X857

Thomas Christie Charity, Bedford

From: 1710 To: 1974

These deeds cover the legal ownership of the land on the Embankment from the early 18th century until it was bought by the Charity in the 1960s, and in particular gives histories of 1 Newnham Road and 3 The Embankment, Bedford. Since before 1710, the 62 acres of land lying along the north side of the river formed a heavily-mortgaged farmland estate in the possession of the Gery family. Mainly as a result of marriage settlements and portions, the estate was encumbered with loans and charges, and tightly entailed. It passed through a succession of William Gerys until, in 1792, the last William Gery had only daughters, one of whom, Hester, married Hugh Wade. Hugh acquired Hester's share of the estate and changed his name to Wade-Gery. Hugh had the right to purchase the other two thirds at any time from Hester's sisters, Mary Selina and Eleanor. This power of pre-emption caused legal difficulties and it took a High Court judgement in 1810 to establish that Mary Selina and her husband were rightful landlords of her third. However, the oldest son in the next generation of Wade-Gerys very judiciously married Mary Selina's daughter and part of the marriage agreement was that, like his father, he could purchase the remaining two thirds of the Gery estate for up to 13,000 each if he wanted to. In 1831, he bought Mary Selina's third for 12,600, raised by another mortgage. Several untimely deaths in Eleanor's family left only one granddaughter, Eleanor Julia Hunt Grubbe, an orphaned minor, to inherit her third of the estate. This time an Act of Parliament in 1833 was required to establish that young Eleanor Grubbe was entitled to the third, after which her trustees foreclosed on William Hugh Wade-Gery to pay off the mortgage he'd taken out on it so that they could sell it and invest the proceeds for the benefit of Eleanor. William paid up, but had to borrow to do so. In 1849, the mortgages on the estate amounted to 14,400 and by 1872 this had increased to 42,000. Now the annual mortgage charges were nearly equal to the estate's income and the latest Wade-Gery, another William Hugh, was on the verge of going into receivership. He applied successfully to Chancery to break the entail, which enabled the Trustees to sell the land - this in preference to allowing William Hugh to maintain it, which they judged he could not do. George Bower, a local gas engineer and developer, and a neighbour of the Wade-Gerys in St Neots, bought the 62-acre estate in 1882 for 23,300. However, George Bower had himself been troubled by complicated financial difficulties for several years. He was involved in many projects locally and abroad, including inventions and patents which did not always realise any profit, and he lost 100,000 in a gas-making venture in Buenos Aires. He called the 62 acres the Bower Building Estate, created new roads on it and proceeded to sell it off in smaller lots, with the sites of the future 1 Newnham Road and 3 The Embankment being part of a lot sold to local builder Thomas Spencer in 1882. George Bower was declared bankrupt in 1887 (see CRT 130 BED 235). At his hearing, he was represented by Mr Wade-Gery, and his largest creditor was a Mr Spencer. Thomas Spencer divided his purchase into smaller lots on which he built houses to be sold on at a profit. 1 Newnham Road, known as Glanyrafon, was built by him in the 1880s and seems to have been sold to William Sey Phillips in 1898. Mr Phillips leased out the house until, in 1923, it was bought by Noel George Mumford, a schoolmaster at Bedford School, who in 1931 sold it to the Trustees of the Bedford School Boarding House. It was now called Kirkmans and used to board schoolboys until it was sold, in 1961, to the Thomas Christie Charity. 3 The Embankment was sold by Thomas Spencer in 1893 to Edward Lavender Moulton of Bedford. When Mr Moulton died in 1914, his estate passed to his niece Mrs Monica Stelfox but was looked after by trustees. In 1935, Mrs Stelfox let the building to Upper Berkeley Flatlets Ltd who presumably were responsible for converting it into 4 flats, and in 1943 she sold the property as flats to Frederick Ray of Bedford for 2650. When Frederick Ray died in 1944, the property was left to Helen Buchanan Astell who in 1961 sold it to the Thomas Christie Charity. The Charity Trustees demolished the buildings and erected state-of-the-art almshouses whose design was much-praised locally.

Given by M O'Dell, representative of the Trustees of the Thomas Christie Charity

The documents have been separated into two sections - accounts and deeds.

fonds

Christie, Thomas,
Bower, George,
Spencer, Thomas

CHARITIES, BEDFORD