The cook, the footman, the yachting set and Sir Lancelot's binoculars

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A nice piece of Watnall Hall memorabilia has recently been brought to my attention accompanied by a story of young love and a yachting connection. It's a fine pair of Sir Lancelot Rolleston's binoculars made by Ross of Bond Street. They were handed down to his footman, ex-miner Fred Clements who'd fallen in love with and married Watnall Hall's young parlour maid, Eva Bakewell in 1927. This rabbit hole of a story then leads us down south and to Sir Lancelot's involvement in the glamourous world of Edwardian super yachting, sailing regattas at Cowes on the Isle of Wight and his plucky participation in the 1901 King's Cup...

Sir Lancelot's binoculars.
Courtesy of Ben Smith.

Fred and Eva's life
Fred was born in 1900 and moved to Watnall from his hometown of Pytchley near Wellingborough in Northamptonshire to work at Moorgreen pit. At some stage after that he met and married Eva who came to Watnall Hall from Leabrooks near Alfreton. 

Evelyn Bakewell (called Eva by her family) is shown on the 1921 census as a single, 19-year-old parlour maid working at the hall. She would eventually become head cook. When Eva was interviewed for their Golden Wedding anniversary in 1977 she recalled  "the grand old days" at the hall with the "frequent hunt meets, parties, fêtes and galas, which filled the grounds with throngs of people" in the early days of her employment. Eva's niece Beatrice used to tell her grandson Ben all about them going to dances at the hall in their younger days. Ben has kindly supplied the family photos for this article. 

At some stage Fred moved from the pit to become a footman at the hall or possibly a groom as he loved his animals. He would have been close to animals since boyhood. The family address was Park Farm Cottage. His brothers were both farm labourers and his father's job on the 1911 census was "Horsekeeper on Tram". 

Horse drawn tram at the turn of the 1900s Kettering Road, Northampton.
Fred's father worked as a "Horsekeeper" on the trams.

Married Life in Watnall - Fred and Eva lived a long and happy married life in a cottage on Trough Lane which is still actually there but with a modern wrap-around extension.
It's surprising that Fred and Eva's wedding in 1927 isn't on the Watnall Hall history radar as Lady Maud Rolleston, Sir Lancelot's wife, loved a good wedding. Several times she helped her staff to organise their own weddings and sometimes hosting them at Watnall Hall. There's an article that covers all the weddings and associated festivities at the hall which can be read by clicking here. Eva gets a mention. At some stage Eva takes over as Watnall Hall's cook from Mrs Hesp who lived to he ripe old age of 93

c.1960 - Outside Eva and Fred's Tythe cottage by the hall on Trough Lane.
Top row L-R Fred Clements, Leonard Smith
Standing row L-R Beatrice Smith, Joe Bakewell, Nellie Smith, Lillian, Charles, friends of Eva and Fred
Sitting front row Sally Bakewell, Evelyn (Eva) Clements, Mrs Stout (friend of Eva)
Boy at the front is David Smith, (Eva and Fred's great nephew)


In 1932 Sir Lancelot and Lady Maud celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary with a riotous party featuring stories about lots of the staff. Read all about that by clicking here.

1939 air crash drama - Fred and Eva's quiet life in Watnall was upset on Friday May 19th. 1939 when an experimental aircraft from Rolls Royce in Hucknall crash landed just round the corner from their cottage onto the main B600 road at Watnall narrowly avoiding a herd of cows and a Post Office delivery van. Read all about that here.

1939 Watnall plane crash

Fred and Eva would have found working at the hall very different during WW2 as it was taken over by the RAF and used by female officers of the WAAF as accommodation and an Officer's mess. It was also surrounded by newly-built RAF Watnall which came to dominate the village. Wartime life in the village can be read about here.

Eva was one of the longest-serving members of the Watnall Hall staff. In November 1949 when Lady Maud died and the staff were let go, Eva was 47 and would have been working at the hall for at least 28 years. Sir Lancelot had died in 1942 and the post-WW2 years were quite lean as we discover from this interview with Cassie Harrison from the Royal Oak in Watnall... 

"In spite of the shortage of money,  Lady Maud was looked after by the four servants she could still afford. Lady Maud's staff consisted of her housekeeper, Frances Morley, her cook, Mrs Evelyn Clements, who was assisted by kitchen maid Charlotte Harpin, and her Lady's Maid, Miss Jane Peat." 


Eva (on right) and her mum outside Watnall Hall

Eva in 1977 given her full name, Mrs. Evelyn Clements,
when interviewed for her Golden Wedding. 


