Sometimes you’re in pursuit of one person and you stumble across another. This name was too long to miss and the location of death, the White Hart Inn, indicated a travelled or outsider to the town. How Walter came to rest here, both while alive and dead, is a mystery. Join us in a brief journey from Norfolk to the Isle of Man to Jersey to Germany to London to the Isle of Wight to…the White Hart and an unmarked grave at Christ Church.
Walter Aldous Le Neve Arnold was born on October 15th 1831 in Great Yarmouth. His parents were the well-off and well-connected Peter Le Neve and Helen (Foster) Arnold of Colchester, although Helen originally hailed from Lincoln. Already the Arnold-Foster wedding sparks curiosity; not all the newspapers who ran the notice of their marriage made note of this, but the Leicester Herald made sure we all knew that both Peter and Helen were, as they called it then, “deaf and dumb”. A better way to phrase it today would be to say they were deaf and non-verbal. The question of why is never explained anywhere.
Walter was their first and only son, and he was followed two years later by his sister Helen Elizabeth, their first and only daughter. Named partly for his uncle Aldous, Walter grew up in luxury in Great Yarmouth. Peter was of independent means and the family being small meant the money went further. By 1851 he and his sister had both moved out and Peter was left with Helen, a companion named Francis, and two servants (one of whom was also deaf and non-verbal). One reason for the children moving out was perhaps Peter’s declining health – not just physical, but mental.
In 1852 a “commission in lunacy” was set up to determine whether Peter was of unsound mind or not. Apparently he had been exhibiting symptoms since 1840, and things had finally become untenable and concerns raised about the future of the estate. According to newspaper coverage the jury needed very little time to come to a unanimous decision and the details were left out of the paper as they were too painful to report. A luxury some of the less well-off in the graveyard here were denied in their own extremis, but that’s how things work aren’t they.
Considerable property at his disposal, eh? We aren’t surprised. And Walter, the main beneficiary of this, was about to become even more wealthy as a result. He was already a young man of means due to a bequest in 1849 which would pay him £5000 on his 25th birthday, which would be 1856. The promise of that money and the sure knowledge that he would be benefitting from his unwell father’s estate allowed him a great deal of credit, we expect, and he wasn’t shy about spending it.
In early July 1854 his mother Helen died, and a few weeks later Walter married Matilda Avarina Bennett on the Isle of Man. Matilda was the daughter of an army Major and originally had hailed from Ireland. In 1856, as we said, Walter’s £5000 bequest was paid to him, and in 1858 Peter died and Walter became a very very wealthy man. But something was up with Peter’s estate and it was resworn twice, the value changing each time, until 1859 when it was finally valued at under £3000. This might have been a problem for Walter.
Why do we think that? Because as you can see, the final reswearing happened in February 1859. On June 1st 1859, Walter registered as an insolvent debtor.
Now, this wasn’t the first time – Walter had registered as insolvent in December 1858 as well – so we can only imagine what was happening here. The reasons we don’t know as they aren’t reported, and we’ll likely never know. Everyone makes mistakes! Some are just very expensive ones. The process of insolvency and release from his debt took until 1861 to resolve. Spare a thought for poor Matilda, who by this time had two children with Walter. Their first child had been born in Wiesbaden in Germany and the second in Jersey, so the couple were clearly travelling around and enjoying their lifestyle. Another child wouldn’t come now until 1863 but they would have four more, so clearly the marriage was surviving in at least one fashion.
In 1861 the family were in Kelvedon in Essex and Walter’s occupation was “landed proprietor”. They were managing well enough to have a few servants, and whatever Walter would go on to do for a living paid enough to make up for any past mistakes he may have made. The next two children were born at Caen in France, and subsequently the Arnolds settled in Arundel and later New Southgate in Middlesex, where they – at least, Matilda and the children – would stay.
There’s no 1871 Census entry showing Walter’s location, but Matilda and the two youngest children were lodging amongst others at a large house in Pentonville, Clerkenwell. She was still as “of independent means” but this does seem strange. We do know though from his death registration that Walters occupation in 1874 was “commercial traveller” and perhaps he was off working. He was certainly doing so on January 26th 1874, here in Todmorden, when pneumonia (common) and encephalitis (rather less so) caught up with him and he died at the White Hart Hotel.
Henry Franks, the landlord of the White Hart, was the informant. Walter packed a great deal into his 43 years. And for someone so well off, it’s surprising that he has no gravestone. Matilda had a lot on her plate, though; she was pregnant with their last child, Estelle Le Neve Arnold. Estelle was born on August 1st 1874 so Matilda would have been bereaved while only about a month along in her pregnancy, maybe even too early to know about it yet. Tragically Estelle would only live a few months and was dead by the end of the year. Matilda herself died in 1878 in New Southgate and is buried there. No probate information exists for Walter, but when Matilda died four years later her estate was valued at less than £300. Even in 1874 she perhaps simply did not have the money to purchase a stone and exclusive plot here for him.
Thanks to Edward Livening Fenn for his excellent family tree which includes Walter and his relatives!