Vierville de Crespigny 1882 – 1927

Claude Vierville Champion de Crespigny, one of my 5th cousins twice removed, was born at Heybridge, Maldon, Essex, on 25 January 1882. He was the seventh of nine children and fourth of five sons of Sir Claude Champion de Crespigny the fourth baronet and Georgiana Lady Champion de Crespigny née McKerrell. The five sons of the fourth baronet were all given the first name Claude. The younger four sons each had a middle name: Raul, Philip, Vierville, Norman.

On 25 January 1900, just a few weeks after it was established, Vierville joined the Imperial Yeomanry, a volunteer light cavalry force, to serve in the war in South Africa. On the record he claimed to be 20 years old; he was actually 18. Two of his older brothers were already serving in the army, the other was in the navy.

Vierville was initially a trooper with the 21st Lancers but in February 1901 was appointed 2nd Lieutenant with the Duke of Edinburgh’s (Wiltshire Regiment). He was made Lieutenant in 1903 and in 1904 became aide-de-camp to Sir D. W. Stewart, Commissioner, East Africa Protectorate.

From January 1906 to September 1909 he was employed with the King’s African Rifles. He was said to have spoken Swahili fluently. In 1908 he was tried and acquitted of the charge of causing the death of his native servant by a rash and negligent act.

Image from Europeans in East Africa database entry for CHAMPION DE CRESPIGNY, Claude Vierville (Major)

In 1910 he was promoted to captain. From 1912 he served in the Special Reserve, a force established on 1 April 1908, responsible for maintaining a reservoir of manpower for the British Army and training replacement drafts in times of war.

On 19 July 1911 Vierville married Mary Nora Catherine McSloy on 19 July 1911 at the Brompton Oratory in Kensington, London. They had one daughter together, Mary Charmian Sara Champion de Crespigny (1914 – 1967).

British (English) School; Captain Vierville Champion de Crespigny (1882-1927); Kelmarsh Hall; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/captain-vierville-champion-de-crespigny-18821927-49105

In December 1916 he was appointed Assistant Provost Marshal, with rank equivalent to staff captain. He was promoted to major in 1917. In December 1918 he incurred the Army Council’s displeasure when he turned a water hose on men who were attempting to rush the doors of the Albert Hall during a boxing tournament. He was demobilised in July 1919.

In June 1919 he sailed for Canada with his wife and daughter intending to settle there. They lived on a ranch near the remote settlement of Wilmer, British Columbia. However, Vierville left in December 1920 and returned to England.

In February 1921 he joined the Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Constabulary (ADRIC). With the RIC, the Auxiliary Division was disbanded in 1922.

In February 1924 Vierville was appointed game ranger, at a salary of £300, in the Game Preservation department of the Tanganyika Territory Government.

In March 1924 his wife divorced him.

Daily Mirror 18 March 1924 page 11

On 6 December 1924 at Mombassa in present day Kenya, Vierville married for a second time to Elspie Madge Salmon, daughter of the Rev. Frank and Mrs Salmon of Langton rectory, Blandford.

On 17 July 1927, well-mauled by a leopard, Vierville died in Singida, Tanganyika. His usual residence was recorded as Arusha, 325 kilometres to the north-west, near the border with Kenya.

Essex Newsman 30 July 1927 page 3

Probate was granted to his widow in March 1928. His effects were less than £350. Elsie later lived with his brother Raul at Champion Lodge, Essex, acting as his housekeeper.

Memorial in St Peter’s Church, Great Totham, Essex.
Photographed by Simon Knott and reproduced with permission.

RELATED POSTS

• Extinction of the de Crespigny baronetcy

Vierville’s four brothers:

• Claude de Crespigny 1873 – 1910
• Claude Raul: Raul de Crespigny the 5th baronet
• Claude Philip: The sailor and the princess
• Claude Norman: C is for Compiègne on 1 September 1914

Wikitree: Claude Vierville Champion de Crespigny (1882 – 1927)

Raul de Crespigny the 5th baronet

Claude Raul Champion de Crespigny, one of my 5th cousins twice removed, was born at Durrington, Wiltshire on 19 September 1878. He was the fifth of nine children of Sir Claude Champion de Crespigny the fourth baronet, and Georgiana Lady Champion de Crespigny née McKerrell. The five sons of the fourth baronet were all given the first name Claude. The younger four sons each had a middle name: Raul, Philip, Vierville, Norman.

Raul was educated at Wellington College, Berkshire. He joined the army and served in the prestigious Grenadier Guards regiment. He became a 2nd Lieutenant on 17 January 1900 and was promoted Lieutenant two years later, on 1 April 1903. Raul was awarded the Queen’s Medal with four clasps in the South African War. He became a Captain in 1908.

On 24 Jun 1913 Raul married Violet Rose (Vere) Sykes in the Royal Military Chapel (The Guards’ Chapel) on Birdcage Walk opposite St James Park. Vere’s brother Claude Alfred Victor Sykes was also an officer in the Grenadier Guards.

Over the course of World War 1 Raul was promoted from Captain to Brigadier-General. He was Commanding Officer of the 2nd battalion Grenadier Guards at the Somme and remained in command until 22 Sep 1917, when he replaced Brigadier-General G. D. Jeffreys as commander of the 1st Guards Brigade. Raul de Crespigny was mentioned seven times in despatches. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order, D.S.O., in 1916, invested with the Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George, C.M.G., in 1918, and the Companion of the Order of the Bath, C.B., a year later. In 1916 he was also decorated with the Montenegrin Cross (Order of Danilo 4th class).

