Bromley Borough Local History Society

Bromley’s connections to the Honourable East India Company

© Tudor Davies

The Honourable East India Company was granted a Royal Charter in 1600 by Queen Elizabeth I that only ended in 1858 with the Government of India Act. We hear so much about the wealth and power of global companies today but 200 years ago, in the days of sailing ships, the Honourable East India Company [HEIC] was on its way to being the greatest of them all, managing half of the World’s trade and governing the second most populous country in the world, India.

Many families of Bromley are associated with this episode in our Imperial history and the tiny parish of Keston provides convincing evidence of the Company’s influence on life at home. The three largest estates and grandest houses of the Parish were occupied at some time during their existence by families whose wealth had originated in India. Sadly none of the houses mentioned remain standing however there is much evidence of their owners presence still to be found in the landscape.

William Pitt the Younger and Holwood

Holwood was owned by William Pitt the younger from 1789 to 1803 when he was Prime Minister. Having been born at Hayes Place he often visited Holwood as a young boy and wished to own it one day. The Pitt family’s wealth was gained by his great grandfather Thomas Pitt [1653-1726] often known as ‘Diamond Pitt’ who, as an employee of the Company, rose to be Governor of Madras.

Having achieved considerable wealth he faced the problem of all Company men, how to transmit his money safely home to Britain. Like many others, Pitt sought the easiest and safest way to transport his money by purchasing a huge diamond for the immense sum of £20,000. On returning to England he sold the stone to the Duke of Orleans for £135,000 [approx. £14 million today].

With his new fortune he bought landed estates one of which held the right to select a candidate for Parliament; this set the family on course for a life in politics. Today’s Holwood estate is slightly larger than that known to Pitt the Younger but displays features he helped create through drainage schemes, tree planting but most clearly in rerouting the road from Bromley Common to Westerham, the A233. Pitt ensured his privacy by first enclosing 30 acres of Keston Common then closing the existing road that passed his house replacing it with a new section of road, 1470 yards long snaking around Holwood Hill over 200 yards from his house. Should you drive along this road passing Keston ponds and negotiating the hazardous bends in the road you can recall this is the work of William Pitt the Younger. (Picture courtesy of Bromley Archives).

The Toone family and Keston Lodge Estate

When Sweeney Toone, a captain in the army of HEIC returned to England around 1803 he bought Keston Lodge on the Croydon Road. His three sons followed him to India, the two youngest dying there but the elder son Francis Hastings Toone, [his godfather was Warren Hastings, Governor General in India] spent many years in Canton and survived the threats to life in the Far East to become a member of the Select Committee of HEIC before settling finally in his father’s home in Keston.

His estate of 80 acres is now the prestigious Keston Park Estate built in the inter war years. Older readers might just remember his home as the Keston Park Hotel, demolished in the late 1960’s and now Keston Park Close. He is buried in Keston Church graveyard, along with his two sisters his brother in law, Lord Huntingtower, and Elizabeth Parker, a respected servant

The picture show Sweeny Toone in his India Army uniform c1790.

James Kirkpatrick of Hollydale, Croydon Road, Keston

The third family occupants of ‘big houses’ in Keston is the Kirkpatrick’s of Hollydale, on the north side of Croydon Road. Members of this family supplied some of the most colourful characters in the story of the HEIC. [there was stiff competition].

James Kirkpatrick, ‘the handsome colonel’ was born in Carolina and after returning to England he quickly joined the HEIC eventually retiring to Bromley where he built his new home at Hollydale c.1786. His three sons followed him to India; his eldest son William [illegitimate] became secretary to Richard Wellesley [Duke of Wellington’s brother] and was Company representative in the first European delegation to enter Katmandu, Nepal.

The picture shows Hollydale Coach House, built in the 1780s.

His step brothers George and James Achilles were born at Fort St. George, Madras. Their mother died at 22 and the boys were sent to England only to return to India in their teenage years. James became thoroughly ‘orientalised’ was fluent in Persian and Hindi, adopted the Moslem faith and married Kair-un –Nissa the daughter of a high status family. His orientalism placed him under suspicion within the Company, with threats to his position and in ill-health he sent his four-year-old son, Mir Gulum Ali and his two-year-old daughter Noor-I Nissa to live with their grandfather in Keston.

