Last Sunday I gave a talk to the Society on Philip Henry Tree (1848-1922), an architect who was born on Norman Road. Tree was responsible for numerous houses, and some churches and shops, mainly between Bexhill and Rye.
I mentioned his close relationship with Richard Beagley, with whom he shared an office for many years, and for whom he designed a couple of memorial fountains. Both men advocated the total prohibition of alcohol. In this post I will describe the career of Richard Beagley, mainly from newspapers, such as from his long obituary in the Hastings and St Leonards Observer, 4 June 1887.
He was baptised in 1819 in East Tisted, Hampshire, son of a cordwainer. His obituary claims he worked first as a local schoolmaster, and then, having met Joseph Elijah Butler, worked with him as a stationer in Liverpool. Like Beagley’s later partner Tree, Butler was brought up as a Congregationalist, although he is claimed to have helped found the Presbyterian chapel at Silverhill in 1853 – before he allegedly moved to the area in 1854. In 1846, as a schoolmaster, Butler had been appointed Registrar of Marriages in the Alton Union. In the 1851 census, at Andover, he was a schoolmaster.
Beagley married on the 23 November 1855 at St Mary’s Lambeth. He was a stationer, of St Leonards, Sussex, son of William Beagley, deceased, boot maker. His bride was Mary, of Lambeth, daughter of Joseph Hellis, deceased, builder.
His bride Mary was the sister of Butler’s wife Fanny (who had married in 1841 in Alton). Beagley’s obituary says he lived at 1 Undercliff before moving to 11 Church Road where he lived for nearly 30 years. He and Butler supposedly moved to the area in 1854, and opened a business at 2 and 3 Eversfield Place.
Butler may have lived for a while at Eversfield Place, as the newspaper says his daughter Maty died there in 1857. She was just two years old.
Melville’s 1858 Directory of Sussex has an entry for Butler and Beagley, booksellers, stationers, and library reading rooms, 2 and 3 Eversfield place.
The 1861 census does not list any occupants at 2 or 3 Eversfield Place, while Butler was at 36 Norman Road West. Mary Beagley, ‘stationer’s wife’, was at 11 Church Road, with her sister Sarah Hellis and two servants. Her husband Richard, stationer, was at Old Place in his ancestral parish of East Tisted, visiting John Allam, farmer of 1300 acres with 31 labourers, and his wife.
A local directory for 1867-8 lists Butler & Beagley booksellers, stationers, library & pianoforte repository and reading rooms at 2-3 Eversfield Place.
The London Gazette, 28 June 1870, had an announcement that the partnership between Joseph Elijah Butler and Richard Beagley, of 2-3 Eversfield Place, librarians and stationers, as Butler and Beagley, was to be dissolved. Debts to be paid by Butler, who would carry business on under his sole account.
In the 1871 census Butler was at 2 Albert Villas, St Mary Magdalen, which was close to White Rock. He was also there in the 1881 census, employing one assistant. In the 1891 census he was at Islington, London, retired, in the household of a schoolmaster son, and he died there in 1898.
As for Beagley, he had opened a real estate office at 4 London Road and was soon joined by Philip Henry Tree, architect, who was some 18 years younger. They must have known each other for years, as Beagley is frequently reported, from 1863, in the newspapers at temperance activities together with a Benjamin Tree, who I suspect was Philip’s elder brother. On that first recorded occasion Philip was present, aged about 15, and we are told that ‘Master Philip Tree gained the first prize, an elegant alabaster inkstand, the gift of Miss Pennington.’
Later Richard Beagley and Philip Tree played leading roles in the local branch of the United Kingdom Alliance, which, founded in 1853, advocated the total prohibition of alcohol.
Tree was at least nominally a Congregationalist, while Richard as an Anglican. Beagley first attended Christ Church, but later St Leonards church as he felt ‘a dislike to certain alterations’, probably the high church tradition of Christ Church.
In the 1871 census the Beagleys were again at 11 Church Road. Richard was 49, house and commission agent, Mary his wife, 50, niece Frances Hellis, 12, and two servants. They also had tenants, all single. These were George D. Dawes, 63, clergyman without cure of souls, born Nova Scotia; his aunt Maria C. Head, 70, annuitant, born Nova Scotia; and Francis Kinder, 56, income derived from interest.
I found Dawes interesting so I carried out some research on him. The full name was George Douglas Dawes, and apparently Crockford’s has no mentions of him as a practising clergyman. After a year at Oxford he went up to Trinity College, Cambridge. His father was Daniel Butler Dawes, who was born in Winchelsea. He was a Purser in the Royal Navy, and later naval storekeeper at Halifax, Nova Scotia. The father died in 1849 in St Leonards. In the 1861 census his widow and son George, together with the same Maria Head, were at 4 Crescent, which must have been 4 Pelham Crescent, where the mother died in 1864.
In November 1873 Beagley stood for Hastings Council, on an independent, temperance platform, for one of the two seats in West Ward (that is, St Leonards). The results were that the two Conservatives topped the poll with 714 and 624; the Liberals were at 458 and 414; and Beagley trailed in last at 294. The Conservatives, traditionally allied to the drinks trade, had taken every seat in the election.
On at least one occasion Beagley instructed a solicitor to oppose the granting of a license. The Hastings Observer, 22 August 1874, has a report on an application for a license by the new Mount Pleasant Hotel, near Mount Pleasant Road, West Hill, Hastings. His solicitor handed in ‘three memorials against the granting of new licenses to any applicant, in any part of the borough’, besides pointing out the lack of houses to provide potential customers in the area. On the same occasion the solicitor opposed a beerhouse keeper of Bourne Walk who had applied for a license. The Bench conferred, and decided not to allow the hotel license, but to allow the beerhouse.
