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The Entertaining Hammerton Family Of Glade Rd/Beaumont Rise

If you were to stroll down Glade Road in the 1880s, you would probably eventually find yourself outpaced by a particularly vigorous octogenarian on one of his shorter strolls, perhaps to Maidenhead or Cookham. If you don't think that's a particularly short ramble for a man the age of James Humphrey Hammerton, he will scoff at your ideas. Known to be a sociable and chatty fellow, he would probably love to stop and tell you how when he lived at Brixton he used to walk to Portsmouth to breakfast with friends. No doubt joining the Royal Navy at the tender age of 10 gave the young James plenty of experience of physical discomfort to harden his constitution! We will leave James to his exertions while we take a look at the entertaining Hammerton family. 

Agent and dressmaker

Browsing the census entries for Great Marlow, you would find James Humphrey Hammerton at The Kentons Glade Rd from 1881 when he's given the occupation of "retired commercial agent" while his daughter Edith is in later life a dressmaker. Both roles sound typical for the generally reasonably well off  Glade Road residents at the time and it would be easy to assume there was not much interesting about the pair. But how wrong we would be! 

I think James, his second wife Jessy and the aforementioned daughter Edith arrived in Marlow around 1876. For James it was a retirement from a busy life but for Edith it was probably the start of an even busier one. 

HMS Victory Souvenirs

James was born 1802 at Newington Butts Surrey. He joined the navy young as a "first class volunteer" and was promoted to Lieutenant. His father, James Hamilton Hammerton was also a naval man and one who was a gunner on HMS Victory under Nelson no less. A looking glass said to have been made from the timbers of the Victory was a treasured family possession and one proudly shown to visitors at Marlow. Naturally with such a family background, James had no shortage of stories of derring do and "breathtaking escapes" from his families naval years. The most famous story of all was that James had - somewhat unwittingly perhaps- saved the life of George IV when the latter slipped when boarding a vessel at Portsmouth. He reached out and grabbed James who managed to steady him and so both were prevented from taking a watery tumble. James was later part of the "Preventative Service" who were on the prowl along the south coast for smugglers. No wonder he was ready to leave the navy in his 20s and settle down to marriage and life in Brixton. 

He was seemingly always interested in science and among his roles in life before he arrived in Marlow was as director of The Electric Telegraph Company in the 1840s. He wrote to various scientific and technical journals about the subject of using gutta percha to insulate telegraphic wires, which he hoped could be laid underground in existing gas pipes. Some of the practical experiments James had conducted sounds alarmingly hands on considering they involved sending electrical currant through wires he only hoped were sufficiently insulated. His chief idea to insulate telegraph wires at their point of mounting onto posts, also using gutta percha, does not seem to have been tried in use as it was feared the material was too subject to weathering to be worthwhile. He is said to have later been the superintendent of the telegraph company charged with laying wires between Scotland and England and also to have worked with the great Isambard Kingdom Brunel. I wonder if he was a friends of Marlow's native born engineering family, the Clarks - specifically Edwin and Latimer. They all had special interests in many areas of science as well as telegraph systems and they also worked with Brunel. Edwin Clark and James were both enthusiastic members of the Marlow Mutual Improvement Society too, which aimed to bring educational  lectures in reach of everyone. The Victory looking glass, and the naval swords belonging to both James and his father were on display at some of the Society events. And Edwin and James also shared a passion for photography. How interesting the photo albums of James Hammerton would no doubt be for us today. 

Later in life James was a cement and slate etc agent hence his latter description as a "retired commercial agent". 

 Retirement in Marlow 

By the time James came to Marlow with wife Jessy he had retired. They would seem to have had a comfortable life, with a live in servant in their Glade Road home. Jessy died in 1891, after which James was said to have somewhat curtailed his vigorous exercise regime. Perhaps he felt he was finally "getting on" a little. But when he was not physically able to walk too far, was this the end of meeting James around town? Not a bit of it. He had a wheeled chair hired so he could still go out and get his daily dose of fresh air. And when he wasn't doing that, he loved to sit out the front of the house  all day to chat to passers by. But even the redoubtable James could not last for ever and he died at home in his 96th year. (1898) 

Edith Hammerton is a busy lady 

Now we come to Edith Hammerton, daughter of James and Jessy. After her father death she moved to "Holmeleigh" or "Homeleigh"  in Beaumont Rise, which leads off Glade Rd. Both Edith and her mother can be found listed as helpers at church events, but it's after her parents death that Edith seems to have come into her own. After this Edith becomes a whirlwind of energy when it comes to helping the community. Whether she favoured long walks herself isn't recorded but she certainly knew her way to All Saints Church. Edith was a Sunday School teacher for a great number of years. She seems to have been a favourite with the children, who remembered her fondly many years later although they also remembered she was a stickler for politeness and decorous conduct. But what else could we expect from a Sunday school teacher. Edith was a frequent donor of goods and money to the Cottage hospital and was one of its lady visitors. These were generally speaking better off ladies who did the rounds of the sick when it was considered necessary, and also visited within the hospital. A different lady from amongst the committee or subscribers would fulfill the role each week, and they often made suggestions as to how improvements could be made to better support the need of the mainly poor patients. 

