Hove in the Past: Ellen Stanford and her Family

Judy Middleton 2003 (revised 2022)

Ellen Benett-Stanford painted by Emily Way in 1895

Antecedents

1808 portrait of William Stanford (1764-1841)

Richard Stanford (1711-1769) was born in West Dean, being the fourth son of Edward and Grace Stanford of Exceat. Richard Stanford married Mary Ockenden at Preston in 1762, and you could hardly say he rushed into holy matrimony because he was already fifty years old. He became the first Stanford to live at Preston Manor but the property was rented.

Their son William (1764-1841) was born there, but Richard did not live in Preston long enough to feel it was properly home, and felt his roots lay elsewhere. That is why when he died on 3 August 1769 he was buried in the churchyard of West Dean to join other Stanfords buried there. In 1772 his daughter Grace was also buried there, having died at the age of ten.

William had another sister called Sarah and she lived to the age of 75, dying in 1835. However, William Stanford was only around five years old when his father died, and it seemed to herald an unfortunate tradition because there was to be another infant heir. William Stanford came of age in 1785, and found himself a young man of wealth. In 1794 Charles Callis Western (after whom Western Road was named) sold the manor of Preston and land amounting to 1,000 acres to William Stanford for the magnificent sum of £17,600. Stanford became Lord of the Manors of Preston and Hove, and in 1808 he was High Sheriff of Sussex.

William Stanford married twice. His first marriage to Elizabeth Avery was tragically short because she died at the age of twenty-five in 1791. Their two children also died young, They were William who died aged eight months on 7 January 1790, and Grace who died aged 22 weeks on 21 December 1790.

In 1802 William married Mary Tourle, and their children were as follows:

Mary Ann (1803-1831)

Grace (1805-1810)

William (1809-1853)

Richard (1811-1829)

John (1817-1819)

William died on 28 March 1841, and Mary died on 22 November 1846, and they were both buried at Preston.

Ellen Stanford

Ellen was born on 9 November 1848, the daughter of William Stanford of Preston Manor. Her mother was Eleanor Montagu Morris (1824-1903) and the couple were married in 1842.

William Stanford the Younger (1809-1853)

Ellen must have brought joy to her anxious parents because in 1847 they had suffered the loss of their first-born at the age of seven months, a son called William after his father. Thus Ellen became an important little person because she was the sole heiress to the Stanford Estate.

It would be interesting to know how many memories Ellen had of her father because he died in 1853 when she was still a small girl. It was a tragedy for Eleanor and Ellen while in more practical terms, it was unfortunate also for the Stanford Estate. This was because anything to do with the estate was overseen by lawyers until Ellen came of age at twenty-one. It was unfortunate that Ellen’s father made no mention in his will of a suitable guardian. Her uncle, Edward Stanford, was so concerned that he had Ellen made a Ward of the Court of Chancery. The consequence was that legal fees ate up a large part of her inheritance.

Charles Dickens has memorably described in Bleak House the disastrous result of legal fees draining an inheritance to the last penny. Naturally enough, people in the legal profession claimed Dickens’s depiction of Jarndyce v Jarndyce concerning a disputed will was not accurate, but there was some truth in the matter, and the interest aroused by Bleak House led to reforms. The situation was not quite as desperate for Ellen Stanford, but it was bad enough for a descendant to complain about not having enough money.

A Second Marriage

In 1854 Eleanor embarked upon a second marriage. Her new husband was Captain George V. Macdonald (1821-1881) formerly of the 19^th Regiment, Prince of Wales’s Own, but in the same year as the wedding, he was appointed the senior officer of the Yeoman of the Guard. The couple had three daughters, Flora, Diana, and Christiana, the two latter being twins. Perhaps Christiana was not too happy with her name, which was rather a mouthful, at any rate she was always known as Lily, and she was the only sister not to marry.

1894 portrait of Diana MacDonald by James J. Shannon

Diana became Mrs Claude Magniac, and there is a beautiful portrait of her hanging over the fireplace in the entrance hall of Preston Manor; the portrait was painted by J. J. Shannon. The couple did not have any children, and she died on 30 December 1956.

