The Big House: The Story of a Country House and its Family

(#litres_trial_promo) and it was well stocked, for Port was not the only drink for which Richard had a fondness. In November, 1759, he wrote of having received fifty-nine dozen bottles of wine from Robert Norris, and in the following January told him ‘I have been inspecting into my Stock of Madeira and to oblige you I have sent you seven Doz. by my Market cart … and can spare you 5 Doz. more.’

(#litres_trial_promo) This was in addition to eight dozen bottles of ‘Old Hock’ which he had pledged to spare him from his cellar only a few days earlier, while February found him writing once more to Robert Norris, inquiring anxiously, ‘When do you draw off the Red Wine? I must have some fit to drink about next October.’

(#litres_trial_promo) For the chosen few there was a rare treat, the ‘water of life’:‘I got one Mr Richard Lawson, a Broker in London,’ he wrote to Joseph Denison in November, 1759, ‘to Buy me two or three bottles of Usquaba. The best of my remembrance he bought it of one Burdon, famous at that time, and having none Left desire you will buy me two Quart bottles of it, the best and send it by the first ship to Hull.’

(#litres_trial_promo) The good life that Richard was enjoying is reflected in his portrait, which he commissioned from Henry Pickering, an artist who liked to paint people ‘in character’. Richard was rich and successful, he had a delightful new house, and he now had an instant family. Childless himself, Richard had a warm and affectionate nature which reveals itself best in his relationship with two close members of his family, his half-brother Joseph and his favourite niece, Polly, portraits of whom hung in his dressing room.

Joseph Sykes was Richard’s junior by seventeen years and was the product of their father’s second marriage to Martha Donkin. Since he never really knew his father, who died in 1726 when he was only three, Joseph had always looked to his older brother for support. He worked in the family business and Richard thought so highly of him that in 1753, when Joseph had just turned thirty, he made him a partner. ‘I have turned over the Charge of the Counting House,’ he wrote to his brother-in-law, Randolph Hobman in August, 1753, ‘to my Brother … for I am mostly in the Country when in Health.’

(#litres_trial_promo) That summer Richard went to a lot of trouble to help smooth the path for his brother to get married to a Miss Dorothy ‘Dolly’ Twigge, against the express wishes of his mother. ‘I observe that Mr Jos. Sykes’, wrote the prospective bride’s father, Nicholas Twigge, in June, 1753, ‘has communicated to you what passed at his last visits betwixt him, myself and Dolly, the Substance of which was that he made an offer of himself of which I disapproved but my Daughter accepted … I always thought the consent of Parents and nearest relations necessary for the happiness of the young ones.’

(#litres_trial_promo) He did, however, go on to say that he believed ‘as do you, that their affections are mutually engaged and so engaged that if I was now to attempt to break the affair, I should be under the greatest fear for the consequences’. He finished by asking ‘In the meantime if Mrs Sykes has any particular reason why she would not have her son’s marriage to take place, I should be glad to know it …’

It turned out that Joseph’s mother did indeed have very strong objections, which Richard laid out in his reply. ‘She says the frequent Headaches your daughter had at Hull must frequently disable her from looking over her family, that her son’s Industry must be spent at the discretion of Servants, and that she has instances in her family of great Miscarriages from the Mistress being Sickly … indeed there seems so great an aversion that it will be impossible to get over it. I need not tell you how bad a prospect there is where the Mother is so averse to the Lady.’

(#litres_trial_promo) Richard did not give up, however, for he could not bear to see Joseph so unhappy, and in the end he persuaded both sets of parents to allow the marriage, which took place in June, 1754 and turned out to be a very happy one. In spite of Joseph’s mother’s fears that Dolly’s health would lead to her having endless miscarriages, she gave birth to seven children, all of whom survived into adulthood, and she lived to the ripe old age of sixty-nine.

