Martha was now 18, Mary Ann was 15, and Thomas was 11; they had all been motherless for the last five years, and now they were fatherless. The horror of the circumstances of their father's death must have left each one of them traumatised. But there were other problems ahead, and they all concerned their father's money.
First of all, there was the will. Anthony Clarke had written out the will the day before William had attempted suicide, and had used the normal legal terminology about being "of sound mind". A will made by someone who was not of sound mind would not be valid. However, the jury at the inquest had decided that William was a lunatic. Therefore the will was not valid.
Secondly, even if everyone kept quiet about the will not being legally valid, and if it was successfully (and illegally) proved in the probate court, the children would still not be old enough to take control of the money, because they were all under 21. Someone would have to be appointed to take charge of it for them.
Thirdly, there was the problem of Martha and her lover, William Milburn. He, of course, was over 21, and no doubt would have been delighted to be put in charge of the children's inheritance. If Martha were to take it into her head to marry him, he, as the new head of the family, would be in control of all the money; and then they could all say goodbye to it because he would use most of it to pay off his debts and squander the rest.
There was also a fourth problem, which was that Milburn was already married, and so a marriage to Martha would be bigamous; but Martha didn't know about that, and Milburn wasn't intending to tell her. He was getting more desperate for money by the day.
Martha was now seriously considering marrying William Milburn. According to Samuel Buxton, Martha was at this point about to contract an improvident and ruinous marriage. If only Samuel Buxton had also known that it would also have been a bigamous marriage!
A friend of the family enters the story now, called Richard Barnard Fisher. He was probably related to the family of Fishers who were important in London for wholesale haberdashery, the same line of business as William had been in. He had been an intimate friend of William Habgood during his lifetime, and was very well acquainted with the children. It is probable that he was a good man and had the children's interests at heart; though he might have had other motives as well for the actions he was about to take.
The adults in the family told Fisher all about the scandal of Martha and her friendship with Milburn, and how they thought he was only after her money. Fisher said he thought someone should take action to prevent them marrying; if the children could be made wards of court, Martha could not marry Milburn without the permission of the court - which would certainly not be given. "Understanding from (Martha's) relatives that (she) had formed an indiscreet connection with a young man supposed to have some design upon her fortune, (Fisher) made no scruple to advise the measure of making the infants Wards of ... Court"(8).
Perhaps the family asked him to initiate the action, or perhaps he made his decision independently of the relatives. Anyway, he moved swiftly as soon as the family had left for Latton. On 18 April, the very day when William was being buried in Latton, he wrote to Martha, and to William Milburn, saying that he was going to oppose the will in court. He said he was afraid that Martha might marry Milburn, and then Milburn, being officially head of the Habgood family, would have legal responsibility for all the money - not just Martha's share, but the entire fortune - and that he would squander it all. If the marriage took place, the fact that William's will stipulated that Anthony Clarke was to be the executor would then legally be over-ridden; Milburn would be the legal representative of the Habgood children. By opposing the will, Fisher could draw to the attention of the court the fact that the children needed protection, especially Martha. If they were wards of court, Martha could not marry without the court's consent; and they would never give their consent if Milburn's financial situation were to be investigated. Thus the children's interests would be safeguarded.
He later put it in these terms to the court: At 18, he said, she had "formed an improper attachment and connection, and unless she was put under some immediate protection and restraint, she might connect herself with a person of no property and who might waste her fortune and that of her brother and sister without making any provision for her or any child she might have"(9).
When William Milburn first received the letter from Richard Fisher saying that he was going to oppose the will in court, he must have been furious. He saw his chance of getting the money slipping out of his hands. He would have thought hard, and decided on a plan of action to be implemented as soon as Martha got back to London.