Sprinck, Leon; Major Claude Raul Champion de Crespigny (1878-1941), 5th Bt; Kelmarsh Hall; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/major-claude-raul-champion-de-crespigny-18781941-5th-bt-49166

An article in a New Zealand newspaper called the ‘Dominion‘, dated 29 January 1918, with the headline ‘The Perfect Soldier’ described Raul’s distaste for staff work and eagerness to return to his battalion. He was:

'One of those commanding officers who believe in being in the thick of the fighting, he used to lead his men over the top with a 'loaded stick' as a weapon. In one of the recent engagements in Flanders he charged a Hun machine-gunner who was scattering death right and left with his stream of bullets. With one mighty swing of his stick he broke the neck of the Hun, and the regiment went on. The Hun's gas mask and steel helmet are in England now hanging on the walls of Brigadier-General de Crespigny's Essex home among innumerable trophies of the chase, grim relics of a man whose hobby is fighting.'

The article goes on to list his sporting accomplishments in steeple-chasing, boxing, cricket, shooting and aquatic sports.

Though Champion Lodge was certainly cluttered with sporting trophies, bashing a Hun to death then then mounting a trophy of the occasion on your wall seems more likely to have been a literary trope than solid fact. Nancy Mitford’s ‘Uncle Matthew’ comes to mind, in ‘The Pursuit of Love‘:

"THERE is a photograph in existence of Aunt Sadie and her six children sitting round the tea-table at Alconleigh. The table is situated, as it was, is now, and ever shall be, in the hall, in front of a huge open fire of logs. Over the chimney-piece plainly visible in the photograph hangs an entrenching tool, with which, in 1915, Uncle Matthew had whacked to death eight Germans one by one as they crawled out of a dug-out. It is still covered with blood and hairs, an object of fascination to us as children."

Trophies at Champion Lodge in the early 1900s. Image from opposite page 295 of the 1910 edition of Forty Years of a sportsman’s life by the 4th baronet.

Raul’s marriage ended in divorce in 1926.

Daily Mirror 22 March 1926 page 1 retrieved from the British Newspaper Archive via FindMyPast

“A Retired Army Officer Divorced.” Times, 3 June 1926, p. 6. The Times Digital Archive, retrieved through Gale Primary Sources
I notice that Raul signs himself Crawley to his wife; his older brother’s nickname was Creepy.

Raul became the 5th baronet after the death of his father in 1935. He died on 15 May 1941. His obituary in the Chelmsford Chronicle noted that he “settled at Champion Lodge, and took a kindly interest in the affairs of the neighbourhood, especially the British Legion. His last public duty was performed a few months ago, when he opened the gift sale of the Maldon Farmers’ Union in Maldon Market on behalf of the Red Cross.” Members of the British Legion provided a guard of honour at his funeral.

Claude Raul had no children. Of the five sons of the fourth baronet, only Claude Vierville had a daughter, but women could not inherit the baronetcy. The title passed to a cousin, Henry Champion de Crespigny (1882-1946), son of Philip Augustus Champion de Crespigny (1850-1912). Philip was the younger brother of the fourth baronet, second son of the third baronet.

RELATED POSTS

• Extinction of the de Crespigny baronetcy

Three of Claude’s four brothers:

• Claude de Crespigny 1873 – 1910
• Claude Philip: The sailor and the princess
• Claude Norman: C is for Compiègne on 1 September 1914

Wikitree: Claude Raul Champion de Crespigny (1878 – 1941)

Charlotte Frances Champion Crespigny nee Dana (1820-1904) and her family in Australia

For the past three years my father and I have been working on the history of the  Dana and Champion de Crespigny families in Australia.

Charlotte Frances nee Dana (1820-1904), my third great grandmother, emigrated to Australia at the time of the gold rushes with her second husband Philip Robert Champion Crespigny (1817-1889).

This year is the two-hundredth anniversary of Charlotte’s birth, an appropriate time to recall and document her life and her family.

The book is published in three versions. Below is a link to the pdf version, free to download. Hardback and paperback editions will be available soon. 

C F C Crespigny nee Dana 2020 ISBN 978-0-6481917-4-2Download

Charlotte Frances Champion Crespigny née Dana (1820 – 1904) photographed probably in the late 1850s

Introduction

A great emigration necessarily implies unhappiness of some kind or other in the country that is deserted. For few persons will leave their families, connections, friends, and native land, to seek a settlement in untried foreign climes, without some strong subsisting causes of uneasiness where they are, or the hope of some great advantages in the place to which they are going.

Thomas Robert Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798)

Charlotte Frances Dana and her second husband Philip Robert Champion Crespigny came to Melbourne in 1852. Through their son Philip, who took the full surname of Champion de Crespigny, they were the founders of the Australian branch of the family.

In Champions from Normandy, published in 2017, Rafe de Crespigny discussed the history of the family, later known by the surname Champion de Crespigny, from the earliest records in France to their forced emigration as Huguenots in the seventeenth century and then the establishment in England during the eighteenth century. The present volume considers the experiences of the first generation in Australia. It is centred upon the life of Charlotte Frances, for she and her brother were central to the decision to emigrate, and she lived to see her first great-grandchildren in the new country and the new century.

