A History of Clewer

7. THE PEOPLE OF CLEWER

The Clewer Group

William Canning came to Clewer as a curate in 1811. The Rector was Dr. Foster-Pigott who was a Fellow of Eton College and was, for the most part, absent from the parish. It was Canning who, with the Duke of Cambridge and Lord Harcourt, put "the Harcourt Schools" (now Clewer Green School) on a proper footing, with endowments and a Trust Deed. The latter document appointed Canning, as "Minister in Charge" of Clewer to be Headmaster.

Canning came from a distinguished family. His brother became Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, and his cousin was the famous George Canning. Some letters written by Canning’s mother are kept in the archives in Bath City Library and they make interesting reading. Writing in May 1815 Mrs Canning says "I made my public entry into this village (i.e. Clewer) on the 12th inst. William was already established and had made everything as comfortable as possible. The house and situation far exceed my expectations.

The village is clean and cheerful with neat cottages and very decent inhabitants. Our house stands back from the road, with a close iron gate, gravel walk, grass on either side, planted with shrubs and trees." She continues: "The walk to Windsor is pretty, through the fields..... We have only one near neighbour (she means, of course, one neighbour belonging to the gentry - she has already mentioned the villagers) who is Mrs.Hawtrey, sister of our Rector. She seems a sensible, good-humoured person.

This is a large parish and affords "our Parson" ample employment. A very clean, pretty church, respectable congregations and a large Charity School for boys and girls, endowed by Lady Harcourt. The noble family (the Harcourts) is not yet settled at St. Leonard’s, but her Ladyship promises me a visit when she does settle. Mrs. Canning writes of "how nice it is to see the Eton boys rowing" but adds "I like them better on the water than in the character of sportsmen on shore.

It seems they frequently visit this village and are all day long popping at poor little birds who, like the old women, are doubtless much annoyed by this dangerous practice. For my part I dare not stir out while they are at this work and heartily wish the imps all locked up in long chamber."

Canning left Clewer to take on a parish elsewhere but he eventually returned to Windsor as a Canon of St. George’s Chapel. He came to Clewer Church once more to perform a baptism for a member of Lord Harcourt’s family.

Railway Superintendent for Isambard Kingdom Brunel - during the building of the Great Western Railway - 1835 - 1850 - a branch of which was built to connect Windsor with the main line to London and the West Country. Lived in Clewer Park from 1850 until 1889.

One of the most impressive graves in Clewer Churchyard is that of Sir Daniel Gooch and railway buffs often visit it from all parts of the country. It is towards the south-west corner of the churchyard and is a massive affair of granite, surrounded with huge iron chains. It bears Gooch's coat-of-arms, which can also be seen on the cottages next to The Swan as Gooch, when living at Clewer Park, built the cottages for his employees.

Daniel Gooch was born in 1816, the third son of John Gooch of Bedlington, Northumberland. It was at Birkinshaw's ironworks in Bedlington that Gooch, as a child, acquired his first knowledge of engineering. There he met George Stephenson. His apprenticeship as a practical engineer was served with the firm of Stephenson and Pease in Newcastle. In 1837, when only 21 years of age, Gooch was appointed locomotive superintendent of the Great Western Railway on the recommendation of Isambard Brunel. He held this post for 27 years. He took advantage of the space allowed by the broad gauge of the G.W.R. to design locomotives on boldly original lines.

His engines achieved a speed and safety not previously thought possible. Among his more celebrated locomotives were North Star, North Britain and Great Britain.In 1864 Gooch resigned as locomotive superintendent to inaugurate telegraphic communications between Britain and America and he succeeded in despatching the first cable message across the Atlantic in 1866.

He was made a Baronet in November of that year. Until his death he remained Chairman of the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company.

In 1865 the G.W.R. was in a critical state: indeed, it was close to bankruptcy. Gooch therefore became Chairman of the Board of Directors and rapidly got the company onto a sound footing. He remained Chairman until his death.He supported the building of the steamship Great Fastern and was one of her owners.He was Member of Parliament for Cricklade from 1865 to 1885.

He was a Justice of the Peace for Berkshire. He was also a prominent Freemason, being Provincial Grand Master for Berkshire and Grand Sword Bearer for England.His first wife, Margaret Turner of Bishopwearmouth, predeceased him by some years, then he married a friend of hers, Emily Burder.There is a strange story about this second marriage. It is said that Gooch scarcely knew Emily but that his first wife appeared to him in a dream and told him to marry her, which he promptly did.

It is noteworthy that his first wife is buried with Gooch but that the second wife is buried in a grave of her own, some yards away, in the angle formed by the churchyard wall on Mill Lane and Clewer Court Road.Among Gooch's many achievements was the creation of Swindon as an important industrial town: he measured the distance between London and Bristol and decided that Swindon - a modest little market town was exactly half way between the two, so he chose it as the site for the G.W.R. workshops.

