger accommodation. In 1922 Argent was also recorded as being a Junior Deacon in the newly constituted Masonic Grand Lodge at Shanghai and also a member of the Committee of the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce. The Loong Mow enterprise  does not seem to have made a profit, however and in 1923 he sold the ship to the China Navigation Co. It was renamed Wanliu and went on to have a long and eventful life in the hands of both the Chinese and Japanese. It was eventually scrapped in 1969. This surprising episode may suggest a possible link to the many photographs of the Yangtze gorges river journey in the album.    

       
After selling the Loong Mow Argent, recorded in manifests as a “merchant”, continued to travel backwards and forwards to China, sometimes with his wife Beatrice. Reports in The Times newspaper between 1927 and 1930 also show that he was running a prize herd of Guernsey cattle at his farm in Rusper. He was a man of many parts and plainly well-connected. In January 1929 he traveled across the Atlantic on the Majestic as a manager of the Hotel Cecil, London, a hugely celebrated hotel on the Strand whose proprietor was bankrupted and imprisoned shortly after.    

    

An erroneous record shows Wilfred’s first wife Beatrice living as a widow at the Rusper house in 1935 but Wilfred was not dead and the couple reappear towards the end of the decade in Cornwall. They seem to have built a house named “Trevalsa” at Mevagissey in 1937. Beatrice died there in 1953 and on 11 Feb 1954 Wilfred went on to marry Edith Harriette Jacomb (1889-1970) in St Peter’s Church, Mevagissey. Wilfred died on November 27 1957 at Trevalsa and was cremated on November 30 in Truro.   

    

A firm connection of Argent to the Cockell/Boyd families was made by Rosemary Boyd  who wrote (8/12/2009): “I found this photo of the Argent’s House.  I think Kit Cockell wrote their name on the back.” She later wrote (10/12/2009): “The name Argent is so familiar to me but unfortunately I have no personal recollections of my parents discussing that name.  As I am sure you know, there were many tycoon types in China at that time… The photo of Argent’s house is one of those old postcard type photos and it looks as though Aunt Kit wrote in later years, ‘Argent’s House’ on the back.  The handwriting is of an older person.”