The pair appear to have moved offices from 4 London Road to the more spacious 59 London Road in about 1878, when both addresses record their presence in a directory.
The 1881 census at 11 Church Road has a different niece, Catherine Hellis, as a companion. George the lodger was still there, with his own niece. The 1885 electoral register had a section for lodgers with the right to vote, with details of their accommodation. George Douglas Dawes had three furnished [that is, by the landlord] rooms, two on the first floor and one on the second floor, with Richard Beagley as his landlord. The amount of rent might have been thought more important as justifying a vote, and it is extraordinary that we have this sort of detail.
After a long illness Richard Beagley died on the 27 May 1887 at the age of 68. 25 carriages accompanied him to Hastings Cemetery, where Benjamin Tree was one of the men who lowered his coffin into the grave. Among many details cited in the newspaper, the deceased was a Sunday School teacher as well as a temperance advocate, did not give speeches, and his friend Benjamin Tree had attended night classes run by him about thirty years before. Apparently it had been hard going at first promoting the temperance cause, with Beagley one of the leaders. Thirty years before there were perhaps 100 abstainers in Hastings and St Leonards, but now there were over 5000.
The Hastings Observer, 2 July 1887, reported on a meeting at the Norman Road Temperance Hall to mark the 26th anniversary of the Hall and of its Working-Men’s Institute. Both Benjamin and Philip Tree were present. We are told ‘the lodge furniture was draped with black, in memory of the late Mr R. Beagley.’ The Chair, the Rev. Forbes E. Winslow, spoke in evangelical terms of the Christian work of Beagley. ‘Miss Tree and Miss Hellis then gave a pianoforte duet.’ Benjamin Tree, in giving a report on temperance activities, estimated that £500 was spent every Sunday on drink in Hastings.
In October the same year an admirer died at 146 Marina. This was Frederick John How, merchant, only 36 years old, who had been a teacher alongside Beagley. His will provided for an annual Richard Beagley Scholarship, worth £60, at Hastings Grammar School, provided the pupil had been there for at least three years. This was funded by £2000 from his estate of £14912. Any surplus was to purchase gold and silver medals ‘to encourage perseverance by the students’, although after 1924 it was for books rather than medals.
The 22 October 1887 issue announced a memorial fund:
THE LATE MR BEAGLEY. – It is proposed to erect a drinking fountain at St Leonards in memory of this gentleman. A Committee has been formed to carry out the project.
A week later the newspaper stated that the proposed site was to be where Pevensey Road joins London Road. This would have been close to 59 London Road. The report said that the site was questionable, although there were no drinking fountains nearby. It went to state ‘Drinking fountains are in very few cases much appreciated, and in some instances are unmitigated nuisances. The one near Holy Trinity Church, for instance, is useful only as a receptacle for brooms used by the Local Board men.’
The 5 November 1887 issue suggested that the cost would of an Aberdeen granite fountain would be £250. The committee’s 32 members were listed. The chairman was the (Anglican) Rev. J.W. Tottenham, who ran a school in the Archery Road area, and included five other clergymen, and both Benjamin and Philip Tree. Only three members were women. Some donations were listed; the Tree brothers had both contributed three guineas. The next week’s issue revealed that the local Conservative MP, Wilson Noble, had joined the committee, with £50 being held in funds.
The 30 June 1888 issue stated that originally the hope had been to raise enough funds for a new temperance hall, and as not enough money was available a drinking fountain was chosen instead. The report referred to the 8 June issue of The Building News with its illustration of its proposed fountain, by Philip Tree. It was to be in the middle of the junction of London Road, and would replace the existing gas lamp.
Funds apparently did not quite match the ambitious scale of this huge water fountain. Instead, in 1896 a seven-foot high, four-foot across granite fountain designed by Tree was installed on the parade opposite Warrior Square. It cost £90, and replaced an iron version, but is no longer there. It had earlier been suggested it should be in Gensing Gardens, which the Council had agreed to. The long article on its erection (Hastings Observer, 26 December 1896) mentions that he had left school at 14, and was regarded as the father of the temperance movement in Hastings.
On the 1 May 1889 Richard’s widow Mary had died at 11 Church Road. Her four executors were all relatives: her brother, two nephews, and her sister Fanny Butler.
As for the Rev. George Douglas Dawes, he continued to live at 11 Church Road, where he died on the 8 October 1891, age 83. The earlier 1891 census lists Thomas Hellis, 62, widower, presumably another nephew, living on his own means, born Alton, and his daughter, a boarding house keeper. Besides Dawes there were two other boarders.
In the 10 January 1925 issue of the Hastings Observer, John Bray & Sons announced that they had moved from 13 South Colonnade to 27 Grand Parade and had acquired all interests in ‘Messrs. Beagleys, Auctioneers and Surveyors, 27 Grand Parade.’ Many later adverts by John Bray stated that they had been active since 1864, and that they incorporated Beagleys, active since 1850. That date is too early if Beagley had only moved to the area in 1854 !
There is a biography of Beagley and a photo of his Hastings Cemetery memorial on the Friends of Hastings Cemetery website. It also records the inscription.
I nearly fell off my chair when notification of this post arrived in my email inbox. Why? Because about 10 years ago I too wrote a short biog of Beagley, prompted by that huge and ostentatious planned memorial to him which would have been at the end of my road.
Sadly, before I had a chance to publish it, I lost the entire article in a computer error and have never had the time or the heart to re-write it from scratch. Now I don’t have to! So it’s a massive THANKS from me!