Violet Olive ‘Golly’ Jarrett
1891-1971
Director of Millinery Company   

The glamorous Violet Jarrett – known as Golly to friends and family – ran a millinery business with her friends Molly (Mary Isabel Wilson, another WPH tenant) and May (Adrienne May Lanceley). Golly was the company’s ‘traveller-director’ (i.e. sales director), responsible for travelling to big department stores both in Britain and Europe. It was whilst returning from a business trip to France in 1932 that Golly was caught up in a minor scandal – in order to avoid paying import tax, she had smuggled hats into Britain. Her story made headlines in a number of newspapers. The Western Daily Press of 21^st December 1932 reported: ‘Violet Olive Jarrett, a director of a London millinery establishment was at Folkestone yesterday fined a total of £60 (equivalent to £4117 in 2018), and Mary Rice, the head milliner of the company was fined £15, both being charged with evading Customs duty on hats imported from France.  It was stated that on one occasion, when the couple landed from Boulogne, Miss Jarrett was found to have eight hats concealed under the lining of an overcoat that she was carrying’.  The Belfast Telegraph report added that ‘On the same occasion four more hats were found in her baggage’.  

Golly was in no way abashed by gaining a criminal record, according to a family letter she celebrated that she had got off very lightly!   

Golly’s millinery business appears to have been successful and a rather upmarket affair. According to family sources, the millinery business was off Bond Street, with a showroom and an upstairs workroom for a number of ‘girls’ employed to make hats. One family legend suggests that Golly’s business made school hats for the daughters of Joseph Kennedy, when he was US Ambassador to Britain in the late 1930s. Two or three of the younger Kennedy girls were of school age at the time, so there could be some truth in this story! Golly’s business continued until the early 1950s.   

Golly lived with her parents in Thornton Heath up until their deaths in 1938 and 1939. She then moved into a WPH property – 167 Holland Park Avenue – with Molly Wilson. Golly moved on during the war, and lived variously with friends and family in West London until the 1960s. At this point, she moved to Southsea with Molly and her cousin. Golly’s great-niece visited them there and recalls that the three ladies were very fond of cocktail parties! She died in Bath, in 1971.