BEACONSFIELD (continued)

The foundation of the James fortune was laid by Daniel's father who emigrated to New York and bought up large tracts of forest in N.Y. state for timber production. Daniel James (c.1803-1876) the eldest son, married into the metals & mining firm, Phelps Dodge & Co., and later played a leading role in developing the Santa Fe Railway. Soon after 1830 Daniel moved to England as resident partner of Phelps Dodge. His first wife died in 1847 and Daniel turned over his American interests to their only surviving son, Daniel Willis James. By his second wife, of New York, he had 3 sons, Frank b. 1851, Arthur b.1853 and William b.1854. But by the 1871 census he was again a widower, the two eldest sons were Cambridge undergraduates and William was at Harrow. In the house also were 3 visitors (one being Mrs Ruth Lancaster Dickinson, 46 born at Alston, Cumberland) and 5 servants. Daniel James died in 1876 leaving £45,000 in England, now married again to Ruth Dickinson who, sometime after 1871 must have become a widow, and he continued in residence to her death in 1907. The three brothers shared a London house and were all keen hunters and explorers - in 1884 they were the first Europeans to enter the interior of Somaliland & Frank wrote the "Unknown horn of Africa" and was killed by an elephant in 1890. Arthur married Venetia Cavendish Bentinck in 1885 & in 1889 William married a beauty, Evelyn daughter of Sir Charles Forbes Bt. and is remembered here for giving the Village Club to Much Woolton.

After the death of Mrs Ruth James the estate was sold in 1907-9. 6½ acres to David Jardine of High Lee, 5 acres to the Liverpool Corporation (the site of Harold Magnay School) and 9¼ acres with the house and lodges to Mrs Dorothy Hemelryk, wife of Paul Hemelryk, cotton broker, for £4,000. The Hemelryks, who had earlier lived at the Priory, Woolton Hill Rd, lived at Beaconsfield until 1928, then the estate was sold to John Hughes, a builder of Yewtree Road, who demolished the house and started the development of Newcroft & Hillcroft Roads. At the end of Hillcroft Road gate piers etc., reused from the garden wall, remain. John Hughes died in 1933, his younger son Mr William Elwyn Hughes completed the development and it is owing to his courtesy that we have been enabled to extract this story from the deeds kindly made available to us by his solicitors Ayrton and Alderson Smith.

continued . . .