Square Toes and Formal
This booklet describing the history of the firm Young, Coles and Langdon was authored by Christopher Langdon in 2008 and published on the firm's website. Since then, it has disappeared from their site (although a copy is still available courtesy of Google Books) - hence being hosted here. The history touches on the history of a number of buildings and people around the town, so is useful as a reference source.
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Please note that this text is copyright and is hosted here for the purposes of research. Should the current copyright holders wish to assert their rights to publication, this page will be taken down upon request. |
Square toes and formal
Sketches of some of the people and places
who have been associated with
Young Coles & Langdon
over the past 180 years.
by
Christopher Langdon
(Established in 1828)
incorporating
LANGHAM, DOUGLAS & CO
(Established in 1779)
SOLICITORS OF HASTINGS and Bexhill
Researched and written by
Christopher Langdon
based on an original text by
Michael Langdon
Hastings, Hock Tuesday 2008 [ - ]
CONTENTS
| Introduction | 1 |
| Chapter 1 | 2 |
| The Town | 2 |
| Chapter 2 | 5 |
| John Collier and his Descendants | 5 |
| Chapter 3 | 7 |
| The Scrivens Family | 7 |
| William Scrivens (1740-1815) | 7 |
| William Scrivens the Elder (1773-1844) | 7 |
| William Scrivens the Younger (1805-1871) | 8 |
| George Scrivens (1807-1887) | 12 |
| Chapter 4 | 17 |
| The Young Family | 17 |
| William Blackman Young (1814-1899) | 17 |
| Archibald Edward Young | 18 |
| Chapter 5 | 24 |
| The Coles Family | 24 |
| John Henry Campion Coles (1832-1915) | 24 |
| Frederick William Coles (1864-1946) | 25 |
| Chapter 6 | 27 |
| The Langdon Family | 27 |
| Augustus Langdon (1813-1874) | 27 |
| Augustin William Langdon (1837-1887) | 27 |
| William Herbert Langdon (1879-1948) | 29 |
| Charles Godfrey Langdon (1877-1941) | 32 |
| Michael Charles Selfe Langdon (1915-1985) | 33 |
| Christopher Michael Fane Langdon (Born 1945) | 34 |
| Chapter 7 | 36 |
| The Langham Family | 36 |
| William Langham | 36 |
| James George Langham (1794-1877) | 37 |
| Frederick Adolphus Langham (1836-1913) | 38 |
| Colonel Frederick George Langham CMG (1862-1946) | 39 |
| Major Edward Hennah Langham TD (Died 1962) | 43 |
| Roland Hennah Langham (1909-1962) | 44 |
| Chapter 8 | 46 |
| Partners. | 46 |
| William Henry Goodwin (1827-1887) | 46 |
| Dr Frederick Goodwin (1862-1897) | 47 |
| Arthur Cyril Kidson (1899-1974) | 47 |
| Norman White (born 1922) | 48 |
| John Charles Gordon Clement Edwards (1924-2004) | 49 |
| Derek Roy Millgate (born 1952) | 49 |
| Jane Lindsay Moon (born 1960) | 50 |
| Richard Carlisle Lane (born 1956) | 50 |
| Chapter 9 | 51 |
| Staff | 51 |
| William Hallaway | 51 |
| Fred Edmund Vidler | 51 |
| Harry Edwards | 52 |
| Robert Henry ('Bob') Shaw | 53 |
| Janet Dunford | 53 |
| Nora Harvey | 54 |
| Barry Archer Hilton | 55 |
| Shirley Pollard. | 55 |
| Wendy Duffus. | 55 |
| Judith Everett | 55 |
| Irene Taylor. | 55 |
| Frank Robson | 56 |
| Marjorie Johnson. | 56 |
| Peter Sutton | 56 |
| Betty Stevenson | 56 |
| Granville Reid Shaw Mackenzie | 56 |
| Robert William Raper | 56 |
| Brian Richard Cummings | 56 |
| Henry Alexander Tolputt | 56 |
| Richard Rolfe | 56 |
| Frederick James Mason | 56 |
| Michael H. Gabb | 57 |
| Russell F. Syder | 57 |
| Clive Thorpe | 57 |
| Geoffrey Waters | 57 |
| Chapter 10 | 58 |
| Anecdotes | 58 |
| Appendix I | 61 |
| The Buildings | 61 |
| 113 High Street | 61 |
| 78 High Street | 61 |
| 80 High Street | 61 |
| 1 Bank Buildings | 62 |
| Sherrald, Sedlescombe | 63 |
| 31 Russell Street | 64 |
| 32 Russell Street | 66 |
| 5/6 Albert Road and 31 Russell Street | 67 |
| 21a Endwell Road, Bexhill | 68 |
| 44 St Leonards Road, Bexhill | 68 |
| The Swan Hotel | 68 |
| 90 High Street | 68 |
| 1 High Street | 69 |
| 41 Wellington Square | 69 |
| The Grove | 69 |
| University School | 70 |
| Clive Vale House | 70 |
| English's Plot (adjoining Priory Road) | 71 |
| The Mill Field | 75 |
| Appendix II | 77 |
| Chronology for the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries | 77 |
| Appendix III | 81 |
| Chronological changes in the name of the firm | 81 |
| Appendix IV | 82 |
| The Magdalen and Lasher Charity | 82 |
| Appendix V | 90 |
| The Fane Family | 90 |
| Appendix VI | 92 |
| The Langham family and the 5th (Cinque Ports) Battalion, the Royal Sussex Regiment | 92 |
| Appendix VII | 97 |
| Literary and Artistic Associations | 97 |
| Corrie Ten Boom | 97 |
| George Orwell | 97 |
| Coventry Patmore | 97 |
| Matilda Barbara Betham Edwards | 97 |
| David Gemmell | 98 |
| Henry Spencer Ashbee | 99 |
Introduction
In 1978 Young, Coles & Langdon celebrated its 150th anniversary with a reception held at the Queens Hotel and attended by the Mayor, the late Councillor John Hodgson MBE, DL. While preparing for the anniversary, Michael Langdon, who was the Firm's senior partner between 1965 and 1985, wrote a brief history of the Firm. His sources were confined to some correspondence with the Law Society's Archivist and the Curator of the Hastings Borough Museum together with some anecdotal oral history and a ledger for 1844/1846. Within eight small pages he sketched a tantalising glimpse of past events.
In 1993 the Firm moved from Queensbury House at the top of Havelock Road to 5/6 Albert Road and 31 Russell Street. These premises are now called ‘Langham House’. Following the move, Christopher Langdon began to look for possible links between the new office premises and the Firm. Intrigued by the way in which the life of Young Coles & Langdon was linked to the social history of Hastings, he started to collect material and write notes from which a revised account could be written.
The First Edition was produced in 2003 to mark the Firm’s 175th anniversary. A Second Edition was privately published in 2006. It has now become necessary to produce a Third (and probably the last) Edition to replenish the dwindling stock, correct some errors and add some new material.
Chapter 1
The Town
Descending into central Hastings from Priory Road or from Castle Hill, it is still possible to imagine that, many centuries ago, the area between the West Hill and White Rock was a substantial river valley with a Roman harbour on the present site of the main shopping precinct. By the thirteenth century, the town of Hastings had migrated to the area between the West and the East Hills. The land between the West Hill and White Rock was still a river estuary, although the flow of water had much diminished and the area was largely marshland.
With the passing of time, the whole river valley silted up and, although prone to flooding, ceased to resemble an estuary. A small river, known as the Priory Stream, flowed down from Old Roar along the line of what is now Queen's Road but was formerly known as Meadow Road. Today it is piped through the town centre and on to the beach.
3 It is hard to envisage that for generations the size of Hastings was perhaps little more than that of present day Winchelsea. During the eighteenth century the population varied between two and three thousand, although by 1815 it had grown to about four thousand people. The estates of a few wealthy families surrounded the Old Town. A large part of the present Borough to the east of Queens Road was owned by John Collier and his descendants while the Cornwallis family, the Eversfield family and the Corporation (who were responsible for the then Charity lands) owned most of what is now central Hastings, Ore and Bohemia. The enthusiasm of these wealthy families to acquire land and their equal reluctance to part with any of it for development imposed an effective barrier against any urban expansion. By 1815 the country had also been at war with France for twenty-six years - a war that had at times involved most of the countries of Europe. The Royal Military Canal, the Martello Towers and other evidence of military activity were in the vicinity. Just as in the late 1940's a young person would have had fresh memories of a war lasting many years - memories reinforced by many signs in and around Hastings - so too a young person in Hastings in the years immediately following the Napoleonic War would have experienced constant reminders of the past conflict. The end of the war in l815, coupled with significant national, social and economic pressures (including the death of John Collier without a male heir and the consequent fragmentation of his estate) and the growing attraction of Hastings as a residential and resort area led to enormous changes in the first half of the nineteenth century. Between 1815 and 1819 the first houses were built to the east of Meadow Road and also on the east side of Wellington Square. A close look at the upper floors of some of the shops opposite the Town Hall will reveal the facades of the original houses which would have enjoyed a pleasant river frontage. When built, they had a view across the open fields with the Priory Farm standing near the site of what was Sainsbury's and is now ESK Warehouse. As with most of the houses in Queens Road, the shop fronts were added later. In 1817 developers built the elegant Castle Hotel where the Snooker Centre now stands, while the site of the cinema (formerly the Gaiety 4 Theatre which was built in 1882 and where Oscar Wilde lectured in 1883) formed its associated stable mews. The hotel was demolished in the l960's and at the time of its demolition the father of a present partner, Derek Millgate, purchased the bar for ten shillings. On the same day he sold the pumps for £25 but erected the bar in his home. It remains the hope of the partners that perhaps one day the bar will be reassembled in the reception office of Langham House. To the west of the river, where the Priory Meadow shopping centre and Devonshire Road are located, were open fields belonging to the Cornwallis Family. To the south of these fields, at the mouth of the original estuary, the area between the Queen's Hotel and the White Rock was little more than a squatters' camp. It was known as the Priory or Government Ground - but more popularly as the America Ground. In 1828 the leading citizens of the town enlisted the aid of the Crown to reinforce its right to the land. Following an inquiry held at the George Inn at Battle, the Crown granted itself title to the land but allowed the existing occupiers short leases that all expired in l836. In that year all were evicted and the ground was cleared. In 1849, after a fifteen-year delay, the Crown granted long leases of the reclaimed land. Patrick Robertson MP acquired a large part of it and developed the area around what is now Robertson Street. Many of the former residents of the America Ground moved with their houses to Gensing Farm in St Leonards. Several of the houses in that area, chiefly in North Street, were originally from that location. The new beneficiaries of the Ground had a continuing sense of guilt towards the dispossessed who had moved to St Leonards. Lady St John, who had contributed to the cost of building the 'cathedral' of Holy Trinity in Robertson Street, was sufficiently burdened to build Christ Church in St Leonards and to encourage its powerful Anglo-Catholic outreach to the underprivileged. The railway line reached St Leonards in l846 and was finally extended to the centre of Hastings in l851. The associated building works required the construction of a large earth bank for the track while the residue from the tunnel was deposited to form the surface of Havelock Road. All this work helped to mitigate against the attacks of the sea - although the former estuary continued to flood until the completion of the new pumping arrangements. 5 Chapter 2 John Collier and his Descendants How and why did William Scrivens the Younger come to start a solicitor's practice in Hastings? The full reason may never be known, but a brief examination of the lawyers who practised in Hastings at the end of the eighteenth century shows that John Collier was perhaps the greatest of the local legal and business influences. At the same time he owned most of the key land which would be required for the future growth of the town. His death without a male heir precipitated the break up of his estate and facilitated the expansion of Hastings. Dare one say that he served the town no less well in death than in life? John Collier was born at Eastbourne in 1685. He was the son of Peter Collier, the landlord of the Lamb Inn. He trained and practised as a solicitor and settled at Hastings early in life. He served as Town Clerk for thirty-nine years and was Mayor in 1719, 1722, 1730, 1737 and 1741. John Collier was a Baron of the Cinque Ports and carried the canopy over Queen Caroline at the coronation of George II in 1727. He was one of the two joint solicitors to the Cinque Ports. He also held many posts under the Crown. In his private capacity he was the steward of several manors and the agent for the Sussex estates of Henry Pelham who was Prime Minister under George II. He also acted as banker to the Town. In addition, he was the agent of the Duke of Newcastle, the brother of Henry Pelham and, as such, was the channel through which government patronage found its way to Hastings. John Collier owned substantial areas of land in and around Hastings. His properties included The Mansion (now Old Hastings House) in the High Street where he lived. Sir Peckham Micklethwaite (see Chapter 5) and the poet Coventry Patmor, subsequently lived there as tenants of the Milward family. (Young Coles & Langdon acted for Sir Peckham and the trustees of Coventry Patmore’s estate.) This house has been extended and is now a Registered Home for the Elderly run by the Trustees of the Magdalen and Lasher Charity for whom the Firm also acts. John Collier converted four cottages on the opposite side of the High Street into a new stable block. In 1959 this building reopened as the Stables Theatre and the Firm has represented the Council of Management as Honorary Solicitors since that 6 time. He also owned the land between the West Hill and the Priory Stream (known as the Priory Field) and the Mill Field located on top of the West Hill. John Collier was twice married but, out of his twenty-four children, was survived by only five daughters. His son James was a barrister and Mayor of Hastings in 1745 but died in 1747 aged 27. John Collier himself died in l760. It is an interesting reflection on the Hastings mentality that in St. Clement's Church the memorial to him and to his notable achievements commences, "Tho' not a native ....." His estate was divided between his daughters. Edward Milward Senior (appointed a Notary Public in 1747) courted John Collier's daughter Jane - but she rejected him and he married instead her elder sister, Mary. As a result of this marriage, the Priory Field eventually passed to John Collier's grandson, Edward Milward Junior who sold it in December 1815 to Breeds, Farncomb, Breeds and Wenham with offices at 33 High Street. Their intention was to develop it for building purposes and Langham House stands on part of this land. At the time of John Collier's death his daughter Jane was still unmarried. However, in 1759 a new gun battery was built to the West of George Street and an engineer, William Green, was employed in the work. He made a runaway match with Jane and settled with her in Lewes. She died before him and through her he inherited the Mill Field - which eventually came into the ownership of William Scrivens the Elder. 7 Chapter 3 The Scrivens Family The Firm has its origin with the Scrivens family although W.B. Young will be seen as the major influence on its development from 1846 until the end of the nineteenth century. William Scrivens (1740 - 1815) The first member of the family to be identified in Hastings is William Scrivens who was the first of three generations to bear that name. He was 39 when he arrived in the town from Dorking in 1779 to become the landlord of the Swan Hotel (See Appendix I). In 1781 he became a Freeman and was elected a Jurat after his retirement in 1803. His son, William Scrivens the Elder, was born in 1773. His wife died in l795 aged 48 and he himself died in 1815. He is buried in the churchyard of All Saints' Church. William Scrivens the Elder (1773 - 1844) In 1791 the Hastings Old Bank was founded at 90 High Street (See Appendix I). One of the Bank's original partners was William Gill who was originally a clocksmith. (A grandfather clock made by him is in the possession of one of the Firm’s clients.) He had been born in 1749 and was married to Ann, the daughter of Thomas Carswell. They had two children: James and Ann (born 1778) who married William Scrivens the Elder. Through his marriage he became a partner in the Hastings Old Bank In 1804 he purchased the Mill Field from William Green for £525. In 1810 he sold it for £600 to his relative Rowe Carswell. Details of this transaction are recorded in Appendix I. He also became a Freeman in 1810 and was elected a Jurat in 1815 - the year of his father's death. In the Sussex elections of 1832 he is shown as registered in Guestling but a resident of Hastings. William Scrivens the Elder had two children. William Scrivens the Younger was born in 1805. His brother George was born in 1807. 8 W illiam Scrivens the Elder heads the procession for Princess Victoria into H astings in 1834. William Scrivens the Elder was Mayor in 1834 and led the party that welcomed Princess Victoria when she visited the town in that year. The day after she arrived, he delivered an address to the Princess. He was so overcome by his feelings that he was scarcely audible. This caused the young Princess to observe that, “Although they had been received at other places with equal honours they had never met with a more heartfelt welcome.” When the horse pulling Princess Victoria's carriage bolted, one of the two gentlemen who rescued her was Mr Peckham Micklethwaite who was living at Old Hastings House. For this act he was later created a baronet. The Hastings National School was started during William Scrivens the Elder's term of office as Mayor. In 1837 he was appointed one of the first named trustees of the Hastings Charities which included the Magdalen Charity. He died in 1844. His wife died in 1865 aged 87 and is buried with her husband in a grave beside her parents in the churchyard of All Saints' Church. William Scrivens the Younger (1805 - 1871) William Scrivens the Younger, was educated at a private local school and then articled to Francis Harding Gell (1785-1864), a solicitor with his practice in Lewes. Mr Gell's firm had acted for William Green when he originally sold the Mill Field to William Scrivens the Elder and it is possible that William Scrivens the Younger obtained his articles through a business or family connection made initially by his father. The Sussex Records Office holds deeds witnessed by William Scrivens the Younger as Clerk to Mr Gell in 1823, 1825 9 and 1826. He qualified as a solicitor in 1826 and then spent two years working in the Temple as a conveyancer before starting his own practice in Hastings in 1828. In 1834 William Scrivens the Younger married Elizabeth, the elder daughter of Thomas Potter of Manchester. His marriage settlement for £4,000 together with two indorsed deeds of appointment is in Hastings Borough Museum, It is an interesting parchment because it bears the signatures of Thomas Potter, members of the Scrivens family, Robert Bayley and Thomas Baker Baker. It is witnessed by William Hallaway and Frank Selby Gill - Clerks to William Scrivens and by George Meadows, Clerk to Thomas Baker Baker. (A photograph of George Meadows hangs in the town centre offices of Percy Walker & Co. who acquired the business of Thorpe Meadows & Co. where he was subsequently a partner.) The circumstances behind the link with the Potter family are unknown but there are interesting details. Sir Thomas Potter MP (1773 - 1845) was the first Mayor of Manchester in 1838. He grew up with his younger brother Richard Potter MP (1778 - 1842) (known as ‘Radical Dick’) on their father’s farm at Tadcaster, North Yorkshire. Together they collaborated both in business and in politics in Manchester. They helped to found the Manchester Guardian newspaper in 1821 which eventually became The Guardian in 1959. Richard Potter’s granddaughter, Beatrice Webb (1858 - 1943) was a prominent social reformer and the wife of Sidney Webb. William Scrivens the Younger practised on his own at 113 High Street between 1828 and 1844. The Sussex Records Office holds one of his bills dated 1840 for legal fees relating to Ebenezer Chapel. The Firm has little additional information about his legal activities, but has deeds executed by him with his seal - a handsome turkey. The choice of a seal may be a pun on the "gobbling" speech of Hastings fishermen or it may relate to the well- known association at that time of Dorking (from where his grandfather had come) with the quality farming of poultry, including turkeys. Dorking had the reputation of being the greatest market in England for poultry. Their first football club had the original nickname of "The Chicks" while the Dorking Cock is still the emblem of the town. William Gill made his Will on the 11 November and died on the 16th th November 1831. He left his widow (who died in 1848 aged 96) a life interest 10 in a settlement of £2,500 which then passed to his son James also for life before being divided equally between his grandchildren William Scrivens the Younger and George Scrivens. James was also left the residue of his personal estate. Unfortunately he was profligate and mortgaged his reversionary life interest to his nephew William Scrivens the Younger as security for a loan of £500. In April 1847 he was adjudged bankrupt. William Scrivens the Younger acted for the Hastings Old Bank and was also the Clerk to the Trustees of the Charity Lands between 1843 and 1846. In 1844 he was joined in partnership by W.B. Young but from the end of 1846 ceased to practise and left W.B. Young to run the business of Scrivens & Young. In the autumn of 1846 he completed two watercolour paintings - "The East Cliff at Hastings" and "Hastings Beach". Both were presented to the Borough in 1945 by A.J. Bray and are displayed in the Fishermen's Museum. Despite his retirement, the Firm remained known as Scrivens & Young. For the rest of his life William Scrivens took out an annual solicitor's practising certificate at a cost of one guinea. He devoted much of his time to public and social pursuits. He clearly had property interests across the town for, in 1858, he applied to the Charity Trustees for permission to dig a well on his land in St Leonards where it bordered the 'Maudlin Fields' (See Appendix IV). He was a Major in the First Administrative Battalion of the Cinque Ports Artillery, President of the Hastings Working Mens Club, Vice President of the Hastings Mechanics Institution, and connected with the Literary Institution in George Street and the YMCA in Wellington Square. He was also Treasurer of the Hastings Cottage Improvement Society, a director of the Hastings & St Leonards Gas Company (resigning as Chairman in 1857) and Chairman of the Pier Company. Both he and his father are included in the list of those persons appointed as Commissioners under the Hastings Improvement Act of 1832. Jointly with his brother, he owned the premises belonging to the White Rock Brewery which stood on the present site of Palace Chambers. He was a Freeman of the Borough and an Alderman by 1848. He was Mayor for four terms between 1866 and 1870 and his photograph hangs in Hastings Town Hall. As Mayor he was the returning officer for the parliamentary elections held on the 17 November 1868 and 17 Novemberth th 1869. The latter were the last elections when the hustings at the Central 11 Cricket Ground were used before being replaced with polling booths as a result of the Ballot Act 1872. Because the Firm has the Poll Books for the elections (formerly the property of the local auctioneer the late Arthur Dunk and found by him in the Observer