The Brockhampton Divorce

An article researched and specially written for the Park’s website by Chris Hale.

In 1872, Fulwar Craven’s grandson and heir, Fulwar John Colquitt Craven, a Captain in the Grenadier Guards, met Sarah (Essie) Llewellyn Dillwyn in London. She was the fourth child of Lewis and Bessie Dillwyn of Hendrefolian House in Glamorgan; her Father was the Liberal M.P. for Swansea with a strong Non-Conformist family background; her Mother had died in 1866. The family’s London town house was in Princes Terrace, Knightsbridge, where he kept a full staff and entertained extensively. The Dillwyn girls had come out into society and were expected to make good marriages; Henry, the second child, carried Bessie’s infamous maiden name of De La Beche, an irony in this history, as her parents had a rocky marriage and legally separated in 1826, her Father gaining custody of Bessie and her sister and her Mother living openly with her lover after abandoning her children.

Fulwar was a true Craven, reported as a darkly handsome man. Essie was beautiful, vivacious and vain, inheriting the cherubic features of the Dillwyns. In August, 1872, Fulwar’s father, Goodwin, travelled to Hendrefolian to discuss the terms of the marriage settlement of £6,000 and the couple’s engagement was announced shortly afterward with a wedding date of January 23 1873. They married in St. Pauls Church in Sketty, close to Hendrefolian House, with a guard of honour of the Glamorgan Rifle Volunteer Corps. Essie wore a white taffeta dress and a gift from her husband’s family of a gold necklace with locket decorated with diamonds, rubies and pearls. She was accompanied by eight bridesmaids. It was Swansea’s wedding of the year. Following the ceremony, Captain and Mrs. Fulwar Craven left to honeymoon in Rome, via an overnight stop in Gloucester.

It seemed such a good match, Fulwar had resigned his commission prior to his marriage and for the first five years they lived between Hendrefolian and Brockhampton and started their family. Essie had thrown herself into this idyll of family and was happy with her life of absolute privilege, both households treating her arrivals as a treasured guest. Unfortunately her world of leisurely maternity was disrupted by the death of Georgina, her mother-in-law in 1878. She had to settle at Brockhampton and assume the duties and responsibilities of running the great house, taking over the established staff that had adored and respected the late Mrs. Colquitt Craven. It was a hard act to follow, made more difficult by the ever present and judgemental father-in-law, Goodwin, who oversaw and commented on her shortfalls in household management. Fulwar, who had always been in awe of his father, tended to take his side and within three years Essie was deeply unhappy. By 1881, there were five children in the family, Lewis, George, Arabella, Hilda and Nigel. It would appear that subsequent to Nigel’s birth, marital relations became strained; her brother Henry, now a Barrister in London was a frequent visitor to The Park, he and Fulwar were both heavy drinkers of fine red wines. In an attempt to mitigate her unhappiness, Essie began to frequent the high society of Cheltenham town, becoming involved in amateur dramatics; she had a good voice and her vivacity played well on the stage.

In 1885, when Fulwar and Essie had been married for thirteen years she is recorded as having met Captain Richard Pakenham at a Christmas charity bazaar in Cheltenham. She was instantly attracted to him; it was a coup de foudre over which she had, nor wanted, any control. Richard, or Dick as she would call him, became a frequent visitor to the estate. He was, subsequent to the divorce, described by her brother as a second-class Cheltenham snob. Fulwar had complained about the frequency of his visits but appears to have been completely unaware of the approaching storm.

Essie visited Hendrefolian in February 1886, supposedly on a family visit, leaving her children at Brockhampton Park, but left for London from Swansea on the 13^th, spending the night with Richard Pakenham at the Charing Cross Hotel; the couple fled to the Continent the following day. The shock to both families was enormous and the consequences profound. Harry Dillwyn moved to help Fulwar look after the rejected children and was instrumental in the speedy issue of divorce proceedings on March 1 1886. The Petition was uncontested and the final decree was granted on December 14 1886. The local press made great of the divorce, printing a letter from Essie to Fulwar describing the unhappiness she felt at living “with his people” at Brockhampton, which she “detested” and detailing where she had left her jewels and keys at The Park. She also wrote that she knew she would be poor and that he would never see her again. The couple moved to South Africa where Richard worked as a travelling actor and stage manager and they were married in St. Peter’s Cathedral, Pietermaritzburg, a year later on December 19 1887; Essie marrying under the name of Sarah Llewellyn Dillwyn, Spinster. She gave birth to their daughter, Oonagh, the following year in South Africa.

Fulwar descended into a deep, alcoholic depression, made deeper by the death of his father from pleurisy on June 29 1889. Seven months later on January 19 1890, after returning from a drinking session in Cheltenham, he died of “heart disease of some years’ standing”. He was 40-years-old, his eldest son Lewis was 16. He left a personal estate of only £11,000. The children were taken care of by Essie’s sisters until they reached majority. Harry Dillwyn, Fulwar’s executor and joint trustee of the marriage settlement with a Major Gerald Ricardo, followed him to a claret soaked grave.

The estate farm was let and the farming stock sold off together with the extensive stocks of fine wines from the Brockhampton cellars. Gerald Ricardo remained as the sole trustee until the coming of age of Lewis Craven, the house continuing to be let until 1900 when Fairfax Rhodes purchased the estate.

From the Cheltenham Examiner, November 21 1894: “The Coming of Age of Lewis Colquitt Craven was celebrated in the Reading Room in Brockhampton Village. Major Ricardo of Newbury, the principal trustee of the estate, together with 160 tenants and labourers of the village and others attended. Craven hunting colours of blue and yellow decorated the room”. The original Reading Room was a project of Mrs Colquitt Craven to benefit the village.

Footnote: Three years later, Sarah Pakenham was on an acting tour in Coventry and living in straightened circumstances. She contracted pleurisy and pneumonia and died; her sister, Amy, paid for the attendance of a surgeon and Richard was present at her death. Her daughter, Oonagh, was sent to Canada to be cared for by a branch of the Pakenham family there. She returned at the age of 21, trained as a nurse, and was present when her father died in Richmond in 1921.

Photo above: The Coat of Arms of the Colquitt-Craven family on the east facade of Brockhampton Park.