Meanwhile, the aunts and uncles of the children asked Anthony Clarke if he would prove the will. It had been his idea, after all, that William should make a will; he was the very person who had sat down and written it out for William to sign; he had even written in his own name as executor. Yet how could he possibly prove the will, knowing that William had not been in his right mind on that day? It had been established as a legally accepted fact that William was a lunatic. The will was completely invalid. He simply could not execute it. It was he who had been the chief witness in the coroner's court. If he tried to prove the will, knowing full well what the verdict of the court had been, he would be in serious trouble himself. He therefore flatly refused to prove the will and announced to the family that he was going to renounce executorship. The family were greatly alarmed at this, and repeatedly begged him to go ahead and prove the will, in spite of everything; but he would not.
At this point, the children were totally unprotected, alone in the world, each due to inherit a very large sum of money, which was not yet in their hands.
The following day, April 19, while the children and all the relatives were still in Latton, Richard Fisher filed a bill of complaint against Anthony Clarke in the court of Chancery: Habgood versus Clarke. This was a very audacious move, and could easily have backfired against the Habgoods if Anthony Clarke had chosen to reveal to the court the details of William's death.
It happened that Richard Fisher shared a house with a man called Mr Dove. This Mr Dove was Richard Fisher's clerk, and also a barrister, and Richard confided to him all the details of the situation. Perhaps it was Mr Dove who suggested that he should go to court. Certainly, once the decision to go to court was made, Fisher employed Mr Dove to act for him. Mr Dove probably sensed a very lucrative court case, in which Fisher himself, acting as the children's 'Next Friend', might gain control of the money. Since it was not Fisher's own personal money, he would not object to paying very high legal fees, Mr Dove probably thought.
All this happened within ten days of William 's death.
The children returned to London, to a house which must have seemed empty, now that their father was not there. There were plenty of people in the house, however: the partners, the workers, members of the family. Mary Ann and Thomas went back to boarding school: Mary Ann to Mssrs Cadman and Durrand in Bromley, Thomas to Burlington House in Hammersmith.
As soon as Martha returned from Latton, Milburn went to see her about Richard Fisher and the court case. That wicked Richard Fisher, Milburn must have said, is trying to stop you getting your money. He must have ganged up with your father's partners. Weren't they plotting to get the money from your father when he died? Martha agreed that she had indeed found them whispering together during the week her father was dying. Yes, they were definitely plotting to get the money for themselves! It would be easy for them to do it; they knew all the customers, and how much they owed; they could so easily embezzle it! It was the partners, Samuel Buxton and John Butler, together perhaps with Richard Fisher, who would get all her father's money - unless she could stop them!
Actually, there could well have been some truth in this. Buxton and Butler did later tell lies to the court, and held back information when it was in their own interests. No doubt they did think that they would be able to make a discreet profit out of William's death.
The case of Habgood versus Clarke finally had its hearing in the Court of Chancery, and Richard Fisher told the court some remarkable things; remarkable because they were untrue. He said that Clarke had already proved the will, and that Clarke had taken possession of most of William's wealth, and had paid off most of William's debts; but that once Clarke had the money, he refused to hand it over. Clarke, said Fisher, had found it a lot of trouble to execute the will, and William had not indicated in his will that he should be compensated for all the expense he was being put to; so he refused to carry on and finish the job off. He must be made to hand out some of the money to cover the cost of maintaining and educating the children. According to Fisher, Clarke was now pretending that William "died greatly in debt and left little personal estate"(10) and what he had left had all been used up in paying William's debts. Fisher also maintained that William's will had not been properly witnessed by three witnesses.
Now all of this was blatantly untrue, and Fisher must have known it. Clarke had not proved the will at all, and had not collected in any money. The will had been quite correctly witnessed and Clarke was entitled to compensation for any expenses. Why was Fisher putting forward this pack of lies?
Anthony Clarke appeared in court and used great restraint and discretion. He could have simply said - 'I can't prove the will because William was a lunatic - the coroner's court said so.' But he refrained. He told the court that he had indeed refused to prove the will, and everyone was aware of this. In fact, the relatives had begged him to prove the will. The sole reason, he said, why he didn't want to prove it was that "it was not in (his) power from his professional avocations to act in the trusts of the said will"(11).
