Who’s responsible for the fences? Back to Lord Chatham and Abington Hall

Posted on 28/04/2021 by Jacqueline Reiter | Leave a comment

A few days ago I discovered that Cambridgeshire Archives had updated their catalogue, including a half-dozen letters from the 2nd Earl of Chatham I had not seen. As I’ve been a very good girl, I gave myself some time off from Popham to revisit Lord Chatham for an hour.

Lord Chatham’s seal on an 1816 letter (Cambridgeshire Archives)

It was a very good morning. Cambs Archives have moved since I last visited them, so this involved a train journey to Ely, which (as I’ve not been on a train in seven months) was far more exciting than it should have been. When I arrived at the archives my documents were already waiting for me.

The documents consisted mostly of correspondence with Thomas Mortlock, son of the man who founded what became Barclays Bank. Mortlock was Lord Chatham’s landlord. Lord Chatham rented Abington Hall, near Cambridge, from 1816 until he left for Gibraltar in 1821, although he seems not to have vacated the place completely until his return in 1825.

For some of the period he was away, he sublet to William Wellesley Pole, Lord Maryborough, an old political contact and the Duke of Wellington’s brother. Abington was well known as prime hunting ground, and Maryborough seems to have enjoyed tormenting Lord Chatham about all the game he was missing out on while in Gibraltar:

We have commenced the Shooting Season with as good success as our Neighbours, and I have every reason to believe we are much better off for game this year than we were last Season. … To give you an idea of the quantity of Birds, I found in Mr Holt’s Pastures by the River and in the Field belonging to Mr Barlow bounded by the Lenford Road Nine Large Covies. … I have not yet been on Mr Lyell’s Farm but he says there are double the quantity than there were last year. … We have every appearance of its being a good year for Pheasants. I really think we have Four for every one we had last Season, and the Hares & Rabbits seem to be endless …’
PRO 30/8/368, ff. 17-22, 6 September 1822

And so on, for several pages, by which time Lord Chatham – in his words ‘chained to the Rock’ (he wasn’t subtle about his feelings) – must have been shouting ‘Stop! Please stop! I WANT TO GO HOME!’

All this talk of shooting, however, brings me back to my visit to Cambridgeshire Archives. Much of what I read was pretty tame: Chatham was writing to his landlord, who was neither a friend nor a social equal. The correspondence was curt and business-like. Chatham often wrote in the third person: ‘Lord Chatham presents his Compliments to Mr [Thomas] Mortlock…’. For his part, Mortlock usually replied in terms that stressed their unequal relationship: ‘I promise myself the pleasure of waiting upon you Tomorrow at the hour Your Lordship appoints.’[1] Chatham always signed off ‘Your Very Faithful Humble Servant’; Mortlock, in contrast, was always ‘Obedient’ rather than ‘Faithful’.

I’ve blogged elsewhere on how Lord Chatham wasn’t always a careful tenant. A survey of dilapidations (effectively a checkout inventory) carried out on Abington Hall in 1824 and 1826 compiled a list of £109 14s 6d worth of repairs to be carried out on the house and grounds (rented for £300 a year, so a sizeable sum). The gardens, the survey recorded, were ‘in a bad state’, with unpruned trees and uncropped soil. [2]

The estate seems to have been problematic for Chatham, and its state may have reflected a disagreement about the terms of his tenancy.

Chatham’s lease with Mortlock was signed on 15 March 1816 [509/T158]. In addition to maintaining the house itself, Chatham had to keep ‘the Mounds Walls Fences Hedges Ditches Gates Bridges Stiles Rails Pales Posts and Drains’ in good repair, which seems like a pretty comprehensive list. Apparently, however, there was wriggle-room.

On 11 October 1816, Thomas Mortlock wrote to Chatham from Cambridge. It’s clear this discussion was already running, and Mortlock was replying to a letter Chatham had sent him (now lost). From context, it seems Chatham had been asked to repair some fences – an inventory of the house had last been taken in August – but demurred.

Mortlock, therefore, had looked into the matter further. ‘Upon referring to the lease,’ he wrote, ‘I find that the Schedule concludes with the words “repair the gates & fences where injured”.’ This certainly concurs with what I saw. Aware he was dealing with a high-ranking and potentially prickly character, however, Mortlock sugared the pill a little: ‘It appears to deserve some further consideration & I cannot but wish that when next I have the honour of waiting upon your Lordship you may be in possession of a Copy of the Lease’. [3]

Chatham’s response is utterly typical of a man who never liked to say anything without being absolutely sure of ALL the facts (it’s also utterly typical in the number of commas, which tended to multiply the more embarrassed Chatham felt himself to be): ‘I conceive it will be difficult to form any judgement, as to, how the concluding words of the Schedule apply, without having the whole subject before me, and I will endeavour to get such further information, with respect to it, as may be necessary, before I have the pleasure of seeing you again.’ [4]

So far, so much an impasse. Nothing much happened for a while, except that the man responsible for repairs to the estate, Mr Harrison, turned up at the end of November, so maybe Chatham won this round and Mortlock caved in? [5]

Or then again, maybe not, and this letter from Chatham to Mortlock in February 1818 suggests an ongoing dispute over a neighbour due to the inadequate fencing: ‘I have completed a small Plantation by ye water side, but it is really so narrow as to be scarcely worth the fencing in. Cou’d it be made broader, and of course a different form, It wou’d not only be much better for Game, but as great an advantage in point of look, to the Place, that if you were [to] see it, I can not but think you wou’d be induced to make some effort with Mr Ewin … I really do not see, how he can be allowed to continue so very unaccommodating.’ [6]

‘Mr Ewin’ was John Ewin, who appears to have owned much of the land next door to Abington Hall. [7] However, note the point about the game and the fences. It’s subtly made here, but Chatham picked up on it a little more stridently a few days later:

I cannot help troubling you, in order to call your attention, to the deplorable state of the fences round the Belt, which is now almost entirely open, and I fear, besides the injury to the Plantations, I shall lose all the Game I have been endeavouring to rear. The slight temporary repairs done last year were of little avail, and ye stuff has been carried away.
Lord Chatham to Mortlock, 12 February 1818, 509/3/3/4/7

The remainder of Chatham’s letter is all about how ‘there is no time to lose’, which, by the way, is not the first time I’ve seen the famously slothful Chatham chivvying someone else to move faster (and the focus on hunting is absolutely on brand).

Mortlock’s response suggests he really just wanted to fling a copy of the contract in Chatham’s face at this point, and he must have taken a very deep breath before answering: ‘I purposed riding over to Abington to have some conversation with Mr Ewin [Lord Chatham: ‘Yes!’] … but I was unexpectedly called into Suffolk from whence I am just returned. [Lord Chatham: ‘No!’] … [However,] I hope early in next week to ride over to Abington and to call upon your Lordship if not prevented.’ [8]

Did Chatham’s fences ever get fixed? Did Chatham lose all his game? I don’t know, but I can tell you the dispute rumbled on for TWO MORE YEARS before Mortlock did eventually lose patience. The last letter on the subject is dated 14 February 1820 and is very short and to the point:

Mr Mortlock presents his respectful Compliments to Lord Chatham & begs to inform his Lordship that upon referring to the Lease it appears that the repairs which Lord Chatham spoke of to Mr Mortlock on Saturday as partially necessary are therein covenanted to be made by Lord Chatham.’
Mortlock to Chatham, 14 February 1820, Notebook 3, 509/3/3/1/3

Which translates, as far as I can see, to: FOR GOD’S SAKE CHECK THE FLIPPING CONTRACT!

Having said all this, my visit to the archives did help me answer one question. I’ve often wondered whether Chatham actually did ‘well and truly pay or cause to be paid unto the said John Mortlock his Heirs or assigns the said Yearly Rents of Three hundred pounds’, as per his contract. According to Mortlock’s rent book, [9] the answer is, perhaps surprisingly (given Chatham’s notorious financial problems) … yes, he did, in cash, and he was only late with it once.

I wonder if, despite all the damage to his property and the passive-aggressive correspondence about fences, Mortlock realised just how lucky he was?

