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The Spirit of Everywoman (Eleanor Velasco Thornton) · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

0:04
Welcome back listeners to your listening to Radio Revel.
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This week is a bit of a throwback episode.
0:10
I've resurrected the Keyhole Witness series to tell a story of
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an English woman who lived in the late 19th, early 20th century.
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The story came to me through my fellow podcaster and virtual friend
0:23
Eric of the Break Fix podcast.
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He had someone reach out to him with the idea of elaborating a story about
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the woman who has been credited with sitting for the Rolls Royce mascot,
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known as the spirit of ecstasy.
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After researching this woman and the men she rubbed elbows with, I came up
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with this story, a kind of alternative look at the legend, as well as a bit
0:44
more focused on the woman herself.
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What I tell, I do not report.
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I merely tell.
0:54
Welcome to a new Keyhole witness episode titled The Spirit of Every Woman.
1:10
Nelly was lying on the rumble sheets of the unmade bed clad
1:13
only in one silk stocking pulled up over her bent right knee.
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Her left foot crossed over that knee and her arm stretched to her toes in the
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gesture of putting on the other stocking.
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Though that stocking was tangled in the bed clothes to her left,
1:27
maybe the next movement was actually lowering the left leg and removing
1:31
the stocking from the right.
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Was she to do this?
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She would be totally nude.
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Nelly would not reach over for that stocking, though her nose
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itched, but she wouldn't lift her hand to her face to scratch.
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Charles was a very fussy man and right now concentrating
1:46
deeply on the charcoal sketch.
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He was blending into his notebook.
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Nelly knew that if she broke this pose or something like an itchy nose,
1:54
it would break that concentration.
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He would, as he had in the past, snap at her and scold her as if she were a child.
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Despite being only 16 years old, literally a child, Nelly
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didn't like being treated as one.
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Eleanor Nelly scolded herself mentally.
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Your name is Eleanor.
2:13
Nelly is gone.
2:14
You left her behind when you left home, the day you came to live here,
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you were reborn as Eleanor Velasco Thornton, renowned actress and dancer.
2:24
Applauded on the London stage.
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Favored muse of Charles Johnson Sykes, famous sculptor and
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painter, Eleanor Velasco Thornton, the incarnation of Aphrodite.
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Ecstasy Incarnate Nelly didn't share these thoughts aloud with anyone.
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She understood that they were childish, knew that she'd be laughed
2:45
at, and again treated like a child.
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Many of her fantasies of goddesses and ecstasy came from her own imaginings,
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her own escapism from her fairly strict struggling tradesman class upbringing.
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Some of her musings arose from the acting and social etiquette classes
3:02
she received from her neighbor, Emma.
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And yet this idle daydreaming, this self distraction from the boredom
3:09
of sitting for Charles would become a line upon which she could peg her
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hopes and dreams for her future.
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Nelly's.
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Father Frederick was a particularly unimaginative man, educated
3:25
in engineering, fresh out of school, and recently married.
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He procured a position with the l Clark Muirhead and Company Telegraph interest,
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a job that had him traveling about England and Scotland to oversee installations
3:37
and repairs on telegraph lines.
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When he was not out in the field, he was responsible for
3:43
local offices and operators.
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This meant he was most often home in the summer when weather was
3:49
less likely to take down lines.
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The closest Fred Thornton came to spending time with his daughter, Nellie was
3:55
during those periods that he was home when he needed help at a local office.
4:00
Telegraph operators were not a dime a dozen then an absence at
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one office or another meant that Fred would have to substitute.
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And when there were two or more absences, Fred would take Nelly and later her
4:13
younger sister Rose, park them in the swivel chair, and have them attend to
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both the incoming and outgoing messages.
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The girls knew the Morris code as well as they knew the
4:22
alphabet they used in school.
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Nelly caught onto the entire messaging thing, especially well
4:30
as when her father was away.
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Her mother, Sarah Ann often drafted Nelly into her service, despite her
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parents having sent both Nelly and Rose to the subsidized Poor Girls School,
4:42
the Gray Coats Hospital Academy.
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Money was almost always problematic in the Thornton home.
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Sarah Ann kept a tight reign on the household books and Fred's salary.
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Nearly met their needs, but she had finally taken on jobs herself.
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Sarah Ann was literate, something many of her neighbors in the terrace
5:01
housed neighborhood were not.
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She could read letters sent by local departments, and more importantly,
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she could draft letters in reply.
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She had a Remington typewriter.
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Her husband had fixed from junk yard recovery, and she made enough money
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to comfortably supplement Fred's pay.
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So many in afternoon.
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On arriving home from school, Nellie would find a hastily written note on
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the table asking her to rush over to this or that neighbor's house to take
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notes or to read correspondence or bring the typewriter there or pick it
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up to take it to another neighbor's.
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Nelly became well acquainted with typing, grammar, spelling, and thanks
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to the telegraph work, the concise use of language, she hardly ever said more
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than was absolutely necessary to get what she wanted, and that talent helped
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her almost always get what she wanted.
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What Nelly had most recently wanted was to get outta the Gray Coat Hospital Academy.
6:00
Nelly walked every morning with her younger sister, rose more than an hour
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through the foggy, damp streets of London from their tired terrace house
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in the Stockwell neighborhood up to the academy near Westminster Cathedral.
