Voyage to riches: Indian Ocean sea routes in 19th Century were an important part of British trade with the world
CROYDON CHRONICLES: Victorian England depended on trade with the rest of the world, and a vast fleet of merchant sailing ships operated by private businesses, often based in the City of London. As DAVID MORGAN outlines, one such company was John Allan and Sons
Charles Allan was 81 when he died in April 1939. His funeral was held in Croydon Parish Church.
Born on June 11 1858, he was one of the last of his generation to remember the icy January night in 1867 when the original church burned down. He was associated with the church all his life, being a sidesman at one time, as well as being an active member of the Church of England Men’s Society.
Allan spent his working life in the family business, John Allan and Sons, shipowners, retiring in 1927 when he was the senior partner.
Charles’s grandfather, John, founded the business in 1823 and Charles’s father, Henry Harrison Allan, took over in the 1860s. Henry was the chairman of the General Ship Owners’ Society in 1864-1865 and a committee member of the Lloyd’s Shipping Group for many years.
Due notice: the Judith Allan listed to sail to Hong Kong in 1842
John Allan and Sons concentrated on sailings between England, India and Australia. A newspaper advertisement from 1863 informed the public that a new clipper, the Medusa, would be sailing between London and Bombay. A listing in the Lloyd’s directory had the ship arriving at Banuwanji, in the Dutch East Indies, en route for Sydney in February 1868.
John Allan had first worked as an agent for Gledstanes, Drysdale and Co, who shipped goods between Bengal and London. Branching out on his own, one of the stalwarts of his fleet was the Judith Allan, a 505-ton vessel built for Allan in 1842 at the Sunderland shipyard of Austen and Mills. It was put into service sailing between London and China.
The Judith Allan was listed by Lloyds as arriving at Gravesend in May 1844, having sailed from Macau, with 7,289 chests and 1,825 boxes of tea and 80 bales of silk. It was a three-masted tea clipper, similar to the Cutty Sark, which has been preserved as an attraction at Greenwich since 1954.
Speed boat: the Cutty Sark, a tourist attraction at Greenwich since 1954, was the fastest tea clipper in the world in the 1860s
It wasn’t only goods, though, which were transported by the Judith Allan. The ship left London on June 30 1844 bound for Calcutta with a detachment of soldiers from the 9th Lancers. In the days before the Suez Canal, this was a gruelling and often dangerous journey of 15,000 miles around the Cape of Good Hope, and could sometimes take six months. The soldiers on the Judith Allan arrived in India after less than four months, on October 17.
After the Judith Allan berthed, there was a court of enquiry as Major Chapman, officer in command of the troops, made a complaint against Branch Pilot Mr Cooper for detention at Sand Heads. Cooper made a counter-claim against Major Chapman for insulting conduct.
The outcome of the proceedings was not published in Allen’s Indian Mail, the leading Anglo-Indian newspaper (and nothing to do with the Allan shipowners).
Diamond Harbour, on the banks of the Hooghly River, a few miles downstream from Calcutta, was a port much used for ships trading for the East India Company. The Judith Allan appeared in their records. The vessel arrived in October 1845, before departing for Mauritius, docking there in January 1846. It loaded a cargo of sugar before returning to London.
Another vessel built for John Allan and Sons, initially for the East India trade, was the Nimrod. This fully rigged three-masted sailing ship was launched in March 1853, again built in Sunderland by Austin and Mills.
Yorkshire font: the spring at Hempsyke, on an estate owned by the Allans
The company subsequently used this vessel for assignments to Australia as well as India. In October 1855, she arrived in Sydney from Gravesend carrying paying passengers and mixed cargo.
John Allan died in June 1865, aged 75. He lived in Loampit Hill, Deptford, handy for the docks on the Thames (and not so far from the Cutty Sark‘s modern berth), but the notice of his death in the papers revealed a close link to Yorkshire, something that he, his son and grandson maintained throughout their lives. John Allan had originated from a village just outside Whitby.
In that village, there was a spring of fresh water beside which John Allan placed a stone in 1858 with a verse etched into it.
Weary stranger, here you see
An emblem of true charity.
Richly my bounty I bestow
Made by a kindly hand to flow
And I have fresh supplied from heaven
For every cup of water given.
The spring, called the Hempsyke Font, was described in an 1890 guidebook as being on an estate named Littlebeck which was built in 1883-1884 with a verandah in front, the property and occasional residence of Henry Harrison Allan.
The importance of the Allan family could be found in the parish church at Ugglebarnby, where the records show that the 1872 renovation of the church was paid for by the “Allan family from Hempsyke”.
Sleights, the village neighbouring Hempsyke, was the venue for Charles Allan’s wedding in August 1885. He married Mary Walker, the second daughter of the “much respected vicar” of the village, Rev Thomas Walker. It was such a momentous day that it was recorded in the 1885 Sleight Village Year Book.
