William Humphrey Golding
William Humphrey Golding by Peter Moynihan
In 1899 the twenty two year old William Humphrey Golding built his smart new five-quarter tower brewery in Crampton Road, Bat & Ball, Sevenoaks to sell to the private trade in quantities of not less than 4½ gallons in cask or twenty four dozen quarts in bottle; the pub trade in and around the town, being already tied to local and London brewers, was not available to him. Completed in the following year, the brewery was managed by Charles Campbell MacLeod indicating that William was not a practical brewer. He was the son of a prosperous hop grower, William Golding, of Leavers Farm, East Peckham, who died in 1902 leaving an estate with a probate value of £82,092 1s 3d. That probate was not granted to William but to his older brother Edward Cecil Golding (Farmer) and William Monckton (Papermaker) might lead one to suppose that William’s father did not have much confidence in his son’s financial acumen. Being the younger son by some thirteen years one could be justified in believing that William snr. had bought the boy a brewery to try and make something of him!
The restrictive license was a constant problem and year after year MacLeod appeared at the Licensing Sessions in repeated bids to gain a retail license for the premises. It was always opposed by the local LVA and by the Dartford Brewery Co. Ltd, and by Bushell, Watkins & Smith Ltd., and was always refused. In 1905 Golding bought Walter Morgan’s Nepicar Brewery at Wrotham, together with its two pubs and all-important retail license, but it didn’t help much, causing logistical nightmares. Then in 1909 Golding bought the substantial free trade and goodwill of Fox & Sons’ Oak Brewery, Farnborough, which required his brewery to be considerably upgraded at no little expense. By 1911 a shadowy operation called the Standard Brewery Co-operative Society was running the show and on June 30th 1913 the business finally folded. The brewery failed to sell at auction on July 24th and the trade and goodwill was sold to Hoare & Co. Ltd of Smithfield, London, who were already well established in the Sevenoaks area. Whilst all of this was going on William Humphrey was busy elsewhere as we shall see! Allow me to introduce Miss Georgiana Frances Watts. She had been born in Kensington in 1882, the daughter of George Nelson Watts, a prosperous ‘builder’. Her father, the son of a publican, was employing over sixty men by 1881 and was what would be termed a ‘property developer’ today, riding the Victorian building boom. Georgiana grew up in Castelnau, Barnes, where a near neighbour was a Doctor, Walter Paul Jones, eight years her senior and the son of a ‘Newspaper & Advertising Agent’. They were married in 1901 and lived at his Surgery in Walton Place, off the Brompton Road in Knightsbridge, and in April 1904 a son was born to them. Georgiana however, being still in her early twenties wanted to be off to dances and parties and Walter sold his Dispensary business in order to give him more time to accommodate her wishes. Later, she moved into a separate bedroom, complaining of her husband’s snoring, and he arranged to have nasal surgery in order to alleviate the problem. Georgiana’s social life included visits to Eastbourne and to Sevenoaks where she met, you guessed it, the young brewer William Humphrey Golding! Their relationship blossomed to the extent that on a number of occasions he stayed overnight at Walton Place whilst Dr Jones was away preparing for his operation and the couple even stayed together at the Grosvenor Hotel. He implored her to elope with him but she said that she could not do so without consulting a Mr Richard Burbidge. “Who?” I hear you ask!
Richard Burbidge’s life is well documented, as least the public aspects of it. He was born in 1847 in South Wraxall, Wiltshire, son of a farmer whom he would later describe as a ‘Yeoman’. At the age of 13 he was sent to London to be apprenticed to a grocer in Oxford Street. At nineteen he set up business on his own account but, noticing the development of ‘departmental stores’ he sold up and joined the Army & Navy Stores, rising to become general manager. He later managed Whiteley’s of Kensington and, in 1891, became the general manager and then managing director of Harrods. Within ten years he had increased the store’s turnover tenfold and created the institution which we recognize today. He was a well-respected public figure, supporting charities and good causes and the fact that he personally gave £30,000 to help save the Crystal Palace at Sydenham is a measure of his affluence. Burbidge had a country home in Shepperton but maintained an apartment at 51 Hans Mansions, luxury mansion flats which Harrods had built above their store during its substantial redevelopment during the 1890s. Dr Jones, just around the corner in Walton Place, attended upon the family when they were in Town, so Richard Burbidge knew Georgiana on a social level.