Buildings in Claremont) it is possible to correct two very small errors in Historic Hastings by Manwaring Baines. The election was on the 17 and not the 18 November. More important, Mr U.J.th th Kay-Shuttleworth won the election and not Mr P.F. Robertson - who did not therefore have the last laugh. Elizabeth Scrivens died on April 24th, 1870 and the local papers paid warm tributes to her generosity and kindness. In March 1871 her trustees repaid £2,000 to Thomas Bayley Potter MP - possibly the repayment of part of her marriage settlement following her death without children. Her death appeared to have affected the health of William Scrivens and hastened his own end. He died on 9th September 1871 in his fourth year of office. Indeed, he is one of the few Mayors in the history of the town to have died in office. The Town paid elaborate respects to him. There were no less than sixty carriages in the funeral procession that left from the High Street to Fairlight Church where the service was held. Six hundred people crowded into the churchyard for his burial. Most of the town's shops closed for the day. The two brothers, who both died without issue, are buried side by side with their wives in simple graves in Fairlight Churchyard. George Scrivens is described as of Pelham Place, Hastings and "for many years a banker in that town", while his brother is simply described as of Hastings and "universally regretted". In his obituary, the warmth with which he was held within the town is recorded in these emotional words, The bell that on Sunday morning tolled the sad tidings in our ears that his large and kindly heart had ceased to beat, that his genial homely face was rigid in death, rang out one knell of universal sorrow. There are many now in the town who we all esteem, but there is perhaps not one whose demise, however we should sorrow for him, could call forth such general heartfelt sympathy as the death of Mr Alderman Scrivens. His will was signed on the 14th April 1871. It was witnessed by his servant Alfred Thomas Botting and by W.H. Goodwin (later a partner in the Firm - see Chapter 8). It was proved at Lewes by W.B. Young and showed a personal estate (including leaseholds) of less than £10,000. He appointed his brother to be his sole executor and, after leaving small legacies (including £40 12 each to his relatives Ann and Jane Gill of Gensing, Station Road, Hastings), he left all his estate to his brother George Scrivens. George Scrivens (1807 - 1887) In l832 George Scrivens followed his father into banking as a clerk with Tilden & Co. In 1838 he married his brother’s sister-in-law Ann Potter. His marriage settlement is also in Hastings Borough Museum. By 1843 he was a partner in the Hastings Old Bank. George and Ann Scrivens were sociable - the Chronicle for January 1849 recording their presence at a ball in the Assembly Rooms. The reporter noted the enthusiasm for the modern dances, the most popular being the new 'polkas, valses and quadrilles'. The dance progressed with 'great spirit to the last'. George Scrivens was Mayor of Hastings twice - in 1844 and 1849. In 1850 Thomas Farncomb was Lord Mayor of London. He had been born in Hastings (and is buried at Fairlight) and left the town to become a successful merchant and ship owner. In January he invited 100 guests from Hastings and Rye to a Mansion House dinner. A special train of first class carriages ran from St Leonards to London Bridge Station. There the Lord Mayor's private coach was available to take George Scrivens, as Mayor of Hastings, and the Mayor of Rye to the Mansion House where 162 people sat down to dinner. The Chronicle was quite carried away with the magnificence of the occasion: On entering the Egyptian Hall, a scene of much splendour and dazzling magnificence was presented to view. The dimensions of the hall, the crystal chandeliers, the floating of the banners, the richness of the gold and silver plate with which the tables were laid, the enlivening strains of the band (the band of the Coldstream Guards) and the brilliant assemblage were well calculated to astonish and delight those who for the first time, and it might be the only time in their lives, were the honoured guests of "the chief magistrate of the greatest city in the world”. 13 George Scrivens made the first speech on the behalf of the guests and in it made reference to his own recent severe indisposition. The splendid occasion did not end until midnight. Hastings returned the compliment in April and a lavish parade was followed by a famous dinner at the Swan Hotel. William Carswell, the landlord, had been a guest at the Mansion House and he ensured that Hastings proudly honoured its distinguished son. The guests included W.B. Young, as Clerk to the County Court, and Thomas Potter who was then the Mayor of Manchester as well as George Scrivens' father-in-law. Later that same year, George Scrivens was presented to the Queen by Sir George Grey at a levée held at St James Palace. As Mayor, he sat as a magistrate. The Hastings & St Leonards News for the period reports in detail the criminal and civil cases which were heard in the town. The solicitor most frequently referred to is J.G. Langham. Minor cases were reported much more fully than today. At the same time the advocacy was less restricted by the modern rules of evidence. On the 4th January 1849 the Chronicle reports that Thomas Peat was arraigned on a charge of trespassing on the property of Lady Elphinstone for the purposes of poaching. The paper records: The prisoner, who is a silly looking person, was remanded until Saturday. In early 1851 George Scrivens sat with North and Shadwell to determine a case against John Evans who had violently assaulted the landlord of the King's Head and Constable Jeffrey. J.G. Langham defended. The accused - who was a navvy working on the railway - was fined £5 for the assault on the landlord but sent for trial to the assizes for the assault on the police officer, for which he received six months imprisonment. In 1857 George Scrivens was one of the three Founder Governors of the Hastings Cottage Improvement Society of which his elder brother later became Treasurer. He was a director of the Hastings & St Leonards Gas Company where he was chairman between 1873 and 1887. He was a founder member of the East Sussex Club and served as Treasurer and Hon. Secretary in 1876. He was appointed as a trustee of the Hastings Charity Lands in 1855 and as such became one of the original governors of the Hastings Grammar School Foundation in 1878. In September 1882 the foundation stone of the new Hastings Grammar School was laid and it was hoped that, as the last 14 9 Pelham Place, H astings photographed by T rish Jones of Mountfield surviving trustee of Parker's Charity, he would perform the ceremony. Sadly he was too ill to do this. He was also involved with the Central Cricket Ground. Originally this was leased from the Cornwallis family following the establishment in 1864 of an Investigating Committee which he chaired. Later, in 1869, the ground was purchased and the present trusts were established. In 1842 Hastings Old Bank moved from the High Street to 9 Pelham Place where George Scrivens also lived as a tenant. From 1843 the bank was named after the current partners - Smith, Hilder, Scrivens & Co. Tilden Smith, one of the partners, owned the Vinehall estate (later a preparatory school) which he extensively remodelled in the 1830's. In 1850 he mortgaged the estate to the bank for a loan of £9,951 and further advances. In 1857 the bank was further exposed by a loan of £4,000 to his relative Richard Smith, a farmer, on the security of Swales Green Farm in Salehurst. These and other debts led to the bank’s collapse with liabilities exceeding £150,000. The Firm holds a very large number of deeds relating to land in Salehurst dating back to the reign of Queen Mary - possibly forming the security documents for some of the ill- fated loans. The collapse did nothing to harm the Firm who acted for the assignees of the former partners. The Firm sued James Carswell for debt and collected money from John Banks, the school master, and Henry Prior of Russell Street. They also handled the purchase from Smith's estate by George Clement of various properties including a quarter share in the 'Swan' fishing boat for £20. Hercules Brabazon Brabazon also purchased property. George Scrivens achieved considerable respect (and a handsome presentation of a silver candelabrum and inkstand) for his efforts in raising the funds necessary to see the bank’s creditors paid in full. Commissioner Fane in the Spectator for 26th December 1857 pays a high tribute to the conduct of 15 George Scrivens who he says has: Ended a most honourable career with the stigma of bankruptcy owing to the less correct conduct of his partners. He has led a life of honesty, integrity and economy and as regards his private affairs he does not owe one farthing. (For more about Commissioner Fane see Appendix V.) Although his own estate was sold off in lots (and indeed William Hallaway bought two lots for £290), the collapse of the bank also did no permanent harm to George Scrivens. In July 1858 his Wife purchased 9 Pelham Place for £784 15s from the assignees of the former partners. This remained their home until their deaths. In recognition of his efforts he was appointed manager of Beeching & Sons whose business replaced the Old Bank on the ground floor of 9 Pelham Place. Beeching & Sons moved to 17 Wellington Place between 1876 and 1880 - probably when George Scrivens retired. Lloyds Bank later acquired the interests of Beeching & Sons and continues in business from the same premises today. The original clock (dated 1790) still hangs on the wall in the branch. In November 1872 George Scrivens and his wife made their wills at a cost of three guineas each. Ann Scrivens predeceased her husband who made another will on the 26th January 1887. It was witnessed by Herbert Young and Henry Burson - a clerk to Young & Goodwin. He died on April 21st, 1887 and is buried at Fairlight with his brother and their wives. His will was proved at Lewes on the 9th June 1887 by Young & Goodwin and showed a personal estate (excluding leasehold property) of £37,921 gross and £37,663 net - a very substantial estate which does not include his real property. He appointed Samuel Scrivens of Bexhill and William Hallaway (described as an accountant and see Chapter 9) to be his executors. He left £11,000 to Arthur Bayley Potter and Richard Ellis Potter, the sons of his brother-in-law Thomas Bayley Potter MP. He also left a number of legacies including £300 to his former clerk Frederick Ransom and £100 each to his former clerks Williams Hutchings and William Beekes Smith; £300 to Miss Matilda Barbara Betham of Hastings, authoress (better known as Matilda Barbara Betham Edwards (see Appendix VII); £500 to Miss Edith May Potter, daughter of Thomas Bayley Potter; £100 to Miss Maud Lilian Young (daughter of W.B. Young) of Grove, Hollington; £200 to Jane Gill 16 now of 21 Wellington Square; £200 to Miss Ann Scrivens and Mr Frederick Scrivens, the sister and brother of Samuel Scrivens; £100 each to Margaret Scrivens, Anne Scrivens and Maria Dunn, the daughters of Samuel Scrivens; £50 to his former servant Thomas Bennett; £20 to George McCormick, a clerk at Beechings Bank; £50 to the Hasting Dispensary; £500 to Anchitel Piers Ashburnham, eldest son of Sir Anchitel Ashburnham of Broomham, Guestling; £100 to the widow of John Gill who had remarried and lived in Gastwyah Umballa in Australia and £600 to the late John Gill's children. To William Hallaway 'as a small return for the services he has rendered on numerous occasions to my late brother my late mother and myself and in return for much trouble he may have as one of my executors' he left £300 plus £50 per year for two years. His residuary estate was left to Samuel Scrivens. Samuel Scrivens was a London businessman who had married into a local landed family. He owned farmland between Belle Hill and what is now Town Hall Square in Bexhill. In the early 1880's he created a road by widening an existing footpath as far as the present Buckhurst Place. Development plots were carved from land either side of this road (now London Road). These developments were followed in the early 1880s by encroachment into fields further south, but still north of the railway line. The administration of his estate was rapidly completed. On 29th September 1887 contracts were exchanged for the sale of several of his properties with completion taking place the following month. Coventry Patmore paid £700 for 92 High Street and the Reverend Dean Crake paid £2,425 (plus £35 5s 6d for fixtures) for 9 Pelham Place. Scrivens Buildings (now demolished) were built in l873 off Crown Lane and were an early example of a concrete construction. They may have been named after William Scrivens, then recently deceased, or after George Scrivens following a precedent set in connection with other properties owned by the Hastings Cottage Improvement Society. Certainly they bear, as is appropriate, the name of both brothers - the link with the family now being recorded on a slate on the wall of the new building erected on the site. 17 Chapter 4 The Young Family William Blackman Young was descended from a long established family in Hawkhurst. His great-grandfather Edward Young, his grandfather, Edward Young the Elder and his father Edward Young the Younger were all surgeons. His mother was Elizabeth Blackman of Wadhurst. She was the daughter of William Blackman, also a surgeon. His elder brothers Edward and Francis as well as his two younger brothers became doctors. He also had two sisters Elizabeth and Sarah. William Blackman Young (1814 - 1899) W.B. Young was born on the 10th September l814. In 1830, at the age of sixteen, he sailed to the Canaries where he stayed for six years in "mercantile pursuits". During this time he learned to speak fluent Spanish. He returned to England in l836 and was articled to William Pain Beecham of Hawkhurst who was his father's solicitor. Between 1818 and 1834 W.P. Beecham was in partnership with Charles Wardropper who was a trustee of the Eversfield Estate. In 1851 Beecham & Son were practising in Hawkhurst and also in St Leonards-on-Sea. The firm was later to become Murton Clarke and Murton-Neale. In 1839 his father made his will with W.P. Beecham and appointed the elder brothers as two of his executors. The will makes provision for the training of the three younger sons and expressly refers to W.B. Young's articles. He must have been satisfied with his son's progress because in1840 he made a codicil which replaced his eldest son Edward Young with W.B. Young as one of his executors. Edward Young the Younger died in 1842 a year before W.B. Young qualified as a solicitor. In 1854 Francis Ayherst Young disclaimed any inheritance under his father's will for reasons unknown. His mother died in 1881 after making her will in 1870 which refers to the earlier deaths of her elder sons, Edward and Francis. A casual remark by a traveller on the Hastings Stagecoach informed W.B. Young of an opening in Hastings and on 12th August 1844 he joined William Scrivens as a partner in the Firm to be known as Scrivens & Young. 18 William Scrivens retired at the end of 1845 when W.B. Young purchased the whole of the business. For the period between August 1844 and December 1844 the two partners each earned the sum of £51.18s.5d. The following year their annual income was £337.14s.1d each. They were early customers of the law stationers Waterlow & Sons (spending £4.6s.5d in January 1846 for books and papers) and the Firm remains a customer today. They also subscribed to the Law Times and the Law Journal. W.B. Young was first married to Martha Anne Whitehead who died of puerperal inflamation two months after childbirth in 1847. The child (a daughter called Edith) also did not survive. In 1852 he married Harriet Whaler Smith of Richmond whose grandfather was a solicitor. They had seven children: Maude Lilian Young - his eldest child was born in 1854. She remained a spinster living with her mother and sister Margaret. William Arthur Young - born 1858. He served with the Royal Scots Fusiliers. In 1896, while still a Major, he married Sarah Mary Royle of Chester with the benefit of a marriage settlement from W.B. Young secured on capital of £3,000. He attained the rank of Colonel and retired to Southampton where he died in l913. Archibald Edward Young - born l865. A solicitor whose details follow later. Harriet Olive Young - born 1869 and died in l911. Charles Henry Young JP. He served with the Welsh Regiment as a Lieutenant Colonel. He married Julia Isabel Louise Young who died in l949. He later lived at 5 The Uplands in succession to his mother and died in l96l. His son William Richard Blackman Young became a solicitor. Margaret Rosario Young lived with her mother and her elder sister Maude. 19 Lucy Elizabeth Young lived in Kensington and Deal and died while staying with her sisters at 5 The Uplands in 1933. W. B. Young had a long and distinguished career in the law. He is known to have been industrious and during one ten-year period took only a fortnight's holiday. He apparently made his early reputation as a county family solicitor after winning a substantial legal case for a younger son. He was the solicitor to the Eversfield estate for many years (see above also for the link through W.P. Beecham) - an association that the Firm continues to this day. In March 1847 he was appointed as the first Clerk or Registrar to the Hastings County Court. He held this appointment until his death. By 1888 he was paying his nephew Herbert Young 15/- for taking each of nineteen court sessions, but thereafter A.E. Young acted as his Deputy until1899. In 1872 W.B. Young was appointed a Notary Public - his appointment being that of a District Notary covering the area of Hastings and a distance of 10 miles around. He seems to have earned between £20 and £30 a year from this source but on one occasion had to pay the Mayor half a guinea to confirm his identity as a notary! He was the Clerk to the Charity Trustees in succession to William Scrivens the Younger until 1878. Then until l897 he held separate appointments as Clerk to the Governors of the Hastings Grammar School Foundation and Clerk to the Trustees of the Magdalen and Lasher Charity. He was succeeded in the former post in turn by A.E. Young, F.W. Coles and W.H. Langdon. (In total this Firm supplied the clerk to the schools of Hastings for 105 years.) In Part 2 of the History of Hastings Grammar School, R.L. Conisbee describes W.B. Young as: a lawyer of the old school, wise, generous, unobtrusive, a man of poise and distinction. In 1873, at a celebratory dinner for fifty of the pupils, he presented each of them with a brand-new shilling to keep as a memento of the occasion. W.B. Young was also clerk to the Hastings and St Leonards Gas Company in succession to William Scrivens from which office in 1844 he was earning a salary of £25 a year. From 1851 he was Clerk to the Commissioners of Burtons' St. Leonards appointed under the Act of 1832 that established the 20 legal framework for this new town. There is a record of his salary being increased in 1859 to £50 per annum in recognition of his excellent service. The Firm had a long connection with Royal Exchange Assurance. Since at least 1795, the Company's agent in Hastings had been William Gill - although earlier records were destroyed in a fire at the Royal Exchange. In 1831 he was succeeded by William Scrivens the Elder who in 1844 was in turn succeeded by his son who resigned in 1846 in favour of W. B Young. For many years a member of the Firm was a director of the Sussex local board of the Company, but this connection ceased on the death of M.C.S. Langdon. It has been possible to study some of the Firm's ledgers from 1852 onwards. They show a successful and prosperous practice. During 1852 the Firm collected tithe for the Reverend Augustus Aylward, the Rector of Brede Church, amounting to £1,214/4/-. The 8 November was an important dateth in the calendar when £896/16/9 was collected at Brede. The Rector had been presented to the living only the previous year and the Firm made cash advances against the anticipated income - charging interest of £4/1/-. In 1852, the Firm was acting as bookkeepers for Smith, Hilder & Co. (Hastings Old Bank) and the ledger contains detailed records of all the cheque credits and cash payments made through the Bank. More than £60,000 passed through their hands during that year. Clients included Mr P.F. Robertson, the principal developer of the America Ground, Countess Cathcart, Edward Farncomb, the Micklethwaite family, Elsie Bowerman (barrister, Titanic survivor and feminist whose life is reviewed in Notable Women of Victorian Hastings by Helena Wojtezak and who is commemorated with a blue plaque on her house in Silchester Road) and the Eversfield Estate. In 1876 W.B. Young was the channel through whom Lord Brassey paid Alfred Vidler for building work at Claremont and in the following year he handled the payments for Normanhurst. From his various appointments he earned a considerable income: Hastings and St Leonards Gas Company - £150 p.a. St Leonards Commissioners - £70 p.a. Magdalen and Lasher Trustees - £30 15s p.a. County Court clerkship - about £450 p.a. plus £20 rent 21 In his own name he owned 28 Eversfield Place, 4 Robertson Terrace, 12 Church Road, 8 George Street, 112 St Andrew's Road, 1 Carlisle Parade and 21,22, and 23 Russell Street. He sold one of these last properties for £260. in March 1872 to E. Prior (probably Elizabeth Prior the wife of Henry Prior of 31 and 32 Russell Street - see Appendix I). The ledger gives more domestic details. Coal was bought from Mr Inkpen. (The Firm acted in 1888 when the Gas Company purchased Mr Inkpen's premises for £3,000.) In July 1870 the carpets were shaken at a cost of six shillings - too vigorously perhaps as half a crown had to be paid in November to mend them! In the County Council elections of 1889 he received £140 from Walter Dawes which he distributed to a number of individuals (including F.W. Coles and employees of the Firm) after keeping his share of more than £60 - the ledger is silent as to the reason for these payments and his entitlement to the surplus. W.B. Young was the Vicar's warden at the Church-in-the-Wood, Hollington. In 1851 he was the leader in Hastings of the Protestant Party which was against the appointment by the Pope of an Archbishop of Westminster. Between June and November 1875 the Firm represented the sequestrators when the living was vacant. In his old age he continued to go to the office when he could no longer manage the stairs and was carried up in a special chair by two members of staff. Harry Edwards (see Chapter 9) could remember him arriving at the office in his carriage and pair. Following the death of William Scrivens the Younger, he practised under his own name. In 1869 he was joined by W.H. Goodwin who became a partner in 1874. The Firm then became known as Young & Goodwin. The partnership continued until the death of W.H. Goodwin in 1887. (For more detail about W.H. Goodwin see Chapter 8.) In 1870 he employed his nephew Herbert Young (born in 1847) as a clerk following his admission as a solicitor. Initially he paid his nephew a salary of £100 a year plus £10 from the St Leonards Commissioners. Later, between 1886 and 1889, he was receiving £250 annually. He lived at Westfield House, 2 South Terrace. H. Young never became a partner and died in l919. 