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Nelly felt stifled, suffocated, a gray coat.
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Girls were only allowed to wear those name forsaken gray coats
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with those scratchy gray skirts.
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During the long days at school, they were shuffled from Bible class to
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cooking class to household cleaning class, back to Bible class with a nod
6:30
towards the modern young woman employment possibility of clerical or shop work.
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Most girls would end up taking a position that would begin with washing
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up in the scullery, perhaps move up to making beds, and finally graduate
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to polishing silver, maybe even simply a combination of the three.
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So most of the education offered a gray coat focused on
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preparing the girls for this.
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Nelly, though was quite sure her future would not include
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white aprons and raw hands.
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There were also days when there was no note on the table.
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When Rose and Nelly returned home after school, they would often
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find the house cold and empty.
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Frederick would've been called up to Scotland to direct the rehanging of
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wires or the replacement of broken posts.
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Sarah Ann would most certainly be somewhere else reading a letter that
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had come in the post this morning with a threatening looking coat of
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arms replacing the return address.
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Or perhaps crafting response to that letter in reasonable language that
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the neighbor would not have used, nor would have known how to write out
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an empty, cold house was no problem.
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Right next door, the girls would find Emily, whom they called Emma, fussing
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about in her kitchen with a hot kettle ready on the stove, and a bit of
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bread and jam spread out on the table.
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Emily Velasco was an exotic member of the Stockwell Terrace House community.
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Despite having a Spanish sounding surname.
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Eine was Polish.
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She had come to London with her Ukrainian husband, mainly because
8:01
it was in London that she could find clients for her ever burgeoning
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acting slash social Graces school.
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While she and her husband Ralph plotted and planned the school,
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they would eventually open in Devon.
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Years later, Emily gave Lucian and poise lessons throughout the year to young
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artist recently arrived in London, Emma, who had no children of her own treated
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Nelly and Rose as if they were her special pets, her talented daughters.
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She saw clearly that both had been blessed with physical traits
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that would be advantageous as they navigated their futures.
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Nelly was even in her early teens, a well-built, rounded out female who would
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certainly attract the attention of a man of some station, perhaps even a
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station above the strict terrace house station the girls had been born into.
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In addition, Nelly was incredibly clever, obsessively organized,
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and a very quick study.
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The challenge was to rise outta the cast of the Terrace house, perhaps find
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a path into at least one cast above.
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Emma focused most of her efforts on molding Nelly into a modern woman.
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The suffragist movement was not something that could be ignored.
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Women were marching in the streets.
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Some were even throwing explosives here and there.
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Emma was fairly critical of most of the demands placed upon women by
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those whose main efforts seemed at times violent and always political.
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Emma had no reason for a woman to dress like a man or go after a
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man's job or even behave like a man.
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Women were women and should be allowed to be so and take every advantage
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afforded them as women over the men they would encounter in this modern world.
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Emma belief firmly that women possess the wiles and the arms necessary
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not only to survive, to defend themselves, but also to triumph
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without counting on any manly traits.
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These were the ideas she infused into Nelly's Open Mind.
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Being clever simply meant that Nelly would be more capable of holding her own
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when men eventually entered the picture.
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Right around the time Nelly turned 16, she confided her frustration
10:12
with the strict atmosphere of the Gray Coates Hospital Academy.
10:15
To Emma complained that the studies there offered such a narrow outlook on
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life, all bed making and Shopkeeping.
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Nelly asked Emma if she mightn't suggest a way out outta the school out of her home
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where she was basically unpaid labor to her father or her mother, and out with
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a pathway to a future that fit Nelly.
10:37
Emma Hobnobbed with most of the artists who lived in the Bohemian
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Chelsea neighborhood in small flats in the ancient pheasant tree.
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That building that only decades earlier had housed the principal nursery for
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the exotic pheasants and live hunted animals shot at by the nobility.
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She enjoyed the company, especially of the actresses, models and dancers.
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Three professions that women could aspire to without much male obstruction.
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Although the aspiration to these always seemed to be considered secondary to
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respectful marriage and homemaking, these women were often discriminated
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by society as not much more than pseudo prostitutes, even so Emma thought Nelly
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might fit in with that Bohemian crowd, or at least get a start among them.
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Emma first consulted with Sarah Ann, who knew her daughter was headstrong, obliging
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her daughter to take that hour long walk to the Gray Coat Academy that only
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restricted her growth as a person would finally end in an uncontrollable rebellion
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with a probable, unfortunate outcome.
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Sarah Ann agreed to allow Nelly to take a room at the pheasant tree in Chelsea.
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Emma had vouched for others who lived in the complex, especially one
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Charles Robinson Sykes, a young artist then 27 years old, who was beginning
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to make a name for himself as a sculptor who might agree to serving
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as a type of mentor or guardian to the girl while she got her feet wet.
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With her looks, Nelly might even take on work as a paid artist's model for Sykes
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and other artists living there in this way begin to make a living for herself.
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So it was that with her mother's hesitant blessings and her
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father's near total ignorance.
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Nelly only 16 years old, an age that many girls began looking for positions.
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Quit the Gray Coates Hospital Academy, moved out of her parents' home and
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began her career as an actress, a dancer, and an artist's model.
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That last artist modeled, that's what placed her on Charles'
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bed in Charles's apartments at the pheasant tree in Chelsea.
