Charles Digby became a Justice of the Peace and his name features in this role in the local newspapers. He was an active member of the local Liberal Party, to the point where the Liberals wanted to put him forward as their next parliamentary candidate. He declined.
My cousin Vanessa has unearthed several documents in the Devon Records Office in Exeter, which relate to Charles Digby’s stay in Morebath. There were a number of references in the archives relating to proposed road changes to the entrance to Morebath Manor drive planned in 1890. A series of council documents and reports in the Tiverton Gazette record the progress of the proposals through the legal process in 1897 and 1898, when permission was finally confirmed. The number and complexity of the documents makes today’s planning consent applications look simple.
Charles Digby became chairman of the Morebath Parish Council in 1898, as reported in the Tiverton Gazette and East Devon Herald. The article also lists those responsible for the flowers in the parish church, most of which were donated by Charles Digby.
A more recent article in the Somerset Free Press of 1980 gives us some further insight into Charles Digby’s local involvement at that time:
Some 90 years have elapsed since the name [Harrod] was brought down our way by Charles Digby Harrod, son of the founder of the store, through his purchase of the manor of Morebath. He lived at Morebath House for some years, having converted it into a typical late Victorian mansion and re-named it Morebath Manor. C.D. Harrod ‘reigned’ there as a beneficent squire and gave much help to the agricultural improvement of the district. It must have been a life far removed from that of the fashionable shopper’s Mecca in the Metropolis. It was C.D. Harrod who had turned the little ‘village’ store in Kensington into the great Harrod emporium.
A lovely story about Charles Digby’s stay at Morebath has survived and was told to me by an ancient relative. Timekeeping was an absolute fetish of his, as we know from his working years:
He was always ‘on the dot’, believing that being minutes early was as bad as being minutes late. And so … one evening, his coachman turned up at the front door to drive the master to a dinner appointment. Aware that Mr Harrod was not likely to appear until dead on the minute, the coachman went in to the servants’ quarters, settled himself down with a glass and a bottle … and lost himself. On the dot, out came Mr Harrod and seeing no coachman, mounted the box himself and drove the coach off to his dinner. He returned again later as his own coachman. As he pulled up at his house the butler, knowing nothing about the missing coachman, opened the coach door and peered inside. No Mr Harrod to be seen! Looking up at the dark figure on the box, the butler called out, ‘Hey, what have you done with the old —er?’ Came the shattering reply, ‘The old —er’s up here on the box, and you’ll be hearing from him indoors presently.’
I wonder what happened to the butler and the coachman …
Charles Digby’s concern for the less advantaged of society is highlighted in a report in the Western Times of 6 January, 1899, recounting a gift to the poor of the parish at Christmas, ‘Mr C. Harrod J.P. had a bullock killed and cut for distribution in the Parish. The School treat and Christmas tree was a great success, and thanks are due …’
I suspect that whilst Charles kept himself busy with ‘good deeds’ in north Devon, he kept half an eye on what was happening in London. We know that he and the family used the house in Evelyn Gardens for some years after they had left for the country. His father had left some property in Bermondsey in his will and Charles would have dealt with this. Charles Digby also retained some other business interests in London after his retirement.
A chance finding in the London Gazette confirms this. In the edition of 18 April 1899 notice was given of the dissolution of a partnership from 30 January, between Walter Robertson and Charles Digby Harrod. They had been carrying on business together at 42 Queen’s Road West in Chelsea, as wholesale and manufacturing confectioners. Walter Robertson was born in 1847, in Chelsea, and worked in the confectionery trade all his life, like his father William and several of his brothers. Walter carried on the business after the dissolution, but no other details are known. I have searched for, but have not found, any other businesses in which he might he have been involved.
After ten years of the bucolic life, Charles Digby and the family started to get itchy feet. On the date of the 1901 census, 31 March, Morebath Manor was occupied only by servants. Those in residence were Anna Radley, aged 50, a parlour maid, and Maud Beer, aged 23, a housemaid. Allerford House was, by this time, occupied by Mr Frere and his family, a retired solicitor from London, and the Harrods obviously had no further involvement with this property.
