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| Historic Map covering Staplake Mount hand-drawn in 1888 - 1904 by the cartographers of the Ordnance Survey |
Francis Kain was the youngest
son [1] of a successful London ship owner and coal merchant, Joseph, who owned numerous
coal barges [2], extensive buildings, houses, warehouses for storing coal,
stables, wagons, 22 horses, a flour mill with a steam engine and a wharf at
Ratcliff, Poplar on the river Thames [3]. Joseph had two sons, George and
Francis [4]. Until 1830 Francis and his brother were partners, also as ship
owners and coal merchants [5] until their business closed around then.
apparently due to insolvency although the evidence is unclear about this [5].
We do not know why
Francis moved to Devon soon after. In 1831 he and his wife came to live at
Staplake Mount on the outskirts of Starcross. They seem to have chosen well -
their home stood in 48 acres of land – it seems idyllic:
This delightful Villa stands on rising ground
near the centre of the Estate, on a Lawn well ornamented with forest and other
trees, commanding a fine view of the river Exe and the British Channel; is
substantially built of the best materials, is well sheltered and in excellent
repair.
The House has spacious and airy rooms, and no
expense has been spared to render it a most convenient and comfortable
residence for a large family.[6]
The highly detailed Tithe
Map of Starcross [7] shows Staplake Mount standing in its grounds overlooking
the Exe estuary with farmland on all sides: within a decade the building of
Brunel’s atmospheric railway had somewhat obscured the view [8].
On arrival in 1831 in
Starcross Francis made an immediate highly positive local impact as a
charitable figure. In January 1833 a local newspaper
reported he:
has very liberally distributed to the poor of
that parish [Starcross] a quantity of prime meat, under his own
superintendence. This much-esteemed gentleman, who has resided but two years in
the neighbourhood, last season benevolently supplied the want of the poor at
this season of the year and such is his general attention to the condition of
the need in that place that he is already looked up to by the destitute as their
benefactor and friend.[9].
Alas, the final newspaper
mentions of Francis are three notices of his death seven months later on 3rd
September 1833. One describes his general character and reinforces the
impression of him the January 1833 account conveys:
In him the poor have lost a kind benefactor
and a real friend, as he was ever ready to relieve; and never more truly happy,
than when the severity of winter called forth the active exercise of his bounty
in administering to their general wants. [10]
Within two years of his
death Staplake Mount was sold and Francis’s wife married a Mr. Bond of St.
Thomas, Exeter [11], who may have been a solicitor.
Francis Kain and his wife
now disappear from the record of Starcross’s history, but I am sure fond memories
of him lived on in the minds of the poor of Starcross and his friends and
neighbours who held him in high regard.
References
See page 3.
‘DOING LOCAL HISTORY’ –
Francis Kain of Staplake Mount, Starcross, 1831-33
The Topic
Barbara’s
request to the Starcross History Group was crystal clear ‘I would like to know if
one Francis Kain is known to you in any capacity. He lived in Starcross, at
Staplake Mount, for only about three years, possibly, up until 1833 when he
died there…’
Asking Questions
‘Doing History’ means we
have to ask questions. No questions, no answers. So, to respond to Barbara’s query a stream of
initial questions suggested themselves: What can we find out about Francis Kain?
Who was he? What was he like? Did he have a family? Where had he come from? What
job did he have or had? We then used answers we could find to some of these
questions to ask new questions to widen our search to find evidence to create
imaginatively a fuller picture of him and his life.
Searching For, Finding And Investigating Sources
To answer our questions
we needed to find and investigate sources. We had just discovered one such
mind-blowing source to explore: the on-line British
Newspaper Archive [BNA] of newspapers from around 1700. Its millions of digitised pages contain information about hundreds
of thousands of people, including Francis Kain.
Using key words,
we can search all digitised pages for
references to them. MAGIC.
So, we typed into the BNA
search engine for newspapers published from 1830-1833 the following clues - key
words: Staplake Mount, Starcross, Francis Kain.
In addition, we studied
two maps: the highly detailed 1840 Tithe Map of Starcross and the 1890 25 inch
to the mile Ordnance Survey map, both showing Staplake Mount. I also did some fieldwork
- looking for surviving evidence on the ground.
The Sources’ Evidence About Francis Kain
There were five newspaper
entries about Francis Kain in Devon newspapers: one about his charitable
activities in January 1833, three reporting his death in September 1833 and a
detailed account of the sale of Staplake Mount in 1834. These sources gave ‘facts’
about how long he had lived at Staplake Mount, who his father and brother were and
where they lived. The family ‘facts’ enabled us to further search the BNA for
evidence to answer questions about Francis’s family background as coal
merchants and ship owners from Ratcliff, Poplar in London.
The maps gave a clear
indication of the location of the Staplake Mount Villa where Francis lived; a
walk provided clues about the building of a Victorian later lodge on a new
entrance to Staplake Mount perhaps to give better access to Starcross railway
station built in the 1840s. The walk also revealed the survival of the iron
railings that marked the boundary of Francis’s estate mentioned in the 1834
notice for the sale of Staplake Mount, railings now buried in hedges and the
old entrance to the drive from the Exeter road to Francis’s villa –
coincidentally opposite where I live.
Creating A Story: Writing The History Of
Francis Kain at Starcross
The clues in the evidence
about Francis enabled me to weave together an initial, brief account of his
Starcross life from 1831-33 using deduction, inference and even the informed imagination
to answer tentatively some of our questions about him.
References
(1) 7 September 1833. The Guardian and Public Ledger. British Newspaper Archive [BNA]
(2) 18 June 1833. Morning Advertiser. British Newspaper Archive
The
evidence is indirect – his son, George Kain’s trustees advertised for sale a
dozen coal barges in the Morning Advertiser; George was Francis’s older
brother.
(3) 12
September 1833. The Guardian and Public
Ledger. BNA
(4) 7
September 1833. The Guardian and Public
Ledger. BNA
(5) 23
June 1831. The Guardian and Public Ledger.
BNA [to be checked]
(6) 23
May 1834. Woolmer’s Exeter and Plymouth
Gazette. BNA
Detailed
advertisement for sale of Staplake Mount
(7) c.
1840. Kenton Tithe Map. Devon
Heritage Centre http:/map.devon.gov.uk/Tithe
(8) Paul
Garnsworthy, ed. (2013) Brunel’s
Atmospheric Railway Featuring the Contemporary Watercolours of William Dawson.
The Broad Gauge Society
This
magnificent book contains the highly detailed watercolours of the railway’s
route. The one for Starcross shows the railway running on top of an embankment
built along the shore above the high tide level with a wall running along its
estuary side.
(9) 19
January 1833. Woolmer’s Exeter and
Plymouth Gazette. BNA
(10) 12
September 1833. The North Devon Journal
and Advertiser. BNA
(11) 18
December 1844. The Exeter Flying Post.
BNA
