One wealthy widow

One wealthy widow, 600 working men

Paul Tritton

A long, high wall of brick and Kentish ragstone at the top of Tovil Hill conceals from the view of most passers-by the site of one of Maidstone’s ‘lost mansions’, where a woman who was widowed during the Crimean War lived in style with a retinue of servants for more than 40 years.

After she died, her house was demolished to make way for Tovil Working Men’s Club, which thrives there to this day.

Charlotte Lavinia Mackinnon was at born at Kew in 1828. Her parents were Colonel Sir Dudley St Leger Hill, who was born in Ireland, and his wife Caroline (née Hunter). Dudley came from a well-to-do family and had a distinguished military and public service career with the ‘50^th Foot’ and ‘95^th Rifles’ regiments and the 8th Portugese Cacadores, and subsequently as Lieutenant Governor of St Lucia.

In 1847 Charlotte married Captain Daniel Roger Lionel Mackinnon of the Coldstream Guards. They lived at Marsh Farmhouse, Twickenham, and had a daughter, Ada Emma, and two sons, Lionel Dudley and Ernest George St Leger; but all hope of raising a large family and enjoying a long and happy marriage came to an end after Mackinnon was posted to the Crimea.

In November 1854 he was among 92 soldiers of the Coldstream Guards who were killed when 30,000 Russian soldiers overwhelmed the British forces in the Battle of Inkerman.

Charlotte was well provided for in Mackinnon’s Will but had to start a new life with her three children, all under five years old. She moved to Tovil Court, overlooking the industrialised area of the Loose and Medway valleys but standing in a 16 acre estate comprising gardens, paddocks and a lake encompassed by woodlands walks.

In the 1861 census, Charlotte was described as a ‘fund holder’. Her unmarried sister, Julia, aged 37, was staying at Tovil Court at the time the enumerator called. The family was outnumbered by Charlotte’s servants in residence, consisting of George Field (butler), Susannah Field (housekeeper), Eleanor Dixon (lady’s maid), Eliza Thompson (housemaid), Hannah Chapman (kitchen maid), Robert Peale (page) and Pessita Emery, the children’s Swiss governess. Curiously, no cook was living with them so perhaps cooking was part of Susannah’s job.

In the grounds were Lodge House, the home of her gardener William (whose surname is illegible in the census return) and The Coach House, occupied by coachman James Stocker, his wife Harriet and their children Sophia, Elizabeth, Eliza and Henry.

On census day in 1871, Lionel, who was by now 20 years old, was away, probably having joined the Coldstreams, in which he would become a lieutenant colonel. Ada and Ernest were no longer scholars, so their governess had left Tovil Court. Thomas Teesdale and Susannah King had taken over as butler and housekeeper, Marshall Eagles had been appointed footman, Elsie Webber was Charlotte’s personal maid, and Alice Prime and Eliza Burn were the house and kitchen maids.

Lodge House was now the home of ‘domestic gardener’ Thomas Fitness, his wife Sarah, and their children Edith, Blanch and Arthur; and the Stockers were still living in The Coach House.

In May 1871, Charlotte experienced another tragedy in her life when her son Ernest died, aged only 19.

Charlotte and her children were away from home when the 1881 census was taken but the house still had its full complement of servants, though there had been a complete turnover of staff. Edward (surname illegible) was now the butler, with Eliza Gurney (housekeeper), Catherine Ondy or Ongly (housemaid), Elizabeth Saunders (kitchen maid), Thomas Holland (footman) and James May (groom).

William Beale and his family were living The Lodge House and coachman James Stocker was still at The Coach House, having completed 20 or more years’ service.

Lionel Mackinnon had married and was living with his wife Elizabeth at Ash, near Farnham, Surrey.

In 1891, Charlotte’s spinster daughter Ada, now 42, was present on census night and had probably become a permanent resident. Charlotte’s butler was either away or his situation was vacant but there were still enough servants around to cater for her every need – Elizabeth Mary Vowles (housekeeper), Charlotte Cox (lady’s maid), Thomas George Phillips (footman), Alfred Bridges (groom), Emily Henham (housemaid) and Florence Gyles (kitchen maid).

James Stocker, now a 72-year-old widower and Charlotte’s longest-serving and oldest retainer, was living at The Coach House with his unmarried daughter, Annie, a dressmaker; and Lodge House had become the home of a new gardener, William Horace Martin, his wife Sarah, and children Linda, Edith and William.

The 1901 census, the latest available, suggests that Charlotte’s wealth and her need for servants in every quarter of her house and estate had not diminished. She was registered as ‘living on her own means’ and had three grand children living with her: Lionel Neil Alexander (16), Sheila Helen (14) and Olive Mary (13). The presence of Fraulein Kepler, ‘governess, born Germany, British subject’ and Elizabeth Hill (schoolroom maid) suggests that the children were enjoying a long stay at Tovil Court.

Yet another turnover of servants had occurred and Emily Henham was the only one who had been on the staff ten years earlier. Now, the house was being run by Horace Pattenden (butler), Elizabeth Fatham (housekeeper), Lillian Haines (lady’s maid), Annie Satheridge (kitchen maid) and Thomas Hammond (footman). Alfred Browning was living in the Coach House with his wife Elizabeth and children Daisy, Florence and Arthur; and their neighbours at The Lodge were George Simmons, head gardener, his wife Susan and their children Frank and Edith.

An era in the annals of Maidstone’s upper classes came to an end on December 14, 1902, when Charlotte died, aged 75. She had, we may assume, made the best of her life during her long widowhood, thanks to having so many servants to take care of her and several members of her family to keep her company at various times.

