Did she fall or was she pushed? A Victorian melodrama

In 1898, the story of a newly married young woman’s unresolved death and her husband’s suicide appeared in the papers.

On 30 March, Edward Emilius Joseph Possel, known as Joseph, married Eleanor Gertrude Beckett at St Augustine’s Church in Kilburn. Eleanor was 25 years old and her father John had been a clerk at the Bank of England until his death in 1894. Eleanor lived with her widowed mother at 61 Clifton Hill, off Abbey Road. Under the stage name of Nellie Beckett she was a member of the chorus at a London Theatre. She was beautiful, blonde, tall and graceful.

At the end of 1897, a young man from France who had come to learn English, lodged with the family as a paying guest. Eleanor fell in love with the dark, good looking young man who claimed to be the Marquis de Gondoville. Joseph even persuaded her to break off her engagement to her fiancée, much against her family and friends’ advice. They didn’t like Joseph who was prone to violent rages and after attacking her had been asked to leave the house. But Nellie was infatuated; before their wedding day, she handed over £1,400 to Joseph in return for what he called a ‘bond’ worth £3,000, payable on his father’s death. The family believed she was marrying a French Marquis.

Their honeymoon was spent travelling round Europe. By mid-July they were staying in the Hotel Sirena in Sorrento, where every day they would ride out in a carriage driven by Joseph. On 21 July they again visited a viewpoint at Colli di Fontanelle, where the cliffs drop steeply 200 feet down to the sea. The hotel keeper was very surprised when Joseph returned alone that afternoon and he asked where Eleanor was. When Joseph said nothing, the hotelier was suspicious and informed the police. They arrived at Colli di Fontanelle at 2am the next morning. It was impossible to see the base of the cliffs in the dark and too dangerous to try and climb down. Returning at dawn, they discovered Eleanor’s mangled body at the base of the cliff.

Joseph was arrested and questioned. How had Eleanor died? Apparently Possel gave various explanations. To the police he said the horse had bolted and poor Nellie was thrown from the carriage, over the precipice to her death. Her sister and mother maintained he’d told them that Eleanor had sat on the edge of the cliff, overbalanced and fallen. What was irrefutable was the fact that he had taken out a massive life insurance policy on Eleanor with a French company in early July. Worth £10,000, it was payable to her husband.

But with no convincing evidence to hold him further, Joseph was released on bail after four days of questioning. Although told he had to stay in Italy, he immediately travelled to Paris where he tried to persuade the insurance company to pay out on his policy. When they refused, he returned to London to see Eleanor’s family. Then he left again on 2 August for Paris where he went to the Hotel Durand in the fashionable Place de La Madeleine and asked to rent a room. He explained that he wasn’t expecting guests, but he wanted somewhere quiet to eat and write letters during the afternoon. Lunch was served and writing materials delivered to his room. Around 2pm, the guests in the restaurant below heard a gun shot. The staff rushed upstairs and found Joseph on the floor. He’d shot himself in the right temple but was still alive, with some of his brain protruding through his head. He had just enough strength to point at two letters he’d written and ask for them to be posted. One was addressed to his mother in Amiens, the other to Police Commissioner Gavrelle. The shot was fatal and Possel died in hospital without regaining consciousness. In his letter to Gavrelle, he declared he was committing suicide because of the foul accusations made against him since his wife’s tragic death. But he did not admit that he pushed her over the cliff. 

Bizarrely, a few days later Commissioner Gavrelle had just finished his report and gone home for dinner when he collapsed unconscious at the table and died. Three people had now died in this incident.

The fact Nellie died only 13 days after taking out the insurance policy, along with Joseph’s attempt to get the payment quickly, raised many doubts. The New York Times said Joseph had been seen at the cliff top ‘rehearsing’ his crime, throwing large stones over the edge and watching how they fell. One reporter had no doubts about what had happened: ‘in order to avoid recapture, Possel committed suicide.’

It was discovered that around 1895, Joseph had spent several years in the St Anne and Ville d’Array lunatic asylums. Possel’s mother said Joseph may have been ‘a neurotic subject’ but maintained he had not murdered his wife. She said her son lived in considerable style in London and that 7,000Fr were found on Joseph’s body. 

He was buried in St Ouen Cemetery, Paris after a simple service at the church of St Phillippe du Roule. Eleanor was buried in the cemetery at Positano, near where she died.

