Exploring the British Empire and Exeter

 
by Dr. Todd Grey
on Thursday, 8 August 2024
starting at 7pm at Leonardo Hotel Exeter

It was a welcome return to the Leonardo Hotel after a hiatus of many months while repairs were being carried out following severe flooding at the hotel in September 2023 and we were made very welcome by the hotel staff.

It was also a welcome return to our speaker Dr Todd Gray who had actually stepped into the breach at short notice following illness by our scheduled speaker Ian Varndell (whose talk on Exeter’s Dissenter Graveyard we will endeavour to re-arrange during 2025).

Todd explained that his latest research into Empire will be published as two volumes entitled Voices of Empire in Exeter 1575-1996, Parts 1 and 2 and launched at events at the Guildhall in September. These volumes are a follow-up to other books he has published involving a difficult history – Not One of Us, Devon and the Slave Trade, Devon’s Last Slave Owners, Blackshirts in Devon, and Looting in Wartime Britain. He said other people had cautioned him against researching Empire. To gauge personal opinions, he conducted a survey of 300 of Exeter’s residents by asking two specific questions: 1) Which single word do you first think of when you hear ‘British Empire’? and 2) Which single word best describes your feelings about Empire? From answers, he deduced that 40% were proud, 40% were ashamed, and 20% were ambivalent. Speaking to a group of University of Exeter students brought out the most surprising answers as one British girl said she had no idea what the British Empire meant and had to have it explained to her as she had never known anything about it. An Indian girl’s reaction was “you owned us” and a student from the Middle East said, “you owned us too”. When it was explained by showing a map that Britain used to own 25% of the world the girl was dumbstruck and asked how such a small country could own so much. After 1921 Britain started to lose territories and dominions.

Todd began his talk by saying that after completing his typescript for his new publication on Empire in Exeter he had taken the opportunity to visit Norfolk and the national toy soldier museum and was amazed to see their displays commemorated imperial battles except Waterloo. He began by showing a poster with the words “Coo-ee” which people in this country would be familiar with as being used as a call when visiting in order to attract attention but was shouted at a far greater volume in the Australian Bush to travel over several miles. It was an accepted part of Australian culture and had also been used in the Great War. It is one example of the many words which were brought in by the empire and assimilated into British everyday life.

Todd gave examples of words in common usage such as ketchup and curry which had Empire origins and also addresses in Exeter which had names which originated in other countries of the Empire, and he could only surmise that they reflected places that people had previously lived in and decided to name their houses as such. Among the examples he gave were Loma Loma (Heavitree Road), Azile Viaa (Devonshire Place), Isis House (Oxford Road), Khush Ghur (Heavitree Road), Sheik Zuweiyid (Beacon Lane), Kia Ora (Birchy Barton Hill), Colaba (Denmark Road), Dahrabend (Exwick Hill), Ranchi (Hollow Lane) and Dilkusha (Little John’s Cross Hill). This practice was more usual than in places like Plymouth and Dawlish.

Exeter City Council was offered various plots of colonial land but turned them all down except in Ireland where it acquired 4,000 acres. Powderham Castle owned more than 50,000 acres in Ireland. The Buller Statue became a very contentious issue a few years ago when Exeter residents campaigned to have it removed. The Council were open to the idea but said it would cost £25,000 to move it elsewhere and would have to wait until surplus funds were available. At that point the Conservative Government decreed that historic statues could not be removed, thereby sorting out the Council’s problem by appearing to be amenable to the wishes of the people, and unable to comply by order of the ruling Government. The RAMM is the city’s visual centre of empire, and many artefacts were acquired from the colonies. An object can tell a story about the person who collected it as well as the place it originates from.

One of the perils of this subject is there is an evolving list of words you cannot now say because they may not be acceptable somewhere in the world. Todd had canvassed reference libraries in every city across the country regarding imperial studies of those places. Few cities have written histories of their associations with empire except for Bristol, Liverpool, Dundee, Sheffield, Manchester and Southampton. He did this to help assess how Exeter was linked to the empire. Whereas Plymouth was dominated by the navy, Exeter’s associations could be categorized as pulpit and podium reflecting its role as a regional capital, cathedral city and university ‘town’.

Marriage Migrants:

Most of these were examples of bigamists where a man would leave a family in Exeter and go off to other countries. Once there he would “marry” again, father more children, and sometimes return to Exeter. Todd had found fifty of these bigamist stories in Exeter and gave some examples, one of which is recorded in detail below.

Sydney James Henry Willey (Text provided by Todd)

On 10 September 1895, thirty-year-old Sydney James Henry Willey (1870-1936) of Bystock Terrace married twenty-four-year-old Florence Alice Husson of Kilmorie. It was described as a ‘pretty wedding’ in St David’s Church and the bride wore white brocade silk trimmed with white lace and an orange blossom wreath. The groom gave his wife a diamond and sapphire heart brooch and gold bangle. Willey was the third son of Henry Frederick Willey (1830-1894), a former mayor and the founder of Willey’s Foundry, the largest employer in Exeter. The employees presented the couple with a barometer, thermometer and clock mounted in a carved oak case.

