Story Category: Legacy

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

On 28 May 1940 Captain Hutchinson, the Chief Constable of Brighton, was sent a letter from Henry Roberts, Curator of Preston Manor. The letter begins:

‘Dear Captain Hutchinson, in one of the cupboards in the attic here I have come across a revolver.’

Letter announcing discovery of revolver at Preston Manor, 28 May 1940

This one line creates a thrilling picture, the gentlemanly bespectacled curator creeping about in the vast attic space at Preston Manor looking into old cupboards and being alarmed by his find; a scene reminiscent of an Agatha Christie murder mystery.

But this was no smoking gun. Mr Roberts states that he presumes the revolver belonged to the late Sir Charles Thomas-Stanford ‘and may have been used by him when in South Africa.’

Being a good citizen Mr Roberts is aware of the law: ‘as I believe no one is supposed to hold lethal weapons without a permit I report the matter to you.’

The museum curator in Mr Roberts speaks regretfully when he says ‘naturally I would prefer to retain the revolver here, with other personal mementos of Sir Charles, but I must, of course, leave that to you.’

Present day photo re-enacting moment of revolver’s discovery at Preston Manor

The Webley revolver

I hoped when reading this letter that the revolver was kept as it would be an interesting historical object. Mr Roberts gives a detailed description.

‘On the barrel are the words “Army and Navy, C.S.I.” Below the revolving part are the words “Webley Patents.” Above this is “Mark II”. There is a number 46122, and another number 455/476. I can see no ammunition.’

On 4 June Captain Hutchinson replies from the County Borough of Brighton police station at Brighton Town Hall. He isn’t at all worried by the find and is keen that Mr Roberts keeps the revolver and sends the necessary application form so the weapon can be held legally. ‘Complete and return to me,’ he writes, ‘this will allow you to retain the revolver in question.’

Captain Hutchinson knew Mr Roberts personally so naturally had no concerns.

Uncompleted firearms application found in Preston Manor

We know Mr Roberts declined because we still have the application form and it has not been completed. In fact for a piece of paper 77 years old it is in perfect condition having been in a filing cabinet since 1940. The form is very simple. You give information about the weapon and ammunition and you fill in a few simple personal details. Your date of birth is required only if you are under 21 years of age. You must give a reason for requiring the firearm and ammunition and if the Chief Officer of Police is satisfied that you have met the three conditions listed and have paid your five shillings you have your certificate.

The three conditions are equally simple. You must keep your firearm and ammunition in a secure place. You must report loss or theft, and you must notify the police of any change of address.

The current firearm application form runs to 15 pages and is much more complex. Sections to be filled today include medical history of the applicant, not required in 1940.

Henry Roberts

I can imagine Mr Roberts pondering over the application form. He was a respectable and honest person who satisfied all the necessary conditions. Yet he writes on 20 June that he has considered the matter but is making an unconditional surrender of the weapon to the police ‘for it to be put to such use in the present emergency as you deem advisable’.

In 1940 Britain was at war with Germany, and the south coast was in an especially vulnerable position. Perhaps he thought the Brighton Police might require an extra firearm in the event of invasion.

‘If when the war is over,’ he goes on to add, and ‘track has been taken of it, and it can be returned here, well and good. If not, well it cannot be helped.’

On 20^th June 1940 Mr Robert received the receipt he requested proving the weapon surrendered to the police and here the trail goes cold.

Curious as to the whereabouts of Sir Charles’s Webley I contacted the Old Police Cells Museum at Brighton Town Hall. Unfortunately they have neither the weapon nor a record of its surrender. I am disappointed but not surprised. Too much time has gone past and the event described here happened at a time of national crisis. Also, the Brighton Police headquarters moved to new premises in the 1960s and much of the old paperwork may have been destroyed.

It seems the Webley was disposed of. But how?

According to Dr. Robert Maze’s publication, The Webley Service Revolver published by Osprey in 2012 thousands of tons of weaponry including Webley revolvers were exported to buyers overseas in the post-war years, fetching millions of pounds sterling. A trade abounded in wholesale weaponry sold by weight not by the piece – providing Britain with much-needed funds at a time when the British economy was depleted by war.

Could it be that Sir Charles’s Webley became part of this contingent? If so the most likely destination was the United States.

A Webley Mark II service revolver is a collectable item today. If Sir Charles’s Webley is somewhere in private possession it will be easily identifiable by the unique serial number. However it is also possible the gun was destroyed in the postwar years when peace took precedence.

At Preston Manor Sir Charles Thomas-Stanford is remembered  as a man of peace. As MP for Brighton during the First World War his parliamentary questions were largely concerned with social matters such as the employment conditions of children and food supplyfor wounded servicemen at the Royal Pavilion Hospital for Limbless Men. Indeed, in the New Year’s Honours list of 1929 he was created a baronet in recognition of his years of public service.

What then was he doing with a lethal weapon?

Charles Thomas in Africa

In 1895 Charles, at the age of 37, spent time adventuring in South Africa. He became friendly with Cecil Rhodes, the controversial businessman and politician, whom he had met as a fellow undergraduate at Oxford University.

Charles became a partner in a gold prospecting syndicate and wrote of his dealings. Of the riches to be mined he quotes Rhodes:

‘…he suggests the ‘Gold of Araby’, frequently mentioned in the Bible, was in fact produced in what is now Rhodesia…from this country came the treasures of King Solomon.’

On arrival in South Africa, Charles travelled from Capetown to Pretoria by rail and thereafter by coach to Bulawayo in Zimbabwe: ‘a somewhat toilsome journey of six days and nights with practically no stoppage.’

In the little explored southern gold belt he rode on a wagon, ‘with axes to clear the way when necessary.’ Like many men of his time, Charles regarded the local lions as legitimate sport. He writes of taking a shot at some lions that followed the wagon train:

‘I had a shot at one at a distance of a few yards, but it was pitch dark at the time, and I missed him.’

This incident is the only mention I have found so far of Charles Thomas, as he was then named, using a firearm of any kind.

Charles’s Mark II Webley revolver dates from between the model’s introduction in 1894 and its replacement by the Mark III in 1897. This supports Henry Roberts’s comment to Captain Hutchinson regarding its usage in South Africa. Very likely the revolver surrendered in June 1940 had been in the possession of Charles Thomas on his dramatic Boy’s Own gold-hunting adventure.

Portrait of Sir Charles Thomas-Stanford, 1913

A couple of years after his South African adventure, Charles Thomas married wealthy heiress Ellen Stanford, on 19 May 1897. In accordance with her father’s will he took her family name and became the double-barrelled Charles Thomas-Stanford. Leaving his Boy’s Own gold hunting adventures behind, Charles settled to a quiet academic life pursuing his interests in archaeology and history.

In 1905 the Thomas-Stanfords came to live at Preston Manor where I like to imagine Charles seated in the dining room with his closest friends regaling them with after dinner tales of lions and gold mining over glasses of port. Meanwhile, carefully packed away in the attic, his Webley revolver lay waiting to startle Henry Roberts many years later.

Paul Wrightson, Venue Officer, Preston Manor

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

On 28 January, we’ll be opening up the cold case of a body found at Preston Manor over a century ago. In this post, Paula Wrightson, Venue Officer at Preston Manor, introduces the mystery of ‘Sister Agnes’.

• Mysterious Case of the Preston Manor Skeleton

Preston Manor, early 1900s

On Friday 29 January 1897, workmen repairing the drains at Preston Manor made a grisly find: the hastily buried skeletal remains of a person identified as a middle-aged woman.

