The digital recording of home ownership by the Land Registry has meant that many homeowners do not have the original deeds of their home.  However, if you are fortunate and have your house deeds then this can be a great starting point for researching local history.

I live in a later Victorian House in East Dulwich, Southwark, Southeast London. In 1993, when we moved in, we were given the original deeds, including the purchase from the British Land Company of the plot by the builder in 1880. The purchase document referred to an earlier land purchase by the British Land Company in 1865 from a Lieutenant General William Cartwright. In 1961, H. J. Dyos, a University of Leicester lecturer in Economic History, had published a comprehensive book titled ‘’Victorian Suburb. A Study of the Growth of Camberwell’’, which covered East Dulwich. He had subdivided the area into specific development areas. Our house fell within an area he designated the Friern Manor Farm Estate. However, his book and other local history books had no mention of a General Cartwright. In the early 2000s, I began family history research using the internet. When TheGenealogist.co.uk, put tithe maps online, I was able to examine the one of the Parish of St Giles Camberwell for the late 1830’s. It listed ownership by William Cartwright of the area covered by the Friern Manor Farm Estate. The Tithe map also showed the names of the tenants of the two farms on the estate and other lesser landholdings.

Southwark has a history library with a card index of all the property documents it holds. Many of the historic British Land documents no longer exist, but there was a card for the 1865 land sale by General Cartwright and his son to the British Land Company. It was a lengthy, 71-page, typed abstract of the original. I was able to photograph the pages. It detailed ownership of the Friern Manor Farm Estate back to the 1770s. The estate had been purchased in two tranches by Henry Jones and it was through marriage to his granddaughter Anne that the estate had come into the ownership of William Cartwright and his son Fairfax. It named the original tenants and the final tenants at the time of the 1865 sale plus a map of the land sold and the expiry dates of the tenancies. This document provided a valuable detailed reference for further research both online and at other local history archives.

Henry Jones was a common name and might be hard to trace. Fortunately, both the Jones family and the Cartwrights had left detailed paper trails. Using the sale document and lists of late eighteenth century Surrey freeholders eligible for jury service on Ancestry.co.uk, I was able to identify the Henry Jones who made the original purchases. He had been born in Soho at a time it was fashionable and then moved to Bedford Square. The sales document referred to annuities that he had sold. Further research at London Metropolitan Archives provided evidence of other land purchases. He had used the revenue from the sale of the annuities to provide capital for the land purchases with the rental income from the land covering interest payments on the annuities. Further research revealed that he had two sons who had gone to Eton College. The entry on the Eton archive for the elder son, also Henry, mentioned the marriage of his daughter Anne to William Cartwright. Henry junior died young and the newspaper archive on FindMyPast.co.uk turned up a report of his death at Friern Manor Farm. Anne’s mother remarried but sadly died young and Anne was made a Ward of Chancery under the protection of her aunt who was married to the Prince Regent’s Brighton physician.

The sale document identified William Cartwright as belonging to a long-established landowning Northamptonshire family at Aynho. He was the second son and served in the army in the final campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars. After going to Sandhurst, he served first in an infantry regiment at the end of the Peninsula Campaign and then joined a dragoon regiment. Details of his different commissions are available on Lionel S. Challis’s “Peninsula Roll Call”.  By Waterloo, he was an 18 year old lieutenant in the 10th “Prince of Wales own” Hussars. The Regiment’s actions in the battle are detailed on a dedicated website, which includes two letters that William Cartwright wrote home.

From the social columns of newspapers on FindMyPast.co.uk, probably Anne and William met at a society ball in Brighton. They married in 1825, in the fashionable church of St George’s in Hanover Square. Anne was under 21 years old, so still a minor and her inheritance was legally protected in case William became bankrupt. The wedding certificate lists the names of the more important guests, which provided names for further lines of enquiry, including a lawyer, William Le Blanc. He had acted for Henry Jones and was a legal partner with the Shawe’s, a prominent local Dulwich family.

William and Anne settled in Flore, Northamptonshire. The Flore history group provided more information, especially on Anne’s local charity work. William became one of the first regional police inspectors and his police career is documented in “The history of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary – the first 150 years”. He stayed in the army reserve eventually becoming a Lieutenant General before his death in 1873. His promotions were reported in the “London Gazette,” a valuable online resource for announcements of civil and military awards.

William and Anne had two sons, Fairfax and Aubrey. Both had military careers. Aubrey was killed at Inkerman, in the Crimean War. Fairfax went onto become a Member of Parliament but died childless. Anne predeceased William, which meant he and Fairfax formally inherited the Friern Manor Farm Estate.

To complete my research, I visited the Cartwright family church in Aynho, which contains marble memorials for William, Anne and their two sons, with inscriptions highlighting the major events in their lives. I visited the Northamptonshire County Archives in Northampton where I was shown a painting of William in middle age.

During my initial research, I was not sure how to bring it to a wider audience. I had been a member of my local community society, the Dulwich Society. It has a Local History Study Group, which I joined. With the encouragement of its members, my findings have been published in the quarterly journal of the society and the text is available on their website with a link to an illustrated talk on YouTube.

The Jones and Cartwright families are now part of the local history of East Dulwich and their story is available to future local historians, all thanks to a discovery in a set of original house deeds.

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