R - Roxillanna Lawrence

What a great name – don’t you think? 

Roxillanna was born in Coventry in 1899. Her father was my great grandfather’s first cousin. They lived almost next door to each other for some of their childhood, but a seven-year age difference may have meant they didn’t know each other well.

Roxillanna was the middle child of nine although as her elder twin brothers died in infancy so she will have grown up as the third child with five sisters and one younger brother.

Her father was a Fruiterer, managing his own store in Birmingham and later Coventry. Her mother took over the business after the death of her father in 1917. Not long after his death, in 1918, Roxillanna married Cecil Payne. Cecil was a public servant on the 1921 census working at the Ministry of Labour employed at the Government Instructional Factory. In 1939 at the outbreak of World War Two he was an Assistant Production Manager.

Cecil and Roxillanna had two daughters.

But where did her name come from? Did she like it? It was quite different to her sister’s names – Nellie, Rose, Jessie, Gladys and Doris.

Do you know this family? Can we help each other? Please get in contact if you think we have a connection.