The recent re-discovery of the Buckingham Book and the uncaptioned contents has raised many questions about who in the Head family is in the photographs. With over 130 years elapsed since many of the photos were taken and the last of the subjects having passed away by the 1980’s there maybe only a few people who will have met any of them to identify them specifically. A few named photographs exist as references – notably Sir Henry Head, Hester Pinney and Christopher Head. But who are the others?
As you browse the scrapbook and scrutinise the faces do you see similarities that will help identify individuals? Most of the photographs are undated so it is useful to see Bernard Head in many group photos as we know he was born in 1876.
Mystery photograph 1:
Henry Head (far right), eldest son, seems to appear only once in the Buckingham Book in a family group photograph which I assume is mother and brothers. Bernard at the back, but is that Christopher (with the camera) and Francis on the left? And if Hester Head is in mourning then that would date this image within a year of Hugh’s death in November 1890. That would make Bernard 15 years old in this photo.
In 2025 a Shoreham resident acquired at auction a significant historical find. It was a rather battered leather bound family scrapbook dating from 1889. It contained photographs, sketches, and cuttings collected by the Head family of Great Buckingham, Old Shoreham. The story behind the “Buckingham Book” book is tantalising. It had been kept in the Head family’s possession for 80 years but had been torn in two, and separated, with the front part donated to a museum. The second part had been given by the family to a local historian Michael Norman. He was keen for the 2 halves to be reunited but his untimely death in 2013 meant the book was forgotten and eventually sold at auction. 13 years later and we now have possession of that second half along with its accompanying covering letter from Michael Norman. The images in the book are in this gallery.
Buckingham House 1904. Built 1820 and abandoned by 1911. The little girls in this photograph maybe the same grand daughters of Henry Head seen in the image below. Hester Harriott Pinney on the right.
The background to the Head family
We can surmise that the book was split in 1983 after Hester’s death. Whilst it is reasonable to assume the Marlipins Museum holds the other half of the book they are currently unable to confirm this.
In the same year as the 1891 census this family group photograph is on the East steps to Buckingham. It appears to show Henry Head (age 56) next to his daughter Hester Head (16) (standing) and seated an unknown woman. Henry’s wife Hester Head Snr (56) is seated in black (probably in mourning for her son Hugh who died in Nov 1890). Henry’s sons are seated, believed to be John Alban Head (17)and Bernard Head (15) later killed in Gallipoli in 1915. The other ladies are not identified. The lady at the back, on the right, could be Governess Mary Felce.
Hester’s father was Henry Head b.1834 m.1860 Died 1st July 1905 Hester’s mother was Hester Head (née Beck) b.1835 m.1860 d.1907 Hester became Hester Pinney (née Head Jnr.) by marriage in 1900 b.1875 d.1958 Hester’s daughter Hester Harriott Marsden-Smedley (née Pinney) b. Ponna India 21st June 1901. Married Basil Futvoye Marsden-Smedley 1927. Hester died in 1982 in Chelsea. Hester’s daughter was Henrietta Hester Marsden-Smedley b.1935 d.1998
Sons and daughters of Henry and Hester Head:
Sir Henry Head1 b. 4 Aug 1861, edu: Charterhouse, Trinity Coll Camb. d. 8 Oct 1940
Charles Howard Head1 b. 28 Dec 1862, edu: Charterhouse d. 6 Dec 1877 died of pneumonia at Charterhouse school age 14 (Godalming)
Hugh Stanley Head1 b. 9 Jun 1864, edu: Charterhouse d. 4 Nov 1890 age 26 (old Shoreham)
Bernard Head1 b. 12 Jan 1876, d. 13 Aug 1915 Major, Corps: Royal Welsh Fusiliers killed in action at Gallipoli age 39
Henry Head died in July 1905 of heart disease, 5 months after the death of his 4th son Francis from a brain tumour at the age 36. This was the catalyst for the abandonment of Buckingham House that became a ruin by 1910.
The mystery of what happened to the first half of The Buckingham Book is perhaps explained by a number of photos in the SAS / Marlipins Collection of images. Whilst there seems to be just 11 images they are of a similar nature to those in the second half of the book. The suggestion is these 11 were cherry picked by SAS and the rest of the book is in their archive awaiting full scrutiny and publication.