Anthony Clarke had acted with humanity, intelligence and honour throughout the whole proceedings. It seems that he received very little thanks for his intervention in the affairs of the Habgood family.
The courts did not rush themselves to consider the case of Habgood versus Clarke. No official moved in quickly to take charge of the children or the money. Events were left to progress as they might until the courts saw fit to bestir themselves.
The Court of Chancery was never quick to take action; why should it be? The longer a case could be dragged out, the more money was made by everyone who earned their living from the court, - the masters, the solicitors, the clerks, the petty officials. The more frustrated the litigants were by the slowness of the court, the bigger the bribes they would pay to get the process underway. And the Chancellor, Lord Eldon, had other, more pressing government work to do. When he was too busy to hear the case himself, he deputised someone else to do it, and so the whole story had to be related afresh. It was not unknown for cases to take thirty years or more, to the ruination of the people concerned.
Meanwhile, Richard Fisher was on the move again. He galloped off to see William's brothers, James, who lived in Down Ampney in Gloucestershire, and Robert, who lived in Cerney Wick - both villages quite close to Latton. The brothers were old men, who had lived peaceful lives in the tranquillity of their farms. They must have seemed like country bumpkins to Fisher. Now that Anthony Clarke has refused to prove the will, would they, as William's brothers, agree to administer it, he asked. Who else should do it, he must have said, but the older, experienced members of the family. There is no-one else! They willingly agreed. After all, the family had always stood together; brother had helped brother, cousin and in-law. It was their duty to their dead brother and those three orphan children. Poor old men; sincerity was not enough! They knew nothing of a huge, complex London business, and (according to Martha later on) that was the whole idea.
And would they act as guardians to the children? After some hesitation as to whether Mary Butler (William's sister, and wife of John Butler, his former partner) should be one of the guardians, James and Robert agreed. They would not be asked to look after the children on a day-to-day basis, but rather to be the guardians of their money. A Proxy of Guardianship was drawn up, and the three children signed it to show that they accepted the arrangement. The brothers went back to London with Richard Fisher, and under his guidance took out letters of administration. They were now the legal representatives of their dead brother, and the guardians of the three orphan children, and they would remain so until Martha reached the age of 21 in three years' time - or until she married.
Having arrived in London, they started to look around at what they had taken upon themselves At this point it must have dawned on them that they had taken on a huge task, which they could not possibly perform. They inspected the warehouse, with its stock and bales of velvet, lace, cotton, room after room of it; machinery for loading the heavy bales, the workrooms, where, no doubt the maids and the men were trying to continue with the last work which William had set them, and wondering anxiously what was to happen to them; if they lost their jobs, they also lost their lodgings. What would become of them? they must have asked James and Robert. What indeed. James and Robert had no idea. They stayed in the living quarters of the house, with its comfortable furnishings, obviously knowing that something must be done; but what? The children must have looked at them in bewilderment, needing to know what life they were to have now, and who was to care for them, and where they were to live; the brothers were non-plussed. "They are old men, and farmers,"(12) said Martha, scornfully.
What ought they to be doing? they asked Fisher. Take an inventory, collect in the money that tradesmen owed to William ... An inventory was taken. Value of goods in Rood Lane, and also Stockwell, £25,000. But they had forgotten to give details of the value of the money owed to William by the traders he supplied, and his real estate, and his rents, and many of the loans he had issued.
Out of the money that they had collected in from the tradesmen, Robert and James started to pay out money to support the children, from July onwards. To Martha, they paid regular, adequate sums: normally £15 per month, because she was the one who did all the shopping for Mary Ann and Thomas now, and bigger sums when something extra cropped up. They paid Mary Ann's larger expenses, such as school bills and clothing, and also made her a regular allowance of about £10 a month. It was the same for Thomas; most of the money for his upkeep was given to Martha, and she bought him things like hats, and mourning suits, and paid for his coach fares to school.