Richard’s niece was the only daughter of his younger brother, Parson Sykes, the Revd Mark Sykes, Rector of Roos, and although she was christened Maria, her Uncle always affectionately referred to her as Polly. His correspondence with her shows him to have taken an almost paternal interest in her upbringing. For example, in a letter to her dated 2 July, 1753, when she was fourteen, he gently chastised her for her last letter, which contained little more than ‘compliments love & duty’, expressing hope that ‘your next will be more entertaining … by giving me a description of your Journey as well as the Country Situation and prospect from your friend’s House and Garden’; he offered her advice on healthy eating – ‘The latter abounds with fruit. I make no doubt but you have been tempted to taste thereof. A little at proper times may be both good and wholesome as too much hurtful. I hope you are so prudent as to require no reminding you of that or anything else which may contribute either to your health or benefit’, and made a few suggestions of a more personal nature – ‘You will be very observing to give your friend as little trouble as possible, and do you mind to lay by your things in a careful manner and not to litter up your room with them. The one is commendable, the latter a sluttish and an indolent disposition and an unpardonable fault in a young lady.’

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A pastel portrait of Polly, done when she was in her early teens, shows her seated on a red stool wearing a white dress with a blue sash. She has thick curly brown hair to her shoulders and a sweet intelligent face wearing a mischievous smile, in which one can detect a touch of the ‘gidiness’ to which her uncle referred in his next letter. The time had come, he said, to cast this off ‘and become more Circumspect and thoughtful’. He showed his pious nature when he urged her not to forget her daily prayers, nor to ‘repeat them as a Girl at School does her Lessen but in a most humble posture with a devout Mind in such a manner as will be most acceptable to that Good and Gracious God your Creator’. He ended the letter ‘God preserve you Bless you and make you a good Woman.’

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When Polly was twenty, she was courted by and became engaged to John de Ponthieu, the eldest son of Josias de Ponthieu, the head of a successful Linen trading company, based in London but with strong links in Hull. It was a good match, the young man having a reputation for being ‘lively and active’ and ‘indefatigable in business’.

(#litres_trial_promo) He was also well-off, having an inheritance of £6,000, which being added to Polly’s expectations of £4,000 enabled them to begin life on the not insubstantial sum of £10,000. They would have a house in London in Friday Street, and the free use of his family’s two villas, one on the outskirts of London, the other in Sir Thomas Egerton’s park near Manchester.

It was quite clearly the intention of Polly’s future father-in-law to keep a close eye on the young couple, and he set down his advice to them in no uncertain terms. He exhorted them ‘not to set out in an expensive way, to have every day a regular table of two dishes with vegetables & fruit pyes, & for desert the common fruit in season – to have no more servants than what are useful, a coachman, a footman, a cook, a chambermaid & the housekeeper; to dine and sup out very seldom, except with select friends with whom we make no ceremony; & who afford great satisfaction & pleasure & little expense; for I put it down as a known maxim that no person can receive much company & treat in an elegant manner but they must have great anxiety & trouble which overbalances the pleasure such company can afford them; besides the expense which is always considerable, everybody vying who shall exceed in luxury, or as they call it Genteel Taste.’

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‘Tho’ my Vanity will not permit me to think myself dirt yet I must acknowledge in point of fortune Polly might have done better,’ John wrote to her father, Parson, who appears to have at first opposed the match, ‘yet in Birth, Virtue and Honesty, I will give up to none.’

(#litres_trial_promo) Uncle Richard, on the other hand, was delighted and soon after her wedding on 5 June, 1759, wrote her a charming letter in which he reminded her of the particular care and regard which he had always entertained for her and her happiness. He hoped that her husband would find that the marriage state was ‘a Heaven upon Earth’. ‘Now my Dears,’ he continued, ‘… May the Day of your Marriage continue to the day of your Deaths, that you may Enjoy not only all the Happyness this world can afford but also all those in that which is to come. Our sincere Love waits upon your Father … and all the Families of your New Relations unknown to us and it will give us great pleasure if at any time their Affairs will permitt them to come here to partake of my One Dish which is a Friendly and Hearty welcome, and if any of the gentlemen like Hunting, perhaps I can in the Season here entertain them both as to the Country and Diversion. I wrote to your Pappa at Hull how we celebrated the day here at night. I exhibited some fireworks. We received the cakes and gloves for which we return you thanks for your kind remembrance of us both.’

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What hope there was for these two young people! A pair of portraits painted on the occasion of their marriage show her clutching a posy of roses, looking elegant and pretty, and him dressed in a coat edged with gold braid, positively oozing bonhomie and self-confidence. They moved to London from where John wrote rapturously to his father-in-law soon after the wedding, ‘from my Wife, my Servants, my Coach and my horses, one may truly say I’m a Lucky Dog’.