References

[1] Chatham to Mortlock, 26 Nov 1816, and 27 Nov reply, 509/3/3/2/24

[2] ‘Survey of Dilapidations committed on the Mansion House, Offices, Buildings & Premises at Abington, Cambridge’, Cambridgeshire Archives: January 1824, 296/B29; May 1826: 296/B60, ff. 46-56

[3] Notebook 1, 509/3/3/1/1

[4] Chatham to Mortlock, 8 October 1816, 509/3/3/2/15

[5] Chatham to Mortlock, 26 November 1816, 509/3/3/2/24

[6] Lord Chatham to Mortlock, 6 February 1818, 509/3/3/4/7

[7] Lease, 15 March 1816, 509/T158

[8] Mortlock to Chatham, 14 February 1818, Notebook 3, 509/3/3/1/3

[9] Rent book, 509/7/1/6, ff. 7-8

Walcheren 1809: the mystery of the missing memorandum

Posted on 19/06/2017 by Jacqueline Reiter | Leave a comment

walcheren_sick

The Walcheren Expedition of 1809, which Lord Chatham infamously commanded, was unquestionably a disaster. Although the British managed to take the islands of Walcheren and South Beveland, they failed to get to Antwerp, the ultimate objective, to destroy the fortifications there and the French and Dutch fleet.

Most seriously of all, the army was rendered completely useless by a violent illness known as “Walcheren Fever”, thought to be a combination of malaria, typhoid, typhus and dysentery. Of the 39,219 men sent to the Scheldt River basin, 11,296 were on the sick lists by the time the inquiry was underway. 3,960 were dead. The British Army suffered from the recurring effects of “Walcheren fever” until the end of the war.

Not long after the last soldier had been landed back in Britain in January 1810, the House of Commons formed itself into committee to inquire into whose bright idea it had been to send nearly 40,000 of Britain’s best (i.e., only) troops to a pestilential swamp at the height of the unhealthy season.

Careers were at stake, and nobody wanted to own up. Chatham, the military commander, was nevertheless pretty sure he knew who was most to blame for what had happened. Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t him. Contrary to what nearly every historian of the campaign has tried to argue, however, it wasn’t his naval counterpart, Sir Richard Strachan, either.

Chatham wasn’t very successful at fighting accusations of his sloth and incompetence, and he eventually ended up with most of the blame for the campaign’s failure, even if the Walcheren inquiry technically cleared him of wrongdoing. In my opinion, however, one aspect of Chatham’s evidence has been overlooked: his indictment of the Board of Admiralty, under the First Lord, Earl Mulgrave.

Lord Mulgrave

After the inquiry was over, Chatham wrote a series of memoranda defending his conduct on Walcheren and during the parliamentary proceedings that followed. These memoranda reveal Chatham’s conviction that Mulgrave had been trying to cover up the Admiralty’s role in planning the expedition for months.

By April 1810, when he probably wrote these memoranda, Chatham was as paranoid as it is possible for a man to be. Nor was he the least bit impartial in the matter. And yet there is some evidence that the Admiralty – a highly organised political body, and one with which Chatham (a former First Lord himself) was extremely familiar – did indeed try to conceal evidence from the inquiry.

One very important piece of information was only laid before the inquiry at all on 1 March 1810, and only because Chatham’s testimony had drawn public attention to it. This was a memorandum, written on 19 June 1809 at the Admiralty Office, entitled “Respecting the Practicability of effecting a Landing between Sandfleet [Sandvliet] and Fort Lillo”. (Sandfleet, or Sandvliet, being the place where the British Army was meant to land on the continent, nine miles from Antwerp; Lillo being one of the two forts straddling the point at which the Scheldt River narrowed before the dockyards.)

Capture The belatedly-published memorandum quoted two naval officers, Sir Home Popham (one of the planners of the expedition) and Captain Robert Plampin, both saying they had both been to Antwerp in the 1790s and thought there would be no problem in landing a large body of men between Lillo and Sandvliet. On that basis, the Opinion made the following statement:

The Board of Admiralty having made inquiry respecting the practicability of effecting a Landing between the point of Sandfleet and Fort Lillo … are prepared … to undertake that the troops shall be conveyed, when the Island of Beveland, including Bathz is in our possession, to the Dyke between Fort Lillo and Sandfleet, and landed, as far as the question of Landing depends on the nature of the place, with relation to the approach to the shore of boats and other vessels capable of receiving troops.[1]

Why was this so mysterious? Because Chatham remembered this memorandum rather differently from the form in which it was published for the inquiry.

According to Chatham, the Cabinet had only approved the expedition in the first place after the Admiralty Board had issued this Opinion as a guarantee that a large fleet could carry twenty thousand men up the West Scheldt and land them at Sandvliet. This was in response to doubts voiced by Chatham himself – doubts formed after discussions with military officers who had been to Sandvliet and told him an army could not be landed there. Since the whole plan hinged on landing at Sandvliet, Chatham rather reasonably told the Cabinet he would not undertake to sanction his own expedition unless the Admiralty could prove the military men wrong: “This last Point I considered as a sine qua non [which] … must be placed beyond all doubt, to warrant the undertaking the enterprize [sic].”[2] Mulgrave’s response was the 19 June memorandum, which circulated through the Cabinet the day after it was drawn up.

Chatham remembered it as being signed by the three professional Lords of the Admiralty. In 1809, these would have been Sir Richard Bickerton, William Domett, and Robert Moorsom.

Chatham’s assertions are to an extent backed up by official correspondence. Following the mid-June cabinet meeting, Castlereagh informed the King of the need to postpone preparing for the expedition until “the practicability of a Landing at Sandfleet [sic] can be assured”. Two days after the circulation of the 19 June Opinion, Castlereagh wrote: “Under the sanction of this opinion … Your Majesty’s confidential servants … feel it their duty humbly to recommend to Your Majesty that the operation should be undertaken”. Castlereagh edited out the line “should the Immediate object be abandon’d”, which suggests that the viability of a Sandvliet landing was indeed the make-or-break feature – to borrow Chatham’s words, the sine qua non – of the expedition going ahead.[3]

All this corroborates Chatham’s account completely, except for one detail. Three copies of the Opinion exist, one in the Castlereagh MSS at PRONI (D3030/3241-3) and two in the National Archives (ADM 3/168). None is signed. The copies of the Opinion that remain are therefore no more than that – an opinion. They were unofficial, and could not be claimed to form the basis of any Cabinet decision to undertake the expedition.

Did Chatham simply misremember the opinion? This is the opinion of Carl Christie, who deals with the 19 June Opinion thoroughly in his excellent thesis on the Walcheren expedition. “The suspicion is that his memory was playing tricks on him”, Christie writes, and concludes that he “misinterpreted the Admiralty opinion”.[4] But Chatham clearly wasn’t the only one who did so, as Castlereagh’s letters to the King show above.

The question, therefore, is whether a signed Opinion ever existed. We only have Chatham’s word for this; but it does seem unlikely that the Cabinet would have made the important decision to proceed with the expedition on the basis of the opinion of two subordinate naval officers. (Popham in particular had a track record of leading British troops into madcap schemes that often went wrong, as the Buenos Aires expedition of 1806 demonstrates).

Castlereagh later played down the importance of the opinion: at the inquiry, when questioned about it, he seemed confused as to which memorandum Chatham had intended to single out, and fudged the issue by saying there was a paper “which I may have seen in circulation, with the names of three [Admiralty] lords attached to it, but I rather imagine that it is the same paper as that which is dated the 9th of June”. But the Admiralty opinion of 9 June 1809 was on a completely different topic, and had also been drawn up prior to the Cabinet meeting to which Chatham referred.[5]

There is, however, one further possibility: that Chatham’s memory was not faulty at all, and that the opinion he saw was different from the printed version. The accusation that the Admiralty later cherry-picked the evidence laid before the Walcheren inquiry to play down its role in the planning, indeed, seems to form the thrust of Chatham’s memorandum. He did not come outright and say so, but he came close when he asserted:

An attempt was made in the course of the Enquiry, to question the existence of this Document, and they [the Admiralty] never would produce it, but they did not venture to call the Sea Lords [to give evidence], and with them the question whether they had not signed such a Paper and delivered to Lord Mulgrave, to be shewn to ye Cabinet.[6]

So where is the signed version of the Opinion the Admiralty failed to produce? Did it ever exist? Castlereagh’s evidence, vague as it was, certainly suggests that it did. Chatham was certainly convinced the Admiralty was covering its back at his expense. Was he right?

We will probably never know.