Flora married David Scott Porteous of Lauriston Castle, Kincardineshire. They had two sons, and two daughters. Flora died on 18 December 1944.

There are other family portraits of interest at Preston Manor, as follows:

Ellen Stanford: a delicate painting of her as a child, with a blue sash around her waist and a favourite toy, a donkey on wheels sporting panniers on either side.

Ellen Stanford: a more formal portrait painted by Emily Way of her in more mature years.

Ellen Stanford: an equestrian study of her on Congress painted by Arthur Elsley, hanging on the staircase wall.

Eleanor Macdonald: a miniature painting.

Eleanor Macdonald: a large watercolour portrait

Captain Macdonald: a portrait of him as a 4-year old, complete with lace collar.

Ellen was educated at a school run by Miss Russell in Montpelier Road, Brighton, and after her schooldays were over, young Ellen danced her way through two London seasons.

Vere Fane

Ellen’s uncle, Edward Stanford, has already been mentioned because of his concern for his niece. Thus it was only natural that he should be suspicious when suitors for Ellen’s hand in marriage came to call. Indeed, he decided that he ought to investigate Ellen’s suitor Vere Fane. He discovered that the prospective bridegroom already had a son, Henry Vere, by the actress Fanny Joseph. Edward Stanford felt obliged to inform Ellen of this fact. Vere stoutly contended that many other men had behaved in a similar manner, and had sowed their wild oats, which consequently made them a better prospect for a stable marriage.

What Vere thought of the uncle’s intervention is probably unprintable, and unhappily the relationship between uncle and niece was for ever soured, although Ellen knew he was only looking after her welfare. Ellen must have been in love because the marriage went ahead.

Vere Fane was born in 1839, the son of Revd Arthur Fane, Prebendary of Salisbury, and his wife, daughter of John Benett of Pythouse. He served in the 43^rd Foot and became ADC to General Beresford in India. He kept his interest in the military despite entering the House of Commons as the Conservative MP for Shaftesbury from 1873 to 1880, because he was also a major in the Royal Dorset Volunteers from 1871 to 1887, becoming an honorary lieutenant colonel in the latter year. In 1888 he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the 3^rd Battalion Wiltshire Regiment. Later on, he joined the Royal Dragoons and the Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry.

The Wedding

The wedding took place on 1 October 1867 at St Peter’s Church, Preston. The villagers were determined to make the occasion memorable by hanging out the flags. Triumphal arches were also created, the most noticeable of which was at the entrance to Preston Manor and bore the word ‘Happiness’ above the emblazoned arms of the bride and bridegroom. A covered way of laurel boughs was improvised from the house to the church in case of rain, but in the event there was bright sunshine.

There were six bridesmaids – the two Misses Fane, Miss Jeffreys, Miss Morris, Miss Macdonald and Miss Westphal. They wore dresses of white tulle with trimmings and loops of chrysanthemums, golden-coloured girdles, wreaths of chrysanthemums on their heads, and lace veils. The bride wore a wedding dress of rich white satin, trimmed with Brussels lace and orange blossom; the girdle and necklet were also of orange blossom, and the bridal wreath was of orange blossom and lilies-of-the-valley.

The reporter from the Brighton Guardian noted that ’as she walked up the aisle, pale and agitated, but graceful and collected, she looked both beautiful and good’. Ellen’s step-father Captain Macdonald gave her away, and Revd Walter Kelly took the service, assisted by the curate, Revd E. T. Carey, and another priest from Torquay. The best man was Fane’s brother, Captain Edmund Fane, secretary to Her Majesty’s Embassy at St Petersburg. After the ceremony, Signor Lombardi took the photographs.

(It is tragic no note that bridesmaid Miss Mary Augusta Westphal (1850-1870) died three years after this large society wedding. She was the daughter of Admiral Sir George Augustus Westphal who lived at 2 Brunswick Square. He doted on his only child, especially since he was 65 years old at the time of her birth. Westphal was a much celebrated veteran of the Battle of Trafalgar and had been present on board HMS Victory with Admiral Nelson. It is thought that his daughter died in childbirth because the census records a young child in the house. Augusta was buried in a vault beneath St Andrew’s Old Church, Hove.)