This event followed an unsettling autumn. Six weeks prior to Christmas a séance had been held at Preston Manor presided over by two of the UK’s most accomplished psychical researchers: spiritualistic medium Ada Goodrich Freer and Douglas Murray, member of the famous Ghost Club. The pair had been invited to deal with another family predicament, the hauntings by ghosts.

The Christmas of 1896 had been an unfortunate one in the house, then a private family home. Bad smells wafted about the rooms and corridors, alarming the residents so much that they moved out temporarily, leaving only the servants, and orders for the workmen to investigate possible causes of the stench.

Child burial at Rocky Clump, an example of an archaeological human remains discovery in Brighton. Courtesy of Brighton & Hove Archaeological Society.

Today the law requires you call the police immediately if you unearth human bones in your garden. The CID (Criminal Investigations Department) will then make an assessment. Experts will be bought in to calculate the age of the bones. Bones ‘of antiquity’ will not form part of a criminal investigation and will fall under the remit of the County Archaeologist. The Burial Act of 1857 dictates that persons exhuming human bones must have the correct licence to do so. All human remains must be reported to the Coroner’s Office.

There is no evidence the inhabitants of Preston Manor adhered to the letter of the law and thereby hangs an unsolved mystery. Freer and Murray persuaded the family the bones were those of Sister Agnes, the excommunicated nun that was said to haunt Preston Manor. But was this a fabrication masking the truth?

Join us on Saturday 28 January 2017 for the Mysterious Case of the Preston Manor Skeleton when house historians and members of the Brighton Archaeological Society will discuss the case. Known historical evidence will be examined alongside newly researched material that has never been presented. Find out if it is possible to solve a mystery, the trail of which has gone cold for 120 years….

Paula Wrightson, Preston Manor Venue Officer

Booking information

£7.50 plus Preston Manor admission (includes free sherry & biscuits on arrival), book in advance.
You can buy tickets by telephoning the Events Booking line on 03000 290902 (Mon-Fri) or in person at any of our venues. You can also email visitor.services@brighton-hove.gov.uk if you have any queries. A £1.50 booking fee may apply to some events. Tickets cannot be reserved without payment. Please book early as an event may be cancelled if too few tickets have been sold.

More information

• Ghosts at Preston Manor
• Archaeology collections

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

Here in the conservation team at the Royal Pavilion & Museums, one of our main projects at the moment is the restoration of the Royal Pavilion Saloon. This is a large scale project with a lot of work involved, and I’m very excited to see it completed next year.

Nash’s view of the Saloon, 1826

Part of my role in this project is to assist our Gilding Conservator in the re-gilding and conservation of the gilded frames and internal fittings for the room. This has been a great opportunity because it means I have been able to learn the art of water gilding which, as a metals conservator, I’ve not had the opportunity to practice fully before.

This is such an interesting process because when you see a gilt frame or object in a museum, it’s not immediately obvious how much work is involved in the process of gilding. For this reason I want to share the different stages of the process involved. One of the great things about gilding is that the process has had little need to change since it was developed by master craftsmen many years ago.

Each frame length that is in need of re-gilding is approximately three metres long and takes on average one month to complete from start to finish. You can just about see the gilt frame pieces around the red silks and mirrors in the image above.

The initial stage is to remove the bronze paint layers from previous restorations of the room (gilding that is original or in good condition is not re-gilded, but cleaned instead) followed by the application of gesso.

Application of gesso over stripped paint surface

Gesso is a mixture of whiting (a fine chalk) and rabbit skin glue which is applied in about six thin layers. This is a very important stage because each layer has to be applied whilst the one below it is still damp but not dry. If this is not done correctly then the layers can crack and flake away in the future, ruining the gilding you’ve done over the top.

After the gesso ground comes the sanding and smoothing of the surface. This can take a while, so it’s important to be patient, as the perfect ground will now look beautiful when it comes to gilding later.

Next we get to start adding colour. First is the yellow ochre layer. This is about two coats and is a thin yellow clay mixed with rabbit skin glue. It’s important to get this to fully cover the white ground, particularly in recesses that may be difficult to gild later. This is followed by the bole layer which for the Regency period is a purplish colour, but this is the red layer you may be used to seeing under worn gilded surfaces. This layer is built up until it is a solid colour, and then gently rubbed down to create the smoothest surface possible.

Detail of applied ochre layer

Detail of initial gilding over bole and ochre layer

And then comes, for me, the most satisfying part – the application of the first gold layer. A lot of care needs to be taken when applying the gold as it is very thin and therefore fragile. The gold is laid flat on the cushion and cut to size with the knife (care is taken not to breathe too much near the gold as this can dislodge it from the cushion). Each piece is then picked up with the gilders tip (the tip is dry, but rubbed on your hair or arm to pick up a fine grease layer which will then attract the gold). Water is brushed on to the area to gild – traditionally gin has been used – and the tip brought to the surface. The water attracts the gold and pulls it onto the surface where it then sticks once the water has dried (due to all those layers with rabbit skin glue added).

First application of gold over the bole

The whole surface is gilded and the skewings removed (these are kept as they can be used to make shell gold for other jobs). Then a layer of double laying size is brushed over the top of this first gold layer and, once dry, the second layer of gold is applied. This covers any breaks in the first layer, and also gives a more solid appearance to the piece. After this the surface is faulted – which means re-gilding small areas which may have been missed, so that the surface is fully covered. Parchment size is used to seal this layer after it is finished, and acts as a protective coating which can be removed and reapplied when needed. Varnishes can be used, depending on the nature of the object and its location. The coatings stop dirt and dust from becoming mechanically bound to the gold and so the surfaces will last longer.

Detail of completed frame length

And then it’s finished and is ready to be used. So on to the next piece!

Hannah Young, Assistant Conservator

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

This year sees the 100^th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, a pair of political uprisings that would change the course of the 20th century. These momentous world-changing events were followed avidly by Ellen Thomas-Stanford at Preston Manor via correspondence with Colonel Harry Vere Benett and his young British intelligence associate, Oswald Rayner.

Preston Manor, early 1900s

Portrait of Ellen Benett-Stanford, 1895

Ellen kept a scrapbook album of letters and paper ephemera relating to the wartime period 1914-1918 and these are immensely valuable as historical documents. The letters from Colonel Benett and Oswald Rayner stationed in Petrograd (now St Petersburg) are housed in the albums at Preston Manor.

However little you know about the Russian Revolution you will be familiar with two names: Rasputin and the Romanovs. Countless words have been written about the charismatic ‘Mad Monk,’ the man born an impoverished peasant in Siberia yet who climbed to the rank of trusted confidante inside the most inaccessible and secretive royal court in modern history, that of the Russian imperial family, the Romanovs. The enigma that was Rasputin continues to fascinate. Therefore opening Ellen’s album of letters I wondered if I would find references to this intriguing man.

I was not to be disappointed.

Intelligence agents abroad

Colonel Harry Vere Benett

Colonel Vere Benett, who went by the nickname Croppy, was the illegitimate son of Ellen’s first husband, Vere Fane Benett, and the burlesque actress Fanny Josephs. Aged 54 in 1917 Croppy was working in Russia representing Britain in the Franco-British military mission to Petrograd. The chatty letters to Ellen from both Croppy and Rayner tell a vivid first hand account of life in Russia that turbulent year.

A graduate of Oriel College, Oxford, and an expert linguist, 28 year old Oswald Rayner knew Ellen through Colonel Benett. ‘It was kind fate that brought us together,’ Rayner writes of Colonel Benett in a letter dated both 16 and 29 November 1916, ‘and followed up her favours by sending me to Preston.’

