The Forgotten Tenant of Fairfield House

by Steve Errington with foreword by Sue Jackson

On Wednesday 6 November 2024 Exeter Local History Society’s email received a research enquiry from Dr Steve Errington, Immediate Past President of Royal Western Australia Historical Society. He said he was “preparing a talk on Captain James Mangles RN who visited Western Australia in 1831 on a wildflower-collecting expedition. He retired to live in Topsham and died there in 1867. [Confirmed as December Quarter 1867, Age 81] He had found James Mangles in the 1851 Census living in Fairfield Lodge and in the 1861 Census living in Fairfield House. He was seeking information on these two buildings and any available images or photos.

All of this information started to ring bells, as I remembered our past chairman Dick Passmore writing a short history of Millbrook Village, the retirement complex on Topsham Road, which included photos and information about both houses and Millbrook House which together became St Loye’s Training College for the Disabled which came into being in 1939. Dick had been asked to put together the history of these houses for the benefit of new residents of Millbrook Village and on 17 April 2017 members of ELHS were invited to attend a talk given by him. We were able to purchase copies of Dick’s book, and he left further copies for the residents. I enquired whether any remained, and was fortunate to be given the last one to send to Dr Errington. I was also given the opportunity to take some photos of Fairfield Lodge (which some members may remember, similar to the House that Moved, had been jacked up and moved back 20 feet from Topsham Road to allow the road to be widened and for the installation of a footbridge across the road during the 1970s) I was also able to take photos of Fairfield House, with just its tower block remaining, which has been incorporated into new building for the complex on either side. Previous extensions had been demolished at an early stage of redevelopment.

Dr Errington has sent a very interesting article about Captain Mangles adding to our knowledge of a resident of two buildings on Topsham Road and I hope you enjoy it.

Sue Jackson, March 2025

Fairfield House in Topsham is not ancient, a starting date in the 1840s is most likely. Its history is traced out in Dick Passmore’s valuable little book Millbrook Village: a brief history, a copy of which was kindly found for me by Sue Jackson. A partial list of occupants of Fairfield House is given on page 21, beginning with George Francis Travers in 1850. Travers died in December 1851, leaving a gap until Alexander Abercromby Hamilton arrived in Fairfield House in 1878.

The gap is partly filled by the interesting and highly accomplished Captain James Mangles RN FRS FRGS (1776 – 1867). Mangles was a Londoner who had retired to Devon after three successful careers. His father was a ships’ Chandler at Wapping, but young James had no interest in joining the family firm: he volunteered for the Royal Navy at 14, at a time when England was at war with revolutionary France. He served on several ships, rising through midshipman to lieutenant and seeing service in the Battle of Cape Town, the subjugation of Buenos Aries and the recapture of the French Colony of Martinique.

In January 1815, when at Rio de Janeiro, he was given command of the sloop Racoon and sent to escort several merchantmen to Bristol, then deliver the Racoon to Plymouth. It was his only command – the war ended that June at Waterloo. Mangles’ rank of Commander was confirmed but he was put on half pay.

In 1816 he and the Hon Charles Irby RN (his future brother-in-law) with whom he had served five years on HMS Narcissus, left for a grand tour of the continent. This extended to newly opened Egypt and, in July 1817, they ran into Giovanni Belzoni, a former circus strongman turned archaeologist, joining him in opening up the now far-famed Abu Simbel temple.

In November, at Aleppo in Syria, Irby and Mangles met pioneer Egyptologist William Bankes of Kingston Lacey in Dorset, and in April 1818 they joined him in a dig at the Tombs of the Kings in Jerusalem. The trio then left to visit Petra, becoming the only Englishmen then living to have seen it.

In 1823 Irby and Mangles, largely the latter, compiled a travel book from their letters home: Travels in Egypt and Nubia, Syria and Asia Minor, during the years 1817 & 1818. Mangles’ report of their archaeological dig in Jerusalem was the first such ever published. His efforts earned him Fellowship of the Royal Society in 1825. In 1830 he became a founding Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and in December left to learn some more geography by visiting Britain’s newest colony, in Western Australia (WA).

He probably had an invitation – his cousin Ellen Stirling (née Mangles) was married to Captain James Stirling RN, the founder of Western Australia and its Lt Governor.

Mangles remained at Swan River for three months, collecting wildflowers and their seeds and establishing a network of collectors, including cousin Ellen. Several WA wildflower genera carry the species name manglesii.

He left a lasting legacy in Western Australia by arriving with four varieties of olive trees which did well when planted in the government garden. He later sent more varieties to one of his plant collectors and WA now has a thriving olive oil industry.

On returning to London, he set himself up in a terrace house at 66 Cambridge Terrace, near where Paddington railway station opened in 1838. His house soon became remarkable for its window boxes or what his obituarist (Western Times 26/11/1867 - page 6) called its ‘window gardens’. The Mangles family believes that Queen Victoria and Prince Albert used to call past on their Sunday drives to see what Captain Mangles had on display.

In 1839 he compiled a handy little book called The Floral Calendar for the benefit of those who wanted to make a garden in the metropolis. The copy he presented to Queen Victoria can still be found in the Royal Collection. His and Irby’s 1823 book had become a standard travel guide and was re-published with an amended title in 1844. In 1853 Mangles published The Thames Estuary, a guide to the navigation of the Thames mouth.

The 1851 census records confirm that he was then living at Fairfield Lodge. He was still there in 1855 when he first appears in the local press, attending his niece Frances Irby’s wedding at St Luke‘s. He probably gave the bride away - her father, Charles Irby, his greatest friend, fellow officer, fellow traveller and brother-in-law, had died in 1845 and was buried in Torquay.

By 1858 he was living at Fairfield House, well into the charitable work that would characterise his final years. Twice that year he hosted pupils of the Institution for the Blind with tea, coffee, fruit etc. In June 1862 the Western Times reported his annual treat for 120 teachers and scholars of the Countess Wear National Schools held at the Turf Inn with ‘music, dancing, and a variety of other amusements.’ A few days later it was the inmates of the Blind Asylum on St David’s Hill., who were welcomed to Fairfield for strawberries and cream and entertainment with music from a hired band. This was an annual event at strawberry time, and in June 1866 he added children from the Deaf and Dumb Institution on Topham Road and the band played ‘Strawberry Time’. At Christmas 1863 it was the poor of Countess Wear who were the beneficiaries of his liberality: over fifty families received coal, beef, fruit, wine, ale and the makings of a Christmas pudding.

Mangles died after a short illness, much lamented, in November 1867. He was buried in the graveyard at St. Saviour’s in Torquay. It had long been closed for ordinary burials, but the Home Secretary readily gave permission for Irby’s grave to be opened, so that the brothers-in-law could rest together.

Steve Errington

[Dr Steve Errington, Immediate Past President, Royal Western Australian Historical Society]