Born in 1820, Charlotte died in 1904, and that period of eighty-four years was a time of enormous and dramatic change. She was first a subject of King George IV, former Prince Regent, and she lived through the reigns of William IV and Queen Victoria into the first years of Edward VII. Her voyage to Australia in 1851-52 lasted four months; fifty years later a steamship passage took only six weeks, less than half that time. When she arrived in Victoria, travel was by horse and cart, often no faster than seven miles a day; she would later take a train from the goldfields town of Beaufort and reach Melbourne in a matter of hours; while at the time of her death the Wright brothers in the United States were making their first powered flights at Kitty Hawk.

So it was a time of progress, but it was also an age of uncertainty. Health and medicine were both erratic, and diseases which are now quite easily treated were dangerous and could be fatal. Infant or child mortality was very high – to such a degree that many children were baptised with the name of an older sibling who had gone before them: Charlotte had two brothers christened Francis Richard Benjamin, three called Douglas and two more named William. And even those who grew to maturity could be crippled or killed by accident or sickness: one brother died in his thirties and another at the age of just forty; two young nephews died of scarlet fever and one of tetanus; and Charlotte’s son Constantine Trent Champion Crespigny and her sister-in-law Sophia nee Walsh both died of tuberculosis.

Such dangers applied still more to women of the time. Childbirth always carried a risk and stillbirth was by no means uncommon, while the absence of any practical means of contraception meant that pregnancy was often frequent: Charlotte had seven children, but she had twelve full and half-siblings, both her father and her mother had twelve brothers and sisters, and her mother’s father had sired ten more on another wife. Similarly, in her first marriage she experienced three pregnancies in three years, with one daughter who would live to maturity, a son who died in his very first year, and a third child which was still-born. With the vagaries of midwifery and the chances of infection, many women were weakened or simply worn out by such frequent fertility.

Apart from these physical matters, social and financial life could likewise be a question of fortune, good or ill. Charlotte’s family could fairly be described as gentlefolk: her grand-mother was the daughter of a Scottish baron; her grandfather came from a notable back-ground in the American colonies; one of her uncles was a general in the British army and owned a landed estate; two of her aunts married wealthy men; and in 1839 Charlotte herself was married to a prosperous solicitor in Gloucestershire.

Apparent security, however, could change very quickly. Soon after Charlotte’s wedding her father’s printing business failed, he was sent to prison for debt and was stripped of all property. The last years of his life were survived on a small pension in the home of his daughter and son-in-law.

Bankruptcy and indebtedness were indeed a constant threat: if a bank failed, its notes were worthless – and much of the currency in circulation was issued by private banks; the system of limited liability was not in common use, so the failure of a business could bring ruin to its owner; and a batch of unpaid bills could bring a cascade of misfortune.

The position was even more precarious for women. Until quite recent times, a married woman was identified with her husband, with no separate legal or financial existence, while unmarried women had limited opportunities for a meaningful career which might enable them to support themselves. Married, unmarried or widowed, most women were obliged to rely upon their families. When Charlotte Frances’ husband Philip Robert was taken ill, he was entitled to a pension, but after his death there was no further official or government support; and her unmarried daughters Ada and Viola were equally dependent upon the goodwill of their more prosperous kinfolk.

One question may always be raised of any Australian whose family arrived within the last 250 years: “Why did they come?” For convicts, it was compulsory; very often, notably in the years of gold rush, it was the hope of sudden fortune. For Charlotte’s brother Henry Edmund Dana, educated as a gentleman but with few opportunities at home, it was the hope of better prospects than could be expected in England – and for Charlotte and her second husband Philip Robert Champion Crespigny it was a means to escape the social and financial embarrassment of a dramatic and well-publicised divorce.

Regardless of such an erratic beginning, however, that second marriage was affectionate and companionable, and even after Philip Robert’s sad slow death Charlotte was able to enjoy the support of her daughters and the successes of her son Philip and her grandchildren. In a letter of 1858, her father-in-law wrote in praise of her patience and courage, and of her determination to make the best of everything.

Richard Rafe Champion de Crespigny
and Christine Anne Young nee Champion de Crespigny
December 2020

Charlotte Constance Blood nee James (1840 – 1935)

On 27 January 1859 my third great aunt Charlotte Constance James, eighteen, married Francis Gamble Blood, twenty-nine, at St Andrews Church, Clifton, Gloucestershire. He was a captain in the 69th regiment. The marriage was performed by Charlotte’s step-mother’s brother, the Reverend Charles Dighton, Rector of Mitcheldean, Gloucestershire.

Cheltenham Examiner 2 February 1859 page 8 from the British Newspaper Archive retrieved through FindMyPast

Captain Francis Gamble Blood served in the East Indies from 21 April 1860 to 23 May 1864. He was promoted to Brevet Major on 28 December 1865 and retired on 6 May 1869. On his return to England, in December 1869 he was appointed lieutenant of the 1st Somerset Regiment of Militia.

On 9 November 1869 their son John Neptune Blood was born at Cheltenham. He was baptised on 25 February 1870. His middle name is a Blood family name. At the time of his baptism his parents were living at Royal Parade Cheltenham.

In June 1870 the newspapers, including The Times and papers from the Bristol and Cheltenham area, began reporting a divorce case, Blood v. Blood. Charlotte Constance Blood was suing for judicial separation on the grounds of the adultery of her husband, which was said to have taken place in February 1870. She was granted custody of their son John.

Cheltenham Mercury 25 June 1870 page 2 from the British Newspaper Archive retrieved through FindMyPast

Divorce laws had changed since the divorce of Charlotte’s parents in the late 1840s. The marriage reforms of 1857 created a court that could dissolve marriages under certain carefully defined circumstances. Only adultery was recognised as grounds for divorce. A husband had merely to prove simple adultery but a wife had to prove adultery compounded by some other marital offence such as cruelty or desertion. The court could, and did, rescind provisional divorce decrees if it became convinced that there was evidence of collusion between the spouses. This law remained the basis for divorce in England until 1937.