A letter by Rayner to Ellen dated 26 February / 11 March 1917 was written in cold Petrograd, and has him thinking fondly of the Preston Manor gardens:

‘I suppose it must be almost spring in Brighton by now. How lovely the gardens must be looking. Perhaps the daffodils and crocuses are in full bloom. This sort of picture makes one feel quite homesick!’

Rayner’s description holds true today as the gardens look just as he describes.

The way the letters are dated is worth noting. Prior to 1918 Russia was still using the Julian calendar as opposed to the Gregorian calendar adopted by Britain in 1752. This meant that Russia was 13 days behind the date back home, hence the two dates often showing on the men’s letters. Of interest, Oswald Rayner’s ‘kind fate’ letter to Ellen is dated exactly one month before Rasputin’s death on 16 /29 December 1916.

Signatures of Oswald Rayner and Harry Vere Benett from Preston Manor visitors’ book, 1916

Rayner’s name came to prominence back in 2004 when BBC Timewatch aired a documentary, Who Killed Rasputin?, following new evidence uncovered by intelligence historian, Andrew Cook.

Fascinatingly, the Timewatch team discovered that Oswald Rayner was an active British Secret Intelligence Service operative. Official SIS documentation codenamed Rasputin as ‘Dark Forces’ and considered him a real threat to the British war effort. There was concern should Rasputin persuade Tsar Nicholas II to broker peace between Russia and Germany. Such an exit from the war, it was feared, would cause the allies to be overwhelmed on the Western Front by 350,000 Germans freed from the need to fight the Russians in the east.

The death of Grigori Rasputin, the self styled holy man turned society figure, has entered popular legend and it is hard to separate fact from fiction. Conventional history names Prince Felix Yusupov and right-wing politician Vladimir Purishkevich as present on the night of Rasputin’s murder. They and other disaffected Russian aristocrats viewed Rasputin’s influence over the Tsarina a threat to the empire and so allegedly fed Rasputin cakes and wine laced with cyanide before variously bludgeoning, shooting and drowning him.

However, accounts of that night on 29 or possibly 30 December 1916 have been questioned, leading to re-examination of post-mortem photographs by modern forensic experts who studied the third bullet wound in the centre of Rasputin’s forehead, suggesting dispatch by a professional killer using a Webley revolver.

Richard Cullen, a retired Scotland Yard commander working with Andrew Cook and the 2004 Timewatch team concluded: ‘there is fair weight of evidence to show that Rayner was the man. We have conclusive proof that the previously accepted versions of events are fabrications.’

This is where the story gets exciting (and what a pity Timewatch never came to Preston Manor) because clues may be found in Croppy and Rayner’s letters to Ellen Thomas-Stanford. Of course neither would disclose British intelligence secrets to a genteel 69 year old grand lady in Brighton thrilling to tales of revolution — but were hints dropped?

Traces of Rasputin

Rasputin is periodically mentioned by Croppy in his letters.

On 16 January 1917 he writes:

‘I suppose the English papers referred to the assassination of the priest, Rasputin although probably England would hardly comprehend all it means, except those who know something of this country and its peculiar politics.’

Croppy felt able to write freely because of ‘this letter going through the bag not ordinary post,’. By this he meant the secure Foreign Office diplomatic bag.

‘I enclose a good photograph of a bad man,’ he writes on 7 April 1917, and duly pasted into Ellen’s scrapbook is the very photograph.

Photograph of Rasputin in Ellen Thomas-Stanford’s scrapbook

‘I always avoided, although I had the chance, of meeting Rasputin. Had I been here in a private capacity, I would have gone but then perhaps he would not have wanted to meet me. He was a curious personality, and I might say I think without exaggerating, that he is really the cause of the downfall of the Romanoffs (sic), the Revolution and what is to come, for we are no means through with it all.’

‘Did you get a letter from me dated 14^th February,’ he writes, ‘giving you an account of Rasputin and the history of Usupof (sic) who is reported to have killed him.’

Prince Felix Felixovich Yusupov, to correct Croppy’s spelling, was one of the richest men in Russia, possibly richer than the Romanov family he married into in 1914. He studied fine arts from 1909 to 1913 at University College, Oxford, where he was a member of the notorious Bullingdon Club and a very colourful character by all accounts, dressing in women’s clothing, smoking hashish and living flamboyantly. He later published various reports of the night of Rasputin’s murder, although his version of events is now questioned by historians. He was undoubtedly somewhere in the vicinity because the murder took place at his house, or rather, palace – but was Rayner also present, being a friend of Yusupov’s from university days?  Conjecture continues today as to Rayner’s part in the death of Rasputin, both for and against his being involved.

Croppy’s letter of 14 February 1917, which did arrive at Preston Manor, is a unique and riveting eight page slice of history told first hand from a man on the spot. Croppy packs the letter with unflattering descriptions of Rasputin gleaned from ‘men and women who met and knew him…he was uncouth and ill-mannered…he was only a peasant and a boorish peasant at that illiterate and hardly educated, got drunk and over eats…’

Rasputin’s infamous dealings with women are not left out, ‘… he has been photographed before now, coming out of Bath Houses (not quite what Bath Houses are to us) in the company of the most 5^th rate and common women, and yet he had the most extraordinary power over the very smartest and aristocratic ladies in the country…’

Croppy goes on to describe the events of Rasputin’s death writing how ‘three men of royal blood, Boris, Dimitri and Yousonoff’ (Croppy struggles with the correct spelling of Russian names) used ‘two very smart ladies’ to lure Rasputin to ‘a very smart supper party’ after which they gave Rasputin a pistol and ‘told him to use it in the best way.’ After a scuffle the mysterious Boris ‘shot him as a dog, twice.’ However, after bundling Rasputin’s body into a car ‘they found he was not quite dead and that’s when the second shooting took place,’ causing that third and fatal bullet wound in the centre of Rasputin’s forehead.

Was Rayner the mysterious Boris or was he the man waiting outside in the car with a Webley revolver?

The BBC Timewatch programme told how modern forensics found the three bullet holes in Rasputin’s body to be of various sizes and the bullets fired from three different guns. Those first two shots fired ‘as at a dog’ were delivered inside the building. Photographs of the scene show a long, straight line of blood across the courtyard, ending in a pool of blood near the gate where the car was waiting. ‘The second shooting,’ as reported by Croppy, happened once Rasputin was ‘put into the car,’ – and delivered as an assassin’s efficient gun-to-the-forehead execution.

If Rayner was the British government’s approved assassin in the mode of James Bond he never disclosed, and he destroyed all his papers before his death in 1961. Yusupov and his wife, Irina, who was niece to Tsar Nicholas, fled Russia after the February Revolution, a series of fierce armed clashes that would lead to the abdication of the Tsar and the end of the three-hundred year old Romanov dynasty. Yusupov and Irina lived out their days in exile in Paris, Yusupov dying in 1967 aged 80.

Can we know the truth a century on?

Croppy’s 14 February letter to Ellen Thomas-Stanford contains some comments worth analysing in respect of both possible British intelligence involvement and Oswald Rayner’s part in the incident at the Yusupov palace.

Croppy tells Ellen; ‘…I do not care to write what I have heard (and believe to be true) was at the back of the affair but “it was the limit”…’

Is this remark and underlined emphasis evidence of Croppy’s repugnance at what he believes to be true and the limit i.e. his country’s participation in the killing of Rasputin who he puts in a good word for?

Had Rasputin been a ‘real Russian’ and ‘a patriot,’ he writes, and ‘used his influences in high places for the good of Russia…his name might have lived in history as a saviour of his country.’