The Great Crush at Hampstead Heath Station

Hampstead Heath station opened on 2 January 1860, with staircases to both platforms and a ticket collector’s booth at the bottom of each staircase. The station was used by Londoners who flocked to ‘Appy ‘Ampstead’ at weekends and Bank Holidays, when stalls and barrows lined the roadsides. Today it is on the London Overground line and is the stop for the Royal Free Hospital.

On Easter Monday, 18 April 1892, about 19,000 adults and children came to the station. The weather was fine until 6pm when a dark cloud came over and it looked like rain, so many people decided to go home. They piled into the station, down the stairs for the City-bound trains. In the rush it seems that someone fell, causing an obstruction and the ticket booth created a bottle neck so that, ‘the people were all entangled in one mess.’ Sadly two women and six boys were crushed to death and thirteen other people were seriously injured. Claude Scott, a medical student who tried to give help, saw the boys ‘wedged up in a corner behind the box’ and two women ‘struggling frantically,’ all going blue in the face. William Exton, the ticket collector, said the crowds were jammed on the stairs leading down to his booth and they were singing, ‘Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay’ when suddenly a boy’s head was forced through the side of the booth with his throat trapped over the broken glass. The collector shouted out, ‘Stand back or you will kill him’. Hundreds of people crossed the lines to escape up the other staircase. Some of the injured were taken to Hampstead Workhouse infirmary and the dead to the mortuary opposite. Newspapers reported the story and it quickly spread around the world.

The inquest returned verdicts of accidental death by suffocation.  The local connection is that one of boys caught up in the crush was 14 year old errand boy Thomas Langford from Kilburn. His father John, a labourer and painter, identified his son’s body, saying the lad had gone to Hampstead Heath ‘with some playmates for the Easter holiday.’ The Langfords lived at 101 Granville Road, near the Kilburn High Road. This area of Kilburn was redeveloped after WWII and aside from a corner property with Cambridge Road, which was once The Duke of Cambridge pub but are now flats, all the houses have demolished.

The official enquiry into the accident ruled that Hampstead Heath station was unfit to deal with such large crowds. In early June 1892 many modifications were carried out, including removing the ticket booths from the bottom of the staircases.

A more detailed article by Robin Woolven, ‘The Hampstead bank holiday crush of Easter Monday 1892’, appeared in the Camden History Review Number 36 in 2012.

Willesden Paddocks, a famous stud farm

This was a famous stud farm run by the Tattersall family who today are still one of the leading sellers of thoroughbred race horses. It was part of Upper Oxgate which was off the Edgware Road beyond Cricklewood at the corner of today’s Oxgate Lane. In 1838 the Duke of Buckingham sold 96 acres of the Roberts estate to Edmund Tattersall. He carried out an extensive building conversion of the old houses on the property, some dating back as far as 1670, to create his stud farm. 

The illustration of the property is by George Tattersall, a talented artist member of the family, from his book on ‘Sporting Architecture’ (1841). Wealthy race horse owners could send their mares to Willesden Paddocks for 12 shillings a week to be ‘covered’ by resident stallions at the stud: the fee in 1853 was 15 guineas. This area on the outskirts of London was popular for horse breeding and there was another stud farm at Neasden.

‘Voltigeur’ and Sir Edwin Landseer

Thomas Dundas, the 2^nd Earl of Zetland lived at Aske Hall near Richmond, Yorkshire. He was a passionate race horse owner and his horse ‘Voltigeur’ won the Derby and the St Ledger in 1850. He asked the famous artist Sir Edwin Landseer to paint a portrait of ‘Volti.’ Landseer, who is well known for his painting of a stag called the ‘Monarch of the Glen’ and for creating the lions in Trafalgar Square, simply did not do race horse paintings. But he was intrigued when he heard that Volti had two tortoiseshell cats that slept in his stable and were his constant companions. After a lot of persuasion and presumably a sizeable fee, in 1861 he agreed to the commission, but refused to travel to Yorkshire. This meant Volti and his two companions had to be walked the 250 miles to Willesden Paddocks. Each day they were taken to Landseer’s home in St John’s Wood where he painted the portrait. The huge life size painting was Landseer’s one and only portrait of a race horse and he took years to finish it. Finally it was displayed at the Royal Academy in 1870. Unfortunately, Voligeur broke a leg when he was kicked by a mare and had to be shot in 1874. The portrait is still on display at Aske Hall. 

