Prince of Wales Pub, Mill Road (sometimes address given as South Place) - List of landlords

 

Updated by Charlotte March 2026

Address can be given as Mill Road / Lane or South Place - it's on the corner of the two. Occasionally it's given as Platts Row / Road which was a group of houses on the other side of Mill Road. Early records also refer to it as being in Strong Beer Acre / Lane (roughly the area on the right hand side of the upper part of Station Road when coming from the town).

1861 - James Twitchen (wife Alice). Note there was a different publican with this name at Little Marlow.

1864 - James Twi(t)chen "Strong Beer Lane" 

1866 - James Twitchen. Premises became fully licensed in September this year, having initially been refused this the year before. E.g gets spirit licence. 

1869 - James Twichen/ Twitchen. James moved to the Royal Oak Bovingdon Green. 

1871- John Miller. Many barge hands lodged there at this period.

1872- John Miller "Prince of Wales Inn".

1873 - John Miller had died so Cassandra Miller (nee Creswell) John's widow took over the licence.

1875 Licence transferred from Cassandra to Felix Atkins, who had married her.

1880 - had windows broken in the 1880 election riot. See here for more information. 

1886 - Cassandra died. See Cassandra's grave here

1887 - Felix Atkins "Platts Row" In this year Felix launched an action for slander against two individuals who accused him before many others of killing his wife. A juror was withdrawn for reasons I could not see and the case collapsed. It does not seem to ever have been revived. 

1891 - James Rose (also carpenter). 

1892 - J.C Read (see below too) 2. Robert Hawkins "Mill Lane".

1897 - James Rose. His wife Eliza Hannah died this year aged just 33. In the same year the couple lost an infant daughter. Eliza was said to have an obliging and courteous manner, and to be a devoted mother and wife. She died after a long illness, leaving 6 young children. James is a member of the Marlow Volunteer fire brigade.  Hold-over  given to George Brown. 

 

1898 - George Brown transferred premises to J C Read (hold-over again). Later this year Johnathan Read went to the Red Lion (q.v)

1900 - John Cook Read again (hold-over) to Robert Hawkins again. 

1901 - 1. Robert Hawkins. Around this time the Prince of Wales had one of the largest Slate Clubs in Marlow, an essential life support for many of Marlow's working class residents. To read more about them see the post here. It had 75-100 members on average. 

1902 - upon Robert's death Mrs Alice Hawkins 2.) Edward Baldwin. 

1903   Edward Baldwin. An Ex Sargent Major.

1907 - Norman George Clark who soon transferred the pub to Benjamin John Cheese.

1909 - Benjamin John Cheese transferred to John Colbourn. John came from Acton, and got the licence by the skin of his teeth as he'd had a conviction for allowing gaming at a previous premises. He managed to produce a letter from the Acton magistrates stating that his character was otherwise good, which saves the day. 

1910 - John Colbourn passed premises on to William Albert Robinson

1911 - Robert Mortis.

1915 - Robert H Chambers.

1920, 21 - Henry Baker.

1924 - Horace Gardner has licence but leaves for Red Lion, Penn. A hold over is granted to Arthur Baynes / Banes. 

1936 - from July - George Turnham who was previously a motor driver for 9 years. 

1939 - Arthur Banes.

1946 - A D Hadlow. In 1947 moves to the George & Dragon in Marlow. 

1960 - E Hale is moving to the Queen of England, Slough. Charles Gibbons will take over at Prince. He came from The Wheatsheaf which is due to close on July 3rd. 

For other related posts see the Pub related menu here

 For every mention of your ancestor here, see the A-Z person index in the top drop down menu.     

© Marlow Ancestors. 

SOURCES

Kelly's Post Office Directory 1863,1883, 1903, 1907, 1911,1915

Census - 1871, 1881, 1891. Transcription from microfilm by Charlotte.

 Historic newspaper articles from the South Bucks Standard and Bucks Herald, held at British Library Archive and accessed via the BNA. -

South Bucks Standard - 20 May 1892, 22 Aug 1902, Reading Mercury 8 September 1866.

Numerous ads, licence hearing reports, property transactions, wills, court cases etc.    

Revd William Roome And His Son

Revd William James Boden Roome was at the Congregational Church in Quoiting Square between 1871 and 1873.

