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A Corner Plot in Walmer, its Inhabitants and the Butchers
This particular piece of research was prompted by the finding of the 1849 Sales Particulars for a corner plot in Walmer. This plot was being sold by John West the butcher whose premises still stands in Upper Walmer on the road we know today as Dover Road.
We believe that the butcher’s shop can be traced back to at least early 1800 as, in 1812, it was advertised for sale as a ‘Tenement and Butcher Shop with a Slaughter-house, Yard, Land and Stable’ by butcher George Janeway. He had decided to return to the Folkestone area to take up farming.
Using the names and details given on the Sales Particulars we looked into the people who would have lived on the corner plot and what happened to that plot after its sale until the coming of the railway in 1881.
The Butchers and their Families
George Janeway
Born in Hothfield in 1782 George, the butcher, was the son of George and Elizabeth nee Millen. The senior George became the innkeeper of the Folkestone Arms on Folkestone’s old High Street. His wife Elizabeth was from Westwell and in his will dated 1809 he left land situated there, perhaps inherited by Elizabeth, to his eldest son George along with a further £200. His other two son’s William and James were also bequeathed £200 and £300 respectively. There was £1,000 held in stock and the interest from them which was to go to his wife. George senior then, was quite a wealthy man.
George junior was apprenticed to a Folkestone Butcher, James Tappley, in 1799. In 1808 he married Mary Jane Hornby in St. Leonard’s Shoreditch. The marriage register and the licence, by which they married, states George was a bachelor from Walmer. So it seems that he already had an establishment in Walmer and, most likely,either before or just after his marriage, he moved into the cottage with the butcher’s shop next door, with its adjoining yard and slaughterhouse.
After their marriage and return to Walmer, George continued in the butchery business and Mary Jane gave birth to their two children, George, in 1809 and Elizabeth in 1811. By 1812 George had decided to leave Walmer whereupon he put their house and Butchery business up for sale.
Thomas Pain may then have purchased the cottage and butchers shop and then leased both to butchers John West and William Hinds. How each of them raised the funds to do so is not clear. Though they both may have inherited from their respective parents. Unfortunately it is unclear who this Thomas Pain is.
William Hinds
William was the son of William Hinds and his wife Hannah Mummery who had married in Margate in 1770. William senior was a victualler by trade and in around 1781 he moved his young family to Deal where he took over the licence for the Rose on Deal’s Lower Street.
In 1785 he became a Freeman of Deal enabling him not only to trade in Deal but to vote in the municipal elections. In the 1792 directory for Deal he is listed as “Hinds, Victualler and Town Sergeant.” He died in 1801 and his burial entry for St. George’s Chapel also tells us he was Clerk of the Chapel.
William Hinds junior was born in 1788 so at the time of his father’s death we can assume that he was already apprenticed to a Butcher but who or where we have not been able to ascertain.
John West and His Family
John West was the son of Mariner Richard West and his wife Elizabeth Gammon. Richard sadly died five months after John’s birth, leaving Elizabeth with four very young children to care for. However, Richard left her well provided for with rents from leasehold properties in Deal to support herself and their children. Just after Richard’s death Elizabeth took out a lease, from the Archbishop of Canterbury’s estate, on a property in the area of Deal known as the Slade which lay between Alfred Square and Sandown Castle. Elizabeth died in 1807 leaving £200 which was to be, according to her husband’s will, equally divided between the surviving children when they attained the age of twenty-one. Her eldest daughter Sarah had married William Elvery in 1806 with her great uncle Isaac Gammon the former Mayor of Deal and Dorothy Tapley as witnesses to the marriage. Isaac Gammon laid the foundation stone for the ‘new’ Town Hall in 1803 and Dorothy was soon to become the second wife of, perhaps Deal’s best known boatbuilder, Thomas Hayward. Sarah Elvery was named as administrator to her mothers will. As William Elvery was a butcher John may well have served his apprenticeship with him.
John reached the age of twenty-one in July 1812 and so would have been able to access his inheritance, perhaps giving him at least enough to jointly purchase the business with William Hinds. We don’t know what agreement was made between the two men and it may always have been the intention that John would buy out William once he had earnt enough. Whatever was agreed by April 1816 the pair had decided to dissolve their partnership. William moved to what is today 49 The Strand, right next door to the Lifeboat Public House, then called the Lord Nelson.