A statue of him stands in Swindon.Gooch provides a remarkable example of someone who, from modest beginnings, rose to considerable heights in several fields. His fame nowadays is somewhat eclipsed (except for railway enthusiasts) by that of Brunel, but the simple explanation for this is that Brunel’s bridges still survive while Gooch's locomotives do not. He died in 1889.

Well known contemporary film and stage actor lived in the Mill House from 1972 to 1978.

He was buried in Clewer Churchyard in July 1883. He was a cadet at Sandhurst in 1823/24 and was then commissioned in the 75th Regiment. During foreign service he was Deputy-Judge-Advocate General on the staff of General Maister. Returning as a Captain, he went on half pay from the Army to take up a post in the Secretarial (sic) of the South Eastern Railway. He later returned to the army and went to Canada in command of "a body of enrolled pensioners." On the outbreak of the Crimean War he was appointed Military Secretary to General Vivian. For his services he received the Turkish Order and Medal. in 1858 he wrote "The Elementary History of the Art of War . In 1862 he published the memoirs of his father, General Graham. He had several other publications to his credit, the last being the editing of the English translation of the German work on "War by von Clausewitz.

In Clewer's History Museum hangs a small, unsigned oil painting of a plump, elderly lady with a benign, cheerful face. She sits at a table covered with a brown, fringed, chenille cloth, with letters in her hand and an inkstand nearby. She wears a heavily-pleated white wimple out of which neat grey hair peeps, and a voluminous grey habit with a white cross on a cord round her neck. She is Charlotte Sterkey, an important figure in 19th Century Clewer. She was a tertiary of the Community of St. John Baptist which means that she had not taken full vows. She left two "good works" in Dedworth Road. One is still with us.' St.Andrew’s Lodge (originally called St'. Andrew’s Cottage) which is now an Abbeyfield House. The other, a charming row of cottages, was demolished some years ago, but photographs are in the Museum. They were built in 1868 and were known as "St Andrew's Almshouses for Poor Ladies." With the portrait may be seen an illuminated scroll. It reads as follows:"To Charlotte Sterky (sic.: the name has a second "e" in the Church records) We, your old friends on behalf of the signatories whose names are in the accompanying book, beg you to accept this small gift on your birthday as a token of our love and in remembrance of the many years of devoted work for St Andrew's Society which Sister Mary Ashpital and yourself founded thirty three years ago. For us who know you and have been made happier by your care and love, no written memorial is needed: your remembrance will always be in our hearts. But to those who will follow us, some visible record o your life's work is surely due." The parchment is signed by a Florentine artist. Charlotte Sterkey died in 1907.

Lady Wellesley was the widow of Queen Victoria’s favourite Dean of St.George's and when the Dean died the Queen asked her to stay on to administer her charities. The wooden bookstand in Clewer’s Lady Chapel is a memorial to her and bears a brass plaque to that effect. There is a bust of her in St. George's Chapter Library. Both she and her father, Lord Rokeby, are buried at Clewer and Magdalen's gravestone has carved lilies of the valley on a recumbent cross. Queen Victoria’s name for her was "dearest Lily." Lord Rokeby was a General and was Colonel of the Scots Guards. He was buried in May 1883.

The churchyard walls were surrounded, for the funeral, by a detachment of the Royal Horse Guards. The Dukes of Albany and Cambridge attended. The Queen was represented by Earl Sydney. The Wellesleys were, of course, relatives of the Duke of Wellington.

In 1979 Denis Shaw was able to give to the present Duke a Bible given to Dean Wellesley by Queen Victoria’s eldest daughter and inscribed by her. It is on show at Stratfield Saye. In return the Duke gave to D.S. a framed engraving of the first Duke. Behind him is Lisbon harbour and spread in front of him are plans of the Peninsular Campaign.

One of the most interesting graves in Clewer Churchyard is that of Mary Ann Hull who died in 1888. The grave is on the north side of the church near the boatyard wall. It has a headstone, in front of which is a horizontal slab on which is a recumbent cross. Over the cross, carved with incredible skill curves a palm leaf. All round the slab are carved the names of all Queen Victoria’s children who paid for the stone.Mary Ann Hull was nanny to all the princes and princesses from 1841 to 1859 and the gravestone records that "she was honoured with the confidence and affectionate regard of Her Majesty and every member of the Royal family unto her life's end."Her husband, Charles Hull, whom she married late in life, in buried in the same grave. He was in the Queen's service for 27 years as one of "The Queen's Own Messengers and he died while on duty at the Home Office.Mary Anne whose maiden name was Cripps, was given a bath-chair and a donkey to pull it when she retired and went to live in Dorset Road and the Queen gave instructions that she was to be welcome to visit any part of the Castle whenever she chose. The Queen referred to her as "dearest May."

