Sydenham Farm
Samuel Shepheard Stanley was one of four sons and four daughters of John and Sarah Stanley of Sydenham Farm. He was born in 1848 and with his siblings was taught at home by a governess. His older brother Joseph later became the farm manager, and eventually took over from their father. Another brother ran The King’s Head, at Wellesbourne. Their father John also kept The Crown Hotel (below), which was originally Leamington Priors vicarage, and built about 1808 for Rev Wise. It was bought by Samuel’s grandfather Joseph Stanley Snr. and converted to a very successful hotel in 1815, – one of the town’s most important hotels at the time, situated close to the turnpike road (now High Street), and the railway station.
Crown Hotel
The 1871 Census shows Samuel still living at home at Sydenham aged 23, with the profession of “Stationer’s Assistant (Unemployed).” This could have been an interesting and remunerative occupation: in the days before the telephone, the written word was the means of communication, and stationers played an essential role in the lives of the residents and visitors to the Spa. A decade later Samuel ‘s prospects had improved, having recently taken over a long-standing flourishing Wine and Spirits business at 9 Market Square, Warwick. In January 1881, at the age of 33 Samuel married 20-year-old Maria Bird of Chilbolton, Hampshire, a distant relative by marriage and the second oldest of the four daughters of wealthy farmer William Bird, who owned an 800-acre farm south of Andover. From then on, references to Samuel make no mention of an occupation, only that he lived ‘on private means’, presumably the reward for having married a wealthy young woman, at a time when any wealth and property owned by women belonged to their husband immediately upon marriage.
S S Stanley, signature to Deed of Separation
However, by 1897, the ‘private means’ and attendant lifestyle underwent a significant change. Samuel’s wife Maria took out a Separation Deed in 1897, drawn up by Messrs Wright & Hassall, Solicitors in Leamington. This document, quite unusual for the late 19th century, sets out in no uncertain terms that the Stanleys had lived apart for some time, and that Maria wished to relinquish her married state, to live where she pleased, “without any interference whatever on the part of the said Samuel Shepheard Stanley”. In return, Maria was to pay him an annuity of £16 13s 4d per month (approximately £1800 in today’s money) for the duration of their lives. If Samuel were to outlive Maria, he was to receive £8.6s 8d until his death, unless he were to remarry, when all payments would cease. Maria in fact died aged 43 in January 1904 (Hampshire Chronicle In Memoriam notice) ,so from then on, Samuel’s income would have been halved.
Long after that legal document, took effect, Samuel continued to describe himself as married, but with no home of his own: in each available Census return, he is someone’s lodger, “living on private means.” By March 1911, he was boarding with a widow in nearby Harbury, returning subsequently to lodge at different addresses in Regent Grove, Leamington. Sadly, in 1915, aged 65, he was summoned before the magistrates at Warwick, on two charges of unlawful and indecent assault, one in August that year and one in October, each on a girl aged under 13. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 6 months hard labour. Note: This was not reported in local Leamington or Warwick newspapers, but in the Coleshill Chronicle, (available courtesy of the BNA online) – no doubt to save the Stanley family further embarrassment.
This sketchy story poses several questions: Samuel appeared to have every advantage. He was born into one of the most prominent families in mid-Victorian Leamington, counting amongst their number Guardians of the Poor, Aldermen, elected councillors and respected businessmen. His immediate family ran the Sydenham Farm, which from 1884-1914 was home to the popular local Polo Club as well as the farming business. Another branch ran a successful chemist’s and another, the upmarket Crown Hotel, which had been in the family for several generations. Samuel clearly had a very good start in life but failed to make anything of it. He failed to make any headway as a stationer’s assistant, – at a time when Stationers played a significant role in the local economy and social life. From 1881, he was involved in the Wine and Spirits trade in Warwick, but that too was a short-lived venture as can be seen from the advertisement below:
WARWICK
———
Important Unreserved Sale of Cellar of choice
Old Vintage Wines and Spirits
———
TO BE SOLD BY AUCTION, BY
John Margetts and Son,
Upon the Premises, in the MARKET SQUARE,
WARWICK, on WEDNESDAY, THE 14th day
of FEBRUARY 1883, the property of Mr SAMUEL
S. STANLEY, who is relinquishing business;
Upwards of 620 Dozens of very choice VINTAGE WINES
and SPIRITS, specially bottled and laid
down for the extensive private business for a
great number of years carried on in the pre-
mises by the late Mr WILLIAM H. PAYTON and
Messrs PEARSON and Co.
(ATHERSTONE, NUNEATON and WARWICKSHIRE TIMES, SATURDAY JANUARY 27 1883)
Mr Stanley managed to avoid the attention of the local press following the demise of his business, – rather a pity from the point of view of the local historian, as it makes it difficult to follow him much further than the Court appearance in 1915, but given the contemporary standard of reporting in intimate detail the misdemeanours of people from all walks of life, one can only assume that the family closed ranks to prevent any further scandal. Samuel Shepheard Stanley died at Shipston on Stour in July 1921, aged 73.
M M Rushton
Sources and Acknowledgements: Separation Deed, courtesy of DGP Morse; L.F. Cave, Royal Leamington Spa, Phillimore,1988. A Celebration of Sydenham, Sydenham History Group, 2014; National Archives Online Census Returns, 1851, 1871, 1881, 1891, 1911; Leamington Courier, Hampshire Gazette, Coleshill Chronicle, Atherstone, Nuneaton and Warwickshire Times courtesy of BNA online.