I recently read through all the biographies of Fisher that I could get my hands on (Mckay 1, Cassie 2, Morris3, Freeman4) there is little reference to where Fisher was in the UK when he arrived from Sri Lanka. Only Jan Morris states that he was staying in New Bond Street with his grandfather. This sounded unlikely to me as his grandfather was bankrupt at the time. Even in the mid 1840’s New Bond Street was a very upmarket sort of place. Not somewhere where you would eek out an existence when struggling with debt and or somewhere where you would take in boarders. So I thought I’d check out the evidence. And while this is definitely where is mother was brought up I don’t think the documentary evidence shows that Fisher went to live there…
John Arbuthnot Fisher (Jackie) was born in Sri Lanka in 1841. His father was William Fisher who had been brought up in Wavendon, Buckinghamshire where is father was a Vicar. His mother was Sophia Lambe who had been brought up at 149 New Bond Street, Mayfair London. His parents married in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon). And Jackie was born at the Wavendon coffee estate which his father had just set up after retiring from the Army.
Jackie was sent back to England aged 6. It is unclear why exactly. It may have been poverty as the Coffee estate was running into difficulty. It may have been illness as sickly children were often sent home (my paternal grandmother was sent home for this reason) and it is recorded that Jackie did suffer from Dysentry in mid-life. Another possible reason is that Sophia Lambe had just lost a child and was pregnant with another. Perhaps. she just needed to lighten the load.https://commonancestortales.co.uk/early-1800s-common-ancestors/
An article in the Coventry Evening news (see below) suggests that he travelled to england with his uncle Frederick Lambe. This is likely as Frederick had recently started a business as an agent for coffee planters in Sri Lanka called Lambe, Rainals and co. And he chartered many ships moving backwards and forwards between Sri lanka and England at that time. Added to which he married his wife in 1847 in England and is described as being “of Ceylon” implying he was currently resident in Sri Lanka.
Some details about Frederick’s agency Lambe, Rainals and Co. Frederick’s Marriage to Catherine Goddard on the 7th Sept 1847 in Marylebone
For whatever reason Jack was sent home – to stay with his Fisher grandfather. As Fisher himself states unfortunately that grandfather died and he was sent instead to live with Alfred Lambe his maternal grandfather. Here is how Jack describes it himself
Before that time, for seven years I had a hard life. My paternal grandfather – a splendid old parson of the fox-hunting type – with whom I was to live, had died just before I reached England; and no one else but my maternal grandfather was in a position to give me a home. He was a simple-minded man and had been fleeced out of a fortune by a foreign scoundrel – I remember him well, as also I remember the Chartist Riots of 1848 … my simple-minded maternal grandfather was driven through the artifices of a rogue to take in lodgers, who of their charity gave me bread thickly spread with butter – butter was a thing I otherwise never saw – and my staple food was boiled rice with brown sugar – very brown?
Jack Fisher “Memories”
Alfred Lambe had been very comfortably off. He inherited a substantial business from his father John Lambe as a supplier of mineral water and wine. Two bills shows that John was Purveyor of Mineral water to the King (1785 and 1800) and a third document shows that Alfred also inherited this honour in 1820.
Tax records show John was living at 153 New Bond Street as early as 1774. By the time he died in 1808 the family were living at 149 New Bond Street. Mary Lambe John’s wife is then recorded as the tax payer. But it eventually was handed over to Alfred. His mother died in 1827. Unfortunately in 1837 Alfred was declared bankrupt.
At this point his daughter Adelaide was baptised from an address in Bethnal Green. It would make sense that the family moved there because that is where Ann Lambe nee Philpot was born. So perhaps she had family there. In the 1841 census Alfred, Ann, Adelaide and her sister Charlotte are all recorded as living on “The Green”, Bethnal. It took me a long time to find but Ann Lambe and children Charles and Adelaide are in Bethnal Green in the 1851 census . Albert is up north living in a boarding house with another merchant.
Adelaide’s baptism in 1837 Bethnal Green 91841 Census showing Alfred, Ann, Adelaide and Charlotte living on “The Green” Bethnal Green 10Ann, Adelaide and Charles Lambe in Bethnal Green (1851)11Alfred is a boarder in Manchester 12
In her biography “Fisher’s Face” Jan Morris states that Jack Fisher goes to live in New Bond Street. However by 1841 the family in New Bond Street are his uncle Alfred Boydell Lambe and his family. Alfred seems to have managed to hang on to the family business. It surprises me that in 1851 they still have four servants because is seems unlikely that the business was doing well. By 1859 Alfred had sold the business and started to work for the new owner and was in court for stealing from him.
Alfred Boydell Lambe Alfred Boydell Lambe and young family were living in New Bond Street in 1841. 13
Alfred Boydell Lambe Boydell Lambe and family in 185114Alfred Boydell Lambe’s downfall in 185915
As quoted earlier in this article Jack himself states that he went to live with his grandfather, so this suggests he was in Bethnal Green for at least part of period. Jan Morris also states that he went to live with his uncle Frederick for a while but I can find no record elsewhere that confirms that. As I said above Frederick was getting married and would probably have returned to Sri Lanka.
