Samuel Hamersley

By John Forster Holt, at Camperdown, September 1993

The year 1815 was a watershed year for England.  She had been locked in an exhausting war with France for 22 years.  When the war began her National Debt was £239 million, and when it ended following the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815, the National Debt stood at £860 million.  England had suffered dreadfully, and hundreds of thousands of lives had been lost.  But at long last Napoleon had been defeated.  He was exiled to St Helena on 16^th of October of that year.  Rioting throughout England was frequent that year as parliament had passed the Corn Act, designed to artificially maintain the high price of corn.  This resulting in one of basic foodstuffs being so expensive that people literally were starving, and this was the England into which, about a month after Napoleon left France, Samuel Hamersley was born.

He was born and baptized the same day at “Kettle Net House” at Cheriton near Sandgate in Kent, on 21 November 1815.  He was the fifth child and third son of Hugh Hamersley of St George Hanover Square, London; Pyrton Manor, Oxfordshire; and West Lawn, Sandgate, Kent, and his wife Margaret (nee Bevon) daughter of John Bevon also of Cheriton.  Samuel was baptized by the Rev Julius Drake Brockman, Rector of Cheriton and Vicar of Newington.[i]

The Bicentennial Dictionary of Western Australians Vol 1, A-C, & Burke’s Commoners Vol 11 1834 refer to William Locke Brockman, born England in 1802, son of the Rev. Julius Brockman of Beachborough, Kent, married at Cheriton parish church, Sandgate, Kent, on 15 March 1828 Frances, born 1809 (& he died while visiting England on 5 March 1876) the daughter of Hugh Hamersley.

Frances was baptized Ann Frances Isabella Hamersley in 1809.  She was one of Samuel’s younger sisters.

Mrs Emma Grunwald in a letter she wrote in 1936[ii] to her cousin Kate Burder, referred to “Kettle Net House” (which she called “Kettledrum”) as a beautiful house situated on the Sandgate road at Cheriton, a small village a few miles from the coast at Folkestone in Kent.

Apart from his main property at Sandgate, Hugh Hamersley had a house in Park Street Windsor which was rented by a Mr Barton – (I wonder if there is any connection with the Alice Barton, baptized in NSW in 1844, daughter of William and Mary L Barton whom Edward Samuel Hamersley, the 2^nd son of Hugh Hamersley, Chairman of Quarter Sessions, married in 1865 in NSW?), and a small estate at Grasmere, leased to a Mr Green, in what was formerly the county of Westmorland.

Grasmere is noted for its picturesque little lake, and the district was well-loved by Wordsworth.

Samuel had a definite interest in the Folkestone Pier and the Eddingstone Lighthouse and had his own yacht, the “Highland Lassie” of 26 tons.  He was a member of William IV Royal Thames Yacht Club.  Thomas Spencer-Andrew tells us that there is a portrait of Samuel and his yacht with the Eddystone Lighthouse in the background, which is in possession of another member of the family.  However, he had not been able to secure even a photograph of that portrait, the only known portrait of Samuel in existence.  Samuel also had his own carriage for driving through and around the City of London.  At one period he also had a villa in Italy.  The Hamersley family seat was Pyrton Manor in Oxfordshire.

Samuel, when he was 19 years old arranged a French passport from the French Agent-General in London, which is dated 18 October 1834[iii].  The passport describes his features as- 5 feet 11 inches tall, fair hair, grey eyes, a small mouth, an average nose and an oval face.  He was described as being of independent means.  At this time he resided at Sandgate, and was engaged to be married (presumably to Sarah Corderey).

He was supposed to be very good looking, according to several family letters.  So good looking in fact, that if he walked down the street people would turn around to start at him.  He was also considered to be absolutely charming in company.  Samuel was not quite 20 years old when he married Sarah Corderey at Saint Martin in the Fields, Westminster, on 3^rd August 1835.  Sarah was also very young, being under 16 years old.  Nothing much is known about Sarah, apart from the fact that Emma Grunwald said in the letter to Kate Burder written in 1936, that Sarah was a beautiful woman who died at the age of 28.  She said her picture was on Aunt Mary’s mantelpiece in the drawingroom at Victoria Crescent, Jersey [this would be Mary Gilbert who married Samuel Hubert Hamersley].  The pictures was left to the Tate’s on ‘her side’.  Aparently (sic) she was not well educated so Samuel accoring (sic) to Emma paid for her further education.

Although at this stage I haven’t discovered exactly where and when Samuel went to school, it is reasonable to assume that he attended a Public school, as his older brother Hugh attended Harrow before entering Trinity College Cambridge.  Also, his father went to Eton, and then Oriel college Oxford.  Samuel’s eldest brother was also a scholar at Trinity College Cambridge, so its (sic) seems probably that he also attended Cambridge.  In any event he was a qualified barrister, although he did not practice.

Sarah died at the young age of 28 years, and left Samuel with 5 children to look after.  His youngest child, Malcolm Travers was only 2 ½ years old when Samuel was again in church, this time St John’s Paddington, London, to marry Emma Elizabeth Niblett St George, the daughter of James St George, a member of prominent family with strong Irish connections.

Apparently the family, or at least the St George side of it, were not too pleased with the prospect, and would not give their consent.  So the couple ran away and married anyway.  His second wife had a beautiful singing voice which came in very handy.  Samuel seems to have lived beyond his means.  He was always worrying his mother or other family members for money.  His second wife was obliged to give recitals in order to earn extra money to bring up the family.

In the last years of his life he Samuel, he sold his property in France and his Italian villa, and he resided at 12 St Georges Row portion of St Georges Hanover Square, London.[iv]

He had two more children by his second wife- Sophia Emma, born 26 February 1846, and Blanche Nancy, born 27 March 1951.  Sophie Emma married Jean Paul Grunwald, and they had two children, William (later of Hulme House) who changed his name to Hamersley, and Samuel Grunwald.  William married Paula Demmer.  He died at midnight on 15^th of April at Yvetot, Normand, France and is buried in the cemetery there.[v]

[i] Refer to copy of baptismal entry kindly provided by Thomas Spence-Andrew.

[ii] See transcription of letter dated 10 January 1936.  Emma Grunwald was Sophia Emma, born 26 February 1846, the daughter of Samuel Hamersley and his second wife formerly Miss Emma Elizabeth Noblett St George.  Her husband was Jean Paul Grunwald.

[iii] See copy of his passport.

[iv] Per Daphne Foulkes-Taylor’s notes

[v] Per Thomas Spencer-Andrew’s letter of May 1986 to Daphne Foulkes-Taylor.