References

[1] Parliamentary Papers 1810 (89), “Respecting the Practicability of effecting a Landing between Sandfleet and Fort Lillo”

[2] Memorandum by Chatham, PRO 30/8/260 f. 100

[3] Castlereagh to the King, draft, 14 June 1809, PRONI Castlereagh MSS D3030/3137. The 15 June copy that was sent is printed in Aspinall V, 298

[4] Carl A. Christie, “The Walcheren Expedition of 1809” (PhD, University of Dundee, 1975), pp. 126, 131

[5] Testimony of Lord Castlereagh, 13 March 1810, Parliamentary Debates XV, Appendix 5xxii-iv

[6] Memorandum by Chatham, undated, National Archives Chatham MSS PRO 30/8/260 f 100

The Walcheren Expedition: 2016 (Part 1/3)

Posted on 05/04/2016 by Jacqueline Reiter | 8 Comments

In the new year I suggested to my husband that I would like to visit Walcheren before finishing my book. He looked interested, but not that interested, so I decided to up the ante.

Me: We could cycle it.

Husband (perking up): What, you mean the whole way?

Me: Why not?

Husband: And camp?

Me: ………. All right.

Husband: You’re on.

How we travelled

And so we planned an Easter trip (because, you know, Russian roulette with the weather is all part of the fun). Arrangements were made for the kids to go to their grandparents; I made a suggested itinerary, compiled a long list of likely campsites, booked train tickets and ferries, and we packed. As lightly as possible, as we would be cycling 450 km (280 miles) on a tandem.

Our whole trip, including trains between Oxford and West Folkestone (with some cycling in London between stations) and the ferries across the Channel, looked something like this:

A (brief) historical note

For those of you who are not au fait with the Walcheren Expedition of 1809, this, in a rather rotten nutshell, is what happened.

Map from Fortescue, History of the British Army VII (supplement). Image from here

The Walcheren expedition was Britain’s contribution to the Fifth Coalition with Austria. Austria would conduct the main continental campaign against Napoleon while Britain engaged in a diversionary attack in an area of her own choosing. Britain chose a “coup de main” against Antwerp, which was a huge French dockyard and commercial centre. Destroying Antwerp would be a cheap way for Britain to neutralise the danger of French invasion, pierce Napoleon’s Continental System which was damaging British trade, and draw Napoleon’s attention away from Austrian action inland. Unfortunately the Battle of Wagram put Austria out of the war before the Walcheren expedition even started, but the campaign continued anyway in the hope that victory would keep Austria in the war.

Lord Chatham was appointed to command the military part of the biggest expeditionary force fielded by Britain so far during the war: about 40,000 soldiers and over 600 vessels, more than 200 of which were warships. Sir Richard Strachan commanded the naval part of the expedition.

The expedition consisted of four parts. The smallest, under Lord Huntly, would land on the Cadzand shore and neutralise the French battery at Breskens, allowing the main part of the fleet to enter the West Scheldt. Meanwhile, 12,000 men under Chatham’s second-in-command, Sir Eyre Coote, would lay siege to Vlissingen (Flushing). The reserve under Sir John Hope would take control of the neighbouring island of Suid-Beveland, allowing the remaining 20,000 men under Chatham himself to sail all the way to Sandvliet, reduce the largest forts protecting the narrow part of the Scheldt (Lillo and Liefkenshoek), and march on to destroy the dockyards of Antwerp.

Things went wrong almost immediately. The expedition sailed (late) at the end of July, and ran into a storm. Home Popham, the unofficial Captain of the Fleet, saved the expedition by sailing it into the sheltered Roompot and through the Veere Gat at the furthest point of Walcheren, but this meant most of the expedition (except for Huntly) were now in the East rather than the West Scheldt. Meanwhile, Lord Huntly failed to land at Cadzand, which meant the Breskens battery remained active and continued to reinforce Flushing by boat. This meant the British ships could only enter the West Scheldt through the sandbank-filled Sloe Passage separating Walcheren and Suid-Beveland. Understandably, it took time and effort to get hundreds of troop and supply transports through to the West Scheldt.

Chatham and Coote landed on Walcheren on 30 July 1809 at Breezand and initially made swift progress. By 3 August, all Walcheren except Flushing and all Suid Beveland were in British hands. At this stage the campaign stalled. The British fleet could not get into position to complete the siege of Flushing because of unfavourable winds, and the French continued reinforcing the town until 7 or 8 August. Because of this Chatham was forced to reinforce Coote from the men destined for Antwerp, putting that part of the plan on hold until Flushing fell. With no time for a slow siege, bombardment was the only option, but the British batteries were slow to build due to poor weather and did not open until 13 August. After two days of intensive bombardment Flushing fell, and after a short delay Chatham moved onto Suid-Beveland to continue to Antwerp.

By this time, however, the French had managed to bring 35,000 men to the area, removed their fleet further upriver, and repaired their fortifications. At about this time, sickness also broke out among the British troops. By the end of August a quarter of the army was out of action with a crippling combination of malaria, dysentery, typhus, and typhoid. Chatham called off the expedition on 27 August, and returned to England in mid-September with the bulk of the army. The politicians had hoped to retain the valuable commercial base of Walcheren, and 16,000 men remained there with that in mind, but by December it was clear possessing the island was not worth the cost of defending it and it was evacuated.

Thankfully, our expedition was rather more successful, although we didn’t get to Antwerp either………..

The Walcheren Expedition of ~~1809~~ 2016: Days 1-2

The first two days were, essentially, spent just getting there. We left Oxford at 3:00 am on 28 March, caught the train to West Folkestone, and cycled the remaining distance across the cliffs to Dover (grrrmbllr engineering works grrmmbbllr). The beginning of our journey was considerably enlivened by Storm Katie, which decided to break the night before we left. We had one cancelled train because of a tree on the line, and some delays, but apart from that Katie did little but give us a very rough ferry journey and then a tailwind on the other side (wheeeeeeeeeee).

We spent the first night in De Panne (Belgium), and on the second day reached Cadzand.

From here on, here’s a more detailed map of our Walcheren cycling:

Day 3 (30 March): Cadzand – Breskens – Vlissingen – Middelburg – Arnemuiden

We hit the coast pretty quickly after leaving Cadzand, and pretty much immediately we had our first sight of Walcheren:

First sight of Walcheren!

If you consult the map at the top of this page, you can see we were approaching Vlissingen (Flushing) along the Wielingen Channel, which forms the opening to the West Scheldt. This was where Lord Huntly failed to land and disable the Breskens battery, which continued reinforcing Flushing for most of the siege. Flushing, incidentally, is the town on the right with the tall buildings.

We proceeded to Breskens, where we caught the ferry across to Flushing. I thought about the French reinforcements for Flushing making the same journey in 1809 under the nose of the British ships, rendered completely inactive by the contrary winds. I wonder if they indulged in a few rounds of “Your mother was a hamster, &c” as they went. I imagine they probably did.

Once in Flushing, I was expecting to find the place looking very new and shiny with very few pre-1809 buildings surviving. The devastation of Chatham’s August 1809 bombardment was, by all accounts, pretty extensive.

Flushing Town Hall during the bombardment, from here

I was agreeably surprised to find the town full of 16th and 17th century buildings. I daresay most of them lost their roof in 1809, and probably again in 1944, when the British returned to flatten Flushing a second time (this time by RAF bombing). There is quite a lot about the role of Walcheren in WWII on the island: several plaques, statues, monuments, museums, etc etc etc. There is virtually no sign of the 1809 expedition, however, which goes to show that victories are much more likely to be remembered than failures, particularly when said victories occurred within living memory.

Vlissingen Main Square

Vlissingen Harbour

Napoleonic (and older) fortifications

Some of the fortifications were 16th century, although most dated from 1812, when the damage the British made to the harbour on leaving in 1809 was repaired. There was a windmill from 1699 on the seafront though, which appears in many prints of the bombardment of Flushing.

British assault on Flushing from “France Militaire”, showing the 1699 windmill

After leaving Flushing, we made our way to Middelburg. Middelburg was where Chatham established his main headquarters, from 1 August 1809 until he moved to Suid-Beveland on 21 August. He returned there at the beginning of September.

