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1880 Aug 16. Born. Danish West Indies
1891 census at boarding school at 32, Dalby Square, Margate
1901 census at 17, Royal Crescent, Edinburgh, where he is a boarder. David Stiven, single, aged 20, Gas Engineer Student, born in St Thomas in Danish West Indies, a British Subject
1905 Apr/Jun marries in London to Dorothy Winifred Waugh
1911 census at 40 Hardy Road Blackheath S E
1911 to 1914 He plays hockey (goal) quite seriously - Blackheath, Kent and Southern Counties.
1915 Oct 14. ASC. The undermentioned to be temporary Lieutenants: — David Daniel Stiven. He appears to have gone straight into the army as a Lt. Given his background as a Gas Engineer, it is not surprising that he was put into the ASC
1917 Divorce Court File: 9272. Appellant: Dorothy Winifred Stiven. Respondent: David Daniel Stiven. Type: Wife's petition for restitution of conjugal rights
1918 Divorce Court File: 877. Appellant: Dorothy Winifred Stiven. Respondent: David Daniel Stiven. Type: Wife's petition for divorce
1919 Jul/Sep. Married Agnes Cuffe. His address on the marriage cert is Ordnance Depot, Didcot. At the time of her marriage, Agnes and her illegitimate child Alec were living in Bloomsbury at 31, Upper Bedford Place.
Sir Alec Guinness (1914–2000), actor, was born at 155 Lauderdale Mansions, Paddington, London, on 2 April 1914, the illegitimate son of Agnes Cuffe (or de Cuffe, b. 1886/7, the daughter of Edward Charles Cuffe RN). When Alec was five his mother married David Daniel Stiven (b. 1880/81), a lieutenant in the Royal Army Service Corps. He was known as Alec Stiven until he was fourteen, when he was told that his real name was Guinness.
Guinness himself wrote. ''My birth certificate registers me as Alec Guinness de Cuffe. 'My mother was a Miss Agnes Cuffe; my father's name is left an intriguing, speculative blank. When I was five years old my mother married an Army captain, a Scot named David Stiven, and from then until I left preparatory school I was known as Alec Stiven (a name I rather liked, although I hated and dreaded my stepfather).''
About one year after his second marriage, Stiven joined the ADRIC and went off to Ireland. Although the Auxiliaries leave, Stiven would have only had 5 or 6 weeks when he could possibly have been back with his new wife. then 10 months after getting back from Ireland he left permanently for New Zealand without his new wife.
1919 Oct 15 Demobbed. Adddress Half Moon St , Mayfair, London
1920 Oct 14. Joined ADRIC with service no. 725. Posted to G Coy
During his ADRIC time Oct 1920 - Jan 1921 the Stivens took a flat in St John's Wood. 'He always has his gun with him, in case the Sinn Fein come after him,' Alec overheard his mother tell their landlady in their flat in St John's Wood; and from the time of her marriage to Stiven his mother would drag Alec quickly 'past London pillar-boxes in case they contained revolutionary Irish bombs'.
The Stiven portrayed by Alec in his autobiography is a violent eccentric who, for three years, made his life 'a terrifying hell' by, for example, holding his revolver to Alec's head and, on another occasion, dangling him from a bridge and 'threatening to kill me and himself' to get what he wanted from Agnes. Alec did, however, concede that his mother may well have goaded Stiven into this extreme behaviour; and it is also common, even for a boy of six, to resent the advent of a competitor for his mother's love.
1921 Jul 11 to 27 Jul on Leave
1921 Sep 1. ASC. Relinquishes his commission on completion of service Lt and retains the rank of Lt. D D Stiven
1921/1922 The Stivens moved to digs in Southbourne in Dorset, a village on the east side of Poole Bay. Agnes's older sister, Louisa May, lived a few miles away, in Poole. It was at Southbourne that David Stiven held his loaded revolver to my head, threatening to kill me and then himself. And it was at Southbourne I saw the last of him, when he emigrated to New Zealand on the understanding that my mother would follow. Stiven went to New Zealand in Nov 1922. He never returned to the family. Sir Alec himself said that his mother's ''violently unhappy marriage'' lasted only three years, ending when Captain Stiven (sic) was posted (sic) to New Zealand. In 1932 Guinness cut off all relations with his mother, and no more seems to be heard from her
1922 Jan. Discharged at demobilisation of ADRIC
1922 Nov 16. Leaves UK for Australia. Interestingly he travels with another G Coy man T/Cadet Thomas Francis Patey Briggs. They both give final destination as New Zealand
1928 - 1946 he appears on electoral rolls around Wellington, New Zealand. "Traveller" is his occupation, and from 1935 to 1946 has a wife "May".
1930 May 21. Undefended divorce case in NZ press, David Daniel Stiven v Agnes Stiven (for desertion) decree nisi granted.
1930 Married May Stubbings.
1937 Nov 4. Leaves UK for Australia with his wife Mary
1948. His death is recorded at the age of 68.
1949 Electoral roll has May Stiven as a "widow"