A Wateringbury angel: Fanny Caldwell (d.1912)

Post date: Jan 23, 2012 1:39:57 PM

Contributed by Christine Byron of Wateringbury Local History Society.

A memorial brass in the east wall of Wateringbury Church reads:

In memory of Frances Jane Caldwell, daughter of the late Major Garnet J. Wolseley, King’s Own Borderers; and relict of Gavin Ralston Mure Caldwell, Esq; of Grennan Castle, Ayreshire. Born 20th February 1836. Died 19th April 1912. A regular communicant in this church for the last eight years of her life. [Relict = a person left behind, so therefore a widow]

Frances’ father Garnet Joseph was one of 17 children of Sir Charles Wolseley of Wolseley, Staffordshire. Sir Charles was created an Irish Baronet in 1745 when he was in the service of William III. The family had property in Ireland and England.

Garnet Joseph was a military man and also a clergyman. In 1825, aged 47, he married 22 year old Frances Ann Smith. They became the parents of four boys Garnet, Richard, Frederick, and George, and three girls Matilda, Frances (Fanny) and Caroline., In 1840 Frances Ann was widowed and left quite poor. At a young age her eldest son Garnet (Junior) took on the paternal responsibilities of the family, a role he continued for all his life. The family were bought up under the influence of a very loving mother in a strong Christian family.

Garnet had a very distinguished military career becoming Field Marshall and Commander in Chief of the British Army In recognition of his service to the nation he was created 1st Viscount Wolseley of Wolseley. By special arrangement his only child Frances Garnet Wolseley succeeded to the title. He was a highly efficient commander with an admiring public and a reputation for taking care of his men. Wolseley was employed by successive governments as chief troubleshooter of the British Empire. He was the inspiration behind the celebrated Gilbert and Sullivan character "Major-General Stanley" (The Pirates of Penzance), who was "the very model of a modern Major-General". He died in Menton France in 1913 and is buried in St Paul’s Cathedral.

George served in the Indian Army where he had a distinguished career rising to the rank of General and being knighted for his services to the Empire. He served in many major campaigns. On retirement in 1904, he leased the Swiss Cottage for 21 years from the Fremlin family and renamed it The Thatched House (Tonbridge Road).

Both Frances and her sister Matilda married men who went to Australia as pioneers. Frances’ husband Gavin Ralston Caldwell was an early Victorian Australian pastoralists (that is a grazier with a large agricultural station for rearing sheep). It should be remembered that at this time the voyage to Australia on the steam ships took 8 weeks or more. The every day pioneer life was very harsh and often lonely as the land holdings were so large He took up properties in the Riverina district of New South Wales. He encouraged and sponsored his brother-in-law Frederick Wolseley to go to Australia. Together they built the famous Caldwell/Wolseley Cobran woolshed of 109 stands for shearing sheep. This inspired Fred to become involved in the creation of a mechanized way to shear sheep. The Caldwell district located between Deniliquin and Barham New South Wales is named after Gavin Ralston Caldwell. Four of Frances’ six children were born while the family were in Australia. Gavin died in 1868 and Frances sailed back to England with their five children. Her sixth child Enid was born in Dublin in 1868.

In 1889 Fred returned to England and became managing Director of the new English Wolseley Sheep Shearing Machine Co. Herbert Austin who joined the company in Australia went to the UK in a managerial position. In 1895 after Fred Wolseley retired to Australia, Herbert Austin designed and secretly made his first motor car (a three wheeled vehicle called the Autocar No. 1 which he named after his mentor Frederick Wolseley). In 1895 The Wolseley car company was formed to separate it from the Sheep Shearing operations.

By 1871 Frances was a widow and living in England with her children. Brenda Frances (b 1859) in Dublin, Ina (b 1860), Ralston Muir (b 1862) both born in New South Wales, Etheline (b1864), William Harry McKennal (b 1866) both born in Victoria and Enid (b 1868 in Dublin). In 1892 Ina died in childbirth and Etheline also died (both in London). After Eaton and Oxford, William Harry was ordained, serving in parishes in Nottinghamshire, Kent, Berkshire and Surrey.

In 1904 Frances came to Wateringbury to live with her newly retired brother General Sir George Wolseley at The Thatched House. The 1911 census shows George’s spinster sister-in-law Elizabeth Mary Andrews also lived with them together with 3 live-in servants. (At this time the house was much larger than the present day property).

Some of the Wolseley family papers are held by Brighton and Hove Library in the Wolseley Room. From letters written by her brother Garnet we learn she was always a comfort to any sick person, soft, loving and kind. From his home in Easton Square, London in 1899 Garnet says “Fanny is an angel. If all the women in the world were like her, this world of pain and sorrow would be a sort of heaven.”

For more about Sir George Wolseley see May Day 1909 and Boy scouts rally (1910).