WOODWARD, Clara Helen
Clara Helen Woodward was born at Saham Toney, Norfolk on 16 April 1864 and baptised on 15 May 1864, eldest child of Revd William Woodward (1824-1912), curate at Saham Toney, and his wife Elizabeth Mary Ann Lee (1835-1911), eldest daughter of Goodale Lee of Upper Edmonton, who married at Edmonton, London on 5 September 1861. In 1871, William was the 46-year-old curate at Saham Toney, living at Hints, Saham Toney, Swaffham, Norfolk with his 36-year-old wife Elizabeth, with two of their children William 3 and Agnes 1, at this time Clara was a 6-year-old boarder at a school kept by Revd James Roydon Hughes at Moor End, Newton Longville, Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire. In 1881, Clara was one of four female scholars at a private boarding school at 1 St Ann's Place, Streatham, London, which was maintained by Elizabeth Johnson with her 53-year-old sister 'professor of drawing' and is no doubt where Clara developed her painting skills. By 1875, her father was vicar of Kessingland, Suffolk and in 1881 living at the Vicarage, Kessingland with his wife and children Alice 8, Arthur 6 both born at Saham Toney and George 4, who was born at Kessingland. As Miss C. H. Woodward, Clara exhibited at the Ipswich Fine Art Society from Kessingland Rectory in 1882, 'A Study of Fruit' and in 1883 two watercolours, 'Fruit' and 'Gloxinias'. Clara married at Kessingland on 25 April 1889, Charles Gale Berrill (1854-14 April 1916), a leather belt maker, and in 1891, 26-year-old Clara was living at Killieser Avenue, Streatham, London with her 37-year-old husband Charles and a single servant but by 1901 they had moved to 1 Grasmere Road, Streatham with Charles, now an army contractor, with his wife Clara and their children Margaret 6 and Frank 4, and kept three indoor servants. Her husband died at Pytchley Manor, Kettering, Northamptonshire on 14 April 1916, aged 62. Clara Helen Berrill latterly lived at The Boundary House, Ightham, Sevenoaks, Kent and was of 'Nanachie', Harcourt Road, West Malvern, Worcestershire when she died at Nairobi, Kenya on 21 February 1949.