Reference
Z575
Title
Records relating to the Southill Estate (Whitbread family)
Date free text
1807 - 1881
Production date
From: 1807 To: 1881
Purchased from Colin Frost, 12 Goodenough Road, London SW19 3QW in January 1986.
Scope and Content
This bought-in group containing correspondence, draft deeds and miscellaneous documents relating to the Whitbread family spans the years 1807 – 1829 and deals almost entirely with business matters, particularly the moves of William Henry Whitbread to secure the estates left by his father and grandfather.
Up to the time of his death in 1815 Samuel Whitbread, son of the Samuel Whitbread who bought Southill and established it as the family seat, was engaged in numerous land transactions, adding much more than he discarded so that the Bedfordshire estates were strengthened and cartographically tidied up.
A mere 26 letters carry dates from 1807 to 1812. Those of 1811 show something of the charitable work with which Samuel Whitbread's name is associated, as they concern plans to give land for a parish workhouse at Clifton and the action brought by him on behalf of a boy, son of a turf burner, who fell with his father on a winter night into a pit dug across a footpath and broke his thigh (Z 575/12 - 14 and Z 575/16 - 19).
By 1813 many references occur to dealings in land, particularly at Wilstead, Harrowden, Clifton and Cardington (the Monoux estates, Whitbread Collection W 1005 and 1006, 1007 and 1008). Greater than any of these in terms of legal complexity, amount of correspondence and long-lasting problems was the purchase of Shefford Hardwick. Communications between the solicitors on matters of title appear in the general correspondence, and a separate section (Z 575/492 - 546) deals almost entirely with the difficulties that arose over the removal of crops from Shefford Hardwick following the sale arranged by the official assignee of the farm's bankrupt tenant. In connection with this, a Mr T Forman visited Samuel Whitbread at home to inform him of 'a most foul and wicked conspiracy' (Z 575/147). The lawyers moved fast. A Bill of Injunction was issued on John Willoughby, the assignee, but as late as 1820 they were still trying to corner him for the money he owed on the distress for rent for the farm. A sub-section (Z 575/637) catalogues the legal and official documents relating to its title and purchase.
When William Henry Whitbread, elder son of Samuel, inherited the estates there was considerable debt on much of the Bedfordshire holdings and his exertions to secure them hinged on several key assignments, in which William Wilshere featured prominently as a creditor. The prosaic exchange of letters between the solicitors engaged in this work over several years is spiced by their handling of the Reverend James Ellice, who advanced £10,000 and whose hesitancy, tetchiness and sometimes near-hysteria over the minutiae of the transaction and its possibly dangerous financial results envisaged for himself produced restrained reponses from the legal pens, until all was settled. It was then that William Vizard of Lincolns Inn Fields, acting for Mr Whitbread, expressed his feelings about the cleric's behaviour in an explosion of indignation and disgust, all the more telling for the professional incisiveness that contained it (Z 575/414 and Z 575/416).
The correspondence between 1820 and 1829 mainly concerns the final chapter in the Shefford Hardwick saga (the paying off of the Partridge mortgage, another protracted episode bringing a threat of legal action against Mr Whitbread), the conveyance of the Chiswell Street brewhouse and the negotiations with creditors; that of the final two years relates for the most part to the considerable task for the lawyers of clearing up the estates of William Wilshere, who died in 1824, and the subsequent fresh crop of assignments and similar transactions on the Whitbread side as Mr Wishere's executors applied for the money due to the estate.
William Inskip's tenancy of Warden Abbey Farm, briefly mentioned in the general correspondence, is catalogued Z 575/547-561. Samuel Whitbread's connection with the Militia appears in the accumulation only through an action brought against him by Richard Warden, a former sergeant in the Bedfordshire Militia, which ran in tandem with his main litigation against Charles Bailey of Bedford (Z 575/562-591 and Whitbread Collection W 1/442, 458, 460-461, 465,473-473/1, 476 - 481, 483, 487-488/2, 489/1, 490/1-494, 500, 502, 515-516, 537 and 547).
Among the miscellaneous correspondence (Z 575/592-610) a few unattributable letters have dates from 1843 to 1881.
The draft documents cover the disposition from 1818 of William Henry Whitbread's estates to deal with their debts (Z 575/640 onwards) and the transactions between the Whitbread estates and Mr Wilshere's executors, and also include various miscellaneous drafts and abstracts, mostly connected with land matters in the time of Samuel Whitbread, father and son.
Level of description
fonds