It was clear to Martha that her uncles were unable to perform all the work required, and she tried to persuade them to let Edward Colyer take over administration of the will. But when James and Robert discussed this possibility with John Butler, he would not hear of it, and assured them that they should continue. By 20 July 1803, the children and the relatives had all moved out of the house in Rood Lane, but where Martha and the children went to live is not clear. The business partners would move out later to set up their own business elsewhere and arrangements were made to sell all the furniture from the London houses, as well as the remaining stock. John Butler had the responsibility for selling the furniture, and he gave public notice was given that a sale was to take place.
Later accounts of the sale varied considerably. John Butler said that he gave plenty of notice of the sale, which was properly conducted and well attended. Martha, on the other hand, said that he gave very little notice of the sale, so that hardly anyone was there, and that this was deliberate, so that he could buy what he wanted cheaply for himself.
Appalled at the amount of work ahead of them in winding up the business, dealing with the children, the courts, the debtors, the creditors, and selling the house, it must have seemed like a godsend to James and Robert when, one day, Richard Fisher came to see them, and kindly offered to do all the work for them, and without even being paid for it! What a relief that would be for them! They only needed to make out power of attorney to him and the partners, Fisher told them, and then they could both go home to Wiltshire and look after their farms in peace. With a sigh of relief, they signed the necessary documents, kissed the children goodbye, "and have scarcely ever since interfered," said Martha, later, somewhat unfairly.
Richard Fisher, John Butler and Samuel Buxton now had power of attorney. Between them, they were in complete control of the money, as well as the business.
However, in the weeks before Robert and James Habgood had signed over power of attorney, the brothers had in fact collected some money; perhaps from the debtors, or perhaps from the sale of the furniture. When they went home to Wiltshire they were in possession of over £9,000, and they made sure that they took it with them. Once back in Wiltshire, they also collected the rents from William's house in Cricklade and his grazing land in Purton.
Richard Fisher realised that they had absconded with the money and wrote to them asking them to hand it over. They wrote back that there was practically nothing left of it; they had hardly collected anything anyway, and William's funeral expenses had used most of it up. (Perhaps they weren't such innocents after all!) They were obviously not going to part with the money easily, and try as he might, Fisher could not get it from them. So in November of the same year, 1803 Fisher initiated another action in the court of Chancery, in the name of the children, to get the money back from them: Habgood versus Habgood. They ought to give a clear account of the money they had, he told the court, invest it, and pay the children a regular allowance out of the interest.
The news that they were being taken to court should have galvanised James and Robert into action of one kind or another, but it did not; the old men did nothing. Frustrated by their silence, the courts contacted them again. Surprised, James and Robert claimed they had not received any communication at all about the matter; what order was the court talking about? They lived so far away, in Gloucester ... They were given more time to sort things out. On 5 December, they went to Cirencester, to the house of Joseph Pitt, the respected local solicitor, and he helped them to draft an answer. They said they really didn't know how much money they had; they didn't know what William's assets were worth; they were in a bit of a muddle. They said they had "so lately obtained letters of administration that they are unable to set forth of what particulars the same consists"(13). The court allowed them yet more time to sort things out.
By now, William's business had been completely wound up. The partners had continued to run it until July 20. Most of the stock from the warehouse had been sold now, and the partners had bought quite a lot of what was left. They were going to set up their own business, so the stock would be useful to them. They were to pay for it in instalments.
At Christmas 1803, Richard Butler and Samuel Buxton moved out of Rood Lane to a house in Fenchurch Street. They managed to retain quite a lot of William's old customers, so their business was on a very sound footing from the outset, with William's stock and William's customers. Back in court on 26 January 1804, the whole story was gone through yet again, and each time there was an order, a subpoena, an interrogatory, an answer, or a hearing, the clerks copied the whole history of the case out once more, painstakingly, in large books or on huge sheets of parchment, running up enormous legal fees, safe in the knowledge that someone would foot the bill at the end of it; probably the children, out of their father's estate.