Henry Richard Phillips

When Edmund Tattersall died in 1851 the stud farm was sold the following year for £10,450 to Henry Richard Phillips, a major horse dealer living at 9 Albert Gate Knightsbridge. He had the contract to supply the Calvary of the British Army with horses. Napoleon III was one of his rich customers and called a favourite horse ‘Phillips’ in honour of the dealer.

In 1862 Phillips prosecuted Andrew Gray a reporter for the ‘Weekly Times’. The paper had implied that Phillips had murdered his wife Frances after she gave birth to their first child. Her mother Mrs Diana Little had travelled from York to be with her daughter in Knightsbridge. About ten past six on 12 February Frances’s bell rang violently and her mother, sister, the cook and a maidservant rushed into the room. When they got there Frances said, ‘Oh mother, he (pointing at Phillips), has poisoned me! You wilful murderer’. She said that while she was lying in bed, he had leaned over her to see if she was asleep, and then thrust a bottle into her mouth which took her breath away, so she could not cry out until blood poured from her nose. Then she asked for some ice which was given to her by the maid. She asked for a doctor and also a magistrate to take her statement, as she felt she would die from the poison Phillips had given her. When her mother rushed into the room Frances’s mouth was black and blood was running out of her mouth from her nose. Frances said to her husband, ‘You have Palmerised me at last’ (this was a reference to William Palmer of Rugeley, who had poisoned his wife in 1854). Frances said she was sure that he had twice before given her poison, but the last dose was the strongest.

She died three days later and was buried in Kensal Green. Mrs Little asked magistrates and the police to investigate, but they found nothing suspicious. The coroner also carried out a thorough investigation for the inquest and Frances’s body was exhumed. He concluded that death was due to natural causes. But Mrs Little was still not satisfied and told her story to Andrew Gray. His article entitled, ‘Alleged Murder by a Gentleman’ was published on 9 June 1862.  Phillips was shocked to read it and horrified when crowds gathered outside his home, calling him a murderer. He prosecuted Gray and the trial for libel was held at the Old Bailey on 22 September 1862. Phillips was called ‘an exceedingly wealthy horse dealer to the nobility of Europe’. The newspaper article also said that Phillips had had an affair with Mrs Jemima Phillips, the wife of Edward Thomas Phillips (no relation). But this was not discussed in any depth and Mr and Mrs Phillips were present during the trial. After hearing the evidence the jury found Gray guilty of libel, and he was fined £50. He remained in prison until the fine was paid.

On 10 September 1886 Phillips died and there was some talk he may have committed suicide. He left his daughter Frances Anne, £279,197 (worth an astonishing £25 million today).

Fires at Willesden Paddocks

There was a fire at the stud farm in May 1844 when a boy heated some pitch which set fire to a large hay stack. Fire engines from Willesden and London were called and with the help of about 200 local men the fires were put out after several hours. No people or horses were injured.

In January 1906 there was a terrible fire in the stables, then being used as an Army depot for training horses. About 50 of the 200 horses stampeded and 22 year old Solomon Plant, a meat carrier who was unloading his van, was trampled to death near the Welsh Harp. The 100 people who worked at the depot, despite the danger of burning tar falling from the roof, cut the horses free and no one else was injured.

Colonel Sir Alfred Rawlinson, CMG, CBE, and DSO

In 1922 Colonel ‘Toby’ Rawlinson was living in the large house at Willesden Paddocks. He was a soldier, an intelligence officer, a pioneer motorist, racing driver and aviator. He was one of the earliest people to have a pilot’s licence with membership number three of the Royal Aero Club.

Rawlinson was also a member of the polo team which won a gold medal at the 1900 Olympics. He served on the Western Front but was injured by a German heavy artillery shell in May 1915. He returned to England where he continued his War service by working on the air defence of London. 

The photo below shows him with the Grand Duke Michael of Russia who was living at Kenwood House and allowed a mobile anti-aircraft unit to be based there.

In 1918 Rawlinson was transferred to the Intelligence Corps and he worked on assignments in Turkey and the Caucasus. Rawlinson wrote about his experiences in ‘Adventures in The Near East’ (1923). Toby had four children with his first wife, Margarette, but she died in 1907.