Selection from the front half of the Buckingham Book
Covering letter:
This Family Scrapbook compiled by the Head Family to record their time at Buckingham (Buckingham House, Old Shoreham) from 1889 to 1905 was in the possession of Lady (Hester) Marsden-Smedley (née Pinney), the daughter of Lady Hester Pinney (née Head). Before she died, Lady Pinney stated that she wanted me to have it because of its relevance to Shoreham. In due course I made contact with her daughter in Chelsea and arranged to go up to collect it.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Lady Marsden-Smedley would have liked to have kept it, since it contained so much of Family interest. In the event, she simply tore the book in half and gave me the front part, and this I placed in Marlipins. It may since have been dismembered, which is a great pity.
The other half I was very surprised to be offered many years later through a friend. and bought it, at a price, and did not enquire as to its provenance. I still have it, in its somewhat battered slate.
It is (was) three-quarter leather bound, about 100 mm thick in all, the boards approx, 370 x 298mm, with interleaved pages designed as a commercial scrap-book.
It is clear that the Head boys were responsible for most of the snaps, but there are other more professional photos taken probably by William Page, Photographer, of Shoreham, whom Hester (Pinney) said she encouraged. There are also watercolours by Hester of a competent, but amateur quality, together with sundry printed items of interest, and photos of local views and personalities.
The whole gave a unique and fascinating view of the very happy life at Buckingham until Henry Head’s death in 1905, when the family quit Old Shoreham. The house lay empty and in 1911 was gutted, with the grounds occupied by a new house erected to the North.
During their stay at Buckingham, the Heads effectively filled the role of ‘Lords of the Manor’ in the Town, and were most popular. Henry Head was an outgoing and generous personality, and he was clearly led by his very positive daughter Hester (Pinney), abetted by her brothers. The Park was regularly opened to the townsfolk, and Henry seems to have been the leader in the 1897 Diamond Jubilee celebrations. When, apart from a Grand March through the Town to a Fair and general festivities in the Park, there seems to have been a very early filrnshow in the field by the old Swiss Gardens. Fifty years later, Hester Pinney was stilt fondly rernembered in the Town.
The Book records Hunting, Cricket, Yachting (Steam and Sail) Golf, Shooting, Riding, and alfresco entertainments.. The girls from the London Store, D. H. Evans, which the Heads owned, were also entertained in the Summer and are seen obviously enjoying themselves. The Book is a wonderful, unique, record of a lost age, which was soon to come to a tragic stop. One son was lost on the Titanic (sic Christopher Head), and one at Gallipoli (sic. Bernard Head); it is fitting that their memorials are in Old Shoreham Church, in the place that they so enjoyed.
This is the history of a local Shoreham painting with its backstory. The painting is of Toon Ghose flying his De Havilland Chipmunk “Lillibet” over Shoreham Airport in the late 1970’s. This painting has for some time been present on the shorehambysea.com “Paintings” section, numbered B63. It was written with the aim of providing a provenance for the painting:
I remember seeing Toon at Shoreham Airport during the late 1970’s, just before my teenage years, where I was introduced to him by my cousin, Ashley (Ash) Roote. Ash learnt to fly at Shoreham and was a member of Toon’s flying club, where Toon also flew as an instructor. The Flying Club was called Toon Ghose Aviation, or TGA, and I well remember the TGA window stickers that were a ‘must have’ for ‘anybody who was anybody’ at the airport at the time!
The first part of Shoreham Garden City at Greenways Crescent
From Garden Close to Downside
Alan Lambourne has kindly allowed us to publish his memoirs of growing up in Shoreham in the 40’s 50’s and 60’s. He recounts the stories of his family running Lambourne’s Butchers in Upper Shoreham Road, and of his early years at Garden Close (Kingston by Sea) and Downside. A witty and lively style of writing illuminates the stories during an idyllic time when family came first and only the best sausages were on the table.
Mr. Clarke lived in Church Street during the 1930’s, he used to help pump the bellows at the Burtenshaw blacksmith family’s forge in Middle Street behind their houses. His father was Head Chef at Lancing College and number 22 across the road was the College Laundry where linen from the college was dropped off by a van each day.
