Courtney shipbuilder

 

Perhaps the most mysterious of Greenwich Peninsula shipbuilders is William Henry Courtenay – he is described as a ship builder although I have never seen any evidence of any ships built by him in Greenwich.  Perhaps some readers can enlighten me – but also please note I am pretty sure he is nothing to do with a Courtenay shipbuilder in Chester and Liverpool a generation earlier

Courtenay appears to have come to Greenwich in the early 1860s and applied to Morden College for a lease on vacant land in the area now covered by Delta Wharf.  It is shown on maps as being occupied by Henworth, Courtenay & Co. Charles Frederick Henworth was a naval architect who had apparently been involved in the design of warships.  He was also involved with Maudslay Son and Field whose shipyard was a couple of sites upriver and from where in 1866 they launched the Lady Derby, built to ‘Henwood’s principles’.

Henwood and Courtenay also leased some land slightly inland from Trinity College – the little Gothic almshouse on the Greenwich waterfront near the Power Station – part of a much larger charity and managed by the Worshipful Company of Mercers.  He also seems to have taken on other small pieces of land from a number of owners and exactly where the boundaries lay was to become a problem.  References to a P.Courtenay suggest that his mother too was a landowner here.  Morden College made a condition of the lease that he build on the land he held of theirs.

Courtney himself had been born in Padstow, Cornwall in 1808 – where Courtney is a local name of some significance . The family were certainly gentry with claims to be related to local aristocracy.  His father, Peter Courtenay, is described as an ‘Inspector of Shipping’ and ‘Principle Shipbuilding Surveyor’ working for Lloyds. This was an  important post and was needed a high level of professional skills.  Peter Courtenay was in a team of three surveyors covering London and it is worth nothing that one of the others was a Fellow of the Royal Society. Letters from Courtenay to shipbuilders are on the Lloyds Heritage web site https://hec.lrfoundation.org.uk/archive-library/documents/lrf-pun-sld923-0148-l-confucius-1834.  Over the years family had a number of addresses in Greenwich and Blackheath, including one in Gloucester Circus.  However, Peter Courtenay died ‘suddenly’ in Blackheath in 1853

By the 1850s his son William Henry was working for a ship building company in Newhaven, Sussex.  It is not clear if he had his own shipyard in Newhaven or if he worked for John Gray who had three slipways and was said to employ 70 men.  Gray exhibited models at the Great Exhibition in 1851 but died in 1855 aged only 38.  The Gray yard appears to have been taken over by a Mr Tollman

What Courtney did in 1857, two years after Gray’s death in was to marry Gray’s widow Susannah. She had eight children, the eldest, also Susannah was 17, and the,  youngest Julia, was aged 6. By 1861 Courtenay still as a ‘shipbuilder’ and the family were living in Newhaven High Street with two additional babies, William’s children.   

It is not clear if Courtenay took over the Gray ship yard or had separate yard of his own. However a warship was built  Newhaven ‘by Courtenay’ and launched in 1861. This was the HMS Tyrian of 268 tons.     However In the next year, 1862, there was an auction sale of effects off a shipyard,  for ‘creditors’,  of ‘William Henry Courtenay, shipbuilder’.  The yard is described as near Newhaven station and on the river Ouse. For sale were stocks of mahogany, oak, teak, pine, elm as well as barge, boat, engine and iron pumps, launching gear, and much more.   Does this imply that Courtenay he left  Newhaven in debt or it the proceeds of the sale??

Courtenay and his new family moved to Greenwich where William’s mother, Phillipa, now a widow was living in Hyde Vale with her daughter Sophia. She is described there as a ‘landed proprietor’ - was she perhaps funding his shipbuilding efforts? When Courtney wrote to Morden College about leasing a site from them he gave his address as Hyde Vale.

On his new site on Greenwih Marsh he wanted to install a steam engine and boilers and by 1865 his Greenwich shipyard had sheds, carpenters shops, and other buildings.  But there is no mention of any ships and Morden College was asking about the rent.  The Mercers too were complaining about lack of rent, saying he would be ‘forced to pay’ or be ‘ejected’. But in 1867 he was still trying to negotiate for more land. By then the family were living at 35 Lee Terrace – a substantial house in the nicer bit of Blackheath Village.

By 1868 the Mercers were ready to take action on the issue of non payment of rent and began legal proceedings. They understood that Courtenay had already registered for bankruptcy.  The Sherriff went down to East Greenwich to ascertain which bit of the Courtenay site belonged to whom. He found it in a 'disgraceful state' and that as boundary stones had been moved he couldn’t be sure where the divisions lay.  By 1869 the Mercers minuted 'nothing can be recovered from Courtenay'. By then his partnership with Mr. Henwood had been disssolved.

By the time of the bankruptcy hearings – and there were a series of them – Courtenay was living in Hounslow, with no details given.  The East Greenwich ‘ironworks and shipbuilders yard’ was valued at £12,000.  I don’t know how valuations and prices went in 1868 but that doesn’t sound a lot to me.  But also it says ‘his numerous creditors reside in the City of London, Blackheath, Greenwich, New Cross, Deptford and Bermondsey’ – no doubt there were many small traders involved.  There was also a strange story of how he and his family were driving in their carriage over Westminster Bridge from Shooters Hill when they broke down and left the carriage with a ‘livery stable’.  The stable owner promptly sold the carriage on the grounds Courtenay owned him £300 for two horses.  This was thrown out of court because the stable owner’s solicitor was not properly registered.  The final entire sum declared was £17,000.

It is all a very very sorry story. Courtenay himself said that his failure was to do with the ‘down turn in Thames shipping’.  Maybe.  So much seems unclear here – did he have a shipyard in Newhaven? Did he have any orders for ships in Greenwich? – fitting out a yard with no orders seems a bit – well – reckless. And 11 children can’t have helped (there had been another baby).  The remains of the Greenwich yard burnt down in 1877.

Courtenay himself died, probably in 1875. By then he was living ‘near Harwich’ and hopefully not trying to open another shipyard

There is something else – seventeen years later two clergymen visited Morden College ‘in regard to settlement of fraud on the Courtenay estate. No explanation – why should clergymen take this up? Fraud is normally down to solicitors, or the police??

And, finally, Susannah, mother of 11, died in 1901, age 83.