In 1913 he married his second wife, Jean Isabella Griffin Aitkin, an actress and singer with the stage name Jean Aylwin. She had become famous after starring in the long running musical ‘The Spring Chicken’ in 1906. The marriage went well until 1923 when she was acting in ‘Polly’ at the Chelsea Theatre, and she asked Toby to rent her a flat opposite the theatre in the Kings Road. One day when he called to take her out to lunch he found her with Herbert Bath, a song composer. Although she denied an affair, in 1924, Toby cited Bath as co-respondent in their divorce.

In January 1931 Toby had a lucky escape when his car burst into flames near Cricklewood. In June 1934 Rawlinson was found dead from natural causes in a small flat in Edgeley Road, Clapham. He left only £115 to his son.

Pathe News has a short silent film of Rawlinson presenting medals to members of the Coldstream Guards in 1920.

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/the-old-guards-aka-coldstream-guards-investiture/query/rawlinson

Eventually, Willesden Paddocks was built over by today’s streets and the businesses around Staples Corner now cover the stud farm.

A Wolf Hunt in Willesden

On Friday 3 March 1893, a menagerie owned by Mr Bailey was travelling through Willesden in the direction of Harrow, when a wolf managed to escape. Although it had hurt one of its forelegs, it made off across the fields towards East Acton. Mr Bailey took his boarhound and some men, and ran after the wolf. They were joined by a group of road menders armed with shovels and pickaxes. But when the snarling wolf turned round to face its pursuers, the dog refused to go near it.  Luckily one of Bailey’s men managed to lasso it, and after throwing a sack over its head, the wolf was carried back to the menagerie.

Illustrated Police News, 11 March 1893

During the 1890s there were several large travelling menageries which were very popular. These included Bostock, Wombwell and Bailey.

The Mr Bailey mentioned above in the newspaper report was probably James Anthony Bailey who began a menagerie and circus in 1873 called Cooper and Bailey. They toured the world and in 1881 consolidated with the great American showman, PT Barnum as Barnum and Bailey. When Barnum died Bailey became the sole owner and at his death in December 1906 Bailey left an estate of £1,350,000, worth an astonishing £120 million today.

Dave Unwin recalls two events from his time with Willesden Council

I started my working life on 10 August 1959 working for the Building Division of Willesden Borough Council. I was sent to South Kilburn where we were completing Blocks F & G which became Canterbury Court. In early 1960 we commenced Blocks P & Q (these later were called William Dunbar and William Saville Houses). The site straddled Denmark Road and one of the blocks was actually built across the old road.

In those days hydraulic excavators were not readily available so a dragline excavator was used. Traditionally any lead, copper etc found in the excavation was the digger driver’s ‘bunce’. So when he uncovered a lead covered cable he was in seventh heaven. He connected a chain to the cable and wrapped it round the bucket of his excavator and pulled and pulled and pulled. I suddenly realised what was happening and yelled ‘Stop!’ The cable ran under the surface down the section of Denmark Road which was still in use, and all the street lamps were lying flat on the ground where they had been pulled down by our cable.

Denmark Road looking towards Carlton House, 1961 (Brent Archives)

The second story concerns the Central Library in Willesden Green. At that time the original Central Library was still in existence and we’d won the contract to build an extension along the side of Brondesbury Park. We had to make timber book cases, which was not a problem as we had an excellent joinery shop. The architect (not the Council’s architects but a private firm called Musman and Couzens), had specified that the bookcases were to be finished with, what was then, a new material - Polyurethane Varnish. You had to mix two parts together to form the varnish and if you couldn’t use it that day it had to be stored in a refrigerator. It was supposed to give a super-hard finish.

After about three or four months the Borough Librarian, Mr Gillette, came to our depot in Stonebridge to speak to our polisher, Jack Edwards. Mr Gillette said the varnish was rubbish because it cracked and crazed when a book was dropped on it. Jack said that they only thing he could do was to strip it all off and then French polish the shelves. Mr Gillette said he would find the money in his estimates and Jack should go ahead with it. The action was kept very ‘hush-hush’. When the maintenance period was up and the final inspection was in progress, the architect Mr Couzens remarked what a marvellous finish this Polyurethane Varnish produced. He was never told what had happened and for the next seven or eight years he continued sending people to the library to see what a fantastic product Polyurethane Varnish was!

