Essex
is full of dead Londoners. Ongar used to the be the most easterly station on
the Central Line until it closed in 1994 but long before the underground
existed the temptations of London lured its more ambitious inhabitants away
from the sleepy market town to seek their fortune in the capital. The
churchyard of St Martin’s contains an impressive 18th century table tomb with
cherub heads at the corners which covers the burial vault of the Boodle
family. The vault was built for two brothers;
John and Edward Boodle who we believe were originally from Shropshire. John
Boodle, a surgeon and apothecary who
practiced in Ongar, and his unmarried younger brother Edward, who established
the world famous Boodle’s Club in St James, are both here, along with John’s
son Edward who was a partner in the law firm that eventually became Boodle
Hatfield and which can still be found today in the Blackfriars Road in
Southwark. The vault also contains other Boodle relatives and a sprinkling of Mitfords;
the two families were close and intermarried over three generations. The
Boodles seem to have been a convivial family but the Mitfords were a
quarrelsome and litigious lot who fell out dramatically with each other.
The
Boodles were almost certainly from Shropshire originally. Parish records show
that an Edward Boodle was the third son of John Boodle of the Three Tuns,
Oswestry, Shropshire, and was baptized at St Oswald’s Oswestry on 14 October
1722. Boodle is as common a surname in Shropshire as it is an unusual one in
Essex but by the mid 1700’s there was an established colony of Boodles at Ongar
including Edwards older brother John. After an early career shrouded in obscurity we
know Edward Boodle went into partnership with William Almack in London in the
early 1760’s. The two had leased adjacent properties at 49 and 50 Pall Mall and
were running them as gaming clubs. Almack’s eventually became Brooks when it moved
to St James in 1777. While Edward Boodle was alive his club remained at Pall
Mall, only moving to St James Street under new management after his death.
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| They took their gambling seriously during the Regency |
William Hickey gives one of the few intimate
portraits of Edward Boodle in his celebrated memoirs:
“Robert Mitford .
. . was a near relation of the Mr. Boodle who from having squandered away a
handsome fortune was reduced to the necessity of accepting the management of
one of the fashionable gaming houses in Pall Mall which bore his name, being
called ‘Boodle's’, and to this Mr. Boodle I was introduced by Mitford, after
which introduction I spent many a jovial night at his house. At the time my
acquaintance with him commenced he was nearly sixty years of age, and notwithstanding
he had lived very freely, had still a good constitution, and was of a
remarkably cheerful disposition. He was never happy unless he had a parcel of
young people about him. I made one of upwards of a dozen who usually supped
twice a week in Pall Mall, where he gave us as much champagne, burgundy and
claret as we chose, the table being covered with every variety in the way of
eating. Nothing delighted him more than sitting out the boys, as he called it.
Indeed, his head was so strong that he generally succeeded in so doing, and
when he perceived his young guests began to flag, or become drowsy, he would
get up, lock the door of the room, and putting the key in his pocket, strike up
the song of "'Tis not yet day" etc. His companionable qualities were
extraordinary, and I certainly have passed more happy and jovial nights in his
back parlour in Pall Mall than in any other house in London.”
For
a man who ran such a famous club Edward managed to keep a very low profile.
There are few mentions of him in the press, an exception being a story in the
Kentish Gazette of Saturday of 08 April 1769;
“Sunday night the
waiter at Mr. Boodle's in Pall-Mall dressed up a monkey belonging to their
master in a sailor's habit then rubbed his head with pomatum and powdered it.
The monkey getting loose ran to the top of the house, and made his Way the
fourth house from his dwelling; then he went down a chimney into a room where a
man was employed to sit up with a dead child; upon the man's seeing him and his
dress, and hearing him begin to chatter, he ran out greatly frightened, crying
out, the Devil is come down the chimney," and left poor pug in his uniform
dance about the room at his pleasure.”
On
8 February 1772 Edward Boodle died at his house at 49 Pall Mall and was
interred in the family vault in Ongar. His will mentions no wife or children
and so suggests he never married. He left his estate to his sisters Margaret
and Jane with his brother John as sole executor. On 13 February a general
meeting of the members was held at Boodle’s to decide who should take over the
club. It was unanimously resolved that 'Ben Harding shall succeed the late Mr.
