MARTIN, Joseph
MARTIN, JosephAbout 1740 – 1777 Joseph Martin was born about 1740 and married Elizabeth Winder in October 1763. Described as a gentleman from Downe they moved to Hayes Grove in 1773. Their son Joseph William was born 9 August 1776 and baptised in Hayes Church. Joseph was keen to extend the grounds of his new house and he was granted permission to enclose about one acre of Hayes Common which bordered his shrubbery and garden. Charles Kadwell said that here he planted the avenue of lime trees, some of which survive today. He died at the young age of 36 on 8 April 1777 leaving his widow his estate which in addition to Hayes Grove included three crofts and annuities worth £5700. His widow Elizabeth remarried first William Pickard and then Edward Robinson. His son Joseph William Martin was ordained in 1800 and became Rector of Keston where he died 12 November 1858.
COX, Katherine Amy
COX, Katherine Amyabt.1881 – 10 July 1967Founder of Hayes Court School Katherine Cox was ten years old when her father John Cox became Professor of Physics at McGill University,Montreal, in 1891 and the family moved to Canada. School in Montreal was followed by two years at St Leonard’s School, St Andrews and then she went to Radcliffe, the women’s college attached to Harvard University. After gaining her MA degree in Philosophy at McGill University and teaching at a private school in Boston she returned to England when her father decided to retire. With the help of her maternal uncle, Arthur Bulley, she was able in 1919 to set up, at the age of 39, an exclusive boarding school at Hayes Court, Hayes. Pupils have recalled her as rather eccentric, ‘tall, angular rather than graceful, she paddles along on low-heeled pumps, dressed in loose, loudly checked clothes’. She was memorable and also elegant. In the early years of the school she was nicknamed Coxy and in the last years she was spoken as Cockle. She was ahead of her time in her approach to education and, although she emphasised the importance of routine and basic discipline, scope was allowed for the development of the pupils’ individual gifts and interests. On the fringe of the ‘Bloomsbury Set’, Katherine Cox was able to encourage artists, actors and musicians to Hayes Court. Virginia Woolf discussed ‘How should we read a book?’ The Mohawk Indian Chief Oskenonton talked about Indian customs and traditions, Roger Fry spoke about art and Segovia played the guitar. Trips were made to London to listen to Yehudi Menuhin playing a Beethoven violin concerto or Myra Hess giving a piano recital. The young Alec Guinness directed the school’s performance of ‘Merchant of Venice’ and John Gielgud gave guidance to the VIth form on their play ‘Uncle Vanya’. Perhaps the event that shows Miss Cox’s more enlightened approach, was that on hot evenings the girls were allowed to drag their mattresses downstairs and sleep in the open, although they had to keep their dormitory order. Many of the pupils went on to distinguish themselves academically including Ruth Cohen who became an economist and Principal of Newnham College, Cambridge, Betty Behrens was a fellow and tutor of Newnham, while Kate Bertram (née Ricardo) became part of the 1930s ‘Cambridge school’ of biologists and later became President of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge. Honor Croome became an economist, Hildegard Himmelweit (née Litthauer), a university teacher and social psychologist, Joanna Kelley (née Beadon) a prison administrator and Margaret Amy Pyke (née Chubb) was a campaigner for family planning and secretary of the National Birth Control Council. The beautiful gardens, tended by Percy Jones, who lived at Redgate Cottage, were an inspiration for many pupils. Valerie Finnis, who died in 2006, was encouraged to follow a horticultural career and became one of the few people to hold the Victoria Medal of the Royal Horticultural Society. In September 1939 with the outbreak of war many parents said that unless the school could transfer to a safer area their daughters would not be sent back. Air raids were expected and children were being evacuated from London. Attempts were made to join Gordonstoun School, which moved to Wales. These failed and coupled with an increasingly difficult financial situation the school closed and Miss Cox later settled in Cambridge. As a former pupil wrote, ‘I think the loss of her school broke her heart…I have sometimes thought it was impossible for her to imagine that any harm could come to her beloved Hayes, and when she realised what was happening, it was too late.’ Information on Hayes Court School from Elizabeth Belsey and Roma Goyder, Hayseed to Harvest, 1985 Katherine Cox, Hayes Court School
PRESTON, Reuben Thomas