Her obituary in the Kent Messenger praised her ‘benevolent disposition’ and said ‘there was scarcely any good work carried on in the neighbourhood which did not benefit by her generosity. This was especially so with the parochial agencies at Tovil, the extension of the infants’ school being a case in point. To the widows of the poor of the parish she was a great benefactor, especially at Christmas’.

Charlotte’s funeral service was held at St Stephen’s Church, Tovil, followed by interment at Maidstone Borough Cemetery. If the list of mourners published in the Kent Messenger is accurate her daughter Ada, who was living at Tovil Court in 1902, was not present, though many relatives and friends, as well as the servants from Tovil Court, were there.

Charlotte’s estate had a gross value of £24,174, equivalent to between £1.5 million and £3.4 million in today’s money, depending on how the indices comparing prices and values over the past 100 years are interpreted. Her son, Lt. Col (Retd) Lionel Dudley Mackinnon and Ada were the main beneficiaries but Ada died in London in 1905 and Lionel was killed in action in the Great War in November 1915.

In 1914 permission was sought to erect a tablet in memory of Charlotte in St Stephen’s Church. The church became redundant and was demolished in 1987. No seems to know what became of Charlotte’s tablet.

Sometime after 1902 the grounds of Tovil Court became Maidstone’s first Zoological Gardens, with 250 specimens of lions, leopards, bears, hyaenas and other animals; enclosures of reptiles; and collections of feathered species such as parrots, pheasants and ostriches. Then, in 1916, Tovil Court and its estate were bought by Albert Edwin Reed, who had founded his papermaking empire at nearby Tovil mills in 1894. Most of his employees belonged to Tovil Working Men’s Club, which opened in Church Street in 1888. About 500 men from Reed’s mills in Tovil and elsewhere in Kent fought in the First World War and 59 of them lost their lives.

To commemorate their sacrifice, Reed built a new HQ for the club, the Tovil Memorial Institute, on the site of Tovil Court, at a cost of £5,000.

Reed died 11 months before work was completed. The building was opened on December 18, 1920. Commander Bellairs, MP for Maidstone, handed the keys over to the club’s chairman, W.E. Langley; its president, Herbert Green, signed the lease, and for the next 63 years the club rented the premises from Albert E. Reed & Co., initially for £5 a year. A memorial plaque to Reed millworkers who died in the Great War was unveiled in the entrance hall, where it can still be seen together with Tovil’s war memorial, salvaged from St Stephen’s Church.

In a gesture midway between political correctness and unpolitical correctness, ‘certain rooms were provided for the accommodation of a women’s club, with a separate entrance’! There was also a youth club, a public recreation ground and a children’s play area.

A decline in employment in Tovil developed in the 1980s, threatening the club’s future. In 1983 Reed & Co. closed its mills at Tovil and sold the Memorial Institute to the club. For two years it struggled to survive independently but it pulled through and is now well-supported, with 900 members (640 men, 260 women) enjoying a variety of activities.

Tovil Bowls Club, Tovil Petanque and the Maidstone Masonic Centre are also located on the site of Tovil Court, so there’s a lot going on behind that high wall.

Acknowledgements: Paul Hardwick, Tony Shaw (Tovil Working Men’s Club); Clive Cheeseman; Andrew Vidler; Noel Gibbons.

	Tovil Court, photographed by Sir Garrard Tyrwhitt-Drake, twelve times Mayor of Maidstone. This was one of about 800 historic photographs featured in Maidstone Museum and Maidstone Camera Club’s recent exhibition, Out of the Shadow, Into the Light. Reproduced courtesy of Maidstone Museum & Bentlif Art Gallery.

	The Memorial Institute and Tovil Working Men’s Club, built on the site of Tovil Court, photographed in 2005.


Memorial to Albert E. Reed & Co.’s millworkers who died in the Great War, unveiled at the opening of the Tovil Memorial Institute and still on display in the entrance hall.	See enlarged photos in Archive Directory	The entrance to the site of Tovil Court in 2006.

Tovil’s memorial to men of the parish who died in the Great War, erected in the entrance hall at the Tovil Memorial Institute.		Albert Edwin Reed, from a portrait at Tovil Working Men’s Club.

Tovil Working Men’s Club’s management committee in 1988, the year when the club celebrated its centenary. From the left, back row: D. Moriarty, E. Beck (trustee), A. Smith, H. Tutt, M. Foley, B. Beal, W. Gilbert, B. Pettitt; front row: D. James, W. Jack (secretary), J. Chevis (chairman), W. Scott (assistant secretary), E. Janman.		Tovil Court, from the 1897 Ordnance Survey.

	Tovil mills in 1955. The River Medway and the railway line from Paddock Wood to Maidstone and are on the left, with a branch line leading to the mills. The dark patch in the river reveals that they are discharging their daily dose of effluent! The mill in the foreground is Bridge Mill. Part of Allnut Mill (also known as Lower Tovil Mill) is in the top right hand corner. The road going down to the river is Wharf Road. The white line leading off to the right of the picture are steam pipes that fed hot water to the ‘hydra pulpers’ at Upper Tovil Mill, soon to become a housing development. They also heated the drying machines and offices at Reed Corrugated Cases, opposite Upper Tovil Mill.

The graves of Ernest George St Leger and Charlotte Lavinia Mackinnon in Maidstone Borough Cemetery.
	Front cover of the programme for Tovil Working Men’s Club’s centennial concert in 1988.