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A knock on the door broke into Charles's concentration and he groaned, no
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actually growled at the interruption.
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He shouted a distracted what in the direction of the closed door,
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which opened, and one of his mates hesitantly, leaned in to tell
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Charles that Monty and sis were in the drying room asking after him.
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Charles growled again.
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The mates softly closed the door.
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Nelly lifted her head slightly to make eye contact with Charles, who cursed
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and told her that he'd forgotten.
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Plans he'd made with some friends.
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She could get dressed.
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They were done for the day.
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Nelly was glad of that.
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She finally reached up and robbed under her nostrils with energy
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before she rescued her stocking from the sheets, pulled it on, then
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wrapped herself in the dressing gown.
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She'd worn to the sitting.
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As she passed through the drawing room, she saw couples standing next to the
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fireplace who somehow seemed outta place in these apartments like nobility
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descending into the world of the pros.
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For a disagreeable, fleeting moment, the man noticed Nellie,
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but rapidly looked away.
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The woman made a more careful assessment, but also turned away when Charles came
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in from the bedroom and greeted them.
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Nelly slipped out the main door of the apartment and climbed the stairs
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to her own room that she shared with two other girls in the attic.
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The shillings and pennies the unknown struggling painters and sculptors at
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the pheasant tree were able to pay.
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Nellie were far from what she needed to pay for that shared room.
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No matter how elegant her stage name Eleanor Velasco Thornton sounded.
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She'd only been called upon once as a stand in for a tableau, forced to
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wear a scratchy, woolen overcoat that smelled of grease, paint and sweat to
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pose without moving for 20 minutes.
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While the comics and singers who had the lights brought laughter
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and applause from the audience.
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And Eleanor Velasco Thornton had only played the dancing
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with her younger sister.
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She had no moves and less rhythm.
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So despite all her mother's lessons in home economy, if there were no
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earnings, there was nothing there to budget with, and Eleanor was near ruin.
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Nelly whined about this to her mother one Monday evening as the
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two women did the washing up.
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After a rare family dinner, Nelly's father was smoking a pipe in the
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back courtyard, outside the kitchen door, and her mother reached over the
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basin to push the window shut, both to block the smoke and to keep their
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mother daughter conversation private.
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Fred had not been approving of his oldest daughter's move into the
15:17
pheasant tree, which he considered the den of inequity in London.
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Sarah Anne began clanking the stoneware plates in the watcher to make a
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distracting sound from the words she meant only for her daughter to hear.
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See here, Nelly, I know how important it was for you to get out on your own.
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I know you thought you weren't going anywhere at Gray Coat.
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Now having one less tuition to pay has been a bit of a relief on expenses
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around here, but not enough that your father and I can support you in your
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current lifestyle, and especially not the lifestyle of an actress or a dancer.
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Ah, no.
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Sarah Anne held up a wet soapy finger to Nellie's objection.
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Your father is way too conscious for your excuses, so there's no use
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you asking me or him for any money.
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You need to take advantage of what you do have.
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Emma Velasco was not wrong in teaching you how a woman should navigate a
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man's world, but the whole acting artistic path is evidently not working.
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You are a bright girl.
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You know how to manage numbers.
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You're articulate.
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You know how to read and write.
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You've been concise with your telegraph work for years.
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You're almost obsessively organized.
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There isn't a straw in your head.
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You're all brains.
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Being cute, certainly helps.
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It might get the door open though it will probably open the wrong doors.
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Most cute women end up naked in beds and not so that some men
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can project them into posterity.
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Look over on the cupboard there.
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I've left you a few pages from the Times.
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There's ads in there, dozens of ads, looking for young women able
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to do the same things you can do.
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Write letters, organize papers.
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Use the Typewriting machine.
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These are salaried jobs.
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You'll make money doing them without money, you know, you won't get anywhere.
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And Nelly knew that Sarah Ann was right.
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It was unlikely Eleanor Velasco Thornton would ever actually support
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herself as a member of that clan of Bohemians who were likewise,
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nearly unable to support themselves.
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If Eleanor was to move forward, it would be in the serious world where her
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natural, almost inherited practicality of thought would be her best advantage.
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Eleanor had drive and was smart enough to know when the road her drive was
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taking her down was probably not the one that would most directly
17:35
take her to her desired destination.
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Nelly, or perhaps now that it's been nearly a year since she's moved away
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from home, who she call her, Eleanor was sitting for Charles again.
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Though she wasn't really sitting.
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She was standing in his bathroom leaning over the large tub towards a huge oval
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shaped mirror hanging on the tiled wall.
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This time, Charles had draped a long bolt of gauze over her shoulders, suggesting
18:01
some type of a mythological bathing gown, something to partially discover
18:06
the inm modesty of a nymph at a pond in the forest and uncharacteristically.
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As he sketched, he chatted with her asking her how her search
18:15
for a day job had been going.
18:17
Eleanor explained while trying to keep as still as possible in the somewhat
18:21
uncomfortable lean that she'd been rising nearly every morning, buying the
18:26
times, clipping an advertisement, getting dressed in her only formal dress and hat
18:30
and shoes, interviewing for a position, or simply leaving a typewritten note
18:35
in different offices about the city.
18:38
She was not especially enthusiastic today.
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The insurance office, the Scriveners shop, the hat manufacturers all had been polite,
18:45
but none had sent word of employment.
