The Genuine Memoirs of Dennis O’Kelly may have been unreliable, but they offered a plausible portrait of a regiment comprising a motley assortment of officers and soldiers – a Georgian Dad’s Army. ‘Lamb, the Major, was a common mechanic, we believe, a watch-maker; and the Captains and Subalterns were, in general, really so low and obscure, as to be beneath the level of contempt or observation.’ By the 1770s, the regiment had found roles for further obscure personages, whom the author of the Memoirs gleefully caricatured. There was Burbridge, a farmer, who despite his rank of lieutenant colonel responded to every enquiry about regimental business with the words: ‘What do you ask me for? I do not know.’ There was Barlow, the major, ‘a superannuated mercer’, incapable of marching because of gout, but useless on horseback as well. Dennis’s fellow captains included a Dutchman called William Hundeshagen, whose frame held ‘not six ounces of flesh’ and whose misshapen hands and feet were evidence, like those of a castrato, of ‘nature diverted from its regular courses’. Our hero, though, ‘bore the most soldierly appearance of any officer in the regiment’.
This was the time of the American War of Independence (1775 to 1783), when Britain’s enemies also included the French, Spanish and Dutch. Dennis’s regiment travelled round the country on manoeuvres. In 1781 to 1782, for example, there were musters in Kent, Liverpool and Lancaster. Dennis journeyed in style, with accompanying carriages and servants, and Charlotte followed, with her own lavish retinue. He also found time – as no doubt did she – for his ‘more profitable avocations’. But he was present at every important military exercise, and he stood firm whenever there appeared to be a threat, while his fellow soldiers panicked – or so the Genuine Memoirs had it. Resorting to crudity, the authorreported that when enemy ships could be seen off the coast, ‘the temple of Cloefina [the lavatory] became the alternate and eternal citadel of [Dennis’s fellow officers’] prowess’. Dennis petitioned the Lord Lieutenant to dismiss these officers, without result. There would soon be peace, the Lord Lieutenant observed; and the men were old.
By the beginning of 1781, Dennis had risen to the rank of major, in charge of one of the regiment’s nine companies, and had led the regiment before the King in St James’s Park. He became Lieutenant Colonel Dennis O’Kelly in 1782. He failed to show gratitude to his supporters for his elevation, though. The Genuine Memoirs, switching as they often did from eulogy to censure, reported that Dennis did not invite any of his fellow soldiers to a grand entertainment in Lancashire attended by Lord Derby and various other nobles: ‘A conduct so ungrateful, and so strongly tinged with upstart insolence, could not fail of producing great enmity and ridicule, and it is a fact, to the honour of those who were of that party, that even they joined in the general censure and disgust.’
Although Dennis’s overtures to the Jockey Club made no headway, in other respects his Turf affairs were beginning to thrive. In Eclipse and O’Kelly, Theodore Cook recorded some of his impressive transactions. One of Dennis’s broodmares, the Tartar mare, proved especially valuable, throwing ten chestnut offspring to Eclipse between 1772 and 1785; and Dennis made good money by selling them. The colts Antiochus and Adonis went to Sir John Lade (1, 500 and 1, 000 guineas; at the Cumberland dispersal sale, the renowned Herod had fetched only 500 guineas, and Eclipse only 45), Jupiter to Mr Douglas (1, 000 guineas), and Mercury to Lord Egremont (2, 500 guineas). Mr Graham offered 5, 000 guineas for Volunteer, but was turned down. The fillies were in demand too: Venus went to Lord Egremont (1, 200 guineas), the dam of a racer called Crazy and a Herod mare went to Mr Broadhurst (300 guineas), Lily of the Valley went to the Duke ofBedford (700 guineas), Boniface and a Herod mare to Mr Bullock (250 guineas), and Queen Mab to the Hon. George Bowes for 650 guineas. The Annual Register, the chronicle of events of the year, reported of the Jupiter transaction that it involved a bonus of £500, payable to Dennis if the colt won on his debut.
Amid these transactions, Dennis was never tempted to part with his most valuable asset. Lord Grosvenor, owner of Eclipse’s outstanding son Pot8os, offered 11, 000 guineas for Eclipse; Dennis responded to the offer with the impossible demand of 20, 000 guineas, a £500 annuity, and three broodmares. When another interested party (the Duke of Bedford, perhaps) asked about the stallion’s selling price, Dennis replied, ‘By the Mass, my lord, and it is not all Bedford level that would purchase him.’