By 1908 Mr and Mrs Willey were living in Croydon and Willey was employed by the family firm in London. That year he was dismissed on grounds of ‘alleged immorality in regard to a lady clerk’. Three years later Willey deserted his wife and emigrated to Australia. Florence Willey returned to Devon. Seven years after his arrival, on 20 July 1918, Willey married twenty-five-year-old Muriel Rose Lowe in Sydney. When arrested for bigamy two years later Willey said he had had a letter which reported his wife Florence ‘was very bad and would not last the week out’. A surprising exchange took place in court:

‘Magistrate: It has not been proved that the first wife is alive.
Sergeant Spyer: We say she is alive, but that will be difficult to prove. The first wife would have to be brought out from England.
Magistrate: That is the only way. Defendant is discharged.’

Willey was charged and convicted of other charges including forgery. He served eighteen months of hard labour in prison and in 1921 his ‘wife’ filed for an annulment of their marriage. “Truth”, a Sydney newspaper, reported Willey’s ‘curious career’ as one of ‘riches to poverty and prison’. It was an ‘unromantic tale of marriage’ in which the second Mrs Willey, a florist and ‘young brunette of medium build’, met the forty-seven-year-old Willey early in 1917. Further details were revealed by her in court:

‘One Saturday night two detectives arrested Willey for embezzlement and eventually he was sentenced to eighteen months’ imprisonment. Willey had told his wife that he was expecting a remittance from England, and she gave him money to cable it over, but she feared that no cable was sent. He led her to believe that he was the managing director for a big firm at Exeter and was acting as their representative in Australia. By profession, he was an accountant – at least according to the marriage certificate. Whilst Willey was incarcerated in the penitentiary, her father showed her a letter which had come from over the water, and she spoke to Willey about it when he was brought up at the Central Police Court. He then recognised the letter as one from his wife and knew her photo but declared that he thought she was dead, and expressed great regret that she should come back to life to make mischief between them.’

The second Mrs Willey explained that her ‘husband’, whom the journalist described as ‘a canting humbug of the first water’, had written to her from prison: ‘I want and offer to do the right thing by you. Give me, dear, this opportunity and bury the wretched, miserable past. I love you and could forgive you anything. Don’t deny me seeing you, dear, to explain a proposal I have to make to you which includes working and slaving for you and spending my last penny (honestly got) to ensure your health and happiness. The proposal does not mean living in sin, dear, but an honest, straight-forward means to put right what is wrong, financially and otherwise’.

It transpired in court that the first Mrs Willey had written from Ilfracombe that for eight years her husband had an annual salary of £2,500, the modern equivalent of some £200,000. Moreover: ‘he had a beautiful home with servants and everything that could be desired but in 1908 he became bankrupt through gambling and other causes and his wife had a terrible time for 15 months. She lent him half her money and the rest he took. She parted from him in 1910. His wife further said he was dismissed from the firm because of his misconduct with a girl typist who gave birth to two children and in addition he had kept a woman in a London flat.’

Willey died in Western Australia in 1936. His first wife passed away in Exeter in 1945 while his second spouse died in Australia in 1973.

Economic Migrants:

One example was George Palmer of Fore Street, Heavitree who moved to India. He was an artist in the mid-1800s, and Todd read out a detailed account of an event that took place in Kolkata.

Merchants:

A prime example of a man from Exeter whose work could be found all across the Empire was the carver Harry Hems who had his premises in Longbrook Street. Examples of his work could be found in municipal buildings in Kolkata and Mumbai.

Travellers:

A man called Barret Burns who had lived with the Maoris visited Exeter with his fifth wife. In 1903 an Exeter Member of Parliament described the Durbar at Delhi in India.

Missionaries:

Several hundred men and women took it upon themselves to visit countries of the Empire to convert them to British belief systems.

Administrators: John Kennaway (Text provided by Todd)

Kennaway’s father William was a non-Conformist serge merchant who sent his thirteen-year-old son to serve as a military cadet for the East India Company. Kennaway (1758-1836) later admitted to wanting to act ‘upon a large scale’ and to that end he acquired linguistic skills and knowledge of India which proved useful to Governor General Charles Cornwallis. Perhaps the height of his career was in negotiating peace with Tipu Sultan, the Muslim ruler known as the ‘Tiger of Mysore’.

Servicemen: Mr Bonham (Text provided by Todd)

A sanitation expert Mr Bonham went to Iraq to help rebuild Baghdad. He wrote in great detail about what he did and what it was like in Baghdad.

‘Things rapidly settled down; the Christians and Jews were delighted to welcome the British; the Arabs pretended to be, but for a long time, their attitude was that usually seen in the East among conquered people, viz. safety on the winning side. For months the general feeling among the Mohammedans in the bazaar coffeehouses was that the Turks would return and that the British would be driven off or captured, as their predecessors were at Kut some thirteen months previously.’

‘My opinion is that we (the British) were not hated, but disliked, chiefly on account of our modern methods of administration and their sanitary regulations. They had always lived in filth and did not understand why we were so particular.’

Lecturers:

Chris Ketani who was with Nelson Mandela on Robben Island came to Exeter and tried to get people interested in fighting Apartheid.

Contentious examples:

Golliwogs became a very contentious issue; the first one being created by Florence Upton in 1895. By 1900 they were made as soft toys and in 1914 became used as mascots. Also, in 1914 Exeter had its own Waterwog made from a loofah.

Britain still owns British territories across the world and English is now the world language.

Todd’s talk ended with many interesting questions and viewpoints, and he was thanked again for a thought-provoking evening.

Sue Jackson

[I am indebted to Todd for providing his text in several places in this write-up. The images are courtesy of Todd Grey.]