William was born in Chesterfield Derbyshire in 1832 and baptised at Sheffield. His father had since 1831 ran a "classical, mathematical and commercial academy" for young gentleman in Hollywell Street Chesterfield. William's mother was Charlotte née Boden. Her father James Boden was a very long serving Congregational minister at Queen Street Chapel Sheffield (hence her son's Sheffield baptism) not to mention both a writer of and collector of hymns. When he retired it was to Chesterfield. Her brother was also a minister while her sisters ran a school for young ladies in Chesterfield. So both Congregationalism and involvement in education were well established in William's background. 

In 1841 nine year old William suffered the deaths of both his mother and maternal grandfather. This was followed the next year by the loss of his maternal grandmother too. At the same time his father was suffering severe financial difficulties so life must have been hard for the boy.

By 1851 William had moved with his father and brother to Chelsea in London from where Mr Roome ran a small private school. Some of their pupils lived in with them, others came daily. 

At some point in the 1850s William left the family business to pursue his vocation in the church and in 1863 he was appointed to the Coventry Road Congregational Church in Birmingham. The next year he married (in the Camberwell registration district) Emma Eugenia Waterman.

In the late 1860s William moved with Emma to Lindfield, Sussex before being offered his post at Marlow in 1871. He left Lindfield in April of that year with a £40 purse donated to him by his congregation at his leaving do plus another £15 gifted to him after the official goodbye celebration.

At the time of the 1871 census William was in Marlow but not yet resident at the Congregational Church's manse in Chapel Street. Instead he lived at "Rose Villa". He was not officially received as the minister of the church until an event in the Sunday School room in late September 1871. During the Summer refurbishment work had been taking place inside the church building which may explain the several month's delay between his arrival in Marlow and his officially starting work.

If William had time on his hands he likely took the chance to indulge his passion for astronomy. He was a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and both lectured and wrote about all things space related. He was also interested in ancient cultures whose religions were entwined with astronomical observations so he gave talks on the likes of the Ancient Egyptians and Babylonians. None of these talks seem to have been at Marlow.

At the event welcoming him to the church in September 1871 the traditional rattling of a collection box occurred and the local newspapers reported that William's new congregation donated a generous amount towards the cost of those recent church refurbishments.

Nevertheless William seems not to have found Marlow quite to his liking as after just under two years as minister here he offered his resignation on the grounds that he did not feel supported in his work by his congregation. 

Just before he resigned one of the most important members of his flock, William Wright of Marlow Mills, died. The funeral was one of the biggest in town for several years but while Revd Roome was asked to say some prayers at the funeral the Wright family requested that former minister Andrew Mearns return to Marlow from London to conduct the main service. Revd Mearns was very popular and much in demand as a preacher everywhere- see my dedicated post for more about him. Perhaps William Roome felt a bit slighted.

He was certainly generally piqued as he not only said goodbye to Marlow, he turned his back on the whole Congregational church movement, becoming instead a Presbyterian minister. Initially he served in London, before moving to Aldershot Hampshire. 

William and Emma's son William junior trained as a surveyor but became a missionary in Africa working with the British and Foreign Bible Society and others. He traversed that continent seven times and as a result was able to draw up useful maps for other missionaries. He also made precise records of where each African language he encountered was used as he believed only by presenting Christian material in local languages would missionaries be ultimately successful. He published a biography of African Evangelical preacher Apolo Kivebulaya whom he had met there.

While he travelled widely within Africa, William junior specialised in the Belgian Congo. His lectures on the culture of the Pigmy peoples he met there were in demand in England and Ireland alike. He illustrated these lectures with photographs and film footage. His membership of the Royal Geographic Society pushed him to make some deviations from missionary routes to visit famed African places. He climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and visited the spot where Doctor Livingstone's heart was buried for instance. When not in Africa he worked as an architect and surveyor, mostly in Belfast where he chose to live. His mother Emma once widowed retired to live with him there. It seems the Irish links of the family may have come from her side. Both she and her son remained devoted Presbyterians. They regularly helped raise money to aid Belfast "cripples". Emma died aged 76 in 1917.

More minister biographies under the Church Related tab on the menu. All mentions of each person on this blog can be found in the Person Index on the top drop down menu. 

See:

United Presbyterian Magazine 1876.

Evangelical Magazine and Missionary Chronicle 1863, digitized by Google.

Reading Mercury 30th September 1871 and Bucks Herald 15th April 1871.

List of Fellows Royal Astronomical Society.

Marriage Registrations England and Wales GRO.

England and Wales Census 1851 and 1871 [My transcription from microfilm].

Thanks to Aiden O'Brien for finding the Sheffield baptisms.

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

How To Have Fun In Victorian Marlow

This is a post about some of the more off beat entertainments available to Victorian Marlow residents. For other forms of fun, see the links at the end...

