Vacated: a house with a history

ONE of Whitehaven’s architectural gems, the Georgian Grade II listed Somerset House, has been vacated now that county council staff who have occupied it for many years have moved to the former harbourside tax offices.

What its future will be is unknown. It is in public ownership so hopefully will not be left to stand neglected until it crumbles away. Surely the days of ignoring our historic architectural assets till they tumble down have long gone...

Somerset House was built in 1750 by Samuel Martin, a wealthy tobacco merchant who traded with America.

Descended from a Dublin family, Martin was born in about 1729. His father, John Martin, had migrated from Dublin to Virginia in 1730. John Martin acquired a considerable amount of real estate in Virginia and married Martha, the daughter of Lewis Burwell of Carter’s Creek.

So Samuel Martin’s business interests were in Whitehaven and in the tobacco plantations of Virginia and he shipped his tobacco directly from Virginia to Whitehaven.

He was to marry one of the Gales (Bridget, daughter of Peter Gale) at St James’ Church, Whitehaven, on August 29, 1754 and the couple had three children – two sons, George and Peter, and a daughter, also Bridget.

George, born in 1756, became a lawyer and was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn in April 1776 and practised as a barrister in London and Dublin. He spent much of his time administering the Virginia estates.

George’s younger brother Peter Martin was born in 1759 and married a woman from Tortola, in the British Virgin Islands.

George and Peter’s older sister Bridget Martin was born in May 1755 and married a Liverpudlian barrister and customs collector John Colquitt, after whom Liverpool’s Colquitt Street is named.

When Samuel’s first wife died, he remarried in 1791, again at St James’ Church, to Frances Spedding. Frances was the 43-year-old daughter of the Rector of St James’ Church, Thomas Spedding and the couple had nine years together before Samuel died on March 3, 1800 aged 71. He was buried in St James’ churchyard. Frances survived him by three years.

Both father and son Samuel and George Martin owned property in America and in England, and at least 10 ships, and carried on an extensive trading enterprise.

In 1948 the diary of George Martin was found with some rubbish and old books at St Begh’s RC Church in Whitehaven by Father Lyon of St Mary’s, Kells. The diary’s existence had been unknown for 150 years.

In effect it is a 153-page record of claims and counter claims for compensation for the losses sustained by the Martin family as a result of the American Revolution. The documents contain information about the Martin estates in Goochland and Albermarle (now Fluvanna) in Virginia as well as the family’s shipping losses during the war. The claims are directed to both the Commissioners of Claims in Great Britain and to the General Assembly of Virginia.

With the outbreak of the American Revolution, their property in Virginia had been confiscated and sold in 1779 by the General Assembly of Virginia. Samuel Martin lost not only his estates in America, but he was forced to assign all his property in England to discharge his debts which had been contracted as a result of trade with the colonies between 1773 and 1776.

His property included Somerset House, which was sold under bankruptcy in 1782 and passed into the hands of the Littledale family. Besides their estates in America and the property in England, the Martins lost 10 ships, six of them by capture and the rest destroyed.

The official notice read: “That a Commission of bankrupt is awarded and issued against SAMUEL MARTIN, of Whitehaven, in the County of Cumberland, Merchant, and he being declared a Bankrupt is, agreeably to an Advertisement which will be inserted in the London Gazette, thereby required to surrender himself to the said Commissioners, in the said Commission named, or the major Part of them, on the Eleventh and Twelfth Days of June, and the Tenth day of July next, at ten of the Clock in the Morning of each of the said days, at the House of Mr. JOHN WALKER, known by the Sign of the Black-Lion, in Whitehaven aforesaid, and make a full discovery and disclosure of his Estate and Efects; when and where the Creditors are to come prepared, to prove their Debts, and at the second sitting to consent to the Assignment already made, or to choose an Assignee or Assignees, and at the last sitting the said Bankrupt is required to finish his Examination, and the Creditors are to assent to or dissent from the Allowance of his certificate. All Persons indebted to the said Bankrupt, or that have any of his Effects, are not to pay or deliver the same but to whom the Commissioners shall appoint, but give Notice to PETER JOHN HEYWOOD, Attorney, in Whitehaven aforesaid, or Mr. JOHN BEARDSWORTH, Attorney, No. 13, Chancery-Lane, London.

By Order of the Commissioners,

PETER JOHN HEYWOOD, Solicitor.

Whitehaven, May 24, 1779.’’

THE Martins were not the only local family ruined by the war: Joseph Younger, Henry Ellison, Peter How, John Wilkinson and others were all similarly affected.

