THOMAS LAMARTINE YATES married ROSE EMMA JANAU at Epsom 1900.. Thomas was the son of William Swindlehurst & Elizabeth Eves married 1847 Preston. Rose was from French parents. [Thomas had previously married Fanny Roberts 1881 Lambeth]. They had 1 child - Paul Lamartine Yates. Born 1908

(Paul Lamartine Yates, who together with his mother Rose donated the oil paintings, was Thomas' great-grandson. Starting with Thomas and Sarah Swindlehurst, who are the subjects of the paintings: They had many children, most of whom survived into adulthood. I am descended from their tenth child, Samuel, but the inheritance of these paintings, for some reason, passed down the line of their eighth child, William Swindlehurst).

William's career was in property development, which began in Preston as Secretary of the Chartist Land Company, and continued when he moved to Camberwell in London. He was, first, the Manager and then Company Secretary, for the Artizans, Labourers & General Dwellings Company, a philanthropic model dwellings company. In 1877, during the development of the Queens Park Estate (origins of QPR FC), William, together with two colleagues, was arrested, tried and convicted for defrauding £9,312 (approximately £650 thousand today) from the project. William was sentenced, at the Old Bailey, to eighteen months in prison. A full account of the case at the Old Bailey can be seen here. William was married and had four adult sons at the time of his imprisonment. His eldest was Thomas Lamartine Swindlehurst. Thomas started his career as an engineer, but must have started studying law during the 1870s. At around the time of his father's conviction, he was a qualified Solicitor, and these events must have been professionally embarrassing for him.

It appears that the whole family, (except perhaps James Nelson Swindlehurst), changed their surname to Yates (the significance of this name is yet to be discovered - it was not his mother's maiden name as one might expect). Thomas must have decided to use his middle name also as a surname and became known as Tom Lamartine Yates.

In 1900, Tom married Rose Emma Janau as his second wife - having been previously widowed. Rose, who was 26 years his junior, met Tom at a cycling club and then studied law with him so that she could help him with his practice. It is possible that through this work she became aware of the prejudice and injustice of the law as it treated her fellow women. Tom was in sympathy with Rose's ideas and supported her in all her activities. Their only child, Paul, was born on 19th June 1908.

Rose developed into a woman of fiery and independent spirit and went on to become a very prominent figure in the Suffragette movement. Rose was imprisoned on 24th February 1909 for one month, when Paul was just eight months old, for being a member of the deputation to Prime Minister Asquith. Also in 1909, she joined the committee of the Wimbledon branch of the Women's Social & Political Union (WSPU), becoming its treasurer and organising secretary in 1910. Tom represented many of the Suffragettes in the courts, and represented the family of Emily Wilding Davison, (who famously threw herself under the King's horse at the 1913 Derby), at her inquest. Incidentally, Tom was also hired by Frank Woolworth to write the Memorandum and Articles of Association needed to apply to become a British Company under the Companies (Consolidation) Act, 1908, to enable him to open his F W Woolworth shops in the UK.

Paul grew up to become a brilliant applied economic analyst, working all over the world in British Embassies and for the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations. From the age of 95 to 97, he was busy writing a very large autobiography dealing with every aspect of his life and work. It has not, as yet, found a publisher. He was still alive and living in France with his 3rd wife, to celebrate his 100th birthday in 2008, but it is not known if he is still alive today.

From the Merton Historical Society, September 2008:

• Paul Lamartine Yates, the little boy who c.1910 was photographed with his Suffragette mother Rose outside their Merton Park home, Dorset Hall, recently celebrated his 100th birthday. He lives, with his third wife, at Annecy in France, and until quite recently enjoyed mountain walking. Though he nearly became a concert pianist (he studied for a while under Hindemith) Paul's distinguished career was as an economist with the UN. His sight is now poor but, according to his daughter Yolande, he enjoys listening to music, to electronic versions of The Economist and to serious novels, and he loves a good argument.