Edith could be found serving at parish teas, fundraising for various events, and hosting stalls at bazaars for every cause imaginable. She was also amongst the ladies who decorated the parish church for the  Harvest festival. These decorations sometimes seem bewilderingly complex constructions of corn, bread, flowers and produce completely covering the alter etc. I wonder sometimes how the poor vicar made it through!  Works of art they surely were and it's a great shame that images of these ladies amazing creations have not survived. 

Her day job was as a dressmaker until she had earned enough to retire on "private means". Dressmaking seems the inevitable occupation in Marlow of better off unmarried woman who still needed an income to some degree. Edith worked from home but she also employed others to assist her. 

Edith Hammerton died in 1949 aged 92. 

*Did you know that if you go to Marlow Museum you can see a charming miniature kitchen presented by Edith? The accompanying plaque says that it had been in her family since 1796! Please check with the museum that it will be on display before your visit. 

Find out more about this lovely object here: Marlow Museum

Written and researched by Kathryn Day. 

©Marlow Ancestors. 

Related posts: 

Early residents of Beaumont Rise - (Edith's neighbours!) here

Latimer Clark here and Edwin Clark here

The mutual improvement society and Marlow Literary and Scientific Institute - both supported by James Hammerton - here

For other posts about Glade Rd or Beaumont Rise residents - see the street index here

Everyday life in the Marlow of Janes and Edith - here

To look for a specific person use the A-Z person index in the top drop down menu. 

Sources:

Marlow Directory and Almanack 1907 

Marlow Directory and Tourists Guide, 1903. 

Marlow Guide 1907. 

Mechanics Magazine, Register and Gazette, 1848 collected edition.  Knight and Lacey, 1848. 

Mechanics Magazine, Register and Gazette, 1849 collected edition.  Knight and Lacey, 1849.  

PCC will of James J Hamilton Hammerton "gunner of His Majesty's ship The Victory" proven 1828  PROB 11/1735/190, National Archives, Kew. 

Prescott, G. B. (1860). History, Theory, and Practice of the Electric Telegraph. United States: Ticknor and Fields.

Bucks Herald 28th February 1891 

Hampshire Telegraph 4th June 1898

Henley and South Oxford Standard - 27th May 1898 

South Bucks Standard 29th October 1897, 29th May 1898, 29th September 1899, 24th October 1902, 30th November 1906. 

Kelly's Directory Of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxon 1883, 1911, 1920, 1939 by Kelly's Directory Limited.

England Marriages, 1538–1973", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:N242-NFM : 14 July 2023), James Hamilton Hammerton, 1799.

England and Wales Census, 1861", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q2MP-3P3Q : Sat Mar 09 01:12:50 UTC 2024), Entry for Edith Hammerton and Ada Hammerton, 1861.

"England and Wales Death Registration Index 1837-2007," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVHB-K4XV : 4 September 2014),

Census transcripts from originals by Jane Pullinger, 1881 & 1891 with thanks. 

Edith E Hammerton, 1949; from "England & Wales Deaths, 1837-2006," database, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : 2012); citing Death, Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England, General Register Office, Southport, England.

Marlow's Vanished Houses No 1= Hillside

Hillside was a substantial house perched on a slope just off what is now Seymour Park Road in Marlow. It was said to have been built originally as two homes. Any joining together of the two must have happened very early because in all historic references to Hillside I find it mentioned as one single habitation only. The house was far from any other homes and enjoyed magnificent views of the town all the way to the River Thames.

In 1873 Reynold Alleyne Clement and his wife Louisa rented Hillside at a cost of £75 a year. He was an adjutant to the Bucks Volunteers and by 1876 a member of Queen Victoria's bodyguard. In 1877 just as Reynold's lease was about to expire the house was put up for sale along with various cottages in Marlow by the unknown owner of the lot. In the sale description Hillside was said to comprise 11 bedrooms and dressing rooms, a w.c, three reception rooms, a kitchen, housekeeper's room, butler's pantry, and cellars. Outside there was a garden, 2 coach houses, stabling for 3 horses, a harness room and a paddock. Later records suggest that the land adjoining the house came to a total of 9 acres.

After he left Hillside Reynold became clerk of the course at Ascot racecourse. The family lived then at Sunninghill.

The successful purchaser of Hillside was Mr Thomas Whalley Vowe. He had previously been a district magistrate in South Africa. Thomas would enjoy his new home for no more than a few months before he was killed in a hunting accident near his former home of Hallaton in Leicestershire. His executors emptied the house and sold up.

Next in was the Bedford family- John, Elizabeth, their children and a governess Ada Browne. They had moved from London. For some reason the house was then said to have one less bedroom than previously. 

