The Flemings Of Marlow Place

Edmond and Isabella Fleming kept Marlow Place as their country home from at least 1829 to the spring or summer of 1833. It is possible that they leased the property as early as 1823. They certainly had connection to Marlow that far back as we shall see below.

Edmond was a silversmith, jeweller, money lender and pawnbroker who operated from multiple London premises with the help of his family and numerous hired staff. He was an extremely wealthy man clearly in love with his job as he continued to work right up until his death aged 88 in 1836. As well as the usual pawnbroker fare of silver spoons, secondhand clothes, and rolls of fabric, Edmond's shops glittered with a grand display of jewellery items set with diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, pearls, garnets, and jacinths, with heavy gold chains, silver and gold spectacles, top quality watches and clocks not to mention paintings, snuff boxes and music boxes. Though it stretched his ready cash supplies a little he once lent a combined total of £2,500 to a single customer over the course of a few days. If he found himself in possession of too much unredeemed stock he would sell some at auction, often at auctions organised with other pawnbrokers. 

So where did our multi-hatted business man come from? Not from Marlow sadly, but from Cumberland, according to contemporary report, though the names in his family suggest a probable ultimate origin in Scotland. His wife Isabella, lived into her 90s and thus to the age of the census. In 1841 she is stated as having been born in Scotland. The couple married in London in 1782.  She was nee Purse. It isn't known how she came to make the journey to London, but we do know that she was not alone there as her brothers Alexander and William Purse both lived in the city. They too were silversmiths and in Alexander's case also a pawnbroker.

Edmund came to London with two of his own brothers, William who settled in Holborn and Joseph who based himself in Drury Lane. Joseph was certainly a pawnbroker too. William was probably the William Fleming goldsmith, silversmith and pawnbroker of Whitechapel High Street who had died or left his premises around 1829. Joseph was perhaps first to arrive in the big smoke as he appears as a London pawnbroker from 1774.  William married in London  the next year. Edmund was not definitely there before his 1782 marriage and does not definitely have his own London premises until 1802. It is possible that he and William initially worked for their brother Joseph. That said sources for the late 1700s business of London are scant.

Joseph lived in Gloucester Place, Camden Town though his shop in Drury Lane was also a dwelling house.

He did marry but mentions no children in his will. 

William is interesting as his bride is Mary Margaret Hammond at their London marriage. For reasons that you will see below it is possible that she was a relative of the Hammonds of Western House Marlow.

William and Mary had a son Henry who became a pawnbroker and silversmith too with his own premises but this doesn't seem to have lasted long. In 1827 Henry walked into another silversmith's shop, picked up a watch and just walked out with it. He was arrested. At an initial hearing it was suggested to the court that he must have been insane as no rational person openly steals a watch in broad daylight with no attempt to conceal the act. They guessed he was a teacher as he had pockets full of pens. There is no reason to think that was the explanation for the pens. It does make you wonder if he was not unwell in some way and suffering from mental confusion. Nevertheless he plead guilty and was transported to Australia.

Edmund's business concerns eventually significantly eclipsed that of his brothers. The scale of his pawnbroking/ silversmithing empire (one of his premises, in Farringdon Street, was so big it was actually a warehouse) meant he had to put a lot of trust into his staff to do without him for at least part of the time on a day to day basis. In 1828 Edmund realized that the trust placed in one of them was a mistake. Thomas Kerby, a seven year employee of Edmund's had committed multiple frauds against him. Stretching himself too thin may also be the reason that Edmund was twice fined for not displaying a both visible and legible list of his fees in one of his shops. I doubt a 40 shilling fine hurt his pocket that much!

We can't make any excuses over Edmund's conviction and fine for charging a customer who had pawned a cloak half a pence too much interest. Tsk,tsk Edmund.

Like most pawnbrokers all the Flemings suffered from thieves attempting to sell them stolen goods and as a result Fleming employees made frequent trips to the courts to give evidence for the prosecution. The risk of getting a bad reputation if stolen or fake goods were not identified quickly hung over all such enterprises. In 1787 an apparently unrelated London pawnbroker Francis  Fleming was exposed as a long term fence for goods taken in burglaries. Word that a pawnbroker called Fleming was to appear at the Old Bailey reached the people of Cumberland and some jumped to the conclusion that one of our Flemings was responsible, or as the Cumberland paper thought had deliberately spread this false information in a spirit of maliciousness. The paper was quick to stress that Edmund, William and Joseph were all honest traders with good characters (this was before the half pence overcharge on the cloak, mind you).

Edmund and Isabella's son David was also a wealthy pawnbroker and silversmith, with premises in Whitechapel. These David had perhaps taken over from from his uncle William, Edmund's brother. As David had no wife or children his principal heirs were his siblings but also two of his employees, John Vaughan and a man whose full name I could not quite read who received legacies of £200 and £50 respectively.

David's will was witnessed by a Henry Hammond of Great Marlow. It was written in 1823, six years before David's death and the first known date of the Flemings living at Marlow Place. The will was likely witnessed in London as the other men putting their names to it were London traders. Henry Hammond was the brother of Robert Hammond of Western House, Marlow. Were these Hammonds relatives of David's aunt Mary Fleming, nee Hammond? If the Flemings were not already maintaining a country home in Marlow why does one of them already know the Flemings well enough to be asked to witness so important a document as David's will in 1823, probably making a journey in order to do so?