There have been considerable alterations to the original Somerset House, with its double sweeping exterior steps. Certainly the doorway seems to be of a much later date than 1750 and an unusual feature is also the large number of chimneys. And at one time the road to Egremont would go right past it.

In the 1940s it was the offices of the Cumberland Coal Company.

The Littledales had lived in Somerset House for just nine years when the property was struck by subsidence (or, as local reports of the day put it, “the ground suddenly shrunk’’).

On January 31 1791, the household’s gardener was at work behind the Duke Street house when the ground fell in. He was lucky to escape. The sound of water (from old workings) could be heard and it seems water had broken through into existing underground mineworkings, flooding the area and causing the drowning of two men, a woman and five pit horses.

“Considerable damage’’ was caused to Mr Littledale’s house. The ground had also caved in at three other nearby sites: in the garden of the old dispensary in Scotch Street (between George Street and Duke Street); in the burial ground of the Charles Street Baptist Chapel (between Duke Street and Peter Street); and in a garden in the middle of a property bounded by White Park and Michael Street. These considerable chasms swallowed up cartloads of timber, basket rods, turf, gorse bushes etc, with ease.

The Littledales moved out with their merchant family furniture and belongings, leaving Somerset House “perhaps in some respect the best in the county, exhibiting a most melancholy picture of disorder and ruin’’.

These events resulted in panic. Who else working underground was at peril? Which houses would be next to fall into the earth? And what had caused it?

It seems that in order to establish a new pit between St James’ Church and White Park, two trial drifts had been run from Duke Pit. In the northernmost drift (under the intersection of Peter Street and Queen Street), a hagger pierced an old flooded waste area and the water rushed out, drowning him and the other unfortunate souls. The water ran off in about two houses.

The old coal workings under White Park from which the water burst were around 200 years old.

Subsequently all the pits in the Whitehaven coalfield were given a thorough inspection and it was concluded that the danger had passed. The inspectors declined to give full assurances, however, as they hadn’t been able to search some of the old workings so could not guarantee the safety of the houses above. But they spoke highly of how the old workings had been wrought, with pillars 20 yards square, all firm and entire. The part that had been pierced was ascertained as the ancient watercourse of the works.

Before they had reported back, there was more alarm when a week later there was subsidence of the foundations of about 18 houses in George Street and Michael Street. About 80 families in the neighbourhood left their homes, taking their possessions with them.

Somerset House again suffered severely and the brick wall around its garden, 20ft high and 20 yards long, fell down.

More than a year later, at Carlisle Assizes, Mr Littledale brought an action against James Lowther, the Earl of Lonsdale, for the damage to his property resulting from mine workings. After a 13-hour hearing, the jury found for Littledale. In an angry knee-jerk reaction the Earl shut up all his collieries rather than run the risk of being sued again.

Now the public really was alarmed and two troops of the 4th Dragoons had arrived from Sheffield as rioting was anticipated. The people of Whitehaven however had pleaded with the Earl to change his mind and reopen the mines, and in a 2,560-name petitions promised there would be no such legal actions in the future. A few refused to sign.

The Earl agreed and the soldiers found a town rejoicing rather than rioting. The artillery fired a grand salute of 21 guns three times over at the North Wall and the pubs were thronged with a community in celebration.

When the Earl visited the town the following January he was lauded as a conquering hero with flags and bands and around 10,000 cheering people.

HENRY Littledale was a founder partner in the Whitehaven Bank, one of the first banks in the country.

In May 1786 he joined John and Thomas Hartley, Samuel Potter and a Mr Harrison of London in the bank that opened in Coates Lane. The Hartleys were a well-known local family who had had a rope and twine manufactory in the town since the 17th century. They were also ship owners.

Thomas, one of the founders, lived for a time in Howgill Street, then moved to Gillfoot, Egremont, where he became an ironmaster. At the time Henry Littledale lived at 14 Scotch Street, now Bleasdales solicitors. A relation, Isaac Littledale, was a candidate at the first contest for the Whitehaven parliamentary seat in 1832, when he was defeated by the Lowther nominee Mathias Attwood from Birmingham.

Isaac’s youngest daughter Elizabeth (1774-1863) married firstly William Pears and secondly John Wordsworth. John Wordsworth was born in 1754, the son of Richard Wordsworth and Elizabeth Favell. He married, firstly, Anne Gale and secondly, Elizabeth Littledale. He died in 1820. He gained the rank of captain in the service of the East India Company marines.

In 1749 the ropeworks of Isaac Littledale & Co was sold to Daniel Brocklebank.