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Recognition of Distinguished Service
In
recognition of his services during the Peninsula
campaigns, he received the Gold Cross with one
clasp for the battle of Fuentes de Oñoro, the
storming of Badajoz, the battles of Salamanca
and Vitoria and the storming of San Sebastián.
In after years, when the Silver War medal was
instituted, he received that decoration with
four clasps for the battles of Roliça, Vimeiro
and Busaco, and the storming of Ciudad Rodrigo
and was promoted to the substantive rank of
Major, unattached on the 25th
October 1814.
Returning to Portugal in 1814, Dudley remained
in the Portuguese Army until 1820 and in that
year he was obliged to return to Britain due to
the Liberal Revolution of 1820 which ended
British control of the country. In June of 1815,
he was appointed a Companion of the Order of the
Bath. In addition to these distinctions, he was
promoted to the rank of Colonel in the
Portuguese service, was appointed a Knight of
the Portuguese Order of the Tower and the Sword
and received four medals from the Portuguese
Government. He received from his countrymen in
County Carlow a valuable sword and two pieces of
plate. (see
Page 8) On the 25th
November 1816, he received the honour of
knighthood from the Prince Regent.
Sir Dudley raises a large family
In
1816, Sir Dudley was placed on ½ pay of his
British Commission by exchange, as he was
incapable of serving due to ill health
occasioned by his many wounds and, in
particular, the wounds from San Sebastián made
it painful and almost impossible to ride. Around
1818, he built the manor house Braganza24 in
Carlow which later became the house of the
Bishops of Kildare. Braganza was named in honour
of the Royal Family of Portugal following
Dudley’s long service in that country.
In
1819, he was living at St James in Westminster,
Middlesex when he married Caroline Drury Hunter,
the fourth daughter of Robert Hunter and
Charlotte Hansford. Caroline was born 28th
May 1799 and baptised at the Bridewell Hospital
Chapel in London on 17th
June 179925.
Dudley Hill and Caroline Hunter were married26 at
St Marylebone in London on the 15th
June 1819 with the consent and in the presence
of her father as she was still a minor. Caroline
died on 20th
July 1831 at Molesey, Sussex27.
They had six known children.
Major Dudley Clarges28
Dudley was born on the 13th
April 1820 at Lagos, Portugal and baptised in
London on 28th
May 1821. Dudley entered the Army on 9th
January 1838, was promoted to Captain of the 75th
Foot in India on 4th
May 1849 and, while District Instructor of
Musketry of the 40th
Foot, promoted to Major on 13th
February 1861. Dudley was permitted to retire
from the service on ½ pay following the sale of
his commission on 15th
February 186129.
He was also appointed adjutant of the
Carmarthenshire Rifle Volunteers on 9th
October 1866. He married30
Emma Georgina Ross at Landour, N-W Provinces in
what is now Pakistan on 28th
June 1851 and they were living in retirement at
Carmarthen, Wales at the 1871 census. Dudley
died at Llandovery, Wales at the age of 53 in
1873 and Emma was buried at Carmarthen on 20th
January 1917.
Caroline Willhemenna31
Caroline was born in Carlow on the 20th
February 1822 and baptised in London on the 14th
January 1824. She married the solicitor George
Dennis O’Kelly Templer, the 4th
son of James Templer, at Lyme Regis, Dorset on 3rd
October 1841. They were living at the Great
Western Hotel at Marylebone in 1861 and George
died in 1872.
Caroline was staying with her brother Charles at
Marylebone in the 1881 census and she died at
Brentford, Middlesex at the age of 85 in 1907.
Julia Johnstone Julia was born at Richmond,
Surrey on 22nd
November 182332
and was staying with her sister Charlotte in
Maidstone, Kent at the 1861 Census. She died
unmarried age 61 in 1885 at Camberwell in
London.
Major General Charles Edward Dawson33
CED Hill retired from the Royal Madras Engineers
to Kensington on 15th
October 1870. He was born at Carlow on 16th
May 1826 and married Gertrude-Henrietta Shaw on
18th
October 1847 (she died on board the “Sutlej” off
St Helena on 5th
June 1852), Caroline Anne Steigen Berger on 14th
August 1867 (she died on 4th
August 1879) and Florence Heathcote (the widow
of John Bromley) on 18th
December 1888. One of Charles’ sons, Dudley St.
Leger34,
was born in Madras in on 20th
November 1848 and was a scholar at Eltham, Kent
in the 1861 Census. Charles died in London on 1st
May 1901 and Florence died in London on the 10th
May 1919.
A
correspondent Jane Enderby reported a family
story about her relation Florence Heathcote.
“Florence had a daughter by John Bromley but he
died when Mabel was a small child of about 5.