The Brocas Family

The following passage is taken from Olwen Hedley’s book "Round and About Windsor" published in 1950 by Oxley & Son of 'Windsor:

The Brocas Chapel stands at the south-east corner of Clewer Church, from which it was originally separate, and, with the Brocas meadow at Eton, is the only remaining memorial of an illustrious family of the Middle Ages. A line of warriors, come out of Gascony, where their name passed to two villages which still exist, they gave their devotion to the English kings, and one of them, Sir John, Seneschal of Windsor Castle, built himself a house at Clewer, the site of which is now unknown.

He died rich in local lands, owning many miles of the woods, arable land and water-meadows of Windsor, Eton, Clewer, Dorney, Bray and Boveney. All these he bequeathed to Edward Ill, but the king returned them to his son, Sir Bernard..... Sir Bernard shared in the glories of the dying Middle Ages. He fought in youth on the fields of Crecy and Poitiers; became Constable of Acquitaine, and Captain and Controller of Calais; his ageing years saw him appointed Chamberlain to Richard Ill’s first Queen, the vivacious Anne of Bohemia; and when he died in 1395 he was buried in St.Edmund's Chapel, Westminster Abbey, where the beautiful embattled tomb erected by Richard II can still be seen.The sorrows of his line were yet to come.Shakespeare commemorated them and gave the name a grave immortality when he made Fitzwater announce to Bolingbroke in "Richard II":

"My Lord, I have from Oxford sent to London

The heads of Brocas and Sir Bennet Seely,

Two of the dangerous, consorted traitors

That sought at Oxford thy dire overthrow."

None ever merited the name of traitor less than this son and namesake of old Sir Bernard who, faithful as his forefathers to the crowned right of England, dedicated himself to the lost cause of Richard II, took part in the desperate attempt to rescue him from the Tower, was taken at Cirencester, tried in London, and beheaded.

On the south wall of the Brocas Chapel is an old brass plate, presumably moved indoors from a grave, which reads as follows:He that lieth vnder this stoneShott with a Hvndred men Himself AloneThis is Trew that I Doe SaysThe Match was Shott in Ovlde Felde at BrayeI will tell yov before yov Go HenceThat His Name was Martine Expence.

Lieut. Cooper in his "History of Berkshire" has this to say:

"Archery meetings were held at Bray in Elizabeth's time. The Volunteers of Bray challenged the Company of Clewer, and Martine Expence carried off the laurels of the day as appears by the inscription on his tomb in Clewer Church."

As stated in the article about William Canning, Lord and Lady Harcourt were the founders of Clewer Green School .Lord Harcourt was the younger son of Simon, Earl Harcourt. As a young man he took "an ensigncy" in the First Foot Guards Light Dragoons, in October 1759. The regiment had been raised at his father's expense and was known as Harcourt's Black. In 1760 Harcourt was sent to Mecklenburg Strelitz to escort to England the consort-elect of George III and he was appointed to a post in the Royal Household.He was A.D.C. to Lord Albermarle at the taking of Havana in 1763.

He became Lieutenant Colonel of the 16th Light Dragoons in 1768.From 1768 to 1774 he was M.P. for Oxford.In 1776, having accompanied his regiment to America, he carried off as a prisoner General Charles Lee, capturing him in his own camp. He was officially thanked by Parliament and made a King's A.D.C. He became Colonel of the 16th Light Dragoons (subsequently to become The Lancers) and he held the post for over 50 years.

He became a Major General in 1782 and purchased St.Leonard's Hill from the Duke of Gloucester. He was appointed Deputy Ranger of Windsor Great Park.In 1793/4 he commanded the cavalry in campaigns in Flanders. In 1796 he became Governor of the Royal Military College at Great Marlow.In 1809 on the death of his brother he succeeded to the title. He bore the Union standard at the coronation of George IV.

For many years he served as a Groom of the Bedchamber and Deputy Lieutenant of Windsor Castle. In 1778 he married Mary, widow of Thomas Lockwood of Craig House, Scotland. There were no children. He was on terms of close intimacy with the royal family and his Court duties during the King's first illness (i.e. mental derangement - the reference is to George III) "were of a very close and confidential nature."

His wife was sent to accompany Princess Caroline of Brunswick on her wedding journey to England.Lord Harcourt died on June 18th 1830 and the title became extinct.The estates passed to a cousin who was Archbishop of York. This cousin's name was Edward Vernon but on inheriting the estates he changed his name to Harcourt.A statue of Lord Harcourt was commissioned with the intention that it should be erected at Stanton Harcourt in Oxfordshire, but at the insistence of the Royal Family, it was placed, instead, in St. George's Chapel