Rear Admiral George Morris

Rear Admiral George Morris

Whilst writing about the Dower House in Priestgate I was reminded of its 1851 occupant, a man named George Morris. He was in his 70s, had been in the navy and lived with his sister and a small retinue of staff, but is name was unfamiliar, and I had had no reason to research his life before. Now that I've taken the time to research him, I’m very glad that I have, because he adds another dimension to the gentry in Thorney and Peterborough.

The Dower House in Priestgate was the perfect location for George Morris to live in his final years. Sat between the beautiful centuries-old Hake House, home to a family of solicitors, and the imposing Georgian mansion of Justice of the Peace Thomas Alderson Cooke, the neat, modern house was perfect for the aging hero. But who was George Morris and why was he living in Peterborough?

George had been born in Rotherhithe, Surrey, in 1778 to William Morris, a Master Superintendent in the Royal Navy. At only eleven years old George began his naval career with his father, following in the footsteps of his brother John.[1] At the age of only 15, George lost a leg whilst serving on the Audacious, but rather than leave the navy he continued for many years, advancing through the ranks.[2] He was a Second Lieutenant by the time he was involved in the Battle of Camperdown off the coast of the Netherlands (when his captain was said to have been cut in two by a cannon!) and he was engaged in a significant number of French and Dutch ship captures in his career during the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars. In January 1809 his ship was wrecked near Malmo forcing him to walk with his crew through snow and ice to Gothenburg (over 170 miles away) to where they knew another British naval ship was. The tenacity required to have made that journey with a leg missing is incredible and highlights the physical and mental strength he had. George and his crew remained on the ship whilst they waited for the ice to melt to enable them to return home to England.

The Battle of Camperdown by Thomas Whitcombe (via wikipedia)

Home for George at that time was in the arms of his bride Sarah. He had married her in 1807 in Minster, Kent, where Sarah had been born, and also close to the naval dock at Sheerness. But Kent was not to be home to their own family, for Sarah joined George when he was posted to (King’s) Lynn shortly after returning from his Swedish ordeal. George was involved with the Sea Fencibles, controlling a group of local men to defend the coast around The Wash at a time of heightened fear that the country was going to be invaded. George and Sarah very likely lived in Lynn initially, but by 1811 when Sarah gave birth to their first child Ann, they were living in Wisbech. George was there to greet his daughter, but he left shortly afterwards to join the Vulture, which was sailing about the Channel Islands. He returned home at the beginning of 1812 and, keen for a much-needed heir to the Morris naval dynasty, he swiftly got Sarah pregnant. George Sculthorpe was born in 1812 in Elm, a small village just south of Wisbech, which was to be their family home for several years. In 1816 George received a pension of £300 per year as compensation for the loss of his leg, which provided him with a very handsome income, having left the navy at this point.

George was active in social circles in Wisbech and stewarded balls and assemblies including the Wisbech Ball in 1813 and the Wisbech Assembly in 1816 and 1820 held at the Rose and Crown. All the events provide us with clues to George’s friendship circle: at the 1813 ball he stewarded with Lieut-Col Watson, Hugh Jackson, Goddard Marshall, Major Smith, and John Sculthorpe; in 1816 he stewarded with Captain Swaine, also of the Royal Navy; in 1820 he stewarded with John Wing. We can make a good guess that John Sculthorpe was a close friend of George’s after giving his son George the middle name Sculthorpe, and a Jackson appears as an executor in his will. Captain Spelman Swaine had an even more impressive naval career, having travelled with, and saved the life of, Captain George Vancouver (look him up – he’s a big deal!). Likewise, the name Wing will become important shortly. George was also a member of the Wisbech Bible Society, which included a member of the Peckover family.

In 1821 Sarah died in childbirth aged 38. George and his four small children remained in Elm for a few more years, but Captain George, as he was then known, needed help running the household, not least because of his disability. He also needed help caring for his children – the youngest Bryan was only two years old – so his widowed mother Ann Minter Morris moved in to help.

 Church of All Saints, Elm, by Tim Heaton via Geograph.

In 1828 George discovered one of his sheep had gone missing. He went out to look for it and came across a sack that contained the skin and shortly after the still warm carcass of the sheep in the hands of Isaac Quince. The case went to trial and Isaac was found guilty of stealing the sheep: he was sentenced to death (later commuted to transportation). What’s interesting is that another gentleman with a case at the Ely Assizes that day was Tycho Wing, of Thorney Abbey (the Duke of Bedford’s steward) who had also had sheep stolen. It seems likely that the two men had made friends over their situation and at some point Tycho had mentioned a property that was going to become available on the Duke’s estate. It’s also likely that George became very unpopular with some of the locals after (temporarily) having a member of his small village community sentenced to death and this could have been the catalyst that made the Morrises decide to leave Elm.

The family had moved to Thorney by 1829 along with George’s mother. She sadly passed away in the July of that year, but her death does give us the earliest date that the family were living there and suggests that she had been living with the family for a while in Elm. This is because despite dying in Thorney she was buried in Elm, so she must have bought/been provided with a plot there – probably next to or with her daughter-in-law and grandchildren – and returned there on her death.

With a friend in Tycho Wing, George didn’t waste any time ingratiating himself with the rest of the local gentry in Thorney and was soon sitting on a board as a Commissioner of the North Level. He was also sufficiently established enough to be on the committee to attempt to establish a central assizes court in Wisbech in 1836.

Thorney Churchyard. Snowdrops and headstones at Thorney Abbey by Richard Humphrey via Geograph.

The family lived at The Gores, a farmhouse southwest of the main village of Thorney and they were joined by George’s sister Mary, who was no doubt attempting to mitigate the loss of his wife. She would have been a mother figure to George’s daughter Sarah Dorothea and son Bryan who were still living at home, the older siblings Ann and George having left home to marry and enter the church respectively. Sarah Dorothea married George Frederic Brittin in 1843 at Thorney Abbey, her brother George conducting the ceremony! She moved to Thornhaugh to live as a farmer’s wife and had several children, one of whom became a surgeon and moved to Australia. Dorothea (as she was usually named on census records) died in 1864 aged 46.

The Gores was home to the Morris family for decades, and indeed generations, because Bryan became a farmer and his own son George Lever Morris followed in his wake. Bryan married Mary Whitting Lever, the niece of his father’s good friend (and executor) William Whitting in 1848 in Islington by licence (very common for local families). This seems to be the point at which George and Mary decided to leave Thorney and find a comfortable property for them to live their diminishing years in.

It is impossible to know exactly what prompted George and Mary to move to Peterborough, but it is likely to be because of a friendship between George Morris and Thomas Alderson Cooke, for it was his house that they lived in. They were very similar in age, both well-respected gentlemen, and had both sat on many boards over the years. They were also very sociable men, and it is easy to believe that their close proximity in their final years would have comforted and entertained them both.                                   

The side of the Dower House by Geographer via Geograph

The little property that George lived in had been built as a Dower House for Thomas’ wife Mary on the event of his death, but by the late 1840s Thomas was still active – he was still working as a magistrate – and showed no sign of imminent demise, so it was the perfect property to rent out to his friend. We know that George was living there by the 1851 census, but it’s likely that he moved in at around the time Bryan married in 1848. He stayed there until at least 1855, following the death of Thomas in December 1854. Thomas’ will stated that Mary could remain in the larger mansion house for one year after his death and was then granted the smaller property ‘lately crafted and built’ for her use for the rest of her life. It’s likely that he remained in the property until his death given the particular information in his will (see below) particularly given that Mary Cooke lived with her daughter Helen in later censuses.

George died on 29^th September 1857 aged 79. His body was returned to Thorney where he was buried with his family. His will reveals the treasures that were most important to him: to George Sculthorpe he gave his ‘Gold Chronometer with gold chain seals… my painting of the Battle of Camperdown, my naval medal and such of my own books as he shall make choice of’; to Bryan ‘my portrait and other paintings… and my gold pocket watch and gold chain’; and he was quite particular about the ornaments that lived on his mantlepiece, ensuring they were equally divided between his daughters Ann and Sarah Dorothea. Amazingly, we know that at least one of these items survives, because George’s portrait can be viewed. It was donated to the National Museum of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth back in 1990 and has been made available to share under Creative Commons Licence. The artist is unknown, but George’s personality shines through. Can you imagine him sitting in the Duke’s Head in Thorney discussing the North Level, or sharing a whiskey with Thomas Alderson Cooke in his final years, sharing the success of their children and grandchildren? His was a long life, and a life well lived. The loss of his leg at so young an age didn’t appear to hinder him as he carved out his naval career, family, and his friendships and is yet another example of successfully overcoming disability (albeit with a handsome pension).

References

I am indebted to the relatives of Rear Admiral George Morris for pulling together some incredibly useful information about his life on their Ancestry family trees, including information from the British Naval Biographical Dictionary, 1849. I have also used the British Newspaper Archive to search for information about George and his family, and the National Archives for supplying George and Thomas’ wills. I must mention Dorothy Halfhide who pointed me towards the Thorney Society website for information about George and as a resource for the wider history of Thorney. I have used the downloaded portrait of George from Art UK from the National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth and Geograph images whilst I look for the cable to my camera where my own images are.

Useful Websites

www.Ancestry.co.uk

https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/rear-admiral-george-morris-116566

www.Britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk

www.Nationalarchives.co.uk

www.Thorney-museum.org.uk

www.Wisbechmuseum.org.uk

[1] He joined his father in October 1789 which made him 11. His brother, father and other family members began their career at the age of 10, so he was a little later than them.

[2] Some records say he was 16, but his birthday was in October 1789 and his injury was in May 1794.

Was Peterborough Museum Building Built in 1816?

 

The building that Peterborough Museum building sits in is one of the most impressive buildings in Peterborough. Tucked away on Priestgate it might not have the setting that other mansions like Thorpe Hall or Ufford Manor do, but when it was built it was one of the most desirable street to live on in Peterborough.

If you read any information about the history of the building you will know that it was built in 1816. This is never disputed because there is seemingly insurmountable proof in a datestone on the building. You will also know that the building was built by Thomas Alderson Cooke (for it his initials are on the datestone) and completed only months before the tragic death of his beloved wife Judith. I believe most of this is wrong and aim to explain why in this blogpost.

Let’s start with the datestone. Imagine for a moment that you are Thomas Alderson Cooke and have spent a ridiculous amount of money on building a huge mansion – a building that would be a legacy of your brilliance and wealth. Where would you put your datestone? How are people from generations in the future going to know that you were entirely responsible for this expansive mansion? You’d put it where people can see it on the front of the building. Think back to every single datestone you’ve seen on a domestic building, and you will realise that every single one is on the front (or in a very prominent position), where it can be seen and where visitors and passers-by can marvel at your brilliance. So where would you expect to see Thomas’ date stone? Probably not at ground level on the side of the building near the entrance to a cellar, but that’s exactly where it is. In that position the only people who would ever have seen it would be tradesmen calling at the servants’ door or his own staff. Hardly the trumpet call people might think it is.

A clue to the purpose of the datestone, I believe, is evident in the two extensions to the building in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Both extensions have large explanations about when they were erected and who erected them. You can see another example of this at Miss Pear’s Almshouses (see my other blogpost on that). She donated money in her will to pay for an extension to existing almshouses in her will of 1901, with the extension built in 1903. Most people (including the official Historic England listing) have apparently ignored the 1835 datestone above the original door and the (now horribly disfigured) plaque. Additionally, on the western side of the cathedral gatehouse at the top is the date 1952 but thankfully nobody has attempted to suggest it was built then!

The datestone sits close to the entrance to the cellars and I believe was created to commemorate Thomas Cooke’s renovation of them. We know he was a keen drinker and liked to entertain, so having a large wine cellar, meat store and coal cellar would have been essential. The cellar was once the ground level of an earlier house of possibly medieval origins (based on some architectural features recently identified) and the present vaulted ceilings cut in to those walls and windows. Evidence of a blocked-up entrance to the cellars from inside the house (in an area not open to the public) suggests that this was the original entrance before they were renovated (retrofitted?!), giving further strength to the argument that the new outside entrance was significant enough to warrant dating. The very specific dating of the work (20th July) also suggests it was a smaller job that was completed rather than the building of a house.

The date stone is located behind the tree at the very bottom of the wall and is impossible to see without standing over it.

Next, there was a belief that the building there before Thomas Alderson Cooke supposedly built his one in 1816 was the ancient and decaying Orme house. The Ormes definitely lived in a large house on Priestgate from the early 17th century (not the 16^th) and still owned the house and land at the start of the 19^th century, but the house was far from decaying.

I believe they had rebuilt their house in the 18th century and it had the distinctive T-shape floor plan that largely remains today. Speede’s Map of 1611 shows the older, Orme house on the site, but by 1721 the T-shape of the present building is present on a map (below). The image of the house captured on the Prospect of Peterborough from 1731 appears to agree with the same shape, although the features of the house (roofline and windows) do not match up with the current building. The present building does sit on the footprint of the earlier building, at least at the front, because the cellars roughly match up with the outer walls above. Its distinctive T-shape is without the curved south aspect in the 1721 map (and the Prospect shows no rear end to the building at all!), but it’s very likely that this was a later addition. The thickness of the walls, which can be seen at the  doors to the curved southern rooms, strongly suggests it was originally an external wall. You can also see that the image in the Prospect shows a house made of five bays, which is still what it is now. Following the fire that destroyed the upper floors of the house there is no evidence to show if the five gable-end windows at the top of the building were adapted for a more fashionable style, or if they were from an earlier building. The architectural style of the house does appear to be Palladian and avoids the use of some of the typical Regency features such as stucco that you might expect from a house built in 1816.

                                                   

                                                                The house in 1721

If my suspicions are correct about the building, then it could push back the date of the present museum building by around 100 years and make it even more significant than it already is. What I am still looking for is other evidence to back up my theories; a reference to a newly built house in an Orme will, for example, or an itemisation of building works carried out for Thomas Cooke.

My third point relates to recently discovered documents. I was delighted to meet some of Thomas Alderson Cooke’s descendants a few years ago. They had inherited a raft of items from their family and wanted to share them to gain more understanding of their family history, which luckily, I’d been researching for some time. What I saw provided the best evidence that the Cookes had lived in the present building long before 1816. One document proved a vital link between the Cookes and the Ormes and showed that the Cookes occupied the house in 1811. Why would a very wealthy man live in the decaying ruins of the Orme house? Put simply: he wouldn’t. Cooke was trying to make a name for himself in the city and put himself on an equal footing to the likes of the Squires family, so it was important for him to live in the best house in the city, even if he had to rent it.

Walden Orme had been the Orme heir but he sadly died intestate after falling out of a small boat that he was sailing on a pond in Edith Weston in 1809. There were, of course, some legal wranglings around the Orme estate after his death which continued for several years, resulting, I believe, in the eventual selling of the Priestgate house by the Orme family. Thomas bought it and started to put his own stamp on the property, including renovating the cellars.

Another delight I was able to view was a sketch of the back of the house and part of the garden. It had been drawn in pencil and was signed J Cooke. The signature meant it could only have been drawn by Judith or eldest daughter Julia. Judith died in 1817 and Julia married William Walcot Squire (see other blogpost) in 1818, so if the house was built in 1816, as stated, there’s no more than a two year period in which the picture could have been drawn. What is interesting to note then, is that the curved southern end of the building had a scattering of tall trees close to it, items so close that they would certainly have been felled in order to build a new house.

            A modern view of the curved southern end of the museum building

What is missing here are documents showing exactly when the house was built, or when the cellars were remodelled. There is a document hiding in the museum archives detailing work that was carried out by Johnsons builders for Thomas in 1816. I believe they will show that he carried out work on the cellars, but the documents are hidden in a sea of other documents and are currently unavailable to view.

There is a lot more information I could add about changes to the building over time, a likely re-fronting of the house, the use of different stones to build the house (there’s some beautiful rubble walling at the eastern back of the house that is completely different to the ashlar at the front and may be from an earlier building) and changes to the front of the house using the same stone that was used to build the house next door in 1844 (a story for another day).

I am aware that these points raise as many questions as they solve, but history and historical interpretation changes as new evidence is found. I hope one day to have enough information to tie down exactly when the house was first built and what was altered when. For now, I am suggesting that the 1816 date relates entirely to the remodelling of the cellars and that the house is around 100 years older than has been stated. As and when new information comes to light, I will be happy to add to it, and I'm still open to the idea that I might yet be wrong! My concluding note is to always question date stones; ask what they’re commemorating and why they were placed where they were. Sometimes they’re just for the benefit of the butler!

Image of Peterborough Museum by David P Howard via Geograph and the southern and eastern views by Geographer via Geograph. Image of gatehouse datestone authors own.