Middelburg from the canal

Middelburg town square

Middelburg is still the capital of Zeeland, and a mighty pretty place it is too. The anonymous author of Letters from Flushing (London, 1809, pp. 109, 145, 207) described it as “an Amsterdam in miniature”, a fortified town with eight gates and twelve basions “with large and deep ditches filled with water”. Another source (Journal of the Walcheren Campaign, University of Michigan Coote MSS Box 29/3) wrote:

Middelburg, the Capital of Dutch Zealand, is a very handsome opulent town, well paved & lighted. The streets are pretty regular, and the houses very well built. … The appearance of the Town denotes a great degree of ease & opulence. … The Town is surrounded with a wide wet ditch of regular Bastions, but there are no Guns mounted on the Ramparts & the environs are so covered wth habitations & Plantations, that It could make no defence, so long as they were suffered to exist. The Groote Kercke, or principal church has a handsome steeple & very melodious chimes, which are for ever in play.

I can testify to the church chimes being “very melodious” and “for ever in play”. I could imagine Chatham being kept awake by them at *cough* ten o’clock in the morning *cough*.

He stayed in the Abbey while in Middelburg. The “Lange Jan” (“Long John”) church tower is attached to this. It is now the Zeeuws Museum, and therefore accessible to the public, although it was gutted during WWII. Some of the fixtures seem to be original, though:

Middelburg Abbey fireplace

Middelburg Abbey painted ceiling

Yes, I probably spent more time looking at the fixtures than at the museum exhibits (those were interesting too).

The Abbey itself (it closed in 1574) is a magnificent building, and I can totally understand why Chatham spent so much time there.

Middelburg Abbey

We wandered about Middelburg for a couple of happy hours. I should mention that at this stage of the trip I had not yet fully realised where we were yet and so the full import of our location had not yet penetrated. I suppose on some level I was kind of aware I was in the place I had been reading about for so long, but I think it was only when we reached Veere, the next day, that I truly realised WE WERE ON WALCHEREN.

But that is for Part 2…

(And, as it turns out, because I’m utterly incapable of concision, Part 3)

“The favourite child of Fortune”: more on Henry Hollis Bradford

Posted on 29/10/2015 by Jacqueline Reiter | 2 Comments

Research often relies on serendipity, and I experienced that powerfully yesterday. I was in the National Library of Scotland, plugging a few research gaps, and called up a letter from 1817 written by John, 2nd Earl of Chatham, in the Walter Scott Papers. As far as I know, Chatham had no direct contact with Sir Walter Scott, although his wife’s sister (the Duchess of Buccleuch) was Scott’s patroness. I was curious to see what the letter was about.

In fact it was one of several letters on the subject of the death of Sir Henry Hollis Bradford, who (if you will cast your minds back to a recent post of mine) had been one of Chatham’s aides-de-camp for many years. Bradford had served Chatham since about 1807 in the Eastern District, and followed him to Walcheren. Thereafter he pursued a distinguished career under Wellington in the Peninsula, and was seriously wounded during the Battle of Waterloo. Bradford died on 17 December 1816 in France at the age of 35.

I did a little digging on Bradford when I wrote my earlier blog post, but yesterday I learned a whole lot more about him and the circumstances of his Waterloo wound and death. It seems he was a friend of Sir Walter Scott, which is how all this correspondence survived in the first place, because his brother, General Sir Thomas Bradford, suggested Scott might want to compose the epitaph on Bradford’s tomb.[1]

I do not know the exact circumstances of Henry Bradford’s death, but it looks as though there was a bit of an attempt to connect it directly with his wound at Waterloo. Lieutenant-Colonel James Hunter Blair, Bradford’s friend, certainly thought so:

It is a consoling circumstance that … he [Bradford] lost his Life in the service of his Country & on an occasion when his Services were most distinguished. After having gone thro’ all the dangers of the 16th June, it became his duty as Q[uarter] M[aster] General to the Division of Guards, to direct & superintend the defences of Hugoumont [sic] which were so essential to the sucess of the eventful 18th … He was wounded towards the close of the Day on the 18th, at the moment of the general charge which repulsed the Imperial Guard.[2]

Sir Everard Home, from Wikimedia Commons

The surgeon Sir Everard Home, although he did not have a chance of inspecting the body, gave his opinion for the benefit of Bradford’s family:

[The ball] must have struck upon the side of the Vertebrae and recoiled upon the Spine of the Os Ilium where it was extracted on the 18th of June 1815 … An abcess took place on the Liver which came to the Skin[,] was opened[,] and healed.

These are all the intermediate circumstances. A fever came on yielding to no mode of treatment[.] Great despondency[,] irritability, wasting ensue[d], and the Patient die[d]. … My opinion is that all the most distressing Symptoms, the despondency, depression[,] emaciation[,] and the death which was the consequence of these Symptoms took place in consequence of the wound, by means of which the Spinal Marrow had been much irritated (although … no paralytic symptoms followed) that the brain and nervous System were disturbed beyond their bearing … Every thing possible was done, and … nothing could have saved him.[3]

It is of course possible that the wound had gone septic and killed him slowly over the course of several months; reading between the lines of the correspondence, however, Bradford seems not to have suffered overmuch physically from long-term effects, but was certainly strongly scarred mentally. Not, of course, an unnatural thing to happen, particularly as he seems to have had some damage to his spine.

Whatever the precise medical cause of death, Lieutenant-Colonel Blair was probably right that the cause of death was the Waterloo wound, one way or another, anyway. But the circumstances of the death were undeniably tragic, for Bradford had still been a comparatively young man. “Until his unexpected death he seemed the favourite child of Fortune,” Blair wrote. “… She had lavished on him every kind of favor, & he was not less remarkable on account of personal advantages[,] fascinating and best bred manners, than for a mind of dispositions which did him the highest honor & were an honor to the human race.”[2]

As for Chatham, he had remained close to his former aide long after their professional paths had diverged in the wake of Walcheren. Bradford had kept him regularly posted about his activities, and Chatham followed all his aides’ career paths with great interest. Lieutenant-Colonel Blair lost no time in informing Chatham of his former aide’s death, and Chatham wrote a letter of condolence that struck Blair was being of “a degree of regret & feeling most flattering to his memory”. He enclosed it for Sir Walter Scott’s reference, assuming Scott agreed to write Bradford’s epitaph:

Abington Hall, December 22 1816 [4]

Dear Sir,

Your Letter reached me this morning and I have in the first place to offer you my thanks for the kind and considerate manner in which you have executed the painful task imposed on you by Sir Thomas Bradford who has indeed done justice to my feelings towards his poor Brother, in thinking how severe an affliction the fatal event you had to communicate must prove to me.

In poor Bradford I have lost a most valuable and intimate Friend, for whom I had the sincerest affection, and whose progress through life I had followed with the most anxious interest, and it was ever a source to me of the truest gratification to find, how much both as a man and an Officer he was admired, esteemed and loved by all who knew him. Most sincerely indeed do I condole with all his family on this sad occasion, and on whom I fear this most heavy blow must have come rather unexpectedly.

I will not break in upon Sir Thomas Bradford in his present scene of distress with any Letter but as I shall be really anxious to know how he and all his Family are, I should be very much obliged to you to give me one line to say how you left them. I regret extremely that being absent from Town, I shall be deprived of the pleasure of seeing you, when you were so good to call in Hill Street, and I should have derived a melancholy satisfaction, in hearing from you every particular you could give me respecting the fate of my poor departed friend.

I remain my dear Sir

Your very faithful humble Servant,

Chatham [5]

I do not know whether Scott composed the epitaph for Bradford or not, but since the correspondence is preserved among his papers, I gather he probably did. The epitaph reads:

To the memory of Sir Henry Hollis Bradford, Knight Commander of the most honorable Military Order of the Bath, and Lieutenant Colonel of the First of Grenadier Regiment of Foot Guards, This Monument is erected by his companions in arms, the witnesses of his valor, and sharers of his social hours. He died at La Vacherie, near Lilliers in France, on the 17th of December 1816, in the 36th year of his age; and was buried in this Church-Yard.

It isn’t much, but it is eloquent in its simplicity. I’d like to think Scott wrote it, and that Chatham’s regret helped shape the sentiments of it.