22 W illiam Blackman Young by Florence Leftwich After the death of W.H. Goodwin he again practised on his own. His son A.E. Young was admitted as a solicitor in 1888 and then joined his father. Although A.E. Young was not a partner, the Firm adopted the name of Young & Son. Frederick William Coles was admitted as a solicitor in 1887 and also joined the Firm sometime before 1894. (See Chapter 5.) In 1894 the Firm adopted the name of Young, Son & Coles when W.B. Young signed an agreement (expressly recorded as not being a partnership agreement) with his son and F.W. Coles that committed him to transfer the business to them in 1897 - by which time he was aged 83. A.E. Young and F.W. Coles were each to receive £400 per year and there were strict provisions for a proportion of the salary to be withheld in case of neglect of duties or absence from the office owing to illness. In 1897 A.E. Young and F.W. Coles commenced a five-year partnership agreement and bought the Firm from W.B. Young paying him (and subsequently his estate) three fifths of the profits for the first five years. The supplementary accounts for the years 1897 to 1902 are in existence. W.B. Young died on the 5th January 1899. The Firm printed a black border to its notepaper and there were fulsome tributes to his memory. The Mayor spoke of his record at a meeting of the Hastings Council, describing his as, "a grand old man and the doyen of the local lawyers". His obituary in the local paper recorded the high esteem in which he was held in the town. There he is described as "affable" and "true, a noble hearted English gentleman". He is buried in the churchyard at Church-in-the-Wood while a brass plaque also commemorates him in St. Lawrence’s Parish Church in Hawkhurst. His portrait was painted in oils by Florence Leftwich in l890 and hangs in the Firm's reception office. It is a splendid painting revealing W.B. Young's personality as well as his appearance and, in particular, his "kind eyes". (See Appendix VII for a brief note about the artist.) 23 W.B. Young’s estate was sworn for probate in the substantial sum of £55,168. Unfortunately, this figure was subsequently found to be inaccurate and by l907 his family was forced to indorse a compromise resolution of his financial position. The problems appear to have been caused by two factors - the absence of any rules then to distinguish between solicitors' and clients’ money and his readiness to lend money on mortgages that left him vulnerable when property prices fell markedly towards the end of the century. The agreement records that W. B. Young's business had actually shown a deficiency of £26,769 at the time of his death and between l899 and l907 the Firm had, on balance, traded at a loss. His trustees were unable to pay any income due to his widow who fortunately had means of her own. A.E. Young was a Member of the East Sussex Club. He was also a Freemason and Master of the St Leonards Lodge (Number1842) in 1894 and again in 1917. He seems to have moved house frequently. In l925 he was living at Colwyn, 47 Chapel Park Road; by 1931 he was at 47 De Cham Road and by 1934 he was at 8 De Cham Road. He retired in 1938 and died at Lauriston in 1950 leaving a net estate of £31,738. 24 Chapter 5 The Coles Family Eastbourne contributed another legal family which became associated with Young Coles & Langdon. John Henry Campion Coles (1832 - 1915) J.H.C. Coles was a solicitor who practised in Eastbourne from 1856. He served as the last Town Clerk of Pevensey until 1884.and was the first Town Clerk of Eastbourne from 1883 until 1890. He held a number of other appointments. In addition to those outside his family, he was in partnership with his sons J.B.C. Coles from 1883 and H.H. Coles from 1892. H.H. Coles left the partnership in 1918 and the firm later became Coles & James - the well-known firm of Eastbourne and Hailsham solicitors. A fuller account will be found in the History of the Eastbourne Law Society by J.V.C. Claremont. J.H.C. Coles had several children: John Berriman Campion Coles - see above. He died in 1932. Henry Hartland Coles - see above. He died in 193l. Frederick William Coles - a solicitor whose details follow later. Herbert Decimus Coles. He served as a trooper with the 40 (Oxford)th Imperial Yeomanry in South Africa during the Boer War. He acted as a war correspondent and published in 1900 An Eastbournian's Campaign Experience - More letters from Trooper H. Coles. In it he describes the sorties which followed the relief of Mafeking and, while employing turns of phrase which sound strange to the modern ear, paints a graphic but a modest picture of the campaign concluding, After all, one engagement is much like another in all the principal features, and I am sure you must be tired with descriptions which vary so little. During the First World War he again served as a Private, this time in the Royal Canadian Dragoons Expeditionary Force. He died on 25th February 1920. 25 Percival Coles - died 24th February l920 in St Leonards-on-Sea, the day before his brother Herbert. Helena Constance Victoria Coles who died in 1924 Elizabeth Maude Coles who married Gerald Uppleby Stapylton Smith, a solicitor who practised in Bexhill. Jessie Mary Coles who died in 1957. Frederick William Coles (1864 - 1946) F W. Coles was admitted as a solicitor in 1887 and joined Young & Son in the same year at an initial annual salary of £150. This rose steadily to £300 in 1891. In 1894, as recorded earlier, W.B. Young reached an agreement with him and A.E. Young by which he agreed to transfer the business to them in 1897. From 1897 he was a partner and remained such until his retirement in 1940. Between 1899 and 1940 he was Clerk to the Trustees of the Magdalen Charity and to the Governors of the Hastings Grammar School. R.L. Conisbee refers to him as, “A tall, grey, sedate figure”. Elsewhere he is described as a man of remarkable personality and possessed of great powers of leadership. He was a prominent local figure and a keen politician serving on the Executive Committee of the Hastings and St Leonards Conservative Association for many years. He was an active club man and a member of the East Sussex Club. Like A.C. Kidson (See Chapter 8) and R.H. Shaw (See Chapter 9) after him, he was a churchwarden at Christ Church, St Leonards-on-Sea for a considerable period. Between l935 and l939 he was President of the Hastings & Bexhill Rugby Football Club having been Chairman for nine years. Between l932 and l933 he was also President of the Sussex Rugby Football Union and in 1932 he was President of the Hastings and District Law Society. He was a member of Hastings Borough Council between 1897 and 1903. The Hastings Marathon was held on l6th December 1908 and he was one of the judges. There were fifty-one runners including the British Olympic 26 Marathon Team and it is an interesting comment that there were no less than six doctors present. He lived at 27 Tower Road West but, after his wife's death, he moved to 3 Saxon Mansions, Grand Parade. He was regarded as a good friend of the Buchanan Hospital and served for many years as a member of the Board of Management. He was a director of F.J. Parsons Limited. Following his retirement he moved to Bexhill but on the outbreak of war moved to Whiteways, Wood Lane, Boreham Street where he died aged 82. He had one daughter Rita Mary Coles who married Major Edward Joseph Farrell. His granddaughter Deirdre Mary Farrell married J.C.G.C. Edwards (See Chapter 8). 27 Chapter 6 The Langdon Family William Langdon (1767 - 1828) was a wealthy man who owned a pencil manufacturing business in London known as Brookman and Langdon. He was described by his grandson as a man of immoral habits who had fathered illegitimate children by his servants. In 1818 he married Fruzan Ede by whom he had a son, Augustus who was born five years before the marriage. Augustus Langdon (1813 - 1874) Augustus Langdon was only 15 years old when his father died intestate aged just 61. Over the next four years there followed a substantial case in the High Court of Chancery to disentangle the competing claims of William Langdon's family. He himself went to Trinity College, Cambridge to read law and was called to the Bar in 1835. Subsequently he tried to revive his father's business but became involved in further litigation in 1835. The case became a leading authority on partnership law - Lewis v. Langdon. He lost. Augustus Langdon married Sarah Watts in 1836. He dabbled unsuccessfully in property and does not appear to have practised much as a barrister. He moved to live at Yeovil in Somerset. His interests were recorded by his son as the study of early English history and the Fathers of the Church. He died aged 61 and left an estate of less than £8,000 to his widow. She died of apoplexy in 1877 and left her estate equally to their children. Augustin William Langdon (1837 - 1887) The oldest child of Augustus and Sarah Langdon was Augustin William Langdon born on 28th September l837. He was known to his friends as 'Mikros' because of his small size. He also went to Trinity College, Cambridge but read mathematics and graduated in 1860. He was called to the Bar in 1863 and for a little while practised as an Equity draftsman and conveyancer in Langdon coat of arm s 28 Augustin Langdon Chancery Lane. However, his legal practice did not last long and was of no great significance. He was a close friend of Lieutenant General Fox (nicknamed 'Vulpus') of the Holland House set with whom he shared an interest in coin collecting. Some of their correspondence has been preserved including an introduction from General Fox to the Earl of Leinster when A. W. Langdon was visiting Ireland. It describes him as a young lawyer, clever but rather square toes and formal. A. W. Langdon married twenty one year old Catherine Henrietta Baker in 1865. She was the daughter of Major Hugh Cossart Baker and Mary Anne Popplewell and was a direct descendant of Sir John Baker (1488 - 1558) of Sissinghurst, known as Bloody Baker. He served as a Privy Councilor during the reigns of King Henry VIII, King Edward VI and Queen Mary. He held the office of Attorney General and as the first Chancellor of the Exchequer In 1871they moved to Hastings with their two older children, staying at Llanryst House, 52 Cambridge Road - a lodging house kept by a Mrs. Blodwell. They remained there for two years until they moved to 4 Castledown Terrace where their other five children were born. Their house was in the parish of St Mary-in-the-Castle where he was a regular worshipper. He served on the School Committee of the St Mary-in-the-Castle schools. He was the Editor of The Natural History of Hastings, St Leonards and the Vicinity published in 1878 by the Hastings and St Leonards Philosophical and Historical Society. To a notably boring book he contributed the section cataloguing the local molluscs. He suffered from Bright's disease for the two years before his death on the 9th October l887 aged 50 - just four days after W.H. Goodwin. Their obituaries were in the same editions of the local papers. Well known locally as a devout Christian, his obituary records that like Enoch of old, he walked with God and that his widow was left to mourn her irreparable loss. He is buried in Hastings Cemetery. In 1888 Catherine Langdon moved to Castledown in Ashburnham Road, Hastings. She was a lady of character and piety. When she died in 29 1914, an oak reredos was dedicated to her memory in Christ Church, Ore recalling twenty-five years as a worker in the parish. The reredos has been removed but the plaque commemorating her may still be seen on the chancel wall. William Herbert Langdon (1879 - 1948) William Herbert Langdon was one of the children of Augustin Langdon. He went to the local University School and, when he left, was articled to A.E. Young. In March 1897 his mother paid a premium of £315 plus £80 for the stamp duty on his articles. Three days later A.E. Young claimed 25/- expenses to travel to London to register them. He was admitted as a solicitor in 1902 and became a partner in 1911 from which time the Firm was known as Young Coles & Langdon. During the First World War he commanded a P l a t o o n o f " A " Company of the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Su ssex Re g i m en t although it was not until 1919 that he r e c e i v e d f o r m a l confirmation of an honorary rank as Second Lieutenant. Included in his Platoon were at least two members of the Firm - F.E. Vidler and H. Edwards who are referred to later in Chapter 9. W.H. Langdon was a Freemason, following A.E. Young into the St Leonards Lodge (Number 1842) and becoming Master in 1925. He was also a member of Derwent Lodge (Number 40) where he was Master in 1928. He was a member of the Rye Golf Club and President of the Clive Vale Cricket Club. 30 In 1910 W.H. Langdon married Lilian Maude Roe at Northiam Parish Church. She had been born 1881 and was the daughter of George Henry Roe and Alice Maude Roe of 5 De Cham Road, St Leonards-on-Sea. They had no children. By 1925 he had acquired Clive Vale House which remained the family home until the death of his widow. On the 1 January 1949, the Hastings & St Leonards Observer reportedst his death and described him as Ore's Unknown 'Father Christmas' because of his secret philanthropy. At Christmas for 25 years he had arranged for the distribution of coal and food to those in need in the Halton and Ore districts of Hastings. W.H. Langdon had seven aunts, Sarah, Mary, Anna, Laura, Janet, Ada and Helen (although Mary died in childhood) and an uncle, the Reverend Charles Albert Corser Langdon, who was for a short period in the 1890's the Vicar of Laughton Parish Church near Lewes. The six surviving sisters spent their lives together unmarried in Southsea and died between 1905 and 1932. C.A.C. Langdon also moved to Southsea and died there in 1945 aged 89. Shortly before her death on 29th January 1924, Helen arranged for a new will to be prepared by Messrs F.G. Allen, solicitors of Portsmouth. When this will was received from them, she did not sign it but made another will herself. On the 25th January she duly signed the will that she had prepared - but on the night before she died she prepared and signed another document in the presence of a nurse and the servant, Mrs Kate Barclay. Her actions were also witnessed by her friend Evelyn Grain whom she had appointed as one of her executors together with C.A.C. Langdon and W.H. Langdon. After her death C.A.C. Langdon took charge of all the papers - but the paper she had signed just before her death was lost. Miss Grain became increasingly suspicious and accused C.A.C. Langdon of suppressing the document. She also accused him of trying to steal the contents of some locked boxes which had been held for safekeeping at the bank and there is a substantial correspondence among all parties trying to involve W.H. Langdon leading eventually to Miss Grain instructing independent solicitors, (again 31 Messrs F.G. Allen) when she refused to sign the application for Probate until the missing paper was found. C.A.C. Langdon in letters to W.H. Langdon describes her as "contumacious". Eventually the other executors gave an undertaking and Miss Grain signed the Probate papers. Subsequently, the missing paper was found and it proved only to be a list of securities and not a missing will. C.A.C. Langdon was exonerated. In the midst of the extensive wrangling between Miss Grain, Mrs Barclay and C.A.C. Langdon - all of whom were accusing each other of impropriety, the Firm had to move offices to take up temporary accommodation while 1 Bank Buildings was rebuilt. W.H. Langdon had the unenviable task of administering the estate made worse when he delivered his bill to his co-Executors. The bill was for £105. He received an immediate reply offering him £80 or alternatively asking for a detailed bill. He delivered a detailed bill that prompted the following from C.A.C. Langdon that is worth quoting in full: 26 Brading Avenue, East Southsea 26th November 1924 Dear William It was with as much sorrow as indignation that I perused the items of your Bill of Costs. Both Miss Grain & I are indignant at many of the charges but I have the additional sorrow of knowing that it is my sister's nephew who makes them. It is commonly said - that "lawyers have no consciences" but I did not think this was true of you. The charges may be legal, but they are not just: Amongst so many, I may take 1 or 2 as examples. What are we to think of £3.3/- for attending an aunt's Funeral? Your expenses were guaranteed, but the return fare is 19/6 and you have charged £1.10/- although we gave you meals. I did not charge for coming over to assist at your Wedding. I did so gladly because you are one of the family. Again, many of the charges have nothing to do with Helen's Will and several of the letters (e.g. that to Mrs Barclay) are private communications. Why too is £2.12.6 charged for "probable" future expenses? Knowing as you do, the diminishing state of my sister's income and her heavy expenses, I 32 appeal to your better feelings to be a little more merciful. Miss Grain and I offer £80 (which we consider liberal payment) in full discharge, and I hope that you will take it. Beyond that we are not prepared to go unless compelled by law. As to the charge for sending Sarah necessary cheques, I quite thought that you did this in your private capacity out of affection for her. This is what your father used to do for my sister. Do you never do anything out of your good will? If we are always to pay every time a cheque is needed, it would be better to make arrangements for Miss Grain and me to sign them without troubling you. I have written to you frankly as an uncle to a nephew. I hope that you will take to heart what I have said. I make no apology for speaking plainly, but I assure you that I do so with pain. Trusting that you will take this in good part and will accept our offer. Your affectionate Uncle CHARLES A. C. LANGDON W.H. Langdon's response to this letter is not known but the bill was settled for £90. Charles Godfrey Langdon (1877 - 1941) The Reverend Charles Godfrey Langdon was the sixth child of Augustin Langdon. Like all their sons, he first attended University School. From there he went to Selwyn College, Cambridge before entering the Church. Between 1901 and 1913 he served curacies in Friern Barnet and Teddington. In 1913 he was appointed as Vicar of St. Michael and All Angels Church, St Leonards Road, Poplar. His brother Cecil was also a clergyman and the incumbent at Horeham Road (now Horam) in Sussex. Both served as chaplains during the Great War - the latter a Chaplain 4 Class with the 11th Battalion of the Borderth Regiment. In 1998 the son of the Firm’s former head cashier gave to C.M.F. Langdon a horse's hoof mounted with a brass candlestick and inscribed, Cinqua - Killed in action at Ypres on the 5th October 1917 which had belonged to C.G. Langdon. His brother was killed just three weeks later on the 31st October by a bomb dropped from an aeroplane during the same 33 battle. He is buried in Gwalia Cemetery, Poperinghe, Ieper, Belgium and his name is also recorded on the village war memorial at Horam and on the memorial plaque in All Saints Church, Hastings. C.G. Langdon’s time at Poplar was a time of great social change. In June 1907 Josef Stalin had lived in London for three weeks and lodged in nearby Fieldgate Street. He recommended to his associates that the best way to learn English was by listening to sermons. C.G. Langdon was a Labour supporter and a member of the Poplar Board of Guardians. His daughter Mollie was a well-known local doctor in Brunswick Road between 1925 and 1940 when women doctors were rare. In 1921 C.G. Langdon appointed Jack Bucknall and St John Groser (well-known Labour reformers) to be his Curates and the Church became a centre for controversial reform. In 1925 he bowed to complaints from some of his older parishioners and sacked his two curates. Bucknall went but Groser refused to leave and the Bishop was obliged to intervene. In 1928 a compromise was reached. Groser left the parish and C.G. Langdon moved to St. Matthew's, City Road, London where he died of pneumonia during the Second World War. On the Wednesday of Holy Week following his death the church building was gutted by incendiary bombs. Although St Michael’s Church, Poplar closed in 1975, his work is mentioned in a film and book both called Fly a Flag for Poplar. Tower Hamlets Council resolved to name the nearby park after him and the adjacent comprehensive school is also called - Langdon Park School. The school was in the limelight in l971 as, until he became Solicitor General in June that year, Sir Geoffrey Howe (now Lord Howe) was Chairman of the Governors. The school achieved national prominence for its theatre production and the sculpture displayed in the grounds. Langdon Park Centre in Tower Hamlets was also named after him and was visited by Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in April l985. Michael Charles Selfe Langdon (1915 - 1985) C.G. Langdon’s only son was Michael Charles Selfe Langdon. C.G. Langdon was an amateur silversmith working in the Arts and Crafts style at the time when C.S. Ashbee was 34 influential. In 1932 he exhibited at the Chelsea Exhibition of Arts and Crafts. He used the profits from the manufacture of communion ware for missionary societies to pay for his son to go to Hurstpierpoint College. In 1933 M.C.S. Langdon was articled to his Uncle, W.H. Langdon and admitted a solicitor in 1938. The Firm’s 1936 partnership agreement had expressly preserved the right for W.H. Langdon to introduce his nephew as a partner and he became such after demomobilisation in l947. In 1949 he was appointed a District Notary. He was a man of many local interests - including being a founder member of the Priory Cricket Club in l939. During the Second World War he served in the Royal Sussex Regiment and saw active service in Burma. He attained the rank of Major and was mentioned in dispatches. After the war he was a member of the Burma Star Association. In 1944, he married Kathleen Marjorie Fane. (See Appendix V) He played hockey for the South Saxons. From 1955 he was involved with the work of the Stables Theatre which opened in 1959 and was a founder member of the Stables Trust Limited. Initially he served as Honorary Secretary under Mr Quentin Lloyd and subsequently for fourteen years with Mr R.T.H. Perkins, another local solicitor. In 1976, following the death of Mr Perkins, he was elected Chairman and was involved with the major work of extending the theatre and the addition of the art gallery. On the 14 Juneth 1978 he was particularly proud to welcome Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, when she visited the Borough and formally opened the extension. On his retirement as Chairman, he was presented with a decanter - a copy of the one which he himself had presented to the Queen Mother. Christopher Michael Fane Langdon (Born 1945) His elder son, Christopher Michael Fane Langdon was born in 1945. He was educated at Hydneye House School on The Ridge and at St Edward's School, Oxford. He attended Queens' College, Cambridge where he read law. (His ancestor, Francis Fane, First Earl of Westmoreland, who died in 1646, was at the same college.) He joined the OTC and was commissioned also into the Royal Sussex Regiment before serving a short period as a subaltern with the 5th (Volunteer) Battalion of the Queen's Regiment. C.M.F. Langdon was 35 articled to his father in 1968 and admitted in 1970. He became a partner in 1972. He also is a Freemason - being a member of the King Harold Lodge (Number 8630) and was Master in 2004. A member of Hastings Runners, he has twice run the London Marathon and completed the first twenty Hastings Half Marathons. After being articled to his father, C.M.F. Langdon was appointed a General Notary in 1973. He has served on the Council of the Notaries Society for many years and was President in 1998 and 1999. He was the Clerk to the Magdalen and Lasher Charity from 1985 until 2005 and for 25 years was a governor at the Grove School - serving as chairman for three terms. He was one of the original members of the Management Committee of the independent Hastings & Rother Citizens Advice Bureau and served for 25 years being twice chairman. He is now an honorary friend of the Bureau. He is a member of the Farmers Club, a Freeman of the City of London and a member of the Worshipful Company of Scriveners. The Honorary Secretaryship of the Hastings and District Law Society was held by members of the Langdon family for many years. W.H. Langdon became the Secretary in 1927 on the death of R.H. Gaby (for more of whom see Chapter 10) and held office until 1948 (21 years). He was followed by his nephew M.C.S. Langdon who was Secretary from 1948 until 1967 (19 years). Following a break when Mr W.B. Brackett was Secretary, C.M.F. Langdon became Secretary in 1973 and remained in office until 1998 (25 years). M.C.S. Langdon was President in l968/1969 while C.M.F. Langdon was President in 1999/2000. In the records of the Society there were only four committee meetings before 2001 at which a member of the Langdon family was not present. 