John Graves Simcoe, 1752-1806 Page 27

  John Bailey mentioned military units dear to the General’s heart—the East Devon Yeomanry Cavalry, which he had raised personally, and the Dunkeswell cavalry troop of his tenants. The Militia was preceded by the 3rd Dragoon Guards, one leading Simcoe’s horse (not the loved Salem who must have been long dead), boots reversed in the stirrups, his arms on the saddle. When the procession reached Wolford Chapel, thousands were waiting:

  The Church field was crowded. The Luppitt Company of Artillery was there with the guns, which were fired when the body was put in the grave, which shook the very house of Wolford.32

  Elderly Aunt Margaret Graves, who did not attempt to attend the funeral, wrote to Eliza, her favourite correspondent, that time was the best healer. She sent kindest wishes to “Mother and her dear children” especially six-year-old Henry, who was too young to understand what he had lost.33

  TWENTY–TWO

  LIFE AFTER THE GENERAL

  Tributes to the late General were limitless. Admiral St. Vincent wrote Major Henry Darling on 27 October: “He was worthy of all our admiration & regret, for a more gallant Soldier or honourable Gentleman neer existed ….” Others who praised him were the Bishop of Exeter from Warwick House, London, to the Reverend Edward Drewe; Lord Sidmouth: “I cannot but look upon the death of this great & good Man as a national Calamity” and Jean Deluc wrote in the same tone from his home in Windsor.1

  John Ross Robertson stated that Mrs. Simcoe went into seclusion after her husband’s death. Nothing could be less accurate. She could not afford to mourn long, not as his sole executrix, not with three very young children to raise, not with her husband’s other business to clear up. In the first place, Eliza had a relapse, and Elizabeth escorted her to Ugbrooke where Lady Clifford gave her tender care. Next, Simcoe’s will had to go for probate. According to the will, among the properties Simcoe left her were Mansells, Tencery and Cropfields, Little Southey, Southey plot, part of Daws, and Great Southey, and part of Sheldon Grange in Dunkeswell. She also owned a small plot in Awliscombe known as Cleaves and Moors. As she studied the volumes in the library, she realised that she would keep those that would interest Francis, but she would have to give some away. She immediately thought of Robert Clifford, and she invited him to come to Wolford Lodge and choose maps and books that he would like to have.2

  In Upper Canada, Simcoe’s land grants amounted to some 5,000 acres, in his name or Francis’s, that required attention. She was in touch with Captain John McGill, still on the Legislative Council in York. McGill had to provide information on bills he had paid as provisioning agent for His Majesty’s forces in Upper Canada while Simcoe was still in the province. After Simcoe left, McGill was promoted inspector general of public accounts, a new office established by Peter Hunter, Simcoe’s successor in 1799. Elizabeth informed the Audit Office that she could not prove from vouchers she had that some £5,183 paid to Peter Russell, administrator after Simcoe left on leave, had been repaid. She assumed that Russell, as receiver general, kept things in good order.3

  This was but one of many problems she had to sort out with the Audit Office or Whitehall, to satisfy everyone that Simcoe’s various accounts had been settled — pertaining to Upper Canada, San Domingo, Portugal, the 22nd Regiment, or for his command in the West of England. This involved endless letter writing and hunting down proof that nothing had been overlooked. Strangely enough, Simcoe had not received his commission before he left for Portugal. Henry Darling arranged to have one drawn up. Through the long drawn out process, Elizabeth’s trusted helper was Lawyer Christopher Flood.4

  Her other tower of strength remained John Scadding. Now Elizabeth, not the General, rose early and rode about the estates with Scadding, newly married to Melicent Triggs and expecting the first of three sons. He still had his 253 acres on the Don River at York, where his neighbour, James Playter, was looking after his interests. (John returned to York in 1817 or 1818. He was in his sixties, but he believed his sons would have a brighter future. He was killed in 1824 while clearing land, struck by a tree that collapsed unexpectedly.5

