Research by two Bean Residents
Bean has seen its fair share of development.
In the 1880’s the Ely Cartridge Powder Company opened their factory at the top of Beacon Hill. To accommodate the workers, the E.C.Cottages, later to be renamed Bean Hill Cottages were built. At the same time Beacon Lodge was built in the woods opposite the school for the manager William Dalrymple Borland and his family.
William was born in Middlesex in 1864, being the second eldest of seven children to James
Borland and Maria Whittaker. James, who hailed from Scotland, was a managing clerk for a company
of merchants in London and soon his eldest son James followed in his footsteps. William studied
to become an analytical
chemist and it maybe that his father could foresee the future that was soon to
become his son’s. The family lived comfortably in a large house at 39 Clissold Road, Stoke Newington
with just the one domestic servant, a young girl named Edith Davis. At some time during the mid 1870’s,
prior to moving to Stoke Newington, James’s work took him and his family to Bexley and it was there that
his children Thomas and Maria were born.
Nothing more is known of the family until 1885 when the Powder Company started and William
at the tender age of 21 became the superintendent moving into Beacon Lodge with his wife Maria, his brother
James who was the managing clerk of the company, his sister-in-law Alice and their cook Emma Balfour.
William’s coachman, Charles Kemp, along with his wife Margaret and their children William, Jane,
Mary and Margaret, lived at 15 E.C. Cottages.
Again we have a gap in our knowledge of the family until 1901 when we see
that William has a new wife Gilberta. They had a son Gilbert and by now
business must have been prosperous, for they had a governess Evelyn Pouncey,
a parlour maid Emma Carter and a cook, Sarah Payne. They also had a new
coachman Leonard Preston who lived at No.4 E.C. Cottages with his wife
Clara.
William D Borland was Chairman of the Managers of
Stone Bean Council School in 1904 -1908; (James H Turner was also a School Manager at that time).
Unfortunately we have no further information until the death of William
on 20 May1934 and again when Gilberta died on 13 May 1957, by which time their son Gilbert had moved to Brentwood in Essex.
N.P-C & JC.
Additions to these notes would be welcome.
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