References

[1] Sir Thomas Bradford to James Hunter Blair, 28 February 1817, National Library of Scotland Scott MSS Ms 3888 f 32

[2] James Hunter Blair to [?], [February] 1817, National Library of Scotland Scott MSS Ms 3888 f 35

[3] Sir Everard Home’s opinion, 18 February 1817, National Library of Scotland Scott MSS Ms 3888 f 29

[4] The copy of the letter reads 1817, but since the correspondence dates from February 1817 that cannot be correct

[5] Lord Chatham to Lieutenant-Colonel Blair, 22 December 1816, National Library of Scotland Scott MSS Ms 3888 f 31

“Upon my Honor”: the 2nd Earl of Chatham’s Pedigree

Posted on 22/10/2015 by Jacqueline Reiter | 2 Comments

On Tuesday I was lucky enough to have the opportunity of visiting the Parliamentary Archives. My research purpose was to check out the Proxy Books covering the House of Lords career of the 2nd Earl of Chatham (1778 – 1835), but since I was on the spot I decided to order up Chatham’s official House of Lords Pedigree as well.

Chatham’s pedigree (Courtesy of Parliamentary Archives, HL/PO/JO/22/1/3 f 42)

The practice of delivering Pedigrees when a new peer took his seat in Parliament dates back to a House Standing Order of 11 May 1767, designed to put an end to succession disputes and confusion over descent. The practice of record-keeping by the Office of Heralds had lapsed over the centuries, and the importance of tracing accurate lineage was increased by the fact the House of Lords was both a political and a legal institution.[1]

The Standing Order required “that Garter King of Arms do officially attend this House upon the day and at the time of the first admission of every Peer, whether by creation or descent, and that he do then and there deliver in at the table a Pedigree of the Family of such Peer, fairly described on vellum”, covering the peer’s parents, siblings, spouses, children, and so on, “according to seniority, down to the day on which such Pedigree shall be so delivered in”. Each peer was permitted to prove his Pedigree before the Committee of Privileges, and a copy of the Pedigree would be kept with the Records of the House of Lords and the Office of Arms.[2]

I was hoping to settle a point that has been bothering me for a long time. A few days ago I blogged for Chatham’s birthday, and explained my reasons for believing him to have been be born on 10 October 1756. His father wrote several letters on that date announcing his birth, and when he was baptised on 7 November, the 10th October was recorded as his date of birth. However, his family celebrated his 17th birthday on 9 October 1773, and nearly everyone since has followed that lead.

I therefore hoped that seeing the Pedigree might help settle the issue, and I was not disappointed. It seems Chatham’s registered date of birth is incorrect: the date of birth he provided the House of Lords, and declared “to be true to the best of my knowledge Information and Belief, upon my Honor” was — 9 October 1756. This, to me, seems to be a clear-cut case. It does not matter if Chatham was actually born on the 9th, or 10th, October, or bang on midnight (which is the most likely explanation of what happened): he believed his birthday to fall on 9 October, and that’s good enough for me.

Chatham’s declaration (Courtesy of Parliamentary Archives, HL/PO/JO/22/1/3 f 42)

If that was all, this post would be much shorter than it is. But I was so utterly breathtaken by the sheer beauty of the thing laid before me on the desk that I felt moved to purchase a photograph licence, and then to request permission to reproduce the images on this blog (graciously granted).

The Pedigree, on fine vellum as required by the 1767 Standing Order, was bound in tooled leather with fifty others spanning the period 1784-91. I am not kidding when I tell you it took both my strength and that of one of the archivists to wrestle it out of the box and onto the table.

With silk cords and gold tassels (Courtesy of Parliamentary Archives, HL/PO/JO/22/1/3 f 42)

And truly, these photographs do not do it justice. The whole thing — every one of the fifty-one pedigrees in the box — was painted and written by hand. (They cost £20 to draw up, not an inconsiderable sum.) There was shiny gold leaf. There was calligraphy. There was — beauty. There is no other word for it.

Here is Chatham’s crest, complete with Garter.

Courtesy of Parliamentary Archives, HL/PO/JO/22/1/3 f 42

The photograph does not really show the gold leaf on the Earl’s coronet and Garter, which frankly elevated this from “gorgeous” to “stunning”, in my opinion.

But what totally melted me was the combined Chatham/Townshend crest to represent any future offspring of Chatham’s marriage to Mary Elizabeth Townshend (there wouldn’t be any, of course, but since Mary was only 28 in March 1791, nobody could have known that):

Courtesy of Parliamentary Archives, HL/PO/JO/22/1/3 f 42

The other Pedigrees in the book were equally beautiful, but as this was the one I wanted to see, I spent a good long while examining it and just drinking it in. I do not think I have been so entranced by a historical document for a long time.

Beautiful — just beautiful. I’m so glad I’m able to share it.

References

The Earl of Chatham’s Pedigree (endorsed 11 May 1791) is in the Parliamentary Archives, HL/PO/JO/22/1/3 f 42. All photographs used here were taken by me and reproduced with kind permission of the Parliamentary Archives.

[1] William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England III, 11th edn (London, 1791), pp. 105-6

[2] John Palmer, The Practice in the House of Lords of Appeals, Writs of Error, and Claims of Peerage … (London, 1830), pp. 341-3

Sherry, please: the contents of the 2nd Earl of Chatham’s cellars

Posted on 19/10/2015 by Jacqueline Reiter | 1 Comment

From Wikimedia Commons

One thing’s for sure about the Pitts: they liked a drink or six. It started with Pitt the Elder, and got worse with the next generation. The Younger Pitt was famous for knocking back several bottles a day (although said bottles were, obviously, smaller then than they are now… still). The 2nd Earl of Chatham’s drinking habits are less obvious, but there were telling habits of his being, to use an appropriately nautical expression, “three sheets to the wind” during office hours while First Lord of the Admiralty.

While Governor of Gibraltar he was famous for his hospitality, and it seems he acquired a taste for Spanish wines while there. (It seems appropriate that one of Gibaltar’s biggest modern wine distributors trades from offices in the “Chatham Counterguard”.) When Chatham died in September 1835, his executors brought in a high-society wine merchant, Charles Bertram, of 162 New Bond Street, to value the late Lord Chatham’s cellars in Charles Street.

This is what Bertram found:

Chatham’s cellars, from National Archives PRO 30/8/370 ff 78, 147

I should say right off that I am no wine expert myself. Far from it — I’m virtually teetotal and have been for fifteen years. However, just a glance at this list tells me two things: first, that Chatham had a lot of wine in his cellar for a nearly-eighty-year-old widower, and second, that he really, really, really did not care for French booze.

I think it’s fair to say Chatham had a sweet tooth. Most of the wine in his cellar seems to have been the variety served up as an aperitif or dessert wine. Sherry seems to account for the majority of it, in the largest quantities (sixteen dozen bottles, plus eight, of “Sherry Cadoza”, whatever that is — it seems to have something to do with the kind of cask, but I would be grateful if anyone could explain further).

One variety in Chatham’s cellars, Haurie, had a sterling pedigree: the Haurie brand claimed to be the oldest exporters of sherry, having been founded during the War of the Spanish Succession. 19th century wine specialist Henry Vizetelly described Haurie sherry as a wine “over which Steele may have become more light-hearted, Swift more morose, Bolingbroke more eloquent, and Addison more didactic”. It probably already had a high reputation by the time Chatham acquired his eighteen bottles, but twenty years after his death Haurie sherry brought back four first-class medals from the Jerez Exhibition.

In addition to sherry, Chatham also had a great deal of Madeira. Much of this seems to have been received as a gift from other people (“Sir J. Bouten”, Lord Melville, Sir Andrew Hammond — an old friend from Chatham’s days at the Admiralty — and Lord Powis, the son of the famous Clive of India). Possibly it was a case of the following:

Lord Powis: Lord Chatham, I’ve brought you a gift.

Chatham: More Madeira. How kind.

Powis: I know how much you like it.

Chatham: Can’t you just bring me sherry next time?

So far, so sweet (although some of the sherry, I guess, might have been of the dry variety). But I suspect very little of it was, given most of the rest of the cellars’ contents was pretty sweet too. Chatham certainly favoured the sweeter varieties of Madeira: “Malmsey”, for example, described in 1858 as “a luscious sweet wine … used principally as a liqueur, or at dessert”. (Malmsey wine was described by the same source as being “a strong astringent, and used against dysentery”, although I suspect Chatham did not really use it for medicinal purposes.)