The Harrod family and all the children are easily traced in most of the censuses, apart from that of 1901, from which several members of the family are missing. Two daughters of the family, Fanny and Grace, were living with their respective husbands and families in south London. A third daughter, Emily Maud, unmarried and aged 32, was staying with her sister, Fanny. Henry Herbert, the son, now aged 30, was a single man and living in a residential hotel in Knightsbridge. But missing were Charles Digby and Caroline, and their four youngest daughters, Amy, aged 26 years, Beatrice, my grandmother, aged 23, Olive, aged 20, and Eva aged 19 years.
Where were they? They do not appear in the census records for England or any other part of the United Kingdom, and they do not appear in any shipping records to suggest travel abroad. A simple explanation could be that the particular census record is missing. That situation is not uncommon. Some records were lost during bombing in the war, others in various moves and reorganisations of the records. But if the family were somewhere in the UK, where were they staying? They were not at any of their known residences, nor with any of their relatives.
Whilst searching, I began to wonder if they had gone abroad. Distant intercontinental travel would almost certainly have been by boat, but the available shipping records showed no sign. Travel to Europe, however, was different. This was almost exclusively undertaken by cross-Channel ferry and the railways. These boats were not recorded in the shipping records unless the boat was also travelling further afield, and passports were not compulsory for travel abroad until 1914.
Meticulous travellers, regular travellers, those going to exotic parts or those on government business sometimes carried passports, and these were complex and large documents signed by the Home Secretary, and carried folded into small packs. They were a form of ‘safe conduct’ document and, amazingly, were written in French until 1858. Some years ago the Find My Past website digitised an index for passport applications from 1896 to 1901, and later the years 1853 to 1903 became available. This list is not complete and I came across this facility by chance.
A search revealed some interesting results. On 22 January 1901, Mrs C. Harrod, and the Misses E.M., A.C. and B.M. Harrod applied for passports. (Coincidentally, that was the very day that Queen Victoria had died, aged 81 years, and after sixty-three years on the throne. A momentous and sad day for Britain.) Did Charles and the last missing daughter not go with them, or did they already own a passport? A foreign trip now looks a distinct possibility. A wider search a few years later in 2010, when the range of years for passport searches had been extended, showed that Charles Digby had applied for a passport on 8 June 1892, followed almost exactly a year later by Emily Harrod and H.H. Harrod.
So, most of the missing family were in possession of passports. They did not travel far by boat, so must have crossed the Channel and used the railways. They are more than likely to have been doing the Victorian equivalent of the ‘Grand Tour’, visiting several European countries and cultural sites. (The fact that my grandmother was missing in 1901 became of some importance to me when trying to track down her early life. This story forms part of another tale!)
Charles Digby and Caroline decided to sell up and move from Morebath, which they did in 1902. I think the decision had been taken the previous year, and a prolonged European tour may have covered the gap between
houses whilst their next house was being prepared. The reason for making a move is not definitely known. My Uncle Michael was told that Caroline was very lonely there and wanted to go back to London. Charles Digby seems to have become well embedded locally during his short ten years in occupation, but perhaps Caroline was not. The single daughters may have missed the social life of London, they did not have the same chances to meet new friends in Morebath and for the five unmarried girls, aged between 21 and 34 years of age, this would affect their marriage prospects.
Charles Digby must have left his Devon friends with a heavy heart, and they certainly told him he would be missed. Charles Digby was so well liked and admired by his tenants, fellow parishioners and friends that he and his family were given a scroll on his departure, listing their names and thanks. The scroll was shown to me by James Weightman, a Harrod cousin. It reads:
TO CHARLES DIGBY HARROD ESQ., MRS HARROD & FAMILY
We being the Tenants of the Morebath Manor Estate and your Fellow Parishioners and Friends desire to express our regret at your leaving MOREBATH and ask your acceptance of the accompanying SILVER MONTEITH BOWL as a token of our regard and appreciation of the kind and charitable interest shown by you in all that concerned the welfare of those around you.
