Partner Mary
Sophia Allen
Queer Places:
Parkfield, Park Gardens & Audley Park Rd, Bath BA1 2XJ, UK
Littlebourne Lodge, 1, The Esplanade, Sandgate, Folkestone CT20 3DP, UK
Spring Lane Cemetery
Hythe, Shepway District, Kent, England
Helen
"Ellie" Bourn Tagart (1876 - February 7, 1956) was a Police Inspector.
Mary
Sophia Allen's enthusiasm was shared by
Margaret Damer Dawson,
and the two soon established a close professional and personal relationship,
living together in London between 1914 and 1920. When Dawson died in 1920,
Allen was a major beneficiary in her will, continuing to live in Dawson's
house, Danehill, throughout the 1930s and beginning a relationship in the
early 1920s with another former WPS officer,
Helen Tagart.
Helen Bourn Tagart was born iat Parkfield, a sizeable mansion in Bath in 1876, the daughter of William Henry Tagart and Anna Maria Peters, and daughter of Samuel Peters, a wealthy American.
Helen had one sister and two brothers. Helen Bourn Tagart is a descendant of the Reverend Edward Tagart who was the second
husband of Helen Martineau (née Bourn). He was the unitarian minister in
Norwich octaganal Chapel in the 19th century. She was educated at Bath High
School and the Musical International College, and was an accomplished pianist.
She inherited large amounts of money from her mother and her aunt, but her
estate on her death amounted to comparatively little. In 1911, she was living with her mother (Anna Maria Tagart, described as a "New York resident") and brother (Samuel Peter Bourn Tagart) in Marylebone, London.
Later she became the companion of Mary Sophia Allen, who she first met in the newly-founded Women's Police Service in about 1915.
When Mary Allen and
Helen Tagart
were introduced to Radclyffe Hall
and Una
Troubridge in 1930, Troubridge recorded in her diary that Allen thought
"the authorities were against her because she was an invert."
Helen died at the home she shared with Mary (Littlebourne Lodge, The
Esplanade, Sandgate, Folkestone, Kent) of colon cancer on 7 February 1956,
leaving £1,679 16s 10d gross (£416 3s lid net) in her will.
My published books:
BACK TO HOME PAGE
- A Lesbian History of Britain: Love and Sex Between Women Since 1500,
Rebecca Jennings, Greenwood World Pub., 2007