The Master of the Court who was supposed to be deciding who would be the children's guardian, was a Mr Spranger. Within a few months of the beginning of the court case, he died, and so the matter was to be dealt with by a new master - Mr Stanley. He read through the history of the case, and concluded that Robert and James should pay the money they had into the bank, into an account which would be held by the court.
In February 1804 James and Robert had to come to London to appear in court and were ordered to hand over the money they had collected earlier - £9,780 15/6 in total. The court would use the money to buy annuities which would provide a steady income for the children to live on. Also, it was decided that the inventory that James and Robert had drawn up was just not good enough: one of the Masters of the Court would arrange for proper accounts to be taken. Advertisements would be placed in the London papers calling for William's debtors and creditors to appear, and then at least that part of William's affairs could be sorted out properly.
On 18 December 1804, a notice was put in the London Gazette: Pursuant to a Decree in the High Court of Chancery made in a Cause Habgood against Habgood, the Creditors of William Habgood, late of Rood Lane, Fenchurch Street in the city of London, wholesale Haberdasher, deceased, (who died on the 17th of April 1803) are forthwith to come in and prove their debts before James Stanley Esq, one of the Masters of the said court, at his chambers in Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane, London or in default thereof they will be excluded the Benefit of the said decree.
However, no-one came forward; any debts which William had owed at the time of his death had already been paid off by the partners, or by James and Robert.
In spite of all the wrangling going on between Fisher, the partners and the uncles, it was Martha who held the winning card: in February 1805, she would be 21. At 21, she would legally be an adult, and could obtain letters of administration for all the personal estate of her father; she would be the legal representative of her father, and could take charge of all the money.
Within a week of her twenty-first birthday in 1805, she applied for letters of administration, and of course they were granted. Legally she was now in control of all the money. Her first action was decisive: she went to the bank and drew out every penny: £9,784, 15/6 - not to mention the dividends that had accrued in the meantime. Of course, she was morally entitled to only one third of the money, but she took the lot, leaving nothing for Mary Ann and Thomas. What did she do with it? Very probably she handed at least some of it over to Milburn, who was now desperate for money. When Fisher heard what she had done, he angrily told her to pay back the extra that she had taken, but she brazenly answered that she was entitled to much more than one third. Somehow or other, she also managed to get hold of most of the promissory notes which had been given to her father when he issued loans, so these people were now bound to pay her the money they had owed to her father. But there was more money which was not yet in the bank, which she couldn't get her hands on. Fisher and the partners still held some of the money from the sale of stock, and from running the business, and from collecting in debts owed to William by tradesmen. Martha was, of course, legally entitled to claim it. She asked each of them in turn to hand over the money; Samuel Buxton paid her a few sums of money, and James and Robert paid various bills on her behalf, but as for the rest, she simply could not extract it from them.
On one occasion she went to see John Butler and asked him for a few worthless trinkets, as she put it - all her father's gold rings. He refused to hand them over and sarcastically told her that she should go and ask for them in the Court of Chancery!
Poor Martha; at 18 years old, she had been left to look after her younger brother and sister, with no help from anyone else. The uncles did not come to see her, nor did they attempt to help her, or ask what difficulties she was having in looking after her brother or sister. Richard Fisher did not come near her, and neither did John and Mary Butler. No-one seemed to take an interest in what was happening to Martha, Mary Ann or Thomas. How could they pretend that this court case was for the benefit of the children, asked Martha, when they were not sufficiently interested in them even to pay them a visit? Martha must have felt bitter and abandoned, and out of her depth trying to be a mother to the two younger children. There was another problem, too: receiving only £15 a month from her uncles, she had no money to pursue her case in the courts - or at least that was what she told the courts. (She didn't mention all the money she had drawn out of the bank.) And still she continued her affair with William Milburn. With all these problems, she could not have had much time for little Mary Ann, or for Thomas. They must have been horribly neglected.
