Skip to main content

Fitzroy Pleydell Goddard



Major Fitzroy Pleydell Goddard's dying request was that his funeral service be as simple as possible and that he wished to be buried in a "plain elm coffin made from timber grown on my estate."

The last Lord of the Manor to live at The Lawn, Fitzroy Pleydell Goddard died at the family home on Friday August 12th 1927 and less than three weeks later Fielder and Tuckett, a firm of auctioneers, valuers and surveyors, were called in to catalogue the family treasures.

An Inventory of Plate, Pictures, Busts, Statutes, Books and Jewellery fills several typewritten sheets of paper, recording items of both financial and sentimental value.  Items were listed under headings of the rooms where they were observed, for example the Dining Room, the Lobby to Drawing Room, the Blue Room and the Rose Room along with the Gun Room and the Billiard Room.

Pages and pages of books are recorded not just from the library but all over the house. An eclectic selection of titles such as Williams' Dogs and their ways is listed alongside a Welsh Dictionary, a photograph book and a scrapbook.

Among the silver plate was a tankard with lid dated 1643 and a Queen Anne crested salver on stand from 1711. There was a Georgian sugar sifter along with a Victorian one, a pair of small rat-tail sugar tongs and dozens of forks, knives and spoons.

Surprisingly there were few items of jewellery. A gold half hunter watch and chain, and seal has an explanatory annotation initialed E.W.G. "given to the Reverend C.F. Goddard (Fitzroy Pleydell's younger brother) at my husbands death."

Oil paintings of animals including two by Benjamin Marshall, an early 19th century canine and equestrian painter, hung on the walls alongside photographs of Teignmouth and Torquay.

In the Major's private room were two photographs of his parents taken on the occasion of their Golden Wedding anniversary in 1897.

Whether the inventory was made for probate or sale is unknown. Fitzroy Pleydell's widow spent a brief four years at The Lawn after her husband's death, before leaving for America where she made her home.

The Major's funeral took place on Monday August 15 at 8pm. Advertiser headlines read 'Interred at Sunset' and 'Large Attendance.'

As requested the Major's coffin was made from one of his trees, cut down in Drove Road during road widening work. Covered by a Union Jack the coffin was carried from The Lawn to the Parish church on a handbier where Canon C.A. Mayall and Dr. R. Talbot, the Archdeacon of Swindon conducted a simple service in Christ Church. The congregation was estimated to number in the thousands as Swindon marked the end of an era.


The Goddard Family - Fitzroy Pleydell Goddard is perched on the bench wearing a bowler hat





The ha-ha




The gazebo

Old images of the Goddard family and the Lawn are published courtesy of Swindon Local Studies see www.flickr.com/photos/swindonlocal/


 You might also like to read

 The Lawn 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My neck of the woods

Did you know that our neck of the woods was once just that - part of a wood, a very big wood? And not just any old wood but a Royal forest no less - Braydon Forest. The origins of Braydon Forest date back to the 9th century and a belt of woodland stretching from the Thame Valley to the Vale of Blackmore and known to the Saxons as Sealwudu. The Saxon lords were pretty easy going, it would appear, and then along came the Normans with their system of forest law, courts and officialdom. Braydon became a royal forest by 1135 and in the 13th century it contained an area of some 46 square miles. The forest bounds included not only woodland but fields of arable, meadow and pasture and even villages such as those of Lydiard Tregoze, Lydiard Millicent and Purton. In 1256, during the reign of Henry III the king gave Robert Tregoze 3 bucks and 8 does from Braydon to restock his park at Lydiard Tregoze and in 1270 John Tregoze obtained a royal licence to 'inclose and impark' his woo...
Post a Comment
Read more

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again ...

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again … Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier Actually, it was the rooms of the Mechanics’ Institute Trust once based at No 1, Milton Road, Swindon, where Mark Sutton, Graham Carter and I first produced the blue print for the Swindon Heritage magazine in 2011. In my dream I was attending a shambolic meeting that roamed across the spacious office accommodation. There I met some of the key characters of this story, although not all of them. Paul Gregory, or was it Noel Beauchamp, it could have been either, Julie Carter and a hot dog vendor (so vivid was the illusion that when I awoke, I had the taste of onions in my mouth). Then there was an on-going, ambulatory talk about saving the Mechanics’ Institute reminiscent of the famous ‘Save the Clock Tower’ scene in the 80s film Back to the Future. This account is rather rambling, isn’t it, but isn’t that the nature of a dream – making perfect sense when you are in it and none at all when you wake up? ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Edith New - Swindon Suffragette

In 1906 the suffragette campaign entered its most violent phase. Over 500 women had been imprisoned by 1909 and right up there among the militant activists was a Swindon schoolteacher. Edith Bessie New was born 17th March, 1877 at 24 North Street, Swindon, the fourth of Frederic and Isabelle New's five children. Frederic worked as a railway clerk at the GWR Works and Isabelle was a music teacher. An assistant mistress at Queenstown Infant School from 1899-1901, Edith subsequently left her Swindon home to teach in the deprived areas of Deptford and Lewisham. It was after hearing the charismatic Emmeline Pankhurst speak at a meeting in Trafalgar Square that Edith joined the Women's Social and Political Union. In February 1907 a deputation of suffragettes marched on the House of Commons in protest at the omission of votes for women from the King's speech. What had begun as a peaceful demonstration ended in a violent confrontation with police. Edith was among those arr...
2 comments
Read more