Divorce was relatively unusual: in the five year period 1869 – 1873 only 289 divorces were filed per year.

Charlotte Blood nee James sought and gained a judicial separation from her husband and custody of her child. Perhaps she did not have the evidence to prove cruelty or desertion as well.

Despite collusion being illegal there seems something odd about the tale. Captain Blood appeared to make every effort to be discovered in his adultery.

In 1881 John Blood was a boarder at Holywell and Bath Wells House, Hanley Castle Worcestershire. I have not found Charlotte Constance Blood on the 1871 or 1881 census.

On the 1881 census taken on 3 April Francis Gamble Blood, Major of Foot retired, was a boarder at 7 Berners Street, Marylebone, London. On 20 May 1881 he was admitted to the Munster lunacy asylum at Fulham. He died there on 14 August 1881. Newspaper notices, such as that in the Cork Examiner of 20 August 1881 stated he died of inflammation of the lungs. “BLOOD – August 14, of inflammation of the lungs, Major Francis Gamble Blood, late of the 69th Regt.,son of the late Colonel J. Aylward Blood, late of the 68th Light Infantry.”

On 23 December 1881 administration of his estate was granted to his widow Charlotte Constance Blood: personal estate 12,820 pounds. At the time Charlotte Constance Blood was living at Ferneyfield, Mitcheldean.

Huntley Court

In 1884 Charlotte Constance Blood bought Huntley Court in Gloucestershire. She became a manager of Huntley school.

Her son John Neptune Blood was educated at Rugby College, Rugby, Warwickshire from 1884.

In 1891 Charlotte Constance Blood, widow living on her own means, was residing at Huntley Court with her son, a student at Magdalen College, Oxford, and four servants: a housekeeper cook, a parlour maid, a house maid and a kitchen maid.

John Neptune Blood graduated from Magdalen College, Oxford University with a Master of Arts (M.A.) and Bachelor of Civil Law (B.C.L.).

In 1893 John Neptune Blood was admitted to the Inner Temple, entitled to practice as Barrister-at-law.

In 1901 Charlotte Constance Blood, living on own means, was residing with her son, a barrister-at-law, in Huntley. The household included three servants: a cook, parlour maid and groom.

Huntley Court was transferred from Charlotte Constance Blood to her son in 1907.

In 1911 her son, a barrister-at-law, was listed as head of household. There was a visitor from Ireland and 5 servants: a butler, cook-housekeeper, housemaid, kitchen maid, and under housemaid.

In 1925 John Neptune Blood sold Huntley Court. Mother and son then lived in Gloucester.

On 7 December 1935 Charlotte died aged 95. She was buried at Huntly, Gloucestershire.

Her son, John Neptune Blood, never married. He died on 29 September 1942 in Gloucester.

Gloucester Citizen 30 September 1942 page 4 retrieved from the British Newspaper Archive through FindMyPast

Coincidences

I suspect that Charlotte did not know much about Philip Champion Crespigny, the man her mother had run away with. In 1870 Charlotte was living in Royal Parade, Cheltenham, a few doors away from her mother’s father-in-law, Charles Fox Champion Crespigny, who lived at 11 Royal Parade with Charlotte Blood’s half-brother, Constantine Pulteney Trent Champion Crespigny  (1851 – 1883).

On 14 July 1869  Constantine joined the 69th regiment less than two months after Francis Gamble Blood had resigned on 6 May.

Related posts

• Charlotte Constance James born 1840

Sources

• Savage, G. (1983). The Operation of the 1857 Divorce Act, 1860-1910 a Research Note. Journal of Social History, 16(4), 103-110. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.slv.vic.gov.au/stable/3786994
• ‘Huntley’, in A History of the County of Gloucester: Volume 12, ed. A.R.J. Jurica (Woodbridge, 2010), pp. 174-196. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/glos/vol12/174-196.
• British Army Service Records retrieved through FindMyPast for Francis Gamble Blood born 1829. Wo 76 – Regimental Records Of Officers’ Services 1775-1914 Regiment: 69th Foot.
• Baptism record retrieved through ancestry.com John Neptune Blood Baptism Date 25/02/1870 Baptism Place Cheltenham, St Mary Gloucestershire England Father Frances Gamble Blood Mother Charlotte Constance Blood
• Census records retrieved through ancestry.com
  • John Blood Birth date: abt 1870 Birth place: Cheltenham Residence date: 1881 Residence place: Hanley Castle, Worcestershire, England  Detail Class: RG11; Piece: 2919; Folio: 46; Page: 28; GSU roll: 1341700.
  • Francis Gamble Blood Birth date: abt 1830 Birth place: London, London, Middlesex, England Residence date: 1881 Residence place: Marlebone, London, England Detail Class: RG11; Piece: 133; Folio: 57; Page: 44; GSU roll: 1341030.
  • Charlotte Constance Blood Birth date: abt 1841 Birth place: Newnham, Gloucestershire, England Residence date: 1891 Residence place: Huntley, Gloucestershire, England Detail Class: RG12; Piece: 2007; Folio 76; Page 2; GSU roll: 6097117.
  • Charlotte Constance Blood Birth date: abt 1841 Birth place: Newnham, Gloucestershire, England Residence date: 1901 Residence place: Huntley, Gloucestershire, England Detail Class: RG13; Piece: 2418; Folio: 31; Page: 5.
  • John Neptune Blood 1911 census Class: RG14; Piece: 15215; Schedule Number: 18

Charlotte Constance James born 1840

My third great grandmother Charlotte Frances Dana (1820 – 1904) married John James (1808 – 1855), a solicitor from Newnham on Severn in west Gloucestershire, on 14 May 1839 at St Peters church, Worfield near Albrighton Shropshire.