He also, however, seems to have been partial to Sercial, an “exceedingly rare” variety of Madeira described by Vizetelly as “somewhat spiritous” and known by Portuguese locals as “the dog strangler”. One source from the 1840s was, however, more appreciative: “This fabulous nectar, with its mellifluous flavour, has the pungent aroma of a posy of sweet-smelling flowers.” It seems this one is best left in the bottle for ten years or so. Possibly Chatham brought it back from Gibraltar with him, along with the three bottles of “Campanario” (another variety of Madeira from the west cliffs of the island near Funchal), although the age of the wines is not mentioned.

One wine he definitely did bring back from Gibraltar was the “Paxarete”, or “Pajarete”, a variety of sherry made in the Jerez region of Spain. This would, in 1835, have been at least ten years old, and maybe Chatham was saving it for a special occasion. Paxarete, again, was exceedingly sweet, exceedingly strong, and exceedingly expensive, although one website described it as “considered more of a ladies’ drink” in early 19th century Britain. I suspect Chatham would have disagreed.

So far Chatham’s cellars can be summarised as: sweet, and Spanish (or Portuguese). (The presence of “Malaga wine”, another super-sweet fortified Spanish wine, bears out this hypothesis.) There were some exceptions, however. Chatham had fifteen dozen pints of Constantia, a South African (!) wine from near Cape Town — unfortified, it seems, but renowned for its strength, and described by The Oxford Companion to Wine as “legendary”. (Napoleon, apparently, also drank it while imprisoned on St Helena.) And of course Chatham had a dozen or so bottles of Sancerre, a modest number of champagne bottles, and claret — surprisingly little of it, though, given his apparent love of it in the 1780s and 1790s.

Only one vintage is dated, however: “Bertram’s claret”, specifically named as “1822”. (He had two dozen bottles of it.) I can’t, however, work out if this was a particularly good year for claret, or whether it was the only wine Chatham had purchased directly from Charles Bertram, who compiled the inventory and may just have recognised his own bottles.

Apart from wine, Chatham had a few bottles of liqueur: “Noyau”, a crème liqueur made from apricot (or peach) kernels (hence its name). Chatham had both varieties in his cellar: the clear (“blanc”, or white) and the “pink”. One magazine from the 1830s described it as “the queen of liqueurs”, although it vastly preferred the white to the pink — which was in any case coloured, generally with cochineal. Chatham apparently agreed, as he had nearly twice as much white Noyau as he did pink.

Apparently Noyeau tastes similar to amaretto, although I have had neither so cannot comment. It is also, apparently, dangerous to drink elderly Noyeau, as apricot kernels degrade into cyanide. I’m fairly sure Chatham died from natural causes, but now I’m wondering.

Apart from “Cadoza sherry”, the only other item in Chatham’s cellars I have not been able to identify is the mysterious “Pardarolli”. Possibly it was another liqueur, but I cannot be certain. I would be grateful to anyone who is able to inform me what it is.

Bertram estimated the total value of all the bottles in Chatham’s cellars at £559.19.0, which is a sizeable sum, particularly as Chatham’s house itself only brought his executors £3000 (once the mortgage had been cleared). His heirs clearly divided the cellars between them, but they did put a small portion of the wines up to auction at Christie’s on 16 May 1836. They fetched £155.4.10.

References

Bertram’s handlist of Chatham’s cellars can be found at the National Archives, Chatham MSS PRO 30/8/370 f 78 (dated 1 October 1835).

The Christie’s sales catalogue, giving the list of the bottles put to auction and the amounts they fetched, is at PRO 30/8/370 f 147.

Information on Charles Bertram from Richard Ford Manuscripts.

Information on the wines and liqueurs mentioned in this blog was drawn from:

Henry Vizetelly, Facts about Sherry, gleaned in the vineyards and bodegas of the Jerez, Seville, Moguer, & Montilla districts … (London, 1876)
Henry Vizetelly, Facts about Port and Madeira (London, 1880)
Julia Harding, The Oxford Companion to Wine (Oxford, 2015)
The Magazine of Domestic Economy volume II (1837)
Robert Hogg, The vegetable kingdom and its products (London, 1858)
Richard Mayson, Madeira: the islands and their wines (London, 2015)
“Whisky Science: Pajarete and the wine treatment”, 3 March 2013, from here
Wikipedia pages on Constantia, Noyau, Malaga wine, and Sancerre

10 October 1756: birth of John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham

Posted on 10/10/2015 by Jacqueline Reiter | 1 Comment

YES, 10 October. Yes. YES. No, it’s not a typo. Yes, I realise I am flying in the face of all other published sources, except Wikipedia (and there’s a good reason for that).

John, 2nd Earl of Chatham, in John Singleton Copley’s “The Death of the Earl of Chatham” (1779)

Most people, when writing about someone less visible in the historical record, are at least able to say “Well, at least I know when he/she was born/died!” Unfortunately, my biography of the 2nd Earl of Chatham pretty much opens with a page-long footnote explaining why I have plumped for 10 October 1756 as his date of birth, and not the usually-recorded 9 October. (Some sources say 10 September, but, to misquote Monty Python, that’s right out.)

As far as I can see, there is one main reason why the sources focus on 9 October as Chatham’s birthday. It is a letter written by Pitt the Elder to Pitt the Younger on 9 October 1773, which opens with the following lines: “Thursday’s post brought us no letter from the dear traveller [Pitt was on his way to Cambridge]: we trust this day will prove more satisfactory. It is the happy day that gave us your brother…” [Chatham Correspondence IV, 290]

William Pitt the Elder by William Hoare

Well, that’s clear, isn’t it? Pitt the Elder should have known the date of birth of his own son, no?

Except we find Pitt the Elder writing to his brother-in-law, George Grenville, on 10 October 1756: “Dear Grenville, Lady Hester is as well as can be in her situation, after being delivered of a son this morning.” [Grenville Papers I, 173]

And also to his nephew, Thomas Pitt, later Lord Camelford, also on 10 October 1756: “Lady Hester was safely delivered this morning of a son.” [Letters written by Lord Chatham to his nephew Thomas Pitt (1804), p. 97]

Not to mention the fact that Chatham’s baptismal record in the parish register, entered on 7 November 1756, notes his date of birth as 10 October.

John, 2nd Earl of Chatham’s baptismal record, Hayes, Kent

So what happened? Why the discrepancy? I suppose the most likely possibility is that everything went so quickly (and Chatham’s birth was, apparently, very quick) that nobody troubled to take accurate note of his time of birth. Maybe the clocks in the room were fast. Maybe the midwife (or man midwife, as Chatham was delivered by William Hunter) made a mistake.

Clearly the family celebrated Chatham’s birthday on 9 October, although there could have been other reasons for this. In 1773, 10 October fell on a Sunday: possibly the family decided to celebrate a day early for that reason. I personally think this unlikely, however, as Pitt the Elder specifically says “THIS is the happy day that gave us your brother”. He could have misdated his letter, but this is unlikely, particularly as his son William replied a few days later making reference to “the rejoicings on the happy ninth of October”.

It seems most likely, therefore, that the family for some reason changed their minds about Chatham’s birthday and started celebrating it on 9 October. But he would not be the only 18th century figure surrounded with such confusion — the Duke of Wellington’s precise birthdate, for example, is also disputed.

This doesn’t make my task as biographer any easier, but I’ve plumped for 10 October rather than 9 October because Chatham’s baptismal record suggests that date. The entry was added on 7 November, nearly a full month after Chatham’s birth, so it seems most likely to me that any changes of mind occurred some time after his birth. I’ve therefore gone with the on-the-spot account, and shaved a day off the 2nd Lord Chatham’s age.

You may disagree with me, but I’m sticking to my guns.

Lord Chatham in Gibraltar — the FIRST time

Posted on 11/06/2015 by Jacqueline Reiter | 6 Comments

Still in Gibraltar. This morning I went up the Rock in a cable car (expensive but worth it) and sat on a bench overlooking the bay to write my chapter dealing with the 2nd Earl of Chatham’s active Governorship here, 1821-5. It was bliss, and I was completely untroubled by monkeys, lizards, seagulls, &c &c, which was a small mercy as I was surrounded by all the above. Nope, it was just me, my laptop, and John Chatham for three amazing hours.