There was another thing that Martha was legally entitled to do now that she was 21: she could marry, without needing to ask anyone's permission. As soon as she married, Milburn would take over all her legal rights and would then be in control of all the money; and he certainly needed it. He owed money to many people now, and these people were getting impatient. They were threatening him with a court action; it was starting to look as though he would go to gaol for debt. The prospect of being put in Fleet prison - the debtors' prison - must have filled Milburn with terror.
Had Martha started to realise that Milburn was almost bankrupt? Certainly the older members of the family knew that he had money problems, and they told her in no uncertain terms that he was only after her money.
So why didn't she leave him? Perhaps she was pregnant, or had even had a baby by this time. Perhaps also because, after having antagonised and insulted the older members of her family and her father's partners, she was virtually alone in the world, manipulated by a much stronger and more desperate character. Perhaps because her pride would not allow her to back down and admit that she had been wrong all the time. Perhaps she was very naive, and believed him when he said he would be able to sort out his money problems. Perhaps she was still in love with him.
In February 1805, very soon after getting letters of administration, Martha promptly went to court, and started an action against Richard Fisher and the partners, John Butler, Richard Butler and Samuel Buxton in order to force them to hand over the rest of the money. Her uncles Robert and James Habgood were also included in the action: she said that they must set forth their accounts. And for the first time, she turned upon her younger brother Thomas, saying that he should give reasons why he might be the one who was entitled to the whole of the freehold estate of her father - that is, the house in Cricklade and the land in Purton; she should have one third of the house and the rents, she argued. This was undoubtedly all done at the instigation of William Milburn. The case of Habgood versus Habgood entered a new and bitter phase.
The family must have been torn apart by the quarrels over money. Poor little Thomas; the young woman who should have been a second mother to him was opposing him in court, and trying to take from him what everyone considered was his natural right; he was the heir at law, and until now, no-one had questioned his right to the house in Cricklade.
Eventually, in June 1805, Milburn's creditors caught up with him. He was thrown into prison for debt and declared bankrupt. The Bankruptcy Commission examined his debts, and over the next twelve months his assets were seized to the value of the debts, until the debtors could be paid off and a certificate of conformity issued. Each stage of the bankruptcy was announced in the London Gazette, so Martha must surely have known what was happening. Did she visit him in prison? Did his first wife, Henrietta, also visit him?
When Milburn was released from prison, Martha and he worked on the version of a story which they would present to the court of Chancery: Richard Fisher and the partners had plotted and conspired to defraud the children of their money by confusing the debts so that the accounts could not be understood. They had also cancelled the debts of old customers, so that when they started up their own company, the old customers would be grateful to them and would remain with them. In doing this, they had in a sense stolen the customers. Normally when a business is transferred into new hands, the existing customers are purchased as "good will", which is paid for with money. In this instance, said Martha and Milburn, they should have paid about £1000 for the "good will" of the company, but they did not. Fisher might put on an act of having the children's welfare at heart, but the truth was that "proceedings were taken with a design to give colour to the parties before mentioned, having so intermeddled with the estate that Richard Fisher, John Butler, Richard Butler and Samuel Buxton, under the authority of James Habgood and Robert Habgood, possessed a considerable part of the estate, and employed the same to their own use and did not invest it; Richard Barnard Fisher and the others paid claims and demands to a large amount, which they ought not to have done, but to have referred them to prove their debts before the Master..."(14)
Accusations became increasingly bitter and insulting. Martha said that "a plan was formed by ... John Butler by the advice of Richard Barnard Fisher for the purpose of keeping (Martha), her brother and sister out of their money as long as they could"(15). They were only pretending to have the children's welfare at heart; they obviously didn't care at all about the children, because they never came to see them, or took any interest in them at all.
That was Martha's story, and she stuck to it, to the anger of Fisher and the partners. And quite possibly it was true.
From now on, James and Robert did not send money to Martha for the other two children. It was Martha who decided what was to be bought for the children; she went shopping with them, and kept accounts of what she had bought, to present to the court later for reimbursement. The accounts may well have been grossly exaggerated.