Croppy goes on to make another and probably the most noteworthy statement of all.

‘…The night of the murder I was discussing it with a highly placed individual who said “well, well how slack these Russians are to be sure; it took an Englishman to do that for them” – because the history of the man, whose name is frequently mentioned, was at Oxford and a great tennis player, in fact about the best in the world until he hurt his arm…’

Frustratingly, I have not been able to discover if Oswald Rayner was a hot shot at tennis while at Oxford but if this fact comes out — and I have not yet read all of Rayner’s letters to Ellen Thomas-Stanford — then maybe a small piece of an enormous historical jigsaw will slot into place.

Paula Wrightson, Venue Officer, Preston Manor

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

This small watercolour and gouache painting from c1797 in the collection of the Royal Pavilion & Museums is by the amateur artist James Bennett (not to be confused with the Victorian oil painter of the same name), who created a number of simple but evocative images of Brighton between the 1790s and the 1810s.

James Bennett, The Steine Front of the Marine Pavilion, 1797 (FA100194)

Most of Bennett’s pictures focus on the seafront, but in this one the artist ventures a little bit inland, its main intention being to capture the east front of the Marine Pavilion as it was then known. It is not a hugely accomplished painting and leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to perspective and architectural accuracy, but it paints a vivid picture of Brighton in its heyday as a seaside resort.

The Pavilion as we see it here, viewed from the east side of the Steine looking west, is still more or less the architect Henry Holland’s building, created for the Prince of Wales in 1787. It has bow-fronted wings, a circular central room with a shallow dome (which still forms the roof of the Saloon but is now topped with John Nash’s large central onion-shaped dome, added in 1818) and a neo-classical colonnade. By the mid-1790s plans were being made for considerable changes and additions to the building, for example two conservatories, placed at either end of the building at roughly 45 degree angles, but these were not put in place until 1801. Instead, we can see a number of structures and ornaments that would later be obscured or demolished.

Detail of James Bennett’s The Steine Front of the Marine Pavilion, 1797 (FA100194)

Adorning the top of the colonnade, for example, are seven neo-classical coade stone figures. These were removed sometime between 1801 and 1804, despite the Pavilion largely retaining its neo-classical exterior until 1817. Immediately to the left and the right of the building low red-brick structures are visible. These were curved walls, essentially blocking the view of the original kitchen area to the north of building, and the house of Louis Weltje, the Clerk of the Prince of Wales’ kitchen (and much more), to the south.

Behind Weltje’s house (the one with the small shuttered windows) we can see the top of the Countess of Huntingdon’s church, first built in 1761, later rebuilt and eventually demolished in 1972. In the distance, high on a hill, is St Nicholas of Myra, the parish church. At a right angle to Weltje’s house, behind dense planting, is the original stables block, which would later be replaced by the grand Royal Stables on the north-west side of the estate (now The Dome). In the foreground on the right, pushing their way into picture, are the ‘blue-and-buff’ Georgian townhouses on the Steine, which survive to this day.

Detail of James Bennett’s The Steine Front of the Marine Pavilion, 1797 (FA100194)

Apart from recognisable buildings and structures this charming picture provides a glimpse into the two worlds that formed Brighton in the late 18^th century: that of fashionable society and royalty, and that of the long-standing fishing industry. There are well-dressed women parading the Steine, joined by smart men on horseback. A brightly coloured horse drawn carriage is pulling up by the ‘blue-and-buffs’, and a movable royal sentry box is placed by the low fence enclosure of the eastern Pavilion lawns. Yet, we also get a sense of the messiness of Brighton, with a dog running around the Steine, the grass not manicured and fishermen’s nets casually thrown over the Steine fencing, perhaps discarded, perhaps hung there to dry.  Two worlds colliding? They seem to be merging here quite harmoniously.

This and many other lesser known and unusual images of the Royal Pavilion Estate will be shown in a new display titled Visions of the Royal Pavilion Estate at the Prints & Drawings Gallery in Brighton Museum, 14 March 2017 to 3 Sept 2017.

Alexandra Loske, Curator, Royal Pavilion Archives

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

As part of our Regency Season of exhibitions and events, we have been looking at life in Brighton in the early 1800s. In this post, Royal Pavilion curator Alexandra Loske looks at an early picture gallery that may have been visited by painter John Constable, the star of our current Constable and Brighton exhibition in Brighton Museum.

I have been interested in the various forms of entertainment available in our city in the early 19th century. Apart from events at assembly rooms, horse races, theatres and libraries, Brighton also had at least one significant picture gallery in the 1820s, long before art exhibitions were held in the Royal Pavilion (from 1850) and Brighton Museum was built (1873).

Brighton Picture Gallery, 1823

This image from 1823 shows the interior of the much praised picture gallery that Constable is likely to have visited during his time in Brighton. It stood at what is now roughly the area between Circus Street and Grand Parade, a plot of land that was developed between 1806 and 1808. It included the building of a riding school known as the Royal Circus, which was opened by Messrs Kendall and Co in August 1808. An engraving from the following year shows an impressive nine bay, three storey structure, with a large Pegasus sculpture placed on top. Wings to the north and south housed a coffee house, billiard rooms, and a confectionery.

Royal Circus and Ampitheatre, 1809

By the early 1820s the building had become a picture gallery and social meeting place where visitors, having paid a shilling admission, could also read newspapers, magazines and reviews. The engraving showing the interior appeared in Richard Sickelmore’s popular book The History of Brighton (1823). He describes the gallery as a ‘beautiful and splendid cabinet of the arts…  As a public exhibition, the Dulwich gallery excepted, it is decidedly unrivalled, provincially, and may be fairly classed with those of the first consequence in London.’

Brighton Picture Gallery, 1823 [detail]

The list of artists shown at the Grand Parade gallery was surprisingly international, comprising Dutch, Flemish, Italian, German, Spanish and French masters, among them Parmigiano, Veronese, Caravaggio, Poussin, Ruysdael, Mengs, Hogarth, Gainsborough and others, as well as ‘the finest collection of De Loutherbourg’s work extant’.  There are no records that confirm that Constable visited the gallery, but it seems highly likely that during his extended stays in Brighton in the 1820s he would have dropped in to see the impressive display of high quality art.

By 1826 the gallery had been turned into a ‘Bazaar’ and J Whittemore notes in one of his Brighton guides that ‘although we lament the alterations it has undergone, we are gratified to perceive that in its present state, it affords an hour’s amusement to the numerous fashionable visitors, who honour it with their presence.’ The author also mentions that some paintings by foreign artists are still displayed in the building. A tiny engraving in Whittemore’s book shows a building that appears to have been refaced completely, with the additional wings gone. Sadly, no trace of it remains today.

Sickelmore’s book with the interior view of the picture gallery will be on display in the Jane Austen by the Sea exhibition, which opens in the Royal Pavilion on 17 June 2017.

Alexandra Loske, Curator, Royal Pavilion Archives

Note: a version of this article was previously published in Viva Brighton.

More informaton

• Constable and Brighton exhibition
• Jane Austen by the Sea exhibition
• Visions of the Royal Pavilion Estate exhibition
• Downloadable images of Georgian Brighton

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

Museums all over the country have to prepare themselves for any sort of disaster that could affect their collection. At the Royal Pavilion & Museums, we have been putting a lot of work into our Salvage Recovery Plan, which sets out how we rescue objects in the collection in the event of a disaster. To support this work, some of us were lucky enough to attend a specialised training course in May this year.

Historic England runs a practical three day course in cooperation with the West Midlands Fire Service, that shows delegates how an effective response during an emergency incident can mitigate loss and damage to heritage assets.