George Cross, Number 2 The Terrace Kilburn High Road, and Flying Boats

Coincidentally, we found another story connected with the Terrace, where Reg Weatherell had his bike company which we told you about in the previous story.

This concerns George Cross who moved to West Hampstead as a young boy in 1892 when his father bought a butchers shop at 263 West End Lane.  George was fascinated by the property business, but when he began work, age 15, it was for a firm selling shirts and camisoles - a job arranged for him, as he put it, by ‘a fat-headed, interfering Sunday-school teacher.’ He found the life hard and uninteresting, and after two years managed to get a job in an auctioneers and estate agents. George started to build his own property portfolio. One of the houses he bought (before he was 21), was Number 2 The Terrace, in a short street of 14 properties off the Kilburn High Road. The 1911 census shows some 140 people living here, all working class tenants.

Very early photograph of the entrance to The Terrace

Let George tell you what happened in his own words.

I purchased a weekly house (weekly tenants), No. 2 The Terrace, High Road, Kilburn, and this was a bad investment. Try as I would, I could not get good tenants, and was always loosing rent and time trying to collect it.

After I had owned it for two or three years I gave it up as a bad job. I tried every means I could think of to re-sell. I would gladly have made a small loss - a man who never makes a loss never makes anything – but without result. I hated to let a problem of this sort beat me and I considered it from every possible angle. I could almost sympathise with, and understand, the gentlemen who staged accidental fires.

Then I had one of my rare brainwaves – why not try and exchange? I could not get anything much worse at all events.

I drafted an advertisement and spent several pounds in giving it the prominence it deserved in the daily and Sunday papers. I had only one reply that was any good, and that was from someone who, I gathered, had a white elephant in country, in a village with the taking name of Steeple Morden, Cambridgeshire.

It was an old house in an acre or two of ground, and needed repair. The value placed upon it was £500, and as I wanted £275 for my house, I should have to find a couple of hundred pounds in cash.

George travelled to Steeple Morden near Royston, on a bright autumn morning to see the property for himself.

As soon as I saw that cottage, I said to myself: ‘This is a deal my boy, but why are they anxious to get rid of such a lovely old place?’

Steeple Morden Church today (Wiki)

It faced the village street, opposite the church, a long, white-plastered wall at its side, with a circular headed door opening into the garden. Once inside my enthusiasm fell to zero. It was damp and musty; a lot of the woodwork was in the last stages of dry rot, and the plaster was crumbling off the walls and ceilings. It smelt of the grave; that smell was enough to put anyone off.

But after a careful examination George decided that if the owners agreed to take the Kilburn house, he’d go for it. All old houses had problems and he enjoyed putting this one into good condition. The exchange was arranged: the Kilburn property plus £150 on top. He renovated the cottage and sold it to a Reverend Porte, recouping all his money and making a profit as well.

The Rev. Porte was born in Ireland but spent most of his life as the vicar of St Matthew in Denmark Hill, Camberwell. His son John Cyril Porte was an interesting man who was a Lieutenant Commander in the Royal Navy and then a Lt. Colonel in the RAF. He spent some time in the submarine branch and was the commander of the B3, but he was invalided out in 1911. He became interested in aeronautics and built his own plane and taught himself to fly. He was best known for his work on designing flying boats with Glenn Curtis in America. They planned to fly across the Atlantic to claim the $50,000 prize offered by Lord Northcliffe and the Daily Mail but the outbreak of War in 1914 stopped the race. 

John Cyril Porte, 1914 (Wiki)

Despite his poor health, Porte was given command of the RN training unit at Hendon and later the flying boat base at Felixstowe. Here he designed the Felixstowe long range Flying Boats. Porte died of consumption (TB) at his home in Brighton in 1919.

A Flexistowe Fury with a Sopwith Camel in the foreground to compare the size, about 1919 (Wiki)

Reg Weatherell – the charming motorcycle maker

Reg Weatherell was an inventor, manufacturer and motor cycle rider who made bikes in Kilburn in the 1920s. He had a very charismatic personality, and was described in court as having a ‘mesmeric’ effect on women. Although he was only in Kilburn for a few years we think readers will find his wider story interesting.