36 Chapter 7 The Langham Family The history of Young Coles & Langdon calls for an examination of the development of the firm of Langham Douglas & Co. whose business was acquired by Young, Coles & Langdon in 1947. Successive generations of the Langham family qualified as solicitors and made a marked contribution to the legal fraternity in Hastings. Commencing with William Langham and concluding with Roland Langham, no fewer than five consecutive generations qualified and practised as solicitors. The present partners decided to name their new premises in Albert Road ‘Langham House’ as a tribute to this remarkable legal family whose motto is Nec sinit esse feros which loosely translated means, “It is not necessary to be rude”. Until recently, the family name also graced the Langham public house in Mount Pleasant Road, Hastings. William Langham The first to qualify as a solicitor was William Langham, the son of Robert Langham who had been apprenticed to a member of the Clothworkers' Company. William Langham was admitted as a solicitor in l779. He received different certificates of admission from the Court of Common Pleas, the Court of Exchequer, the Court of Chancery and the Court of Kings Bench. The great jurist William Blackstone himself signed one of the certificates and his admission as a solicitor before the Court of Kings Bench took place at Westminster in the presence of King George III. The original certificates are still in possession of the Langham family. William Langham practised in London. He had at least four sons of whom three were solicitors. His son Samuel Frederick Langham followed his father and stayed in London, where he was joined in partnership by his son, also known as Samuel Frederick Langham. The son became Coroner of the City of London and of the Duchy of Lancaster. He founded the Coroners Society for England & Wales. His son, Arthur Cuthbert Langham joined the London firm in about 1864 and remained in partnership until Samuel Frederick Langham (the Younger) died in l908. A.C. Langham took into partnership his nephew Cyril Lee Macrame Langham but unfortunately the 37 latter became involved in divorce proceedings as a co-respondent and was promptly evicted from the firm. Subsequently C.L.M. Langham became a principal solicitor to the Ministry of Labour and was responsible for much of the drafting of wartime legislation relating to employment for which he was knighted. In his place, A.C. Langham took into partnership Malcolm H.I. Letts and in l933 A.C. Langham's son (also known as Arthur Cuthbert Langham) joined the firm. A. C. Langham Senior died in l937 and his son continued in partnership with M.H.I. Letts. After the war the partnership was dissolved and the firm of Langham & Letts (and the name of Langham in London) ceased as an independent firm. A.C. Langham the Younger is now retired but until recently worked for Kidd Rapinet as an unpaid consultant. James George Langham (1794 -1877 ) In l838 another son, James George Langham, came to live at l High Street in Hastings. He was known as the "smugglers' lawyer" and his family records that his fees were often paid in kind - casks of brandy and other smuggled goods being left discreetly outside his house. J.G. Langham was clearly a local character. It has already been noted that he was a frequent advocate before the local courts. The Sussex County Magazine for May 1930 recalls a lecture given by the schoolmaster John Banks at the Mechanics' Institute in which he recounted: One night it had been arranged to land a cargo of spirits; the boat was duly beached, as agreed upon, but the preventive men, who had evidently been notified of the intended landing, were in waiting. They seized the cargo together with Philip Kent and his men, and hauled them to the 'lock-up' where they were confined for the night. The next morning they were brought before the magistrate - the court room being over the police station - and duly charged with smuggling spirits. Philip Kent was defended by a very clever and well-known solicitor, 'Lawyer Langham' and pleaded 'not guilty'; but the evidence was so damning that the magistrate was about to convict when 'Lawyer Langham' requested that a keg of the spirits should be brought into court; but the magistrate refused as he had already seen the kegs in the police station underneath the court. However, 'Lawyer Langham' insisting, a keg was brought into the court and he demanded that it should be broached 38 and the spirits sampled. This was done, and a glass being filled was handed to the magistrate with a request that he should taste it. He, being quite willing, proceeded to imbibe the contents of the glass but, alas! at the first mouthful, he spluttered and spat so vigorously that the lookers-on thought he was choking from the strength of the spirit. As a matter of fact the contents proved to be only sea water. The contents of the remainder of the kegs having been proved to be the same, the magistrate could do nothing else but acquit the defendants. J.G. Langham died on the 7 August 1877 aged 84. There is ath memorial tablet in St Clement's Church which is dedicated to him and to Elizabeth, his wife for 57 years, who predeceased him on the 23 April 1870rd - the day before the death of Elizabeth Scrivens, the wife of William Scrivens the Younger. The Hastings firm (which eventually became Langham Douglas & Co.) was one of the first firms to move out of the Old Town during the middle of the nineteenth century. They moved first to 63 Cambridge Road and 44A Robertson Street and in 1928 moved again to Palace Chambers - the address at which they remained until the business was acquired by Young Coles & Langdon. Frederick Adolphus Langham (1836 - 1913) The son of J.G. Langham was Frederick Adolphus Langham who also practised as a solicitor. He was a well-known local figure. He was an Alderman and Mayor of Hastings in 1900 and 1901 when, as a Baron of the Cinque Ports, he represented the town at the coronation of King Edward VII. His robes are now in Hastings Museum. Between 1901 and 1910 he served as a Trustee of the Magdalen and Lasher Charity - resigning as Chairman in June of that year. He lived latterly at Menadews in Chowns Hill (previously known as Hillside and now as Merrivale. It was once a part of St. Margaret's School.), a mansion with a great deal of land as well as a home farm. He was also the owner of St. Helen's Park. He married first Elizabeth Hennah. On her death he married Helena Mary Mansell. By his first wife he had four children - two of whom qualified as solicitors. 39 Elizabeth Hennah was born in 1841 and died in 1904. Her grandfather was William Hennah (1768-1832) from St Austell. He entered the navy in 1793 and in 1805 was the First Lieutenant of HMS Mars of 74 guns commanded by Captain George Duff. At the Battle of Trafalgar only two Captains lost their lives. Captain Duff was one of them and his head was removed by a canon ball early in the afternoon and his body, covered by the Union Jack, lay where it fell for the rest of the battle. His Son, Midshipman Norwich Duff was serving on the same ship and wrote after the battle to his Mother: My Dear Mama, You cannot possibly imagine how unwilling I am to begin this melancholy letter: however as you must unavoidably hear the fate of dear papa I write you these few lines to request you to bear it as patiently as you can he died like a hero having gallantly led his Ship into Action... William Hennah took over the command for the rest of the battle. For his services he received the Thanks of Parliament, a Gold Medal and a Sword from the Patriotic Fund. The ship’s company gave him the unusual honour of a Letter of Commendation. He was promoted to Captain in 1806 and made a Companion of the Bath in 1831. His son and Elizabeth Hennah’s father was Edward Hennah (1800- 1849) who also served in the navy and was promoted to Lieutenant in 1821. In 1831 he was court martialed but honourably acquitted. In 1841 he joined the Coast Guard and lived at Menadews. In that same year his daughter Elizabeth was born and it is therefore likely that F.A. Langham inherited Menadews on his Wife’s death. Edward Hennah was the Chief Officer of the Hastings Coast Guard Station at the time of his death. Colonel Frederick George Langham CMG, VD (1862 - 1946) Frederick George Langham was F.A. Langham’s eldest son and was born at 2 Priory Houses, Holy Trinity, Hastings. It appears that father and son never related well to each other. F.A. Langham made his son repay the costs spent on his education both at school and at university. It is believed that, even up to the time of his death, he was still repaying the interest on the debts that were set against the income he received from his father's estate. 40 His father made him purchase from him the land on which to build a private house in St. Helen's Park - known as Valehurst. The family records confirm that the transaction was carried out commercially and that F.G. Langham was made to pay the whole purchase price. Although Valehurst was his home for many years, for reasons of economy it often had to be let while the family lived in cheaper accommodation. There is some correspondence in l907 when he redeemed a mortgage, the mortgagee being represented by Young, Son & Coles. Simultaneously, he tried to sell the property - asking for £4,000 but realistically being prepared to settle for £3,500. Eventually, many years before his death, he sold Valehurst. He lived for a while in St Leonards-on-Sea and by 1932 is recorded as living at 17 Upper Lake, Battle. At the time of his death he lived at "Half Acre", Starrs Green, Battle which was owned by his daughter Dulcie. He was a very keen gardener and they acquired more land so that "Half Acre" was something of a misnomer. F.G. Langham had strong leanings towards the Army in which he served as a Volunteer and Territorial for thirty-three years, retiring in l919. In l887 he was with the Cinque Ports Rifle Volunteers and participated in Queen Victoria's Jubilee Parade. He was a spectator at the second trial of Captain Dreyfus at Honnes in August 1889. He also believed that George Joseph Smith, the "brides in the bath" murderer, called at his office and attempted to have a will prepared in his favour by one of his wives. He refused to act! In May 1902 the Firm paid him (then a Major) two guineas as a contribution to the local fund to celebrate the coronation of King Edward VIII. He commanded the Fifth (Cinque Ports) Battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment from the 21st October l911, when he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. In the early stages of the First World War he was stationed at the Tower of London and was responsible in l914 for the execution of the German spy Karl Lody. He apparently selected a spot in the moat but found at the last moment that he was overlooked from a nearby street and a knot of spectators had collected. The place had to be changed at the last moment and the execution was carried out in a miniature rifle range where no one could see. He found this a distressing duty having, while 41 in his custody, developed an admiration for Lody who was a brave, loyal and zealous naval officer who found his task as a spy highly distasteful and knew his chances of evading capture were slim. F.G. Langham had a distinguished record in the First World War. His battalion was posted to France on the 8th February l915. He was mentioned in dispatches by Lord French in April l915 and awarded the CMG in June the same year. In October 2003 the author found three numbers of the Cinque Ports Gazette at a book fair in Tenterden. They contain a large quantity of mostly military material about F.G. Langham and his two sons. Suffice it to say that a later historian, fortified by a visit to the regimental museum, will have ample material to write a full and interesting biography of a remarkable soldier - but such would be out of place in a mainly legal history. (Some of the newly available material has been briefly summarised in Appendix VI.) From his correspondence after the War, it appears that he went to considerable efforts to find employment for former members of his Battalion. During his absence, the practice was supervised by F.W. Morgan to whom he wrote on the 27th February l9l9 to thank for his help during the War. F.G. Langham's wife was Frances Mary Ashbee who died in l927. Her brother was Charles Robert Ashbee (1863-1942), the architect, designer and social reformer who founded the Guild of Handicraft while her father was the more infamous Henry Spencer Ashbee, a short resumé of whose life is given in Appendix VI. Despite his father-in-law's notoriety, the relationship must have been reasonable because, on his death, H.S. Ashbee left a gross estate of just less than £65,000 which he gave, after payment of significant legacies and life interests, to the Langham grandchildren. Their eldest son Cecil R. Langham originally attended Hurst Court School on The Ridge before going to Rugby and then to his father's old college Trinity Hall, Cambridge where his rowing prowess is recorded. Subsequently he lived in Singapore but returned to serve under his Father in the First World War. His name is on the Roll of Honour of the Royal Sussex Regiment in Chichester Cathedral. More detail is in Appendix VI. 42 Their second son, Guy, became a Captain in the Royal Navy and was awarded the OBE. Their third son, Roland Hennah (usually known as 'Roly'), qualified as a solicitor and is referred to later. They also had a daughter Dulcie and an ‘invalid’ son Geoffrey Montague. F.G. Langham spoke French fluently and often spent his holidays in France. He was of quick temper and terrifying rage - but his temper quickly cooled and he was usually described as a jolly man. Guy Langham wrote an account of his Father, describing him as a complete extrovert and immune to public opinion. He was extravagant - but without having the means to support his indulgence. Even F.G. Langham's dog Lucifer Byng was a character. The dog was born on the Somme during the War. With his master he was under fire in the trenches in Belgium, France and Italy. After the war, he would attend court with F.G. Langham where the thumping of his tail on the floor under the table was a good indication of the current mood of the Clerk. Manwaring Baines records the visit to Hastings of the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII) on the 6th April 1927. The day was a busy one and in the afternoon the Prince inspected a parade of ex-servicemen. An unofficial attendant was the well-known figure of Lucifer Byng! F. G. Langham was for many years the Clerk to the Justices of Hastings and Bexhill. He had extensive experience in licensing and was an acknowledged authority on this subject. Stories about him abound. His regular practice of retiring with the magistrates when they were considering their verdict and sentence led to the decision in the famous case of Ex parte Sussex Justices. Here the courts confirmed that justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done and established the principle that magistrates' clerks should not routinely retire with their justices but should only attend upon them when called openly to do so to advise on a point of law. He had a particular fondness for Waverley nibs on his dip pens. At the time of his death his family found in his possession one and a half gross of these nibs (a gross being 144). If F.G. Langham was offered a dip pen with a nib other than a Waverley for use in court, he would closely examine the 43 offending pen before hurling it across the court and growling "damned police spikes"! F.G. Langham was also interested in heraldry and something of a painter. According to local historian Brion Purdey, the heraldic shields, which used to adorn the walls of the court room in the Town Hall and are now on display in the Hastings Law Courts, were his workmanship. Then, as now, Hastings had many illegitimate births. When the mothers applied to the magistrates for maintenance, F.G. Langham would draw up written agreements - known as bastardy agreements. The Firm has in its possession a number of these agreements recording the maintenance to be paid at a modest number of shillings per week until the child reached the age of thirteen years. Mr L.A. Edgar, as Clerk to the Hastings Justices in later years, recalled one case. It was customary for putative fathers to pay their weekly maintenance at the court office in Middle Road. One man would come in regularly each Friday and slam his money down on the office counter with the words, "7/6d and well worth it." Given the slightest encouragement he would tell how 'her' mother and father went out every Sunday to Chapel and then, in some detail, how 'he and she' had it on the mat in front of a roaring fire. 'She' was about as big as 'he' - in fact both of them had to turn sideways to get through the office door. Mr Edgar always felt that it was perhaps unfortunate that he had successfully 'rung the bell' on the first and only time the pair had intercourse. Fortunately, 'he' had no such reservations and repeatedly stated, 'It was well worth it.' Major Edward Hennah Langham TD (Died 1962) Edward Hennah Langham was F.G. Langham's younger brother. His career during the First World War is briefly described in Appendix VI. He also qualified as a solicitor and continued to practise after his brother's death. On his father’s death he inherited a quantity of Trafalgar memorabilia and a grandfather clock allegedly given to F.A. Langham by Mrs Siddons. These are now in the possession of his grandson Timothy York in Belgium. 44 Before the First World War E.H. Langham spent some time in Hamburg where he did walk-on (and officially non-singing) appearances in crowd scenes at the Hamburg Opera. In consequence he became rather fond of that country and its people. His grandson recalls that he would have preferred a career in the regular army but was forced to be a solicitor by his father - and, probably in consequence, was not very good at it. He m a r r i e d A l i c e Mitchelline Taylor and lived at 26 Boscobel Road, St Leonards-on-Sea. He is particularly remembered as the Commandant of the Special Constabulary in Hastings during the Second World War. By the time of his retirement, E.H. Langham had been joined in practice by Logan Andrew Edgar - also a pupil of the University School. It was on the retirement of E.H. Langham and the employment of L.A. Edgar as the full time Clerk to the Justices for the Boroughs of Hastings and Bexhill in 1947 that Young Coles & Langdon acquired the business of Langham Douglas & Co. Roland Hennah Langham (1909 - 1962) Roland Hennah Langham was also a solicitor with his father, F.G. Langham and his uncle E. H. Langham. He attained his MA from Trinity Hall and became a keen officer in the Territorial Army with the Fifth (Cinque Ports) Battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment. A.C. Langham (the Younger) recalls the only time he met R.H. Langham was when they both sat their final examination at the Law Society. Unfortunately for R.H. Langham, when the results were posted at the Law Society's Hall, someone representing him or Major Langham (second from left) with the Specials in 1938 45 his firm in the crush saw the name 'Langham' and reported back to him that he had passed. In fact, it was A.C. Langham who had passed and R.H. Langham had failed. Subsequently he re-sat the examination and was admitted as a solicitor. After admission he practised for a while at Palace Chambers but there was insufficient work for the then number of partners. He obtained an appointment as Clerk to the Justices at Reading. During the Second World War he was seriously wounded and was awarded the Military Cross. After the War he was appointed to Wallington as Clerk to the Justices and served on the Council of the Justices Clerks' Society. He held his annual conference at Hastings when he was President of the Society, He died suddenly and unexpectedly at Carshalton aged 53 46 Chapter 8 Partners By no means all of the partners during the last 175 years have come from families with a known legal background. Their contribution to the life of the Firm has been no less significant and it is appropriate now to acknowledge them here. William Henry Goodwin (1827 - 1887) William Henry Goodwin was born in 1827. He was admitted as a Solicitor at Trinity 1865. Until 1869 he was a managing clerk for a firm of solicitors in Shropshire. He moved to Hastings in that year and joined W.B. Young as a managing clerk being paid initially a substantial annual salary of £400 plus £10 from the St Leonards Commissioners. From 1875 he became a salaried partner. By 1877 he was earning £600 a year rising to £700 by 1886. His wife died shortly after their move to Hastings. For all but the last five years of his life he lived above the Firm's offices at 1 Bank Buildings. He then moved to White Rock House. He was a private man whose interests were his home, his profession and his books. He had a reputation as a deep and accurate thinker and as a sagacious and farseeing man. It seems likely that he was a wealthy man in his own right and he owned a block of about 125 leasehold properties on the Eversfield Estate. He also owned the Halton Drying Ground. Like others to follow him in the Firm, he was a regular worshipper at Christ Church, St Leonards-on-Sea. Before his death on 5th October 1887, he had been unwell and unable to attend work for three months. On the day he died he apparently went to his conservatory to pick some grapes and it was thought that the exertion brought on a fatal heart attack. He was found dead on the path leading from the conservatory. His will was made on the 30th June 1884 where he appointed his niece Emily Cross and his son Frederick Goodwin to be his Executors. It was proved in the Principal Registry on the 27th October 1887. 