On my way down (clutching my laptop) I spotted an offroad track which was advertised as a walking route. In a moment of utter lunacy, I decided to take it. For a while, it was pretty nice, if narrow and with a deceptively deep drop on my right:

About half an hour after I took this shot, however, the path took me round private property (steep uphill climb across limestone shards? Why not!) and then back down again (steep downhill across limestone shards? Even better!). At this stage the path just came to a . Thankfully I could see the paved road about ten metres below me, but somehow I had to get down to it. So I climbed. Well, you know, I had no alternative (other than walking back the way I came for 45 minutes … er no, thank you, and yes, I still had my laptop with me).

So there I was sliding down the side of the Rock, totally channelling my inner James Bond (well, I wasn’t sure whether or not I was trespassing on MoD property…) and it occurred to me to wonder whether the 2nd Earl of Chatham ever did anything like this while he was in Gibraltar. But no, of course not. He was in his late 60s.

Which was the inconvenient moment at which it hit me. He was in Gibraltar in the 1770s too. As aide-de-camp to General Robert Boyd, Sir George Elliott’s Lieutenant Governor.

How the heck could I have forgotten that?!

And, while I was clinging to the side of the rockface by my fingernails (OK yes, that’s a slight exaggeration … but not much), I had a flashback of walking past a shelf at the Gibraltar National Archives on Tuesday full of volumes of official Diaries kept by the Governor’s secretary from the early 1770s to about 1810. I’d passed it by thinking “Ooh how nice, too early”, but … what if John was mentioned?

I survived my descent, of course (I did say I exaggerated a bit) and, as it was only three o’clock, repaired as fast as I could to the Archives. I’m not 100% sure what they thought when I turned up all dusty, disshevelled and slightly sunburnt, but within a few minutes I had the 1778 and 1779 diaries open before me on the table.

Within about ten minutes I startled everyone in the room with my cry of triumph.

Do you see what I see? (This is the entry for 7 July 1778). The entry goes on to list the accompanying convoy for about three pages, in some serious detail. But the relevant bit is this: “Arrived from England His Majesty’s Ship Romulus of 44 guns and 280 men, commanded by Capn. Gayton in 23 days from Spithead. Passengers, Lieut: General Boyd, Colonel Green, Colonel Ross, Lord Chatham and Mr Buckeridge, Lieutenants in the 39th Regt.”

William Buckeridge, incidentally, was Boyd’s other ADC.

I knew Chatham had arrived in Gibraltar early July 1778, but now I had a date — and also a ship, a departure point, and a journey length. 😀 But this is the mysterious bit. 23 days’ journey means the Romulus left Spithead on or about the 15 June 1778. So why did Chatham not attend his father’s funeral on the 8th? He must have had a cast-iron reason, otherwise people would have talked, but why not? I know the convoy was all embarked and ready to leave by mid-May: perhaps the ships were delayed by adverse winds? I find it hard to believe Chatham would have been refused permission to attend the funeral if it had been possible for him to go. And I find it even harder to believe he would not have wanted to go. Pageantry was John’s forté, and he did it very well.

Be that as it may, there was more. All letters sent from the garrison with the official Governor’s packet were recorded, and their recipients. So I know Chatham was writing home on 16 and 20 July, and also on 8 and 12 October:

On the left: letters listed to Mrs Mary Pitt, Lady Mahon (Chatham’s eldest sister), Thomas Pitt, and the Countess of Chatham; on the right, letters to the Hon. Mr Pitt, Pembroke Hall, the Marquis of Granby (later the 4th Duke of Rutland, Chatham’s best bud), and Lady Harriot Pitt, Chatham’s younger sister.

As you will know from previous posts, Chatham left Gibraltar in early 1779 to go back to Britain. I was a bit unsure about whether he left in February or March, and how much leave he was granted, but now I know the answer: he left on 2 March, and his leave was six months. (Within that period the siege had started, and he transferred to another regiment, so the next time he returned to Gibraltar was as Governor in 1821.)

Apologies for the quality of the above photo — the 1779 Diary is in pretty darn poor nick — but it reads “Leave of Absence for 6 months granted Earl of Chatham. Travelling Pass E. Chatham, Honble. Captain Conway and Lieutenant Colt to go to Madrid, 3 Months; also Permit for said Gentlemen to pass to Cadiz, to morrow, with 3 Servants and Baggage.” It was issued on 1 March 1779.

I am so, so chuffed by this, you have no idea. It was totally worth nearly falling down the Rock for.

__________

References

All material from the Governor’s Diaries, March – November 1778 and 1778 – 1782, Gibraltar National Archives

190 years ago yesterday: Lord Chatham leaves Gibraltar

Posted on 08/06/2015 by Jacqueline Reiter | Leave a comment

I am currently in Gibraltar, having the time of my life visiting the archives and chasing monkeys. I was wandering about the Upper Rock, taking in the Straits and very much enjoying the sun and the sights, when something struck me. It has been almost exactly 190 years since the 2nd Earl of Chatham — the man I am here to research — left Gibraltar.

Streets of Gibraltar

Chatham succeeded the Duke of Kent as Governor of Gibraltar in January 1820. I suspect he at first had very little intention of ever coming out (the Duke of Kent, after all, had been an absentee governor since his disastrous attempt to serve in person resulted in several mutinies) but was only forced into it by the fact the House of Commons started discussing expensive sinecures, and Chatham’s governorship came up. Ministers were all “Oh yes, Chatham has every intention of going out there”, probably all while wrestling Chatham bodily onto the boat.

Chatham was meant to have gone out in May 1821, but was held up by three things: 1) his wife’s death on 21 May; 2) King George IV’s visit to Ireland, which snarled up all available frigates; and 3) his own reluctance. He really did not want to go, and it did not help that he suffered from profound depression for months after his wife’s death. Nevertheless, as soon as all ships had returned from Ireland and he had run out of excuses, Chatham boarded the Active frigate at the end of October 1821 and arrived in Gibraltar on 15 November. I can’t imagine it was a pleasant trip, although, at 19 days, it was relatively short.

Having spent the day perusing the Gibraltar Chronicle with great care, I can now say a little bit more about what Chatham did in Gibraltar, but for the details you’ll have to wait till my book comes out next September. Suffice to say he never warmed to the place, possibly not helped by the fact Lord Maryborough, who had taken over Chatham’s old rented house of Abington, kept writing to tell Chatham about the abundance of game on the estate and what wonderful hunts he was missing. Chatham’s weak health did not get on with the climate, and by early 1825 his health was pretty much shattered.

He wrote for permission to return to England, which was granted. He stayed long enough to lay the foundation stone of the church that would become the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity on 1 June, then high-tailed it with all the speed his weakened frame could muster.

Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, Gibraltar

The Gibraltar Chronicle recorded Chatham’s departure in its 8 June edition. Chatham’s last day was a sunny, clear 23 degree day:

“Yesterday, at 12 o’clock, His Excellency General the Earl of Chatham, Governor of this Fortress, embarked on board HM Frigate Tribune, Capt. Guion, returning to England on leave of absence.

The streets from the Convent to Ragged-Staff [Wharf] were lined by the Troops composing the Garrison; and His Excellency, being received at the Convent Gate by a Guard of Honor from the 43rd Light Infantry, proceeded, accompanied by the Lieutenant Governor, General Sir George Don, and the Officers of the Military and Civil Departments. On arriving at Ragged-Staff, His Excellency was received by another Guard of Honor furnished by the 94th Regiment, and, at the moment of stepping into the Barge, was saluted with 19 Guns from the Garrison, which were repeated by the Frigate on His Excellency’s arrival on board.

The Tribune shortly after got under weigh, and sailed into the Straits with a light breeze at East.”[1]

Ragged Staff Gates, Gibraltar (Wikimedia Commons)

In fact Chatham’s “leave of absence” was permanent, and he never returned. As late as 1829 there was talk that he might well come back, but, although Chatham recovered to a degree after returning to England, his health had been permanently damaged. He was, after all, nearly 69 in June 1825. He was seriously ill in 1829, and nearly died in 1831. Even so, when the Reform Bill came before Parliament in 1831, Chatham was terrified that he — as an opponent of reform — might be sent off to Gibraltar to prevent him causing trouble in the Lords: “Lord Chatham has the fear before his eyes of being ordered off to reside upon his government”.[2]

Grand Casemates Gate, 1824

So it was that when Chatham died on 24 September 1835, he had been Governor of Gibraltar for fifteen and a half years, but only served there for four. Still, he did rather better than a number of Gibraltar histories imply (one I’ve seen flat out denied he ever went out there) and better than the Duke of Kent. At least there were no mutinies!