The fame of stallion and owner are apparent in contemporary references. In a heavy-handed satire entitled Newmarket: Or an Essay on the Turf (1775), the author wrote, with galumphing jocularity:
I think I never met with a stronger proof of this, nor with any thing that ever pleased me better, than the following important article of intelligence. ‘On Sunday last arrived in town, Count O’Nelly, master of the famous horse Moonshade.’ See how honour, coy mistress as she is, yet mounted this gentleman’s horse, and announced his arrival in town.
I only urge, that the following titles, given to an excellent horse, would sound very nobly, and be bestowed with admirable justice. Kelly’s Eclipse. Creations: Duke of Newmarket; Earl of Epsom and York; General of the Race-grounds; Baron Eclipse of Mellay; Viscount Canterbury; Lord of Lewes, Salisbury, Ipswich, and Northampton; Marquis of Barnet, and Premier Racer of all England.
110 Nephew of the Cumberland who bred Eclipse.
111 From The Genuine Memoirs of Dennis O’Kelly.
112 His horse David Junior won the 2006 running.
113 ‘Thormanby’ (William Willmott Dixon), writing more than a hundred years later, said that the jockey was Frank Buckle. Born in 1766, Buckle began riding at seventeen, so the story is feasible. He succeeded Sam Chifney as the leading jockey of his era, and was noted, unlike some of his contemporaries, for his unassuming manner and honesty.
114 A race in which contestants have licence to try to impede the other horses.
14
An Example to the Turf
IN HER PROFESSIONAL LIFE, Charlotte remained Charlotte Hayes or Mrs Hayes. But away from the King’s Place nunnery, she was Charlotte O’Kelly. Whether there was ever a Mr Hayes, we do not know, and we have no evidence that Charlotte and Dennis ever became wife and husband. It has been suggested that theirs was an unofficial union, like the ‘Savoy Chapel wedding’ performed by the impious clergyman John Wilkinson with which the younger Dennis was reported to have duped a young lady of fortune. The Genuine Memoirs of Dennis O’Kelly had this to say on the subject: ‘Whether the God of love had … presented [Charlotte] at the altar of Hymen, we do not presume to ascertain. Certain it is, that if reputation, and cohabitation, were sufficient evidences of matrimony, the performance of that ceremony must have been confirmed in the eyes of the world. ’Which is a nice way of saying that no marriage ever took place.
Charlotte was wealthy, successful, extravagant, and careless. An astute and often unscrupulous businesswoman, she was also wayward and nervy, and often landed in trouble. In 1776, the creditors of a bankrupt haberdasher, James Spilsbury, got her imprisoned in the Marshalsea for unpaid debts concerning ‘the use and hire of certain clothes and garments … let to hireto the said Charlotte at her special interest and request … and also for work and labour before that time done performed and bestowed … in making fitting adorning and trimming diverse clothes, garments and masquerade dresses’; ‘the said Charlotte not regarding her said several promises and undertakings so made as aforesaid but contriving and fraudulently intending craftily and subtly to deceive and defraud … hath not yet paid the said several sums of money or any part thereof …’ The creditors sued for £50. Charlotte spent several months in jail before Dennis secured her release. Whether his delay was a symptom of lack of gallantry or lack of funds is not altogether clear.
The auth
or of the Genuine Memoirs certainly showed gallantry. ‘No woman could have maintained a better conduct, ’ he insisted. ‘[Charlotte’s] conversation was delicate and agreeable, and her manners conciliating, from gentleness and modesty. ’This paragon would never have defrauded anyone: her debt was ‘rather neglected than withheld’. Such was the respect due to Charlotte, the Genuine Memoirs added, that the arresting officers were inclined to dismiss the claim against her, and they allowed her bail instead so that the true extent of the debt could be revealed and discharged. Dennis was in York at the time, and about to land himself in the ‘unfortunate adventure’ with Miss Swinburne. The evidence belies this account, however. Charlotte did indeed go to prison, and Dennis was not in York. His adventure there had taken place six years earlier.