  At Christmas 1807, Francis Simcoe left Eton. Lord Moira, a full general in the army and honorary Colonel of the 27th (Inniskiling) Regiment, used his influence to secure an ensign’s commission for Francis in his own regiment. The commission had been signed at Horse Guards on 30 October 1807. Two battalions of the 27th were fighting on the Continent, but a new 3rd Battalion was training at Enniskillen, Ireland. Francis would be joining it in the spring of 1808. Elizabeth had paid £400 for the commission and arranged for her elder son to receive an annual allowance of £100. Before embarking for Dublin, Francis spent a month in London with Lord Moira, who became very fond of his young protégé. On 9 January1808, Elizabeth wrote to Moira, thanking him for introducing “Ensign Simcoe” to his commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Graham.6

  Francis’s battalion moved on to the campaigns of the Peninsular War, where he was soon promoted lieutenant, again by purchase. The commission was signed on 22 December 1808. Serving in Wellington’s 4th Division, he was with the reserves at Bussaco, Portugal, and at the three sieges of Badajoz, Spain. In the last, on 6 April 1812, he was killed in action. Division Chaplain George Jenkins wrote to Elizabeth that he had found Francis’s body in the breach, and had him as decently buried as circumstances would permit.7

  Mrs. Simcoe’s diary, published in two versions, created the impression that Francis was her favourite. She never mentioned Sophia, nor Katherine who died at York, except as “the children,” yet she made many references to Francis. These were undoubtedly inserted from her letters to Mary Anne Burges, who often asked for news of Francis. Elizabeth herself avoided writing about what the children with her were doing because she was sensitive to how much the four girls in England were missing her. In some places in the published diary, Elizabeth answers Mary Anne’s direct questions, which were added later to the version she sent to Wolford Lodge. The same applies to the many remarks about Francis, added to the main diary after his death two months short of his twenty-first birthday. (Mary Anne counselled Elizabeth on how to deal with Sophia’s temper. Nothing is in the diary, but Sophia was on hand to see that none of her mother’s complaints were inserted.)

  Two other young men known to the Simcoes who died during the Peninsular War were sons of M. and Mme. Ignace de Salaberry, and of Sir John and Lady Johnson. Lieutenant de Salaberry fell at one of the early sieges; Captain James Johnson, 28th Regiment serving in the 2nd Division, died a few days before Francis. He was killed, not at the main siege, but while the 2nd Division was to the southeast, ready to check Marshal Soult, known to be approaching with French reinforcements.8

  At the time the bad news about Francis reached Devon, Mary Anne Burges had not long to live. She had moved from Tracey, which she had leased, to Ashfield, a smaller house that she purchased. She died on 10 August 1813, in the arms of twenty-one-year-old Julia Somerville, the young woman Mrs. Burges and the Simcoes hoped might become Francis’ sbride. Charlotte wrote to Miss Hunt that she had never seen her mother so depressed as she was over losing Mary Anne. 9 (Four years later, Julia married her first cousin once removed, Sir Francis Bond Head Baronet, the sixth lieutenant governor of Upper Canada, whose conduct helped foment a rebellion in 1837.)

  Elizabeth Simcoe had suffered enough. Sorrowing that her dearest friend was gone, she took stock of her situation, a father who never saw her, a husband dead at fifty-four, and Francis. She had given enough to the military; Henry, intended for the Royal Navy by his father, would enter the church. He followed Francis to The King’s School and Eton, and in 1818 he matriculated at Wadham College, Oxford, and received his Bachelor of Arts degree. He served as curate, and then vicar at the two-point charge of Egloskerry and Tremaine, in Cornwall.10

  Henry’s vocation was in keeping with his mother’s greatest source of comfort as years passed. Her church became the centre of her world, involving her in the daily life of Dunkeswell. She expected her daughters to be equally dedicat
ed, each carrying out specific tasks for the well being of the poor people of the parish. She embraced the evangelical movement within the Church of England. To combat worldliness — and the influence of the Methodists — clergymen should be better educated and keep the sabbath. There were not enough churches to hold everyone. A memorial to her zeal, and that of her daughters is Holy Trinity Church, built from the stones of Dunkeswell Abbey and Simcoe funds. The Simcoes also helped finance the restoration of the churches of St. Mary’s Hemyock and St. Nicholas Dunkeswell. In St. George’s Anglican Church at Sibbald Point on Lake Simcoe, Ontario, is the Simcoe window. It was made by Simcoe’s daughters and shipped from their workshop at Wolford Lodge to Susan Sibbald, a friend of Eliza Simcoe who had emigrated to Upper Canada.11