William had married Sarah Strachan in June 1812 so perhaps the proposed marriage of John and Sophia had led to the decision to dissolve the partnership which may not have been able to support two families.
Sophia Maxted
Two weeks later on April 29, 1816, John West married Sophia Maxted. Sophia was the daughter of the wealthy brickmaker and builder, Henry Maxted. Three of Sophia’s sisters married bricklayers or builders; one at least, William Denne, who married Mary Maxted, was apprenticed to Henry. Another sister, Elizabeth married grocer John Ansell whose shop and home was on the other side of Broad Lane.
Sophia was born in Walmer in 1793 and, as we have said, she married John West in 1816; the couple then had four children Richard Gammon born 1817, John Maxted in 1818, Henry Pullen in 1820 and in 1822 George Whitehead. Sophia was not to see her son’s grow up as in February 1824 she died.
Richard Gammon West
Richard Gammon, Gammon after his grandmother’s family, was born in 1817. He became a butcher but when he married Eliza Ansell in 1841 they moved to Walmer’s Castle Street and started a Lodging House. By 1849, they were in financial difficulty and filed for bankruptcy. In 1851 they were still taking in lodgers one of whom was the then Curate of Walmer David Bruce Payne. Then in 1856 Richard Gammon died leaving Eliza to support herself which she did by moving to Beach Street, Deal setting up as a Stationer and Lodging House Keeper. She never remarried and died childless in 1879.
John Maxted West
John Maxted, Maxted after his mother’s family, was born in 1818 and also became a butcher. In 1844 he married Mary Jannett Durston and moved to Prospect Place, Deal where he died in 1850. They too were childless. Following her fathers death, in 1852, Mary Jannett moved to London where her father had property. In 1853 she married Draper, Thomas White.
Henry Pullen West
Henry Pullen, born in 1820, became a Captain in the Merchant Service. He married Sarah Townsend in Stepney 1843. By 1847 the couple had moved back to Walmer where in April 1847 Henry Pullen died of consumption. Sarah had died in January so it is quite possible that she too died of the same disease.
George Whitehead West
George Whitehead, was born in 1822, he joined the East India Company serving in the Bombay Army as a Lieutenant in the 21st Regiment of the Native Infantry. While in Bombay in 1842 he married Mary Sheanan, a young widow. Richard died in 1852 in Bombay but it is unclear what happened to Mary or if they had any children. It seems though that in 1847 George had a son, possibly illegitimate, who was baptised in Bombay but again we don’t know what happened to him.
The 1849 Sales Particulars includes four cottages on the corner of High Street (Dover Road) and Broad Lane (Station Road) . Frustratingly there do not appear to be any surviving records to tell us when or by whom they were built. There is a note, perhaps written by Morris Langley the auctioneer when the estate was sold at the Drum Inn, which reads ‘House built by John West 1829-1849’
It is quite possible that Henry Maxted built all four, whether as an outright gift to his daughter and son inlaw or as a business transaction between them.
With the means available to them Sophia and John may well have employed help in the home and with the children. John would have needed help when Sophia’s death left him with a business to run and four young children to care for in 1824, the eldest being seven years old and the youngest just two.
Certainly in February 1833 after John had married Martha Long he advertised for a ‘Respectable Female Servant’ the Kentish Gazette.
It is quite possible that Martha had been employed by John to help in the house and with his children or that she was a close family friend before their somewhat hasty marriage in July 1830; their first child Sophia Long West was baptised in November 1830! Two sons followed in quick succession, William Rain in 1833 and in 1835 Charles Taddy.
In 1849 John took the decision to move on to The Strand in Walmer to a shop, with premises above. It was just two doors away from the newly built St. Saviours Church, which John and Messrs Ansell had jointly donated £25 towards its building. The move made financial sense as there would be more trade opportunities on The Strand than in what was really the small village of Upper Walmer.