Preston, Reuben Thomas19 November 1846 – 9 January 1913Engineer Reuben was a senior director of Messrs J Stone and Co Ltd, an engineering company in Dartford. He and his wife Frances Margaret (1840-1920) moved to Hayes Court with its 23 rooms in 1894. It was ideal for his large family although some had already left home. Between 1898 and 1900 four of his sons and daughters were married in Hayes Church. The first wedding took place on 29th December 1898 when their eldest daughter Margaret Alice married Revd William Hamilton who lived in Chelsea. A week later her younger sister, 26 year old Frances, married Horace Pitman a schoolmaster from Blackheath. The following year her 24 year old brother Walter, who became an MP, married Ella Morris the daughter of Huson Morris, a stockbroker, who also lived in Hayes. The last daughter to marry was Evelyn whose wedding took place on July 31st 1900 to Revd Aubrey Aitken. Reuben and Frances’s sons George and Arthur both went into the ministry and Arthur later became Bishop of Woolwich. By 1901 Reuben and Frances lived at Hayes Court just with their servants. Reuben was away when the 1911 Census was recorded but Frances, to whom he had been married for 44 years, was at home with a cook, three parlourmaids and a between-maid to look after the 28 rooms of Hayes Court. Reuben suffered from ill health for about 18 months before he died at the age of 66 in 1913. People remembered his charity which ‘was far reaching and unbounded and many poor people have lost a friend who they revered’. Although he did not take a prominent pat in the affairs of the village he gave a helping hand to many of the local organisations and was chiefly responsible for the establishment of the Hayes Rifle Range. His widow, Frances Margaret Preston, remained at Hayes Court but during the first world war she moved to stay with her youngest daughter Louise who had married Wilfrid Hawkings and lived at Greenways on the border of Hayes Common. Like her husband she was known for her generous nature. Her funeral service was conducted by the Rector Revd H P Thompson and her two sons George and Arthur. She was buried beside her husband in a grave situated close to the Hambro Memorial.
NORMAN Frederick Henry
NORMAN, Frederick Henry23 January 1839 – 6 October 1916Banker In November 1870 Frederick Henry Norman, a partner and later director of Martin’s Bank, married Lina Susan Penelope Collett who was born in 1850. She was the daughter of Mark Wilks Collet, a banker with Brown Shipley who lived in Croydon and later was a governor of the Bank of England. Their son Montagu Collet was born the following year, Ronald in November 1873 and Gertrude in 1877 shortly before Frederick took over the lease of Hayes Court. With his young family he arrived at Hayes Court in 1878, an area well known to him as he was born and had lived at the family home on Bromley Common. In 1881 Emily Dagg was the governess of his children. Montagu was the first son to leave home and go to Eton School in 1884. Montagu would later became one of the outstanding governors of the Bank of England advising on the great economic crisis of the 1930s. His brother Ronald chaired the BBC in the 1920s and Gertrude married a Scottish landowner. Their early childhood, however, was spent at Hayes Court where they were encouraged to enjoy all sports, following the hounds on their ponies and learning to shoot. Frederick was a very keen cricketer who played for England on at least ten occasions and occasionally appeared for Hayes. On 24 August 1877 Hayes had a resounding victory over West Kent mainly due to Henry Norman’s great second wicket partnership with J Robertson when he scored 91 and also caught the last two batsmen off Robertson’s bowling. Keen to encourage his sons he employed as their coach Joseph Wells from Bromley, the father of H G Wells and a professional cricketer. By 1887 Frederick wanted to find a more substantial house and unable to find one locally he moved to Moor Place in Hertfordshire.
STRONG, Clement & Catherine
STRONG, Clement & Catherine BridgetAbt. 1793 – 1852 1794 – 1870Clergyman Revd Clement Strong became a priest in 1816, married Catherine Briscoe who was born in Limpsfield where their children were born in the 1820s. They had connections with the Norman family of Bromley Common and took the lease of Hayes Common House (Hayes Court) in 1851. Soon afterwards Clement died but his widow Catherine remained. She made a large contribution of £200 to the building of the north aisle of Hayes Parish Church in 1856 and also was one of ‘the gentry’ who contributed to the splendid East Window commissioned in 1856 in memory of George Herman Norman, the son of George Warde Norman, who was killed in the Crimean War. In 1861 her unmarried son Leonard and daughter Clare lived with her and she had 7 servants. Ann Rules, aged 78, a nurse, was an old family retainer. Her butler William Ford was younger but sadly three years later committed suicide by shooting himself whilst in one of the shrubberies at Hayes Court. Catherine also contributed £150 towards the rebuilding of the church tower and spire whose architect was George Gilbert Scott. On 22 March 1867 she took out a new lease with Lady Maria Pilkington (the owner of the property) for Hayes Common House (Hayes Court) at a rent of £200 a year. It was agreed that there would be six months notice and the building would be insured for £3500. She continued to live there until her death three years later.