  Of the daughters, only Anne, the youngest, married, and not during her mother’s lifetime.12 John Ross Robertson assured his readers that Mrs. Simcoe forbad her daughters to marry. There may be a grain of truth, but other factors were even more influential. Great Aunt Margaret Graves helped to instill a prejudice against marriage, which deprived a women of her independence. Admiral Graves took over Margaret’s fortune, and willed part of it to his nephew, Richard, which the lady never forgot. Simcoe, too, had taken control of Elizabeth’s assets, although he used them wisely and left her much better off than when he married her. An unmarried woman with little money faced a hard life, but the Simcoe daughters had less need of husbands because they had independent means; not enough to make them victims of fortune hunters, but sufficient for them to take care of themselves. Mrs. Graves, who died in late 1808, left each of the five eldest £1,000. When William Walcot died, Henry Simcoe was his principal heir, but all the Simcoe daughters received legacies. They stood to inherit still further sums from their mother’s estate, which might have influenced some of them not to cross Elizabeth. Two daughters, at least, Charlotte and Sophia, had their father’s determination. Had they wished to marry, no one could have stopped them.

  Henry Addington Simcoe did marry during his mother’s lifetime, and like his parents he had eleven children. Nine were by his first wife, Anne Palmer — five sons and four daughters. With his second wife, Emily Mann, he had two more daughters.’13 All of his grandchildren were born to his daughters. John Graves and Elizabeth Posthuma have many descendants, among them John Vowler and Margaret Partridge, as well as Bill Vowler and his son Tim and daughter Laura, and Dr. Anne Cole (who added Simcoe as her middle name). None bear the surname Simcoe, although there might have been one exception.

  John Kennaway Simcoe, Henry’s second son (the first son, Henry, had died at age twenty-five) inherited Wolford Lodge. This John died childless in 1891, and the heir was now Arthur Linton, a grandson of Henry Addington Simcoe’s eldest daughter, Anne Eliza. One of her daughters married a Linton. Their son, Arthur Linton, added Simcoe to his name in order to inherit the arms of John Graves Simcoe, but like so many other male descendants, he was childless.

  The family fortune, once so substantial, had been dissipated. In 1923, Wolford Lodge was partly destroyed by fire, and Arthur Linton Simcoe sold it to a Brigadier Kemball. At the time, most of the contents still intact were also sold. Among the disposed-of effects were the two Spanish cannon that had been in San Domingo, which Simcoe had retrieved after considerable persistence. The guns, cast in Spain in 1747 by a famous gunfounder, Mathias Solano, went for £25 to a buyer from Surrey. In 1940 the purchaser presented them to the the Leatherhead Urban District Council. Still in perfect condition, they are on display in the Mariner’s Suite at the Leatherhead Leisure Centre. What Simcoe would have thought of this fate defies description.

  Wolford Lodge was sold again, to Alfred Le Marchant in 1926. This owner built a new Wolford Lodge on the site of the destroyed one. In one of the transactions, Wolford Chapel was sold separately. To preserve the chapel and its grounds the English publisher, Sir Leicester Harmsworth, bought them and he offered them to the people of Ontario. At the time of Harmsworth’s death, the Ontario government was still debating whether to commit funds for the upkeep of the chapel and grounds.14

  By 1966, the government had become conscious of the value of recognising Ontario’s heritage. In a ceremony held at Wolford Chapel, Sir Geoffrey Harmsworth, Sir Leicester’s son, presented the title deeds for the chapel and grounds to the premier of the day, John Robarts. Sir Geoffrey’s gift included the easement for the right of way that guaranteed access over his property to visitors. In May 1989, the John Graves Simcoe Association (now part of the Ontario Historical Society) hosted a Simcoe Weekend. Guests received lunch at the present Wolford Lodge, owned by Mrs. Pamela Mitchell, the daughter of Mr. Alfred Le Marchant and his wife, Turdis. Her husband, the Very Reverend Patrick Mitchell, KCVO,then the Dean of Windsor, conducted a dedication ceremony. The chapel is still used regularly for worship such as on Good Friday.

