Bertha Blaxley, born in Northampton in 1878, was the ninth of the thirteen children of Mercy Lenton and Samuel Partridge Blaxley, shoe manufacturer. Her older sister Harriett Blaxley (later Swirles) was the mother of Bertha Swirles (later Jeffreys), who was named after her aunt Bertha. Harriett Swirles and Bertha Blaxley ran a small private school together for a time, Ashlea House School, at the family home in Northampton. Bertha Blaxley died in 1959.