GIBBS, Frances, née Mackenzie
Gibbs, Frances Cerjat Kenneth, née Mackenzie1754 – 1 May 1843 Frances Mackenzie married Vicary Gibbs in 1784 and their only daughter Maria was born the following year. They had a London home in Bloomsbury Square but set up a country residence in Hayes by 1790 and moved to Hayes Court in 1797. As her husband’s career advanced the responsibility for the running of the household and entertainment fell more and more on her shoulders. She was also keen to improve the accommodation and additions were made, particularly from 1803 when she took charge of her sister Helen’s children after their mother died. From 1809 she became their sole guardian, a role which bought her both pain and pleasure. In future years her eldest niece Marianne became her constant companion and her nephew Charles inherited Castle Fraser in Scotland from where he would send her gifts of grouse and venison. However, his military career caused her considerable worry, especially after the siege of Burgos 1812 where he was shot in the knee and subsequently had his leg amputated. Lady Gibbs made special arrangements to accommodate him and his man servant Phillips when they first returned to Hayes Court, ensuring that they had the use of rooms on the ground floor. While Marianne and Charles turned out to be gifted, intelligent and hardworking the other two children Helen and Frederick were wild and extravagant causing their aunt considerable worry. She also had to cope with a very irritable husband particularly when he was involved in politics and after he became Attorney General under the Portland Government. She was politically astute and correspondence from the time asks for her view on the political scene ‘as she is a great politician.’ In 1810 she was very anxious when her husband faced the Bristol Rioters before the opening of the Assizes where placards appeared everywhere saying ‘No Gibbs, Down with Gibbs’. Once he had returned to being a judge there was a distinct change in his demeanour Writing to her nephew Charles: ‘You will be surprised at the great improvements the Judgeship has made to your Uncle. He is become Gay and Lively, and dines like the Gents at six o’clock – quite a different person from the Attorney General —- I expect you will be astonish’d at his amazing agreeabilities’. A disappointment for Frances was that after her daughter’s marriage to Andrew Pilkington she felt that she saw little of her. Her son-in-law had a very successful military career becoming a Lieutenant General and a Knight Commander of the Bath. However, for whatever reason, Maria’s visits were always short and Lady Gibbs referred to him as ‘Maria’s tyrant’. There are two sides in any relationship and there is no doubt that Lady Gibbs was a forthright and determined woman. She even confused the census enumerator in 1841 by using her name Kenneth rather than Frances. In her will she left most of her assets to Maria for her use and not that of her husband’s. It is interesting that Andrew Pilkington, Maria and their two daughters, Maria & Louisa, were all at Hayes Court on census day in 1841. Towards the end of her life Frances wrote, ‘ I am growing very old & lame & deaf ..but my life has been long and as happy as most in this changeful world.’ Although their London property was sold after Sir Vicary’s death she continued to own and look after some 22 acres, her main house and 5 cottages. She bought the old Hayes workhouse when it was no longer required after the setting up of the Bromley Union Workhouse. Hayes Grove was rented out and given to her niece Marianne Fraser for her lifetime. She also took a 99 year lease on a newly erected building on Hayes Common, Woodside Cottage, which she provided for Frances Helen Banks. In her will she left Frances Banks an annuity of £75 and said that she was to live there rent free for the rest of her life. The will, written in 1832, had six codicils by the time of her death in 1843 as various beneficiaries died before her. She was able, however, to leave £30 to her housekeeper Sarah Pring (who died a year later) and £10 for out-pensioners at Chelsea Hospital.She left instructions that there should be no excessive expenditure on her funeral and that the pall bearers should be from her own labourers and parishioners. She wished to be interred in the same vault in Hayes Churchyard as her late husband Vicary Gibbs.