Sophia Long West
Sophia Long, Long from her mother’s family name, was born in 1831. We know that in 1851 she was visiting Caroline Cook who is listed, in that year’s census, as a butcher employing two men in Bethnal Green, London. Caroline was the wife of butcher Robert Cook. It is not clear how the women knew each other, or even if they were more than just acquaintances. Being a butcher Robert may have had some connection with Sophia’s father or as tradesmen, pilots and mariners from Deal often visiting London for business, it may be through them that they met.
Cinque Ports Pilot, James Henry Bingham from Ringwould had been widowed in 1858, married Sophia in 1860, afterwards setting up home in Deal’s new Park Street at number 7 where they remained until James Henry died in 1889. Sophia died in 1912 and was buried alongside her husband in Kingsdown.
William Rain West
William, born in 1833, married a Pilot’s daughter, Mary Ann Horlock in Bow, London in 1862. Returning to Walmer where he continued as a Master Butcher and in business with his father on The Strand. Apart from a brief period in the 1870s, when he moved further up the Strand, William and his family lived above the Butchers shop which still stands and is now Colebrook & Sturrock, 17 The Strand. His son Frederick carried on the business until sometime before the 1921 census was taken when he became a Clerk in the General Steam Navigation Company in Sussex.
Charles Taddy West
Born in 1835, Charles Taddy was probably named after Charles Taddy Hatfield, one time Church Warden and wealthy occupant of Walmer Court. Charles Taddy West also became a butcher and in October 1870, while still working in the family business on The Strand, Charles and his brother William were fined for ‘unjust scales’
Charles by then had married Charlotte Cooke and was living opposite the Walmer Barracks., In 1875 Charles borrowed £10 from his father to set up on his own, moving into Deal to 4 Broad Street. A year later Charlotte died. For a time Charles continued to run a successful business but competition from wholesale butchers encroached; he fell into debt and by 1888 he was in trouble. At this point he borrowed £30 from a London bank who demanded 100% in interest! In 1896 he married Rosetta Willmoth. After filing for Bankruptcy in 1898 he was £200 in debt. Soon after this Charles moved his family to Ramsgate where he continued to trade as a butcher with his son and namesake caring on the business after his death in 1913.
People of the Corner Plot
Lot 1
William Bowman
Cordwainer William Bowman was originally from Great-Mongeham where he married his wife Mary Mercer in 1837. By 1841 they were living and working in Lot 1, but by 1849 they had moved to The Strand, Walmer just a few doors down from John West’s former partner William Hinds. In 1861 William and his family were living and working in Buckland, Dover before returning to Walmer where he died in 1878.
Mrs. Caroline Minter
Caroline was the daughter of carpenter and builder, James Ansell and his wife Susannah Warden. She married plumber and painter Henry William Minter in August 1838 and settled to married life in Ash. Their married life was to be short lived as Henry died in February 1841 and Caroline, now a twenty-eight year old widow, probably moved into Walmer soon after. Her uncle, John Ansell, brother in law to John West, was already living and trading at the top of Broad Lane, as a Grocer and Tailor, when she set up her linen drapers shop on the High Street. The 1849 Sales Particulars describe the premises as a ‘Messuage or Tenement’ with a yard, kitchen, detached wash-house and with a rainwater tank. Caroline was to remain in her linen, or haberdashers, shop following the sale of the premises and, possibly to supplement her income, she also worked as a schoolmistress. Caroline died in July 1851.
Lot 2
Elizabeth Karney
Elizabeth was the daughter of John and Mary Lamprey of Maidstone. She married Gilbert Karney in 1793 when he was probably a merchant who traded in London and who, either retired to Walmer or maybe even moved there during the prosperous Napoleonic War years. Whichever the case Gilbert died in 1836 leaving Elizabeth well provided for and in the financial care of their son Gilbert John Karney. Elizabeth during her widowhood was to receive £250 a year paid half yearly in January and July. The witnesses to Gilbert’s will were John West and John Ansell. Elizabeth was to remain in her Walmer home until she died in 1842 after which John Bullock took over the tenancy
John Bullock
John Brittenden Bullock was an agricultural labourer who was born in Knowlton in 1817. In July 1849 he married Bennett Allen, the widow of Edward Allen. Bennett had, by 1841, been a widow for two years and was living with her four children all under six years old, supporting them all by taking in washing. In July 1849, just before John West put his corner plot property up for sale, she married John Brittenden Bullock. They remained with her children and their own son in Lot 2b until at least 1857 when Bennett died. John then married Hannah Gardener Ashington in 1860 and was living in Hougham by 1861 where they both died in 1862.
