Not-so-Sweet Stoke Charity

[As detailed in HCRO 18M54/C1/1/28]

When Sir Peter Mews died at Stoke Charity near Winchester in 1726, he was in the process of assembling an estate around properties which he had already bought there in 1723/4. For these properties he had paid £7,500, and he had paid a deposit of £250 for other property there which included the manor of Stoke Charity. The balance of £6,800 was settled by Dame Lydia Mews after his death, partly by means of a mortgage which Sir Peter had previously arranged through his lawyer, Peniston Lamb. The mortgage was to be £5,000 over 1,000 years at 4%. [18M54/C1/1/28 Bundle 6]

In 1719 Dame Lydia had brought to her marriage £9,000 plus freehold estate with an income of over £340 per annum, which she had inherited from her father the previous year. Her marriage jointure from Sir Peter included the Manor of Christchurch, but he had mortgaged this shortly before their marriage for £3,135 [Lancashire CRO DDTO C 1/10-34]. Other mortgages on her jointure brought the total debt on these properties alone to £6,600. Thus, although Dame Lydia appeared to be very well provided for by Sir Peter's Will, the reality was not so rosy.

This financial uncertainty might account for what was regarded as Dame Lydia's odd behaviour, as recalled some fifty years or so after her death:

"Lady Mew appears to have been a singular character. She survived her husband many years, and although she was left in extremely good circumstances, she at last began to fancy that she should die in poverty. Amongst other whims she resolved to set up a trade of selling pies. These she had made by her servants at Hinton, and then she used to be driven into town habited in black with a silk hood, and used to sell them to the children who flocked around the carriage for the purpose of buying them. Many persons now living have been purchasers of these pies when they were children. When a tax was put upon carriage wheels, she resolved to evade it by having her carriage placed upon rollers. She came into the town a few times with this contrivance, but it did not answer and she was forced to give it up." [Bingley's History of Hampshire, (unpublished) HCRO 16M79]

Because, to use the technical terms, Sir Peter had failed to surrender a small copyhold part of his recently acquired estate at Stoke Charity to the use of his Will, on his widow's death or remarriage it would pass to his heir-at-law. This copyhold property was intermingled with Dame Lydia's freehold and leasehold property at Stoke Charity, and so would have reduced the value of the estate as a whole. She duly instructed James Willis, an attorney who had been Sir Peter's steward for the Manor of Christchurch, to try to locate Sir Peter's heir-at-law, presumably with a view to trying to buy out the heir's future interest in the property, in order to maximise the value of her Stoke Charity estate. He achieved this within 4 months of Sir Peter's death.

The illiterate Thomas Mews of St. Giles, Cripplegate must have been somewhat taken aback at being summoned, on his 21st birthday (12th July 1726), to the New Inn chambers of James Willis, where he was told that he had an interest in the estate of a wealthy, recently deceased and distant relative. It was generally agreed that Thomas's grandfather was Sir Peter's cousin, though Sir Peter had declared in his lifetime that he knew of no living relative on his father's side. Willis gave Thomas a guinea to procure a copy of his baptismal register entry, which showed that he was the son of John Mews, gent., and Elizabeth. Thomas was not well educated, nor well dressed, and Willis appears to have taken pity on him, suggesting that he might persuade Dame Lydia to pay for his schooling and clothing. She later stated that she had been willing to do this and furthermore to buy him an army commission. Willis reported that she had also offered to pay twice the market value for Thomas's interest in the Stoke Charity land, which he had estimated at £800. She later revised this offer sharply downwards, after receiving word from the property's former owner that it was worth only £15 per annum, and understood that Thomas had accepted her offer of a total of 500 guineas for schooling, clothing and his interest in the land.

Then Thomas got greedy. Or suspicious. He staked a claim for "several messuages and tenements in Bishopsgate Street, London, Linton Grange & Wetheringham, Yorkshire, and Overton, all valued together in excess of £2,500 per annum", imagining that these properties were entailed - that Sir Peter had held them for his life only after which they would go to his heir-at-law, and that he had no right to devise them to his widow. He was wrong, but it took a protracted legal case for him to find out.

It appears that Thomas never did sell his interest in the Stoke Charity property. He drowned at sea, and by his Will left his "interest in Sir Peter Mews's estate" to an ex-girlfriend. [CHECK]

Dame Lydia's Will was written in 1727, whilst she was in the course of fighting Thomas Mews's claim. It was drawn up by Sir Peter's lawyer, Peniston Lamb, to whom Dame Lydia had probably turned for help in completing the purchase of the Stoke Charity estate, and made particular mention of her copyhold estate which she had surrendered to the use of her Will. She sold the Stoke Charity estate the following year. [HCRO 18M54/C1/1/22/3 & 77M84/PJ23]