During the last war when the beaches were closed Cuckoo’s Corner became a bathing lido. Something of a surprise perhaps bearing in mind the not inconsiderable number of drownings there during the early 1900’s through to fairly recent years.
One Shoreham doctor would tell mothers (that had children) suffering from muscular fever to strip the patient off and lay them in the river mud at low tide to let the iodine from rotting seaweed effect a cure.
Middle Street with most of the Church Street garden walls still intact and horse droppings indicating the last few years of use even then (c. 1952) of horse drawn carts. A sign advertises Burtenshaw’s smithy and anoth
There was a doctor’s surgery on the churchyard (possibly the surgery in East Street) where a Dr. Hall carried out ‘boyhood operations’ on the kitchen table, set broken limbs and made up his own medicines.
Snellings butcher shop is mentioned at the south side of the gap (before it was all demolished) – at Christmas time he would always display a very large whole pig with a lemon in its mouth on a trestle table.
The annual regatta was held on both sides of the footbridge and included in the ‘games’ was the greasy pole, suspended beneath the footbridge which Bill Peters usually won; builder’s races where participants rowed with shovels and fights between the millers and the sweeps using bags of flour and soot as ammunition. At half-tide football was played on the mud and the two fishing families Lakers and Pages would race against each other running and rowing across the river and back.
Even in those days there was still work on boats being carried out (Suters Yard for example) and on a quiet day the sounds of the adze and caulking mallet could be heard as far away as Slonk Hill.
Nelson writes: New discoveries are still turning up. This partly forgotten snapshot from the Winton family album turns out to be the Maple fishing family’s shack, later rebuilt to become Sea View on the beach near the church. Most of those in the photo are friends or relations including the Winton and Hedgecock (East Street shoemakers) families. Of particular interest is 1 Arthur Maple who built a number of bungalows on the beach and later became Superintendant for the Sea Defence Commissioners at Shoreham. Arthur and his brother Alfred 2 played football for Shoreham during the club’s most successful years and Arthur excelled at rowing, just like his father Samuel 3 who had been a champion national sculler in his earlier years. As part of the fishing business the Maples also fished oysters in the years when they were plentiful and sold them from their shop next to the Kings Head in the High Street.
Henry Roberts, John Butler, Elizabeth Hawkins, John Roberts Hawkins
Nelson writes:
Images of 18th century Shoreham residents are few and far between but we do have these four:- Henry Roberts, hydrographer who sailed with Captain Cook and mapped the Australian oceans. Henry lived initially in Church Street before moving to St.Mary’s House. John Butler, another Church Street resident – he captained ‘The Hound’ customs cutter and his exploits are recorded in ‘Memories of a Shoreham Seafaring Family’ on this web site. Elizabeth Hawkins, John Butler’s sister who married John Roberts Hawkins John Roberts Hawkins, an earlier captain of ‘The Hound’ under whom John Butler initially served as first mate. Hawkins and his wife lived at Chantry House in East Street.
HMS Resolution
Lofty adds to the story: Apparently, Henry Roberts was a bit of an artist himself. The image below is of a 4 x 3inch (10 x 7cm) drawing with watercolour highlights which has been attributed to him and was sold recently at auction. The drawing is of HMS Resolution at anchor, probably sketched off the coast of Tahiti between August 16th – 24th in 1773. At the auction (April 2022) it realised £32,000 against a pre-sale estimate of £10,000 – 20,000.
A 1940’s/50’s childhood in Connaught Avenue and West Street by Gerry White
I was born in Connaught Avenue, Old Shoreham parish in 1938 and apart from the war years, lived and grew up in Old Shoreham. In 1946 the front gardens were still planted with vegetables. The big air raid shelter was in position on the green that separated the even number houses on the north side of the road from the odds on the south side. Orchard Close had not been built and the land was owned by the Worley family.
A Connaught Avenue winter in the 1950’s (photo Bartlett Collection)
I am sure that so long as people continue to live in Shoreham there will always be characters around. Some memorable and maybe a few that are perhaps best forgotten. In the past I have just written the odd story about one or two individuals but I have now been asked to collate them into a story and this is it…….wish me luck!