Lot 2
William Allen
William was also an agricultural labourer. He was born in Walmer where in 1830 he married Ann Goodchild and the couple settled to live in Walmer where they raised their seven children. Tragically on the morning of February 2 1854 William was found hanging lifeless in the stable owned by John Knot, which was situated further up today’s Dover Road, towards Deal. Ann remained in Walmer where she took in laundry. She remained a widow for the rest of her life and died in 1891.
Lot 3
Daniel Bailey
Daniel was another agricultural labourer. He was born, Northbourne in 1774. In 1798 he married Mary Farnes Walmer but set up home in her home parish of Ringwould where they were still living in 1841. By the time John West was selling this Walmer corner plot, Daniel and Mary were living in Lot 3. Daniel is recorded on the census as a ‘Pauper Farm Servant’ and Mary a Char-woman. Daniel died somewhere in Walmer in July 1855 and was buried in Ringwould Church alongside Mary who had died that May.
Thomas White
Thomas White was born in Canterbury in 1823. It may have been in Dover that Thomas served his apprenticeship as he married Margaret Johnson there, a Pilot’s daughter, in 1846. He seems to have entered into the employ if not some sort of partnership with John West soon afterwards as the Sales Particulars for the corner plot tells us that he and John West have the ‘occupation of’ Lot 4~ The Barn, Lot 5~The Slaughterhouse and Lot 6 ~The Stable and Yard. He was also living in Lot 3 in 1849 the property that John West had built, according to the Sales Particulars between 1829 and 1849. After the sale of his cottage he moved into the property vacated by John West and took over the running of the butchers until it was taken over by John William Webb in around 1861.
Lots 1, 2 and 3 as well as the Slaughter House (Lot 5) all shared the right of way into Walmer (High) Street and the well that was situated there. They also had to share the expense of any repairs that may have been required.
Lot 6
Above John West’s Stables
Thomas Shrubsole and James Dear were living above John West’s Stables (Lot 6), in 1841. Both Journeymen Butchers. Thomas by 1851 had moved in with the family of Thomas White who had taken over the Butchery business from John West in 1849.
By 1867 it seems that Thomas Shrubsole had moved to the employ of Frederick Chapman the beer retailer of the Cinque Ports Volunteers Beerhouse on Dover Road. In 1867, Thomas for whatever reason, found himself in Camberwell where he died. He was then returned and buried in the church of his baptism, St. Augustines, Northbourne.
James Dear
Of James Dear we know little. He could be the Journeyman Butcher who became insolvent in Charing in 1857 but beyond this we can not find anything that could say with any certainty who he was or where he came from.
James Fearnley
James Fearnley Esq. purchased, for £369,00, Lots 3,4,7 & 8. Those being the house that John West had built, the Barn that fronted onto Broad Lane and the two gardens with orchards, sold as Building Ground, abutting to Broad Lane.
James was originally from Westminster and had married Dinah Mesnard in 1809 by which time he was making his living as a Coal merchant and a Corn Dealer. In 1841 he was living in Lewisham and perhaps was then looking for an investment and retirement by the sea. We know that he lived in Upper Deal, quite near to the Magnet Public House. Both he and Dinah are buried in St. Leonard’s Churchyard. According to James’ Will the trustees, in 1876, sold the Walmer Lots he had purchased in 1849 of which he subsequently leased to Mr. Knight and Mr. Webb.
Mr. Webb was butcher John William Webb who was born in Dover in 1836. In 1859 he married Martha Ellen Ricketts of Deal. They then moved to Hastings where a year later their first child was born. By 1861 the couple had taken over the butcher’s business from Thomas White, formerly owned by John West.
