A jobbing detective

Albert Ansell worked successfully as a private detective, but preferred to avoid being made a news headline - occasionally, though, it was inevitable.

Albert John Ansell worked quietly as a private detective for at least 15 years. Born in Westminster, he was one of three children, the and the only boy. His father, fishmonger Albert Ansell, died when Albert Jr was only two years old (his sister was born around the same time that his father died). His mother Sarah never remarried, and lived for another 60 odd years as a widow, having been married for only four years. The 1881 census shows that Albert and his sister Ada, who was a year older than him, were sent away from home in the aftermath of their father's death; the census records them as living at the West London District School, a residential school for workhouse children in London. He was just four years old at the time. His mother remained living in London with his baby sister Alice, working as a nurse, and was helped with childcare by her own younger sister.

Albert himself worked initially as a shop assistant before becoming a private detective. He was living in Southwark at the time of his 1899 marriage, but was living again in Westminster by 1901. By 1921, he was living in Lambeth. He had eight children, two of whom died in infancy. In this year, he gave his occupation on the census as a private detective working for James Stockley's private detective agency at 8 John Street, Adelphi.

Because he was one of many detectives working for Stockley, and was not responsible for ensuring the agency gained press and publicity, Ansell is not found mentioned in the newspapers as much as his boss was. It was Stockley's name and reputation that was important - not the lives of his staff. However, Ansell, in common with others working for Stockley, does feature in reports of court cases, where he was required to appear as a witness - a common part of shadowing individuals in divorce cases.

One of Ansell’s clients was the son of US-Argentine entrepreneur Melville Bagley

In 1912, Stockley's detective agency was approached by an Argentinian businessman named Melville Sewell Bagley (1880-1921), who wanted to prove that his wife was committing adultery. Several private detectives, including Ansell, were assigned to the job. This was a high profile case, because Bagley's wife was the well-known Welsh actress Maggie May (born Margaret Edith Jenkins in Clydach, a publican's daughter).

Maggie had already divorced her first husband, Percy Furber - who she had married at the age of 19 - when she met Bagley in Paris. Bagley had only moved away from Argentina shortly before he met Maggie in October 1907. It was a whirlwind relationship that saw them marry back in London on 29 July 1908. Soon, however, Bagley realised that his wife had a fondness for drinking and for spending his money. By November 1908, he needed to return to Argentina to ask his family for more funds; he asked Maggie to come with him, but she refused, preferring to stay in the UK to work. She also continued to be maintained by her husband, who was away for four months. When he returned in March 1909, he asked her to explain how she had been living, and she refused. Instead, she filed for divorce, but this was dismissed; the couple, however, never lived together again.

Johannesburg, where Maggie May was performing in 1910

Bagley was then made bankrupt, and blamed Maggie's spending habits. She continued to work, performing in South Africa in 1910, where she met Ronald Hamilton Earle, a Liverpudlian singer - and also a married man. A relationship developed, and when she returned to London to perform, she was regularly joined in her lodgings by him. He then followed her on a provincial tour.

It was while she was on this tour that Ansell was asked to go and shadow her. He set off for Newcastle, where she was performing, and followed her around, from theatre to lodgings. He found that Earle accompanied her every evening, staying in her rooms with her until 2am. When Maggie moved onto Bristol, Ansell went too, noting that Earle, again, was regularly with her. Then the strange threesome moved onto London. Ansell positioned himself outside Maggie's lodgings there, and saw Earle visit her each night. On one occasion, he noted, Earle had turned up there at 12.30am, and although Ansell remained at his post until 3am, 'Mr Earle did not come out'. As a result of Albert Ansell's evidence - and that of the other detectives, who also shadowed Maggie around London - Melville Bagley gained his divorce. Maggie May received many column inches in the press about having caused her husband's financial ruin through her extravagancy. She did not go on to marry her lover - instead, Ronald Earle returned home to his wife and their young son, although he would die in New York a few years later.

Two years later, in 1914, Arthur was involved in another adultery case, involving a Yorkshire couple who had relocated to Barnes in south-west London. In this case, the husband, Arthur Walker Roslington, knew that his wife, Ann, had had an affair with another man. He had challenged her and although she admitted the relationship, she promised she would break it off. After a month, however, he became suspicious that she had continued meeting with her lover, Harry England, and so he commissioned Arthur Ansell to investigate. Ansell found that Ann had been meeting Harry at the Richelieu Hotel on London's Oxford Street, and on 15 May 1914, followed the couple to York, where they stayed at the grand Royal Station Hotel. In 1915, after hearing Arthur's evidence, the Divorce Court granted Arthur Roslington his divorce, and custody of the couple's three daughters.

St John the Baptist church, Capel (image by Speach). Its vicar sought a divorce in the 1920s and private detective Ansell helped him achieve it.

Arthur Ansell appears as a witness in two other divorce cases in the 1920s, by which time, he had left Stockley's agency, and appeared to be working for himself, employing an assistant detective by the name of William James. In 1925, he was commissioned by a solicitor, Walter Woods, on behalf of his client - Christopher Carver, the vicar of Capel, near Dorking. Christopher and his wife, Florence, had been married a decade when they met another couple - Captain Francis Richardson and his wife, also named Florence - at a New Year's Eve party. The two couples became friends, but it soon became apparent that a close friendship had developed between Captain Richardson and Mrs Carver. The suspicious Reverend Carver arranged for his wife to go on a trip to Argentina with her aunt, to visit family, leaving in July 1925. During May and June that year, Mrs Carver was frequently absent, saying she was staying with her aunt and making preparations for their trip.

A Lyons’ Corner House in London: Florence Carver was seen at the branch in Victoria (public domain/IWM non-commercial licence)

The vicar then approached his solicitor to ask if his wife could be investigated. Ansell and James duly followed Florence Carver round London, discovering her going to the Victoria Palace of Varieties with friends, and then visiting the Lyons' Corner House. She would then return to the Manor Hotel on Vauxhall Bridge Road with Captain Richardson, who would spend the night with her before kissing her goodbye outside the hotel the next morning.

On the basis of the detectives' evidence, both Christopher Carver and Florence Richardson obtained divorces from their spouses, who then married each other shortly afterwards.

Finally, in 1927, Albert helped locate a missing man, André Jules Moyse. Moyse, the Surrey-born son of French parents, had formerly been a stockbroker's clerk, a financial agent, and an army officer during World War 1 - but now had no job. He had deserted his Brazilian-born wife Alice - not even bothering to try and find her when she went into a nursing home in 1922 - and Albert found him living in Camden with another woman, with the couple claiming to be Major and Mrs Moyse. Alice Moyse was granted her divorce.

The papers only give us a limited and skewed snapshot into the work that Albert Ansell undertook; they covered the most salacious and interesting divorce cases, of course. His work, as was common with private detectives, largely consisted of watching individuals in order to assemble evidence in divorce cases.

There is no evidence as to whether Ansell continued working as a private detective for the rest of his life - the last mention of him in the newspapers as such comes in 1927. This was ten years before his death; he died at St Thomas's Hospital in London, aged 61.

One fact we do know about Ansell is that he formed a strong friendship with one of his colleagues at Stockley's agency. This was Charles William Adams, and I'll look at his life and career next week.