They had three children, Charlotte Constance (1840 – 1935), John Henry (1841 – 1842), and a still-born son born 2 July 1842 .

In November 1847, discovering she was pregnant by her lover Philip Champion Crespigny, Charlotte deserted her husband and daughter Charlotte Constance and fled to France. Their daughter Ada Isadora was born at Paris on 15 May 1848. [At the time, France was in the throes of a violent revolution. Paris especially was greatly disturbed in June 1848 and it has been estimated that more than 10,000 people were killed or injured.]

Before 1857, when the Matrimonial Causes Act reformed divorce law, divorce in England was expensive and difficult to obtain. I have written previously on the Divorce of John James and Charlotte Frances née Dana.

Letters quoted in the Parliamentary debate make two mentions of their daughter. Charlotte wrote in her farewell letter to her husband: “I cannot live, John, and feel myself a blight upon you and our sweet innocent child…Oh, live to protect and guard our child. She will be a comfort and a blessing to you.” To her servant she wrote “Do not be frightened, Estcourt, at my going away. I know you will be kind and good to my darling child. Let her believe I am gone home – though it is to my long and last one. I leave you money (£5), which will pay all till your master comes again. I ask you to be kind and good to the child, and do not let her feel for her poor mother.”

from the report in The Times, 21 March 1849, page 7 , on the debate before the House of Lords on the James’s divorce

Divorce law at the time required that there should be no evidence of joint collusion between husband and wife in organizing the divorce proceedings. At first sight, the divorce of John and Charlotte James is a model petition for divorce, fulfilling all the requirements: evidence of adultery, including the birth of a child which is not the husband’s; good – indeed excellent – marital relations right up to the time of separation; generous and most affectionate conduct by the husband, even acknowledged by Charlotte Frances’s parting letter; an attempt to pursue Philip Crespigny for criminal conversation damages.

It seems likely that for several weeks beforehand, John James, Charlotte Frances and Philip Crespigny were conspiring in the elopement and the divorce. John James would not have wanted to continue with an adulterous wife and someone else’s child, and everything that happened on the Isle of Wight (where Charlotte Frances James had been staying before her flight to France) and subsequently, must have been arranged in collusion. Whether the witnesses were suborned or simply deceived by the married couple acting a charade is impossible to tell, though we may suspect the number of people aware of the truth would have been kept to a minimum: bribery is one thing, blackmail an unwanted complication.

The weakest point was Charlotte Frances’s farewell letter. She may have intended to confirm the good conduct of her spouse and their mutual affection, but the exaggerated style fitted badly with the events that followed. One feels she should have taken some advice and guidance, though it must be acknowledged that the requirements for a successful petition of divorce – that the husband must have behaved well and there be mutual affection, but that adultery must be proved – are somewhat contradictory. On the
other hand, as Disraeli commented upon being told about J.S. Mill’s affair with Mrs Harriet Taylor, ‘The plan of having a husband and also a lover is not entirely without precedent’.

Charlotte Constance James was born 6 July 1840 at Newnham in Gloucestershire. She was seven years old when her mother abandoned her on the Isle of Wight in the care of a servant. The letter to the servant suggests that she be told that her mother had died. Mother and child never saw each other again.

On the 1841 census when she was an infant, she was listed as Charlotte. At the time of the 1851 census when she was ten years old she was listed as Constance. It may be that she had always been known by her middle name or it may be that after her mother left she was known by her middle name not her mother’s, now taboo.

In 1851 Constance James was living in her grandmother’s house in Clifton, a suburb of Bristol, with her father and uncle.

1851 English census Class: HO107; Piece: 1952; Folio: 383;Page: 33; GSU roll: 87352 retrieved through ancestry.com

24 The Mall Clifton

The Mall Gardens, Clifton , Gloucestershire opposite 24 The Mall where young Constance James probably played

Her grandfather, John James, a lawyer, had died on 20 March 1849 at Clifton. Her uncle Charles, also a lawyer, died in late August or early September 1851 at the age of 34 and was buried at St Peters, Newnham.

On 22 July 1852 Constance’s father remarried at Newland, Gloucestershire, to Arabella Veronica Deighton (1826 – 1923). On 3 June 1853, Vera Maria James, half-sister of Constance, was born.

On 23 March 1855 John James died, only 47. Constance was then 14 years old.

On 17 February 1858 Charlotte’s step-mother remarried in Bombay, India to Stanley Napier Raikes (1824 – 1891), a Captain of the 18th Regiment of Native Infantry.

On 27 January 1859 Charlotte Constance James married Francis Gamble Blood at St Andrews Church, Clifton, Gloucestershire. He was a captain in the 69th regiment. The marriage was performed by her step-mother’s brother, the Reverend Charles Dighton, Rector of Mitcheldean, Gloucestershire.

Cheltenham Examiner 2 February 1859 page 8 from the British Newspaper Archive retrieved through FindMyPast

I will write separately about Charlotte Constance Blood née James’s adult life.