Based at a fire station in Birmingham the course was able to provide a much needed hands on experience, without any real life damage to a real life collection. As part of the course we were kitted up as fire fighters with breathing apparatus and took part in an exercise, entering a smoke filled building with little visibility and trying to navigate around.

Kitted out for practical exercises

It was a great opportunity to see how hard the fire fighters job is and how hard it would be them for salvage heritage items from a building, where the practicalities of their kit — heavy gloves and bulky clothes — would make a salvage operation challenging at the best of times.

Wearing the full kit can be hard work

In teams we spent an afternoon working to divert water and got very wet! We also learnt how to use ladders and other salvage equipment correctly, how to handle and move museum objects correctly, and also took part in several classroom based activities.

Preparing materials for salvage operation

The culmination of this training was a full scale ‘mocked up’ incident. For this exercise, the training building was filled with ‘museum objects’ from a junk shop. The fake museum was filled with smoke, an alarm was activated, and a fire truck arrived and went into action, assessing the scene and dousing the area ‘on fire’ with water. Although the incident was mocked up it was surprising how real it  felt. We all volunteered for specific roles for the salvage operation and entered into the roles with gusto

Experiencing such a full scale operation, although just mocked up, gave us a very real feel for how the Salvage Recovery Plan for the  Royal Pavilion & Museums would work and what, if any, changes we would need to make. It was a huge learning experience, a great opportunity and made us all feel prepared should the unthinkable ever occur.

Amy Junker Heslip, Paper Conservator

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

Her Majesty the Queen turns 91 on 21 April and so to mark this event I am looking back to a day in her younger life when she visited Preston Manor. When I give guided tours of the house people are always surprised by this fact, royalty being more associated with the Royal Pavilion.

Preston Manor as it appears today

The official visit to Brighton by Her Royal Highness Princess Elizabeth, as she was then titled, took place on Tuesday 4 December 1945. This was just a few months after the end of the Second World War, and Preston Manor had only just reopened as a museum having been used as a base for Civil Defence Volunteers since the autumn of 1939. The date has long faded into history but what can we know of the events of the day?

Hasty preparations

At Preston Manor the archive contains some fascinating paper ephemera concerning the arrangements for the visit, and what jumps out straight away is the modest paperwork involved. Procedures for a royal visit today are much more lengthy and complex.

Mayor’s letter to Henry Roberts announcing visit by Princess Elizabeth, 30 November 1945

First, a letter dated 30 November arrived from the Mayor’s Parlour at Brighton Town Hall informing the curator, Mr Henry Roberts, of the impending royal visit – a mere four days away.

Alderman Walter Clout, Brighton’s Mayor, writes, ‘Her Royal Highness has graciously consented to take tea with the Mayoress and myself at Preston Manor.’

He then goes on to invite Henry Roberts to be there on the occasion, clearly unaware that the Roberts family had their home in the house — in those days historic house curators and their families often resided on-site. ‘Please arrive at Preston Manor no later than 3.45pm.’ the Mayor writes.

Interestingly, the tea was not prepared in the house but brought in by Forfars, the well-known Brighton bakery firm which traded from 1818 until 2015.

Henry Roberts notes on preparatons for royal visit, 1945

On receipt of the Mayor’s letter Henry quickly drew up a hand-written schedule, his usual neat handwriting becoming a hasty scrawl as he thinks fast:  ‘M takes P to retiring room before and after,’ he writes, referring to his daughter Margery, who was tasked with taking the Princess to the room given over for her private use.

‘Autograph book to sign,’ he notes and ‘some souvenirs’. We don’t know what items the Princess took away but records show the manor was stocked with guidebooks and postcards, so these souvenirs were most likely the ones given.

Fortunately Margery, then aged 37, kept a diary which she later used as reference for her 1998 memoir, A Time Remembered, telling of her years living both at the Royal Pavilion and Preston Manor.

‘The 4^th December was a Red Letter Day for Preston Manor,’ she writes, explaining that the Princess had been to review troops at the King Alfred in Hove. At this time the King Alfred leisure centre was used by the Royal Navy as a training site, having been requisitioned at the start of the war.

Following her visit to the King Alfred, the princess had visited the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Sick Children in Dyke Road, where she opened the Gillespie Wing. She also attended a concert at the Dome in aid of hospital funds. With the creation of the National Health Service still two years away such fundraising events were regular activities.

‘It was a grey December day, rather cold, not a gleam of sun,’ Margery writes. ‘Princess Elizabeth arrived at 3.50pm wearing a sage green coat, a brown velvet hat with sage green feathers and a green dress with a lace collar. She looked charming, but a little shy and her outfit was rather young for her age’.

This last comment of Margery’s is interesting and show how perceptions of age and fashions have changed. Photographs exist of Princess Elizabeth taken at the hospital and although only 19 years old her outfit strikes modern eyes as more suited to a middle-aged woman of the period than a young woman in her teens.

Margery’s report of the day is filled with incident and detail of a domestic and personal kind.

‘On arrival, after presentation, which included my parents and myself, they (the Princess and her lady-in-waiting) retired to Lady Thomas-Stanford’s sitting room which mother and I had arranged especially as a rest room.’

Today visitors to the manor can go to the room set aside for the Princess’s private use and ponder on which chair our future Queen sat, as nothing has changed in that room since 1945.

In the entrance hall Henry Roberts showed the Princess ‘a few pieces of silver and the furniture’ and ‘asked, “Are you as interested in antiques, Ma’am, as your grandmother is?” And Princess Elizabeth said, ‘well, not quite as much.’ Margery notes that, ‘at least she was honest.’

A modest scandal?

Visitors to the manor can also see the exact spot in the house where a small breach of protocol took place, reported by a scandalised Margery who takes up the story as the party were headed towards the drawing room for tea:

‘…where guests, important Brighton people, were seated at little tables around the room. As we walked along the corridor the Mayor went to put his arm round the Princess’s waist. She made no comment, but obviously stiffened.’

The following day the Mayor cheerily told Margery and her mother: ‘you know I treated her like one of my daughters.’ To which Margery replied, ‘so I noticed’, and with enough acid in her tone for her mother to chide: ‘you shouldn’t speak to the Mayor like that.’

Modes and manners have  changed much since 1945 and we live in a less formal age. However, matters of etiquette surrounding royal persons are largely unchanged. Today, as in 1945, it is not permissible to touch royalty unless returning a formal hand-shake. Walter Clout clearly got carried away with the moment, perhaps a little star-struck by the attractive young princess or, as he admits, overcome by fatherly concern. After her long cold day reviewing the troops and opening a hospital wing, Princess Elizabeth was in no doubt in need of the tea and warmth awaiting her in the Manor drawing room.

In recent times similar incidents made international news. In 1992 the Australian Prime Minister, Paul Keating, put his arm around the Queen causing much uproar. In 2012 Michelle Obama lightly embraced the Queen on a visit to Buckingham Palace, a gesture which was gently returned. On this occasion a Palace spokesman described the incident as ‘a mutual and spontaneous display of affection and appreciation.’

Margery Roberts died in 2000 aged 92 but nevertheless one can sense her astonishment at such familiarity.

Princess Elizabeth stayed exactly 65 minutes at Preston Manor, a detail provided by Margery who wrote of the short visit, ‘it was a wonderful occasion and one I shall always remember.’

On Her Royal Highness’s departure the Forfar’s staff presented an iced cake in the shape of a rose for her sister who, as Margery points out, was known as Princess Margaret Rose in those days. Wartime rationing was still in place at this time, and the sugar ration was 8oz (227g) per household per week. As an iced cake is a high sugar product this was a significant gift, and may well have been the result of each staff member donating a small quantity of sugar from their ration.