Boodle in the House and Business, and shall be supported therein.' It was Ben
Harding, vintner of St Anne’s, Westminster, who in June 1782 tabled a
resolution to members 'That Harding do take Mr. Kenney's House in Saint James's
Street for their Use'. The club moved to the new premises the same year and has
remained there ever since.
On
page 350 of his memoirs William Hickey provides further details of the
acquaintance who had introduced Edward Boodle to him, Robert Mitford:
“This winter
Robert Mitford's father died, leaving to his eldest son, who had acquired a
large fortune as Commander of the Northumberland East Indiaman and retired from
the service, thirty thousand pounds, and a like sum to Robert, with the
succession to the business, which was said to yield a clear profit of upwards
of three thousand pounds a year. The young coxcomb condescended to accept the
shop, but being ashamed that his fine acquaintances should know that he was in
trade, he rarely made his appearance in Cornhill, took a splendid house at the
West end of the town, kept a dashing equipage, became a member of the Cocoa
tree and other clubs, gambled, lost, and in less than three years was
completely ruined, and a commission of bankruptcy being issued against the
Woollen Draper's house, he was reduced to the necessity of going out an
adventurer to India. He died broken hearted at Madras soon after his arrival
there.”
Robert’s
father (also called Robert – and we are shortly to meet a nephew, also called
Robert, and also two John’s – the Boodle’s had no monopoly on lack of
imagination when it came to choosing Christian names), was a city merchant who
baptised his children at St Dunstan’s in the East and had a house was in
Hampstead. He had marred a Boodle, Elizabeth, and his eldest son, John, was to
marry another, Sarah, the daughter of Edward Boodle the lawyer. The families
were clearly close. Robert Mitford the elder made his fortune in trade,
primarily as a wool draper but also engaged in the East India trade. The later
was so lucrative that his eldest son John made his fortune there and made it
early enough for his family to leave the family business to his younger
brother. It was a serious error of judgement. Robert the younger set up home in
fashionable Great Portland Street and ignored the drapers except to make
frequent raids on its cash reserves. By July 1784, less than a decade after inheriting
a business that made £3000 a year, Robert was bankrupt. Hickey thought that the
bankruptcy drove Robert to taking his chances in India and that he died shortly
after arriving there; we know from a court cas that he died in 1790 leaving a
wife and a child. Robert’s elder brother
John had married twice, the first time to a Boodle, Sarah and the second to a
woman called Mary Allen. Both of John Mitford’s wives pre-deceased him and both
were buried in the Boodle vault in St Martin’s churchyard. A slate panel on the
north side of the monument commemorates them “In Memory of Mrs SARAH MITFORD,
Wife of JOHN MITFORD Sometime of this Parish Esq. She departed this life
December 8th 1776 Aged 31 Years. Also in Memory of Mrs MARY MITFORD Second Wife
of JOHN MITFORD who Departed This life June 4th 1784 27 years.”
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| The Boodle tomb, St Martin's, Chipping Ongar |
John
Mitford had two children with Mary, two sons, the elder, John born in 1781 and
the younger, Robert, born in 1784. John studied at Tonbridge Grammar
School in Kent and Oriel College Oxford before becoming ordained as an Anglican clergyman and becoming
vicar of Benhall in Suffolk. In addition to being an East Anglian cleric he pursued a parallel
literary career for which he based himself at permanent rented lodgings in
Sloane Street in Chelsea. He published the first complete works of Thomas Gray
and was for many years a regular contributor to the Gentleman’s Magazine and
eventually became the editor. John also married a Boodle, Augusta, eldest
daughter of Edward Boodle the lawyer; “The marriage was not attended with
happiness,” the original edition of the DNB tersely says. John died in 1859
after he collapsed on a London Street with an attack of paralysis. He was taken
back to Suffolk to die and was buried in his parish at Stratford St Andrew.
