Maldah, Institute Road

 

Above is a photo of the house Maldah in Institute Road Marlow. Maldah is a place in Bengal India. It isn't yet clear to me why the house was named after it. Quite a few properties in old Marlow had names reflecting places in the British Empire. We are hoping to write posts on their history to go along with this one.

The first resident I can definitely identify at Maldah was living there in 1898- William Popham, an electrical engineer at a time when electrical engineering was still very new, exciting and marvellous in the eyes of the average person. Though English William was an associate member of the American Institute Of Electrical Engineers (founded by Thomas Edison and Nicholas Tesla amongst others). This organisation had international links and an international outlook. William was connected to and may have worked directly for electrical engineer R.H Barnett of Newcastle, England. In 1899 at the age of about 30 he married at St Margaret's Westminster Rose Hervey. She then lived with her parents in Powys Square London but had been born and raised in colonial India (so perhaps suggested the name Maldah?). The couple split their time between London and Maldah, Marlow. I feel that the latter was perhaps mostly their summertime or weekend residence. It does not appear that they had any children.

Rose Popham was clearly a great admirer of the British Empire. She gave many public speeches in London urging English women to go to South Africa so that British men could find brides there after the South African Wars and was Secretary of the British Women's Emigration Association. She also helped English schools to find schools in the colonies to exchange letters with so that the children could learn about each other's different lives. Whether the foreign schools approached were those catering for European emigrant children or local ones or a mixture of both isn't clear. Rose offered help to any British teachers that were working in Colonial schools who wanted to return to Britain for rest or medical treatment but could not afford to do so.

When he wasn't working William was reading up on the latest research into the Vikings for whom he had a great passion. He was a member of and for while the Honorary Auditor of, the national Viking Club group of enthusiasts.

The couple kept Maldah until 1904 when the house and some of its furniture were put up for sale. After they left Marlow William became a stockbroker. In 1914 he volunteered for service in the Air Force. He survived World War One, not dying until the 1940s.

By 1914 the occupiers of Maldah were Beryl and William Onslow Secker who moved there from Wood End House near Marlow. Beryl had attended a meeting at Danesfield, Medmenham in 1912 of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies. This was an organisation opposed to violent methods of gaining emancipation for women. More on suffragettes in Marlow and opposition to their cause see Kathryn's post here.

In 1916 the couple were paying £80 a year rent on the property. That year the freehold was put up for sale with them as sitting tenants but failed to attract sufficient bidding for a sale to go through. 

William was a soldier who had become a successful tea planter at Kandy Sri Lanka before returning to England in 1906 -07 with enough money to need no further employment. The First World War however disturbed the peace of rich and poor alike and William volunteered to rejoin the Army.

In 1918 William successfully sued for slander former Marlow police constable Edward Trim who had, whilst home on leave from military service during the war, spread about the completely false rumour that poor William was a German spy who had been paid hundreds of pounds through secret channels to betray his country. Trim bragged that he had played a major role in identifying and arresting William as a spy. William was he insisted languishing in the Tower of London as a result. Actually William was serving in the army as a loyal soldier. When he got wind of the slander he obtained leave to go home and launch legal action against Trim. The judge in the case said that he felt that Trim had lied because he had wanted to make himself seem important to those he spoke to in the Crown public house and an unnamed Marlow stationery shop. The slander against William was not merely untrue it was highly dangerous. Given the intensity of feeling such allegations would have aroused William's life and even that of his wife, not to mention the security of their home would have been at risk from angry mobs. 

William survived the war. He and Mrs Secker was still resident at Maldah in 1939 when she exhibited a tapestry of nearby Bisham Abbey. Their son Gerald left Marlow and became a rubber planter in Sri Lanka in 1920. 

The Seckers may have been related to the local Wethered family as Alice Wethered, elderly widow of Owen Peel Wethered of Tenerife died at Maldah in 1918.

Our blog focuses on the period up to the 1930's so I'll leave it there! 

All mentions of any person on this blog can be found by consulting the A-Z Person Index -there is a Harry Secker on there for instance who may be of interest. Thousands of people are listed on the index. More posts related to Institute Road or surrounding streets can be found on this index 

Written and researched by Charlotte Day. Photo by Kathryn Day.

©Marlow Ancestors. You are welcome to use this information for family or local history purposes with credit to this blog.

Sources

Country-side: Monthly Journal of the B.E.N.A. (British Empire Naturalists' Association).. United Kingdom, n.p, 1908.

"England and Wales Census, 1911," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XW2N-XRK : 16 May 2019), W Vyvyan M Popham, Kensington, London, England, United Kingdom; from "1911 England and Wales census," database and images, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : n.d.); citing PRO RG 14, The National Archives of the UK, Kew, Surrey.

J.A. Berly's Universal Electrical Directory and Advertiser. United Kingdom, Wm. Dawson & Sons, 1900.

Saga-book of the Viking Club. (1980). United Kingdom: Viking Club.

The Electrician Electrical Trades Directory and Handbook. United Kingdom, Benn Brothers., 1893.

Bucks Herald 11th June 1894. Reading Mercury 8th July 1916. Reading Mercury February 11th 1939. Evening Herald (Dublin) 20th February 1918 British Library Archives.

South Bucks Standard. 18th January 1912. British Library Archives, via the BNA.

Proceedings of the Planters' Association of Ceylon. Sri Lanka, The Association, 1907.

"England and Wales Marriage Registration Index, 1837-2005," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:26M8-K64 : 13 December 2014), Beryl Brunton, 1897; from "England & Wales Marriages, 1837-2005," database, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : 2012); citing 1897, quarter 3, vol. 1A, p. 1005, St. George Hanover Square, London, England, General Register Office, Southport, England.