47 Dr Frederick Goodwin (1862 - 1897) W.H. Goodwin had two sons. They were Alfred Goodwin and Dr Frederick Goodwin LLD. Dr Goodwin was born at Broseley in Shropshire and was educated at the City of London School under Dr Abbott. In 1878 he was articled to his father and admitted as a Solicitor in December 1883. He was living with his father at the time of his death and subsequently he lived at Poynings, Alexandra Park in Hastings. He matriculated with honours from London University in 1879 and obtained his LLB im 1884 or 1885. In 1887 he published a Roman Law study The XII Tables. In 1888 he became the youngest Doctor of Laws in the UK. He stood as a prospective Gladstonian Liberal Parliamentary Candidate for Bury St. Edmunds shortly after his father's death - but was defeated. He apparently had to return hurriedly from a Liberal Party conference at Ipswich when he received news of his father's death. He continued working for W.B. Young until 1889 as well as having his own practice in London under the name of Latter & Goodwin in Fenchurch Street. He subsequently practised on his own in Hastings at Memorial Buildings from 1889 until 1892 when he was joined by Ralph Hale Gaby. He ceased practising in Hastings in 1895 while continuing his London connection until 1896. At that time his Hastings business passed to R.H. Gaby and in 1896 he appointed him to be a trustee of his father's will in his place. His retirement must have been prompted by ill health as he died aged 37 on the 5th February 1897. (Memorial Buildings is the slim building on the corner of Robertson Street and Cambridge Gardens. The telephone number at Bank Chambers was Hastings 78; for Memorial Buildings it was Hastings 89. R.H. Gaby was later joined by Mr Hardwicke - to establish eventually the firm now known as Gaby Hardwicke.) Arthur Cyril Kidson (1899 - 1974) Arthur Cyril Kidson was the son of a former Town Clerk of Folkestone. He served as a Lieutenant in the Army during the First World War and was admitted as a solicitor in March 1923. He practised on his own - first at Folkestone and then at Hastings. He joined the Firm in 1935 and 48 became a partner with A.E. Young, F.W. Coles & W.H. Langdon from the 1 January 1936. He was appointed a Commissioner for Oaths in 1941.st He was Chairman of the East Sussex Club and the local Hospital Management Committee. For more than twenty years he was the Rector's Warden at Christ Church, St Leonards being respected as the confidant of the Rector, Canon Sir Percy Marion-Wilson. He retired from Young Coles & Langdon in 1965 but remained a consultant until 1970. Norman White (born 1922) Norman White's parents lived in Hastings and he went to Hurstpierpoint College - arriving just after M.C.S. Langdon had left. He had developed close links with Christ Church, St Leonards-on-Sea (where successive members of the Firm were churchwardens) and it was Father Mellor of the Church who introduced him to A.C. Kidson. He was articled in 1939. During the Second World War he served with the Royal Signals. At the time of the Battle of Normandy he was a Captain and the Tactical HQ Signals Officer to General "Bimbo" Dempsey who commanded the Second Army. He landed at H + 8 on D-Day at Arromanches on Gold Beach. He remained in Europe until VE Day - by which time he had been mentioned in dispatches. Tactical HQ was at Luneburg Heath and he recalls that the German High Command passed through on their way to surrender to General Montgomery. During the campaign N. White met the King, Winston Churchill and General Eisenhower - the latter's words of greeting being brief, "Hiya Captain". After the conclusion of the European War, General Dempsey was posted to replace General Slim in command of the Fourteenth Army in Burma. Norman White, on the hearing of the posting, went to congratulate General Dempsey and expressed the hope that he would enjoy the new command. The General replied, "I hope so too - especially as you are coming with me!" From Europe they flew to India to take command of the 49 Fourteenth Army - but the war with Japan ended before General Dempsey moved into Burma. Subsequently N. White served in Malaya. After the War he completed his Articles and was admitted on the 2nd January l948. He was Chairman of the local Round Table and President of the "4l" Club, Chairman and later President of the Mount Pleasant Hospital League of Friends. He became a partner in l949 and served as a Deputy Registrar of the local County Court and was a member of the Area Legal Aid Committee - including serving as Chairman. He was President of the Hastings & District Law Society in l973. He retired in l990 and now lives in Devon. John Charles Gordon Clement Edwards (1924 - 2004) John Charles Gordon Clement Edwards was the son of Allen Clement Edwards, a Liberal MP who had been called to the Bar in 1899. His father played a leading part in the public inquiry which followed the sinking of the Titanic and, briefed by the union side, he appeared in the Osborne and Taff Vale Railway cases. In 1920 he was co-founder and chairman of the National Democratic party. J.C.G.C. Edwards went to Clayesmore School before attending Magdalen College, Oxford. After a year, he was called up for military service in the Second World War and became a Sub Lieutenant in the R.N.V.R., serving initially in home waters and later in the Far East. After the war, he returned to Oxford for two more years before spending three years in heavy industry in the Midlands. He was introduced to A.C. Kidson and changed careers to serve articles with him. He was admitted a solicitor on lst October 1955. He became a partner in Young Coles & Langdon in 1958 and retired in 1990. He lived in Bexhill. Derek Roy Millgate (born 1952) Derek Roy Millgate attended the Hastings Secondary School leaving at the age of sixteen. He started work with Young Coles & Langdon in 1970 and was later articled to N. White. He was admitted as a solicitor in 1981 and 50 became a partner in 1983. For many years he has continued to handle the affairs of the Eversfield Estate. Jane Lindsay Moon (born 1960) Jane Lindsay Moon was articled to Heringtons and admitted in 1983. She joined the Firm in l985 and became a partner in 1988, leaving in July 2000. Richard Carlisle Lane (born 1956) Richard Carlisle Lane was admitted in 1982. He is the son of Herbert Rees Lane, a solicitor who practised in Harrogate and Leeds. He was articled to Hardmans (formerly Hardman and Watson) of Deal. He joined the Firm in 1989 and became a partner in 1992. 51 Chapter 9 Staff William Hallaway was born in 1815 and was a pupil at Saunder's School when James Thorpe was the headmaster. Manwaring Baines reports that James Thorpe's handwriting was clear and firm but lacked the flourishes then in fashion. Under his tuition William Hallaway became adept at penmanship and succeeded in copying a bank note so successfully that it was passed around the town as a curiosity. He was employed as a clerk by William Scrivens the Younger from at least 1835. He is described as his clerk in a deed of that date but is also a witness to an 1834 deed probably prepared by William Scrivens. In 1844 he was employed by the new partners at a salary of £100 per annum which increased to £130 by 1858. At some time William Hallaway worked as a junior clerk for the Hastings Old Bank. Later he became manager of the Hastings and East Sussex Permanent Benefit Building Society which had been founded in 1851 and had its offices at 5 Trinity Street. He was also involved with the Mechanics Institution and was the auditor to the gas and pier companies. William Hallaway was a known Liberal and his name appears on the memorable 'Golden Roll' of those who supported Mr More in the Corn Law agitation days. At the time of his death in 1889, he was living at 1 Gainsborough Villas in De Cham Road. He is buried in Hastings Cemetery, the funeral arrangements having been carried out 'satisfactorily' by Vine & Co. of the High Street. At that time the Firm also employed an office boy - Peter Purfield - whose salary between 1844 and 1846 increased from 5/- a week, through 6/- to the princely sum of 7/6d per week. Among the long-serving clerks of the Firm, Fred Edmund Vidler is well remembered. He joined the Firm as a junior clerk at the age of sixteen in 1880 and retired in 1946 aged 82 after 66 years service. He died in l953. He was responsible for writing up the Firm's books, which he did in the most 52 meticulous small handwriting and, as far as can be recalled, he did all the writing of the ledgers standing up. Harry Edwards started as a clerk in l896.The Firm has the text of a speech that he made in 1946 at a presentation to him commemorating 50 years service. In that speech he recalled that he responded originally to an advertisement for an office boy and was interviewed by A.E. Young, F.W. Coles and H. Young. He makes the irreverent comment that H. Young occupied his time in the office by looking for things he had lost and drinking patent medicines. He recalled that, when he was appointed, the office had neither telephone nor typewriter. Eventually a telephone was installed - but it was placed in a special room at the back of the office where it would not cause any inconvenience. Technology moved forward slowly - he was allowed to make use of the senior partner's transport to help in his duties - namely a bicycle. He also commenced his employment at the weekly salary of 5/- increasing through the same stages as Peter Purfield to the sum of 7/6d a week. Eventually he qualified in shorthand and was engaged as a secretary so increasing his income to 15/- a week. The first typewriter was purchased for his use early in l900. Harry Edwards kept the books of the Hastings & St Leonards Gas Company and prepared the half yearly dividend. He commented that the aggregate annual figure for which he was responsible amounted to three million pounds and he only ever made one mistake - the sum of 6d for which the then Chief Accountant sent his Head Cashier to collect from him to pay back into the Bank to make the Accounts correct. Harry Edwards recalled attending every Board meeting for some forty years and he paints an amusing picture of the procedures of these meetings - a main object of the directors apparently being to secure a supply of ink for their fountain pens from the Company's ink bottle. It was Harry Edwards' job, on the days when the County Court sat, to take round to the judge's room his wig and gown, a bottle of wine, and some pastries. Mr Edwards has often told of the occasion when he was caught by the Judge trying on his wig and gown. He was for many years a director of 53 Hastings and East Sussex Building Society and latterly Chairman of the Board. Mr Edwards also recalled that A.E. Young from time to time sacked him for incompetence. He used to report his dismissal to F.W. Coles, who promptly re-engaged him. R.L. Conisbee refers to Harry Edwards as the jovial, valuable assistant to F.W. Coles in his capacity as Clerk to the Grammar School Foundation. Harry Edwards was still in the Firm's employment as managing clerk when he died in l957 after 61 years with the Firm. Robert Henry ('Bob') Shaw was born in 1895 and was employed as a managing clerk from 1946 until his retirement in 1975 aged 80. He died aged 88 in l983. Initially he was based at the Firm's Bexhill office but worked in Hastings for many years. He was a churchwarden at Christ Church, St Leonards-on-Sea following a tradition established by F.W. Coles and A.C. Kidson. His distinguished bearing, formal dress, bowler hat, pince-nez and silver topped cane led many to believe that he was the senior partner. His attire was reinforced during inclement weather by a pair of heavy duty Dunlop Wellington boots. His secretary Janet Dunford recalls her duty to remove his boots by tugging at them until they came free and she was catapulted across the room. Bob Shaw's daughter, Margery worked for a brief while as an Assistant Matron at Hydneye House School. She claimed that one of her duties involved supervising the bathing of the young C.M.F. Langdon. She would supply her father with home made jams and chutneys to accompany his lunch. Invariably he would have lettuce, freshly washed and kept in a polythene bag until required. During dictation, should he decide to eat his lunch at the same time, out would come the lettuce which he would shake vigorously to remove the water which then scattered across his secretary's shorthand pad. Next he would slice his home-grown cucumber - after first sharpening his pencil on the silver penknife he kept for the purpose. When Janet Dunford celebrated her 21 birthday, he gave her 21 shilling pieces andst a kindly note - which she cherishes to this day. 54 He was held in high regard by his many Clients. He maintained a special typewriter for his own use - a peculiarly ancient model that he had adjusted so that the carriage was capable of moving with extreme speed to keep up with his typing. His letters were generally signed with a great flourish in either red or green ink. When telephone interruptions became too much for him, he was renowned for shutting the handset in the drawer of his desk. The typists' pool was capable, then as now, of irreverent behaviour. M.C.S. Langdon (who had an uncanny knack of entering a room at just the moment when a conscientious and hard-working member of staff was enjoying a short pause from labour) would bounce (and C.M.F. Langdon recalls Bob Shaw’s demonstration of the distinctive movements of three generations of his family) into the pool to inquire, <Everything under control?' As he left the typists would clutch their stomachs and chorus out of his hearing that they were, as fashion then dictated, indeed all wearing their girdles. Rosemary Lomer, now Mrs Elkins, worked for the Firm between 1948 and 1950 and earned £2 15s per week. She worked as a secretary for A.J. Kidson who was demanding in his requirements. Her hours were 9am until 5pm and then on Mondays from 7pm until 9pm. The latter period might be at his home and she remembers taking dictation from him while he was in bed. [Not entirely unusual - C.M.F.Langdon had a spell away from the office with a long illness and was visited on his sick bed by his secretaries two or three times a day.] She recalls that he was the source of two well- known expressions still much used in the Firm, "Never assume" and "You are not paid to think, but to know." A.J. Kidson introduced the first belt driven Dictaphone - a machine - which she hated and refused to use. As a result she moved to assist the young N. White before leaving to work at Battle Council thereby increasing her salary to£6 per week for less work! Mention also should be made of Nora Harvey who joined the Firm in l941 and retired in 1984 after 43 years. 55 Barry Archer Hilton (1935 - 2006) joined the Firm when he left school in 1950. He worked as a Cashier - and for many years as Head Cashier. In 1978 he was a co-founder of the Institute of Legal Cashiers and Administrators. He left the Firm in July 1981 to work on a self employed basis while maintaining strong links with the Association as a lecturer and tutor. In recognition of his services he was made Honorary President of the Association. Shirley Pollard (née Thorn) was C.M.F. Langdon's secretary from 1968 until 1985 when she left in anticipation of the birth of her son, Robert. She had originally been engaged by M.C.S. Langdon in 1967 to assist in the General Office. At her interview it was explained that she would have to handle the outgoing post, make tea and <do' the greens. Anticipating that this would require her to cook cabbage for the partners' lunch, she decided to sleep on the job offer before accepting it and was subsequently relieved to discover that the <greens' were the distinctive second carbon copies of all letters bound separately for each partner. Hemlines were short in the late sixties - and Shirley Pollard carried fashion to extremes on one occasion. She proudly wore a new green mini skirt to work - realising its extreme brevity (and suffering a day of embarrassment) only when she noticed that the hem of her skirt was higher than the level of Mr Langdon's desk. She also recalls the engagement of Wendy Duffus - who thereafter brought her engagement ring daily to work but kept it safe in its box. She would remove and wear the ring for any meeting with clients and return it to its box just as soon as she returned to the typists' pool. One of the characters who worked for the Firm was Judith Everett. She worked part time in the typing pool and her work involved the routine labours of typing accounts and preparing the list of Magdalen Charity pensioners. A quiet and unassuming lady, her relationship with the other typists was enlivened by the occasions when she entered a diabetic coma because she had omitted to balance her diet - an oversight which caused N. White’s secretary, Irene Taylor, great irritation. It came as a considerable surprise to the partners in December 1983 to discover that she was Dr Judith 56 Everett D.Litt. and that she had just won a national poetry competition worth £1,600. Irene Taylor herself started work with the firm just after the Second World War. She suffered from a disability which required her to walk with crutches - a handicap which she conquered with the aid of a pungent Birmingham wit. A large lady, she often inquired how she would escape if Queensbury House caught fire. C.M.F. Langdon volunteered that she would go down the stairs on his back - once only. She died in 1987 after collapsing at work the previous day. Many of the Firm’s employees have achieved a great age while still working. Frank Robson retired as a filing clerk on the grounds of ill-health at the age of ninety. Marjorie Johnson (born in 1904) worked as a secretary at Bexhill for twenty-three years and retired shortly before her eightieth birthday in l984. Another filing clerk, Peter Sutton was aged more than 80 when he retired only shortly before his death in 1993. Betty Stevenson, the firm's costs clerk, who retired just before she died in l990 had originally joined Langham Douglas & Co. during the Second World War. In 1897 the firm employed Granville Reid Shaw Mackenzie as an assistant solicitor while extracting from him a bond to preclude him from practising within 15 miles of the town after his employment ceased. From the 1 October 1950, the firm employed a Solicitor Robertst William Raper of 8 Charles Road, St Leonards-on-Sea as a managing clerk for £450 per annum. His working hours were from 9.15am until 5.30pm on weekdays and until 1pm on Saturdays with reasonable breaks for meals. The agreement provided for him to work longer hours if necessary and to have three weeks holiday in addition to public holidays. When the agreement ended he also was prohibited from working as a Solicitor within 15 miles of Hastings town centre. There were similar agreements with Brian Richard Cummings and Henry Alexander Tolputt. Brief mention should also be made of those who have been articled to the firm - although they never stayed to become partners. In 1854 Richard Rolfe was articled and in 1865 Frederick James Mason, whose signature 57 is recorded as a witness to one of the early title deeds of Langham House. Also included are Michael H. Gabb and Russell F. Syder whose articles were completed in l946 and Clive Thorpe and Geoffrey Waters who were both articled in the early l960's 58 Chapter 10 Anecdotes We have the first Cash Book covering the years l844 to l846. As mentioned earlier, the Firm was the local agent for the Royal Exchange Assurance. The entries for June l846 show that they paid on behalf of the Royal Exchange Assurance £5.15s.1d. in respect of the expenses relating to a fire at the Rope Shops at the Fish Market and on the same day £2.4s.11d. for beer money. Fires became more expensive but less enjoyable - on 27th October 1871 the Fire Brigade was paid £8 13s for a fire at Bridgelands, but no beer money. The Firm has a reputation for achieving good practical results. On one occasion, a client had sold land while retaining only a worthless narrow strip of the verge beside the highway. The County Council attempted to recover road charges from the unwary owner - an attempt thwarted by him being advised to give the land, with an accompanying sweetener, to a man of straw about to leave for Australia. Apparently this so angered the Council that it was a long time before the Clerk would speak to the partners. It is understood that the original Bank Buildings had twin staircases and Mr Edwards often mentioned the anxiety of certain members of the staff to avoid A.E. Young who, in the early years of the century, possessed an unreliable temper. Apparently, when he was seen coming up one staircase, members of the staff went down by the other. It has also been recalled that in the early days of the century, Hastings Football Club played their Saturday afternoon matches on the Central Cricket Ground. In those days, the firm apparently worked a six-day week, and the partners used to watch the home games from the stand on one side of the Ground. Once they had left the office the staff followed, and watched the match from the other side of the Ground. The moment the final whistle blew, the staff returned quickly to their desks. Mrs Woodhead was the widow of a former cashier who, although confined to a wheelchair, worked for the Firm until his death at a relatively 59 early age. For many years Young Coles & Langdon paid her a small monthly pension. Following her death in 1998 her son, at his mother’s request, gave to C.M.F. Langdon a horse’s hoof mounted with a brass candlestick and inscribed, Cinqua - Killed in action at Ypres on the 5 October 1917. Mrsth Woodhead had been given the hoof by W.H. Langdon’s widow for whom she had worked as a driver and had been told that it had belonged to the Reverend C.G. Langdon whose youngest brother Cecil was also a clergyman and the incumbent at Horeham Road (now Horam) in Sussex. The Reverend Cecil Langdon served as a Chaplain 4 Class with the 11 Battalion, Theth th Border Regiment and was killed at Ypres on the 31 October just a few daysst after his elder brother’s horse. He is buried in Gwalia Cemetery, Poperinghe, Ieper, Belgium and his name is also recorded on the village war memorial at Horam and on the memorial plaque in All Saints Church, Hastings. One of the more unusual stories recounted by the staff occurred when the firm was still at Bank Chambers. Then, in common with other firms, Saturday was a normal working day. A client called to see M.C.S. Langdon and was shown into the waiting room. For reasons now unknown, his appointment was not recorded and at closing time the staff went home and the offices were locked - leaving the unfortunate client still in the waiting room. Fortunately he had brought with him his sandwiches and, perhaps unfortunately, he was not a resourceful person. He was unable to work the telephone switchboard to ring for assistance. He tried waving to passers by in the Town Centre - but they merely waved back. In the circumstances, the client remained in the office and spent two nights there. On the Monday morning he revealed himself to the first people to arrive who were obviously most concerned in case the matter should come to the attention of M.C.S. Langdon. They need not have worried - the client was most apologetic about having caused so much trouble. Obviously the guilty ones wanted to do something to help so they suggested that he waited and that they would tell M.C.S. Langdon that he had called and ask if he would see him. Regrettably, his reaction on being told that his client had called yet again without an appointment produced a classic response, "Of course not, I'm far too busy." Betty Stevenson worked for E.H. Langham during the Second World War. Her favourite tale relates to the occasion when an unexploded bomb had been washed on to the beach opposite Palace Chambers. Efforts were 60 being made to defuse the bomb. Mrs Stevenson heard E.H. Langham's bell summoning her to his room to take dictation. She went to his office and found no one there. She returned to her own room only to hear the bell ring again. She went back and on closer inspection found him sitting under his desk - from which position, and wearing his tin helmet, he went on to dictate his letters while she sat at her accustomed position in the open room! C.M.F. Langdon has had one unusual case. An old client died who had appointed him to be her sole executor and had left her entire estate to an elderly German baroness. She directed that her body should be buried in Chester. At the time of her death it was winter and the whole country was under snow. The baroness planned to fly direct from Hamburg and the two of them would alone comprise the mourning party. The executor acted imaginatively. With the co-operation of the Hinkley Funeral Service, a small aeroplane was chartered to fly from Lydd to Chester with the deceased, C.M.F. Langdon, his clerk and a representative from the undertakers. All travelled together - the coffin serving as a table when the pilot offered coffee in mid flight. At Chester they were met by royal undertakers - the coffin travelling separately while the living were conveyed into the town centre for lunch with the baroness. The funeral was simple and dignified. Thereafter, the return flight - and he was back in the office in time to sign the letters he had dictated before his departure that morning. 