  Elizabeth Simcoe lived until 17 January 1850, her eighty-eighth year. By the time she was buried beside Wolford Chapel, only six of her children remained. Her daughters Charlotte and Harriet had died in 1842 and 1845. The five surviving daughters, Eliza, Caroline, Sophia, Katherine and Anne, bought 11 Lansdown Crescent in Bath, where they could have a livelier social life than at isolated Wolford Lodge. Just short of her fiftieth birthday, in 1854, Anne Simcoe married John Alford in Paddington, Middlesex, now part of Greater London. The marriage certificate showed that she was a daughter of a “General in the Army” and Alford a labourer and farmer’s son. Anne had married below her station, and not with any of her sisters as witnesses.

  The land grants in Upper Canada had been sold long since. Henry had inherited the 5,000 acres from his father. John McGill, who warned Henry that taxes would soon eat up such profits as he might make, helped in selling the lands. They did not bring high prices because so much cheap land was available. Very few of the reserves for clergy and crown had been sold. The vacant lots were interfering with the orderly development of the countryside and were one of the causes of the rebellion in 1837. Castle Frank burned down in 1829, the last Simcoe property remaining in Upper Canada.

  A few years after his death, subscribers in Devonshire raised funds for a memorial to John Graves Simcoe. The famous sculptor, John Flaxman, carved the marble monument that now stands in the south choir wall of Exeter Cathedral. The inscription reads:

  Sacred to the Memory of

  JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE

  Lieutenant-General in the army and

  Colonel of the 22nd Regiment of Foot

  Who died on the 26th day of October, 1806

  Aged 54

  In whose life and character the virtues of

  the Hero, the Patriot and the Christian

  were so eminently conspicuous that it may

  justly be said he served his King and

  his country with a zeal exceeded

  only by his piety towards his God.

  Across the bottom below the main inscription is a tribute to Francis Gwillim Simcoe:

  During the erection of this Monument

  His eldest son

  FRANCIS GWILLIM SIMCOE

  Lieutenant in the 27th Foot,

  Born at Wolford Lodge, in this County,

  June 6th 1791. Fell in the

  Breach at the siege of Badajoz

  April 6th 1812, in the 21st year

  of his Age

  Of the two, Francis died utterly unfulfilled. He had been desperate for a promotion to captain, and was denied it because of the hidebound army rule that all lieutenants who had served longer in the regiment had the right to purchase promotions ahead of him, a matter of seniority, not ability. Francis never attained that seniority. One way of jumping the queue was by leading a “forlorn hope,” the party who went first into the breach during a siege. A lieutenant who survived the command of a forlorn hope automatically received his company. Francis may have thrown away his life at the bloodiest battle of the Peninsular War in an attempt to win his captaincy.

  Opinions on the importance of John Graves Simcoe are as div
erse as their authors. Some see him an an upper-class English snob, others as a man who never lived up to his early promise. He was an imperialist, but in the most positive sense of the term. John Gellnor, who edited the 1962 version of Simcoe’s military journal, viewed Simcoe’s four and a half years in Upper Canada/Ontario as “an incident in a life he wanted to devote to professional soldiering.” Most would agree that he emerged from the American Revolution as the finest commander of light troops in the British Army. Certainly, what Simcoe sought was an important, active military command. Despite many opportunities while Britain was constantly at war, Simcoe “the strong-willed and self-confident military autocrat, is really a tragic figure.”15

  The tragedy lies less with the man than with his early, unexpected death when he was about to realise his dream of an important active command, and the peerage that would be his reward. With that honour this man, of relatively modest but most respectable origins, would have placed his wife and children where he wanted them, among the best people in the land. That he did not even achieve a knighthood may be blamed on the system of the time where the right friends outweighed ability. Of the seven men who were lieutenant governors of Upper Canada (before it was united with Lower Canada in 1841) only Simcoe and Peter Hunter never had titles other than their military ranks. (There once was a Lord Simcoe, a hotel in downtown Toronto; it has been demolished.)

  Even Simcoe’s sternest critics have to agree that he was a man of honour, who valued loyalty — to King, country, wife and family, friends and the men who served under his command. While he valued his contacts with the aristocracy, he retained the common touch. Many of his aspirations for Upper Canada failed, because he was a man of his own time, and place, whereas Upper Canadians were North Americans who believed in upward mobility. They did not accept that each person had a place in society, and should keep it. Despite certain attitudes, Simcoe treated individuals with decency and understanding whatever their station in life.