(#litres_trial_promo) He seemed particularly pleased with his mode of transport. ‘Our Equipage is as genteel a one as any I’ve seen, not Gaudy but gay; it’s painted Crimson mosaick; a pair of good horses, bays; they cost seventy guineas.’

(#litres_trial_promo) He also dwelt with great emphasis upon ‘their Assembly’. Assemblies were all the rage in London at the time. ‘There is not a street in London free from them,’ wrote Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, ‘and some spirited ladies go to seven in a night.’

(#litres_trial_promo) These gatherings, which mixed conversation and cards with dancing, took place in the evening, and while they had begun their life in the early part of the century as quite small affairs, they had since developed into something much bigger, with the numbers of those attending running into the hundreds. ‘We have at length concluded the Assembly to the satisfaction of everybody; the number we have limited to 150 which is filled by the most considerable Merchants we have. We have about fifty petitioners desirous of being admitted in case of vacancies. The subscription price is two Guineas. I have sent you enclosed a Copy of our regulations, with a list of the Subscribers, which no doubt you will be glad to see; as I daresay nobody in Hull has it, and it has become a general topick of converstaion here in London – I shall by this means keep up the Connections that will be useful to us in business without having the trouble and expense of seeing them at home.’

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To cap it all, Polly was three months pregnant. ‘God Grant that you may arrive to your full time and then to a Speedy Delivery, as well as recovery,’ wrote Uncle Richard in September. ‘I am very much pleased to learn of your rising at six of the Clock, for when the days are so long as to permit it, tis certainly the most pleasantest part of the day.’

(#litres_trial_promo) When he wrote to her on 3 December, however, he noted that she had been ‘put under some restraint’, and counselled her that ‘if you were not so careful of yourself as you ought to have been, it may now be necessary for your future health.’

(#litres_trial_promo) A letter written by Richard to his brother, Mark, a week later revealed that a shadow had fallen across the young couple’s happiness. ‘I am not a little uneasy for Polly’s second Miscarriage and wish the advice they have consulted may have the desired effect for the future.’

(#litres_trial_promo) By March, Richard was extremly worried. ‘I am under great concern for our niece de Ponthieu,’ he wrote to his brother Joseph. ‘Brother Parson gave me but a very disagreeable account of the state of her health.’

(#litres_trial_promo) He wrote to Mark suggesting that a trip to Sledmere might do Polly the world of good. ‘I think it was well Judged to come down to try her Native Air since the Doctors that have been consulted could not do her any service. As soon as she is so much better and dare venture to under go the fatigue of a Journey here … I will meet her God permitting at Beverley with our Coach to conduct her here, and I am not without hopes that this air may partly contribute towards re-establishing her in her former state of Health.’

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But it was not to be. Worn down and depressed after her miscarriages, Polly was wasting away, suffering from what appears to have been Anorexia. ‘Her appetite is so bad,’ wrote Richard to Joseph on 20 March, ‘that she does not take nourishment sufficient to support nature, so must in consequence rather lose than gain strength.’

(#litres_trial_promo) Richard hoped she might be tempted by the Sledmere dishes she had loved in the past, and in April wrote to John de Ponthieu suggesting that she ‘perhaps could eat a Sledmere Pidgeon or a young Rabbitt … and if she can think of anything Else that Either this place or the Neighbourhood can produce that will be acceptable, let me know and will do my best endeavours to obtain it for Her with all the pleasure imaginable’.

(#litres_trial_promo) By 1 June, however, he noted that ‘every letter gives less encouragement of hopes of our Dear Polly’s recovery’, and went on to admit ‘I must own to you I have been preparing myself for the change these two months past, but while there is Life would hope for the best and pray God support you all and all of us against the Severe Tryal with Christian Patience.’

(#litres_trial_promo) On 18 June poor old Uncle Richard made the following entry in his pocket book, ‘Niece Polly de Ponthieu died at 7 o’clock of the evening at York.’