Born in Hunslet, near Leeds in 1896, by the time of the 1911 census the family had moved to Middlesbrough, where 15 year old Reg was helping his father who had a shop selling fruit and sweets. But Reg’s passion was motor cycles: he owned an old de-Dion bike by the time he was 13, and took up an apprenticeship with an engineering firm. He was also a keen boxer and between 1913 and 1916 he had 27 professional fights to earn extra money. On 3 July 1914, a local Middlesbrough paper announced that evening at the Stockton Hippodrome, ‘Mademoiselle Carpenter, champion lady boxer of the world will spar three rounds with Reg Weatherell, the champion fly weight of Cleveland.’

In 1915 he married Mary Woodward, but sadly she died just three years later. During the First World War, Reg worked as a mechanic for the Army repairing motorcycles. After marrying his second wife Allieen Dorothy Dixon in 1918, he took the name ‘Reginald Dixon Weatherell.’ He and Dorothy had three children.

Making Motorcycles

Reg on a racing version of one of his Scout Motorcycles

The couple moved to Billericay in Essex and Reg set up a small workshop and second hand car business on the High Street. In July 1919 he used his life savings of £2,000 to buy land in South Green, about a mile south of Billericay, where he built a small bungalow and a workshop to manufacture his own ‘RW Scout’ motorcycles. Prices ranged from 60 to 100 guineas. Reg advertised in magazines and claimed he couldn’t keep up with demand, employing four men in the workshop with the same number on the road as salesmen. But in October 1921 he appeared in the Chelmsford bankruptcy court where he denied offering a bailiff money to burn down the workshop so he could claim on the insurance. He applied for discharge from bankruptcy in 1922 and left Billericay.

In the 1920s Reg began racing his bikes in major events at the Brooklands track in Surrey and the Isle of Man TT races. In 1922 he won a 100 mile race at Brooklands. Other riders also used his bikes in competitions. Billericay historian Ian Fuller, after talking with Roland Shelley, Reg’s mechanic who raced in a sidecar with him, believes that a motorcycle was left on the Isle of Man and is probably the only remaining model in existence.

Following the bankruptcy hearings, Reg set up the ‘Terrace Works’ in Kilburn and made motorcycles there from 1922 to 1923. The bikes were now branded as ‘Weatherell’. The works were in a small road called The Terrace off the High Road on the Willesden side. It was next to the larger Palmerston Works, as shown on the map. This was first John Allen’s Builders yard and then became the factory of the Central Aircraft Company who made their Centuar planes there from 1917 to 1927. 

Kilburn in 1912 showing Palmerston Works

Both the Palmerston Works and the site of Weatherell’s factory were swept away in 1937 when Gaumont Super Cinemas Ltd bought the land and built the enormous 4,000 seat Kilburn State cinema.

1922 Advert showing the Kilburn address

Reg didn’t stay long in Kilburn and by 1923 he was living in Grosvenor Road in Chiswick, later moving to Bolton Road. He was selling cars and motor cycles in Dover in 1924. Shown at Savoy Mansions, Savoy Street WC2, he’s also listed at nearby 392 Strand in the phonebook from 1926 to 1931, presumably his office.

Always keen to try out new ideas, in February 1926 he patented a portable baby carriage. Rather bizarrely, this was fitted to the end of a walking stick as the illustration shows.

By 1931 Reg had moved from riding motorcycles to power boats and he won the International Outboard World’s Championship on the Thames.

The Court Case

In March 1935 Reg became headline news when Ursula Lloyd, a young millionaires, took him to court to reclaim a letter of agreement they had signed.

Ursula was born in Blackburn in 1912, the daughter of a house painter. After working in shops and offices in London, her looks and vivacity secured her a few small film parts. Ursula married Charles Reginald Francis Hanson, the only son of Sir Francis Stanhope Hanson in 1932. But seven months later he was drowned in a boating accident at Sunbury on 30 May 1933. He and a friend, Peter Reid, the son of the licensee of the Weir Hotel, were attempting to cross the Thames late at night, to get to the hotel. The inquest jury decided that the accident was caused when Ursula’s dog ‘Spider’ jumped into the boat and upset it. Charles was trapped under the boat and drowned. Although Ursula inherited her husband’s large estate estimated to be worth £120,000, at first she was only paid an allowance.