61 Appendix I The Buildings 113 High Street was from 1828 until 1844 the office of William Scrivens the Younger and from 1844 to 1846 the office of Scrivens and Young. William Scrivens the Younger was paid an annual rent of £30. By l85l it was the home of Robert and Isabella Ranking. He was a local surgeon and had been Mayor of Hastings in 1837.They lived there with their nine children, their thirty years old governess Georgina Botwood, a sixteen years old nurse Eliza Baker and two twenty-three-years-old servants - Fanny Daw the housemaid, Susannah King, the parlour maid together with James Pratt a fifteen years old errand boy. 78 High Street (now the Old Town Book Shop) was by 1837 owned by William Scrivens, the proprietor of the Swan Inn, and run as a boarding house. It was W. B. Young’s home from 1845 until l859. In 1846 the Firm also moved to this address. In February 1847, two months after childbirth, his Wife Martha died there of puerperal inflamation while attended by Elizabeth Woggoner. Their daughter Edith also died and both are buried in the churchyard of St Clements (Halton). By 1851 the household living with him over the office consisted of Mary Shorbridge a thirty-year-old housemaid and Elizabeth Leonard a twenty-eight-year-old cook. In 1852 he remarried and, following the birth of his first child in 1854, the business moved to 80 High Street. 80 High Street was the Firm's office from l854 until l868. The building was originally the office of another solicitor, Thomas Baker Baker (died 1857) who lived at Pelham House, 82 High Street and was the Clerk of the Peace for the Borough. The landlord of 80 High Street was Mr G. Ledgard to whom the firm paid about £52 annual rent. From an examination of the firm's ledger for 1858 to 1860, it can be seen that the office was lit by gas although heated by coal. By 1878 it had become St. Mary's Convalescent Home for Women. 62 Bank Buildings T he clerks' room at Bank Buildings (Photographed by M .C .S. Langdon in 1934) 1 Bank Buildings was occupied by the Firm between 1868 and 1967. The landlord was the London & County Bank - much later to become the National Westminster Bank - to whom in 1870 a rent of £160 a year was paid. From 1874 until 1882 the top floor was the private home of W.H. Goodwin who paid a rent to W.B. Young of £100 a year. With the County Court also paying £20 a year, the net cost of these prime town centre offices was just £40 a year. Volume 1 of Hastings Bygones by the Hastings Local History Group gives details of the debate in 1924 about the location of the old Priory Bridge which would have been located close to the Firm’s offices. Of particular interest is a clear photograph of 1 Bank Buildings. With the aid of a magnifying glass, one can just discern three of the Firm's staff looking out of the first and second floor windows, At that time the whole of Reeves Corner was redeveloped and in April 1924 the Firm moved temporarily to 19a Havelock Road, over the motor showrooms of J. Hollingsworth Limited, while the rebuilding was completed. In 1926 the Firm returned as tenants of the first and second floors of the new building to be known as Bank Chambers. Their new lease was for seven years at £400 per annum. This was extended for a further seven years in 1933 and again in 1940. Th e latter extension is indorsed 63 with a memorandum addressed to the Firm at Sedlescombe agreeing to accept £137 10s on account of rent because of their evacuation from Hastings. The lease was again extended in 1947 at £375 per annum. A new lease was granted in 1954 at an annual rent of £400 and another in 1961 at £450 per annum. The Firm remained there until moving to Queensbury House in 1967 when the National Westminster Bank wished to expand and terminated the tenancy. Sherrald, Sedlescombe During the Second World War - and certainly by November 1940 - the Firm evacuated to "Sherrald", a house fronting the main road through Sedlescombe. The staff would arrive each morning by bus from Hastings and return to Hastings at night. N. White, still an articled clerk during the early part of the war, remembers that his room had an exit only through the office of A.C. Kidson - thus making illicit visits to the village difficult. The Firm was still there in 1942 as we have a sample of the overprinted office notepaper for that year. The house was originally known as Wisteria Cottage. In 1874 it belonged to Hercules Brabazon Brabazon - a distinguished Victorian artist who lived at Oaklands, a property designed by Decimus Burton and now the site of the Pestalozzi children’s village. The first commercial garage in Sedlescombe was in the old builder's and carpenter's workshop at Wisteria Cottage. It was run by Cecil Gregory of The Bakery. There, as a boy of fourteen, Ken Stubberfield was first employed. The garage also ran a taxi service and Cecil Gregory would be called on occasions to drive a Mrs. Godman who lived at Brickwall. She would require him to drive her by the most secluded lanes and into the depths of the woods. There she would stop the car, get out and walk away down the woodland path. Sitting on a tree stump hidden, as she hoped, from prying eyes, she would count her money! In about 1924 the garage business moved to its present location and is known as The Bridge Garage. When the garage moved, a Mrs Aldridge bought the house and changed its name to Sherrald. Eventually, it was bought by Miss Edith Savell in 1938 by which time it had assumed its present commodious appearance. 64 Queensbury House This uninspiring seven storey office block was the Firm's offices between 1967 and 1992. Young Coles & Langdon occupied the fourth floor and were the first tenants in the building. Mannington, Bishop and Briant, Chartered Accountants moved at about the same time to occupy the third floor. Subsequently that firm merged with Gibbons & Mitchell to become Gibbons Mannington and is now Manningtons. One of the partners is Patrick Langdon, the younger brother of C.M.F. Langdon. The fifth floor was occupied by the National Westminster Bank. During the night of the 1 /2 June 1982 their air conditioning system malfunctionedst nd and a very large quantity of water cascaded through most of the rooms on the south side of the fourth floor and down as far as the second floor. Considerable damage was caused to the library, furniture, equipment, carpets and decorations. The Firm's minute book shows a photograph of M.C.S. Langdon standing in his office under an umbrella! In 1980 the rent was increased and the Partners showed the first sign of restlessness. They authorised C.M.F. Langdon to inquire if any suitable freehold property was available to buy. Ths effort was renewed in 1983 with the partners then investigating the possibility of acquiring the old Labour Exchange in Priory Street. Queensbury House suffered damage from two storm assaults. A tower crane was used in the construction of the Priory Street car park. One day a strong westerly wind blew and the contractors were too slow to ‘feather’ the boom. The crane started to fall towards Queensbury House. C.M.F. Langdon and D.R. Millgate were watching from the same room as the crane started to fall towards them. They collided in the doorway in their effort to escape while the crane punctured a large hole in the wall of the floor below and just to one side of where they had been standing. In the hurricane of 1987, the building again suffered damage to some of the brickwork and had to be evacuated. 3l Russell Street (known as 46 Blucher Buildings before the passage of the Great Reform Bill in 1832.) The land on which this building stands - the old Priory Meadow - was sold by Henry Milward Junior on the 26/27th 65 C astle H otel showing Langham H ouse to the side December 1815. The present buildings were constructed between 1815 and 1819. By 1821 the census shows that 280 people lived in Blucher Street. Many of the buildings were lodging houses but there was also a school. In 1819 Mark Boykett Breeds acquired part of Blucher Buildings. In 1821 he gave his interest to his son Boykett Breeds as part o f a m a r r i a g e settlement. His son lost little time in borrowing money and in 1823 negotiated the first of a series of secured loans. A mortgage dated 21st September 1824 records that 31 Russell Street was let to Thomas Pollard for £70 per year. In 1827 Boykett Breeds borrowed more money and transferred his mortgage to a banking partnership that included Robert Riddell Bayley of Basinghall Street in the City of London. The house was still tenanted by Henry Pollard. In l830 Boykett Breeds was declared bankrupt and he died in l835. It is tempting to record of him the verse written by the artist Dora Carrington about a wealthy Bloomsbury member: But he, like many a rich young man through his magnificent fortune ran. And nothing was left for his daily needs but duplicate copies of mortgage deeds. The tenants changed frequently. By 1831 it was occupied by Peter Day, a grocer who moved his business to York Buildings in 1839. In 1844 it was under the control of the then mortgagees, Bayley & Janson (sometimes known as Bayley Janson & Co.) also of Basinghall Street who let it to Henry Prior, a painter and glazier, at a reduced rent of £20 per annum. Scrivens and 66 Langham H ouse Young managed the property for Bayley & Janson so that Henry Prior paid his rent to them as well as carrying out work for his landlords. He was married to Amelia Prior. Henry Prior was later to be a client of the Firm. Russell Street cannot have been well looked after. In 1850, Henry Beck, a baker living at 3 Russell Street and who claimed to have been a resident for thirty three years, successfully persuaded the Commissioners for the Improvement of Hastings to adopt the street, but not before the state of the road had been criticised and a proposal made that the residents ought to contribute £50 towards the cost of the work. 31 Russell Street itself was crowded and the l851 census records that Henry and Amelia Prior and their four children Harry, Frederick, Joseph and John (then aged 6) were living there with Catherine Frazier (aged 63) and Ann Sharpe (aged 6l), both widows. In addition there were James and Sarah Hazelden - both aged 32, described as a servant and a dressmaker respectively and Sarah Taught a seventeen years old servant. In 1869 Philip Cross purchased the freehold from the mortgagees and within a month sold it on for £650 to John Prior, the youngest son of Henry and Amelia Prior, who ran a successful business as a jeweller and watchmaker. He continued this business until his death in 1907. In 1910 his widow, Elizabeth, granted a lease to Thomas Arthur Rix of 48 George Street (a Pawnbroker's Assistant), Frederick John Adams of Southend (a Jewellery Salesman) and Sidney Herbert Cutting of Kingston (a Pawnbroker's Manager) thus starting the long association with the business of Rix the Jewellers. The building was leased from Mrs Prior and her surviving daughter until Rix (Hastings) Limited purchased the freehold in 1946. Rix (Hastings) Limited continued their long association with the premises until they sold to Young Coles & Langdon in l993. 32 Russell Street (known as 47 Blucher Buildings before the passage of the Great Reform Bill in 1832.). The early history of 32 Russell Street corresponds with that of 3l Russell Street. In 1824 it was let to James Phipps 67 and Peter Banks at an annual rent of £82. By 1827 the tenant was William Emery paying £80 a year. The businesses were as varied as the tenants. In 1831 the tenant was Thomas Nilson who was a china dealer. By 1847 it was an eating house run by Edward and Harriet Latter and Ann Easton. Also living there in 1851 were William Nunn (aged 33) a footman, Mary Thompson (aged 17) a servant, James Ridout (aged 20) a groom and a comedian John Lamb (aged 40). At least one other comedian lived in Russell Street at that time and it is perhaps worth speculating that this is the origin of the name of the public house opposite Langham House called "The Clown". The freehold of this building was also purchased by Philip Cross who sold it to Thomas Shaw for £450 in 1869. He in turn sold it to John Prior in 1889 for £950. John Prior let it to tenants who continued to change frequently. In the early l880's it was used by a barber; from l884 to l890 it was run as a lodging house by Mrs. L.H. Shaw. From l891 until 1913 the upper floors were a private residence - probably the private residence of John and Elizabeth Prior. In 1910 the premises were included in the lease to Rix's and it is known that for many years the floors above the ground floor were used by the Rix family as their private home. 5/6 Albert Road and 31 Russell Street Originally 31 and 32 Russell Street had their frontages in Albert Road and were a pair of semi-detached houses running the whole length of what is now Langham House. The present forecourt was the front garden of the two houses. While John Prior was the owner, he changed the layout of the building by separating off the rear of the two houses. In 1891 this smaller property was renumbered 3l Russell Street. The remaining two-thirds were combined to form a single unit that was renumbered 5/6 Albert Road. Through the kindness of Mr Ron Hall, the former manager of Rix's, the Firm has photographs of the building taken some time between 1891 and 1907. They show John Prior proudly standing in front of his shop with the new numbers as well as the previous names (Lucerne and Victoria) clearly shown. Features on the shop front are of interest including the elaborate clock, the lack of the shop blinds and a fine iron barrier in front of a bank of flowers above the shop window. 68 The cast iron column on the forecourt of Langham House, next to the Baptist Church, is one of the eighty "square lanthorn lamps" - original gas lamps erected by John Bryan and ultimately owned and maintained by the Hastings and St Leonards Gas Company. The lamps were erected from about 1831. William Scrivens the Younger and George Scrivens were directors of the company. Subsequently W.B. Young was the clerk to the company as was his son A.E. Young. 21a Endwell Road, Bexhill was a branch office of Langham Douglas & Co. and was acquired by Young Coles & Langdon when the two firms amalgamated. It remained their Bexhill address from 1947 until 1957. 44 St Leonards Road, Bexhill was the Bexhill office of the Firm from l957 until 1972 when 13 Eversley Road, Bexhill was purchased.. The Swan Hotel stood opposite St. Clement's Church in the High Street. It was a well-known local inn with its origins going back to the fourteenth century and was one of the largest buildings in the Old Town. Three times a week the coach for London left from the hotel. It was rebuilt in 1879 and finally closed in 1930. It was destroyed by enemy action during the Second World War. It has a well-chronicled history. Its landlords included Lawrence Levett who died in 1586 and was the owner of the Grove. William Scrivens was the Landlord between 1779 and 1799. William Carswell (the son of Rowe Carswell) was Landlord between 1841 and his death in1858. By his will dated 22nd September 1848 and prepared by Thomas Baker Baker, William Carswell left his entire estate to his widow Elizabeth. She continued as landlord and after her retirement moved to 9 High Street. Her will dated 30th September 1871 was prepared by W.B. Young. She died in 1874 leaving her estate to her sister and nieces. 90 High Street was both the home of the Scrivens family and the original site of the Hastings Old Bank which was founded in 1791. The Bank was central to the life of nineteenth century Hastings and the names of the partners were sufficiently well known to warrant a popular jingle: Tilden, Shadwell, Hilder, Harvey and Gill All put their names to a one pound bill. 69 In 1842 the Bank moved with George Scrivens to 9 Pelham Place leaving the house in the occupation of his family. By the time of the 1851 census the house was presided over by the seventy-four years old Ann Scrivens, the widow of William Scrivens the Elder. Living with her was her son, William Scrivens the Younger and his wife Elizabeth. 1 High Street was from 1838 the home and office of another solicitor J.G. Langham In 1851 he and his wife Elizabeth with their son and two older sisters lived there with their housemaid Emma Lock. 4l Wellington Square on the west side of the square was built some years after work on the east side had started. The financiers for the development were the local bankers Breeds, Farncomb and Wenham. Wellington Square was known initially as Waterloo Square and later as Wellington Place before it adopted its present name of Wellington Square. In 1859 W.B. Young purchased the house at public auction for £l,180. By 1861 he and his twenty-five years old wife, two children, a cook, housemaid, nurse and nursemaid were living there. It remained his home for many years until, in 1871, Frederick William Foster left Saunders Charity School to start his own school in this building. The Grove The present site of the Grove School was for many centuries a private house and farmland. In Tudor times it was the family home of the Levetts. Lawrence Levett, who died in 1586, was a landlord of the Swan Hotel and the Lord of the Manor of Yielding within which the Grove was situated. His daughter Mary married an Eversfield and on her death the Grove passed into the possession of that family. There is a detailed record available of the changes in the fortunes of this house. In l871 it was leased by W.B. Young who occupied it as a typical Victorian gentleman's home and lived there until his death in 1899. After his death, his widow left to live at 5 The Uplands, which remained the family home until relatively recently. In 1906 Edward Maximilian Eversfield gave to Charles Cyril St Leonards Eversfield the property then described as: All that capital messuage or dwelling house with the lodges conservatories stables outbuildings offices gardens orchards shrubberies and pleasure 70 grounds and the appurtenance thereto called "Grove" situate partly in the Parish of St. Leonard and partly in the Parish of Hollington in the County of Sussex and also all those several pieces of land thereto belonging containing together by admeasurement forty-one acres two roods fifteen perches or thereabouts. In l921 the property passed from the Eversfield estate to Sir Frederick Henry Richmond Bt. who remained the owner until l952. The house fell into decay and during the Second World War was used as a prisoner-of-war camp for Italians. One of their many tasks was to work in the gardens in the vicinity and they laid out the formal part of the garden of 216 Harley Shute Road - the former home of C.M.F. Langdon. In 1952 The Grove was acquired by Hastings Borough Council under a Compulsory Purchase Order for £6,820. The old house was demolished and the first stage of the Grove School for Boys was built. The school was officially opened by the Duchess of Norfolk in 1956. The original stable block remains as a listed building. The Grove became a County Mixed Comprehensive School in 1978 when C.M.F. Langdon was appointed as one of the Governors and served in that role until 2002. University School was founded in 1857 and was attended by several former partners of the Firm. It stood in Holmesdale Gardens and became the site of the nurses home of the former Royal East Sussex Hospital. The first Headmaster was Alexander Milne - a relative of the author A.A. Milne. The school had a reputation for physical exercise with a heavy programme of compulsory sports. Clive Vale House and its grounds were on the north-west corner of Saxon Road and Alfred Road between Edith Road and Hamilton Gardens. For many years it was the home of W.H. Langdon and, as a child, C.M.F. Langdon can remember Sunday visits with his father to see his great-aunt.. He particularly recalls that the tape which had been glued to the glass in the windows to reduce bomb blast damage during the Second World War was never removed. 71 Clive Vale House replaced the original Clive Vale Farm House built towards the end of the eighteenth century. In about 1830 the farm was purchased by John Samworth of Brooklands and was owned by his widow until purchased and developed by the British Land Company in the 1860's, 1870's and 1880's - although the farm house itself was not demolished until later - to make way for Clive Vale House. The farm house had artistic connections. In August 1852 William Holman Hunt and Edward Lear stayed there and while there Hunt painted Our English Coasts based on the view from Lovers' Seat. The painting is now in the Tate Gallery. While he was there he also painted some plants in the corner of The Light of the World. Lear worked on an oil version of an earlier painting originally executed in Sicily and known as The Quarries of Syracuse. The rocks and vegetation of the Fairlight quarries imitated the original Sicilian landscape. Holman Hunt and Lear were also joined one weekend by John Everett Millais. English's Plot (adjoining Priory Road) This plot of land has no direct links with Young, Coles & Langdon, but it was owned for a time by William Scrivens the Younger and we hold the deeds chronicling its development between 1761 and 1869. From an article and copy map in Volume 5 of Hastings Bygones, it appears that it formed the eastern half of the triangle of land at the junction of Priory Road and Plynlimmon Road. To the immediate west was the Longfield fronting Plynlimmon Road and owned by the Tutt family - Richard Tutt followed by Edward Tutt who mortgaged the field to William Scrivens in 1825 and then sold part in 1828. It would seem that the map in Historic Hastings showing 'English's Plot' as including the whole of the triangle of land to the south of the Mill Field is inaccurate. English's Plot and the Mill Field in the 1850's 72 W indmills on the W est H ill The plot was owned originally by Edward Milward who in 1753 leased it for 80 years (together with a recently erected windmill) to John Nevell or Neal. The freehold must have been sold later as it was owned by Matthew English when he died in 1761. He was a miller from Westfield and owned land described in1778 (after his death) as: All that windmill with the apparel furniture and appurtenances thereto belonging together with one piece or parcel of ground whereon the same is erected containing by estimation fifty feet over situate lying and being in the parish of St Mary of the Castle in Hasting aforesaid then and now in the tenure or occupation of [the said John English] his tenants or assigns bounding or abutting in manner or form following (that is to say) to a certain lane leading from the castle of Hasting aforesaid to the turnpike gate of the same place towards the south and east to the lands of Richard Tutt towards the west and to the lands of General James Murray towards the north or howsoever otherwise abutted or bounded. Matthew English made his will on 1st May 1761 and died shortly afterwards. He apparently left the land to his son Richard English, a yeoman of Wadhurst, but there was a dispute with Richard’s younger brother John which was compromised by Richard on the 7th July 1778 transferring the land to John (who, as seen above, was a miller already living on the land in question) and in exchange John released any claim he may have had to the rest of the estate and paid Richard £30. We have the original probate of John English dated 19th December 1787 when his will dated 22nd November 1786 was proved before the Ecclesiastical Court at Lewes. The will, which is as easy to read as if it had been written recently, starts: 73 I, John English of the town and port of Hasting in the county of Sussex miller do hereby make publish and declare my last will and testament as follows. I give unto my brother Matthew English of Stuting in the county of Kent all that messuage or tenement wherein I now dwell with the field and premises adjoining thereto and also my windmill and plot of land on which it stands...and it is my express will that my body be conveyed to the churchyard of Sedlescombe in the said county and there decently interred and I appoint Mr Thatcher attorney at Hasting aforesaid to collect all the money that