Ellen Benett-Stanford c1868

A Name Change

Ellen’s father had decreed in his will that the man who married Ellen must within eighteen months of the wedding obtain a Royal Licence to change his surname to Stanford. On 11 December 1891 Vere assumed the name of Stanford.

This was not the end of his name changing either. On 19 November 1891 he renounced the surname of Fane by deed poll, and on 7 June 1893 he stated that henceforth he would be known as Vere Benet Stanford rather than Vere Benett Stanford – the Benett being his mother’s maiden name.

Married Life

In the early days of their marriage Vere and Ellen did not live in Brighton, but in the Fane’s family property at Pythouse, or in their house at Ennismore Gardens, South Kensington. It was Ellen’s mother and half-sisters who continued to live in Preston Manor.

Ellen and Vere’s son John Montagu was born at Pythouse, West Tisbury, Wiltshire, on 5 February 1870.

In 1891 the Stanford Estate Trustees were perusuaded to spend the sum of £101,000 on purchasing the Pythouse Estate. The move upset their son John who was horrified at what he regarded, with some reason, as his Wiltshire inheritance, and he became somewhat bitter about the transaction.

It seems that he had been administering the Wiltshire estate too. However, Ellen and Vere enjoyed having some cash in hand, and purchased a yacht Medora, not to mention a property in Madeira. But their happiness was short-lived because Vere died of heart disease on 8 May 1894 at Funchal, Madeira.

John Montagu Benett-Stanford (1870-1947)

He was educated at Eton, and pursued a career in the military serving in the Royal Dragoons, but he resigned his commission in 1892, instead becoming a lieutenant in the Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry.

He became fascinated with photography, and it is somewhat ironic that what he regarded chiefly as a hobby, and not worthy of mentioning in his manuscript autobiography, is now the reason he is famous. This is because he became a war correspondent for the Western Morning News and in 1898 took his movie camera to the Sudan.

He was also present at the famous Battle of Omdurman in the same year, so memorably described by Winston Churchill. He recorded the sight of the Grenadier Guards preparing for battle by fixing their bayonets, as well as an image of Kitchener.

On the outbreak of the Boer War in 1899, John travelled to South Africa, and became the first man at the Front with a film camera. He recorded scenes at the Orange River as well as soldiers crossing the River Modder on 8 December 1899.

Back home in England, the famous James Williamson developed John’s films, which were released in January 1900 by the Warwick Trading Company, and caused some excitement. For reasons unknown he then abandoned filming, and Joseph Rosenthal took over as the chief Boer War cameraman.

It is pleasant to note that John’s achievement is commemorated in the permanent display of early films and film-makers at Hove Museum. A photograph of him reveals that he sported a splendid moustache.

Evelyn Benett-Stanford
painted by J. M. Heaton in 1911

John married Evelyn Helme (1868-1957) on 4 July 1893, and on 3 April 1894 their son Vere was born. This meant that Ellen became a grandmother a month before she became a widow. There was a daughter of the marriage too, born in 1899 and called Patience but she died tragically young in 1904.

Evelyn was an interesting character, being as far as you could imagine from a shrinking violet. She enjoyed Big Game hunting in Africa, as well as taking part in early motor rallies; she even sported a monocle.

John returned to the military in the First World War and by the time he retired he had achieved the rank of lieutenant colonel.

When John died on 18 November 1947, he really was the last lineal descendant of William Stanford. It is no surprise that he was not buried in Sussex; his last resting place was in Norton Bavant, Wiltshire.

Perhaps John did have reason to feel annoyed about his inheritance. He had tried to preserve what was left after his mother’s death by making the Stanford Estate into a limited company but it was not a success.

Although the Trustees of the Stanford Estate had managed to accrue £1,142,393 from land sales, by the time Ellen died in 1933, the estate’s capital had dwindled to a mere £229,500. John made a bitter calculation that at least £180,000 had been swallowed up by the legal profession. In fact the reality was probably even worse.