Florence worked for Charles we believe, after he
was widowed. Charles and Florence’s son Eustace
(Edward) was in the Ministry and he died
somewhere in Africa. Mabel Bromley (Eustace’s'
step sister) married Theo Portass who was a
great traveller. When Theo died she remarried
and became a Bloodworth. She travelled to
Australia on the boats but called into Africa on
her way to visit a family member. We think this
may have been Eustace, however, this person was
assassinated and we know no more! My mother and
her elderly sisters are a hoot when they talk
about their grandmother.”
Charlotte Lavinia
Charlotte was born at Basingstoke, Surrey on 6th
April 1828 and married35
Daniel Lionel Mackinnon on 12th
August 1847 at Lyme Regis in Dorset. A internet
posted story by Paul Tritton relates the
following; “A long, high wall of brick and
Kentish ragstone at the top of Tovil Hill
conceals from the view of most passers-by the
site of one of Maidstone’s ‘lost mansions’,
where a woman who was widowed during the Crimean
War lived in style with a retinue of servants
for more than 40 years. After she died, her
house was demolished to make way for Tovil
Working Men’s Club, which thrives there to this
day.
In
1847, Charlotte married Captain Daniel Roger
Lionel Mackinnon of the Coldstream Guards. They
lived at Marsh Farmhouse, Twickenham, and had a
daughter, Ada Emma, and two sons, Lionel Dudley
and Ernest George St Leger; but all hope of
raising a large family and enjoying a long and
happy marriage came to an end after Mackinnon
was posted to the Crimea. In November 1854, he
was among 92 soldiers of the Coldstream Guards
who were killed when 30,000 Russian soldiers
overwhelmed the British forces in the Battle of
Inkerman.
Charlotte was well provided for in Mackinnon’s
will but had to start a new life with her three
children, all under five years old. She moved to
Tovil Court, overlooking the industrialised area
of the Loose and Medway Valleys but standing in
a 16 acre estate comprising gardens, paddocks
and a lake encompassed by Woodlandss walks.
In
the 1861 census, Charlotte was described as a
‘fund holder’. Her unmarried sister, Julia, aged
37, was staying at Tovil Court at the time the
enumerator called. The family was outnumbered by
Charlotte’s servants in residence, consisting of
George Field (butler), Susannah Field
(housekeeper), Eleanor Dixon (lady’s maid),
Eliza Thompson (housemaid), Hannah Chapman
(kitchen maid), Robert Peale (page) and Pessita
Emery, the children’s Swiss governess.
Curiously, no cook was living with them so
perhaps cooking was part of Susannah’s job. In
the grounds were Lodge House, the home of her
gardener William (whose surname is illegible in
the census return) and The Coach House, occupied
by coachman James Stocker, his wife Harriet and
their children Sophia, Elizabeth, Eliza and
Henry.
On
census day in 1871, Lionel, who was by now 20
years old, was away, probably having joined the
Coldstreams, in which he would become a
lieutenant colonel. Ada and Ernest were no
longer scholars, so their governess had left
Tovil Court. Thomas Teesdale and Susannah King
had taken over as butler and housekeeper,
Marshall Eagles had been appointed footman,
Elsie Webber was Charlotte’s personal maid, and
Alice Prime and Eliza Burn were the house and
kitchen maids. Lodge House was now the home of
‘domestic gardener’ Thomas Fitness, his wife
Sarah, and their children Edith, Blanch and
Arthur; and the Stockers were still living in
The Coach House.
In
May 1871, Charlotte experienced another tragedy
in her life when her son Ernest died, aged only
19. Charlotte and her children were away from
home when the 1881 census was taken but the
house still had its full complement of servants,
though there had been a complete turnover of
staff. Edward (surname illegible) was now the
butler, with Eliza Gurney (housekeeper),
Catherine Ondy or Ongly (housemaid), Elizabeth
Saunders (kitchen maid), Thomas Holland
(footman) and James May (groom). William Beale
and his family were living at the Lodge House
and coachman James Stocker was still at The
Coach House, having completed 20 or more years’
service. Lionel Mackinnon had married and was
living with his wife Elizabeth at Ash, near
Farnham, Surrey.
In
1891, Charlotte’s spinster daughter Ada, now 42,
was present on census night and had probably
become a permanent resident. Charlotte’s butler
was either away or his situation was vacant but
there were still enough servants around to cater
for her every need – Elizabeth Mary Vowles
(housekeeper), Charlotte Cox (lady’s maid),
Thomas George Phillips (footman), Alfred Bridges
(groom), Emily Henham (housemaid) and Florence
Gyles (kitchen maid). James Stocker, now a
72-year-old widower and Charlotte’s
longest-serving and oldest retainer, was living
at The Coach House with his unmarried daughter,
Annie, a dressmaker; and Lodge House had become
the home of a new gardener, William Horace
Martin, his wife Sarah, and children Linda,
Edith and William.
