Marlow Place is often said to have been built 1720 or 1721 for the future George 2nd when he was still the Prince of Wales. It was also used by his son Frederick as a residence. However Country Life Magazine in 1921 reported a date of 1727 visible on the roof and it is said that a floor brick contains a 1730 date. These may be dates of modifications to the property though they seem to be occuring rather soon after the initial build. These later dates though do tie in better with architectural analysis by various historic visitors to the house who said 1720 is too early stylistically to be a probable date for the house and something in the later 1720s -1730 is instead indicated.
A different edition of Country Life from 1913 mentions only a date of 1731 scratched in an apparently contemporary hand into the brickwork of the outer wall.
A description of a brick built mansion "on the right before you turn into the High Street" [as Marlow Place would have been when you entered Marlow by crossing the river at the old St Peter Street bridge point] by someone recalling their time at the juvenile branch of the Royal Military Academy tells us it was once owned by the mistress of Charles II, Louise De Kerouaille Duchess of Portsmouth. However it calls the house Alfred House, a smaller property which is within the High Street rather than located before you reach it. Alfred House in the High Street was also used by the Academy. So which property did the writer really mean? The source he had for his information is not stated.
I can find no evidence beyond local tradition that the house was definitely built for, rather than simply used by, the then Prince of Wales. All evidence seems to point to the house being built either for John Wallop Esq or most likely his mother Alicia. Certainly it was Alicia Wallop who lived in Marlow Place by 1739 to at least 1742. Her garden adjoined the back of High Street businesses including a soap boiler which from its use of animal carcasses would be a smelly (and fire hazardous) neighbour to have, plus at least two blacksmith premises which would have been noisy. A good reminder that even the most privileged in society in the 1700s struggled to escape the noise and mess inherent to everyday life.
Tenant Admiral Forbes had recently left the property in 1772. He was "removing to Essex". The household goods are therefore auctioned off and the "large and exceedingly good house" is to let. It was available with or without accompanying pasture and meadow land. The garden itself is well stocked with the choicest fruit trees, so they say. There were no immediate takers and the house was empty of tenants for at least a year. In 1773 the adverts offering the property decide to include more elaborate descriptions of the house to drum up interest. Amongst other benefits, we are told the town has 3 stagecoaches to London a week in the summer and two in the winter. And water carriage could be had "almost to the door". It is not of course an immediately riverside property but is within a few minutes walk of the Thames.
The resident in 1780 looks to have been Edward Valentine Stead Esq. He left the house circa 1789 and died aged just 35 in 1790. Owen Williams M P succeeded him in residence.
The Royal Military College used the premises to provide extra accommodation in the early 1800s.
In 1833 the occupier had recently been Edmund Flemming. The property was then valued as being worth £110 per year. It was the most valuable house in town by some way.
In 1834 Marlow Place was advertised as to let in the local press. [Berkshire Chronicle 26th July 1834, accessed by me online March 2021 via the BNA]. The house was then described as consisting of ten bedrooms, a library, entrance hall, dining room, breakfast room, drawing room with detached offices [they meant rooms for domestic management like laundry rooms and stores], a double coach house and stabling for ten horses. There were also lawns, greenhouses and gardens listed as part of the property in the 1833 assessment. Later reports mention meadows and fruit trees too.
These premises made an impressive boy's boarding school between 1857 and 1877. Thomas Mathews was the first master to run the school there, alongside his wife. He found the building in a most dilapidated state at the start of his tenancy and spent considerable time and effort in restoring the house. He was very keen on cricket and the school had a cricket ground in a meadow by what later became the railway station. Boys needed to bring with them to school 3 suits of clothes, 6 shirts, 3 nightshirts, 6 pairs of stockings, 3 pairs shoes, a pair of slippers, 6 towels and a bible.
Music and book keeping lessons were included within the standard school curriculum as was, unusually, Hebrew if desired. For an extra fee French or swimming lessons could be obtained or the boy prepped for the Civil Service entrance exam.
When Reverend Thomas Gwynne used the premises as a school in the 1870s he could take 26 pupils. Their minimum age was 8. Gwynne had previously ran a private school from Candover Park in Hampshire. He was known as "Old Tom" to his young charges, although not to his face of course! He was a much liked man by the adults in Marlow - but not by the pupils whom he taught. More on him in a separate post in the future.
The Mathews had taken children from age 6, with the younger boys under Mrs Mathew's care.
These various school proprietors all rented the property rather than own it.
Marlow Place was owned by the Williams family from at least 1795 - Colonel Thomas Peers Williams was born at the house then. Owen Williams is listed in parliamentary papers as resident there 1809 to 1817. The Williams family eventually sold it to long term tenant and architect William Niven, who wrote a couple of articles about the house for magazines such as Country Life. His grave is on the blog here.