Ellen and Charles

Like her mother, Ellen re-married, but not quite as quickly. She met Charles Thomas in Madeira, and the couple married on 19 May 1897 at All Saints Church, Knightsbridge. On the same day, by Deed Poll, the bridegroom changed his surname to Charles Thomas-Stanford.

Ellen Thomas-Stanford with her guide,
Ahmed adb-el Sadek in Egypt in January 1901

Ellen’s mother, Mrs Macdonald died on 28 November 1903, and then Ellen and Charles moved back to Preston Manor. Just like Ellen’s uncle had reservations about Vere, so also did John have reservations about his mother’s second marriage. Perhaps this had something to do with the possible diminishing of his inheritance because Ellen and Charles enjoyed an extravagant life-style.

The couple escaped the English winter by heading for Madeira and their house called Quinta Stanford, and in the summer they stayed at their property in Norway called Stanfordshus so that Charles could indulge his passion for salmon fishing on the Daula river. Then when Ellen and Charles were Mayor and Mayoress of Brighton from 1910 to 1913 there was lavish entertaining. For example, a garden party was held in July 1911 to which an astonishing 1,000 people were invited.

copyright © Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove
News items in the Brighton Herald for 11 November 1911 and 8 June 1912

Sir Charles Thomas-Stanford (1858-1932)

Charles Thomas-Stanford

Mayor of Brighton, 1910-13

Charles Thomas was born on 3 April 1858, and was of Welsh descent on both sides of the family although his father David Collet Thomas hailed from Hove while his grandfather and grandmother Lloyd lived at Hove for many years, and indeed died there, and his other grandmother, Mrs Thomas, lived at Brighton. David Thomas was a ship-owner and ship-broker in London.

Charles was educated at Highgate School, and as an academic youngster won a scholarship to prestigious Oriel College, Oxford, leaving the dreaming spires with a First Class in Classical Moderations, and a Third in the Final Classical School.

He was not averse to sport either, and at rowing, became captain of the Oriel boat. Among his contemporaries at Oxford were Cecil Rhodes, Sir Walter Code KC, and Lord Chalmers who became a lifelong friend. Charles then went on to study for the legal profession, and although called to the Bar in 1882, he never practised.

In 1895 Charles visited Africa where he met Cecil Rhodes once again. Charles arrived in Johannesburg on the eve of the Jameson Raid, and thus became an eye-witness to many important events. He published his reminiscences under the title Johannesburg in Arms. But this was not his first foray into print because in 1894 he had edited an edition of Thomas Blount’s Boscobel. Indeed, books were a passion with him, and he wrote the following volumes:

A River of Norway: Being the Notes and Reflections of an Angler (1903)

The Descent of the Family of Stanford of Preston, Sussex (1907)

Leaves from a Madeira Garden (1909)

Sussex in the Civil War and Interregnum 1642-1660 (1910)

The Manor of Radynden (1921)

An Abstract of the Court Rolls of the Manor of Preston (1921)

Wick : A Contribution for the History of Hove (1923)

Hove in Domesday and After (1929)

Sir Charles Thomas-Stanford
painted by William Orpen in 1913

As can be seen from some of the titles, he was much interested in Sussex history, and he also knew the eminent historian J. Horace Round, who lived at Hove. In 1901 Charles was one of the original members of the Sussex Record Society, and in 1904 he became a member of the Sussex Archaeological Society, of which he remained a council member for twenty-four years, and became chairman too. In 1922 he made a memorable gift to the Sussex Archaeological Society of historic Lewes Castle, which he had purchased for £1,600. He was also a member of Brighton and Hove Archaeological Society, and in 1906 he was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.

His book on Madeira has some fascinating insights; apparently, the local name of ‘Quinta’ meant a house near the town, and originally signified a country house surrounded by a farm. He noted that the soil was of volcanic origin, and that on Christmas Day he counted 71 varieties of plants, shrubs and climbers that were in flower, including sixteen different types of roses.