18:48
Charles Crypta, that's too bad and kept on sketching.
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Once he'd finished up and told Eleanor that she could dress, Charles suddenly
18:55
remembered something that he'd forgotten Again, not uncommon in his character.
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He told Eleanor that he had a friend who had just recently become a founding member
19:04
of what would be some kind of automobile club in the city, and that the gentleman
19:09
who was named secretary of this club, one Claude Goodman Johnson, was looking
19:14
around for some clerical help to get the offices of the club up and running.
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Charles asked Eleanor if she'd be interested, and she replied that
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automobiles couldn't be any more mundane than insurance or women's
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hats could even be something exciting.
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They were new and somewhat controversial.
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Charles scribbled out a note of introduction in his sketchbook
19:34
and handed her the leaf.
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And Eleanor planned to visit the offices the next day.
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Eleanor was not.
19:42
Claude Johnson's first choice for Girl Friday.
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She seemed fairly young and had an A of frivolity that could just be perceived
19:51
under an otherwise serious demeanor.
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She was also really attractive, something that could be
19:57
problematic to his personal life.
19:59
Claude was still flirting about with a childhood sweetheart looking
20:02
towards marriage, much to the chagrin of his parents who felt
20:05
that they had educated him better.
20:08
Jessica, the girl in question, was a rather controlling and jealous fiance
20:12
who would certainly have some sharp words to say about the hiring of a cute,
20:16
well-developed adolescent as a secretary.
20:20
Yet a certain stroke of fate intervened on Eleanor's behalf the very day that Eleanor
20:25
presented herself for the position as she sat at the table and demonstrated that she
20:29
could indeed manage a typewriting machine.
20:32
Claude had a visit from one of the founding members of the automobile
20:35
club, the esteemed John Montague, member of Parliament, son of the first
20:41
Lord Montague Douglas, Scott of eu.
20:44
John or Monte to his friends, had dropped in on club business and to
20:48
steal Claude away for an afternoon drive in his Daimler automobile.
20:53
Looking over at that young woman clacking away on that infernal writing machine.
20:57
Monte had the strange intuition that he'd seen her somewhere before.
21:02
Without making any connections.
21:04
He turned to Claude and made a comment on how a good looking secretary certainly
21:08
brightened up a drab office space.
21:16
Eleanor worked for Claude from 1897 until 1902.
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In those years, she proved herself to be an organized, intelligent woman with
21:25
an uncanny talent for event logistics.
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Her work on the club sponsored famous 1000 mile trials in the spring of 1900
21:33
was hardly applauded enough from heading off local protests against motorcar, still
21:39
considered by rural folk as a nuisance at the least, and a real danger to body
21:43
and property at most to simply making sure there was petrol available along
21:48
the route, as well as reserving hotels, restaurants, and catering services.
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Eleanor naturally and effortlessly shined like any event planner.
21:57
The better the job done, the more invisible they become.
22:00
The 1000 mile trials was a massive success for the Automobile Club of Great Britain
22:05
and Ireland, and so Eleanor went almost totally unnoticed, but not totally.
22:12
Soon to be second Lord Montague of Blu.
22:16
That is Monty who had, as a founding member of the Automobile Club, had
22:19
an active role in the planning of the trials who participated with
22:24
moderate success in the race.
22:25
Well, he had noticed Eleanor and her tireless efforts to pull
22:30
off this logistical challenge.
22:32
Monty noticed how she always allowed the men at the planning meetings
22:35
to think they'd originated an idea to do this or that when it had been
22:40
she who had imagined the detail.
22:42
She always managed all the testosterone in the room with one
22:45
or two carefully worded sentences.
22:47
He noticed how she made her simple beauty into an effective tool for
22:51
getting what she wanted from the men.
22:53
He had also made the connection during a visit to the club offices with Sykes,
22:57
who warmly greeted Eleanor, that he'd seen her so scantily clothed in Sykes
23:02
apartments about a year ago, an image he could and would super impose on
23:07
the serious professional look She presented in the Automobile club offices.
23:15
Monty could certainly give the impression of a man of means, a
23:18
member of the wealthy class who moves through life's challenges with the
23:22
confidence that a fat bank balance and secret business connections afford.
23:27
But at the time, he was motoring about in his Daimler, impressing the
23:31
other rich men in his motoring circle.
23:33
He was actually living off his father's estate.
23:37
Having been voted, a member of Parliament just a few years earlier, at least ensured
23:41
that he could brandish his own reputation and he had plenty of influential
23:46
friends, but the truth be known, and it was kind of known just around 1902,
23:53
Monty found himself pretty much broke.
23:56
It was then when one of his friends, the newspaper man, Alfred Harms Worth offered
24:00
him an opportunity to make a living within the strict class expectations of his cast.
24:07
Harms with was a sort of silent party all across the upper class ecosystem.
24:12
Publisher of several very popular newspapers, beginning
24:15
with the Daily Mail in 1896 and later, the Daily Mirror in 1902.
24:20
His journalism was renowned for its simple language and straightforward
24:24
reporting of stories that were of interest to the plebe.
24:27
Harm's Worth had been instrumental in making sure the 1000 mile trials were a
24:31
success, not only by providing popular positive coverage in his press, not
24:37
even by participating himself with his motorcar, but by putting up much of the
24:40
money needed to pay for the event at a time that the auto club was in the red.