In June 1805, Mr Stanley, the master of the court, was still struggling to cope with Robert and James's accounts. He decided it was "necessary that a Commission should issue into the county of Gloucestershire" to question them. This was perhaps genuinely necessary, but it would also be a nice little trip into the country for the commission - it was summer, after all. Robert and James were now holding £3000, which they handed over to the court representatives, and in August this was added to the account in the Bank of England. This, and a further £5,000 would be used to buy annuities.
And what about that half pipe of wine that Robert and James also went off with, said Fisher? That should be sold and the money paid into the bank.
At this point, the court decided it was high time to have a more accurate and comprehensive inventory drawn up, listing every single item in the London houses, every debt unpaid to William, every penny he owed to others; it was to be a huge document, when it was completed: it would turn out to be thirty sheets of parchment, each measuring about 3' x 2', and compiled at huge expense. But that would cost thousands of pounds, protested Robert and James (and that was in 1805!). It was going to be a very difficult and complicated document to draw up, because the accounts were in such a muddle.
Back in 1803, when William died, lots of traders had owed money to William, and no-one had the legal right to collect it in. But it was collected, of course; the partners could not let the customers get away with the money indefinitely, so they asked some of them to pay up, and took the money at 2.5% commission. They had not kept clear records of what debts they had collected in, however. What had happened was that when they collected the money, they entered it as paid in the very books that William had used during his lifetime; it seemed a reasonable thing to do at the time. But now, a couple of years later, they couldn't tell which debts had been collected by them, and which had already been collected by William; they hadn't put in the date of repayment. Or at least, that was their story.
Martha later estimated that the partners had collected in about £10,000 in debts. They had officially been acting as the agents of Robert and James, so it was all their fault again.
Robert and James needed a solicitor in London to help them to sort out the accounts. Who could Fisher recommend? A Mr Joseph Mayhew. Now this was rather improper, because in fact, Mayhew was one of the partners in a firm of solicitors called Mayhew and Dove, and Mr Dove was the solicitor that Richard Fisher shared a house with, and he was the one that Fisher was employing to prosecute James and Robert. So the firm of Mayhew and Dove were acting for both the complainants and the defendants in the same case, and both for and against Robert and James.
At the instructions of James and Robert, Mayhew set one of his clerks, Joshua Gregory, to do nothing else but work on the inventory, day in and day out, for several months, and another clerk, Daniel Ashby, to work on it from the 10 August 1805 onwards, to say nothing of Richard Smith, another clerk, who joined in when it was obvious that the other two would never get it finished on time. And still they couldn't complete it by the date the court had set. The clerks were of course only copying out the details the accountants gave them, and the accountants' fees had to be paid as well. James and Robert had been right; this was going to be an appallingly expensive document.
Meanwhile, in November, Martha's case against the uncles, the partners and Fisher, came to court. All of them, Fisher, the partners and the uncles, asked for more time to prepare their case; and no wonder; this series of cases, with everyone opposing everyone else in every possible permutation, was becoming a full-time job for all concerned. Hearings and appearances in court were coming thick and fast, sometimes as often as four times in one week. No doubt Richard Fisher regretted that he had ever interfered; his life, and the lives of all the others who were involved in the case, must have been taken over completely by it.
So the weeks and the months and the years dragged on, with no end in sight. The anger, bitterness and frustration must have been very difficult to cope with for each one of them.
On 14 February 1806 Richard Fisher was on the warpath again, but this time against his own solicitors, Mayhew and Dove. He complained to the court: how could the same firm of solicitors act for opposing parties? They were acting both for and against Martha. (He could just as well said that they were acting for and against James and Robert.)
What is more, he said, Mayhew and Dove had acted as administrators for the estate of William Habgood, when they were employed by James and Robert, and the solicitors had received quite a bit of money which they had not handed over. Could they please be told to give it back?
And that was not all; Fisher had asked Mayhew and Dove time and time again to make out their bill of fees and present all books and papers for verification, and they simply refused to do so. How could any check be kept on the costs of the case, if he could not find out what they were?