Henry Roberts’ guest list for attendees at royal visit to Preston Manor on 4 December 1945

Queen Mary & Margery Roberts

Margery’s father was familiar with entertaining royalty whilst employed as Director of the Royal Pavilion and Brighton Museum and Art Gallery. In this role he became on friendly terms with Queen Mary who returned original decorative items and furniture to the Royal Pavilion.

Margery writes of a visit to the Pavilion by Queen Mary in 1927 noting Her Majesty’s remark, ‘I don’t want Mayors with their chains of office who know nothing about things I’m interested in. I just want to come and see Mr Roberts and talk to him’. This explains Henry’s query to Princess Elizabeth as to whether she shared her grandmother’s interest in antiques.

Front cover of ‘A Time Remembered’, Margery Roberts’ autobiography

Although I never knew Margery Roberts I am fortunate to be in touch with her nephew and niece who have both provided me with information about their Aunt Margery, who by all accounts was a formidable character with an imposing personality. She lived at Preston Manor until 1969 undertaking the role of Honorary Curator after her father’s death in 1951. With the theme of royalty in mind this snippet from Margery’s nephew is fitting.

‘My aunt was a tall, upright and imposing, even regal figure. She was always impeccably dressed. She loved wearing red or deep pink (known in my family as ‘Auntie Margery pink’) and was very fond of hats. Indeed, my eldest son tells me that he thought she was a member of the Royal family when he was small!’

Queen Victoria’s daughters

Preston Manor was no stranger to royalty because, as the visitor book shows, three daughters of Queen Victoria —  the Princesses Helena, Louise and Beatrice —  were periodic guests in the years before and just after the First World War. Sadly, there was no diary writing Margery Roberts in the house as these royal visits occurred when Preston Manor was still in private ownership. Today we can only guess at how days were spent by such illustrious house-guests. Princess Beatrice (1857-1944) visited most regularly and in 1914 she stayed from 17 to 22 December. The princess and her lady’s maid would have been given rooms in the west wing, the part of Preston Manor not generally open to the public but viewable on special Behind the Scenes tours.

Signatures of Princesses Beatrice and Louise from Preston Manor visitor book, 1915

Signatures of Princess Helena from Preston Manor visitor book, 1916

The west wing was added in 1905 as part of a general enlargement and improvement to the house, and was specifically created to provide facilities for guests at those sumptuous weekend house parties so beloved of the Edwardians. Some of the former bedrooms in the west wing are now used as offices including the room in which this blog post was written. With its attractive view south towards the lawns and trees of Preston Park I would think my office must have been the principal guest bedroom. Knowing that a daughter of Queen Victoria very likely enjoyed the self-same view on waking in the morning adds another brush of colour to the story of this surprising house.

Paula Wrightson, Venue Officer, Preston Manor

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

The Royal Pavilion is home to many exotic beasts of one variety or another. Renowned as an orientalist fantasy, it features dragons, including the famous Dragon Chandelier in the Banqueting Room, phoenixes and snakes. Some of you may also remember the Exotic Creatures display from 2015-16 which gave an insight into some of the animals in royal collections and early zoos, and which performed in London and Brighton between c1760-1840.

Beasts were clearly a rich source of inspiration and fascination during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The newly installed Jane Austen by the Sea display contains many treasures from the Royal Pavilion & Museums’ collections, as well as some exciting loans from the Royal Collection and the Jane Austen House Museum in Chawton, Hampshire. One of the highlights is an extraordinarily rare satirical print from the Royal Pavilion’s archives in which you can have a small game of ‘spot the beast’.

Lumps of Pudding, 1811 (centre section)

Titled Lumps of Pudding the print is a hand-coloured etching produced in 1811 by William Heath (1795-1840), after Henry William Bunbury (1750-1811). Made up of five sheets, the print is an impressive 239 cm (93.7 inches) – 2.4 m (8 feet) long. It shows 18 extravagantly dressed dancing couples in a strip design, and if you look closely, one of the women is wearing a blue dragon in her hair. Some of the other exotic headpieces feature such creations as a windmill and an early version of the Isabella Blow/Philip Treacy sailing ship!

Lumps of Pudding, 1811 (detail)

We are delighted to have been able to include Lumps of Pudding in the display as it nearly did not feature at all. While it was considered to be in ‘exhibitable’ condition, it is extremely fragile and needed a lot of painstaking conservation, so its inclusion was in doubt. Its size was also problematic as it is quite difficult to fit in the display cases, particularly as it cannot be bent due to its age and fragility. After a huge amount of debate and soul-searching, the exhibition team decided that it is so funny, and so visually interesting, that it justified the amount of conservation needed. It perfectly illustrates the entertainment available, and the accomplishments expected of well brought up ladies in Jane Austen’s time.

Lumps of Pudding in the conservation studio

Lumps of Pudding, 1811 (side section)

Lumps of Pudding was a popular country-dance tune in the 18th century, and it was usually danced in progressive sets of four. The print shows 18 comically mismatched couples dancing vigorously and awkwardly, and with varying levels of enthusiasm. The women are wearing simple high-waisted gowns, and the men are distinguished by their hairstyles depending on their ages: the elder men have powdered hair and small pigtails, while the younger men have frizzed hair without powder, either short or with small tails. They all wear flat heeled dancing shoes. One woman is clutching her small dog under her arm while she dances, while her companion is stiffly dancing with his cane under his arm and his hands in his pockets: the pampered dog definitely looks happier than he does.

Lumps of Pudding, 1811 (detail)

Progressive sets are dances where the head and bottom couple sit out a round in alternate sets, and gradually work their way up or down the dance when they rejoin it. This enables everyone to have a break, and you can see this in the print. The couple at the far left, and the man mopping his brow and holding his wig on the far right, are having their resting turn. It is not clear whether the man’s partner is not shown, or whether she is the woman with the fan, walking away from him about six people in, but it is clear that he is probably quite relieved to be able to catch his breath. If you have ever been to a ceilidh, barn dance or Scottish country dance you will probably have experienced something similar.

You can hear versions of Lumps of Pudding in the British Library’s sound archive, and there are also some recordings available on YouTube. Everybody, take your partners!

Jo Essex, Post-graduate Art History student at Sussex University and volunteer to Alexandra Loske, curator of Jane Austen by the Sea.

Jane Austen by the Sea opened at the Prince Regent Gallery in the Royal Pavilion on 17 June and will run until 8 January 2018. Free with Royal Pavilion admission; members free.

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

Maurice Elphick (1885-1982) devoted his life to the service of the family at Preston Manor. He began work as a page-boy when barely in his teens, rising swiftly to the highest position in domestic service, that of butler.

When Preston Manor became a museum in 1933 Mr Elphick stayed on as custodian and caretaker. His life was one of continuous duty broken only by war.

A Butler at War

On 14 September 1917 Charles Thomas-Stanford of Preston Manor received a letter from Elphick, the contents of which tell an interesting wartime story.

‘To the Men of Sussex’ WW1 recruitment poster

In 1914 Mr Elphick had responded to the call to arms at the outbreak of war by enlisting in the Royal Sussex Regiment on 29 August. He was 30 years of age.

Perhaps like most keen volunteers he expected the war to be over by Christmas after a short adventure overseas. However, Mr Elphick was not serving Christmas dinner in the grand dining room at Preston Manor that festive season. He was serving his country.