24:46
When Monty let slip in an unguarded moment of soul bearing, fueled by tobacco and
24:51
brandy, that he was tight for capital to continue his auto hobbies harms worth
24:56
suggested creating a magazine, the.
25:01
Glossy magazines were not something new.
25:04
There were magazines that covered all kinds of interests from
25:06
ladies fashion to politics.
25:08
However, up to the date, no one had thought to create and publish a
25:12
glossy magazine about automobiles.
25:14
The idea was golden.
25:16
The entire reason the Automobile Club of Great Britain and Ireland
25:19
existed in the first place was to promote the automobile in the kingdom.
25:23
What better way to do so than an illustrated rag with the latest
25:27
news and information to convince a hesitant population to jump
25:31
onto the auto Mobilist chassis?
25:34
Of course, as the man who would establish the advertising driven business model for
25:38
the printed press harms worth was also thinking about the money he could make
25:42
advertising cars and car related stuff.
25:49
Monty went about the business of starting up his foray into publishing
25:52
in the same way he did everything.
25:54
He turned to the people he knew.
25:56
First, he spoke with Claude.
25:58
The automobile club was now fairly firmly established, was making some
26:02
money, had caught the eye of the crown Prince, who Monty himself had encouraged
26:06
into the burgeoning auto fever.
26:08
After five solid years of making the Club a solid foundation for both the
26:12
industry and the political world, Claude had decided to move on having partnered
26:18
with one Charles Stewart roles and ambitious young man, everyone called
26:22
cs, who had a special flare for sales.
26:26
Claude and Cs were to set up the first car dealerships in the realm.
26:30
And let's face it, Claude would make a whole lot more money than the always
26:35
struggling auto club was able to pay him.
26:38
The physical offices of the club were moving.
26:40
Everything seemed to be ripe for change the most.
26:43
Claude could promise Monty was to place automobile ads in his new magazine.
26:48
As Monty left Claude's office, he stopped to chat with Eleanor who
26:52
was sitting at the very table he had seen her at five years earlier.
26:57
Despite her hard work, her efficiency, her capacity for solving problems, even
27:02
before they became problems, Claude hadn't even promoted her to her own office.
27:07
She had become much more than a simple secretary, and yet here she
27:11
was typewriting machine to one side of her desk and papers to the other.
27:16
Thinking it was an appropriate moment.
27:18
Monty offered Eleanor a position at his magazine with a higher wage and her
27:23
own space to do her logistical magic.
27:27
Eleanor looked around at all the boxes prepared for the move of the office
27:31
to Piccadilly realized that change was indeed in the air and accepted the job.
27:42
No one really knows when Eleanor and Monty started their affair.
27:45
It at least had to have started soon after Eleanor's taking the
27:48
job at Carr Illustrated in 1903, Eleanor found herself pregnant and
27:53
giving birth to her only child.
27:55
A girl, Joan, who she held briefly after the delivery.
27:58
Then immediately gave into adoption.
28:01
Monty could not possibly recognize the child publicly.
28:04
He was happily married to Lady Cecil Victoria, constant
28:08
Kerr Douglas, Scott Montague.
28:10
He was a member of Parliament.
28:12
At some point, he'd become the second Lord Montague of ou.
28:18
Eleanor could not become a single mother that would simply cast her into infamy.
28:21
She would lose her hard earned status.
28:24
Her job, her connections, albeit superficial with the rich and powerful
28:28
men, her lover rubbed elbows with.
28:31
So Joan was given over to the Ierson, a lovely couple who became friends
28:35
with Monty and his wife, lady Sis.
28:38
A lady Sis was a woman who was always the even headed one in any room.
28:41
The wife who knew her husband garnished his walking stick elsewhere,
28:45
but helped him keep it discreet.
28:47
Sis would make sure that Monty took good care of his responsibilities to Joan,
28:52
even if they were to be kept secret.
28:54
Eleanor would later consider the decision to give up her child to have been the
28:58
hardest she'd had to make in her life.
29:00
But there it was done and over.
29:03
She had chosen both her affair with the married man and her career as his at
29:07
attache over the harsh realities of single motherhood in early 20th century England.
29:16
Monty for his part was entirely smitten by Eleanor.
29:20
Though he loved his wife, had loved her almost his entire life.
29:23
They had known one another since they were children.
29:26
No surprise.
29:26
Monty and sis were first cousins.
29:28
After all.
29:30
He was like so many privileged men of his time.
29:33
The Manly bravado, the expectations of virility, a certain
29:37
disdain for women in general.
29:39
It was almost expected of him that he would have an affair or two.
29:43
He was a noble man.
29:45
Or Well, he'd become a noble man on his father's death in 1905.
29:49
Moving so from Parliament into the House of Lords.
29:58
Now, you'll recall that Claude Johnson had partnered up with a CS roll to
30:04
open automobile salons and sell the machines to, well-to-do Englishmen.
30:09
Well, right around the time that Monty was packing up his papers and
30:12
moving them from one governmental office into another, both Claude and
30:17
Cs had met an automobile engineer by the name of Frederick Henry Royce.
30:22
His cars were well made, had a touch of the luxurious, and Claude and Cs.
30:26
Saw how they could focus exclusively on Royce's designs and stability to create an
30:32
exclusive car fit for the exclusive buyer.