Charlotte Frances Dana married Philip Crespigny in Paris on 18 July 1849. They had five children between 1848 and 1858. They sailed for Australia on 3 December 1851 and never returned to England. When they emigrated, they left behind an infant son, Constantine Pulteney Trent Champion de Crespigny who had been born on 5 May 1851. It would appear that they considered he would not be strong enough to survive the voyage. He was brought up by his Crespigny grandparents in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, and was reunited with his parents in 1875 at the age of 24.

Charlotte Frances Champion Crespigny née Dana, photograph in the collection of my father Rafe de Crespigny

Charlotte Frances Champion Crespigny died on 9 November 1904 at her son-in-law and daughter’s property at Eurumbeen East, near Beaufort, Victoria, Australia. Philip Champion Crespigny died at Brighton, Victoria, a suburb of Melbourne, on 14 September 1889 from general paralysis, which had lasted nearly 13 years.

 

G is for Gainsborough

Captain William Wade by Thomas Gainsborough. Image retrieved through https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/captain-william-wade-40008

William Wade, born about 1733, was the great nephew of Field-Marshal George Wade (1673 – 1748), best remembered as the builder of military roads in Scotland and as a long-time member of Parliament for Bath. William Wade, sometimes incorrectly stated to be one of the illegitimate sons of the Field Marshall, is named in George Wade’s 1747 will as the son of George Wade’s nephew Major Wade.

I am distantly related to William Wade: he was the father-in-law of my fifth great uncle Philip Champion Crespigny.

William Wade was educated at the Westminster School and then had a career in the army.

In December 1760 he married Catherine Gore, daughter of Henry Gore of Leatherhead, Surrey. William and Catherine had at least four children, three daughters and a son.

In April 1769, William Wade, at that time holding the rank of Captain, was elected Master of Ceremonies at Bath. Beau Nash (1674 – 1761) was his most notable predecessor in the position. Nash’s place there was unofficial but he met visitors to Bath, encouraged them to subscribe to the Assembly Rooms and kept the peace by enforcing the rules there. Nash made money by sharing in the receipts from the subscriptions and the benefit balls. By the time Wade was appointed, the position was by the election of subscribers of the Assembly Rooms and a salary was paid to the holder of the position from the proceeds of the benefit balls.

Female intrepidity, or the battle of the belles on ye election of a King of Bath. May 1769. Etching. Credit: Wellcome Collection. CC BY 4.0. Image retrieved from https://wellcomecollection.org/works/qkyn4etc

The season at Bath ran from October to May. Patronised by the Prince of Wales, Brighton also became a fashionable summer resort, known for sea bathing. Since the social seasons of Bath and Brighton did not overlap, Wade was able to occupy positions in both places; he held the post of Master of Ceremonies at Brighton from 1767.

At Bath, the Lower Assembly Rooms were built in the early 1700s. The Upper Assembly Rooms, which had four rooms: the Ball Room, the Tea or Concert Room, the Octagon Room (which links the rooms together), and the Card Room, were built between 1769 and 1771. William Wade presided over the ball conducted to open the new Rooms.

The Octagon Room began life as a card room, where people gathered at tables to play whist and other games of chance. At the centre of the room is a particularly spectacular Whitefriars crystal chandelier, the largest in the building. It was made in 1771 and has 48 lights, originally candles.

Octagon Room, Bath Assembly Rooms photographed by Glitzy queen00 at English Wikipedia (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Octagon_Room.jpg), CC BY-SA 3.0

Chandelier in the Octagon Room, Bath Assembly Rooms. Photograph by Heather Cowper who blogs at www.heatheronhertravels.com/ retrieved from Wikimedia Commons, originally uploaded to https://www.flickr.com/photos/heatheronhertravels/4547807786 CC by 2.0

In 1771 Thomas Gainsborough, then living in the Circus at Bath, painted a portrait of Captain William Wade as a present to the new Assembly Rooms. This picture of the first Master of Ceremonies at the Assembly Rooms was hung in the Octagon Room, and hangs there again today. The portrait includes his badge of office, a gold medal enamelled blue worn on an indigo ribbon.

In 1777 Captain Wade was named in divorce proceedings between John Campbell Hooke Esq and Elizabeth Eustatia Campbell Hooke nee Bassett.

Wade lost the position of Master of Ceremonies at Bath as a consequence of the scandal but continued as Master of Ceremonies at Brighton.

Henry Gore, the father of Catherine Wade nee Gore, died in 1777. He left his estates to his son-in-law William and daughter Catherine. These estates included the Mansion at Leatherhead, Surrey, 47 miles north of Brighton and close to one of the main routes from London to Brighton. William Wade would have found the residence conveniently close to Brighton for his duties there.

Following the death of Catherine Wade nee Gore on 26 April 1787 William Wade married Elizabeth Eustatia Bassett, a ‘single woman’, by licence on 30 June 1787. They had already had a daughter together, Georgina Dennison Bassett Wade, who was born in 1783 or possibly as early as 1777. (The index of her death in 1863 said she was 86 when she died and thus born 1777; the census of 1851 gives her age as 68 and thus born 1783.) Georgina was mentioned in her father’s will.

William Wade’s son, Henry Gore Wade, died at sea in 1814. William’s three daughters by Catherine Gore shared in the estate. One of the daughters, Emilia, married Philip Champion Crespigny (1765 – 1851). Philip and Emilia lived in the Mansion at Leatherhead after Henry Gore Wade’s death. Emilia died in 1832.

In his role of Master of Ceremonies at Bath he would possibly have met my 5th great grandfather Philip Champion Crespigny (1738 – 1803), who built his house there in 1786.

