Journal of the Southampton Local History Forum Spring 2008 Table of Contents Page The Winchester connections of Richard Andrews, 1843-59 3 Richard Preston Embarcation (Southampton Docks: October, 1899) 12 Thomas Hardy Josiah George Poole (1818-1897): Architect and 13 Surveyor serving Southampton A.G.K. Leonard William Jupe, Master Builder (1859-1943) 28 Christine Clearkin 1 SOUTHAMPTON LOCAL HISTORY FORUM Southampton Local History Forum is sponsored by Southampton City Libraries, Archives and Information Services. Membership is free and is open to everyone interested in the history of the city and its neighbourhood. 2 Richard Preston The Winchester connections of Richard Andrews, 1843-59 Richard Andrews is one of the heroes of 1). This became the weekend residence of Mr Southampton. His biography is part of the and Mrs Andrews, and a retreat for Richard town’s fabric. Born to poor parents in Bishop’s beyond the roar and worry of Southampton Sutton in 1798, he moved to Southampton to politics. The quintet was completed by Lucerne work in Jones’s coach factory. He grew to be Villa, a larger residence erected in 1855 in the one of the largest coach manufacturers in style of a Swiss Cottage. The properties were in Europe, with a factory in Above Bar employing a prime location, on well-drained chalk, open to at its peak 150 hands. A free trader and political the bracing and invigorating air straight from reformer, he was the mainspring of the Radical the Downs and with good access to the railway interest in Southampton and arbiter of borough station. The property also included Winchester elections for over a decade. Mayor of waterworks, which Andrews tried to exploit Southampton on five occasions, he stood commercially but soon sold. unsuccessfully for Parliament in 1857. He is commemorated by a statue in East Park. It is The Winchester residences of Richard Andrews misleading, however, to treat Andrews as a were an enclave of Southampton in the county uniquely Southampton phenomenon. He held town. Lucerne Villa was designed by the property in Winchester, which he used both to Southampton firm of architects Hinves and enhance his position in Southampton and to Bedborough and the decoration was by H J establish a power base in Winchester. These two Buchan of High Street, Southampton. The themes are the subject of this essay. architect of the Pagoda is unknown (it may have been William Hinves), but some of the ironwork The location and chronology of the Winchester bears the stamp Joseph Lankester 1847 (co- houses of Richard Andrews is to be explored in proprietor of the Holy Rhood Foundry). a forthcoming article by Robin Freeman and the Southampton and not Winchester firms present author in the Newsletter of the provided the hospitality for which Andrews was Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological famous: Miss Groket and George Parker of Society. To summarize, Andrews took lodgings Above Bar and Charles Fisk of High Street are in Winchester in 1843 for health reasons, on the named. Thomas Leader Harman, the American- advice of Sir James Clark, Physician-in- born proprietor of the Hampshire Independent Ordinary to the Queen. Within a year or so he and political ally of Andrews in Southampton, had acquired three properties in Painter’s Fields, leased property in Winchester from his patron an area to the west of the city then under both in 1847 on his return from the United development. His first purchase was of a house States, and during the last two years of his time he baptised, in true puritanical fashion in England (1857-59). Shortly after the purchase according to the Hampshire Advertiser, of his first Winchester property, Andrews Bethsaida Lodge, from which he initially encouraged Harman to appoint a new agent for commuted daily to Southampton. The building the Southampton-based Independent in of Agenoria Villa and Providence Lodge, Winchester (John Williams, hairdresser of 73 probably a semi-detached pair of houses, also in High Street was appointed). The intrusion of St James’s Crescent, which were let, followed. Southampton into alien territory could at times In 1847, he created out of a lodge on adjoining be manifest to all in the city. In July 1849, high ground what the Advertiser called the Prince Albert, then at Osborne House, visited ‘nondescript whimsicality of Hong Kong Winchester to present new colours to the Royal Cottage’, otherwise known as the Pagoda (fig Welsh Fusiliers. Corporators in Southampton 3 Figure 1 Exterior of Hong Kong Cottage, or the Pagoda, from Authentic life of His Excellency Louis Kossuth, published by Bradbury and Evans, 1851, opposite p 40. It also appears in The Illustrated London News, 1 November 1851. A view of the house, shorn of most of its embellishments, taken in 1870 by the Winchester photographer William Savage, can be seen at www.winchestermuseumcollections.org.uk/photographs (search under Pagoda). 