At the time of their residency some of the land next to the house was farmed by Marlow fishmonger /fruiterer Alfred Allam. Alfred dumped "night soil" (human waste) on his land. This was not an unusual thing to do in Victorian England as fertiliser and of course as a natural form of waste disposal. Instead of spreading out the night soil and digging it in, he had heaped it up near the boundary of his land and Hillside and left it in the open air. John Bedford feared that this was a health hazard for his children. He won an injunction from the High Court preventing Allum from adding to the waste already there. As concerning the heaps already present, John sought an order from the local council ordering their removal. This he failed to obtain on a legal technicality - despite him telling the court that his eight year old boy Bertie had been sick and feverish of late. This he believed was as a result of the contamination of the neighborhood air by Allum's waste. Feverish illness was common at the time so that isn't certain. No doctor presented medical evidence as to the cause of Bertie's illness in court, which is surprising as you would think the Bedford's would have used such testimony as a trump card in the case had it been available. This likely suggests that it was the Bedfords themselves rather than a doctor that had formed the theory of Bertie's troubles being as a result of the dung in a neighbouring field. No one who lived in the countryside was far from dung heaps, or dung in fields. The Bedfords themselves kept chickens, geese and pigs on their own property and may have farmed more widely in the area too. Nevertheless in an era when the belief that bad smells alone could cause sickness or death was near universal you would have every sympathy for a parent trying to protect their child. The Bedfords were at the time grieving from the loss of their five year old daughter Maggie earlier that year. The anxiety they must have felt at another child's illness in the family would have been very painful.

Alfred Allam was quite a "character". More about him including an apparent haunting by a poltergeist (!) and other brushes with the law can be found in my post here.

He died in 1888 which likely brought an end to the Bedford's difficulties with his use of the field. They chose to stay with their children at Hillside until 1895.

Another daughter of the family Eva at the age of 16-17 found herself caught up in one of the biggest scandals of the Victorian age. Hers was a walk on part but the courage it took to appear at the trial and the embarrassment she would have felt cannot be underestimated. In what became known as the Cleveland Street Scandal scores of the most powerful men in England including Prince Albert Victor second in line to the throne were found to have visited a male b*othel in the above street. All of those who worked at the establishment at night were boys who worked for the Post Office by day. Some may have been trafficked into this position. The clients of the house because of their privilege were given notice to leave the country so as to avoid arrest. Various witnesses were also paid to leave the country. Eva witnessed as far as I can gather simply the presence of a certain person at a certain time in the house of a lawyer later prosecuted for conspiracy for facilitating the removal of relevant witnesses to foreign lands. Eva had been taken to the house on a visit by a Mrs Samuelson. Any connection however slight to these events risked being socially disastrous for Eva. How her protective parents must have cringed to know that her name and address would appear in almost every local and national paper in the land plus plenty of foreign ones too. Their judgement on allowing their daughter to be placed in contact with anyone not above suspicion would also be called into question. There is no suggestion that Eva was aware of the goings on in Cleveland Street.

Lucy Wood lived at Hillside by 1905 until at least 1911. With her was her sisters Isabella (who died in 1909) and Susanna. All three elderly women were unmarried and of private means. Also living in the house (as opposed to in a separate lodge) was the sisters' coachman Alfred Hickman, his wife Emily and their three children. At the time the house was described as having 17 rooms not including any service rooms like pantries and sculleries. The sisters were described as very kind to all those around them. Isabella left a legacy in her will to Marlow hospital. They moved out by 1915 to Remnantz in West Street.

On the south side of the house was a pit used to dig out gravel for use by the local council amongst others. The council seems to have owned the pit. When supplies started to dry up in the early 1920s a new pit was dug also near Hillside. In 1924 geologists on a field trip to Marlow investigated both pits and found a Paleolithic worked flint flake in one of them.

In the late 1930s (at least) Estelle Devereux who described  herself as an artist and writer made Hillside her home.

The house had disappeared by the 1960s, probably earlier.

Written and researched by Charlotte Day.

To find posts about other named houses in Marlow look at the "Specific Shops, Streets, Farms etc" option on the menu. For all mentions of any person on this blog see the A-Z Person Index.

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

Selected Sources:

Jubilee Celebration: Handbook to the Loan Exhibition Held in The Town Hall, Aylesbury, 5th and 6th, July, 1905. United Kingdom, n.p, 1905.

Proceedings of the Geologists' Association. Netherlands, Geologists' Association, London., 1924.

1881 census of England and Wales, transcribed from microfilm by me.

Kelly's Directory of Buckinghamshire etc. 1883, 1911, 1915 and 1920 editions. Published by Kelly's Directories Limited.

Bucks Herald 21 jul 1877. Bucks Herald mar 23 1878.  Bucks Advertiser and Aylesbury News 3rd January 1884. Both newspapers held in the British Library Archives and accessed via the BNA.

Berkshire Chronicle 27th September 1884.

Theal, George McCall. History of South Africa from the Foundation of the European Settlement to Our Own Times 1834-1854. United Kingdom, S. Sonnenschein & Company, 1893.

Wikipedia article= Reynold Clement.

Rictor Norton (Ed) "The Cleveland Street Scandal" Homosexuality in Nineteenth-Century England: A Sourcebook, 28 July 2020, amended 10 Aug. 2020 <http://rictornorton.co.uk/eighteen/1889clev.htm>