When his wife’s relationship with Golding came to Dr Jones’ attention he allegedly threatened violence and Burbidge intervened to protect her. The couple separated and Dr Jones wrote his wife a letter pleading for her to return to him and stating that if there were a divorce then she would be losing not only her husband and son, but also her honour. Meanwhile, Golding and Mrs Jones met with Richard Burbidge, who later claimed that Georgina was like a daughter to him, and he advised that if there were a divorce then Golding must marry her and that he would provide them £1000 per annum. In addition they would claim that he offered to leave them capital sums of £8,000 and £12,000 per his Will. Georgiana returned to her husband with a promise that she would not see Golding for two years but it later became clear to Dr Jones that she was communicating with Golding by telephone and that the pair were exchanging letters, one of which confirmed their tryst at the Grosvenor Hotel. Jones sued for divorce, citing Golding as co-respondent. Burbidge instructed a Solicitor on Georgiana and William’s behalf and covered their costs despite it being made clear during the proceedings that she had a personal estate and had inherited property since the marriage. Dr Jones was granted a decree nisi and custody of their son in April 1908, the newspapers making much of the flighty young wife and her immoral ways! The decree was made absolute in the following year and in 1918 Jones married Beatrice M. Morgan; he died in Carshalton in 1957.
Golding and Mrs Jones were married in 1909 and things appeared to be going well for them. Then, in 1916, they jointly bought an action against the now Sir Richard Burbidge for breach of a verbal contract – he had stopped paying the £1,000 per annum. Burbidge had been created a Baronet in the New Year’s Honours list , no doubt for building and equipping two military hospitals in Belgium at his own expense. The details which came out on the first day in court are illuminating and I can do no better than to quote a report on the case in the Daily Express of July 26th 1908:-
“Early in 1908 Mr Golding was thinking of selling his brewery business, but Sir Richard advised him not to, and promised to see that Mr Golding lost nothing by remaining in the business. All three were constantly together in that year. Sir Richard took the plaintiffs to the seaside, paying all expenses, and there was voluminous correspondence in which he expressed himself in the language of a father to an affectionate daughter. They took a rather expensive house at Shepperton, which Sir Richard had himself occupied. Such a house was entirely beyond their means, apart from the income that defendant had promised them. Sir Richard also advised them to take a flat in Albert Hall Mansions at £150 yearly, where plaintiffs could reside during the winter. In November 1909, when Sir Richard was seriously ill, he pressed for the marriage to take place at once, and renewed the promises already made. During plaintiff’s honeymoon Sir Richard spent a good deal of time with them. The relationship between the parties continued until the end of 1913 to be as confidential as they had been since the time of the marriage. In January 1914 an unfortunate dispute arose which culminated in a meeting on January 5th, at defendant’s office, when defendant said that he had received a letter in which Mr Golding had made the grave accusation that Sir Richard’s relations with Mrs Golding had been immoral relations. Mrs Golding at once repudiated it. From that time onwards defendant had discontinued all payments. He referred Mr Golding to a Solicitor to settle the terms which the promised income would be”.
Sir Richard’s legal representative stated that his client had made no such contracts and that if any payments had been made then they were in the nature of a gratuity and that Mr Golding’s claims were tantamount to blackmail! The case was adjourned and when it resumed the next day the Goldings’ counsel rose to address the bench, saying that “This morning my client Mrs Golding, and her husband agrees with her, states that Sir Richard has been to both, and particularly to her, an honourable and generous friend, and she thinks under these circumstances that this action should proceed no further. She feels that no imputation should be made upon Sir Richard”. Burbidge’s counsel found it necessary to state that “There was no condition of any kind, secret or implied, connected to the judgement which Sir Richard Burbidge now took. There was no condition as to compensation or otherwise, and he leaves court as a defendant against whom the plaintiffs recognize they have no claim. Sir Richard did not propose to ask his lordship to make any order for costs”.
Why the sudden change of heart? We shall never know, but it all smells a bit fishy to me! Burbidge’s financial dealings with Golding include the fact that Golding was the leaseholder and licensee of the Royal Oak at 21 Keppel Street, Chelsea, when the license was extinguished under the Compensation Act in 1914. He received £1,250 as did the freeholders – Harrods Ltd. One report of the divorce case states that Burbidge promised Golding directorships which would make him a further £1,000 a year in addition to that promised to the couple. So it would seem that Burbidge’s money and financial nous was probably behind the Standard Brewery Co-operative Society in an attempt to prop up the business of the husband of lady of whom he was very fond. Whether their relationship was any more than that we will also never know, she was thirty five years his junior. Burbidge’s wife, who was six years older than him, died in 1905 and he married again in 1910 to a Lillian Preece, a lady in her early thirties, half his age! Early in 1917 Sir Richard retired at 8.30pm one night but rose again at 10 feeling faint. He sat by the bedroom window to get some fresh air and his Doctor was summoned, but twenty minutes later he collapsed and died. His Doctor was, of course, Walter Paul Jones M.D., F.R.C.S.
William and Georgiana Golding had two daughters; Renee in 1911 and Yvonne in 1914, and their mother died in 1930. Intriguingly, both William Humphrey and his youngest daughter appear in shipping lists as travelling to and from Japan in the 1930s, Golding giving his occupation as ‘Gentleman’. He died in 1952.