First up, we will head to the Town Hall, (later better known as part of the Crown Hotel) in March 1858. We will be clutching event tickets provided by bookseller George Cannon at whose premises we consulted a seating plan. Heading up the stairs to the assembly room, we will surrender our tickets and find our way to our seats. This entertainment is here for one night only and so singular that we will not want to miss a moment thanks to an obscured view. So I think we will have splashed out 3 shillings a piece on stalls tickets. Those at the back will have paid only a shilling each. What we have come to see is William Woodman's Olio of Oddities. It's described as an original "musical and polyphonic entertainment". Mr Woodman will before our eyes perform a whirlwind of mimicry, making nearly "100 instantaneous metamorphoses of voice, character and costume." He will transform into all kinds of popular and topical personages, some of which will probably leave us scratching our heads but the alternating gasps and laughter of the audience will carry us along. I hope you remembered what Mr Cannon told us and ordered the carriage for 10pm to carry us home. 

While we are in the 1850's we might notice posters advertising the regular visit of Wombwells Menagerie to Crown Meadow. (Riley Park)  This comes to town during the October Fair of course but it often drops by at other times, as did other similar attractions. I don't think we will enjoy seeing the caged lions and shackled elephants but there was a time such a visit was regarded as educational and wholesome. In 1859, a subscription was raised in the town so that 100 boys and 60 girls of the National Schools could attend the Menagerie. On the subject of exotic beasts, in November 1838, we may see a few souls hanging around on Marlow Bridge. What are they waiting for? Isaac Van Amburgh of course. Not heard of him? You obviously need to head to a stationer and read the newspaper. American Van Amburgh is an extremely famous lion tamer and the man regarded as responsible for making trained wild animals part of a circus. His British tour this year is a sensation. He actually rides lions like a horse. Even Queen Victoria has been to a performance of his. Someone has circulated hand bills in Maidenhead which suggest Van Amburgh is going to ride a lion through the streets of Marlow, onto the bridge. Then on the signal of a trumpet the lion will dive into the Thames and swim to Maidenhead. Possibly with Mr Van Amburgh on board. Unfortunately for those waiting, it is a hoax, and no lions are in town. A couple of hundred people are said to have waited at Maidenhead Bridge for the arrival of the lion tamer alas. 

 A different kind of menagerie is on view if we set ourselves down at Thames Bank House (later known as Lymbrook, and Thames Lawn) in 1876. The house is hosting one of its occasional bazaars in aid of church funds. We will have to dodge the enthusiastic ladies hosting the bric a brac and craft stalls - unless of course you are short of a tea cosy or a tray cloth or two? We are heading to Alfred Heneage Cocks Museum of Curiosities adjacent to his menagerie. The later is a private collection of British wild animals now captive, from otters to hedgehogs and polecats. What we would like to see is the museum though. It's a collection normally only available to his friends to view but many of his artefacts are loaned to museums in London and later to temporary displays at the Institute (the Library building). Inside we will be able to see items from archaeological digs around Cock Marsh and further afield, as well as all sorts of ethnographic displays. Mr Cocks spent much time in Finland and "the Northern countries" and purchased lots of woodcraft, tapestries and other interesting items from those living in rural communities there. Entry here costs 6d, the same as the Menagerie. Don't worry, we will release the local wildlife on the way out. While you enjoy a cup of tea, I will take the chance to visit head gardener Mr Bridgman's plant stall. All plants a shilling. Mr Bridgman is a talented man, and later takes care of "the enclosure" (or the grassy area in the Causeway as we know it) as well as an area fronting Marlow Station. I think we can get some tips from him relating to his prize winning fruit trees at least.  

Incidentally Alfred Heneage Cocks features at many Marlow entertainments of some kind or another - some serious, some less so. He could perform comic songs as well as deliver lectures. My money would be spent on witnessing his clog dance at an 1878 evening entertainment. We are told that "the elasticity of Mr A H Cocks with his huge clogs was really quite wonderful". 

Coming out on St Peters Street and winding back a few years to 1872, we will head to the Music Room. That is the Masonic Centre today. We are stopping by to enjoy a performance by celebrated illusionist Signor Bosco. It's guaranteed as a most tasteful performance that includes mind reading, and ventriloquism. 