MOREBATH MANOR TENANTRY
[Below this, a list of twenty-nine names, and C.R. Morris Sons & Peard, Agents to the Morebath Manor Estate]
MOREBATH PARISHIONERS & FRIENDS
[There follows a list of 113 names followed by a block name for Morebath school children]
The scroll was dated 1902. It was presented in a black and gold frame and was beautifully illustrated. The monogram at the top is CDH, and the four miniatures at each corner are (from top left clockwise): Morebath Church; Morebath Manor; a rural scene with deer; and a rural scene with a pheasant. The silver bowl was itself engraved around the edge.
Morebath Manor sold for £50,000 in 1902, today’s equivalent being about £4 million. The reader will recall that the purchase price was £37,000 and that £10,000 had been spent on building works. Considering what else he may have spent on the place, this may well have left him just breaking even.
The records available suggest that Charles Digby bought his next residence, Culverwood at Cross in Hand, near Heathfield in Sussex, in the same year and the farewell gifts confirm he had left Morebath in that year. Wherever the Harrods went in 1901, sometime in 1902 Charles Digby moved in to Culverwood and, as before, with his usual vigour he threw himself almost immediately into the affairs of the estate and the local community.
Why had he chosen to live near Cross in Hand, a small village 15 miles directly north of Eastbourne and 11 miles south of Tunbridge Wells? It was in the country, so he could continue the country squire routine, but not as isolated as Morebath. It was closer to London and the married family – Caroline and the girls probably liked that – and his son, Henry Herbert, was by this time already well embedded back in London. It allowed easy access to the coast if desired. Most important of all, it had good transport links from nearby Heathfield.
In the late 1870s an aristocratic newcomer to the Heathfield area, Lady Dorothy Nevill, described it as ‘a remote old-world district which seems to have been wrapped in slumber ever since the furnaces of the old Sussex ironmasters were extinguished.’ There had, in reality, been considerable change since the 1840s, but the pace of change was speeded up by the rather late arrival of the railway in 1880, which was followed by the expansion of the local poultry industry. The station at Heathfield was uniquely lit by gas from a local bore hole, the first natural gas deposit discovered in this country, fortuitously whilst searching for water.
Culverwood House stands in the triangle between Waldron, Cross in Hand and Heathfield. Heathfield Station was just a short distance away and was on a combination of train lines which eventually connected Eastbourne to Victoria and offered frequent services to London. It must have felt very much less isolated than Morebath.
The Cross in Hand name is believed to be based on the legend that the English Crusaders assembled here before sailing from Rye to the Holy Land, intending to join others hoping to return Jerusalem to Christian control. The Crusades, instigated and promoted by various popes, became a series of intermittent battles which spanned almost 400 years.
Culverwood is a large brick-built country house, probably erected in the early 1880s. It is situated on what is now the A267, running south from Cross in Hand to Hailsham and Eastbourne, and is just north of a hamlet called Little London. Although the nearest church is probably at Cross in Hand, the house is in the parish of Waldron. It was at St Peter’s at Waldron that the Harrod family chose to worship. They became regular worshippers, and thus was forged an alliance with the family of the rector that was to influence my family history for the following generations.
During a visit to Waldron in 1989, an aged resident, Mrs Hogben, told me that Culverwood House was built two years after the coming of the railway, hence in 1882. There are residents in the house in the 1881 census, so it is likely that Culverwood was built in 1880 or 1881. It was not occupied by the Harrods until about twenty years after that, in 1902. A flyer for a later sale of Culverwood House is copied below. The date is not known, but it is probably from between the wars. It gives a good description of the property:
THE CULVERWOOD ESTATE, CROSS IN HAND
A Well Built Country House
Lounge, 4 reception rooms, billiards room, 8 principal bed and dressing rooms, 5 staff bedrooms, 3 bathrooms. Partial central heating. Mains electricity and water. Septic tank drainage. Garage premises. Entrance lodge and wooded gardens and grounds.
