THE RICKARDS FAMILY ..... another from Tony Goulding

The Rickards family,some of whom are interred in the grave which is marked by the most substantial and well-preserved memorial in St. Clement’s old churchyard, continue to provide a rich source of material

William Henry Rickards was born on the 15th October, 1815 and baptised on the 14th July the following year in St. John’s Church, Manchester. His parents were Charles Rickards and his wife Frances (née Broome). His father, described as “a gentleman” on his marriage record was in business as a cotton spinner but his health began to fail and he had to wind up his business. The family’s wealth came courtesy of land holdings near Sandbach, Cheshire where the Broome family had farmed land on Brereton Road since the 16th century. 

William Henry Rickards passed away on the 24th May, 1891 at his home Carlton Lodge, a 14-roomed mansion on Dudley Road, Whalley Range.  On his death, by the terms of his older brother Charles Hilditch’s will, the land in Cheshire passed to his eldest surviving son, Harry.

Harry Rickards was born in Stretford, Lancashire where he was baptised on the 5th April, 1854. He was the son of William Henry and his first wife, Ellen (née Royle)   Harry attended Rossall Public School in Fleetwood, Lancashire. In 1871 the census records him living with his father and step-mother Sophie (née Munton)   and working as a bank clerk. His story for the next 20 years is a little unclear. It is possible, given the family’s wealth and local connections that he was the Henry Rickards who was the owner of 6 houses on Beech Grove and other properties in Chorlton-cum-Hardy. After he inherited the land in Sandbach following his father’s death in 1891 he begins to appear in the area’s Parochial Electoral Registers. They show, however, that he was an absentee landlord with his address given as initially 49, St. Ermin’s Mansions, Caxton Street, London, S.W.

 His later history reveals that he may have been something of a “Black Sheep of the Family” He appears to have adopted an increasingly lavish lifestyle as shown at his address from around 1911; The Royal Thames Yacht Club, Piccadilly, London.

  On the 23rd June, 1914 he was admitted as a private patient, by his half-brother Rev. Walter Brooke Rickards, to Bethlem Royal Hospital for the Insane. There are fairly detailed case notes covering his reasons for admission, his treatment and sadly his decline and death on the 13th April, 1917. He was admitted after having a fit in the London Underground some 31/2   weeks previous to his admission when he lost consciousness and spent all night there. He was taken to St. Thomas’s Hospital only to break out breaking a window to do so. Having returned to his rooms at 36, Duke Street he purchased a car, paying extravagantly for it and was heading North to Cheshire when he was arrested at his hotel in Birmingham. His erratic behaviour included delusions that he was a prince of Italy and a bosom friend of King George V. As such he thought he resided at Buckingham Palace and could bestow titles on and huge sums of money to acquaintances. He was diagnosed with nephritis and alcoholism and the rather lurid description of the progress of the disease makes for sobering reading. 

Something of a contrast the gay bachelor lifestyle of his half-brother Walter Brooke Rickards became a clergyman in the Church of England. He was the third surviving son William Henry and his eldest surviving child with, Sophia, his second wife. He was born in Manchester and baptised at St. Mary’s, Hulme on the 23rd June, 1864. Rev. Walter Brooke was ordained as a deacon in 1890 and as a priest in 1891. One of his first duties was to assist at the wedding on the 12th August, 1891 at St. Saviour’s Church, Eastbourne, Sussex of Percy William Carver, the son of Benjamin Carver one of his father’s partners. He had qualified with a B.A. degree from Trinity College, Cambridge University later an M.A. and trained for Holy Orders at Wells Theological College. His first posting was as a curate at Long Ditton, Surrey.  Here, on the 20th July, 1893, he married Mary Christini Wardrop whose father, the extravagantly named Hew Dalrymple Hamilton Wardrop, was a high-ranking Civil Servant; once clerk to the Privy Council and whose mother, Susannah Hailey Tabor came from a wealthy family of landowners of Pritlewell, Essex. 

One of the officiating ministers at Rev. Walter and Susannah’s wedding was his brother-in-law, Rev. Cecil Hughes, the vicar of Powke, Worcestershire.  (1)  

Shortly after his marriage Rev. Walter moved to become the Rector of Newton Hall, Stocksfield-on-Tyne, Northumberland, where his only son, Hew Wardrop Brooke, was born on the 21st May, 1896. After four years in Northumberland he moved on to Towcester, Northamptonshire and thence to Tyringham-cum-Filgrave, Newport Pagnal, Buckinghamshire where he accepted the Rectorship in October, 1904. 

St. Peter’s Church Tyringham.

He remained at Tyringham until early in 1917 when he was appointed as the new rector of Sanderstead, Surrey. He was in this post during the last stages of his brother’s illness and when he also learnt of the death of his son, Hew Wardrop, on the Western Front on the 28th July, 1917. (2)

  He later became the rector of Nettleton, Wiltshire before, in October, 1923 accepting the offer of a similar post at Buckland, Gloucestershire. The following year, 1924, he was permitted to erect a memorial in the parish church commemorating his deceased son. 

 Rev. Walter Rickards stayed at Buckland until his retirement in the summer of 1931. In retirement he moved to Surrey, his death being registered in the Fulham registration district of London in the March quarter of 1939.

Besides their son Rev. Walter and Susannah had two daughters. Mary Gwendolen Dalrymple, who was born on the 15th June, 1894 at Boldero House, Buntingtford, Hertfordshire and Barbara who was born on the 15th May, 1906 at the Filgrave rectory,  Tyringham.  Each daughter has some interesting detail in their life story.

       Barbara married, a solicitor, Frederick John Oliver Prescott (3) in South West Surrey in the June quarter of 1935; with whom she bore three children, a son and two daughters. Mary Gwendolen, contrarily, remained unmarried and is recorded in the 1939 Register living with her sister at Rydal, Crawley Down, Cuckfield, Sussex and working as a voluntary hospital worker. Then comes a little mystery as in August, 1944 when her address was 17, Tennyson Mansions, Queens Club Gardens, West Kensington, London she changed her name by Deed Poll from Rickards to Thorne.   She died on the 26th February, 1963 at the Tehidy Chest Hospital, Illogan, Redruth, Cornwall. At the time of her death her residence was Gweal Crease, The Lizard, Cornwall. She left the sum of £16,892-16s  in her will to her sister and brother-in-law.

Pictures; from the collection of Tony Goulding and THE PICTURE OF TYRINGHAM CHURCH IS FROM geograph.org.uk BY MICK FINN AND IS LICENSED UNDER CREATIVE COMMONS ATTRIBUTION SHARE-ALIKE 2-0 LICENSE

Notes: -

1) Rev. Thomas Henry Cecil Hughes married Lucy, the eldest child of William Henry and his first wife, Ellen, in Manchester Cathedral in the December quarter of 1872.

2) Lt. Rickards was serving in Royal Field Artillery attached to the Royal Flying Corps when he was shot down and killed while flying an Airco D. H. 4 near Tielt, Belgium. At the time one of his uncles, Gilbert Braithwaite Rickards was also an officer in the Royal Flying Corps. Both their stories may follow in a future story on more of the “Rickards”

3) Probably the son of John Prescott, a Dublin-born Captain of the Royal Army Medical Corps and his wife Mabel. In June, 1937 he was fined 7/6; one of 45 in court at Horsham, West Sussex for not having licenses for their dogs.