BIRKETT, Annie Sinclair
Annie Sinclair Birkett was born at Louth, Lincolnshire in 1852, youngest daughter of Benjamin Birkett (1820-23 March 1888), a solicitor, and his wife Mary Sinclair (1827-1896), eldest daughter of John Sinclair of New York, who married at Thornton le Fen, Lincolnshire on 2 July 1849. In 1871, Benjamin was a solicitor & lawyer at 4 Providence Street, Ipswich with his wife and his two daughters, Catherine and Annie Sinclair and ten years later they were living at Elm Street, Ipswich with daughter Annie; his other daughter Catherine had married at Holborn, London, Henry Mason Jackaman, solicitor, and was living at 108 London Road, Ipswich. Annie, as a member of the Ipswich Fine Art Club 1875-1889, exhibited from Elm Street in 1881, six paintings including 'Autumn-Coreopsis', 'French Partridges' and 'Quails', in 1882 one painting 'Plover', in 1883 five paintings 'At the Plantation Gate', 'Ye Olde Woole Warehouse in ye Parish of St Clement's', 'Grove House Elms', 'On the Road to Black Gang' and 'The Last Sketch of the Season', in 1884 four paintings including 'A Sunny Day' and 'On the Cornish Coast', in 1885 six paintings including 'Old House, East Bergholt', 'Flatford Bridge' and 'Old Holly Tree, Staverton Park' and was a regular annual exhibitor. Annie married at the Evangelical Free Church, Felixstowe, Suffolk on 8 April 1891, 73 year old Matthew Whiting, a retired tanner, of 190 Lavender Hill, Wandsworth, London and in 1901 they were living at Aucklands, 48 North Side, Wandsworth Common, Battersea, where they retained three indoor servants and two sick-nurses and where Matthew Whiting died on 16 September later that year aged 83, leaving an estate of over £190,000, most of which went to his wife. Annie married secondly at the Oratory of the Sacred Heart, Bournemouth on 11 December 1906, William Charles Gale of Felixstowe. Annie Sinclair Gale died at her home 48 North Side, Wandsworth Common on 11 January 1925 and buried in St Mary's Cemetery, Wandsworth, her estate was circa £20,000.