However, there was one grave drawback to this paradise – Funchal had no bookshops. If he ordered books from abroad, there was a tax to pay, although the authorities would kindly allow a single volume in free of charge. Not surprisingly, a morocco-bound Britannica paid a heavier tax levy than one bound in cloth.

In his portrait he looks somewhat severe, and so it is pleasant to record that he did have a sense of humour. One of his most treasured literary curiosities was a bookseller’s catalogue listing a celebrated title that had an unfortunate spelling error. The book was referred to as Young’s Night Thoughts on Life, Death and Immorality instead of Immortality. Charles wrote that it was ‘a lapse, which is like to make our great-grandmothers, whom the revered doctor’s platitudes lulled to sleep, turn in their graves.’

Charles served as Brighton’s MP from 1914 to 1922, and his public services were recognised when he and Ellen were made Honorary Freemen of Brighton on 30 July 1925. In 1927 he received an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Literature from the University of Wales, and in 1929 he became a baronet. He died on 7 March 1932. He left £1,000 to the Sussex Archaeological Trust for the upkeep of Stanford memorials in West Dean and Preston.

Vere Stanford MC (1894-1922)

2^nd Lieutenant Vere Benett-Stanford

Ellen doted on her grandson Vere, seeing in him qualities she could not discern in her son. She must have been worried when Vere chose the military for a career but then he was only carrying on the family tradition. He joined up before the outbreak of the First World War, being commissioned into the Royal Field Artillery in 1913.

During the war he certainly confirmed his grandmother’s estimation of his character because in 1916 he was awarded the Military Cross for his rescue of an officer, and for giving his gas-mask to his sergeant. He was severely gassed as a result but he did recover. In 1917 he was wounded in the arm, followed shortly afterwards by a burst eardrum and shell-shock. He needed a whole year to recover, but as soon as he was deemed fit enough, he was back at the Front. He was one of those who managed to survive the war that killed so many friends, but were unable to fight off post-war diseases. Many died of Spanish Influenza but Vere caught tuberculosis and died at the age of twenty-eight on 30 May 1922.

Preston Manor

When Vere died in 1922, so also did Ellen’s hopes for the future of their family home, Preston Manor. Ellen’s son John had absolutely no interest in the place. Indeed, it was known that should he inherit, he might knock it down, or sell it for development – on the other hand, he might let the property to a girls’ school.

Ellen and Charles had to consider their best course of action in order to preserve what they considered to be an interesting and historic house for the future. They decided to leave it to Brighton Corporation.

End of an Era

Ellen died on 11 November 1933. Her executor was William Edward Martyn who had been her solicitor for around forty years. Barclays Bank was named as trustees. After specific legacies, she left the residue to her executor to sell and invest in a trust fund to pay for several annuities; one moiety in trust to the Sussex Archaeology Society, and the other moiety in trust for the University of Wales. She was described as Dame Ellen Thomas-Stanford, Lady of Grace of the Order of St John of Jerusalem.

Preston Manor was soon open to the public, and there was plenty to see and admire. Other family portraits, besides those already mentioned, that could now be admired by everyone were as follows:

Vere Fane: an engraving showing him with a drooping moustache.

Charles Thomas-Stanford: a portrait by Sir William Orpen in which Charles sports a Van Dyck-style beard, and stiff, shiny collar.

Mary Tourle (1775-1846): an imposing portrait of William Stanford’s second wife.

The public could relate to the fact that Ellen was fond of dogs, and in the grounds there was a pet cemetery where they were buried and awarded proper head-stones. Ellen even had a pottery model made of a favourite dog so that she could take it with her when she went abroad. There are also four dog portraits that can be seen at the foot of the staircase including Jim (1880) and Pickle (1893).

Sources

Beevers, D. Preston Manor (no date)

Bottomore, S. John Montagu (Mad Jack) Benett-Stanford (internet)

Encyclopaedia of Hove and Portslade

Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove

The Keep

Thomas-Stanford, C. Leaves from a Madeira Garden (1909)

Thomas-Stanford, C. The Descent of the Family of Stanford of Preston, Sussex (1907)

PAR 387/10/58 – Stanford Land 1852

09 January 2022

Ellen Stanford and her Family