Sarah Anne Williams, eleventh child of David and Marianne and referred to by the family as Sally, seems to have been an unusual and remarkable woman. She was born in 1833 and spent the first half of her life in a succession of small towns and villages in Somerset. Her early childhood was spent in Bleadon and her teens in Over Stowey, where Marianne had taken the younger children to live with her mother, Sarah Bartlett. After her mother’s death, Marianne took Sally to Weston-super-Mare, where they lived with Anne Bartlett, Marianne’s sister, and in the 1860’s Sarah and Marianne moved to Taunton, where the latter died in 1867.
In the 1870’s, Sally set out for India, possibly at the urging of her brother David, who was stationed at Landour in the foothills of the Himalayas and deeply impressed by the natural beauty of the area.
Sally taught at Caineville School in nearby Mussoorie for some years before starting a school of her own in Landour. The advertisement for her school in an Indian newspaper, preserved as an undated clipping by her brother David and referring to her as Miss "Wadham" Williams, reads as follows:
Notice
MISS WADHAM WILLIAMS, sister of an Indian Chaplain,
and late Head Teacher in “Caineville”, will open a
Boarding and Day School, in Landour, on 1st March,
for Children of the Upper Classes, exclusively.
Thorough English, French, German, Music, class Singing,
Calisthenics, Drawing and Painting.
Every attention will be paid to the conduct and general
improvement of the pupils.
Early application should be made, as only a limited
number will be received.
Address: Miss Williams, “Stainton”, Landour.
Sally remained a spinster until she was 70, still running her children's school, when to the family's astonishment she announced that she was going to get married to Major Matthew Fox Johnstone, a retired Army Officer about her own age. The wedding breakfast was held in Landour at Prospect Lodge, the house of her nephew Harry Llewellyn, in 1903.
Prospect Lodge, Landour.
For a few years until Major Johnstone died, they were apparently a happy old couple. Caineville is now the Training Centre for the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, Stainton is owned by a local doctor and Prospect Lodge is owned by St. Thomas School, Delhi.
Sally then returned to England where she lived at Springfield, St. Mary's Road, Portishead, near Weston-super-Mare. On 2nd February 1911, aged 77, Sally wrote her will. Genteel, warm-hearted, punctilious, perhaps a little fussy, Sally ensured that each of her favourite people received one of her favourite possessions. The charm of the document, which must have been a charm of Sally’s, lies in this valuing of the legatees:
“….I bequeath all my Silver and Table linen to my niece Miss Charlotte Bartlett of Braietta, Charlton Kings And all my Clothes Books and other personal possessions I leave to Miss Anne Appleby of Braietta Charlton Kings. And to my dear niece Mrs Evelyn Luck my blue Turquoise brooch and my niece Mary Williams the drawn thread nightdress case. The Silver Crucifix I leave to my dear niece Mrs Evelyn Spencer and my Silver Inkstand to my dear niece Lilian Goldney.”
Sally’s spirited and courageous life ended three days later, a few miles from the village of her birth. A notice was placed in The Times, probably by her sister-in-law Emma or her nephew and executor, Cuthbert:
JOHNSTONE – On the 5th inst, at Springfields, Portishead,
after a short illness, Sarah Anne, widow of
Major Matthew Fox Johnstone and youngest daughter of the late
Reverend David Williams, sometime Rector of Bleadon, Somerset.
Indian papers, please copy.