In 1877 the last incarnation of the school closed and the house was due to be refurbished and converted back into a family home. During this work, labourer Timothy Young was killed in the grounds when engaged in demolishing a 10 ft high garden wall. Made partly of brick and partly of flint, Timothy was buried alive when the wall suddenly collapsed before the workers were ready. Some of the others engaged in the task were also injured by falling bricks but Timothy was hemmed in by nearby shrubs and could not make his escape. He was dug out by his colleagues but died of his severe injuries a little over an hour later.
Lady Marie Alice Rushout - tenant there -died 1882. She was the widow of baronet Sir Charles Rushout and had moved to Marlow from Gloucestershire. The following year the house contents were up for sale by a Lady Northwick perhaps a relative as the contents included little miniatures of "the Misses Rushout" by Andrew Plimer. Known as "The Three Graces" they were, the daughters of Sir Thomas Rushout". These miniatures were regarded as particularly fine and beautiful works of art.
In 1885 the new occupant of Marlow Place was widow Jane Haig who moved there from Bray Court, Maidenhead. A few days after she moved in, Jane's upper housemaid Alice Anthony AKA Kate or Katie Anthony was caught with a large amount of stolen goods hidden in her bedroom. Sacked, Alice was supposed to be escorted to the 4.10 train out of town by the butler but for unspecified reasons she ended up sleeping the night at Marlow Place instead. At six the next morning she did a flit with her mistress's portmanteau and another stolen bag stuffed with an astonishing amount of loot.
Unfortunately her knowledge of Marlow train times was sketchy and she ended up waiting longer than she had expected for her getaway train. Jane's coachman John Gale was on her trail. Confronted, she ran off without the portmanteau but John and a summoned constable cornered her near Little Marlow. She still had other stolen articles on her person. In court they struggled to find room to display everything she had carried off.
I won't list it all but to give you a flavour of the items here's some of them:
A gold ring
A pair of lady's drawers
2 corsets
Some sheets of papers
3 pairs of scissors
A music book
3 table cloths
12 handkerchiefs
Curling tongs for the hair
Buttons
2 tooth brushes
2 gold pins
5 pairs of shoes
Measuring tape
An umbrella
Envelopes
12 photographs (no mention of their frames)
Opera glasses
2 pairs spectacles
Elastic
Button hook.
Left behind in her room were articles stolen from Jane's stores like soap, furniture polish, candles and matches. I suppose Alice ran out of room in her two bags to take it all with her!
Unsurprisingly she was jailed. The maximum sentence possible -six months - with solitary confinement an added punishment. Alice screamed and collapsed in the dock upon hearing the sentence.
A crowd of around 100, all from the poorest parts of town, gathered at Marlow station to see Alice and accompanying officers of the law leave by train for the jail in Aylesbury after her conviction. It is hard to judge whether this was in support or disapproval of Alice or just from curiosity. Alice was said to have previously lived in Marlow and may have had family here.
Jane Haig continued to live at the house until at least 1888 when her married daughter Helen Frances Warner drowned while swimming with family at Temple.
William Powley once Vice Principal of Durham University lived at Marlow Place until his premature death aged 56 in 1895.
Next came Colonel Clarence Granville Sinclair a young widower who himself died aged just 37 in 1897.
He was followed in residence at Marlow Place by William Niven. Mr Niven was able to buy the house from the Williams family rather than just rent it in 1921. See a photo of his grave
That brings us up to the end of the blog time frame.
Related Posts:
Biography of Alicia Wallop here
Biography of three Victorian Trinidadian pupils at Marlow Place School: here
Main post researched and written by Charlotte Day. Photos and information about Thomas Young and Admiral Forbes provided by Kathryn.
Additional sources I found useful:
Reading Mercury 29th March 1773 & 12th October 1792, South Bucks Standard 27th November 1896 , Maidenhead Advertiser 14 April 1877, Oxford Journal 11 July 1772, held at the British Library Archive and accessed via the BNA.
Parochial assessment notebooks 1830s, owned by my family. These are being transcribed gradually onto this blog.
1871 census. Transcribed by me. Census information always remains Crown Copyright.
GRO death index.
Armorial Families. A Directory of Coat Armour, by Arthur Charles Fox Davies published 1910 by T.C and E.C Jack.
Saturday Review of Politics, Literature Science and Art volumes 28-29 published by John W Parker 1870. Accessed via Google Books March 2021.
History of Newbury and Its Environs by Edward William Gray, published by Hall and Marsh 1839.
Country Life volume 49 page 353. And Volume 33 issue 836.
Dutton and Allen Commercial Directory 1867.
Bentley's Miscellany, Volume 20 : "Shots from an Old Six Pounder". [Richard Bentley 1846]
English Country Houses: Baroque - James Lee-Milnes (Country Life Books, 1960)
Andrew and Nathaniel Plimer - George Charles Williamson, (G Bells & Son 1903. )
©Marlow Ancestors. You are welcome to reuse this research for family and local history purposes if you credit this blog and link here so that my sources also remain credited for information given.