When at liberty, Charlotte spent much more of her time in London than in Epsom. She lived in a newly acquired property in Half Moon Street, Piccadilly, where, as she began to take life more easily, she delighted especially in the company of her pet parrot. Polley had been procured by Dennis from Bristol, and had cost fifty guineas – the sum that was Eclipse’s highest covering fee. (One report says that Dennis paid 100 guineas for Polley.) Owing to her rarity, and to her reputed status as the first parrot to be bredin England, 115 Polley was credited with miraculous abilities. She sang a variety of tunes, on request, beating the time with her wings, and if ever she made a mistake, she would return to the appropriate bar, and resume. According to the Gentleman’s Magazine, her repertoire included ‘the 114th Psalm, “The Banks of the Deeâ€, “God Save the King†and other favourite songs’. What Eclipse was among horses, another report enthused, Polley was among parrots.
In the 1780s, Dennis – born in about 1725 – entered what was considered to be old age. Life expectancy during this period was a little more than thirty-five years. While that figure reflects high levels of infant and child mortality, it also shows why people who lived into their late fifties and beyond were thought to be doing especially well. Not until the twentieth century, and then only in affluent societies, did the biblical lifespan of three score years and ten become a feasible standard. Charlotte Hayes – roughly Dennis’s contemporary, and destined to live for another thirty years – was in 1780 ‘that experienced old matron’, in the words of William Hickey.
So, in his late fifties, Dennis began to assume elderly habits. Whatever the Jockey Club thought, he was leaving behind the anarchic life of the blackleg, and he was no longer in tune with some of his old associates, Dick England among them. One evening in the 1780s at Munday’s coffee house, Dennis and a certain Lieutenant Richard were comparing notes about what a vile scoundrel England was. An eavesdropper reported the conversation to England, who was elsewhere in the house. England came charging into the room, took on both Dennis and the Lieutenant, and beat them up. Dennis was so bruised that he was unable to leave the premises, and had to accept the hospitality of the proprietor, Jack Medley, who gave him a bed for the night. Unwisely, Dennis and the Lieutenant sued. The case came before the King’s Bench, where England pleaded guilty; the judge, ruling that the defendant had been severely provoked, awarded only one shilling in damages.116
It was inevitable that a man enjoying Dennis’s successes would find an extended family popping up and making claims on his charity. For the most part, he did the right thing. In the early 1770s, he had brought his brother Philip over to England, and put him in charge of the stables and stud at Epsom. Philip arrived with his wife, Elizabeth, and son, Andrew Dennis, who received a fine education at Dennis’s expense. Although Andrew would inherit the O’Kelly talent for controversy, he gained more ease in society than Dennis ever enjoyed.
The Genuine Memoirs said that Dennis also helped two nieces. Who they were is not clear, because they receive no mention in the notes about the family in the O’Kelly papers, lodged at the University of Hull. One of the documents, an importuning letter to Dennis, refers to ‘your sister Mrs Mitchell’ and her daughter ‘Miss Mary Harvey’, who had travelled to England with Philip. Again, this is puzzling. Dennis’s sister Mary married a man called Whitfield Harvey, so perhaps Miss Mary was the daughter of that marriage (before a second marriage, to Mitchell).117 The letter writer is Thomas Gladwell, who was married to Dennis’s cousin. With what must have been lack of tact, he said that ‘friends were not pleased with my marriage’, and reported that ‘I could havemade a more advantageous match’. Gladwell was struggling to get by on a clerk’s wages of £30 a year. ‘Hearing of your goodness of heart to all your relations and others who have applied to your assistance emboldened [my wife] to lay this state of our circumstances before you. Be pleased to grant us some relief.’ Dennis kept the letter, but whether he responded to it is doubtful: Gladwell mentioned three previous requests that had received no acknowledgement. Another letter in the collection is from a family member recommending one Patrick O’Fallon, and presuming on ‘the general good nature of your character’ to request that O’Fallon be found some ‘small place’, perhaps in the Custom House.