References

[1] Gibraltar Chronicle, 8 June 1825

[2] Duke of Buckingham to the Duke of Wellington, 27 September 1831, Southampton University Wellington MSS WP1/1196/18

Lord Chatham, Knight of the Garter

Posted on 10/03/2015 by Jacqueline Reiter | 1 Comment

Yesterday I had the opportunity to visit St George’s Chapel Archives at Windsor Castle, where I spent an instructive morning perusing the Garter Registers and chasing Lord Chatham’s officially recorded movements as a Knight of the Garter.

Chatham was elected a Knight of the Garter in December 1790, as I explain in my guest post for English Historical Fiction Authors on the Order of the Garter during the reign of George III. The Garter should have gone to his brother Pitt the Younger, but Pitt wrote to persuade the King to give it to Chatham instead.

One of the most notable features of Chatham’s character was his love of pomp and status, so I can imagine he was thrilled to be admitted to Britain’s oldest and most prestigious Order. Although he was invested with the Garter in December 1790, he was not fully “installed” (for more on the distinction between the two ceremonies see my EHFA post) until May 1801, when the King dispensed with the full ceremonies for twenty-three uninstalled Knights.

Dispensation installing Chatham as a Knight Companion of the Garter (29 May 1801) (PRO 30/8/371)

After his “installation”, Chatham was finally permitted to enjoy the full privileges of the Order. Before, he had only been allowed to wear the ribbon and Lesser George: now he was allowed to wear the Star, or “Glory”, and surround his crest with the Garter insignia. He was allowed to attend Garter Chapters, and was allotted a stall in the quire of St George’s Chapel, although I am informed this would have changed according to Chatham’s seniority in the order (in other words, every time a senior knight died, Chatham’s stall would move one step closer to the Sovereign’s).

He was also allowed to affix a stall plate to the back of the stall, listing his “achievements”. I have been permitted to see Chatham’s plate, although not to photograph it, but it was put up shortly after his installation in May 1801 since it records him as being a Major-General and Lord President of the Council. The achievement is in French: “le noble et très puissant Jean, Comte de Chatham”.

A later Garter Stall Plate (1891); Chatham’s was similar (Wikimedia Commons)

Many Knights of the Garter died without being installed, including Chatham’s good friend the Duke of Rutland, who was invested in 1783 and died in 1787. Rutland, though, was an exception to the rule: when he was made Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1784, the King gave him permission to use the Garter Insignia and wear the Star as though he had been fully installed.[1]

Plan of the stalls of the Knights of the Garter as they stood in 1828 , from “The Visitants’ Guide to Windsor Castle” (thanks to regencyhistory.net for this)

My purpose in consulting the Garter Registers was to track Chatham’s attendance record as a KG at Chapters and official Dinners. By statute all Chapters were recorded in the official Registers, and all attendees’ names were noted down. I had been informed Chatham’s attendance was patchy: I wanted to see whether this was true. I must admit I was surprised to hear Chatham wasn’t a frequent attender. Despite his reputation for laziness, Chatham was very proud of his Garter.

I can now report that Chatham’s attendance was not as bad as it looks. He was elected to the Order at Chapter XV, held at St James’s Palace on Wednesday, 15 December 1790, at the same time as the Duke of Saxe-Gotha and the Duke of Leeds. Present at this Chapter were the King, the Prince of Wales, the Dukes of Gloucester and York, and the Marquis of Stafford, along with the Prelate, Chancellor, and Registrar of the Order (the Officers), and Garter King of Arms and Black Rod.[2] Members of the Royal Family seem to have been keen attenders of the Chapters, much as one would expect (and a Chapter could not be held without the Sovereign or his representative, so he is pretty much the only person with a 100% attendance record). But only fully installed members of the Order could attend Chapters, so Chatham’s name does not appear again until Chapter XXIII, the first Chapter after his installation, held on 25 November 1803 at St James’s Palace.

Up until then, Chapters had been thinly attended (remember, only fully installed members could attend), and often only members of the Royal Family turned up. But the 1803 Chapter was rather different. The King was present, and the Dukes of Gloucester, York, Clarence, Kent, and Cambridge, but nine Knights Companion turned up too: apart from Chatham, the Dukes of Richmond, Portland and Roxburgh were there, as well as Lords Cornwallis, Salisbury, Westmorland, Spencer, and Camden. Presumably they needed a rather bigger room than they had been accustomed to using.[3]

After that, Chatham attended quite regularly. He was at Chapters XXIV, XXV and XXVII (17 Jan 1805, 27 May 1805, and 18 July 1807), and the Installation of April 1805. He missed Chapter XXVI, but since that took place on 22 March 1806 I’ll give him a break: his brother hadn’t even been dead two months, and his wife was still extremely unwell. He was not at Chapter XXVIII, on 3 March 1810, but I rather think he was otherwise engaged appearing at parliamentary enquiries and trying not to be impeached after Walcheren. Interestingly, though, he did attend the St George’s Day Dinner at Carlton House in April 1810. Given his name was mud at this stage, I cannot help wondering if it was a bit of a defiant gesture at the government: “Yah, yah, yah, I still enjoy royal favour.” Of course, maybe he just needed a bit of fun.

He may have attended the 1811 St George’s Dinner as well, but the attendees are not separately listed so there’s no way of knowing. Only one other Dinner is recorded, for 1812, and Chatham was not present.

Returning to the Chapters, he missed Chapter XXIX in March 1812, but he was at Chapters XXX-XXXI and XXXIII-XXXVII (he missed XXXII, on 4 March 1813, for no obvious reason that I can think of). He was absent from Chapter XXXVIII, on 24 July 1817, but this was around the time that his wife fell victim to her second bout of mental illness, so it’s not much of a surprise to see him absent until Chapter I of the reign of George IV (7 June 1820).

After this Chatham disappears almost completely from the record, but then Chapter II of George IV was not held till 1822, when Chatham was in Gibraltar. After his return in 1825, however, he never attended another Chapter, and there were 13 more Chapters and 2 St George’s Day Dinners held before Chatham’s death. Most of them were held during the reign of William IV, though, when Chatham’s health was poor, and he was mostly in Brighton when the Chapters were held. Still, Camden and Westmorland, his contemporaries (and close friends), were still attending nearly every Chapter.

The final mention of Chatham records his passing:

“On the 24th September 1835, in Charles Street Berkeley Square, Died, General The Right Honourable John, Earl of Chatham, Knight Companion of this Most Noble Order.”[4]

One last interesting note: one of the Statutes of the Order stipulates that no member of the Order should go out of the country without getting prior permission of the King. I found a few examples of this in the Register, mostly for Knights wishing to go abroad for their health, but permission was not recorded for Chatham to go abroad with the army either in 1799 or 1809 (or, indeed, to Gibraltar in 1821). I suspect this is probably because permission was not required to go abroad on military service, but possibly any permission given was not recorded.

So, in sum, of 26 Chapters during the reign of George III, 8 Chapters during the reign of George IV, and 9 Chapters during the reign of William IV, Chatham attended:

— his investiture (1790)

— the installation of April 1805 (the only proper Installation during his time as Knight)

— 11 Chapters from 1803 – 1820

— 1 (possibly 2) St George’s Day Dinners (out of a total of 5 recorded)

So no, not a brilliant record, but then Chatham was actually unable to attend 10 of the Chapters due to being either ineligible or out of the country, and missed a further 5 due to circumstances out of his control (family illness or bereavement, or — say — political disgrace). As a result, I make out he attended 11 out of 26 possible Chapters.

____________

References

[1] St George’s Chapel Archives, Register of the Order of the Garter, SGC G.5 (1688-1804) f 155

[2] St George’s Chapel Archives, Register of the Order of the Garter, SGC G.5 (1688-1804) ff 159-60

[3] St George’s Chapel Archives, Register of the Order of the Garter, SGC G.5 (1688-1804) f 168

[4] St George’s Chapel Archives, Register of the Order of the Garter, SGC G.6 (1805-1861) f 79

The Late Lord

Researching and writing about 18th century British political, military, and naval history

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