John Webb was to become an active member of the Walmer Local Board
The Coming of the Railway
The construction of a railway line, by the Deal and Dover Railway Company, connecting Walmer to both Deal and Dover was granted by an Act of Parliament in 1865, with extensions to Chatham and London. It was not until a second Act of Parliament was granted in 1874 that real movement for a station at Walmer began. This Act consolidated all other Acts to enable land purchases and the sale of shares to be made plus the involvement of a second construction company, the South-eastern and London Chatham Company. But several hurdles had to be overcome before the 1874 Act was enacted.
In July 1873 there was a public meeting, held at the Queens Head on The Strand, Walmer (now the Royal Marines Association Club), to discuss the recent Bill presented to Parliament for a railway line to be built between Deal and Dover to connect with Chatham and London. The House of Commons passed the Bill but the House of Lords did not. The meeting being held at Walmer was to discuss the proposal asking for the Bill to be reconsidered.
Walmer by this time had what they described as ‘…no easy communication with Dover or convenient access to London…’ This ‘communication’ with the larger towns and cities it was suggested would make it easier to supply Walmer with food, coal and even the troops based at the Barracks.
The Bill was reconsidered and The Dover and Deal Railway Act 1874, gained Royal Assent on June 30 1874. A station, it was decided, would be built at Walmer at the bottom of Broad Lane (Station Road) and by 1879 the building of the railway and Walmer Station were progressing but it was obvious that the top of Broad Lane would need to be widened and straightened to aid the flow of traffic to and from the station.
Road Widening
The widening would directly affect the corner plot. The proposal was to purchase all the cottages, sold as Lot 1 and 2 in 1849, now in the ownership of a Mrs. Ansell, but which Mrs. Ansell is not known, and the cottage, sold as Lot 3 now owned by John Webb, plus other pieces of land to widen and straighten the road.
James Fearnley’s estate had gone up for sale in 1876 so John Webb had only recently purchased the cottage then occupied by Mr. Knight and the meadow land (Lot 8), which until then he had been leasing from James Fearnley. A piece of Thomas Golds’s front garden was also required on the opposite side of the road where he was living and trading as a grocer and tailor.
Mr. Knight
Jack Knight was a labourer originally from Ringwould where he was born the son of William and Sarah and baptised as Jack Ellenden in 1828. Following the sale of his home for road widening he moved with his family to Mongeham. He may have moved again, following whatever work he could get, as he died in Dover in 1889.
Thomas Golds
Henry Ansell and his brother William took over their father John’s Grocers and Drapery business. When Henry died and William retired, Thomas Golds took over that business. Thomas was born in 1840 and was originally from Shipley in Sussex where his father William Nye Golds, was a farmer. He married Jane Frances Hales in her home town of Kettering in Northamptonshire where her father was a butcher, though he also says he was a farmer. Where or how they met we don’t know but they soon returned to Sussex where Thomas set up in the grocery business. They moved to Walmer by 1871 and continued to ply their trade as grocers and drapers, perhaps employing someone to run the latter. By 1891 they retired, moving further along Dover Road, where they died in the 1920s.
In the end Mrs. Ansell’s three cottages were purchased for a total of £650 and the property and land then owned by John Webb for a further £350.
In March 1881 after meeting with Mr. Frederick Leith, who owned a great deal of property and land in the Walmer area, it was agreed that he would give Walmer Local Board the required ground for road widening purposes, Thomas Golds had already offered £150 to the Board, on the condition that they leave him a four foot frontage to the front of his house. These offers along with the hundred guineas from the Dover and Deal Company, the £150 each from John Webb and the Walmer Brewery owner, John Matthews, plus another joint offer of £25 from three other gentlemen, it was decided the work could now be carried out. So it was that in May 1881 all legal documentation was signed and work began.
The butcher’s shop and the adjoining house once occupied by John West, still stands and through successive owners has continued to supply the people of Walmer with fresh meat.
John West
Thomas White
John William Webb
Henry Sackville Pickard
Graham Johns
Dean Goodchild
Sources and further reading:
Newspaper image © The British Library Board. All rights reserved.
With thanks to The British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk)
1843 Tithe Map and Tithe Schedule
OS Maps
1849 Sales Particulars Kent Archives EK/U924/P9/8
Railway Act 1865 Deal Museum Archive R/2/5
Railway Act 1874
London and County Directory 1811
The Old Pubs of Deal & Walmer by Steve Glover and Michael Rogers.