“The church was beautifully decorated with flowers and the wedding presents were very numerous and costly.”
Wedding festivities: the 1855 record of Charles Allan’s marriage to Mary Walker
Charles and Mary set up their married life together at 43, Dingwall Road, in Croydon. A year later, in July 1886, their only child, Honor, was born.
Charles’ father, Henry Harrison Allan, who lived at Suffolk House, Duppas Hill, ran the company for many years. He was also an avid collector of coins and medals during the 1860s.
Among his collection were Anglo-Saxon pennies as well as coins minted during Henry VIII’s reign. He continued to be involved with the company, as well as with other financial activities, for many years after he made Charles the senior partner.
Henry’s death was sudden. In December 1899, he was travelling from Croydon to London by train when he suffered a heart attack. Although he was taken to Guy’s Hospital, he died shortly after being admitted. Charles had been travelling on the same train as his father but independently of him and was unaware of his death for some time afterwards. Henry Allan was 73.
As the business changed in the late 1800s, so Henry had been looking to make money from insurance. He had been a director of The Indemnity Mutual Marine Assurance Company for several years before his death.
Insurance business: the Allans diversified in the late 1800s, from their office in Leadenhall Street
Charles’s name appeared in several newspaper adverts regarding insurance. In 1892, an advert appeared in the local papers stating that houses in Croydon could be insured against burglary through Charles Allan, at 110 Leadenhall Street, London. You could also insure your pets and other animals against being stolen. Poultry, pigeons, rabbits and cavies (guinea pigs) could all be insured.
The Yorkshire family connection was in evidence again in September 1913, when the vicar of Sleights and Ugglebarnby, Rev Walker, came to Croydon Parish Church to officiate in the wedding of Charles and Mary’s daughter, and his granddaughter, Honor.
Assisted by Rev G Jones, the vicar of Shirley, and Rev A Buckland, a curate of the Parish Church, Rev Walker married Honor to Vivian Boyce from Bedford. The Allan family were still living in Dingwall Road at that time.
Judith Allan, as well as being the name of one of the company’s ships was also a family name. Charles’s sister was named Judith.
Young Judith Allan was involved in an incident in Croydon which must have upset all her family. She had been stalked by a young man who eventually fired a revolver at her.
Judith was living in Suffolk House, Duppas Hill, at the time. Aged 13, she had gone to a dance lesson, accompanied by the family nurse, Jane Simmons.
As the two of them were nearing their house, a man leapt out from across the road and fired three shots. One grazed Judith’s cheek with the other two getting stuck in her clothing. She was very fortunate that she wasn’t hurt more seriously. The pistol was not a very powerful one.
Police arrested a local man the next morning. Judith told the police that this man, who she saw regularly at church sitting a few pews behind her, had first come up to her in Warrington Road and handed her a note. He told her tell no one about it.
Judith Allan tore up that note. No conversation had ever taken place between the two of them since that incident, but Judith said she had seen him on numerous occasions in the town.
Having been picked out from an identity parade, the man, Robert Hodgson, aged 20, who worked for Rickett, Smith and Co, coal merchants of East Croydon, was detained and the case sent to the Old Bailey.
A bodice, a corset and other articles of under clothing were produced as evidence by the police. Each of the garments had been perforated with holes from the gunshots.
Miss Allan explained that she felt something strike her back and that she felt very sore on her back at the place corresponding to where the holes were in her clothing.
Hodgson was convicted of unlawful wounding. He was fined £200 and had to find two individuals who would stand £100 as surety. He was bound over to keep the peace for 12 months.
Headline news: businessman Charles Allan died in 1939
Judith never married. In 1939, she was one of the chief mourners at the funeral of her brother, Charles.
She was joined in the front pews by Charles’s widow Mary, Honor and her husband with their two sons.
The service was conducted by the Rt Rev J Anderson, who spoke in glowing terms of Allan’s contribution to Croydon and especially his support of church life. Anderson reminded the congregation, too, about Allan’s achievements, about him being made a Freeman of the City of London and being elected to the Worshipful Company of Haberdashers.
The White Rose still had one more pull on Charles Allan. After the Croydon funeral, his body was taken north and interred in the graveyard of Sleights Parish Church, laid to rest with many of his family. Despite the headline in the local paper, “The Passing of an Old Croydonian”, Allan chose Yorkshire for his last resting place.
- David Morgan has been chronicling Croydon’s history for Inside Croydon for almost a decade. Morgan is a former Croydon headteacher, now the volunteer education officer at Croydon Minster, who offers tours or illustrated talks on the history around the Minster for local community groups
If you would like a group tour of Croydon Minster or want to book a school visit, then ring the Minster Office on 020 688 8104 or go to the website on www.croydonminster.org and use the contact page
Some previous articles by David Morgan:
- Grave error in the failure to reconstruct great Grindal’s tomb
- Here’s Croydon’s election results – from Coronation year 1953
- The church fire that consumed a thousand years of history
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