In 2012 we published an e-book entitled ‘The Marquis de
Leuville: a Victorian Charlatan?’
The charismatic Marquis was the lover of Ada Peters who
lived in Kilburn. She was the wealthy widow of John Winpenny Peters, who owned a successful coach building business which made coaches for Queen Victoria.
John died in 1882 at The Grange, a mansion on the Kilburn High Road, roughly where the Grange Cinema (currently used by the
church group UCKG), and Grange
Park are today.
As was the case with many marriages at the time, John’s will
made some personal provision for Ada, but if she re-married, she lost most of
her inheritance including the right to live at The Grange, and the house with
its extensive grounds would revert to the Peters family. Instead Ada
and her Marquis decided to enjoy her considerable fortune and never married but
their relationship lasted many years. For more information the e-book can be
found here.
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| The Marquis De Leuville, 1874 |
The Peterloo Massacre
To give
her full name, Ada Britannia Sarah Beckers was born in 1833, the daughter of
Rebecca and Gustavus Edward Beckers. He was Rebecca’s second husband; the first
was the journalist
Henry Feltham Orton.
With
the current widespread coverage of the Peterloo Massacre that took place two hundred
years ago, on 16th August 1819, we were reminded of a passage in our book when Henry Orton was working as a young
reporter for the New Times.
He was sent to Manchester in
August 1819, to cover a protest meeting about the Corn Laws and the generally poor economic conditions that
followed the end of the Napoleonic War. But this was not a normal demonstration. A huge
crowd of 60,000 people assembled in St Peter’s field where they were addressed by the well-known radical speaker,
Henry Hunt. Things got out of hand and mounted troops were ordered to charge
and disperse the crowd. Fifteen people died and some four hundred to seven
hundred men, women and children were injured. Orton wrote two articles for the New
Times on the ‘Peterloo Massacre’ as it came to be known, and he was a
witness at Hunt’s trial at the York Assizes a year later.
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| Cartoon of the Peterloo Massacre, by George Cruikshank (1819) |
The text for picture reads:
Down with ‘em! Chop em down my brave boys: give them no
quarter they want to take our Beef & Pudding from us! ---- and remember the
more you kill the less poor rates you’ll have to pay so go at it Lads show your
courage and your Loyalty.
See Wikipedia link:
What began as a peaceful
demonstration by working class people who wanted political reform, was
disastrously handled by the authorities who sent in sabre wielding cavalry. The
horses charged at the huge crowd and in the resulting panic people were slashed
or crushed. The exact number of deaths is not known but is generally taken as
between 15 and 18, with hundreds of wounded. In 1820 at York, Hunt was sentenced to two and a half years imprisonment.
After his release, Hunt had a successful business career and
was elected MP for Preston from December 1830 to 1832.
During his brief parliamentary career Hunt, who was
called ‘the poor man’s protector’, spoke over a thousand times, and his
activities included the presentation of a pioneer petition for female suffrage.
His health suffered and followed a stroke he died on 13 February 1835.
Mike Leigh’s film Peterloo was made in 2018. St Peter’s
Field is now part of St Peter’s Square in central Manchester. The only Manchester memorial to ‘Peterloo’ was a plaque on the Radisson hotel
(previously the Free Trades Hall) until the Peterloo monument nearby was opened
to the public on the 13th of August, three days before the bi-centenary.
In 1827 Henry Feltham Orton published
an account of Marc and Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s amazing tunnel under the Thames from
Rotherhithe to Wapping, which today forms part of the London Overground network.
Orton died in April 1828 and the
following July, his widow Rebecca married Gustavus Beckers. Their daughter Ada was born five years later.
When Ada lived at the Grange her mother Rebecca also lived there until she died in 1881. Ada died in Kilburn, still living at The Grange, in 1910.
When Ada lived at the Grange her mother Rebecca also lived there until she died in 1881. Ada died in Kilburn, still living at The Grange, in 1910.
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