Gibb photograph archive, Volume 1
No. 95 - The crater on site of Lodge. Ex[eter]. May [19]42.
The Abbot's Lodge was the home of the Headmaster and his family. The bombing of the Lodge on 25th April 1942 took the lives of:
Margaret Elizabeth Langhorne, aged 29. One of Rev Langhorne's daughters.
Margaret Baxter, aged 39, a maid to the Langhorne's. Daughter of William and Jane Baxter of High Cummersdale, Carlisle.
Eric Dare's commentary about Gibb's photographs says that two maids were killed. A newspaper cutting from 1944 also states that two maids (unnamed) were killed (the newspaper cutting is shown at https://jnvlieland.blogspot.com/2016/09/winifred-langhorne.htm but the name of the newspaper is not provided). The same web source that provides the newspaper cutting, says that three of the staff, as well as Margaret Langhorne, were killed (https://jnvlieland.blogspot.com/2016/09/winifred-langhorne.html). Janet Langhorne also says that three domestic staff were killed, together with her sister (see negative 3)
From Devon Heritage, Blitz casualties, which forms one of the main sources of a list of casualties (and provides the details for the Margarets above), says with the entries for each of the two ladies: "Abbott's Lodge adjoined the Chorister's School - both buildings stood at the rear of 10, The Close. A huge high explosive bomb completely destroyed the properties in a few seconds." [http://www.devonheritage.org/Places/Exeter/Blitzcasualties.htm]
See photograph 77 and photograph 78 for views of the Lodge photographed in April, the same month as the bombing.
Gibb must have been away from Exeter during the actual bombing. The previous 15 negatives, all for May 1942, suggest he was with his parents, at Broadwater, with visits to Bosham, West Sussex. None of the boys was at the school during the air raids.
Rev. Langhorne and his wife were away from Exeter at the time on holiday.
Produced photograph 36a.