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The Holroyd surname is remembered in Barcombe by a house name at the end of the High Street. But what is the story behind the name? John Holroyd was born in London about 1772, the only child of George Holroyd (c.1750-1789) and Eleanor (nee Fisk) to survive childhood. His father George was a master plumber, with business premises in Great Scotland Yard, Whitehall, from where he carried out work during the extensive renovations of Carlton House for the Prince of Wales in 1782. The family were living in Panton Square, in fashionable St. James's, Westminster in April 1786, when, at the age of fourteen, John was apprenticed to his father for seven years. It was usual for apprentices to remain single during their apprenticeship, but following the death of his father in October 1789, John, who was still a 'minor', married with his mother's consent. His marriage to twenty two-year-old Sarah Rice of Esher, Surrey took place at St. Margaret's, Westminster on 11th March 1790. John continued his apprenticeship with another plumber, becoming a freeman of the Company of Plumbers' in April 1793, at the age of twenty-one. John and Sarah settled in Westminster, where they had at least nine children, the eldest baptised at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, the youngest in the church at their mother's native Esher. In business, Holroyd soon found a partner in John Borrett, with whom he undertook alterations to the Duke of Bridgewater's London home in Cleveland Row between 1796 and 1799. When Holroyd's second son was born in 1798, he named him John Borrett Holroyd in his partner's honour. However, by September 1802, his partner was dead and Holroyd was advertising to settle his outstanding accounts. John Holroyd's first links with royalty were rather more unexpected than his father's. On 15th May 1800 he was attending a royal command performance of 'She Wou'd and She Wou'd Not' at the Drury Lane Theatre. As King George III entered the royal box the audience rose and a pistol shot rang out. The bullet missed the King, and his would-be assassin, James Hadfield was wrestled into the orchestra pit and soon arrested. The audience sang 'God Save the King' and the performance continued. When Hadfield's trial for treason was held at the Court of King's Bench, Holroyd was the second witness to be called. He said that he had been sitting next to the accused for three-quarters of an hour before the King's arrival, and had not noticed anything unusual in his behaviour. Hadfield was acquitted of treason, on the grounds of insanity, the first case for which such a verdict had been reached. There was great concern over this outcome, and Hadfield was held at Newgate prison, while Parliament hastily passed the Criminal Lunatics Act, enabling his detention for life. Holroyd served as a churchwarden in his parish church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields from 1808 to 1810, and remained on the vestry committee until at least 1817. He became a co-director of the Westminster Fire Office, and when their new London Offices were being refurbished between 1809 and 1810 was awarded the plumbing contract, for which he was paid £425. The only evidence of him visiting Sussex is in the accounts for his fitting of water closets in Ashburnham Place in 1813. By 1820, the Holroyds had a house in Sarah's native Esher, as well as one in Westminster. John's skills were still in demand by the Royal Family. Familiar with the soldering of lead piping, he was summoned to Brandenburgh House by the Board of Works in August 1821 to solder the coffin of 'Her Late Majesty', Caroline of Brunswick, the estranged wife of King George IV. Again in January 1827 'Mr Holroyd, The King's Plumber' was in attendance to solder the leaden coffin of Frederick the 'Grand Old' Duke of York. John Holroyd's connection with Barcombe began in 1802, when he inherited the Barcombe lands of his mother's Sussex ancestors the Heasmans. In 1819 he bought further land in Barcombe, Maresfield and Buxted from John Attree Fuller for £4,365 6s. 6d. These lands formed the basis of the estate on which Barcombe Place was built. In his absence, the estate was run by a local bailiff, Richard Jenner, whose daughter Frances married Holroyd's son John Borrett Holroyd on 27th August 1825 at St. Mary's, Barcombe. The younger John Holroyd and his wife settled in Barcombe, and had moved into Barcombe Place by March 1832 when their 3-week-old daughter Sarah Ann was buried at St. Mary's. Some of the estate was sold by John Holroyd the elder to Captain Thomas Richardson in 1835, to settle the debts of his elder son William Rice Holroyd. John Borrett Holroyd moved to Spithurst, where he died of apoplexy on 20th April 1839, aged just forty. The elder John Holroyd outlived his son by less than a year, dying on 4th January 1840 at 23 Northumberland Street, off The Strand, of 'debility from disease of the stomach'. A brief obituary in The Times suggests that he was retained as plumber to the young Queen Victoria from her accession in 1837 until his death in 1840. He was buried with his wife in her family church at Esher, where they are commemorated by a marble memorial on the wall behind the altar. His will revealed considerable property in London, which it took several years of wrangling in Chancery to sort out and also reflected his lifestyle in the bequest of his harp to his granddaughter, Fanny Wyatt of Oxford Street. Ian Hilder. |
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