Time for more refreshments. There's a string of people carrying delicious looking cakes away from the Institute - their bake stall is legendary. It's 1890 and there's a fete on in aid of the building fund. I chose this year for a visit because the Institute building is new and the town is so proud of it I am sure we will find someone to give us a tour of the recreation room and all the rest. But I did promise unusual entertainments so for now we will head out the back - there's more land than in our day - and through to the grounds of Cromwell House. Don't worry, we aren't tresspassing. The dividing wall has been knocked through on purpose to allow visitors to enjoy Edwin Clark's Observatory in the grounds of Cromwell House. Temporarily dismissing an inconvenient wall is a Marlow speciality.  Edwin is a scientist, inventor, engineer, and mathematician as well as an amateur astronomer, as far as he can be an amateur at anything. 

I like the late Victorian period so let's pop to the 1890's. The Institute is still raising money for it's Building Fund. In October 1890, the event aiming to separate us from our shillings is a series of Tableaux Vivants at the Music Room again. Not an unusual event of its time, you can see families putting these on at Christmas or school children attempting to dazzle their parents with their ingenuity on open days. I don't expect many of us have taken part in one recently. A group of amateur performers will come out from behind a make shift curtain and arrange themselves into a still life scene. They will then hold the pose as you marvel at their recreation of a famous scene from a book, or a Bible story or a painting. Just imagine you pressed pause on a video and voila. Then they will rearrange themselves into a new image. This may go on a while. I think we will slip out and find something more active. Perhaps a football match at the Crown Meadow? That may not be unusual entertainment granted, but I want you to help me with some research while we are there. We will head in through the Oxford Road entrance. It's December 1898 and this date has been chosen because it's when Marlow Football Club gets to use it's new iron and wood grandstand for the first time. We will have to pay 3d extra for a seat here but that's so the bunch of supporters that bought the stand second hand from  Southampton St Mary's FC can be paid back for their investment. When they have recouped the cost, in 1908, they hand ownership  to the Football Club for free. The reason I bought you here is to count the spectators while the stand is at full capacity. You see when it's first proposed to buy the stand, the local papers say it will host 250 but later on it is said on more than one occasion to hold 400. (The former is almost certainly correct, as it corresponds with the assessment made of the stands condition before purchase by architect J H Deacon.) It's 110ft long and seating is on three tiers. That's a pretty swish stand so I think we should find out how fancy it really is.  I'm sure the gentlemen attending won't mind. Or the ladies. Yes there are a few, or as the Maidenhead Advertiser put it in 1891, "a fair sprinkling of the fairer sex". What do you mean you have prior engagement to attend a tableaux vivant?!

Let's make the last stop something high brow. This is yet another event in aid of Institute funds. The celebrated war artist and war correspondent Frederic Villiers will be at the Music Room in February 1897 to give a lecture on his work. Frederic's art can usually be seen in The Graphic and The Illustrated London News. He has taken his sketchbook quite literally to the front lines, one of the few correspondents said to be willing to do so. He travels throughout the world reporting on events such as the 2nd Afghan and Boer Wars, the Anglo Egyptian War in 1882, and others. At this lecture Frederick will tell us of an idea he has, to take a machine capable of taking moving picture images to the front line of a real battle. The year after visiting Marlow he will attempt this very thing, during a campaign in Sudan. He is aboard a gun ship on the Nile during the Battle of Omdurman, with his "machine." Unfortunately a nearby explosion will rock the boat and upset Frederic's equipment ruining his footage. He goes back to drawings until 1912 when he does manage to capture some footage. There were plenty in Marlow thrilled at his stories, but also a few expressing doubt moving pictures could be captured at the front. At the time, it seems they were right.

Here is some links to other posts dealing with Victorian entertainment:

Marlow Fair here

Bathing in the Thames and swimming races here

Marlow horse racing here

Cycling and the bicycle gymkhana here

The sorry youth of today - 1896 style here

General posts about life in old Marlow here

Selected Sources

The Ethics of Performing Animals, Aflalo, Frederick George, 1900 

History of Magic and Magicians digitised by Archive.org. Accessed October 2020. 

Villiers, Frederick. Peaceful Personalities and Warriors Bold (Harper and Brothers, 1907) Accessed via Archive.Org Jan 2019

Villiers, Frederick. His Five Decades of Adventure. (Harper and Brothers, 1920) Accessed via Archive.Org Jan 2021. 

Reading Mercury 6 March 1858, 21 December 1872, British Library Archive, accessed via the BNA. 

South Bucks Free Press October 1 1859 & 9 December 1898 as above

Bucks Herald September 23 1876, as above

Maidenhead Advertiser 22 April 1891, as above

Sussex Advertiser 5 November 1838. As above. 

Written and researched by Kathryn Day.

© MarlowAncestors.