Fred Clements with his great nephew.
Sir Lancelot's binoculars were passed down between them.

The 1921 census shows Eva as a single 19-year-old parlour maid at the hall.
No sign of Fred yet!
 
Fred as an 11-year-old school boy on the 1911 census
living at home in Pytchley, Northamptonshire



The Other Staff 
Fred and Eva would have been important members of Watnall Hall's trusted and close-knit team of staff. Their colleagues who've featured in their own articles are :
- Fred Justice the Chauffeur and Emma Leaper (nee Smith) the female butler - click here
- The gamekeeper Mr. Freeman - click here
- the gardeners - click here
The staff feature heavily in the following stories too:
- The Golden Wedding anniversary party - click here
- The various staff weddings (including Eva's kitchen maid Charlotte's story) - click here
- All about the fêtes and garden parties that were a regular occurrence at the hall where Eva gets a mention - click here
- A parlour maid who got pregnant and whose baby, Robin, was adopted by Lady Maud's friend - click here for Robin's tale
- Lady Maud's watercolours and sketchbook here
- colour pictures of pre-war Watnall when Fred and Eva lived in the village can be seen here

c.1930 Sir Lancelot and Lady Maud Rolleston, 
Eva and Fred's employers in the Watnall Hall gardens.

Watnall Hall with Sir Lancelot standing guard


The Yachting Connection
When Eva was a young 19-year-old parlour maid in 1921, the census for Watnall Hall includes two intriguing visitors, Oswald and Florence Magniac from the island of Madeira. Who are they?

Oswald Magniac was the son of MP Charles Magniac who famously lost most of the family opium fortune on bad stock investments. Oswald seems to have survived ok as he is listed in the 1920's as a member of the prestigious Royal Yacht Squadron in Cowes on the Isle of Wight. Sir Lancelot is also a member and owns his own yacht based in Cowes so there's the connection. 

Oswald and Florence Magniac were staying at 
Watnall Hall during the 1921 census

Oswald's wife Florence 'Bobs' Magniac was a daughter of John Blandy, wine producer in Madeira. The Magniacs lived at Grove Place, Nursling, and Tilney Street, London. Oswald was a Director of Humphrey & Grey (Lighterage) Ltd. (owners of Hays Wharf, London), and a member of the Board of the London and County Bank. He was a 'Younger Brother' of the maritime corporation and charity Trinity House, a Governor of Guy's Hospital and involved in charity fundraising for other London hospitals.

Oswald Magniac's yacht Rosalind
and the master cabin illustrating the quality of Stow interiors

King's Cup
Oswald's beautiful sailing yacht is called Rosalind and is still sailing today. She was built in 1904 by Stows of Shoreham. He seems to have bought her around 1912 and sold her in 1936.

Madeira holiday - In Feb 1931 the 83-year-old Sir Lancelot and Lady Maud leave Southampton for a month long holiday on Madeira going First Class aboard the RMS Balmoral Castle. Perhaps they visited the extended Magniac/Blandy family?

Sir Lancelot had owned and raced several yachts over a number of years. In 1884 he had built a 62' wooden yawl named "Rozel" also by Stows... 
"Rozel" - 1884 - Yawl (altered from a cutter in 1885), constructed from 10 & 12 year seasoned wood. 33.37 tons, L 62.2, b 12.5, d 10.4. Sails replaced by Lapthorn & Ratseys 1898. Rating 48.73. Owner Lancelot Rolleston – home port Shoreham. Stow and Son Builder, Designer J. Ash. Lloyds Yacht Register 1902/3
The Rolleston family had been living in nearby Hove and Sir Lancelot's mother and sister still lived there. He competed in high-profile yacht racing, such as the King's Cup in 1901 onwards alongside other well-known yachts in early 20th-century racing, glamourous vessels sailed by well-healed socialites like Antarctic explorer Capt. Oates's Saunterer and Rupert Guinness's Leander. Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II (reigned 1888–1918) was also a passionate yachtsman and a central figure in European yachting, using racing to promote German prestige. He also famously competed in the Royal Yacht Squadron regattas in Cowes, winning major prizes with his series of five racing yachts, all named Meteor...

Above - 1901 King's Cup. The "front" presumably meaning the Boer War.
Below - Sir Lancelot in Rozel came a distant 4th...

Sir Lancelot's plucky participation in the 1901 King's Cup...
He was sailing his yacht Rozel against the Emperor of Germany, Kaiser Wilhelm, and the heir to the Guinness brewing fortune. The smaller Rozel was completely outgunned by the bigger yachts but still came a plucky but distant 4th place...