Robert
Mitford the younger also went to Tonbridge Grammar School with his brother but
at the age of 16 was sent to Bengal to take up a career in the Colonial civil
service. He started a Writer, a clerk, in Kolkata and Bihar. In 1804 he married
Elizabeth Ann Pattle but his marriage proved to be no happier than his
brothers. In 1816 became Collector of Taxes at Dhaka and after four years
applied, and was appointed to the Dhaka Provincial Court of Appeal and Circuit
as its Second Judge in 1822. He remained in post until 1828, when he retired
after thirty years service in India and returned to England. In London his
marriage collapsed when he took up with a French woman called Mary Appoline.
The relationship caused a rift with his brother which never healed. He died in
Paris, on holiday with Mary, in 1836.
The
state of relations between Robert and his family can be seen from the new will he
had made on 21st July 1835, the opening salvo of which was: “The will late made
by me was destroyed in consequence of circumstances in my family which have
totally changed the nature of the relations as they had previously subsisted and
by a necessary result any disposition towards the parties in the respect of
their succession to the property real and personal of which I may be found to be
possessed at the period of my decease.” The will makes it clear that John
Mitford is to inherit nothing from his estate and that his wife is only to
receive an annuity. It refers to a £10,000 loan made to John for the education
of his only son, a loan which according to Robert had not been used for the
purpose it had been granted or repaid. Robert refers to John’s ‘evil habits and
propensities’ and claims he has illegitimate offspring.
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| Boodle Cherub, St Martin's, Ongar |
The
will also makes unusually detailed provision for the interment of Robert’s mortal
remains: “In the event my demise at an early period I direct and enjoin the
said executors and administrators hereunto to purchase and prepare for the
ultimate deposit of my body and also for the removal and deposit of the remains
of my parents and sister now lying interred in a vault in the church yard of
Chipping Ongar in Essex ‘The Mount’, that is contiguous surrounded by a moat,
that I understand to be the property at present of a Mr Evans on the summit
they will be pleased to cause the erection and construction of a suitable and handsome
as well as durable monument planting the and sides and summit of the mount with
cedar and cypress trees in a manner that may render it ornamental to the town
the expenses whereof for the purchase the of the monument &c &c are to
be met and provided for out of the surplus property.” There is no evidence to
show that Robert’s father (who died at Richmond) or his sister are buried in
the Boodle vault but as their actual place of interment is not known then it is
a possibility that they too are in that rather crowded space. The rest of the
estate was left to the Government of Bengal to use for charitable purposes to
benefit the native population of the colony. His servants had been given an
extra six months wages but the family got nothing. Of course it all ended in
litigation.
Mitford’s
widow contested the will. The first difficulties for Robert’s executors had
come trying to carry the provisions of the will relating to his burial. The plans
to convert the picturesque remains of a Norman motte and bailey castle lying
behind Ongar church, a huge earthworks surrounded by a water filled moat known
as the Mount came to nothing. Mr Evans, the owner, proved unwilling to sell the
Mount in order to have it converted to the setting for a Mausoleum for Robert
and the members of his family he had still been on good terms with (i.e. the dead ones).
Robert’s body presumably went into the Boodle vault to jostle with everyone
else. His widow Elizabeth started a case in the Court of Chancery which hinged
upon technical arguments about whether there were ‘proper parties’ to receive
the charitable bequest (and which also argued that the clause about the
mausoleum on the Mount were illegal because it was not consecrated ground) but
which was obviously intended to scupper Robert’s intentions and ensure she and her
son received the bulk of the estate as next of kin. She was to be sorely disappointed the case
dragged on until 1842 but the court eventually decided in favour of Robert and
his executors – the will was valid and the bulk of his estate was to be used to
benefit the natives of Bengal. There were further legal challenges from another
relative which thwarted the execution of the will for another six years until
that case was finally dismissed in 1848. In 1854 the Government of Bengal built
a hospital for the use of the residents of the city of Dhaka with Robert’s
money and named it the Mitford Hospital in honour of its benefactor. The
hospital still stands today; probably no one who uses it realises it owes it
origins to a family squabble over a French mistress.
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| The Mitford Hospital, Dhaka, Bangladesh |
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