The ‘handsome colonel’s’ home then housed five grandchildren all born in India two of whom were Anglo Indian. While on passage to England the children were christened and given the names George and Katherine [Kitty]. George died at 27 while living at Hollydale, his sister died in Torquay in 1889 at 87 . Quite what the residents of the hamlet of Keston made of the family is not recorded. Along with many large houses Hollydale was demolished in the 1930s to make way for a new housing estate, however the stable block is now 32 Croydon Road. The gardens with its ponds can be seen in the hidden gem that is Hollydale Recreation Ground.

William Dodgson and Forest Lodge, Westerham Road

The most visible sign of our presence in India is the remarkable quantity of Eastern luxury goods that survives in houses and museums across Britain. When Mr William Dodgson moved to Forest Lodge Westerham Road in 1912 he requested a detailed inventory of his possessions for insurance purposes. The list of items is many pages long and reflects how the arts and crafts of the Far East had infiltrated the tastes of English society.

The maids room contained a ‘jappaned’ oval bath, the store room held a four panel Japanese screen. In rooms around the house there were oriental ornaments, bowls and vases, Satsuma ware, a pair off 17 inch Chinese ‘kylns’, rugs of tiger skin and snow leopard with head and claws attached and a 12 feet by 9 feet Indian carpet. In the school room was a Chinese rosewood cabinet and in the drawing room was a pink richly embroidered cashmere piano cover.

Forest Lodge, Westerham Road, Keston, home of Lady Caroline Legge daughter of the third Earl of Dartmouth and bought by Mr William Dodgson in 1912. Picture courtesy of Peter Leigh.

Elsewhere in Bromley

It would require a lengthy book to include all the residents of Bromley with connections to HEIC, I will mention just five.

Charles Raymond of Devon married Sarah Webster who brought an estate in Bromley to the marriage. He began his working life with HEIC as a ship’s captain and became the principal managing owner of ships trading to the east for the Company. He gave Simpsons Place [ in Ravensbourne Road] to his son Jones Raymond and on his death it passed to his sister Amy who married Peter Burrrell II of Langley Park [Lord Gwydir 1796]. Amy was another landowner who sought greater privacy and moved the road away from her home, Langley Park mansion, to create a new road, South Eden Park Road.

Sir John Child was the first Company Governor of Bombay 1681-1690 and one of his descendants, Coles Child, [1862 -1929] bought The Bishop’s Palace for his home, claimed Lordship of the Manor of Bromley, became Mayor of the town and was created Baronet in 1919.

John Wells, shipbuilder of Deptford bought the 1200 acre Bickley Hall estate in 1759. Between 1748 and 1792 he built 27 ‘Eastindiaman’ ships at his yard in Deptford for the HEIC, virtually his entire output.

The fourth in our list is Colonel George Tweedy of Bromley House and Simpsons Place who died in 1860 having served the HEIC in India. A generation later a descendant, Robert Tweedy, lieutenant in the Black Watch died in India in 1911. The widow of one of his sons, John Newman Tweedy lived at Widmore House at the junction of Widmore Road and Tweedy Road on which now stands the old Borough Council offices, currently [2020] being converted for new uses.

When she died in 1900 at the age of 81, Mrs Emily Dowling of Neelgheries in Bromley, included in her will of 120 pages a bequest to Bromley Urban District Council gifting her house and estate in trust for the benefit of the inhabitants of the town. She also left £1000 and the proceeds from the sale of furniture and jewellery to establish the Emily Dowling Fund for the support of the building and grounds. Her first husband George Sparkes had held a senior position in Madras for many years and the house was named after the hills outside Madras where he often went to escape the heat of India. On his return from India he bought his old school on lower High Street and converted it for residential use. Today, on the site of this house stands Bromley Central Library and Churchill Theatre, the grounds have been retained as a green space now known as the Library Gardens.

Sources
Bromleag magazine of Bromley Borough Local History Society [various]
Bromley local studies and archives [various]
White Mughals by William Dalrymple
The Anarchy by William Dalrymple

Internet sites on East India Company and on families of Raymond, Child, Burrell, Wells and Dowling

Bromley from earliest times to the present E.L.S. Horsburgh

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