The Tatler August 1921 - an animated Sir Lancelot and
a stern-looking Lady Maud (no sailing pun intended!)
hobnobbing with the sailing set in Cowes.
That's not their daughter though.

This is from "Yachting Word" from Sep 13th 1924 and shows Sir Lancelot and Oswald Magniac both sailing at Cowes...
Sir Lancelot and Oswald Magniac sailing at Cowes

Oswald Magniac's yacht Rosalind


"Rosalind"  (sister ship Sylvia) - 1904 - Auxiliary Yawl, wood 12 & 16 years seasoned. 33.42 tons, L 71.2, b 15.15, d 9.35. Sails by Ratsey 1920. Electric lighting. Yacht built under a permanent and water-tight roof. Anchors and chain cables proved at survey in Southampton. Paraffin motor 3 cylinder 6” – 8 “ side propeller by Parsons of Southampton 1932. Owner J.B. Dalrymple – home port Hull 
Originally built for Charles Hellyer and rigged as a Gaff, three foresails and a spinnaker. After a number of owners the Rosalind was purchased by a wealthy Spanish family during the 1950’s. In 1996/7 the vessel was almost completely rebuilt to precise standards and materials as near to the original as possible – she is now virtually as she was in 1904 and was (2010) put up for sale at £1.5 million. Stow and Son Builder, Designer H.T. Stow. Lloyds Yacht Register 1936

Sir Lancelot on the Trent
Even in his twilight years Sir Lancelot kept a sailing yacht on the Trent where his long-suffering chauffeur, Fred Justice had an extra duty to perform. In addition to chauffeuring, he was also expected to row Sir Lancelot out to his yacht on the Trent, a duty which Mr. Justice hated (although he never said so), as he was unable to swim!

Above - Sir Lancelot and Fred Justice on the Trent
Below - Fred and the Rolleston's Sunbeam motor car




Sir Lancelot's binoculars
Finally we come examine to Sir Lancelot's binoculars made by Ross of Bond Street. The current owner, Eva's great nephew, thinks they are WW1 vintage. Looking at the shape, they seem to be a compact prismatic design. More info to follow once I get their serial number.





--------- THE END ---------

The full collection of stories and tales from the hall is available at the main "Tales From Watnall Hall" website here



Notes and sources

Thanks to Ben Smith for the back story and pictures.
Interviews from Watnall Hall and the Rollestons by RA Horton https://watnallhall.blogspot.com/2023/03/watnall-hall-rolleston-family-by-ra.html  

The Magniacs



On board Kaiser Wilhelm II's yacht 'Meteor' during the Queen's Cup race at Cowes, 1893
This vigorous drawing looks astern as 'Meteor' beats to windward on the port tack in a lively sea, and is inscribed by Wyllie with technical points and the names of individuals shown. One is 'The German Emperor' on the right (noted also as 'Em [dressed] in white' with a 'Gold Bangle' on his left wrist). It was previously suggested to have been drawn by Wyllie about 1905 on the third 'Meteor' owned by the Kaiser, an American-built schooner of 1902. However, there is no evidence Wyllie sailed on this while he was certainly the Kaiser's guest on the first 'Meteor' (ex-'Thistle') when she raced for and won the Queen's Cup at Cowes in 1893 skippered by 'Captain Gomez', who is included here, lower left. Wyllie also recorded (in 'Sea Fights of the Great War' [1918] p. 4) that the Kaiser was - as also noted on the drawing here- 'dressed all in white, with a gold bangle on his wrist' on this occasion, so it seems more likely that this is a sketch done on board that day. The other inscriptions are, top left 'On board Meteor / In sheets' - which is probably the order being executed - and a note on the crew's dress, lower left: 'men in white for the / most part with red caps / but some of them in blue'. The Kaiser apears in three other drawings that Wyllie did on board during the race: PAE0232, PAE0233, PAE0457 and also (very small) in PAE0971, which is a later worked-up drawing recording 'Meteor' coming toward its end as the winner.

Magniac's yacht
ROSALIND was designed and built in 1904 by Harry Thomas Stow & Sons at Shoreham for Charles Hellyer of Yorkshire. This yard which has built other noteworthy yachts such as RONA was built and designed as a gaff yawl using the finest Burma teak on robust oak frames – she typified the best kind of cruising yacht of the period with first class materials and workmanship.

ROSALIND sold in 1908 to John E Humphrey, who after 4 years sold the yacht to Oswald Cecil Maguiac of London, a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron owning and enjoying the vessel for 22 years, she was then sold to Aubrey Fletcher and in 1936 to J B Darlymple. He moored ROSALIND discreetly in Scotland during World War II, always afloat to keep the Admiralty away from her precious lead keel.

