Gertrude Goodband was born at the end of the 19th century. A trained nurse, Goodband joined a nursing/missionary order and traveled to China to serve. Her duties included finding baby girls abandoned at birth to male child preference. The girls were taught needlepoint as part of their duties.
Henry Oscar Kidman (1833-1918) was born in Biscot, in the county of Bedfordshire, England, to parents James Kidman (1799-1886) and Mary Ann Elliott Lines (1811-1968). Henry Kidman became a farmer, and by 1851 he was working at Porters End Farm in Kimpton, Hertfordshire. In 1876, he married Louisa Rosetta Coxall (1844-1929) in the village of Chesterton, Oxfordshire. The couple had four children: Walter James Kidman (1878-?), Lilian Leigh Kidman (1879-?), Ella Kidman (1880-?), and Lester A. Kidman (1882-1939). In 1881, the family resided at Nast Hyde Farm in St Albans, Hertfordshire. By 1901, they had moved to Buttermere, in Wiltshire, where Henry Kidman was lord of Buttermere Manor and continued to work as a farmer.
Henry Kidman and his two daughters, Lilian and Ella, were all artistically inclined. They drew and painted in a variety of mediums (including watercolours, ink, and pencil) and worked collaboratively on several art projects: notably, autograph albums and art albums.
Little more is known about the Kidman sisters. Lilian Kidman seems to have resided at Bateman House, Bateman Street, Cambridge in 1895, during which time Ella Kidman sent her many elaborately illustrated letters. Ella Kidman had moved to Sutton by 1911, and she immigrated to New York on 19 April 1914. Later, she married John Patrick Millington (1882-?) who, although born in Essex, was living in Winnipeg, Manitoba by 1911. The Kidman family art albums were presented to the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria in 1979 by a Mr. Millington, suggesting that Ella Kidman and John Millington or their family may have eventually moved to Victoria, British Columbia.
By 1911, Henry Kidman had retired from farming, and he and Louisa Kidman moved to Sutton, Surrey, and then to Chiswick, Middlesex.
The Aylmer family lived in Lennoxville, Quebec. Hugh Aylmer later moved to Victoria, B.C.
Members of the Thomas Barry family resided in Clapham and Battersea (districts of London, England).
Members of the Cavenagh family were British Army officers and officers of the East India Company serving primarily in the Straits Settlements, Malaya, Singapore, and Penang.
The Destrube family lived at Rife, via Vegreville, Alberta. Georges, Guy, Paul, and Dan Destrube served in France during World War I, Guy and Paul dying in action in 1917.
Percy Gooch was born in England in the late 1830s or early 1840s. He served with the British Army from 1855 to 1863 at various postings in England, the Crimea, and India. After leaving the military he moved to British Columbia, accompanied by his mother, Edith Stephenson. Percy Gooch died in Victoria in the 1930s.
The Preston family has preserved records relating to relatives who served in the British army. Lt. Col. James H. Wyatt (b. 1825) was an officer in British Militia, stationed in Curragh, Northern Ireland. He married Jane [Jeanie] Forbes Hogarth, Jan 8th 1857. He sailed to China by clipper in 1857 but the ship was diverted to India because of the Indian Mutiny. Wyatt was in the military train (cavalry) and participated in the relief of Lucknow, Calcutta. The letters were transcribed by J. W. W[yatt]. The letters were inherited by Blanche Margaret Preston (nee Wyatt) and passed down through the family. Major William Forbes Amyas Preston was born in Beaumaris, Anglesea in 1896. He worked in the National Provincial Bank before joining 28th Battalion, The London Regiment, better known as the Artists Rifles, and officer-producing unit in 1915. On 30th Sept. 1916, he was commissioned in the Royal Artillery and appointed to the Rocket Troop, Royal Horse Artillery, which was serving in France. He served in the British Army in France during the First World Was and after in war in Bombay and Karachi India; Mesopotamia, Egypt and Turkey; and in the United Kingdom. He was seconded to the Royal Air Force to become a pilot and served until 1928. He served in the Royal Artillery in the United Kingdom form 1938 to 1945. On retirement he continued to serve in the Home Guard, 5th Battalion, Royal Welsh, Fusiliers, at the Vickers Armstrong pant in Queensferry, Cheshire. From 1950 to c 1960 he served in the Civil Defence in the City of London, Ontario and the in the Emergency Measures Organization of the Province of Ontario. He moved to Victoria B.C. in 1970 and died in Victoria in 1976.