GIBBS, Vicary
27 October 1751 – 8 February 1820Attorney General, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas Vicary Gibbs was called to the bar in 1780 and joined the Western Circuit in 1783. The following year he married Frances Cerjat Kenneth Mackenzie whose father was Major William Mackenzie. Their only daughter Maria was born in November 1785. He steadily rose in the legal profession and Hayes became a rural retreat away from his London property. He made his name as a barrister with the defence of a number of high political cases. There is no doubt about his great skill as a lawyer but his sharp tone earned him the nickname of Vinegar Gibbs, although some of the family’s friends referred to him as ‘Gibberish Vicks’.Arrival in HayesIn 1790 he lodged with his wife, daughter, 3 men and 3 maid servants in the large farmhouse of Lady Farm near Pickhurst Green, Hayes. The farmer at the time was Richard Hutson who also lived there with his daughter, three of his sons and one man servant. Richard Hutson had died by 1793 and Vicary took over all the farmhouse until 1797 when he purchased the house on the Common, later to be known as Hayes Court. He also bought the Nest which he rented out to Mrs Margetson and John Nisbet’s house which he demolished. It had been a boarding school for at least 16 years and in 1798 there were 41 boarders.He incorporated the land into his garden which had already been altered by the agreement to a diversion of a road which he felt was too close to his house. He extended his property in 1798 by exchanging a piece of land he had purchased in the south east of the Parish near Round Oak for 2 acres of the Common. The income from the land which the Parish received was used to support the Parish poor. Vicary Gibbs also helped the poor on a number of occasions. For example, in 1798 he gave £1 10s. 0d.(£1.50) for James Coomber who had lost his eye and was disabled from work and a similar sum in 1803 to provide clothing for Christopher Smith and his nine children. He was one of the five trustees of the Charity School set up in 1791 to whom the Hon. George Legge, commonly called Lord Viscount Lewisham, conveyed the charity school and its grounds. He continued as trustee until his death in 1820 making an annual contribution of £3.3.0 (£3.15). In 1798 it was recorded that there were 15 people in the house including 4 men and 4 maids and Henry Blake a labourer, his wife and one child. Nearby in another house were the gardener John Mackenzie his wife and 5 children. As his career progressed the house was extended several times, particularly after 1804 when the family took responsibility for the children of his sister-in-law Helen who died in 1802 at the age of 34. Her husband Major Alexander Mackenzie Fraser was fighting in the Napoleonic Wars but sadly died in 1809.Vicary bought other properties including the Grove in 1816 which after his death was given for her lifetime to Marianne Fraser, the eldest daughter of Alexander and Helen Mackenzie Fraser. William Pitt, the Prime Minister, arranged for Gibbs to become solicitor-general in 1805 and he was knighted. In 1807 he was made attorney general, a post he held for just over five years. It was this period of his life that the family at Hayes found most trying and there was great rejoicing when he resigned his post to be a judge in the court of common pleas rising to chief justice of the Common Pleas in 1814. Life proceeded more smoothly for the household although he suffered some ill-health and retired in 1818. He had planned some further changes at Hayes Court to its outbuildings when he died in 1820. He was buried in Hayes Churchyard and a very fulsome tribute was made to him by Lord Lyttleton which was recorded on his large memorial on the Chancel Wall. It is now on the North Wall. In every situation he displayed an understanding clear, vigorous, and acute … Charitable without ostentation, kind and affectionate in his domestic relations he lived and died, a firm friend to the Constitution of this Country both in Church and State.
DRUMMOND, Andrew Berkeley
Andrew Berkeley Drummond DRUMMOND, Andrew Berkeley11 September 1755 -1833Banker Andrew Berkeley Drummond was born on 13 September 1755, the eldest son of Robert Drummond and his wife Winifred Thomson. He came from a Scottish banking family, but was brought up in London and educated at Winchester School. In 1781 he married his cousin, Lady Mary Perceval. Her younger brother, Spencer Perceval, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from October 1809 until his assassination in the lobby of the House of Commons in May 1812. It is unclear why Andrew Berkeley Drummond chose to take out fairly short leases on properties in Hayes, but his first lease was in the Pickhurst area which he left in 1784. He then moved to Hayes Court, which was empty in early 1785, and in 1790 Revd John Till recorded living at the property “Alexander Drummond Esq, Lady Mary, 4 men and 3 maids when the family is here, at other times only one maid”. By then, Andrew Drummond had become a partner in the family banking firm, Messrs Drummond. The Bank traded at the sign of the Golden Eagle on the east side of Charing Cross, a residential area favoured by the Scottish gentry in London. Messrs Drummond were highly successful during the last quarter of the eighteenth century, their banking clients included King George III, English and Scottish aristocrats, important architects, artists, composers and craftsmen of the day. King George III dealt directly with Andrew Drummond concerning his finances. Andrew Drummond does not seem to have been involved with taking part in the Vestry or other parish activities and by 1794 the leaseholder at Hayes Court was Revd Edward Lockwood, who may have been related to him. Andrew Drummond moved away from Hayes and, on his father’s death in 1804, he became head partner of Messrs Dummond and inherited his father’s country estate at Cadland, near Fawley, in Hampshire. Messrs Drummond was later acquired by the Royal Bank of Scotland in 1924 and remains a separate banking brand within the NatWest Group today. Banking information provided by Nick Goddard For reference:NatWest Group Heritage – Andrew Berkeley Drummond. https://www.natwestgroup.com/heritage/people/andrew-berkeley-drummond.html NatWest Group Heritage – Messrs Drummond. https://www.natwestgroup.com/heritage/companies/messrs-drummond.html