In 1948, her last English owner, Lt. Col C C Morrison bought the yacht and sailed her around Spain. In Spanish ownership and with her name changed to ROSALINDA as General Franco had ordered that all foreign names be changed to Spanish ones, the yacht underwent considerable modernization – a ketch rig, her bowsprit and bumpkin were removed. When Javier Ayala was appointed Captain in 1990 ROSALINDA was barely recognisable from when he had first seen her in 1971 – Ayala, an ex-master mariner in the Spanish Merchant Navy had been working for the Barcelona Nautical Museum
and in 1994 he set about persuading the owners of ROSALINDA to return the yacht to her original looks and style.
In 1996 the warden boat facility of Monty Nautic in Barcelona was chosen to carry out what ended in a total restoration. The good news was that the teak hull, nearly all the frames, the stern, the keel and keelson were still in good condition after nearly 100 years! With the vessel stripped out, the opportunity was stolen to replace all systems (electrical plumbing and domestic) an authentic new interior was crafted using high quality Cuban mahogany as little of the original remained; the offset propeller and engine under the main mast were inconvenient, and a new rudder was needed to accommodate a central
prop and quite importantly a return to the gaff yawl rig. Using acknowledged expert on traditional rigs, Harry Spencer of Cowes, hundreds of bronze castings for the deck and spars were fabricated, and under her restored rig she now sails as she used to, well balanced and capable of being handled by a crew of 4.

CONSTRUCTION
Burma teak on oak frames , copper and bronze fastened, iron floors

The Magniac Family - were a Huguenot family. Although originally clockmakers, Hollingworth Magniac (d.1867) made his fortune from the opium trade in China. It was this that enabled him to buy the Manor of Colworth and fill his house with an eclectic collection of Rococo and Florentine furniture as well as medieval works of art. His son Charles Magniac (1829-91) who became MP for Bedford and the first Chairman of the County Council, was equally interested in aesthetic matters. He believed that the great secret of art lay in originality, and it was he who, after his father’s death, commissioned William Burges to design the mausoleum. By 1900, because the marble inlay on the monument was deteriorating, a “rough shed” had been erected to protect it from the weather. Whether the present structure is the original “shed” or a later building is not clear.
The Magniac's lived at the very grand Chesterfield House in Mayfair until their financial woes in 1884 forced them to eventually sell it to cover their debts.

Chesterfield House



Oswald's sister Helen talks about their troubled but wealthy childhood...
Helen Magniac was brought up in a wealthy, well connected and politically engaged family, the daughter of a financier and Liberal Member of Parliament and granddaughter (on her mother's side) of the Irish peer and Liberal politician Lord Castletown. Charles Magniac's bad investments in the stock market during the 1880s resulted in the loss of the family fortune and Chesterfield House, Magniac's Mayfair mansion, was sold after his death in 1891 to pay off his debts. She suffered from depression throughout her life.

"She was a person of very great courage and a good deal of intelligence and interest in the things which interested her. This was primarily the eighteenth century. ... My grandfather was a millionaire so she was brought up in great luxury but I think it was a very unhappy household from what contemporary relations told me, with my grandfather heavily over pressed by concerns in the City and my grandmother extremely neurotic."

"I had two parents who were highly incompatible from the point of view of a coherent family life for a child. He was interested in all that I was interested in ... . She didn't understand children and she was, I think, really pretty incapable of entering into the world of a child, so there was no companionship and very little communication between her and me. I think in some ways she was jealous of Shortie who, of course, played a far more important maternal role but, on the other hand, she didn't know how to do it and in some ways probably even didn't want to. ... She was increasingly shut out, with my father and me devoted to each other but with almost no involvement of her in our communication, our pleasures and our jokes. She was also apt to make strange, arbitrary decisions. ... I know that she used to open my letters and then shut them up again. At the time when I was being so-called prepared for Confirmation by Dick Sheppard, she said that I was not to see my great friend Peggy Leigh, during those months, because the implication was that Peggy was not a good influence. This was the kind of arbitrary decision she made and at that time I was eighteen or nineteen. But this was not something harsh or hostile. It was trying desperately to have some control in the situation, to do the right thing in my up-bringing. Her ideas were confined to girls being able to sketch and play the piano and dance and make good conversation." "She was nice to some of my friends but it was variable. LSE she hated. She always referred to it as that horrid place, but never by name." (reminiscences sent to Kathleen Jones, 1978/9).


Trough Lane cottage before and after






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