She soon met Captain Charles Lloyd, a retired Army captain and air survey pilot. On 2 October 1933, the couple were lucky to survive an air crash. Shortly after taking off from Jersey, the plane piloted by Captain Lloyd, crashed into a fence on a racecourse and burst into flames. Ursula escaped with slight burns and bruises, while Lloyd walked away with just a cut over his eye. She told a reporter that she was going to buy another plane and fly to India where she wanted to stage several air pageants to further British aviation in the East. Ursula and Charles married a few weeks later on 27 October 1933 and they lived at 10 Richmond Mansions, East Twickenham.

That month, Weatherell and his wife Dorothy were introduced to the Lloyds at the Waldorf Hotel. Sharing similar interests in racing cars, motorcycles and aeroplanes, they quickly became friends and socialised, going to the pictures and playing cards together. Weatherell told the Lloyds that he was a consulting engineer and a financial adviser. He offered to help Ursula with her inheritance and the claim to her first husband’s estate. Late one night at the Lloyds flat they agreed terms and Reg typed up a document dated the 14 November 1933. Weatherell’s address at the time was 28 Bolton Road, Chiswick. Ursula agreed to pay Reg £520 a year for up to ten years, and £5,000, £10,000 or £15,000, depending on the amount of money he could obtain from her first husband’s estate.

The Lloyds also agreed to set up a company called Technical Trust with Weatherell, each holding a third of the shares. The company would buy and build racing cars, motor boats and aeroplanes to enter in competitions, aiming for a speed record. Having thought better of it, on 29 November the Lloyds asked for the letter back, but Weatherell refused. Captain Lloyd said they’d sue him and the bad publicity would finish his racing career. Weatherell replied; ‘Do your damndest. I will fight you to the bitter end.’

In court, Weatherell was described as having a mesmeric effect on women; the agreement had been signed just weeks after he met the Lloyds for the first time. The rival lawyers attempted to blacken the character of both Ursula and Reg. Much was made of an incident on 23 November when Weatherell drove Ursula in her new car to see her parents in Blackburn. They dined in Manchester and Ursula claimed that Reg asked her to spend the night with him. She refused, saying she was not ‘that sort of woman’. In his defence Reg said, ‘the boot was entirely on the other leg’. Ursula had suggested the idea; she was very lively and she often pounced and physically wrestled with him.  

Reg’s lawyer asked Ursula about her statement that she wasn’t ‘that sort of woman’. She was handed pieces of paper with the names of three men, including Peter Reid who had been in the boat when her first husband drowned. She denied she had sexual relationships with any of them but broke down under questioning, crying ‘leave me alone.’ The Judge ordered a short adjournment and when the case resumed, Ursula claimed she’d been ill when she signed the contract with Reg. Reg said this was ‘absolute bunkum’ while his wife Dorothy Weatherell told the court Ursula was full of fun and used to dance around the living room. The hearing lasted three days and after just 15 minutes deliberation, the jury returned, having found in Ursula’s favour. Weatherell was told the agreement wasn’t binding and he must return the letter. He also had to pay costs. After winning the court case, Ursula applied for bankruptcy against Reg in August 1935. He obviously had continuing financial problems and in 1948 he was still only able to pay his creditors small dividends. 

The Lloyds continued with their exciting lifestyle. On Christmas Day 1935 she and Charles were flying their plane in Abyssinia when they crashed in a remote area. They told reporters how kind the local people were to them. They were taken by mule and Ursula was carried by stretcher on the difficult 50 mile journey to Addis Abba. Once again this shows the dangers of flying in early aircraft and how lucky they were to survive. Charles, Ursula and Reg were all thrill seekers and they clearly loved the danger.

In the 1930s and 1940s Ursula travelled widely to New York, Sydney and Bombay. But she and Charles seemed to have separated and she had returned to her home town of Blackburn. Ursula died in Nairobi in 1956.

After the 1935 court case Reg doesn’t appear in the newspapers again. In 1945 the Weatherell’s were living in Birmingham. Then from 1959 to 1963 they were at 70 Delancey Street in Camden Town. Reg died on 18 April 1963 when he was living at Barton Green House, Worcestershire. Despite going bankrupt several times, he must have done quite well because he left £44,119 to his wife and daughter. (Today, this is worth about £760,000).

Knowledge about Reg Weatherell’s time in Billericay is drawn from an excellent article written in 1991 by Ian Fuller a local historian, who has kindly given us permission to use his work.