Very little is known about Mr Elphick’s war, not least because he appears to have said nothing of his experiences. However, he became deaf in later life which could indicate damage caused by shell fire.

Military Service Act, 1916

Maybe Mr Elphick came home with a ‘Blighty wound’ because in 1917 he was living at his family farm, Marsh Foot in Pevensey, East Sussex. Superficial injury would not keep him home long and it looks like he was desperate to avoid going back to active service. I don’t think for a moment that Mr Elphick was a coward. He’d served three long years in a terrifying war. Now he faced going back. Following the Military Service Act of 1916 all men aged between 18 and 41 were automatically deemed to have enlisted and could expect imminent call up, and there were very few exemptions.

Male domestic servants were positively encouraged to enlist from the start of the war and households were expected to release their butlers and footmen, chauffeurs and grooms to serve King & Country. Mr Elphick was a single man (after the war he married a former domestic servant, Margaret Reardon, in 1922) so he had no legitimate means of avoiding returning to the Front or another military posting.

Friends in high places

With Mr Elphick in mind I spoke with Ann Kramer, author and expert on conscientious objection.

‘How could you get out of the war in his situation?’ I asked. Ms Kramer told me that getting a Certificate of Exemption was extremely difficult during the First World War.

‘To have any success you would need an influential friend in high office to plead for you,’ she said.

‘Would a Member of Parliament do?’ I asked. Ms Kramer smiled. ‘That would be perfect.’

Charles Thomas-Stanford in mayoral robes, 1910-13

Charles Thomas-Stanford was Member of Parliament for Brighton from 1914 to 1922 and Mayor from 1910 to 1913 and it looks likely he used his influence to help Mr Elphick at this time. We don’t have evidence of how, but we have Mr Elphick’s response from Marsh Foot Farm.

‘Sir, thank you very much for your letter. I have made enquiries and I understand the papers I sent in to the military will be sent to the local representative of the Sussex Agricultural Committee and I am told there is no fear of my being taken from here. Thanking you for the trouble you have taken for me. I remain Sir Yours Respectfully, Maurice Elphick.’

From 1915 County Councils were requested by government to set up County War Agricultural Committees to oversee British agricultural production and promote the efficient utilisation of agricultural land. Farms could be requisitioned if deemed they were not running properly.

People who worked on farms were treated favourably by committees when it came to conscription because the production of food was essential to the war effort. However, many farm workers voluntarily joined the armed forces. Those remaining were obliged to give proof of their indispensability. From March 1916 the only professions exempted from conscription were clergymen, priests or other ministers of religion. An unskilled farm worker would face tough questions at a local tribunal, especially at a time when women were coming forth in large numbers to work on the land.

Military Services Act Exemption Certificate, 1916

On 30 September 1917 Charles Thomas-Stanford received another letter from Mr Elphick.

‘Sir, my father received a letter this morning from the Agricultural Committee in answer to the letter I wrote saying an Exemption Certificate had been granted for me at their last meeting.’

He thanks his former employer, ‘for your letter which I appreciate more than I can say.’

Maurice Elphick’s appreciation was lifelong. He returned to Preston Manor as a butler, was later promoted to House Steward, and devoted himself unreservedly to Charles and Ellen Thomas-Stanford. After his employers deaths in 1932 he dedicated himself to the preservation of their memory and the care of their house. Was this staunch loyalty proof that Mr Elphick believed his life had been saved by Mr Thomas-Stanford in 1917?

The 1930s: a time of change

Entrance hall of Preston Manor

New Year 1933 must have felt like an unsettling leap into the dark for Maurice Elphick. Preston Manor had been given by gift to Brighton Corporation meaning he’d lost his job. Apart from his agricultural work at Marsh Foot Farm the 48 year old had known nothing but life working in domestic service. Yet he was able to stay in the house he loved because he was offered the job of custodian caretaker in the new Thomas-Stanford Museum (later to be re-named Preston Manor).

The Second World War

Preston Manor was closed as a museum from 1940 to 1945 and was used as a control centre for communications housing the ARP (Air Raid Precautions), the Home Guard, a First Aid Post and various municipal offices. The Cleves Room became a Committee Room and Ellen Thomas-Stanford’s bedroom the Town Clerk’s office. About 45 personnel were housed at Preston Manor with alterations made to accommodate the numbers.

Mr Elphick oversaw work and on 5 June 1940 he saved the house from disaster. Spotting smoke coming from a window he called the fire brigade. The fire had been caused by a candle left under a beam in the attic where workmen had been installing plumbing for lavatories. The Chief Fire Officer said, ‘another ten minutes and the whole place would be ablaze.’

For the duration Mr Elphick locked portable valuables in the massive old silver safe that was familiar from his days as a butler, but large items remained in situ. The Dining Room became a bedroom, and so as to protect the occupants from shattering glass in the event of bombing, the huge 18^th century mahogany bookcase containing Ellen Thomas-Stanford’s collection of Chinese Buddhist blanc de chine lions was covered with mattresses and secured with rope.

Margery Roberts, daughter of curator, Henry Roberts wrote:

‘Miss Franks and I were giggling because Elphick was very serious and, of course, it was a serious thing but the mattresses kept slipping. Elphick did not laugh.’

Peace returned: Preston Manor in the 1950s

With war over the Manor interiors were restored to their former glory. Although no family or guest slept in the bedrooms or ate in the dining room the house was kept like an Edwardian time-capsule. The addition of a couple of museum display cases in the entrance hall made small impact on the illusion. A recently discovered document entitled  ‘Preston Manor Staff and Duties’ dated 26 April 1958 is a fascinating insight into how Preston Manor was run in the mid-20^th century.

Mr Elphick’s duties 1958

Domestic and central heating coke-fired boilers required cleaning, lighting and stoking. Some staff rooms had labour-intensive open coal fires requiring many buckets of coal each day in the winter. The house was open all year round but closed on Tuesdays for each room to be thoroughly cleaned or ‘turned out’ one by one in a cycle. Mr Elphick and the women staff cleaned the decorative objects, mirrors and furniture. Today this task is done by a specialist conservation team trained in museum object handling and care.

Only one known photograph of Mr Elphick exists. He is shown third from the right wearing a dark suit with shiny lapel badges of unknown significance. The photograph dates to the mid-1950s when Preston Manor was run “like a family home” according to Miss Margery Roberts who was given the role of Honorary Curator after her father’s death in 1951. Margery left a descriptive pen-portrait of Mr Elphick in her 1998 autobiography, A Time Remembered.

Margery describes Mr Elphick’s transition from butler to custodian:

‘The change of status was not easy. Always known as Elphick (Christian names were not used for staff in those days), he found it difficult to become a servant of Brighton Corporation and not a private family. He did not like modern workmen. He got what I call ‘lofty’; was very superior in his way, and not very tactful. However, he had a deep sense of duty. He kept it (the house) running beautifully, on oiled wheels.’

‘The Lodge’ at Preston Manor James Grey Collection

Until its demolition for road widening in 1936 Mr Elphick and his wife and daughter lived at The Lodge, the attractive flint-faced gabled gatehouse to Preston Manor inhabited by gardener, Henry Hooker in the 1870s. Margery describes Mrs Elphick as ‘a quick-moving, very energetic young woman’. The Elphick family were re-housed in the west wing basement.

‘They were at garden level so the flat was not dark, although there were bars at the window,’ Margery writes cheerily of rooms that were markedly less comfortable than her quarters two floors above.