ATTESTED HOME FARM WITH HOUSE AND BUILDINGS
4 COTTAGES, FIRST-RATE GRASS AND ARABLE, VALUABLE WOODLAND
TOTAL AREA 188 ACRES. ALL WITH VACANT POSSESSION
For sale by Auction at an early date as a Whole or in 5 Lots (unless previously sold privately)
Price £8,750
Cheap at the price! It would be interesting to know the date.
It sounds like a house to suit Charles’s style including, once again, a billiard room, and looks to be about the same size as Morebath Manor. A comparison of photographs taken between the wars and recently shows that the house today has changed externally. A two-gable wing on one side of the house has been demolished and much of the greenery growing up the house has disappeared.
Charles Digby once again became involved in local affairs and was a local benefactor. Considering the short time of his tenure, which we shall see, it is amazing how embedded he became in the community. He became a parish councillor, being elected in 1904, and also an East Sussex county councillor, and he was appointed a manager of the Heathfield Schools. He was involved in local politics and was known in the area as a strong Liberal Party supporter, as he had been in north Devon. The Liberal Party in the first few years of the twentieth century was undergoing a revolution. Having lost the 1900 and preceding elections, they made great progress and swept to a huge majority in 1906. It must have been an exciting time for a Liberal supporter. Sadly the 1906 victory was not to be enjoyed by Charles Digby.
Following an appeal for information in the Waldron Parish Magazine in 1989, a few interesting facts and stories came to light, one of which follows. A letter from a Mr Newnham, then living at Millers Lodge in Cross in Hand, came to me telling a story about Charles Digby:
I was born in 1904 and remember my father talking about Mr Harrod and the field on the opposite side of the road from Culverwood …
My father, J.B. Newnham and his partner, Jebez Ashdown took the Cross in Hand windmills on a six year lease in 1888. Not knowing if they would be able to renew the lease or buy the property, in 1894 they bought a field close by, on which it was their intention to build a mill if they were turned out.
They were able to buy the windmills and so did not want the field.
Mr A. Jarvis, the builder in Cross in Hand wanted to buy the field, but did not have the money. He owned the fi
eld opposite Culverwood which he wanted to get rid of, so that he had the cash to buy the other one. He knew that Mr Harrod took a morning walk down the main road, so he resorted to the following trick.
He took about six labourers and started digging in various places in the field and when Mr Harrod came along he stopped and said:– ‘What are you doing Jarvis?’, to which Jarvis replied, ‘I am going to start a brickyard, Sir.’ Mr Harrod then said, ‘I do not want this Jarvis, how much do you want for the field?’
The result was that Jarvis sold the field to Mr Harrod and with the money bought the field from father and his partner. This is the field on which Jarvis built Beaconsfield Terrace and Salisbury Terrace which are still there today.
There cannot have been many men who put one over on Charles Digby. Checking the Jarvis records, there were several families of Jarvises in the Cross in Hand area, most of them were builders or bricklayers. The same Jarvis family also features heavily on the First World War memorial at Waldron.
Charles Digby held a regular annual party for the local children and teachers at Culverwood House. Waldron School (mixed & infants) had 150 children in 1909, the nearest year when figures are available, and there were two teachers, John Bannister, master, and Mrs Bannister, the infants’ mistress. The average attendance at the school was 108. According to the Sussex Express of 12 August 1905, at Culverwood House Charles Digby and Caroline had entertained 290 children of all denominations, and thirty-three teachers from various local schools, at 2.30 p.m. on the previous day, Friday 11 August. There was cricket, swings and sports. Tea was held at 3.30 p.m. for the children and 4.30 p.m. for the teachers and helpers.
The Jewel of Knightsbridge Page 20