Westhorpe House is a Georgian mansion by Little Marlow. It previously sat in around 100 acres of parkland and was often sold and occupied in conjunction with nearby Westhorpe Farm and Little Marlow Manor. In this post I aim to shine a light on some of the people who made the house their home above or below stairs.
The house was built in the late 1600s by the Chase family.
Field Marshal Sir George Nugent and his wife Maria were perhaps the most prominent residents of the house. George had been a commander in the American Revolutionary War and for five years governor of Jamaica. American-born Maria kept a journal of her time in Jamaica which was published posthumously. This is considered a key text in Jamaican history and is an interesting read. Her attitude to the slaves she encountered was bafflingly contradictory. She was willing to dance with a slave and continually asserted that slaves had souls just like anyone else and so were worth saving in the religious sense. Also while she criticized the slave population for laziness and immorality she thought that the fault for that lay not with them but with the bad example set by their lazy and immoral masters. At the same time she thought most slaves well treated, being willfully oblivious to the fact someone declared a slave [e.g a non person] is by definition being appallingly treated even if no additional suffering is heaped upon them by violence etc. It also stretches credibility when Maria tells us that a boatload of newly arrived slaves which she examined to see if they looked sad and in need of spiritual succour surprised her by actually looking happy and being more interested in her carriage than taking in their new surroundings.
Maria and George left Jamaica in 1806 and were at Westhorpe by 1819. Four years later they threw a party at the house to celebrate the 21st birthday of their son George junior.
Maria was the driving force behind the couple gifting 100 blankets as well as items of warm clothing to the poor of Little Marlow every year. England had seemed particularly cold to her she said after her time abroad in Jamaica, India and the USA.
Maria became suddenly ill while taking the air in her carriage in 1834 and died shortly afterwards.
At the time of the 1841 census the widowed George lived at Westhorpe with his married daughter Maria [sometimes given as Mary] and her husband Rice Richard Clayton AKA Richard Clayton for company, not to mention a whole pack of servants.
George died in 1849 aged 91 and was buried at Little Marlow. Following his death the contents of the house were sold including a large library of quality books and a cellar full of expensive wines.
Maria's sudden demise was not the only unexpected death at Westhorpe. In 1859 occupier Sir Arthur Buller's butler William Forward committed suicide by shooting himself in the face in the cellar of the house. He had been complaining of ill health and acting in a subdued manner. The jury at the inquest [which took place at the house!] thought that his long time separation from his wife Sarah was a key factor in his low spirits. It seems that this marriage was not known of by his fellow workers. Only when going through his personal papers did they discover evidence of it.
Arthur Buller was born in India in 1808 and worked for the British state there, in Sri Lanka and in Canada before moving back to England, his family's ancestral home.
It is not certain how long Arthur had been at Westhorpe when his butler died. Certainly not quite as far back as the time of the 1851 census when Lt Edward and Eliza Simeon lived there, but probably soon afterwards. Edward and Eliza had moved in in 1849 after George Nugent's death. With them in 1851 were 10 servants including two footmen MJ Rogers and Phillip Eaton. One of the female servants F Hinzel had come all the way from Switzerland.
Both Edward and Eliza were the survivor's of their previous marriages. Her parents resided at Leeds Castle, Kent. His was a Berkshire and Oxfordshire family.
A few months after the census Edward died and was buried in Reading. It is likely that Arthur Buller moved into Westhorpe soon afterwards.
He moved to London eventually and the house was sold in 1859 to George Jackson Esquire. George put the house up to let in 1862 for a minimum period of 7 years but perhaps there were no takers as he apparently continued to live at Westhorpe until his death in 1896. He had previously resided at Little Marlow Manor.
The 1863 property to let adverts say that the house and gardens had both recently been overhauled. The house interior, prospective tenants were reassured, was decorated with "taste and simple elegance". Outside were the luxuries of hot houses, melon pits and an expanse of ornamental water not to mention a trendy rock garden [The gardener from at least 1869 to at least 1890 was George Davis].
During George Jackson's time at Westhorpe there was another sudden death in the house- an unnamed nursery maid aged just 22 whose heart gave out as she changed her clothes after coming back from a walk with her charges.
The 1861 census shows George a widower with 11 children from just a year old up to 19 years old.
One of those children Felix, away working at a brewery in Burton Upon Trent when in his 20s, fell into some machinery and was killed instantly.
Keeping the Jackson family going in 1861 was a group of 10 live in servants.
By 1871 with the number of children at home reduced, only 7 servants were kept.
The 1871 cook Ann Chaplin had had an impressive rise from being the 16 year old sole servant in a London household on the 1861 census, to the cook in the large household at Westhorpe in 1871. She was the daughter of James and Elizabeth Chaplin and was born circa 1840 in Easthampstead Berkshire. I was not able to find her in 1881. The cook at Westhorpe then was Fanny Gilbert, and Eliza Humphrey in 1891.
1871 footman Enoch Watts, born circa 1827 had risen to butler by 1881. Enoch was a married man whose wife Theresa and family did not live with him at Westhorpe though, they were staying in the village of Little Marlow. This was quite an unusual situation for a butler who tended to be unmarried or married to the cook/ housekeeper of the same household. He continued to live in Little Marlow after his retirement with his married daughter Sarah Piggott. Theresa died 1881. She worked as a laundress, as did Sarah before marriage. (To see the grave of Enoch and Theresa see here)
Westhorpe House was sold in 1896 following George Jackson's death. He left an estate worth over £100,000. A Mr Gordon was the resident in 1899.
The estate was again sold in 1917.
The 1917 sale guide said that the house had 19 bed and dressing rooms, 2 bathrooms, a billiards room and library amongst other things. In a sign of changing times some of the stabling had given way to motor garages.
Our blog primarily deals with Marlow people pre 1920s so with that I will bid farewell to this handsome house.
For more on Marlow's links to both slavery and its abolition see here . More Little Marlow content can be found listed under Other Places on the menu. All mentions of an individual on the blog can be found on the Person Index.
To find posts about everyday life in old Marlow, see the listing here
Sources:
Reading Mercury 31st December 1849 [suicide], 18th April 1863 [nursery maid death] and 19th August 1882 [Felix Jackson death]. Bucks Herald 17th May 1862 [property description] Copies at the British Library accessed via the BNA October 2020.
Little Marlow Parish Registers.
1841, 61, 71 and 91 censuses transcribed from microfilm by Jane Pullinger. 1851 and 1881 census my own transcription from microfilm.
Wikipedia articles on Sir George Nugent, Sir Arthur Buller and Sir John Simeon [father of Edward] all accessed October 13th-15th 2020.
Lady Nugent's Journal, reprinted 1907 by the Institute of Jamaica. Can be purchased on Amazon if you want to read it.
Auction sale guide, 1917. Loose. Poor condition. Partial.
GRO Death Index online. Accessed February 2021.
Researched and written by Charlotte Day.
©Marlow Ancestors. If reusing this research (which you are very welcome to do for family or local history purposes) please give credit to this blog and link here.
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