Mr Elphick retires

Today we live in an era when the age of retirement has risen and is usually no longer compulsory. Mr Elphick had no wish to leave Preston Manor aged 65 as was required so he was granted a period of extension, which expired on his 68^th birthday, 3 December 1953. The Local Government Superannuation Act of 1953 required him to make superannuation contributions towards his pension up to the age of 70 at a rate of 5% of his salary. After 1950 a special Council meeting was held annually to agree the continuation of Mr Elphick’s post.

County Borough of Brighton letter 25th July 1951

However, he was eventually persuaded to take his well-earned rest retiring officially on 1 June 1958, aged 73. Yet retirement bought worry. Habituated to a working life in which a home was automatically provided, the Elphick family faced eviction and suffered understandable distress until a rented flat was found in Kemp Town. Margery writes that the Elphicks ‘settled in happily in spite of people hanging their clothes out of the window.’

It seems Maurice Elphick could not keep away from Preston Manor. A letter dated 20 July 1960 from Stephanie Gasston; a teacher at Roedean School begins ‘Dear Miss Roberts, I cannot adequately thank you and Mr Elphick for the great pleasure and profit of our visit to the Manor today.’

Drawing Room chandelier

In 1963 Margery describes Mr Elphick visiting to undertake the complex task of cleaning the chandelier in the drawing room. That year a reception was held to mark the 30^th anniversary of the house becoming a museum. Brighton Council’s Chief Publicity Officer, Mr Bedford, persuaded the BBC to film the occasion with the lure of having on site the ‘whole faculty from the University of Sussex.’ This piece of film is almost certainly lost but the original transmission was watched by Margery and Mr Elphick on a television set in Mr Bedford’s office. Margery writes, ‘Elphick was almost in tears’ with pleasure and pride.’ Maurice Elphick continued to visit Margery at Preston Manor until her retirement in 1970.

Finding the elusive Maurice Elphick

A typed transcript exists of an interview with Mr Elphick in 1972 and from this we have quirky snippets of information: buckets of eucalyptus pods were kept in the entrance hall for fragrance; and when the world famous author Rudyard Kipling visited, Mr Elphick thought he looked like a farmer. Later that decade Mr Elphick moved to Sherwood, Nottingham to be looked after by his daughter, Audrey. In 1979 he was tracked down by David Beevers, Preston Manor’s newly appointed curator, and the pair corresponded until 1981. Sadly Mr Elphick’s photographs went astray in his move from Preston Manor to Kemp Town explaining perhaps why no pictures exist of this important character in Preston Manor’s 20^th century story. To find a photograph of Mr Elphick in his butler’s uniform would be historical gold dust, and maybe one exists somewhere.

Three Preston Manor domestic servants eating apples, 1929

The Preston Manor domestic servants appear in a series of relaxed off-duty photographs from the 1920s but without Mr Elphick. It is possible his long-honed butler’s dignity inclined him against being immortalised in such a frivolous manner.

In the 1980s interviews were conducted with servants employed at Preston Manor sixty years before. Through these reminiscences we have some insights into Mr Elphick’s character.

He was ‘a typical butler, staid yes, very strict…he was stiff and starchy, except that I taught him how to play yo-yo.’

Drusilla Wood 4^th Housemaid

He ‘talked in a low voice and there was a sacred atmosphere in the house.’

Lily Smith, Kitchen Maid

By the start of the 21^st century people with first hand knowledge of Mr Elphick were dwindling. Margery Roberts died in 2000 aged 92. Fortunately he appears throughout her 1998 memoire and always as plain Elphick, as if she were the grand lady and he the eternal butler as old as his name. Elphick is an unusual Anglo-Saxon surname recorded in the Doomsday Book of 1086 as Aelfech, its Sussex variant.

For Margery, Mr Elphick was a permanent fixture she’d known all her life. He was butler at Preston Manor when she visited as a child with her parents who knew the Thomas-Stanfords socially. For 25 years from 1933 to 1958 they shared Preston Manor as a home: Margery living with her parents in the west wing, and Mr Elphick in staff quarters.

I have the pleasure of being in correspondence with Margery’s niece who visited her aunt’s rooms at Preston Manor. Her memories of Mr Elphick are hazy but she writes, ‘to me as a child he seemed quite formal and respectful. I remember that he was somewhat deaf.’

Unfortunately Aunty Margery never wrote of the former servants she met, preferring instead to recall her brushes with royalty. Of Queen Mary’s visit to Preston Manor on 10^th October 1938 she writes, the Queen ‘was struck with the appearance of the rooms particularly with the brightness of the silver’ causing Mr Elphick to be presented and praised for his work.

Margery tried to circumvent Mr Elphick’s natural humility by making a secret sound recording. In A Time Remembered she describes a comical scene with a borrowed tape recorder, which in those days would be a heavy and sizeable reel to reel device.

‘Mr Sheppard, a member of museum staff very kindly, and rather audaciously, fixed up a machine behind a bowl of roses in my sitting room so a recording could be made of Elphick telling me the past customs of not only the house but Preston…he was in full spate that morning for an hour.’

To Margery’s horror the tape came to an end ‘with a great noise,’ causing her to rush Mr Elphick into the kitchen for a glass of sherry. She ends the anecdote, ‘sadly, no one could be found at the Museum or Library to transcribe that record, and so it has been lost to posterity, a great pity.’

Maurice Thomas Elphick died in Nottingham on 25 July 1982 in his 97^th year.

His generation were the last of the old servant class whose unquestioning deferential labour made the lives of the Victorian and Edwardian wealthy so easy and comfortable. The 1914-1918 war marked the beginning of the end of domestic service. Social attitudes were changing, wages increasing and job opportunities broadening, especially for women. By the end of the Second World War in 1945 the master-servant system had all but collapsed.

Maurice Elphick saw these enormous social changes in action at Preston Manor as the house transformed from an ‘Upstairs Downstairs’ family home of the Edwardian period to a recognisably modern historic house museum in the forward-facing 1950s.

‘Nothing but happy memories,’ he always wrote in his Christmas and birthday cards to Margery Roberts.

Margery’s niece sums up Mr Elphick’s unique contribution to the Preston Manor story.

‘In retrospect I can see what an exceptional and important role he played in the transition of Preston Manor from private residence to a house and museum open to the public. He could have moved elsewhere, but asked to continue working at the Manor, a place which he knew inside out. I am sure he later gave my aunt immense support when she became Honorary Curator after her father’s death. He and my aunt would have shared so many memories as well as a deep-seated commitment to caring for the house as Sir Charles and Lady Thomas-Stanford would have wished.’

Mr Elphick’s legacy

The Butler’s Pantry

Today there is no visible trace of Mr Elphick’s half-century tenure at Preston Manor. Ever the invisible butler, he has receded into the shadows. The Butler’s Pantry you can visit today was a room used by Mr Elphick’s predecessor, Mr Benjamin Beasley in the period before 1905.

Mr Elphick’s quarters exist in the basement of the west wing, which was newly built when he came to the house in 1906. School children eating their packed lunches sit in a room used by the Elphick family after the demolition of The Lodge. Fittingly therefore Mr Elphick’s name lives on as a character in the long-running role-play educational session for schools, ‘Situations Vacant’, in which Key Stage 2 children dress in Victorian costume and find out what life was like below stairs. Generations of children and young people visiting from across the South East will never forget meeting Mr Elphick the butler. We know this because when those children return as adults, they often tell us so.

Children’s lunchroom (the former Elphick family rooms)

I think the real and unassuming Mr Elphick would be baffled to know he’d become a living history personality. He’d be even more surprised if he knew he is regarded today as a character of equal importance to the Preston Manor story as Sir Charles and Lady Ellen Thomas-Stanford.

Paula Wrightson, Venue Officer, Preston Manor