Charles Miller Foottit was born circa 1847 the child of Ann and Robert Foottit (of whom more in future). Robert was a chemist who ran a shop in Marlow High Street close to where the Sainsbury's Local is today. Later the business moved to the opposite side of the High Street. You can see a photo of the site of the original Foottit shop and read about it's inhabitants from the 1810s to the time of the Foottits in this post. Note that the building shown is on the site of the shop but is itself a later Victorian replacement. The family lived on their commercial premises as was the usual practice at that period and so Charles was born there in the High Street too.
As a young man he was fined for poaching with a friend - an unusual example of a middle class youth prosecuted for this offence as opposed to a working class one.
This misdemeanor put behind him, Charles grew up to be one of Marlow's pillars of the community. Like his father he trained as a chemist. Initially he helped Robert out but after Robert died in 1870 Charles took over the business as his own. He also operated as a dentist. Busy as his medical services would have kept him Charles still found time to captain the Marlow Fire Brigade for 17 years, found what would become the nationwide Fire Brigade Union and be one of the biggest supporters of the Marlow Institute. Charles donated books to the Institute library and indeed sent some historic medical and pharmaceutical related books much further afield in 1872. The recipient then was the Chicago College of Pharmacy which had suffered the loss of its library and museum contents in a devastating fire. They appealed via the British Pharmaceutical Society to get their library restocked again.
Charles was passionate about river sports, sponsoring numerous events at Marlow Regatta and elsewhere on the Thames. He was a vice president of the Rowing Club which he helped to found and for whom he rowed for himself. After his death he left money for conducting various events at the Regatta including an aquatic tug o'war.
The riverside Complete Angler hotel was ran by Charles from 1883 and was very popular with rowers, anglers and other leisure users of the Thames. He took over that business from his wife's family the Comperes. Charles was honorary secretary of the Angling Association so an appropriately named business for him!
He also was one of the founders of and first players for the Marlow Football Club, a wicket keeper for the Cricket Club team and a competitive shooter.
As a firefighter none could know more than Charles the importance of adequate water supplies in the town so it is no surprise he was one of those behind the founding of the Marlow Water Company which bought piped water in for the first time. (Read a more detailed post about Charles and his distinguished work with the fire service here
I might also mention he was one of the founders of the Great Marlow Railway Company which bought trains to the town and the Gas and Coke Company that brought us a gas supply. Oh and the Marlow St John's Ambulance Brigade.
Charles was a prominent Conservative supporter and as such his premises were targeted during the mass election riot in Marlow in 1880. The damage was extensive but he failed in his lengthy legal bid to be awarded much compensation by the authorities. This was on the grounds that the rioters hadn't tried to COMPLETELY pull his shop down (?!?!?), just badly damage it. More about the riot here, including the damage he suffered.
With his wife Ann née Compere (married Paddington All Saints Church London 1870) he had at least two daughters- Mary and Lillian. Perhaps a third daughter Fanny too who died in infancy.
Charles died in 1896, six years after his wife. He by then lived in Maidenhead, where he moved after he retired from being a chemist and dentist the previous year to concentrate solely on the Compleat Angler. He was by then in failing health. His estate was worth £843 gross.
His legacy in Marlow was enormous when you tot it up- without him there would might not have been the Regatta, Football Club, Rowing Club or railway line at all and any ancestors in the town would have waited even longer for the basics of gas and water supplies without his energy in pressing for their provision.
Foottit's chemist shop was taken over by William Baxters after Charles retired. As executor of the late owner, Charles had also supervised the running of John Dean Hall's former chemist shop in High Wycombe. The man he employed to run that other shop on a day to day basis was a Mr Banbury who would later move to Marlow on his own account. Relations between the two men quickly soured when Charles discovered ingredients he had paid for were being used by Banbury to make perfume sold in the shop under Banbury's name and patent. Part of the job of a chemist was to make up perfume, people would often come with their own recipe for them to make up for instance and for an employee to invent a perfume for the shop was not abnormal either. Banbury was not I think profiting separately from the perfume sales but he was labelling every bottle as coming from him not "Foottits" and wasn't willing to give Charles the recipe. In other words Banbury was using Charles' time and shelf space to build future demand for his personal perfume business, demand which Charles would be beholden to Banbury to meet as could not produce the scent himself without a recipe. Protocol at the time was what you invented in the course of your paid job (Charles had told Banbury to make perfume when he first employed him) was the intellectual property of your employer, not you. The case was complex however. Banbury claimed to have invented the perfume before he was employed by Foottit. When the two parted ways both continued selling the perfume. When he ran out of what Banbury had made up, Charles made up a similar scent of his own invention and labelled them with the name of Banbury's perfume. This was named in honour of Lord Carrington, Charles' landlord. Banbury insisted he had gained permission from Carrington to use that name before he even met Foottit. Charles said no it was afterwards, and Lord Carrington had told him he was giving permission for Charles' employee to make the perfume to sell in Charles' shop on the specific grounds that Charles was his tenant in that shop so deserved the favour.
The matter went to court where it was decided that Charles was entitled to sell what was left in the original scent as it was made with ingredients he paid for on his time. He was also entitled to sell his own version of the scent after Banbury left but not with the labels Banbury had designed before he worked for Charles and had since copyrighted. There was injunction made to stop Charles doing so any more and token compensation was given to Banbury.
You'd think as an inventor of an internationally patented lemon squeezer Charles would be more sensitive to the feelings of other creators!
For a short period Charles ran his own Marlow business in partnership with Charles Dye but that agreement came to an end in 1891. Mr Dye later successfully partnered with Mr Page to run a chemists' shop in the High Street.
Charles died in early 1898 after suffering a long period of ill health, a month or so short of his 50th birthday. He had moved to Glan-Y-Fford, Market Street, Maidenhead the previous summer. His wife had died 6 years before. He is buried with her in Bisham churchyard.
All mentions of a person on this blog can be found under the person index. To find more sport related history content for Marlow choose "General Marlow History" on the menu and then look under the Sport heading. For links to other pub / hotel landlords featured on this blog see "Pub Related" on the menu.
MORE READING:
You may also be interested in this post about early Compleat Angler landlord William Cres(s)well as it covers the eventful early history of the inn here
The famed Compleat Angler landlady Mary Ann Parslow here
List of Compleat Angler landlords here
History of Compleat Angler in 1900's here
More sports related posts can be found by looking at the General Marlow History option on the menu and then the Sports subheading. Posts include the 21 other football teams Marlow has had apart from the Marlow F.C team.
More posts on those men and women involved in the medical side of life- chemists, apothecaries, midwives, surgeons, nurses etc can be found on the General History on the menu under the Medical History subcategory.
Sources Included:
Fishing Gazette, 17th November 1883, London, England via the BNA.
Census my transcription from microfilm.
Death registrations at General Record Office.
South Bucks Standard 7th February 1896. Maidenhead Advertiser February 1896.
London Metropolitan Archives, parish registers.
US Patents Office.
Contemporary advertising.
The Pharmaceutical Journal 1876, published by J Churchill digitized by Google from a copy in the University Of Chicago.
The Pharmaceutical Journal, January 1872, Vol 2. (John Churchill, 1872) Available via the WellcomeLibrary/InternetArchive.
The Dentists Register 1880.
Kelly's Directory Of Chemists and Druggists 1885 (Kelly's Directories Ltd)
©Marlow Ancestors. You are very welcome to use this research for family or local history purposes with credit to this blog.
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