By this time, Dennis was considerably, though precariously, affluent. He owned various properties and a good deal of land in Epsom, as well as a substantial racing operation; and he owned, or at least rented, properties in London too. Sometimes, he raised cash through leasing arrangements, and he also went in for subletting. The O’Kelly papers include an aggrieved letter from James Poole, writing to say that he is ‘by no means satisfied’ with the condition of a house he let to Dennis several years earlier: it ‘has been turned into separate habitations for poor persons’, who have left it in a state of disrepair. Poole demanded that the house be returned to its original state, and that the overdue rent be paid.
Of the Epsom properties, only a barn from the Downs House stables survives. But Dennis’s last and most impressive acquisition still stands. Cannons118 in Edgware had been, in the early part of the eighteenth century, the site of an ostentatiously grand palace built by James Brydges, Duke of Chandos. A drawing in the British Library shows a colonnaded structure of overweening vulgarity. There were ninety-three servants in the house; in the grounds were storks, flamingos, ostriches, blue macaws, eagles and, at one time, a tiger. By reputation, this was the model for ‘Timon’s Villa’ in Alexander Pope’s Epistle to Burlington (‘At Timon’s villa let us pass a day / Where all cry out, “What sums are thrown away!â€â€™) – although scholars are inclined to accept, at least partially, Pope’s denial of the connection. Some of Chandos’s expenditure nevertheless resulted in achievements of enduring value. He appointed George Frideric Handel as composer in residence: Handel wrote the eleven Chandos Anthems to be performed in the adjoining church, Whitchurch, where he played the organ; and Acis and Galatea, his wonderful masque (or chamber opera), received its first performance in the Cannons grounds.
Cannons (now spelled Canons) in Edgware, the villa built by Hallett, the last home of Eclipse and of Dennis O’Kelly. The house is now part of the North London Collegiate School for Girls.
If you were going to spend a fortune at this time, you did not want that fortune to be secured by South Sea stock. Unfortunately, Chandos was an investor in the apparently booming South Sea Company, and he took a heavy hit when the share price collapsed.119 He carried on, undaunted, but bequeathed family finances that were seriously in the red. In 1747, the second Duke sold Cannons, with the result that the palace, completed just twenty-five years earlier, was broken up and dispersed. The marble staircase went to Lord Chesterfield’s Mayfair house – which was later demolished too. According to a history of Cannons, the eight Ionic columns in front of the National Gallery in London are from the Cannons colonnade. The ornamental gates stand at an Epsom mansion called The Durdans.
A cabinet-maker called William Hallett bought the estate, and built a more modest villa there, of Portland stone.
In 1785, Dennis bought Hallett’s villa, with some of the grounds, and the following year he struck a deal for the remainder of the estate. A document in the London Metropolitan Archives tells us that the second purchase cost him £10, 500. He tookpossession of a park some two miles round, containing between three and four hundred deer, with lakes and avenues, as well as smallholdings with cows, sheep and horses.
Horace Walpole, that barbed critic, disapproved of Hallett’s taste, referring to his decorations as ‘mongrel chinoise’. The third Duke of Chandos also had criticisms of the new Cannons house: ‘The kitchen [is] not much larger than a Tunbridge kitchen, and smokes and stinks the house infernally. The only way of letting the smoke out, for none goes out of the chimney, is through the window, which lets it in again at the window above it.’
In spite of these drawbacks, the villa Dennis bought and subsequently lived in was a smart place. In the basement were a housekeeper’s room, kitchen, scullery, butler’s pantry, ice-house, servants’ hall, dairy and larder, with cellars for wine, beer and coal. The ground floor contained a library, a breakfast parlour, a dining room, a grand saloon of forty-five feet by twenty-one feet, a drawing room, a stone hall and a stone staircase. There were six bedchambers and a dressing room on the first floor, and a further six bedchambers, for servants, on the attic storey. Today, this house is part of the North London Collegiate School for girls.
Dennis was slowing down, without mellowing. The company he kept at Cannons was ‘more select’ than that of his former days, consisting of ‘people of the first class of his own sex’ as well as ‘unexceptionable’ female friends. He was demanding and difficult with his brother Philip, and he berated his nephew, Andrew, for the kind of behaviour in which he himself, when younger, had specialized. His friends had to endure boorish joshing. With one, O’Rourke, Dennis would bang on monothematically about how he possessed the superior Irish lineage;120 the Genuine Memoirs saidthat O’Rourke (‘whose soul was made of fire!’) put up with it.
Eclipse Page 17
