The Chelsea home of the Dowson Family, also known as Bellevue Lodge, is opposite Battersea Bridge on the busy corner with Beaufort Street and now separated from the Thames by four lanes of near continuous traffic. Despite this it was on the market in 2015 for £22M. It was built in the late 18thC and is Grade II listed. The Dowsons appear to have vacated it soon after Margaret's death and it was occupied by the artist Charles Condor until his death in 1909.
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This house was shared for three years, 1851-3, by two young couples, Sidney and Emilie Hawkes and Jams and Caroline Stansfeld. Caroline and Emilie were two of the four daughters of William Henry Ashurst, founder of the City law firm of that name. Stansfeld was the Radical MP for his native Halifax for many years and held office in several administrations, most notably as President of the newly created Local Government Board. Hawkes and Stansfeld ran the Swan brewery together, but in 1853 the partnership broke up. Stansfeld continued to do well from brewing. Hawkes acquired the Anchor brewery in Chelsea, but went bankrupt in 1854. Rather than face his creditors the next year he skipped the country with his mistress and the first two of an eventual fourteen children. A bit of a lad, he returned to Englanf later and ran two pubs in Marsden, near South Shields. Emilie worked closely with Giuseppe Mazzini in the struggle for Italian unification. Widowed by the death of her second husband in 1866 wshe became a notable Chelsea figure as Madame Venturi, presiding over a alons at Carlyle House, 318 Kings Road.
ReplyDeleteThank you for that fascinating postscript.
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