30:36
The Rolls Royce became our thing, and Claude became the company's first boss.
30:44
Monty.
30:44
Now a Lord got caught up in the whole exclusivity idea.
30:49
He'd been placing ads in his magazine for all kinds of automobiles
30:52
with prices ranging from the affordable to prohibitive, and
30:56
the new Rolls Royce Silver Ghost represented the peak of prohibitive.
31:02
Consequently, the Lord John Walter Edward Montague, Douglas,
31:05
Scott, yes, Monty had to have one.
31:09
He was not the only rich man who had one, but he was one of the first.
31:16
Now, the Rolls-Royce car was so exclusive for many reasons.
31:19
Uh, for example, they were designed with the latest and best concepts
31:23
of automotive engineering available.
31:25
Each car was highly personalized, nearly artistically created according
31:30
to the personal taste and suggestions of the man purchasing the vehicle.
31:34
Every detail was planned, consulted, executed with the idea of creating
31:39
the quote, best car in the world, a car that a king would drive.
31:44
One detail, though, was not necessarily considered or perhaps was considered to
31:50
be spoken, and that was the car's mascot.
31:57
The mascot was actually a fancy schmancy radiator cap.
32:01
You could buy a Rolls Royce with a traditional though shiny
32:04
stainless steel screw on cap to cover that access to the radiator.
32:07
But that would hardly be all that exclusive would it?
32:11
Monty certainly didn't think so.
32:13
He asked his friend Charles Sykes, if he couldn't make a design of something
32:17
that could be stuck on that boring cap, kind of like the figurehead of a ship.
32:21
Something that would symbolize the grace, the beauty, the stealth
32:25
of the Rolls Royce Silver Ghost.
32:30
Sykes had been illustrating for Monty's Magazine, car Illustrated for years now.
32:35
Had painted portraits of the Rolls-Royce had actually drawn an
32:38
entire series of Rolls-Royces, driving up to different places, the theater,
32:43
the horse races, the country home.
32:45
Sykes liked the idea of making some kind of stat for his
32:48
friend and his playful side.
32:50
Had him pulling a box of old sketchbooks off a high shelf in his studio and
32:54
looking for drawings of one special model he'd drawn years earlier.
32:59
Special because she had been his muse for a couple of years, especially 'cause
33:03
she was quite stunning in the sketches.
33:06
Special because she was Monty's lover, Eleanor.
33:10
Sykes made a couple of drawings from his sketches.
33:12
He settled on one that presented a young version of Eleanor leaning slightly
33:17
forward, a gauzy bathing garment, like one worn by a nymph at a hidden
33:22
forest pond billowing behind her.
33:24
This nymph held a finger to her lips.
33:27
Sykes hint to Monty that the lover's affair would always be kept
33:30
secret between the two friends.
33:33
Monty was delighted with the little bronze Statu Sykes cast for him,
33:36
bolted it onto every Silver Ghost automobile he used for years.
33:41
Sykes called the Stae the Whisperer.
33:49
Now, Monty was not the only man who wanted a figurehead bolted onto
33:53
their fancy radiator cap on their exclusive Rolls-Royce automobile.
33:57
As the manufacturer was so dedicated to respond to each and every whim
34:02
of the purchaser, other artisans sculptures were producing personalized
34:06
mascots from comical police figures to downright nearly pornographic
34:10
representations of human copulation.
34:13
That young automobile engineer Henry Royce was somewhat scandalized by the idea
34:18
of a figurehead being bolted under the hood of his cars at all, but there was
34:22
little he could do to prevent the habit.
34:24
Men will be men and will want their symbols right up front
34:27
where everyone can see them.
34:29
Royce asked Claude Johnson, if anything shouldn't be done to protect the
34:34
prestige of the Rolls Royce Mark.
34:38
Claude had a quick and historic insight.
34:41
He'd, of course seen Monty's personalized mascot.
34:44
The whisperer Claude had liked it, found it dignified of the Rolls
34:49
Royce, though he found Monty's dedicated poem to the statue.
34:53
A little silly.
34:55
I am a little silver fairy.
34:57
Your mascot of many a mile, bringing you golden hours, guiding you safely the wild.
35:06
Anyway.
35:07
Claude consulted with Sykes, asked him if he mightn't rework
35:10
the design he'd done for Monty.
35:12
Make it a more mature, stylized version of the whisperer to serve as the
35:17
official mascot for the Rolls Royce.
35:19
Something that would look good in silver, something like that.
35:22
Statue in the Louvre, what was it called?
35:24
Winged Victory.
35:25
About what?
35:25
Head in arms please.
35:27
And maybe a bit of discretion was needed, it might not be a good idea to keep
35:32
the face of the Lord's secret lover on a mascot that would represent the
35:35
best of the best in Autumn over well.
35:37
You get the message.
35:39
Sykes loved the idea and got right down to work.
35:42
He resched the statue, simplified the gauze and shaped it more like wings.
35:48
Pushed the arms back into that billowing cape, and considering it the most correct.
35:52
Reworked the face to represent perhaps the only other woman in his life.
35:56
He would consider his muse, his mother.
36:02
The evolution was evident.
36:03
Eleanor was only a base for the end design.
36:06
She had been diluted outta the statuette.
36:09
Rumors ran rampant among those who knew.