Related posts

• Philip de Crespigny in the French Revolution
• Deaths at sea

Sources and further reading

• Dodgson, Stephen. “THE BABE OF TANGIER: AN ENQUIRY INTO THE LIFE AND CIRCLE OF GENERAL GEORGE WADE.” Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, vol. 82, no. 330, 2004, pp. 109–131. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/44231055.
• Sloman, Susan Legouix, ‘The Immaculate Capt. Wade’, Gainsborough’s House Review 1993/4 (1994): 46 – 62 retrieved through University of Melbourne library
• John Eglin (2005). The Imaginary Autocrat: Beau Nash and the Invention of Bath. Profile Books. pp. 241-2. Retrieved through Google books.
• THE GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE, AND HIFTORICAL CHRONICLE. VOLUME XXXIX. 1769 p. 213.
• ‘The borough of Brighton’, in A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 7, the Rape of Lewes, ed. L F Salzman (London, 1940), pp. 244-263. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/sussex/vol7/pp244-263 [accessed 19 March 2019].
• Rendell, Mike. “The Bath Adonis – a Man in a Gorgeous Waistcoat – and a Penchant for Married Women…” Georgian Gentlemen, Mike Rendell, 10 Feb. 2019, mikerendell.com/the-bath-adonis-a-man-in-a-gorgeous-waistcoat-and-a-penchant-for-married-women/.
• Trials for Adultery, Or, The History of Divorces. The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. pp. 26–35. Republished by the Lawbook Exchange in 2006 and viewed through Google Books
• https://www.fashionmuseum.co.uk/works-art
• https://thebathmagazine.co.uk/let-me-entertain-you/
• https://thebathmagazine.co.uk/thomas-gainsborough-making-ugly-people-beautiful/

Divorce of John James and Charlotte Frances née Dana

John James (1808 – 1855), a solicitor from Newnham Gloucestershire, married Charlotte Frances Dana (1820 – 1904) on 14 May 1839 at St Peters church, Worfield near Albrighton Shropshire.

They had two children, Charlotte Constance (1840 – 1935) and John Henry (1841 – 1842).

In November 1847 Charlotte left her husband and daughter and eloped to France from Ventnor on the Isle of Wight with Philip Champion Crespigny. They lived in France under different names including Mr and Mrs Rae and D’Estair. They moved from Havre to Rouen to Paris and then to near St Malo.¹ Their daughter Ada Isadora was born at Paris on 15 May 1848 and christened at the English Protestant Chapel, Saint-Servan-Sur-Mer. Saint Servan is two miles from St Malo. Their son Philip was born 4 January 1850 at St Malo and christened on 14 January. A second son Constantine Pulteney Trent was born on 5 May 1851 at St Malo and christened on 28 May.²

In the mean time John James had engaged a solicitor to pursue his wife and Philip. The solicitor

“stated he had used every effort to induce Mr. Crespigny to put in an appearance to an action for crim. con., but without effect. Indeed, whenever he had reason to think that that gentleman might be in England he had sued out a writ. He had sued out at least seven or eight writs, but in no one instance had an appearance been entered.”¹

In February 1849 the divorce went before the Arches court. The court thought the facts were fully established beyond all doubt, and pronounced for the divorce.³

In March 1849 John James brought a bill for divorce before the House of Lords. Among the lords present were the Lord Chancellor, Lord Brougham, Lord Campbell, the Duke of Wellington, Lord Stradbroke, the Earl of Mountcashel, Lord Stanley, the Earl of Suffolk, and Lord Ellenborough.¹

The marriage of Charlotte Frances Dana to Philip Champion Crespigny was formalised on 18 July 1849 at the British Embassy in Paris, France. The couple had been living at Fleurtuil in Brittany, a village near St Malo, and Philip C. Crespigny, rentier [i.e. “of independent means”], accompanied by his Dame [lady: probably not wife, which would be Femme] and their child [described as an Enfant, which would indicate a male child, but evidently Ada, who had been born on 15 May 1848] were granted a passport for travel to Paris by the local British Vice-Consul at St. Malo on 30 May 1849.⁴

Divorce for reasons of adultery was first made available in England in 1857. Parliamentary divorce was invented about 1700. Divorce by a private act of Parliament was abolished in 1857. Before 1857 three different legal systems applied: canon law, equity law and common law requiring different lawyers and judges and operating in three separate courts. Before 1857 only Parliament could grant a full legal severance of a marriage allowing both spouses to marry again.⁵

The Court of Arches was an ecclesiastical court located at Doctors’ Commons in London.

The law provided for a husband to make a claim against a wife’s lover for damages because of her adultery – an action known as ‘criminal conversation’, or ‘crim. con.’. In later years this action reinforced the claims for a Parliamentary divorce. The original object of the crim. con. action had been to punish the seducers of married women and to compensate the latter’s cuckolded husbands. By 1800, the great majority of actions were collusive, and their true function was to provide a legal smoke screen under which both husband and wife could obtain an undefended Parliamentary divorce and remarry.⁶ Philip Crespigny’s refusal to be party to the crim. con. court case was unusual and threatened to derail the divorce action.⁷

Only the very rich could afford a Parliamentary divorce, the costs running into thousands of pounds.⁸ It is estimated that £5,000 in 1847 would be worth about half a million dollars today.⁹ In the ten years 1841 to 1850 only 43 Parliamentary divorce petitions were brought in England, about 4 a year. There were 85 matrimonial cases in the Court of Arches in that decade.¹⁰

In 1852, John James also remarried to Arabella Veronica Dighton. They had a daughter Vera Maria James. John James died in 1855.