There are other intriguing Fleming connections to Marlow. The family of late Victorian High Street grocer Edmund Coster believed that his mother was of the Marlow Place Flemings. My research suggests it is not likely she was a direct descendant of Edmund and Isabella but she might have been a slightly more distant relative. She was born in London. Another Flemming connection is the presence of a Mrs Flemming as the occupier in a cottage next to the Hammond's in Western House in 1833. We will endeavour to see if any of these links can be explained. 

Another son of Edmund and Isabella Fleming, William Thomas served an apprenticeship to a stationer but ended up becoming - yes, you guessed it -a silversmith and pawnbroker. At first he was with his father then traded as an independent in Fleet Market. There he was accused of not displaying his fees, at the same hearing his dad appeared for the same offence but William got off on a legal technicality as this address on the summons was slightly wrong. At some point between 1832 and 1834 around the time his parents decided to give up their country home of Marlow Place, William bought his own pile out in the sticks- Cookham Grove not too far from Marlow. His parents, siblings and other relatives all used it too, this was a close family and this likely reflects their approach at Marlow Place too. It was there that Edmond died aged 88 after a short illness in 1836, and Isabella in 1847. 

Like his father and brother David William Thomas was one of the governors of the Pawnbrokers Society.

A further son Joseph of Edmund and Isabella was initially a solicitor at Old Jewry but looks to have succumbed and become a pawnbroker as well as a solicitor before the end of his life. Joseph like his brothers had neither a wife nor children. This meant that two of their sisters Isabella, the eldest, and Louisa inherited much of the combined family estate as well as the lease of Cookham Grove. The women were the main legatees and executors of their mother. 

After the deaths in middle age of both her brothers, Isabella formally took over the family business for her mother. Given the scale of the operation involved it is hard to see her managing to do this if she hadn't already had some involvement prior to that. Like her dad Isabella would continue to operate as a silversmith and pawnbroker until she was in her 80s, splitting her time between London and Cookham. For inexplicable reasons her brothers had been granted probate but had failed to administer their father's will during their respective life times or appoint anyone else to do so despite years passing by so after her mother also died, Isabella sought permission to administer the whole lot, which was granted. 

In his will Edmund had suggested that his elderly wife could consider running the business after his death. If she didn't wish to do that the premises and stock were supposed to be sold off for her benefit. He obviously didn't guess that his daughter Isabella would consider taking over. As it happened the business was neither sold nor taken over by the mother. It appears Isabella's  brother Joseph took to pawnbroking alongside practicing law until his death and Isabella's subsequent takeover.

Isabella and Louisa had numerous servants to make them comfortable at Cookham and in London. The women obviously enjoyed the riverside location of Cookham Grove as they were both subscribers to a monograph on kingfishers in 1868 and one of them also donated to another bird book. While Isabella may have approved of kingfishers dipping into the Thames she was far less keen on the human equivalent. In fact Isabella and her legal representatives waged unceasing war not only on anglers but boatmen, Thames Conservancy workers, bathers, lock keepers and anyone else she considered to be annoying her or infringing on her rights to the river bank. Isabella was accused of "locking up" and blocking off everything she could to impede access to fishing ponds, backwaters and the bridges over them. She seems to have been the terror of Cookham waterfront!

Isabella subscribed to the very Victorian sounding Asylum For Idiots. The Queen herself was a patron of this Redhill institution. If you are imagining straight jackets and cruelty you will be pleased to know that the mission of the asylum was to provide kindness, protection, and education for those usually considered impossible to educate in any way. Isabella and Louisa's donations entitled them to vote for which candidate "idiots" should be admitted into the asylum when a place became vacant!

Education was perhaps a cause they particularly felt close to as they also donated to Diocesan church building funds over many years.

Louisa and Isabella both lived to a ripe old age. 

Written and researched by Charlotte Day.

For more posts similar to this see the Biographies Of Families Index

A history of all the different occupiers of Marlow Place can be read here.

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

Selected Sources=

Wills of David Alexander Fleming 1829, Joseph Fleming 1803, William Purse 1805, Alexander Purse 1825, Edmond Fleming 1836 and Isabella Fleming 1847 all transcribed by me from copies of the originals held at the National Archives, Kew.

First Annual Report of the Committee to the Governors & Subscribers of the Pawnbroker's Society, 1824. Google Books.

1833 Parochial Assessment Great Marlow 

Johnstone's London Commercial Guide and Street Directory, published by Barnard and Farley, London, 1817.

The Gentleman's Magazine volume 183. By E Cave 1848. And volume 176 in 1844.

The Westminster Poll Book 1774. Google books.

Prospectus For The Asylum For Idiots. United Kingdom, n.p, 1859.

Kelly's Post Office Directory of Berkshire etc, By Kelly's Directorie Limited 1869.

M Billing's Directory and Gazetteer Of The Counties of Berks and Oxon by Martin Billings 1854.

Robson's London Commercial Directory 1822 and 1839.

Post Office Annual Directory 1808, University of Leicester Archives.

Newspapers from the British Library's archives and accessed by me via the BNA=

Cumberland Paquet 9th April 1788, Cheltenham Chronicle 3rd April 1828, Morning Advertiser 10th December 1831.

Thames River Preservation Reports, Parliamentary Papers of Great Britain Published by the Stationary Office.

Cookham Census 1841, Rootspoint https://www.rootspoint.com/record/1841-UK-Census/Joseph-Fleming-1791-Out-Of-County/4ac30f05-13cb-4ce5-bd4e-94f43b47f0de/

Other Cookham census transcribed from microfilm, National Archives by Jane Pullinger, With thanks.