Helen Rudd, pioneering local historian of Watford and Bushey

She contributed much to the area's local history records and was responsible for proposing the name of Shrodells for the town's hospital; now Watford General.

Born in 1864 in Haughton-le-Skerne, Durham, she was the eldest of eight children of Sarah Ann (nee Bloor) and the Reverend Thomas Rudd. Amongst her notable 16th and 17th century Yorkshire ancestors were Anthony Rudd, Dean of Gloucester, later Bishop of St. David's; and Thomas Rudd, Headmaster of Durham School and Canon of Ripon.

In Helen's very early years, her father taught her Greek and Latin. She was a boarder at The Towers private girls' school in Saltburn-by-the-Sea, North Riding. From the age of 15, she was contributing to Little Folks, a magazine for the young and, in later years, to the Strand Magazine, Ladies’ Field and the Sunday Magazine. By her 20s, she was a teacher at The Towers school. After her father passed away in 1889, her widowed mother relocated her large family, the youngest of whom was seven years of age, to Watford.

Page from an old register of St. Mary's Parish Church. W.R. Saunders’ History of Watford, C.H. Peacock Ltd., 1931 (Image: C.H. Peacock Ltd)

By 1911, Helen was living with her mother, two sisters and a brother at 11 Stanley Road, Watford. Four brothers and four sisters were teachers or governesses and all remained single, except Helen’s sister Gertrude. Their mother passed away in 1912.

Helen was tasked with revising and updating Aldenham Library’s catalogues, comprising 10,000 books and manuscripts in ten languages, as well as paintings, mainly collected by the 1st Baron Aldenham, Henry Hucks Gibbs; a politician and former Governor of the Bank of England. He considered her work "ably carried out". She completed the demanding task before 1914, several years after his death. His eldest son, Alban, inherited his father’s library. A privately printed copy in two volumes, bound in green half Morocco gilt was sold at Christies in 2000.

Shrodells Hospital, c1951. Watford A Pictorial Record, Festival of Britain Committee, Borough of Watford, 1951 (Image: SAHAAS)

Whilst a valued member of the St. Albans & Hertfordshire Architectural & Archaeological Society, she researched local history, particularly that of St. Mary's Parish Church. She undertook her work in the vestry, where she transcribed and indexed a number of parochial registers written on parchment, including those from the Parish Church dating between 1539 and 1702. A glimpse of a page from an old Parish register gives an indication how demanding her task was. After a careful study of her work, Vicary Gibbs JP of Aldenham House, Henry Hucks Gibbs’ third son, noted her achievement as “wholly admirable”, adding that “such a faithful transcription as that made by Miss Rudd must always have inestimable value.”

View of the Essex Almshouses from Vicarage Road, 1931. Photo: F.H. Barnes (Image: SAHAAS)

In 1921 she was living at 46 Marlborough Road with her three sisters and working as a librarian. In 1928 her "Churchwardens' Accounts, with special reference to those of Bushey", were published as part of the St. Albans & Hertfordshire Architectural & Archaeological Society’s Transactions. Her research relating to Bushey covered the records of St. Peter's Church, as well as local village characters.

In 1926, Helen followed up her earlier work with “Watford Parish Church: Some Further Research”, which was published in the St. Albans & Hertfordshire Architectural & Archaeological Society’s Transactions and can be found online. In 1927 she completed the

Watford Parish Church History with Vicary Gibbs and retired architect and surveyor Andrew Whitford Anderson, notes from which have been included in A Guide to Watford Parish Church (St. Mary’s) in use today.

The Essex Almshouses, 1931. Photo: F.H. Barnes. Image courtesy of SAHAAS. (Image: SAHAAS)

Over recent years, the story behind the original naming of Shrodells Hospital at 60 Vicarage Road, now Watford General, has been less than clear. But it was Helen Rudd who was asked in 1930 to suggest a new name for the former Watford Union Workhouse when it was taken over by Watford Borough Council. The council was keen to shed any associations with the building’s past so, in 1930, Helen Rudd proposed Shrodells from an entry she found in the old tithe books for the district. It means “shrubberies”. Originally known as Shrodells Public Assistance Institution, the hospital became part of the new National Health Service in 1948. The name Shrodells Hospital survived until 1965 when it was merged with the Peace Memorial Hospital and became known as Watford General Hospital. The names Shrodells Wing and Shrodells Psychiatric Unit continued into later years and there is still a Shrodells unit in the hospital today.

In 1931 Helen Rudd compiled The Old Almshouses in Watford, which was also published by the St. Albans & Hertfordshire Architectural & Archaeological Society and reprinted by the Barnet Records Society. Remarkably, the almshouses have been in continuous occupation since 1580.

In 1938 she donated a copy of the newly-published A History of Bushey by the Rev. G. Montague Hall to the St. Albans & Hertfordshire Architectural & Archaeological Society, a book to which she evidently contributed. In her 70s, in addition to her sterling research efforts, Helen was working as a private governess.

In the 1950s, George Abbott of Watford revealed that her friends had encouraged her to write her autobiography. She left behind a typed copy of My Yesterdays and Tomorrows: A Collected Record of Sixty Years (1879-1939). He quoted the following lines from the title page:

"We sit together, and we hold

The book of life upon our knee,

And gently turn its leaves to see

The pictures there and poetry.

Somewhere, perhaps, we may unfold

The hard dry prose - and yet we see

But pictures there and poetry,

And sigh for those

Who only find the dry hard prose.”

If her poem gives an insight into her character, she appears to have been a thoughtful lady to whom creativity had a strong appeal, in parallel with the literary side of her life. I wonder whether her memoirs survived the years. I do hope so. She passed away in 1952.

George Abbott's hope in the 1950s was that Helen Rudd's "antiquarian labours" would be "gratefully remembered... not only now, but doubtless even more in days to come". I second his sentiments regarding this gifted lady, which is why I wanted to return her name to the local history spotlight. She lived in Watford for nearly 60 years and deserves to be acknowledged for her skilful and industrious work documenting the area’s local history.

With thanks to Juliet Ashmore, St. Albans Library and St. Albans Architectural & Archaeological Society.

Lesley Dunlop is the daughter of the late Ted Parrish, a well-known local historian and documentary filmmaker. He wrote 96 nostalgic articles for the Evening Post-Echo in 1982-83 which have since been published in Echoes of Old Watford, Bushey & Oxhey, available at www.pastdayspublishing.com and Bushey Museum. Lesley is currently working on Two Lives, Two World Wars, a companion volume that explores her father’s and grandfather’s lives and war experiences, in which Watford, Bushey and Oxhey’s history will take to the stage once again.