Marion and Margaret Fletcher

From 1881 until 1891, Marion Fletcher and her daughter Margaret lived in this house on Upper Wellington Road, Brighton. The plans of the house, drawn up by local architect, Samuel Denman were commissioned by a ‘Col. Fletcher’, but the ‘Col’ on the plans^[i]ESRO DB/D7/1668 was subsequently struck out, and Marion was named in the deeds^[ii]ESRO A6215/2 abstract of title 1960 refers as the sole owner. Samuel Denman had planned the whole street to have 28 terraced houses, but the plot intended for nos 1 and 3 was used for no.1 only, to accommodate the wishes of the purchaser, and is the only house in the street to have a front garden.

Marion and her daughter Margaret called the house ‘The Haven’ probably reflecting the tempestuous lives they had both led and the quiet life they anticipated in Brighton.

Marion Beighton had married John Fletcher, a glazier, at St.Anne’s Soho in 1836, and their daughter, Margaret Pollard Fletcher aka ‘Minnie’ was born the following year. At the time of the 1841 census, they were living in a cottage at St.Pancras Vale, Regent’s Park. This was then a street of modest houses lived in by those of occupations serving the needs of the wealthy of Regent’s Park. By 1851, Marion and John had separated, John living in Marylebone with a 23 year old ‘governess’ apparently named ‘Fanny Boulinder’, and Marion living with ‘Thomas Blodewell’ or ‘Brodewell’ at 20, Alfred Place, Kensington. Marion’s new address shows that she had risen socially, and also had a live-in servant. But it is Marion’s new partner who is of interest. I have been unable to match his name as given in the 1851 census to any other records, but I have found that in subsequent legal proceedings, Marion was supported by Thomas Jodrell, a lawyer, who later inherited vast estates and wealth, and became ‘Thomas Jodrell Phillips Jodrell’. ‘Thomas Blodewell’ in the 1851 census return, stated he was a merchant born in 1795 at ‘Doctors’ Commons’. Thomas Jodrell may have concealed his identity and enjoyed a little joke. Doctors’ Commons was a moribund society of lawyers in Queen Victoria Street, founded in 1511 by a Richard Blodwell. Whether I am right about the identity of Marion’s benefactor, it is apparent from her subsequently fashionable and expensive addresses that she had substantial financial support from somebody who could afford to keep her in comfort. In 1856, Marion and Margaret were living at ‘Fleur Villa’ West Villas, Upton cum Chalvey, then a wealthy development which was to become part of Slough. In 1862, Marion was at 1 Wilton Street, Grosvenor Place, Belgravia and in 1867, at 17 Selwood Place, Kensington. In 1871, Marion was proprietor of 21 South Street, Kensington, a desirable lodging house. None of these addresses was very far from Thomas Jodrell’s London house at 13 Stratton Street, Piccadilly. John Fletcher had died in 1863, so it has to be asked, why Marion, now a widow, did not at last move in with Thomas Jodrell? Wealth, health and family conspired to prevent this. Thomas Jodrell became the largest landowner in Cheshire, Derbyshire and Northamptonshire. As a bachelor with no descendants, he was closely watched by his expectant family. He nevertheless funded several philanthropic projects and gave away generous amounts of his fortune. Henry James, who visited him in 1877 wrote.

…..I dined with a very pleasant old gentleman who seems kindly disposed to me – a Mr Philips Jodrell, who lives round the corner in Stratton Street where his dwelling looks into the garden of Devonshire House. He is an old bachelor of fortune and culture, a liberal, charitable, a retired fox hunter, a valetudinarian, and a friend of many Americans of 40 years ago – He is very fond of giving small dinners, talking of old books etc and is a very pretty specimen of a certain sort of fresh-colored ros[y], blue-eyed, simple-minded yet cultivated (two things which go together so much here) old English gentleman. His dinner consisted of young liberal MPs – my eternal fate!…..^[iii]Complete letters of Henry James 1876-1878 Vol.1. Univ of Nebraska Press 2012. (1876/1878 1:94, 97n 94.23)

There is a hint here that Jodrell’s mental health might have been failing, but at any rate, the family beneficiaries of his will, (his two sisters and his nephew, George Edward Lynch Cotton), had him committed to The Priory Asylum, Roehampton in 1879 and subsequently to Blagdon, Somerset, the location of the Brislington Asylum, where he died in 1889.

The year of Thomas Jodrell’s committal also saw the purchase of 1 Upper Wellington Road, Brighton for Marion Fletcher, by ‘Colonel’ Fletcher, who may have been Col. Edward Thomas Davenant Cotton, nephew of George Edward Lynch Cotton, and the eventual inheritor of the Jodrell estate. By 1881, the house was finished and Marion and Margaret moved in. Margaret reverted to her maiden name of Fletcher, a decision she took after a disastrous marriage in 1856 to Robert Barker Bennett, ending in divorce. The Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Act 1857 made it possible for women to petition for divorce on the grounds of adultery and desertion. Margaret was one of only 18^[iv]Untying the Knot: An Analysis of the English Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Court Records, 1858-1866 Danaya C. Wright University of Florida Levin College of Law, wrightdc@law.ufl.edu women who had access to the legal representation to enable her to do that in 1863. Robert Barker Bennett had married Margaret at Upton cum Chalvey, and appeared to arrive at the Church ‘mob-handed’. the marriage certificate being witnessed by no fewer than seven unrelated people, and did not include her mother. It is almost as if he had entered into the marriage for a bet. He already had a young son by a previous relationship with Elizabeth Ussher née Fawsett, and was likely to have been living with Anna Barratt in Hampton Court at the time of the marriage. Bennett and Margaret went on honeymoon in various English fashionable towns including Brighton, and returned to lodgings in Notting Hill. They later moved to Pimlico where Marion was asked to pick up their belongings left in the street by the landlady. Bennett sent Margaret to her mother’s for Christmas, but failed to turn up himself. Over the next seven years, Marion and Margaret searched for Bennett, and caught up with him in Paris and later, Scarborough, where he admitted to Marion that he was living with another woman. Always desperate for money, in 1863, Bennett threatened Marion with physical violence if she did not advance him £500. Marion had him bound over to keep the peace and so began a process in the courts ending in divorce proceedings that year. Marion and Margaret were assisted in this by Thomas Jodrell who provided the princpal affadavit. Bennett did not appear to care about being divorced, having misjudged the funds likely to come to him from Marion, who although living in some comfort did not appear to have much disposable income. In 1864, he married his partner, Anna Barratt. The real loser was Margaret, who as a divorced woman of limited means was unlikely to remarry. Margaret spent the last years of her life with her mother in Brighton, outliving her by only three years. She left the house to her friends, Margaret Graham and Elizabeth Gulliver. Both, like Margaret, had lived with their mothers until they died, and remained unmarried. Sadly, Marion and Margaret Fletcher had no descendants to unearth their history, but their story is told here to show some of the marital difficulties experienced by women in Victorian England and how it was sometimes possible to overcome them.