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HAVING concluded a review of
his work as a civil engineer, it only remains to refer briefly to his life
at home. Three houses during the past forty years would appear to possess a
sufficiently good title to call for some mention as having been for several
years "home”: 39, Finchley Road, St. John’s Wood, facing the Swiss Cottage,
from 1854 to 1865; during the greater part of which time and until the
construction of the St. John’s Wood Branch of the Metropolitan Railway, it
bordered upon green fields and country lanes; Whiteness, Kingsgate, in
Thanet, from 1863 to 1896; and 11, Prince of Wales Terrace, Kensington, from
1863 to 1896; but it is only proposed to refer his home life as spent at one
of these—the one the most enjoyed, and the one in which he died.
It was during the early
autumn of the year 1859, while paying a Saturday to Monday visit to an old
friend, Mr. John Dangerfield, a London solicitor, who owned one of the few
houses at Kingsgate, built on a portion of the site of the once stately
mansion of Henry, Lord Holland, that my father became enchanted with the
wide range of sea view from the higher ground some half a mile 1 nland, and
resolved to secure it and build a country home.
“What a glorious site this
would be for a country house,” he exclaimed to his host, as they walked by
the spot in question on the afternoon of Sunday,-October 9th, 1859.
“Who would think of building
a house in this exposed place,” remarked the host, more in the tone of a
counter exclamation than a query.
“I would, if I had the
chance,” was the prompt reply.
“Well,” observed the host,
“the farm is for sale, so you hive the chance.”
Upon returning from the walk
the particulars of sale were obtained and examined, and George Hill Farm
was, as stated, advertised for sale by auction at the “White Hart Hotel,”
Margate, at a near date. A business appointment at Newport, Monmouthshire,
on the following day, prevented the fulfilment of his wish to immediately
negotiate for the acquisition of the land, but upon his return to town on
Wednesday, October 12th, he drove straight to the office of the solicitors
for the property, concluded the bargain, and paid the requisite ten per
cent, of the purchase money. This expeditious transaction in securing some
fifty acres of bleak farm land, to which some twenty acres more have since
been added, on a portion of which he had resolved to build a house, and lay
out a garden, is mentioned as illustrating his quickness in forming a
decision, and it may be said that an equally characteristic trait was his
willingness to abide by the consequences of a judgment when once expressed.
The first impressions
conveyed to his mind by the wide range and beauty of the sea view, and the
thoughts of what might, with such natural advantages given, be done in the
way of arboriculture to improve Nature’s picture—thoughts which found
expression in the remark, “what a glorious site for a country house ”— were
strangely different from those left upon the mind of the poet Gray, who was
a visitor to the same spot in 1766. Of the particular occasion of the poet’s
visit we know little except that he was the guest of the Rev. William
Robinson, of Denton, but he has recorded the displeasure which he felt at
viewing the numerous sham ruins erected by Lord Holland in the vicinity of
his house, and this may have been enough in his judgment to spoil all other
surroundings. But the discrepancy between the two impressions, both quickly
formed and expressed, seems to possess a certain :nterest from the fact
that, although a long interval of time had elapsed, there had been but
little change in the natural features of the locality between the two
visits. A few more yards of coast line had succumbed to the incessant
buffeting by the sea, and a few more trees had been planted and grown up to
break the monotony of the continuous undulating corn-fields, while the
locality had been rendered the more easy of access to Londoners by the
extension of the South-Eastern Railway Company’s system to Ramsgate and
Margate. But with these changes, and all allowance for “the season’s
difference,” the two opinions remain in strange contrast to each other.
Gray, after due time for
reflection, wrote of the amenities of Kingsgate :—
“Old and abandoned by each
venal friend
Hore Holland form’d the pious resolution
To smuggle a few years, and strive to mend
A broken character and constitution.
On this congenial spot he
fix’d his choice
(Earl Godwin trembled for his-neighbouring sand.)
Here sea-gull? scream and cormorants rejoice,
And mariners though shipwreck’d, dread to land.”
The “congenial spot” so
ironically described is still fortunately enjoyed by the sea-gulls, as their
presence in considerable numbers throughout the year skimming along the
coast-line and uttering their harsh, weird cries as they catch sight of
floating morsels of food, or tiny fish venturing dangerously near the
surface, sufficiently testifies, and occasionally cormorants may still be
seen to alight on the edges of the rocks when the tide is low, and
outstretch their wings to dry in the same manner as their better known
cousins in St. James’s Park; but the mariner’s risk of shipwreck has happily
been reduced to a minimum by the several lightships furnished by the Trinity
House of Deptford Strond, which mark by their hulls in the day lime, and
their variously timed occurring lights at night, the great sea highway
leading to and from the Thames; while the North Foreland Lighthouse, in
comparison to which the lightships seem but satellites, stands out as a
“pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day.’'