By 1851 Jack is at the Coventry school in on Hales Street Coventry. This was a brand new school which was only opened in 1848 so that is the earliest that Jack could have been there. It was a medieval building that had previously been a hospital. The building fell into disrepair after the school moved to a new site in 1885. However in 2015 it was restored as part of the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum.
Fisher at a School Boarding house in Hale Street Coventry. He was at the Coventry Grammar School at the time (see following news article). 16
This current building dates from the 1300s, and was built using beautiful local sandstone. It had its own chapel and was maintained by gifts and endowments from local benefactors. The hospital had around 24-30 beds for the sick and infirm of the city, as well as travellers who sought lodgings there. At this point England was a very religious country, and as was usual for the time, men and women were kept strictly segregated. As the hospital provided care for the flesh, the chapel provided the equally important care for the soul.
The Grammar School
On 4th March 1545 the hospital was surrendered to King Henry VIII during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. A wealthy businessman named John Hales paid £400 for the building, on condition that he would found a free school bearing the King’s name. King Henry VIII School started life on 23rd July, 1545 in the nave of the Whitefriars Church, and it remained there until 1558, when it moved to the Hospital site. Freemen of the Coventry Guilds could send their sons to the school for the princely sum of 12 pence per year.
In 1557 John Hales had 49 carved oak choir stalls moved from Whitefriars Monastery to the school, to be used as desks. Made in 1342, the stalls remain in the Old Grammar School to this day, bearing the names of generations of schoolboys, and the marble runs they carved into them. On Saturday 17th August 1565 as part of her only visit to Coventry, Queen Elizabeth I was shown the Grammar School which was ‘set up by her late father’ and made a gift of money for its upkeep. In his will dated 17th December 1572, Hales left property and land to pay for ‘the maintenance of one perpetual free school within the City of Coventry’.
City Improvements
In 1848 Hales Street was constructed, which resulted in major changes to the Hospital buildings, including the demolition of the Ushers’ house and garden, and the south transept. In 1852 the west front was rebuilt in a more orthodox Gothic style that remains today. In 1885 King Henry VIII Grammar School moved to new, much larger premises on a new 13 acre site on Warwick Road, leaving the beautiful medieval building behind.
An article from the Coventry Evening telegraph sheds some more light on this. Kevin Gavin gathered evidence from school friends and Fishers family to show he was there from at least 1850 – 1853. And that the school was definitely the Coventry Grammar School which did offer boarding. Fisher’s grandson did confirm from family records that this was the case. An additional confirmation came from a letter posted to the newspaper the week after this article was posted (see below).
While he was at school Fisher used to go to stay with his wealthy God mother Lady Beatrix Anne Horton who was by now a widow. Her husband was a cousin of Lord Bryon and he famously wrote a poem about her beauty. The younger siblings also later stayed at Catton Hall. And Jack Fisher was later to name his eldest daughter Beatrix.
The beautiful Lady Wilmot-Horton – Jack Fisher’s godmother
Hatton Hall in Derbyshire where Jack Fisher and later his siblings would spent holidays.
Four younger brothers and at least one sister came out to England to go to school when Fisher was in his early twenties. And he did take an interest in their well being at this point. It must have been a hefty responsibilitiy for him. As it was for many other young people at the time. My father had a similar role in his family as all his younger sibiling slowly came to school in the Uk from Africa.
Fisher was very private about this early time. Everything I have read points to the fact that it was really tough. And he really just wanted to forget it!
Mackay, Ruddock Findlay (1973). Fisher of Kilverstone. London: Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0198224099. ↩︎↩︎
London Metropolitan Archives; “London, England, UK” ; London Church of England Parish Registers; Reference Number: P72/Jn/001 ↩︎
Class: HO107; Piece: 692; Book: 2; Civil Parish: Bethnal Green; County: Middlesex; Enumeration District: 5; Folio: 30; Page: 15; Line: 22; GSU roll: 438808 Census Returns of England and Wales, 1841. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1841. ↩︎
Class: HO107; Piece: 1540; Folio: 494; Page: 32; GSU roll: 174770Census Returns of England and Wales, 1851. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1851sus Returns of England and Wales, 1851. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1851 ↩︎
Class: HO107; Piece: 2327; Folio: 157; Page: 50; GSU roll: 87565-87566 Census Returns of England and Wales, 1851. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1851.↩︎
Class: HO107; Piece: 733; Book: 3; Civil Parish: St George Hanover Square; County: Middlesex; Enumeration District: 5; Folio: 5; Page: 4; Line: 3; GSU roll: 438835 Census Returns of England and Wales, 1841. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1841. ↩︎
Class: HO107; Piece: 1475; Folio: 437; Page: 28; GSU roll: 87798 Census Returns of England and Wales, 1851. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1851. ↩︎
Class: HO107; Piece: 2068; Folio: 11; Page: 15; GSU roll: 87331-87332Census Returns of England and Wales, 1851. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1851. ↩︎
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