shall be due to me... Matthew English must have moved to Hastings because on 12th January 1792, as a miller resident in the parish of St Clement, he sold the land to Stephen Ticehurst for £300. Stephen Ticehurst was also a miller living in the same parish and he borrowed the whole of the purchase price from William Pain, a local sadler. Unfortunately he was unable to pay his mortgage debt - this land is associated with a number of defaults - and on the 18th January 1793, while owing £315, he released the land to William Pain absolutely. William Pain sold the land at a loss for £298 to a local carpenter, Thomas Woodhams on the 20th February 1793. On 1st February 1794, Thomas Woodhams (now described as a carpenter and miller) mortgaged the land to William Woodhams the elder of Rye to secure a loan of £100. On 3rd June 1807 he sold the land for £700 to William Cooper Woodhams of Udimore and at the same time discharged his outstanding mortgage to the executors of William Woodhams who themselves lent the full purchase price to William Cooper Woodhams. He also defaulted, and on the 5th February 1825, while acknowledging considerable arrears of interest, sold the land to John Latter Woodhams (then described as an auctioneer living in Hastings) for £400 - the balance effectively being offset against his inheritance as one of the children of William Woodhams. In 1829 John Latter Woodhams, now an upholsterer and living in Ore, borrowed £500 from Henry Earley Wyatt and William Thorpe. He demolished the windmill and built in its place Albion Place and Albion Brewery. He also sold off part of the land. The mortgage was then transferred to the Hastings Old Bank. Despite his efforts, the venture was not successful 74 and in 1834 he defaulted on his mortgage obligations and the bank enforced its security. In 1835 Peter Gundry (originally a grocer from Milksham in Wiltshire but by this time a brewer living in Hastings) purchased from the Hastings Old Bank for £740 with the aid of a loan of £600 from the Reverend Thomas Brockman of Sandwich the land which is now described as: All that cottage together with the piece or parcel of land or ground whereon or on some part whereof the same cottage now stands and whereon an old windmill which has been taken down by the said John Latter Woodhams likewise formerly stood and also all those two messuages or tenements and the brewhouse and other buildings called respectively Albion Place and Albion Brewery since erected and built by the said John Latter Woodhams and now standing thereon and which said piece of land or ground contains by estimation fifty feet over (more or less) situate lying and being in the parish of St Mary in the Castle in the town and port of Hastings aforesaid formerly in the tenure or occupation of Stephen Ticehurst afterwards of Thomas Woodhams the elder deceased and since of the said John Latter Woodhams and Thomas Woodhams the younger also deceased or one of them or their respective tenants undertenants or assigns and now of the said Peter Gundry Francis Hembrey and Mrs Cole abutting and bounding in manner following (that is to say) on a certain lane there leading from the ruins of the castle of Hastings to the turnpike gate towards the south and east on lands belonging to Rowe Carswell towards the west and on land formerly belonging to William Green esquire deceased and now to.....................towards the north or howsoever otherwise bounded...... and then refers to a plan drawn on the deed clearly showing the land. Peter Gundry also defaulted on his loan and the mortgagee offered the property for sale by public auction at the Swan Hotel on the 10th October 1838. There was no bidder and on the 15th July 1839 the mortgagee agreed to a sale to William Scrivens for £700 with £100 down and the balance remaining on mortgage at 5% interest. Completion took place on the 6th June 1840 when at the same time Reverend Thomas Brockman transferred the mortgage to Ralph Thomas Brockman of Folkestone. The property is now described as 75 All that cottage together with the piece of ground whereon or on some part thereof the same cottage stands and whereon an old windmill formerly stood and also all those two messuages or tenements and the brewhouse and other buildings called respectively Albion Place and Albion Brewery lately erected and built by John Latter Woodhams and now standing thereon and which said cottage messuages brewhouse buildings land and hereditaments are situate lying and being in the parish of St Mary in the Castle in the town and port of Hastings aforesaid and were formerly in the tenure or occupation of John Latter Woodhams and Thomas Woodhams the younger deceased or one of them afterwards in the tenure or occupation of the said Peter Gundry Francis Hembrey and Mrs Cole some or one of them and now are or lately were in the tenure or occupation of Richard Gibbon and do abut on a lane leading from the ruins of the castle of Hastings to the turnpike gate towards the east and contain on that side ninety two feet and six inches (more or less) on lands lately belonging to Rowe Carswell deceased but now to Charles Coleman towards the west and contain on that side eighty two feet and six inches (more or less) on lands formerly belonging to William Green and now to .................... towards the north and contain on that side forty seven feet and two inches (more or less) and on a piece of land lately sold off from the said premises by the said Peter Gundry towards the south and contain on that side seventy eight feet and nine inches (more or less). On 24th February 1846 the mortgage balance of £350 was transferred to Mary and Sarah Mackie of Chalton near Dover. On 7th April 1848 they transferred the mortgage balance of £300 to Archibald Robert Young of the Honourable East India Company (a cousin of W.B. Young) and on the 18th November 1848 William Scrivens discharged the balance of the loan. Currently we have no information about when the property was again sold, but it is likely that William Scrivens developed the land in a manner similar to the Mill Field itself. The Mill Field This was an area of land immediately to the north of English's Plot and fronting Priory Road. It contained some three and a half acres of land opposite the junction of Collier Road. Originally owned by John Collier, it was inherited on his death by his daughter Cordelia who granted a life interest to her husband General James Murray with remainder to her sister Jane and her husband William Green. He survived his wife and on the 76 18 February1804 sold the land to William Scrivens the Elder for £525. Onth the 9th February 1810 he sold the field for £600 to his relative Rowe Carswell, a miller and baker residing at 56 High Street. The field is more fully described as: All that piece or parcel of meadow or pasture land called the Mill Field together with the lodge or building thereupon erected and standing and containing by admeasurement three acres three roods and eight perches whether of the same there be more or less and which said piece or parcel of land is part and parcel of certain lands heretofore called or known by the name of the Pest House Fields situate lying and being in the parish of St Mary under the Castle of Hastings aforesaid late in the tenure or occupation of the said William Scrivens but now of the said Rowe Carswell.... The sale was to Rowe Carswell and to William Gill who joined in the transaction as what was then known as a 'dower trustee' to block potential claims by Rowe Carswell's wife to a widow's right of dower. Rowe Carswell 'departed this life' intestate on the 18th October 1837 and was buried on the 21 October. His son William Carswell sold the field on the 6th Februaryst 1838 to Charles Coleman for £525. Charles Coleman was originally a miller, but he became a successful developer. In 1869 the field - now termed an 'estate' - was sold by auction at the Havelock Hotel in seventeen lots, many of which were already built on. One of the lots was resold by the purchaser (Mr Gausden for whom J. and S. Langham acted) in another seventeen building plots at the Castle Hotel in 1870 after the death of Charles Coleman and the deeds remain in the possession of the firm. 77 Appendix II Chronology for the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries 1740 Birth of William Scrivens 1761 Deaths of John Collier and Matthew English 1773 Birth of William Scrivens the Elder in Dorking 1778 Birth of Ann Gill, the grand daughter of Thomas Carswell and daughter of William Gill who married William Scrivens the Elder 1779 William Scrivens arrives in Hastings from Dorking to become the landlord of the Swan Hotel William Langham admitted as a solicitor 1781 William Scrivens becomes a Freeman 1786 Death of John English 1789 Start of Napoleonic war 1791 Founding of Hastings Old Bank by (inter alia) William Gill 1794 Birth of James George Langham 1795 Death of Ann Scrivens, wife of William Scrivens 1799 William Scrivens retires as landlord of the Swan Hotel 1803 William Scrivens becomes a Jurat 1804 William Scrivens the Elder buys the Mill Field 1805 Battle of Trafalgar Birth of William Scrivens the Younger 1807 Birth of George Scrivens 1808 Birth of Elizabeth Potter, wife of William Scrivens the Younger William Scrivens the Elder sells the Mill Field to Rowe Carswell William Scrivens the Elder becomes a Freeman 1812 Death of Edward Young the Elder, grandfather of W.B. Young 1813 Birth of Augustus Langdon, son of William Langdon 1814 Birth of William Blackman Young 1815 Battle of Waterloo Birth of William Hallaway Death of William Scrivens William Scrivens the Elder becomes a Jurat Sale of Priory Field by Edward Milward Junior 1817 Castle Hotel built 78 1818 Marriage of William Langdon and Frusan Ede, the parents of Augustus Langdon who had been born in 1813 1819 Mark Boykett Breeds buys part of Priory Field including what is now Langham House 1821 Census shows 280 people living in Blucher Street, now Russell Street 1826 William Scrivens the Younger qualifies as a solicitor 1828 Crown acquires the America Ground Royal Victoria Hotel built William Scrivens the Younger starts his practice in Hastings Death of William Langdon, father of Augustus Langdon and great great great grandfather of C.M.F. Langdon 1830 W.B. Young sails to the Canaries 1831 Death of William Gill First gas lamps erected 1832 Great Reform Bill, Hastings Improvement Act and Act in connection with foundation of St Leonards-on-Sea George Scrivens enters banking with Tilden & Co. as a clerk 1834 William Scrivens the Elder becomes Mayor Visit of Princess Victoria William Scrivens the Younger marries Elizabeth Potter 1835 Augustus Langdon called to the Bar and loses the case of Lewis v. Langdon 1836 America Ground cleared ready for redevelopment Birth of Frederick Adolphus Langham W.B. Young returns from the Canaries Augustus Langdon marries Sarah Watts 1837 Accession of Queen Victoria Death of Rowe Carswell Birth of Augustin Langdon, son of Augustus Langdon Robert Ranking becomes Mayor Hastings Charities become a separate entity 1838 J.G. Langham moves to 1 High Street George Scrivens marries Ann Potter 1839 William Scrivens the Younger buys the land adjoining Priory Road 1841 William Carswell becomes landlord of the Swan Hotel 1842 Hastings Old Bank moves from High Street to Pelham Place Death of Edward Young the Younger, father of W.B. Young 79 1843 William Scrivens the Younger appointed Clerk to the Hastings Charities W.B. Young qualifies as a solicitor Death of William Scrivens the Elder George Scrivens becomes Mayor W.B. Young joins William Scrivens the Younger in partnership 1845 W.B. Young moves to 78 High Street 1846 Railway reaches St Leonards-on-Sea William Scrivens the Younger retires from active practice 1847 W.B. Young appointed Clerk to the County Court 1848 Death of Ann Gill aged 96 1849 George Scrivens is Mayor for a second term Thomas Farncomb is Lord Mayor of London 1850 Civic banquets in London and Hastings 1851 Railway reaches Hastings 1852 W.B. Young marries Harriet Whaler Smith William Holman Hunt and Edward Lear stay at Clive Vale farmhouse 1857 George Scrivens founder governor of Hastings Cottage Improvement Society Collapse of Hastings Old Bank 1858 Death of William Carswell; his widow Elizabeth becomes landlord of the Swan Hotel 1859 W.B. Young purchases 41 Wellington Square 1862 Birth of Frederick George Langham 1863 Queen's Hotel built 1864 Birth of Frederick William Coles Death of Robert George Cecil Fane, the Bankruptcy Commissioner who investigated the collapse of Hastings Old Bank 1865 Death of Ann Scrivens, wife of William Scrivens the Elder 1866 William Scrivens the Younger becomes Mayor for four terms 1869 John Prior purchases 31 Russell Street 1870 Deaths on consecutive days of of Elizabeth Langham, the wife of James George Langham and of Elizabeth Scrivens, wife of William Scrivens the Younger 1871 Death of William Scrivens the Younger Augustin Langdon moves to Hastings 80 1872 Hastings Pier opened W.B. Young appointed Notary Public 1873 Scrivens Buildings built 1874 Death of Elizabeth Carswell Death of Augustus Langdon W.H. Goodwin joins W.B. Young in partnership 1875 W.B. Young leases the Grove 1879 Birth of William Herbert Langdon 1880 F.E. Vidler joins the firm 1881 Town Hall moves to its present site 1882 Gaiety Theatre built Alexandra Park opened 1887 Queen Victoria's golden jubilee Deaths of George Scrivens, W.H. Goodwin and Augustin Langdon F.W. Coles qualifies as a solicitor 1888 A.E. Young qualifies as a solicitor Publication in Amsterdam of ‘The Secret Life’ by ‘Walter’ 1889 John Prior purchases 32 Russell Street 1895 Birth of Robert Henry Shaw 1896 Harry Edwards joins the firm 1897 Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee A.E. Young and F.W. Coles acquire the business from W.B. Young W.H. Langdon articled to A.E. Young 1899 Death of W.B. Young Birth of Arthur Cyril Kidson 81 Appendix III Chronological changes in the name of the firm 1828 William Scrivens the Younger in sole practice 1844 W.B. Young joins him. Firm known as Scrivens & Young 1846 William Scrivens retires. Firm retains the existing name 1871 Death of William Scrivens. W.B. Young practises under his own name. 1874 W.B. Young joined by W.H. Goodwin who practise as Young & Goodwin 1887 Death of W.H. Goodwin. W.B. Young again practises under his own name. 1888 W.B. Young employs his son A.E. Young. The firm is known as Young & Son. 1894 By this time, F.W. Coles had started working for the firm. W.B. Young enters into an agreement for the future disposal of the firm. Firm known as Young, Son & Coles. The firm continues to use this name until 1911 W.H. Langdon becomes a partner and the firm adopted its present name of Young, Coles & Langdon. 82 Appendix IV The Magdalen and Lasher Charity For 165 years (from 1843 until 2008) a partner was the Clerk to the Trustees of the Magdalen and Lasher Charity and this relationship justifies the inclusion of the charity's later history - 'later' being an appropriate word in the case of a charity which has been established for about 900 years. The early history of the Magdalen and Lasher Charity may be studied in Historic Hastings by Mainwaring Baines and the statement prepared for the Charity Commissioners in 1866. The text of a lecture given by a former Chairman of the Trustees, Mr V.J. Pain, in 1988 is of considerable assistance, although it must now be read subject to the new material which appears in this chapter. This present account covers the period from 1837 until 1862. Following the passing of the Municipal Corporation Act the charitable trusts, which until then were administered by the Corporation, were established as a separate body under the management of independent trustees. The order was made on the 25th November 1836 following petitions to the High Court of Chancery in respect of Parker's, Saunder's, and the Magdalen and Lasher's Charities. The applications were made by the Corporation and the parishes of St Clement and All Saints. Following an investigation and report by a Master, the order was made appointing thirteen trustees who included William Scrivens the Elder. Their first meeting took place on the 12th January 1837 in the Old Town Hall when William Thorp was appointed chairman and Henry Thatcher their clerk. Henry Thatcher was a solicitor living in Hill Street and had been involved in the application to the court. The four charities were to be administered together under the name of the 'Hastings Charities'. Parker's and Saunder's charities supported two local schools and also paid to place poor apprentices. Later they were separated off as the Grammar School Foundation and no account will be given here directly of their work and significance. They owned between them about 101 83 acres of land in Ore and 120 acres of land at Wittersham including about 17 acres of missing 'drowned land'. This latter preoccupied the trustees who frequently visited Wittersham in unsuccessful attempts to find or recover the land. Lasher's charity consisted of a rentcharge of three pounds and ten shillings per year secured on land in the parish of All Saints belonging to Countess Waldegrave - which she paid over to the Trustees. This was distributed annually as 10/- each to seven elderly and poor residents (in the minutes called the 'objects' of Lasher's charity) - remarkable, even by today's standards, for their great age. The Magdalen charity’s principal asset was approximately 57 acres of land to the west of the town lying between Bohemia and Warrior Square - the land known locally as the 'Maudlin Fields'. This land included the five acres added by Petronella de Cham in 1294. Initially the Trustees directed most of their attention towards collecting in the rents and the proper administration of the two schools. They established sub- committees to prepare their standing procedures and to act as 'visitors' to the schools. The Minutes record that the earlier papers belonging to the charities were in the possession of John Goldsworthy Shorter, the clerk to the Corporation and a former Mayor, and he was directed to hand them over to Henry Thatcher. The trustees appointed a receiver of the rents at an annual salary of £5, while requiring him to enter into a bond guaranteeing the proper performance of his duties. They also appointed Francis Smith (a Partner of William Scrivens the Elder in Hastings Old Bank) to act as their treasurer. The Trustees resolved to meet on the last Thursday in January, April, July and October at noon. A quorum of seven was fixed initially although this was later reduced to five when a number of meetings had to be abandoned because there was no quorum present. The chairman was elected at each meeting. The clerk was expected to read his draft minutes to the chairman before the meeting adjourned and the minutes were later written up in fair copy in the minute book. All cheques had to be signed by the chairman and counter-signed by the clerk. The cheques were, of course, drawn on the treasurer's bank. 84 The Magdalen hospice. The appointment of the first receiver was short lived and the trustees in February 1837 appointed Henry Thatcher to be their receiver but omitted to ask for sureties. At their meeting on the 18th October 1837, the Trustees resolved that it appeared from an inspection of the records that the appropriation of the Magdalen charity had up to that time been in small sums to the poor of the parishes of St. Clement and All Saints and St. Mary in the Castle; that this mode of distribution was attended with little permanent advantage to the poor of the parishes and that it would be desirable to adopt some better mode of appropriating the funds. This view remains fixed in the mind of the trustees and later formed the basis of a long running conflict with the two parishes. At the same meeting the trustees also expressed an interest in assisting the enlargement of the Hastings Dispensary, although in the event no aid was given. In April 1840, the Trustees decided to put out to tender the construction of a new barn on the Magdalen land. At their following meeting in May, the minutes note that tenders for the erection of "Chapel Barn" be accepted: William Mortimer for stone work - £91.10/-; Messrs. Glazier for carpenters work - £94; William Ranger for ironwork - £7.8s.3d; Charles Neves for painting - £3.10/- ; Thomas Thorn & Son for plastering - £2.13s.4d. There was a stone quarry on the land and the Trustees arranged for the stone necessary to build the barn to be taken from their own quarries. The work progressed and is noted at meetings throughout 1840. By December, the work must have been finished because the Clerk was instructed to take steps to insure the new barn. (The illustration is thought to be the ruin of the original chantry which was later used as a barn and then rebuilt.) 