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The tragic loss of his beloved Polly receives remarkably little mention in Richard’s correspondence at this time. He took a stoical view, dealing with her death in the same way that, a few months later, he advised his friend Joseph Denison to cope after the death in the same week of both his father and his son. ‘Though these trials to our frail nature … appear very severe requiring great Fortitude of Mind to reconcile ourselves to the all Wise God dispensing providence,’ he wrote, ‘yet we must believe what ever he orders and directs is for the best … Let us sit down and seriously Consider asking ourselves at the same time will my Anxious Soul be benefitted by my unreasonable fretting? Will it not rather Endanger my future Health and constitution, or will it bring him to life again?’ When he had finished dispensing advice, he turned at once to other important matters. ‘Please to buy for us 2lb of best Hyson Tea, 2lb of Fine Green, 4lb of Gongs and 12lb of Common Breakfast Bohea Tea for the servants and send it by shipping to Hull directing it for me to be left at my brother Joseph’s.’

(#litres_trial_promo) Life must go on.

The death of Polly may well have been tempered by his growing fondness for his three stepchildren, of whom Bella seems to have been a favourite, and many amusing letters passed between them. He praised her artistic endeavours. ‘Shell work properly adapted and a Geneous to Imitate Nature,’ he told her, ‘is not only an agreeable amusement, but very delightful and Entertains both oneself & friends. I apprehend by this time, as it was your Taste before you left Sledmire, that you are a perfect Artist thereof and that you will be able to decorate every Room here where it wants your finishing Handy Work.’

(#litres_trial_promo) When she took up singing, he gave her a new nickname. ‘I think I must now drop all those familiar Names by which I out of my affection used to Apeller you & as you are become an Italian Singer I must now name you “the Belle Italienne” till another opportunity offers to change again for the better.’

(#litres_trial_promo) But perhaps what really drew them together was their shared love of pigs.

‘One of your Grunting Queens was brought to bed of eleven last week but one dead,’

(#litres_trial_promo) he wrote to her in October, 1759. The sow in question, nicknamed ‘The Chinese Queen’, had been a gift to Bella during the summer, so the news must have delighted her. The second litter, however, were all born dead. ‘I informed you what had happened to Her Majesty the Chinese Queen,’ Richard wrote the following January to Robert Norris, who had procured him the sow, ‘and desired to know what could be done for Her to prevent the like for the future, but you are silent.’

(#litres_trial_promo) Better news and a mystery followed in April. ‘I have had an uncommon increase of my family within this month past,’ he told Bella; ‘a Sow brought me Ten Piggs, six of which were Still Born, the remaining four by their Colour being mostly Black. By their form and shape we have strong suspicion to believe that His Chinese Majesty has not been so Chaste and Continent to Her Empress, who has not long to go before she will lay in, as becomes a faithful Husband. I can’t tell how John Yatton may not be to Blame in this affair, for you know he is their Guardian, and am afraid he has connived to their Love Meetings … If I conjecture right, the Emperor has by some token or other given him to understand that as he is an unmarried person he would make him a Present of One of the Princesses when fitt, and I have heard it reported of him that he is a great Lover of such Princesses, that he is for having two at a time, one not contenting him.’

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Richard’s new marriage brought great happiness to him and life into Sledmere with all the hustle and bustle and comings and goings that a family with children brings. These were amongst the best years of his life. His love of his house, his pride in his achievements – in his richly laden ships, his acres of land, his plantations and his gardens, his harriers and his pineapples – and his affection for his family are all self-evident. Sadly he had precious little time to enjoy them. ‘I fully intended coming over the next rent day,’ wrote Richard to John Rhodes, one of his tenants, on 9 January, 1761, ‘had it pleased God to have kept me well and free from Gout, but I have been confined to my Chamber since the 27th of last month with a very Severe fitt.’

(#litres_trial_promo) Yet in spite of the fact that he was suffering so much, and having constantly to surrender to Dr Chambers’s never-ending battery of remedies, he could not put aside his fondness for the bottle. Only four days later he wrote to his brother Joseph, ‘I thank you for your tender for some Butts of mountain wine at £23. 10s. I expect I have so much old Mountain left as will last my time or longer.’

(#litres_trial_promo) Prophetic words. On 19 January, he told ‘Brother Parson’ ‘I would flatter myself that this fit of the Gout is almost gone, but has left a great weakness.’

(#litres_trial_promo) A few days later he was dead.

The following epitaph, intended for a monument to him to be erected in the church, but never used, was written by his brother: