THIS IS FINDON VILLAGE — www.findonvillage.com  created by Valerie Martin, contains scenes from her home village of Findon, West Sussex, U.K.

THE HAWKINS FAMILY OF FINDON

Copyright Valerie Martin 2005

Originally published in Along the Furlong in September 2005

Do you ever wonder who lived in Findon over the past centuries?   I think it is most fascinating to imagine the lives of the people who lived in our village in the past.  We will never know exactly what went on but there is no harm in delving into the past as far as possible.  For instance, the Hawkins family resided here for a comparatively short time (from 1808 -1812) but are nonetheless interesting.

In the summer 1808 a 13-year-old girl arrived to live in Findon from North Steyne in neighbouring Brighton.    She came to the village with her parents, Samuel and Elizabeth Hawkins and her three brothers named John, Augustus and Caesar.  The young girl's name was Eliza Georgina.   Her father, Samuel was a solicitor in London and spent the week at his office in Pall Mall and travelled down to the country family home in Findon each Saturday and stayed until Monday.  How did Samuel accomplish this feat on such a regular basis in all seasons?   Perhaps on horseback or by coach.

I have also discovered on good authority that Samuel acted for his father-in-law as one of his father-in-law's executors, in developing the port at Swansea, as well as coal mines, canals and wooden track ways in the area inland of Swansea.   Therefore, it is confirmed that Eliza's father travelled to and fro by horse from Findon to Swansea on occasions.   This must have been a long, cold journey for much of the year.   

The King's highway that led to London from the coast had only been completed a couple of years earlier. The so-called "new" Ashington to Worthing turnpike road now ran through Findon to Horsham and on to London.  Before this there had only been one coach every other weekday during the season and a weekly wagon to London.  The London - Worthing coaches started operating through Findon and continued to do so for almost exactly forty years until the railway to Worthing opened in 1846.  This may have been the way Samuel Hawkins travelled to London.   The "Accommodation" coach was the best known on this run. It was painted yellow, pulled by four splendid grey horses, and proved a colourful sight arriving at the hostelry in the centre of Findon, crammed with passengers, inside and on top.

I would dearly like to find out in which property the Hawkins family resided in Findon.  The Hawkins household consisted of fourteen adults and children plus a good many servants.   This suggests it was one of the larger Findon houses and it is quite possible that they rented as ownership was not that common — even for quite well to do families.

What was Findon like at this time?   The Manorial Map of Findon was dated 1808.  It was drawn up by George Bassett detailing the houses and village lanes still familiar today.   This map indicated the Gun Inn in the Square amidst a growing number of properties. The land was agricultural and the Lyall family owned considerable acreage of land.  The vicar was the Reverend John Hind administering to his flock.  The Wattle House was a comparatively new feature standing alone on Nepcote Green with wattles stored on the Ground Floor and on each side was a tenement cottage. 

Many years later in 1877, Eliza gives us a brief glimpse of her life in Findon and wrote ....

Eliza's grandmother was Elizabeth Calland, whose husband had been an important East India Company official in Madras.   She was born in India and her maiden name was de Morgan.   I have been unable to locate a headstone for her at the St. John the Baptist Church graveyard.

William Grant had been either a surgeon or an apothecary living in Parliament Street, London.   Nor have I been able to find his grave at the churchyard.

 Eliza's brothers went to  Midhurst School.  John and Caesar later joined the Navy c.1812.

Sadly the family had to leave Findon.   Eliza's father had become a sleeping partner in a nearby Worthing banking firm run by a man called Philips.   By 1811 it had sunk into bankruptcy and Samuel had to make many economies to pay off his creditors.   Eventually they left the village and ended up in Tours in France.

Eliza later married James Barton (1793-1829);  who was a Captain in the Bombay Artillery. 

She accompanied her new husband on his way to his posting at Sattara and it seems that James took her past the places he had been involved in attacking in 1818, some four years previously in the Mahratta Wars.    (He was a Bombay Artillery Officer between 1811 and 1827).  It must have all been a far cry from the downland at Findon for her.  

In April 2004, Nicholas Balmer of Baldock in Hertfordshire, contacted me to say that one of his

In July 2007, Nick Balmer emailed  ......."Hello Valerie......Like you, I have received copies of the painting of Sarah Calland/Hawkins. She is my 4 x great grandmother. She is the mother of Eliza.

Eliza's mother

 

It would appear that one of Eliza's brothers, remained in Britain as a vicar, and that one of his children ended up in South Africa along with the painting.

I think it is authentic, but it puzzles me as a painting, and I wonder if it was not a working sketch for a finished work. It is possible that there was originally a much grander finished painting. I would quite like to get an informed opinion on the painting. There were definitely quite a lot of paintings done of the family, and two others have turned up in South Africa through separate offspring. This fits the pattern of other parts of my family where the documents and paintings were sub divided, and subdivided over time as the generations grew. It is quite possible that other painting survive in France, that have probably become separated from their name by now.

Sarah and Samuel Hawkins lived in retirement from about 1814 until the 1840's in France at Tours, and she was very wealthy in her own right. Indeed, I think that most of her husbands wealth diappeared very quickly after he retired when Philips Bank in Worthing collapsed. It was probably an evil hour for him being in Findon, although, I cannot tell when he first came into contact with Philips. Hawkins was a major shareholder, but did not play a day to day role in its management. He did organise the discharging of the banks debts, at a considerable personal cost. They lived largely on Sarah's money after 1814.

Sarah's father had come back from India in the 1760's with a great deal of money which he invested in coal mines and canals. He used my four times great grandfather Samuel Hawkins, a London solicitor to arrange these loans. That is presumably how they met.

Recent I have discovered that over 250 letters and documents about these loans survive in Swansea. I had known that Sarah's father had bought several small farms in Wales, but because they had such obscure Welsh names, and because I couldn't find them in gazeteers, it never occurred to me where they were. In my business I often work with Welsh colleagues, and one day I mentioned these places. He lived just outside Swansea and knew straightaway where they were. They were the sites of former coal mines in Swansea. My present company had even worked there stabilising the old coal mine shafts before one of them became an out of town supermarket car park. There is a Calland street nearby.

It appears that during the 1770's and early 1780's Sarah's dad and husband had hit on the idea of buying up farms inland of the little fishing port of Swansea. These sat right on top of the coal seams. They invested in the building of the Swansea Canal and the Docks. I think that they even built the original tramway for horse drawn coal carts, that was later used to run Trevithicks first steam engine (before Stevenson).

They were buying steam engines from Maudsley, and had contracts with the Birmingham Coal and Copper Company.

These mines remained in the Calland family until Nationalisation in 1947(?). The documents seem to have left the family at some time between then and 1957. I have read about 5 of the letters. Sadly Swansea is very remote so I have not had the time to transcribe or read them all. I certainly want to, as they appear to be very full of details of considerable interest".
 

Continue if you would like to read about George Champion the Huntsman

This is Findon Village — www.findonvillage.com is a continually growing record created by Valerie Martin exclusively for documenting life in Findon.