85 Things started to go wrong for the Trustees in March 1843. Their clerk was not present at a regular meeting of the Trustees and they directed enquiries to be made of his 'Medical Attendant' as to his probable capacity for continuing his duties. They appointed the schoolmaster, John Banks, to be their temporary clerk and instructed him to try and get hold of the papers which were in Mr Thatcher's possession. ( John Banks was also a surveyor as well as being the author of Smugglers and Smuggling.) The following month, one of the Trustees reported that Mr Thatcher was too ill to attend to his duties. He and Mr Ticehurst (the 'Medical Attendant') had seen him the day before but had retrieved no papers from him. The meeting was adjourned for a fortnight when Mr Banks then reported that he had made an investigation into the clerk's accounts and found a 'considerable deficiency'. It was also reported that Mr Thatcher could be expected to be away a long time before he could resume his duties. The Trustees decided to consider the appointment of a new permanent Clerk at their next meeting. They met a fortnight later when Mr Banks was asked to continue his investigations into the accounts and the Trustees heard that Mr Thatcher remained in the same state. Three weeks later, the Trustees again met - this time Mr Thatcher was well enough to attend and the meeting was adjourned for a week for a further report from Mr Banks regarding the accounts. They met a week later on the 23rd May 1843 when Mr Thatcher handed over his accounts and the Trustees confirmed the 'considerable deficiency'. Mr Thatcher assured them that he would be able to repay the money within a fortnight. The Trustees realised too late the mistake that they had made and resolved that any future person appointed to be the receiver would have to enter into a bond for £250. The Trustees met again a fortnight later and adjourned before meeting again on the 27th June when Mr Thatcher's letter of resignation was accepted. Mr Thatcher was directed to attend the next meeting of the Trustees with his accounts while the Trustees considered the appointment of his replacement. They met again on the 27th July 1843 when Mr Thatcher presented his accounts which they resolved to examine before their next meeting. At the same time, they appointed Mr William Scrivens Junior to be their clerk at an 86 annual salary of £15. The minutes of that Meeting are signed by the then chairman - William Scrivens the Elder. At the meeting in the following August, Mr Banks produced a statement showing a deficiency of £126.14s.7d. and the Trustees instructed the new Clerk to apply to Mr Thatcher for payment - without success. Nothing much happened for a few months, but the Trustees cannot have been happy when they met in December 1843 and were told that the parishes were pressing the Trustees to account for the rents they should have received. The Trustees stalled and renewed their earlier resolution of dissatisfaction with the procedure for distributing the money and resolved to make an application to the Court of Chancery for a new scheme. However they were only bluffing and capitulated (as may be seen in correspondence in the Borough Museum) and on the l3th April they agreed to account to the parishes just as soon as they were in funds. All this was happening while the number of Trustees was diminishing through death and there was no procedure for the appointment of new Trustees other than by an expensive application to the Court. In 1844 the Trustees reduced their quorum to three following the death of William Scrivens the Elder. The Trustees and the Vestry Clerks of the two parishes met on the 3rd January 1845 and the Trustees produced their accounts. The deficiency was duly noted and in February 1845 the Trustees were compelled to resolve that they themselves were honour bound to repay the total deficiency then calculated at £136.1s.3d. All the Trustees were asked to participate including the executors of the late William Scrivens the Elder. But payments came in slowly. It was not until 1852 that the last four contributors each paid £11/6/1. This decision was conveyed to the Vestry Clerks and the Trustees made a last attempt to try and exert some control over the way the money was to be distributed. Fortunately by this time, the parishes were ready to compromise and at the Vestry Meeting they agreed that the Churchwardens could consult with the Trustees over the best manner of appropriating the funds. They also resolved that they considered the utility of the Magdalen Charity might be increased and habits of industry and frugality among the poor could be 87 encouraged if the sums to be distributed were raised to not less than £1 and not more than £3 for each family in any one year and if the persons to be selected as proper objects for this relief were the old, infirm and other poor persons who maintain themselves without parish relief. A list of deserving persons was to be prepared each year. The Trustees were aware of the approach of the new railway connection with London. At their meeting in October 1845 they instructed their Clerk to purchase a copy of the Hastings Brighton and Ashford Railway Extension Act and to take any steps necessary to prevent the company from taking possession of any of the charity lands until terms of purchase had been agreed. In July 1846 William Scrivens the Younger resigned and the Trustees appointed W.B. Young in his place - also at a salary of £15 a year, of which £5 was charged against the Magdalen Charity. In 1856 this was increased to £30 a year. Up until now, all meetings had been held in the Town Hall, but this first meeting after W.B. Young's appointment was held at his office on 22nd August 1846 - thereafter the Trustees resumed most of their meetings at the Town Hall. By December 1846 the Trustees were in negotiation with the South Eastern Railway Company and instructed their own surveyor to value the land which was needed for the site of Warrior Square Station. In August 1847 negotiations for the sale of just over 3 acres of land to the South Eastern Railway reached a head. The sale produced funds enabling the purchase of £1671 of 3% Consols - the interest from which increased the income of the charity. A study has been made of the Hastings & St Leonards News from May to October 1848 which included advertisements placed on behalf of Saunders Charity School for the appointment of a new Headmaster to be elected by the trustees and the following: Farm to Let, at Hastings. TO BE LET BY TENDER, for the term of seven years from the 29th day of September next, a very ELIGIBLE FARM, known as "The Maudlin Land" situate in the parish of St. Mary Magdalen, in Hastings, Sussex; containing about Fifty Acres of Arable, Meadow, Pasture, and Wood 88 Land, with farm buildings thereon, being within half a mile of the towns of Hastings and St Leonards. The farm is vested in the trustees of the Charities of the Borough of Hastings, and is now let on lease to Mr James Hyland. Printed particulars after the 10th inst., on application to Messrs. SCRIVENS and YOUNG, solicitors, Hastings, at whose office a map of the land may be seen. Tenders are to be sent to Messrs. SCRIVENS and YOUNG, sealed up and marked "Tender for the Maudlin Land," on or before the 31st inst., and the Tenders will be taken into consideration at the Town Hall, Hastings, on Thursday, the 1st June next, at twelve o'clock. Hastings, 4th May, 1848. In January 1852, an application was made to the High Court by the Reverend George Darby St. Quintin and Decimus Burton claiming a share of the Magdalen Charity. The Trustees and the two parishes put aside past differences and united against the common foe to bring the proceedings to an end without St Leonards obtaining any benefit. In exchange, the parishes accepted a temporary revised method for distributing the relief. The Minutes from 1855 onwards show the recognition by the Trustees that their land was potentially liable to increase rapidly in value. Subject to being able to secure the provision of adequate roads - the land was very desirable for residential development. In 1858 they were in negotiations with the Eversfield Estate about the use and control of roads to enable their land to be opened up for development. The Charity Commissioners directed Cluttons to advise on the setting out and valuing of the land for building purposes and the development on the Horntye Field to the north of Bohemia Road was to that firm's plan. With such interest in land and its value for development, the local inhabitants were constantly encroaching on the land of the Trustees trying to obtain squatters rights. The threat was so real that the Trustees paid Mr Banks a guinea per year to make a regular check of the boundaries. In 1855 the Trustees received a complaint through the Charity Commissioners from the Incumbent of Halton Parish Church to the 89 effect that his parish was not receiving any benefit from the charity. In 1857 a complaint was made that bad conduct of the boys attending Saunders Charity School. However the Trustees managed to slide around difficulties. In July 1857 their bankers - Hastings Old Bank - collapsed and at their meeting on the 30th July, they simply transferred their business to the London & County Bank. No money appears to be lost and at the meeting routine cheques were authorised to be drawn. In April 1860, following the appointment of George Scrivens as manager, their account was transferred without comment to Beeching & Sons. In July 1855, following proceedings which necessitated an affidavit being sworn by (among others) William Hallaway and John Woolcott, the High Court appointed new trustees including George Scrivens who remained in office until his death. 90 Appendix V The Fane Family Francis Fane, 1st Earl of Westmorland, who died in 1646, attended Queens’ College, Cambridge. John Fane, the 7th Earl of Westmorland was a distinguished military officer who served with the Duke of Marlborough. He died in 1762 and is the great, great, great, great grandfather of C.M.F. Langdon. Robert George Cecil Fane (1796 - 1864) was great grandson of the 7th Earl. He was a barrister who became a Bankruptcy Commissioner - and carried out the investigation into the collapse of Hastings Old Bank in 1857 which is reported in Chapter 3. General Sir Henry Fane (1778 - 1840) was the grandson of the 8th Earl. He had a distinguished career as a cavalry officer during the Napoleonic wars and finished his career as Commander in Chief in India. Between 1830-31 he was the MP for Hastings, losing his seat just before the introduction of the Great Reform Bill. The 8th Earl had a brother - also called Henry whose grandson was Colonel John William Fane MP. (C.M.F. Langdon owns a large silver mounted beer jug presented to him by his tenants.) One of his sons was Frederick William Fane who died in 1933. He was the Senior Partner of Child & Co., the bank at No 1 Fleet Street, London and owned Wormsley which was later sold to Sir Paul Getty. His brother Cecil Fane (1858 - 1948) is C.M.F. Langdon's grandfather. The link between the Fane family and Child & Co goes back to the marriage in 1782 between the 10th Earl and Sarah Child, the daughter of Robert Child, the then senior partner of Child & Co - a bank of such antiquity that past customers included Oliver Cromwell and Nell Gwynn. It was a romantic marriage and the tale is recounted in 'ye Marygold', the history of Child & Co. written by F.G.H. Price in 1875. 91 It is currently reported that Lord Westmorland was dining with Mr Child one afternoon at Temple Bar and, amongst other subjects upon which they conversed, Lord Westmorland said, 'Child, I wish for your opinion on the following case:- Suppose that you were in love with a girl, and her father refused his consent to the union, what should you do?' 'Why! run away with her to be sure,' was the prompt reply of Mr Child, little thinking at the time that it was his daughter the querist was in love with. Either that same night or a few nights after, Lord Westmorland eloped with Miss Sarah Child in a postchaise and four, from Berkeley Square House. The duenna, who slept in the outer room of Miss Child's apartments, was drugged by her maid, and her flight was only discovered by the 'Charley' (or night watchman) finding the front door open and raising an alarm. Mr Child at once took a postchaise and pursued the runaways. Whether Mr Child had better horses or whether he had more relays than the pursued is not known; but he approached so nearly to them in Northumberland that Lord Westmorland was compelled to stand up in his carriage and shoot the leading horse in Mr Child's chaise, which caused the whole vehicle to capsize. This bold proceeding gave Lord Westmorland time to get over the border, where the blacksmith was in readiness, and the pair were married at Gretna Green before Mr Child could interfere with the ceremony. During the short interval between the runaway marriage and his death Mr Robert Child never forgave Lord and Lady Westmorland. He died in the course of the same year and by his will left the whole of his immense fortune to the first daughter of the union - Lady Sarah Sophia Fane who married, on the 23rd May 1804, George Villiers, Earl of Jersey. Lady Jersey became well known as a society hostess in Regency times as a patroness of Almack's Assembly Rooms in St James where her nickname was 'Silence'. She became a partner in Child & Co in 1795. The first partner to bear the surname of Fane, Charles Thorold Fane, became a partner in 1867. 92 Appendix VI The Langham family and the 5th (Cinque Ports) Battalion, the Royal Sussex Regiment The 5th Battalion sailed for France on the SS Pancras on the 18th February 1915 and initially formed part of the British 1st Division. They participated in the Battle of Aubers Ridge on the 9th May 1915 when the battalion suffered 200 killed and wounded out of its strength of 600. The battalion second in command was Major E.H. Langham who was among those seriously wounded in the battle. He had been advancing in a crouched position when a bullet entered his shoulder and exited in the small of his back. He had crawled back to the British lines and remarked after the event, “I don’t know how I got through.” Two aspects of the battle must be recorded. First, the anniversary of the 9th May was long remembered for its devastating impact on the young men of Sussex. One village alone lost 21 killed on that dreadful day. Despite its losses, the battalion formed up in column to march from the battlefield led by Colonel Langham and singing ‘Sussex by the Sea’. Colonel Langham was made CMG for his role in the battle. Colonel Langham with men from the Orderly Room in 1915. 93 From 20th August 1915 the battalion was organised as the Pioneer Battalion for the 48th Division. For an extra twopence per day, the soldiers in the battalion were recognised as skilled woodmen and labourers and were involved - frequently in the front line and under heavy fire - with the tasks of constructing trenches and other fortifications. They wore a distinguishing brass collar badge of a crossed rifle and pick. On the 1st September 1915, F.G. Langham was appointed to be Commandant of Sailly Area of the Western Front. Major Langham returned to active duty on the 19th November 1915 - although the severity of his wound was such that he is believed to have been restricted to ‘softer’ duties. The same day marks the establishment of a battalion Grenade School under the command of the CO’s elder son, Lieutenant C.R. Langham. In 1916 the battalion played an active part in the Battle of the Somme as part of the 48th Division. The battalion had already seen much active service and while the other battalions in the Division advanced in silence, the Cinque Ports marked their presence and went forward again singing ‘Sussex by the Sea’.. On the 29th July the battalion is recorded as involved in the construction of a communication trench just before being relieved for a spell in reserve. The Gazette records Col. Langham visited the work, strolling along the top of the trench and bringing the cheerful news that work was to stop at midnight. In August, the battalion was again relieved and a drawing by Captain G.W. Allinson shows Col. Langham mounted and giving the order which became famous in military circles, Form fours - Westwards - Quick March. (The order was significant because it breached the conventional form, not because the enemy was in the east but because the battalion was lined up along different lengths of a road intersection and 94 had to turn in different directions to meet up on the route to their reserve billet to the west.) Perhaps the most dreadful battle for the battalion was the Third Battle of Ypres (sometimes known as Passchendaele) fought during the wet summer of 1917. The account in the Gazette is harrowing. Col. Langham proceeded ahead of the battalion t o make a prelimin a r y reconnaissance on the 5th July. The battalion also provided a detachment of Divisional Observers - a scouting and sniper section commanded by C.R. Langham and known as ‘Langham’s Scouts’. The artist shows a picture of them ‘observing’. On the 10th July, Col. Langham accompanied by his Company Commanders, their seconds in command and two orderlies rode forward 95 for a reconnaissance of the forward work near Vlamertinghe. They were spotted by the Germans and shelled - and the same artist’s picture shows the attack in which two of the party were wounded, one seriously. The battle proper commenced on the 31st July. It is recorded that the CO had, as usual, gone on ahead to a not-too-safe vantage point to watch the progress of the battle. As the battalion marched past, he gave them all a ‘cheery greeting’. The weather broke in early August and at this time C.R. Langham (now a Captain) returned to regular duties with the battalion. On the 16th August he led a party of five platoons to consolidate some ground which had been captured near Alberta as part of the Battle of Langemarck. In the attack, his orderly was severely wounded and C.R. Langham gallantly tried to carry him to cover - but was himself killed in the attempt. The Gazette reads, The loss of such a fine officer as Captain Langham, while gallantly commanding the consolidation party, was keenly felt by the whole battalion, which made their beloved C.O.’s grief their own. Because of the heat of the battle, it was not possible to retrieve his body until the following morning. By November, the battalion had been at the front for three years and had suffered heavy casualties. It was time for a rest and the troops were moved south to the Italian front. By Christmas the battalion was billeted at Schiavon. The Gazette describes the arrangements for Christmas dinner where the C.O. followed his usual practice of inviting all the officers to HQ for a meal followed by an informal sing song at which Lieutenant E.G. Gibson stole the show with vocal imitations of battalion characters including - The Colonel calling his dog Byng when in a refractory mood to heel. The battalion was in action again in June and November 1918 - finishing the War in Austria and returning to England in 1919. 96 Between the wars, the Langham family was represented in the battalion by F.G. Langham’s second son, Lieutenant R.H. Langham who received a territorial commission in 1930. The photograph shows R.H. Langham second from the right in the back row while his father - unconventionally attired and with Lucifer Byng’s successor - is in the front on the left. R.H. Langham was a keen shot. He is recorded on several occasions achieving high scores in competition. His interests were wide and he is on record as participated fully in a debate on the origins of the cross forming part of the Royal Sussex regimental badge. He also represented the battalion at cricket. 97 Appendix VII Literary and Artistic Associations The Firm has no pretensions to be a hotbed of literature and the arts but, over the years, seems to have been associated with a number of authors and artists. The association is not infrequently post mortem! Corrie Ten Boom Cornelia Johanna Arnolda ten Boom, generally known as Corrie ten Boom, (1892 – 1983) was a Dutch Christian Holocaust survivor who helped many Jews escape the Nazis during World War II. Ten Boom co-wrote her autobiography, The Hiding Place, which was later made into a movie of the same name. In December, 1967, Ten Boom was honoured as one of the Righteous Among the Nations by the State of Israel. C.M.F. Langdon applied for the grant to her English estate. George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair, better known as George Orwell, was married to Sonia Mary Brownell Orwell. He appointed her to be his literary executor. In her Will she appointed Mark Hamilton to continue this responsibility. On the instructions of Mark Hamilton, J.C.G.C. Edwards drew the Deed of Appointment adding William John Urwick Hamilton as an additional trustee of the literary estate of George Orwell. Coventry Patmore Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore (1823 - 1896) was an English poet and critic who lived at Old Hastings House. The Firm was involved with the administration of his estate Matilda Barbara Betham Edwards In 2006 Professor Joan Rees published a biography of the travel writer and author of Kitty - published in 1870 - who lived at Villa Julia, (now1 High Wickham) where she was often visited by, among others, Henry James. As recorded in Chapter 3, George Scrivens left her a legacy of £300. She prepared her Will in 1917 and appointed A.E. Young to be her sole Executor. She left him one half of the proceeds of the sale of her 98 royalties and copyrights as well as her ruby and diamond ring, her china mug and card plate, a picture of an Arab smoking by Mrs Bridell Fox and also his choice of three of her autograph books by English and French authors. She left his daughter Joan her Japanese cabinet and her French tea and coffee cups. She died on the 4 January 1919 and her estate was sworn at £803.9.0.th David Gemmell Born in West London in 1948, he was expelled from school at the age of sixteen for organizing a gambling syndicate. He became a day labourer and a nightclub bouncer in Soho. He also worked as a freelance writer for the Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, and Daily Express. He published his first novel, Legend, in 1984 but continued as a journalist. He was an editor of newspapers in Sussex, but this career ended after the publication of his third novel, Waylander, in 1986, in which he used his work colleagues' names for characters in the story. Recalling the event he stated, "The managing director regarded it as a poisonous attack on his integrity". At this point he became a full-time writer and published 29 books under his own name, all of which have remained in print. He also published a novel White Knight, Black Swan under the name Ross Harding, a thriller based on his own personal experiences growing up in London which to this day is his only novel out of print. His most recent release was Troy: Fall of Kings, the sequel to 2006's Troy: Shield of Thunder. His widow, Stella completed the trilogy with the publication of The Fall of Kings in October 2007. He was a friend and client of C.M.F. Langdon. Florence Leftwich Very little is known about this artist who painted the portrait of W.B. Young in 1890. In the spring of 1889 she was living at 12 New Court, Lincoln’s Inn and by the autumn of the same year had moved to 94 Barry Road, East Dulwich. She showed her paintings in Birmingham in 1889 at two exhibitions which included works by Sir Frederick Leighton six paintings by E. Burne-Jones, two by Ford Madox Brown and Roses by H. Fantin-Latour on sale for £65. Her paintings were Through much 99 tribulation priced at ten guineas, Beatrice at three guineas and Mrs Arthur Burgess also at three guineas. Graham Coton Graham Coton (1926 - 2003) earned his living as a successful commercial artist. His best paintings were of aircraft and motor vehicles. He was one of the illustrators of the series of Biggles books by Captain W.E. Johns. At one time some of his paintings decorated the walls of the Biggles Bar at Lydd Airport. He painted extensively throughout his life and produced a large number of landscapes of Hastings and the countryside to the east of the town. He also painted scenes from Scotland which he visited regularly. Although a talented figure painter, he struggled with faces. His work included several, barely recognisable, portraits of C.M.F. Langdon. A colourful character, he was an amateur pilot and keen swimmer. Henry Spencer Ashbee F.G. Langham was married to Frances Mary Ashbee. She was born on the 3 February 1866 and her parents were Henry Spencer Ashbee andrd Elizabeth Josephine Jenny Ashbee (née Lavy). H.S. Ashbee was born in 1834. He left school at 16 and married advantageously into a Jewish Hamburg family and became manager of a profitable textile business. He had wide business interests and became a wealthy man. He had five children including his son, Charles and four daughters. As well as being to external appearances a respectable Victorian, he was the author of three major bibliographies of erotic literature under the pseudonym of Pisanus Fraxi, The word Pisanus is described by Professor Steven Marcus in The Other Victorians. as a 'scatological pun' Fraxi is derived from the Latin words for ash and bee. On March 30th, 1877 he privately printed 250 copies (each of 621 large quarto pages and each weighing almost four pounds) of The Index Librorum Prohibitorum -
a title humourously derived from the Roman Catholic organ of censorship. It is a catalogue of pornographic books. He distinguishes himself by the attention he gives to the contents of the books he examines. He claims never to criticise a work that he has not read nor to describe a volume or an edition he has not examined. This was followed in 1879 by Centauria Librorum Absconditorum and in 1885 by Camena Librorum Tacendorum. These three books are extensively reviewed by Professor Marcus.
In 1888 an author under the pseudonym of 'Walter' published in Amsterdam just 6 copies of an 11 volume, 400,000 word book entitled 'The Secret Life'. It purports to be the diary of a sexual philanderer and his relationships with more than 2,000 women. It has achieved notoriety for its content and collectability. It has also been the subject of academic research to try and establish the identity of the author. In 1969, the barrister John Mortimer unsuccessfully defended a printer who hoped to publish the book. In 2000, Channel 4 produced a documentary about it. In 2001, Ian Gibson published The Erotomaniac - the secret life of Henry Spencer Ashbee in which he argues that H.S. Ashbee is the author. Secondly, H.S. Ashbee was a prolific collector of pornographic books and literature and had a penchant for flagellation. He stored his collection at a bachelor pad in Gray’s Inn. It is likely that his wife’s discovery of it contributed to their separation in 1891. He also quarrelled with his son, a homosexual. On his death in 1900, obituaries identified him as a collector of erotica and this would have brought more unwelcome publicity for his family. He bequeathed the bulk of his collection - 15,299 books - to the British Museum.