“And the great ships sail
outward and return,
Bending and bowing o’er the billowy swells;
And ever joyful as they see it burn,
They wave their silent welcomes and farewells.”
The Shipwrecked mariner’s
“dread to land” is an allusion to the barbarism of the inhabitants, of whom
there was certainly good cause for alarm in the eighteenth century, for
Lewis, in his History of the Isle of Thanet, 1736 (p. 34), informs us that
“the seamen here are generally reputed excellent sailors, and show
themselves very dexterous and bold in going off to ships in distress. It is
a thousand pities that they and the country people are so apt to pilfer
stranded ships, and abuse those who have already suffered so much. This they
themselves call by the name of Paultring, since nothing sure can be more
vile and base than, under pretence of assisting the distressed masters, and
saving theirs and the merchant’s goods, to convert them to their own use by
making what they call Guile-shares
The same authority writes of
Kingsgate as “a pleasant little Vill, and consisting mostly of fishermen’s
houses, who get their living here by fishing, going off to ships in
distress, or carrying them fresh provisions, beer, &c., when they pass this
way on their return from a voyage, which they call by the name of Foying
But of late it is pretty much deserted.”
But the poet’s irony is not
yet exhausted, for he continues:— •
“Here reign the blustering
North and blighting East,
No tree is heard to whisper, bird to sing,
Yet Nature could not furnish out the feast,
Art he invokes, new horrors yet to bring.
Here mould’ring fanes and
battlements arise,
Turrets and arches nodding to their fall,
Unpeopled monastries delude our eyes,
And mimic desolation covers all.”
The blustering North and
blighting East still reign, and reign supreme in their season, and as to the
latter wind, a resident may safely copy in his diary during the late sprng
for some days in advance the entry ascribed to an American, “Lat. same,
Long, same, Wind same.”
But the condition of things
referred to in the second line of the verse were clearly capable of being
changed by human agency, and much pleasure was realised in planting numerous
trees and shrubs that they might be “heard to whisper and birds to sing ” In
close proximity to the house. Early in the spring of i860 the services of
Mr. Masters, of Canterbury, a skilful landscape gardener, were requisitioned
to lay out the garden, and for the encouragement of bird life, or as the
late Professor Owen expressed it, “refreshment for the orchestra,” a
fountain with a shallow basin was provided at which they might drink and
take their morning tub.
During the summer months,
especially in dry seasons, this fountain has been thronged for years with
the various species of bird life in the island. The partridge, whose life is
yearly becoming more precarious and his venue more restricted in this
neighbourhood, will venture there in the early morning, and the coy
woodpigeon at intervals during the day, after carefully reconnoitring the
scene to satisfy herself that no danger is likely to attend her hurried
drink. Perhaps the birds which convey to an observer the impression of
deriving the greatest amount of pleasure from the proffered facilities for a
bath, are starlings and wagtails, but all the passerine tribe, both
residents, and summer visitors to the locality, come ceaselessly throughout
the day.
For thirty-three years the
late owner had the pleasure of watching the gradual growth of the garden he
had made, and from time to lime extended, at first visiting it in the summer
months, but in recent years as frequently as professional engagements would
permit, and each year as it brought an increase of growth brought with it
also an additional interest in the home.
It was here on August 7th,
1888, a day of brilliant sunshine, and wholly in keeping with the occasion,
he celebrated his Golden Wedding-Day, and it was not until seven years later
that symptoms of failing health in his beloved life-partner first pointed to
a coming dissolution of the long and happy alliance, and during the
following year, 1896, they both passed peaceably away in the home they had
made and been so long permitted to enjoy, death dividing them but for the
short space of six months.
The energy of purpose and
devotion to work which had characterised his long professional career, and
which showed but little sign of having become impaired by any of the
infirmities which a life of fourscore years proverbially brings in its
train, was maintained during leisure hours in painting in his study at the
foot of the garden, and several of his pictures in the opinion of qualified
critics bear evidence of a strong artistic talent.
With this short allusion to
the country home, the author feels that his attempt to review this long
career, however imperfectly performed, should close, but it is hoped that
enough has been written in the pages of this small book to satisfy the
reader that the life was one of the many, which have little by little but
continuously, been assisting in the great progress of the country during the
sixty years of Her Majesty’s glorious reign, and that it has been of some
marked and permanent service to mankind—as the result of an unremitting
dedication both of time and talent in carrying into practical effect the aim
of the Civil Engineering profession, as expressed in the words of their
charter of 1824, “The Art of Directing the Great Sources of Power in Nature
for the Use and Convenience of Man.” |