Charlotte Constance James would never have seen her mother again. She married in 1859 to Francis Gamble Blood. They had a son, John Neptune Blood. Charlotte Constance divorced Francis Blood in 1870; it was a wife’s petition.¹¹ Charlotte Constance Blood died in 1935. Her son died in 1942 without issue having never married.

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<sup>1. The Times, 21 March 1849, page 7 (images of the newspaper articles are below) ↩
2. Notes on the family history prepared by my father Rafe de Crespigny August 2001: The record of baptism for Isidora Ada Charlotte, on 4 July 1848, gives her parents with Christian names Philip and Charlotte, but surname as D’Estrée. It seems that this must refer to the first child of Philip Champion Crespigny and Charlotte Frances nee Dana, born before their marriage, but there appears no explanation for the surname. Eighteen months later, on 14 January 1850 Philip Champion and Charlotte Frances had their infant son baptised as Philip Champion, with the surname given as Crespigny. In each case, the address of the father was given as St Malo, and the quality or profession as “Gentleman”. Both ceremonies were carried out by the same Chaplain John Penleaye; one would imagine the British community in the region of St Malo would have been small enough for someone to have noticed the variations. ↩
3. London Daily News, 19 February 1849, pages 6-7, “Arches Court – Saturday” ↩
4. Notes on the family history prepared by my father Rafe de Crespigny August 2001. He also notes that no place called Fleurtuil appears on the Michelin Map of France, nor is there any record of such a place on the Internet; on the other hand, this is true also of the sub-village Crépigny. The writing of the name, however, is a little uncertain: the initial could be an H, or possibly a P, and there is a Pleurtuit in the vicinity of St Malo, some distance up the Rance, about four kilometres from its western bank. ↩
5. Stone, Lawrence. (1990). Road to divorce : England 1530-1987. Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press; pages 6, 20, 46 ↩
6. Stone pages 17, 26 ↩
7. The Hull Packet and East Riding Times (Hull, England), Friday, March 30, 1849; Opprobriums of Law ↩
8. Stone pages 354 – 357 ↩
9. Computing ‘Real Value’ Over Time With a Conversion Between U.K. Pounds and U.S. Dollars, 1830 to Present from http://www.measuringworth.com/exchange/ calculated 1 April 2013 ↩
10. Stone pages 424, 432 ↩
11. Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle etc (Portsmouth, England), Wednesday, June 22, 1870 ↩</sup>

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London Daily News, 19 February 1849, pages 6-7, “Arches Court – Saturday”

The Hull Packet and East Riding Times (Hull, England), Friday, March 30, 1849; Opprobriums of Law

The Times, 21 March 1849, page 7

Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle etc (Portsmouth, England), Wednesday, June 22, 1870

Australian arrival of the Champion Crespigny family on the ‘Cambodia’ 31 March 1852

Philip Champion Crespigny and his wife Charlotte Frances née Dana together with two children, Ada and Philip, and a female servant arrived in Australia just over 161 years ago.¹ They came on the ‘Cambodia‘ , a 914 ton ship which had sailed from Plymouth on 4 December 1851. The master was John Joseph Hammach and the surgeon superintendent was Frederick Wilson. She came with 313 emigrants and cargo.²

Florence Chuk gives an account of the voyage in her book The Somerset years : government-assisted emigrants from Somerset and Bristol who arrived in Port Phillip/​Victoria, 1839-1854.²

The Cambodia was built of oak in Sunderland in 1850. It was sheathed in metal to increase her speed. Despite this the voyage took 116 days from Plymouth to Port Henry as the winds were very light and adverse. It was very cold when they left Gravesend for Plymouth. At Plymouth they took on emigrants from the west country. The third mate absconded at Plymouth and there were only 16 crew to work the ship. There were four births and ten deaths on the voyage. Although the Cambodia was very clean and in good order on arrival, when the Immigration Board examined the surgeon’s journal they concluded that the surgeon had not been competent to take on the role. Some stores had disappeared and the seaman appointed to hand out the rations had his gratuity withheld.²

Philip and Charlotte probably came to Australia on the recommendation of Charlotte’s brothers who were in charge of the colony’s native police force. Charlotte’s first husband was pursuing a legal claim against Philip which made it impossible for them to stay in England.³

It appears that it wasn’t until 18 November 1852 that Philip obtained a job with the government when he was appointed Assistant Commissioner of Crown Lands for the Goldfields.⁴

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<sup>1. Index to Assisted British Immigration 1839-1871 for the Cambodia arriving March 1852 retrieved from prov.vic.gov.au under the index name “Crespigney”, further information at Book 5A page 201.↩
2. Chuk, Florence. (1987). The Somerset years : government-assisted emigrants from Somerset and Bristol who arrived in Port Phillip/Victoria, 1839-1854. Ballarat, Vic. : Pennard Hill Publications; pages 157 to 160.↩
3. The divorce case is a topic for another blog entry. However the legal issues are hinted at in an article discussing Charlotte’s divorce case: OPPROBRIUMS OF LAW . The Hull Packet and East Riding Times (Hull, England), Friday, March 30, 1849.↩
4. Victoria Government Gazette, Gazette 57, Wednesday, October 5th 1853, page 1459 retrieved from http://gazette.slv.vic.gov.au/view.cgi?year=1853&class=general&page_num=1459 on 1 April 2013↩</sup>