HALDEMAN, Donald Carmichael
HALDEMAN, Donald Carmichael 30 January 1860 – 5 February 1930 Farmer & breeder of pedigree cattle, Fellow Chartered Insurance Institute Donald Haldeman was born in Philadelphia to parents John and Annie who moved to England during the 1870s. In 1881 he lived with his parents and five brothers and sisters in West Hill, Lewisham. He was described as a Private Secretary. By the time of his marriage to Lydia Maude Riddle in Pennsylvania in June 1888 he was the UK Manager of the Mutual Insurance Company of New York. He resigned from this position in 1906 and became the Life Manager of the North British and Mercantile Insurance Company. By this time he had become a naturalised British subject and had many interests. He was made a Justice of the Peace in 1918 and later chairman of the Kent Police Court Mission. He became a fellow of the Royal Horticultural Society and a member of the Worshipful Company of Gardeners of which he became Master in 1921. Move to Hayes In 1920 he moved from Downe to Baston House and took over the associated farmland when it became vacant as a result of the death of Mrs Katherine Morris. He also took over the lease of Hayes Street Farm and was known as a successful farmer and breeder of pedigree cattle. Bill Dance, a school pupil in the 1920s, recalled that if the village lads saw Mr Haldeman as he rode around on horseback, doffed their caps and opened a gate for him, he would give them a shilling (5p), a large sum, so they were keen to follow him around! After the war the Hayes Cricket Club were keen to revive the facilities on their pre-war ground at Baston Farm and Donald Haldeman agreed that the club could use the field every Saturday for matches, with the farmer having it the rest of the week to graze cows. The drinking trough had to remain in position, roughly at ‘second slip’. Bill Dance recalled that some matches were interrupted when the cows wandered across to have a drink! Mr Haldeman became President of Hayes Cricket Club until he left the district in 1927. He also became President of the Football Club when it was started in 1922 and he provided a football pitch at one end of the cricket field near Baston Farm. He was well known in the village and became the Hayes representative on the Rural District Council in 1922. His wife was on the committee of the Hayes Nursing Society and to raise funds for it he organised a concert party of musicians and singers from London. He moved to Gadsden, Hayes, in 1924 where he remained until the property was put up for sale in 1927. Shortly before he left he paid for the local Hayes schoolchildren and their parents to have a day trip to Eastbourne. He died in Portland Place, London in 1930
NORMAN, Henry John
Norman, Henry John9 June 1834 – 4 June 1905Banker Henry John Norman was the son of Henry Norman and Georgina Stone. After his mother’s death when he was 8 years old his father married Arabella Beadon. In 1868 Henry John was registered as living in Bromley Common when he was recorded on the Hayes list of voters as eligible to vote in the West Kent elections. He was a banker, a partner first in Bouverie’s and then in Jones, Lloyd & Co. Later he was made a Director of the London & Westminster Bank.He married Anne Hewitt Coote and by the time he purchased land in Hayes on which to build a house he had three sons. His uncle George Warde Norman sold him fourteen acres of land in Hayes for £2811 in 1873. He had an imposing house built in a semi-Gothic style which he regarded as his country home, a place to enjoy away from his main residence in London and to which he regularly came. Known as Gadsden it was occupied from 1875.The census reports for 1881 and up to his death were all recorded at his London address. In 1881 he was in Hanover Square where his staff included a head nurse and two nurse maids. to look after his growing family. A daughter and four more sons had been born since the land was bought. Twenty years later the family had grown up but he still retained a large household staff. In 1901 at Cadogan Square he employed a butler, footman, 3 housemaids, a cook, kitchen and scullery maids. He seemed to have looked after his staff well. When Mary Dalrymple Geddes, the head nurse, died at the age of 76 in 1928 the family erected a gravestone in Hayes Churchyard to ‘nurse and beloved friend of the family of the late Henry John Norman at Gadsden, Hayes Kent … as a token of gratitude and affection’.She was buried close to the graves of Henry (1905) and his wife Anne (1926) and their son Alfred (1907). Recorded on the gravestone of Henry’s second son Reginald, who died in 1919, are memorials to his eldest son Major Harold Henry Norman, Ist Battalion Northamptonshire Regiment killed near Ypres on 11 November 1914 and to Captain Lionel MC killed in the battle of the Somme 15 Sept 1916.