36:12
Those rumors became urban legend, and yet truth be known, that mascot that
36:17
started out as the spirit of speed and then became known as the spirit
36:21
of Ecstasy, was a conglomeration of charcoal sketches of Eleanor's, early
36:26
sittings as a model, a marble statue in the Louvre and the artist's own mother.
36:35
None of this actually mattered to Eleanor or anyone else for that matter.
36:39
She was comfortably installed in a pleasant apartment near Hanover
36:42
Square, could take a coach to work every day, or the nicest of frocks
36:45
and jackets and shoes and hats that a professional woman could want.
36:49
She was excellent at her job managing the offices of the magazine, and as time
36:53
passed, she became indispensable to Monty.
36:56
As his responsibilities in the House of Lords became more
36:59
complex, especially as the war was becoming an unpleasant reality.
37:04
Even in London, Eleanor was becoming more a trusted lord's at attache than
37:09
a publisher's executive secretary.
37:14
Round about 1915, Monty Lord Montague of Blu was commissioned to travel to
37:20
India to manage something to do with motor cars for the British armed forces.
37:25
There he proposed to Eleanor that she accompany him, if not all the way
37:29
to India, well, at least to Egypt.
37:32
To those who would observe the trip would simply be a Lord unofficial
37:35
business, traveling with his secretary.
37:37
To those who knew, including Monty's wife, who continued to nod and then turn
37:43
her head, it would be an opportunity for the two to be alone and not have
37:48
to play act, at least not on the cruise across the Mediterranean.
37:55
Eleanor wasn't all that keen to travel so far.
37:58
She had become an avid reader of the press the Times with her breakfast at home,
38:02
the daily mail with coffee at the office, the daily mirror at tea in her parlor.
38:08
She was horrified at any news from the front, frustrated with the stupidity
38:12
of politicians and generals and noblemen and businessmen who caused
38:16
and pushed this silly war forward.
38:18
She understood the cultural, social, even economic realities that surrounded the
38:23
events but couldn't find justification for the massacre of so many young men, and she
38:28
was deadly afraid of those deadly U-boats.
38:34
The Germans had developed a kind of boat, an underwater tank, a sausage made of
38:40
iron, and armed with torpedoes, a vessel that could not be seen, that could sneak
38:45
up on a boat and sink it in less time than a call for help might be heard.
38:50
Speeding away under the waves to attack another boat.
38:53
The Mediterranean Sea was just beginning to see more and more of these U-boats.
38:58
Eleanor did not fancy being on a ship that had been targeted yet the
39:03
promise of a cruise with her lover.
39:05
A relaxed honeymoon like voyage across the Mediterranean, away
39:09
from gossip and restrictions.
39:10
Well, Eleanor was a woman in love as well.
39:13
She agreed to travel with Monty, at least to Egypt, then returned to
39:16
London to continue to manage business.
39:18
A car illustrated.
39:25
On Christmas Day, 1915, Monte and Eleanor boarded the SS Persia and
39:30
rapidly settled into the routines of sea travel, discreet separate
39:34
rooms and first class accommodations.
39:36
The relaxed spirit of the voyage, a calm sea.
39:39
The first five days, almost convinced Eleanor to change her plans and
39:43
accompany Monty all the way to Bombay.
39:49
It was on the 30th of December as the couple were settling down to lunch that
39:53
a German U-boat torpedoed the SS Persia.
39:58
The torpedo blasted into the steam boilers, one of which exploded on its own.
40:03
As the ship began to sink, Monty and Eleanor rushed to Monty's
40:06
Cabin to retrieve the newfangled inflatable life jackets he received
40:10
as a gift rushed back to the deck.
40:13
The SS Persia was tilting.
40:15
Water was rushing about as well.
40:17
Both Monty and Eleanor ended up in the cold Mediterranean Sea.
40:22
Monty lost grip on his lover.
40:26
Eleanor was gone.
40:28
Monty was picked up three days later, clinging to the underside of an
40:32
upturned lifeboat with other survivors.
40:41
Nellie's.
40:41
Father and mother would not see her die.
40:43
They would both die before her.
40:45
Her sister Rose, married a guy named Gordon.
40:48
When Eleanor died, Charles Sykes got in touch with Rose and gave her the original
40:52
mold he'd used to cast the whisperer for Monty as a memento of his sister.
40:58
Once Rose died, Gordon remarried.
41:01
Funny anecdote, someone broke into Gordon's home once he'd remarried,
41:05
and among the things stolen was that cast funny thing to steal.
41:13
Around 1910, Eleanor had stopped frequenting the pheasant tree,
41:16
concentrating on her professional career, and so lost touch with Emma
41:21
Velasco, the elocution teacher.
41:24
Emma and Ralph finally moved to Devon and opened their acting school.
41:29
Emma Velasco passed away not long after the war was over.
41:36
CS rolls.
41:37
The car salesman got a bit of air fever, traveled about in hot air balloons, then
41:42
became the first private person to buy an airplane, one of the first people to fly
41:46
with Wilbur Wright as a passenger in a biplane, the first pilot to make a nonstop
41:52
return trip over the English channel.
41:55
He did not stop there with being the first though.
41:58
CES rolls was the first fatality in British aviation.
42:03
Falling from the sky knows first when the boom of his bi planes
42:07
separated from the chassis.
42:09
His funeral procession was almost a state event in crowd size, at least.
