Description:Photograph of Lady Helen Salt, nee Anderdon (1840-1925), of Weeping Cross and Walton on the Hill, Stafford. Born Emma Helen Mary Anderdon in 1840 in Marylebone, London, she was the youngest daughter of John Lavincourt Anderdon and his wife Anna Maria,nee Manning.
Mrs. Anderdon's older brother Henry Edward Manning,(1808-1892)a High Anglican clergyman, controversially converted to Catholicism and later became Cardinal Manning (1875-1892). In 1861 Helen Anderdon married Thomas Salt (1830-1904), a Stafford banker and M.P. for Stafford, at Chislehurst in Kent. In the 1871 census they were living in the village of Walton near Stafford in a large property known as Walton on the Hill. Local folklore has it that a signpost that Lady Salt had had erected to direct people to her house Walton on the Hill led to the village itself becoming known by that title. 1881 and 1901 maps of Walton show the large house Walton on the Hill on the northside of the village of Walton. When Thomas Salt (1802-1871) the elder died Thomas and Helen Salt moved into Weeping Cross House, the Salt family home at Weeping Cross, Stafford. Thomas and Helen had ten children. The Salt's butler John Beech witnessed regular visits to Weeping Cross by Helen Salt's uncle,Cardinal Manning. In 1899 Thomas Salt was created baronet of Standon and Weeping Cross for his services to banking. Sir Thomas Salt who died in 1904 was a nephew of William Salt whose antiquarian collection was to form the basis of the William Salt Library in Stafford. Soon after her husband died Lady Salt returned to live in Walton village when she purchased Walton on the Hill the large house she had lived in some thirty years previously. Lady Salt owned several cottages in the village and was well liked by her tenants. She also looked after her servants and had a house built in Walton for her faithful butler John Beech as mentioned in Laura Husselbee's book 'Down By Jacob's Ladder' written in 1991.
In this photograph Lady Salt is wearing mourning dress, so it would have been taken sometime after the death of her husband in 1904. Lady Helen Salt lived in Walton until circa 1920 when she moved to her London home and died there in 1925 aged 85.
In 1915 Weeping Cross House became Baswich House School. The name of the house continued as Baswich House despite several changes in ownership over the years until it was demolished in 2009 amid much controversy. At some point the Twigg residence on the other side of the Cannock Road and almost opposite Baswich House became known as Weeping Cross House leading to some confusion in later years.
Research by Jim Foley
Photograph by Weisse & Fowke, Stafford.