The 1901 census, the latest available, suggests
that Charlotte’s wealth and her need for
servants in every quarter of her house and
estate had not diminished. She was registered as
‘living on her own means’ and had three grand
children living with her: Lionel Neil Alexander
(16), Sheila Helen (14) and Olive Mary (13). The
presence of Fraulein Kepler, ‘governess, born
Germany, British subject’ and Elizabeth Hill
(schoolroom maid) suggests that the children
were enjoying a long stay at Tovil Court. Yet
another turnover of servants had occurred and
Emily Henham was the only one who had been on
the staff ten years earlier. Now, the house was
being run by Horace Pattenden (butler),
Elizabeth Fatham (housekeeper), Lillian Haines
(lady’s maid), Annie Satheridge (kitchen maid)
and Thomas Hammond (footman). Alfred Browning
was living in the Coach House with his wife
Elizabeth and children Daisy, Florence and
Arthur; and their neighbours at The Lodge were
George Simmons, head gardener, his wife Susan
and their children Frank and Edith.
An
era in the annals of Maidstone’s upper classes
came to an end on December 14, 1902, when
Charlotte died, aged 75. She had, we may assume,
made the best of her life during her long
widowhood, thanks to having so many servants to
take care of her and several members of her
family to keep her company at various times.
Her obituary in the Kent Messenger praised her
‘benevolent disposition’ and said ‘there was
scarcely any good work carried on in the
neighbourhood which did not benefit by her
generosity. This was especially so with the
parochial agencies at Tovil, the extension of
the infants’ school being a case in point. To
the widows of the poor of the parish she was a
great benefactor, especially at Christmas’.
Charlotte’s funeral service was held at St
Stephen’s Church, Tovil, followed by interment
at Maidstone Borough Cemetery. If the list of
mourners published in the Kent Messenger is
accurate her daughter Ada, who was living 14
at
Tovil Court in 1902, was not present, though
many relatives and friends, as well as the
servants from Tovil Court, were there.
Charlotte’s estate had a gross value of £24,174,
equivalent to between £1.5 million and £3.4
million in today’s money, depending on how the
indices comparing prices and values over the
past 100 years are interpreted. Her son, Lt. Col
(retired) Lionel Dudley Mackinnon and Ada were
the main beneficiaries but Ada died in London in
1905 and Lionel was killed in action in the
Great War in November 1915.
In
1914 permission was sought to erect a tablet in
memory of Charlotte in St Stephen’s Church. The
church became redundant and was demolished in
1987. No one seems to know what became of
Charlotte’s tablet.
Sometime after 1902, the grounds of Tovil Court
became Maidstone’s first Zoological Gardens,
with 250 specimens of lions, leopards, bears,
hyenas and other animals; enclosures of
reptiles; and collections of feathered species
such as parrots, pheasants and ostriches. Then,
in 1916, Tovil Court and its estate were bought
by Albert Edwin Reed, who had founded his
papermaking empire at nearby Tovil mills in
1894. Most of his employees belonged to Tovil
Working Men’s Club, which opened in Church
Street in 1888. About 500 men from Reed’s mills
in Tovil and elsewhere in Kent fought in the
First World War and 59 of them lost their lives.
To
commemorate their sacrifice, Reed built a new HQ
for the club, the Tovil Memorial Institute, on
the site of Tovil Court, at a cost of £5,000.”
Tovil Court, photographed by Sir Garrard
Tyrwhitt-Drake, twelve times Mayor of Maidstone.
This was one of about 800 historic photographs
featured in Maidstone Museum and Maidstone
Camera Club’s recent exhibition, Out of the
Shadow, Into the Light. Reproduced courtesy of
Maidstone Museum & Bentlif Art Gallery.
The
graves of Ernest George St Leger and Charlotte
Lavinia Mackinnon in Maidstone Borough Cemetery.
Rosamund St. Leger Shirley Rosamund was born on
13th
December 1829 at Molesey-Hurst House, Molesey,
Surrey36,
the youngest daughter of Sir Dudley St Leger
Hill and Caroline Drury Hunter. She married
Lieutenant Jonas Hamilton Travers, from
Timoleague Co Cork serving with the 3rd
Light Dragoons, on 26th
January 185037 at
Ambala in India, when her father was serving
there. Jonas died on 18th
May 1850. She then married Horace Newman
Travers, the 7th
son of Sir Robert Travers, at Timoleague Co Cork
on 2nd
June 185338.
Source: Rodney Kerr c.2010
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