42:17
Alfred Harms worth.
42:19
The newspaper publisher survived Ellen Ho by seven years passing away
42:23
in 1922 from a prolonged illness at first rumored to be syphilis, probably
42:28
because of his reputation as a lady's man later confirmed as a chronic blood
42:32
infection he'd harbored for years.
42:38
Claude Johnson, the first CEO of Rolls Royce died just 11 years after Eleanor.
42:44
He'd been poorly for a while, insisted on attending a niece's wedding collapsed.
42:49
Was rushed back to London and finally succumbed to pneumonia.
42:52
Only days later in 1926.
42:58
John Walter Edward Douglas, Scott Montague, second Barren Montague of eu
43:04
known to friends as Monty would live another 14 years after losing his lover.
43:09
His death at 63 and 1929 like Claude from Pneumonia would leave a single heir
43:15
Edward at the time, only two years old.
43:18
Fruit of his second wife, lady Sis, having passed away in 1866.
43:24
Monty would remember Eleanor with a dedicated plaque hung in the eu.
43:28
Abbey reading in memory of Eleanor Velasco Thornton, who served
43:34
him to vote Lee for 15 years.
43:39
Frederick Henry Royce, the automobile engineer, was never a very social
43:44
person, so that when in 1930 his health began to deteriorate, it was
43:48
not considered odd that he worked from home and be cared for there.
43:53
Despite this quiet home and work situation, Royce passed away in
43:57
1933 asking specifically to only be remembered not to be heralded.
44:04
His wishes were respected.
44:08
Charles Sykes, the man who sculptured the mascot of an elegant woman with a gauzy
44:14
cape, leaning into the destiny ahead, would survive Eleanor another 35 years.
44:20
For many of those years, he would personally cast and polish each
44:24
and every spirit of ecstasy mascot ordered to embellish the radiator
44:29
cap of a Rolls Royce automobile.
44:38
A quick afterward.
44:40
Contemporary information about Nellie a Thornton, more popularly
44:43
known as Eleanor Velasco Thornton is so sparse and mostly anchored to
44:48
the men she worked with and around.
44:50
It is also conditioned by the necessity of keeping her relationship
44:54
with Lord Montague Secret.
44:55
Conditioned by social morals and expectations conditioned by attitudes,
44:59
prejudices, envy, and gossip that would have made her life a hell had she not been
45:05
discreet and clever as she evidently was.
45:08
In other words, there's really not much about her.
45:14
There is little or no indication in her time of her having been a
45:18
particularly active member of any feminist or suffragist movement.
45:22
Her climb in the professional world seems only to likely to have come
45:25
from a combination of evident factors.
45:28
She was indeed good looking.
45:29
She was clever.
45:30
She had a particular background and upbringing that gave her the
45:33
practical skills she could use within the limited opportunities.
45:37
Offered a woman in the working world of the late 19th, early 20th century.
45:41
In a heavily classist society.
45:44
She had family and friends who supported her and encouraged her
45:47
throughout her initial years.
45:48
She had context as well that obviously made her entrance
45:51
into the work world easier.
45:56
She does seem to have been a self-made woman, but she was also the servant
46:00
of two masters, the chauvinistic male oriented world of Edwardian England.
46:05
Open to her only through the men she kept company with and her own ambitions to
46:10
rise out of the social position of the Terrace house neighborhood of her youth.
46:14
Perhaps at least inhabit the neighborhood of the class one step above her.
46:19
Movement between classes in Great Britain wasn't something that happened frequently.
46:26
And allow me to address the elephant in the room, the story of her being.
46:31
The inspiration for the Rolls Royce mascot may very well be
46:35
true, though I didn't find reliable contemporary evidence of such.
46:40
Just the same circumstantial detail I've used to tell this slightly
46:43
more mundane story of the woman in her connection with the statue.
46:48
I personally think the general acceptation of the story of Eleanor being the
46:51
model of the spirit of ecstasy is more a product of urban legend supposedly
46:57
confirmed years after the actual events combined with romantic marketing.
47:03
I am not suggesting that she was not.
47:06
I'm merely telling the story that I saw as I delved into what little information
47:10
we have about her from her contemporaries.
47:16
Eleanor was definitely a remarkable woman, one who probably died too young.
47:20
She was only 35 years old.
47:23
Had she lived the track record she had until her death would no doubt lead us
47:27
to expect that she would've accomplished much more, might even have lifted herself
47:31
out of anonymity and into a respectable place in history that represented more
47:35
substantially who she was, what she had done than the superficial story
47:40
of posing for a luxury car mascot.
47:43
Eleanor was one of hundreds, no thousands of women struggling in a world that
47:47
continued to consider them second class for having been born girls.
47:52
Her legacy should be her personal success in life.
47:55
That's what I will remember of her now that I've told this version of her story.
48:07
A beautiful, talented, clever woman, able to put men in their places, able to tell
48:12
men what to do and get them to do it.
48:15
Able to climb a professional ladder and all that without the
48:18
men around her taking notice.
48:21
Hats off to Nelly, Eleanor, Velasco Thornton.
48:25
Artist, model secretary, executive secretary at attache to a Lord,
48:31
the spirit of the successful 20th century every woman.
48:37
Cheers, Eleanor,
48:44
your you are listening to radio.
48:51
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49:03
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49:09
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