4 hoped that he would travel via Southampton, was but a prelude to the events which, if only enabling them to demonstrate their loyalty. In for a couple of days, thrust the Pagoda and its the event, he travelled via Gosport. Not owner into the centre of political life. deterred, Andrews, then Sheriff of Throughout the autumn of 1851, the progress of Southampton, organized a grand dinner for his Louis Kossuth, deposed leader of the short-lived Southampton friends in the Pagoda, which lay Hungarian republic, from his exile in Turkey to close to the barracks. The Independent reported England had engrossed the English press. Those ‘guests standing on the balconies, shouting at Liberal politicians who had made his cause their the top of their bent, the firing of a royal salute own realized the importance of taking him in from the cannons engaged for the occasion, and hand immediately he set foot on English soil, to a band of musicians playing ‘God save the forestall his falling under malign influences. Queen’.’ Earlier, a salvo of artillery, The role of Richard Andrews, as Mayor of the reverberating around the hills and valleys for town in which he was due to land, was critical. miles around, had been minutely synchronised Kossuth arrived at Southampton on board the P to coincide with the entrance of the Prince & O steamer Madrid, on Thursday, 23 October, Consort to the parade ground. The Liberal a day earlier than expected. As soon as the ship morning paper, the Daily News, had was sighted, Andrews proceeded to the docks tantalisingly reported that Andrews had offered and embarked on board the quarantine boat with Prince Albert the use of his cottage. the Custom House officials. Andrews set on board warmly to greet the exile as soon as The Pagoda played a particularly significant pratique was granted. A public dinner in the role in enhancing the political influence of Town Hall, at which the conventional speeches Richard Andrews, both within his own bailiwick were made, was interrupted by the arrival of of Southampton and the wider world. It was a Charles Gilpin, a leader of the pro-Kossuth venue within his sole control, free from the party, from London, having come straight from trammels of Corporation interference. With its a Common Council meeting as soon as he heard unique architecture, pleasure ground, fountains of the arrival. Kossuth spent the night at the and elevated position with views down the Above Bar house of the Mayor. Itchen valley, it was the ideal showcase. His hospitality was legendary: the ‘orgies’ and the At 11 am the following day – Friday, 24 ‘rollicking festivities’ of Hong Kong became October – Kossuth, accompanied by Andrews bywords of the Tory press. The great and his coterie, rode in a triumphal carriage revolutionary movements in central Europe in procession to Winchester and, after a detour the late 1840s brought a stream of refugees from through the main streets of the city, made for totalitarian regimes into England. As a radical the Pagoda: ‘which from the style of building politician with an internationalist perspective, (the Chinese), gay at all times was gayer than Andrews threw his influence behind such ever on the present occasion, being decorated national politicians as Richard Cobden and Lord with handsome British, American, Turkish and Dudley Stuart to aid the Liberal cause. In June Hungarian flags’ (Hampshire Independent). 1850, Prince Ladislaus Czartoryski, a prominent Here Kossuth stayed until Monday, under the Polish refugee, was a guest at the Pagoda, care of his host, free from outside pressure, attending divine services at the Catholic chapel recuperating after his ordeals (and violent sea- on Sunday morning and at the Cathedral in the sickness), and corresponding with supporters, of afternoon. The next month, again on a Sunday, whom Walter Savage Landor (the radical author Hungarian patriots recently in exile in Turkey of Bath) and Thornton Hunt (Chairman of the (including General Messaros, the late Hungarian Central Demonstration Committee in London) Minister of War) received the Pagoda can be identified. Before he could relax, hospitality, accompanying their host to a however, Kossuth had to make his first major Cathedral service and a tour round the city. This policy speech in England. It was eagerly 5 anticipated throughout England and America. It Joseph Rodney Croskey, the United States was, in the event, a speech largely crafted by the Consul in Southampton and a close associate of doyen of English Radicals, Richard Cobden. Andrews. In a highly interventionist speech, he Whereas Charles Gilpin had made the journey saw England and America, the two great nations between London and Southampton in three of the Anglo-Saxon race, fighting together in hours on the Thursday to be with Kossuth, and the battle of freedom in Europe.