The court, always passively taking the line of least resistance, ordered the solicitors to put in their bill within a fortnight and to produce all books and papers which related to their fees. If the charges were too high, Mayhew and Dove would have to repay the excess. It is not clear whether Fisher was still sharing a house with Mr Dove, but if he was, relations must have been a bit strained.
On 7 June 1806, Martha was back in court. She related the entire history of the case, from her point of view. She complained that she was entitled to the money, but could not extract it from all the now unauthorised people who were holding on to it: she said she "hath frequently of late appeared .. to the said James and Robert Habgood, Richard Barnard Fisher, John Butler, Richard Butler, Samuel Buxton, and requested her third of rents, real estate, personal estate and effects. ... Richard Butler and Samuel Buxton allege that they have carried and still do carry on the said trade for their own use and benefit and that they are not subject or liable to account with (Martha) for the gains and profits," and the ultimate insult, " ... Richard Butler and Samuel Buxton were persons of little or no property or fortune"(16).
She openly accused the partners of embezzlement: "several of the debtors of William Habgood became the customers of Richard Butler and Samuel Buxton, and they in order to continue the favours of such debtors granted them indulgences ... forbearing to use diligence in collecting the payment"(17).
Also, she reiterated that she was entitled in fee simple to a third of the real estate of her father, that is, the house in Cricklade and the meadowland in Purton. Why should Thomas inherit it all instead of her?
On 14 June 1806, in the midst of all this legal and emotional turmoil, Martha took the final step towards ruin, and married William Milburn. Signing his name in the marriage register of St Mary Lambeth, Milburn tried hard to disguise his handwriting.
Why had they both put off marriage for a year after Martha's 21st birthday? Probably Milburn had been too afraid of the consequences of a bigamous marriage. Bigamy was a serious crime - although a fairly common one - which would normally be tried in the Old Bailey. If he were found out, he would be disgraced for life, quite apart from getting a long prison sentence. His wife Henrietta (now eight months pregnant with their third child and presumably feeling very suspicious of his constant absences) would lose all affection for him - if she had ever had any in the first place. She would not have left him, of course, for where could a married woman go if she left her husband? Married women had no money in their own right, and thus were totally dependent on their husbands for survival. A bigamous marriage was a terrifying step for Milburn to take, but it was now absolutely essential for him to get his hands on Martha's money: he was about to be declared a bankrupt, and probably his creditors were getting dangerous.
As for Martha, she must surely have realised that Milburn only wanted her for her money. Why did she still marry him? Perhaps she was afraid to go through the rest of the court case on her own. Perhaps she thought that Milburn had embezzled so much that it was too late to leave him. Perhaps she had no money left at all, and dared not face her brother and sister without him.
As soon as she married, Milburn gained entire legal control of the fortune. His money problems were no doubt sorted out rapidly once Martha's money was transferred to him.
They had married on 14 June 1806. It is to be hoped that Milburn managed to get back to his first wife, Henrietta, by mid-July, when she went into labour.
How did Milburn manage the practicalities of being married to two women, and keeping each one a secret from the other? It must have been very difficult. Being a dealer in commodities must have helped; he could make the excuse that he had to go on a six-month voyage to India, or a four-week trip to Spain. However, it is likely that both Henrietta and Martha had their suspicions.
It was very soon after his marriage to Martha that Milburn bought a magnificent house for himself and his first wife. There can be little doubt that it was bought with Martha's money. It was a very beautiful residence in Bruce Grove, in the village of Tottenham. There was a breakfast room with a clouded ceiling and a marble hearth; a dining room with circular windows; a drawing room also with circular windows; five bedrooms, as well as a servant's room. Milburn had a fine library of books on travel, and reference books on geography and medicine. They furnished the house with paintings, japanned furniture, silverware, raw silk bedding, satin-covered chairs; the wine cellar was particularly well stocked. There was considerable land with the house; an extensive garden with shrubberies, a carriage yard and carriage sweep infront, and large, iron folding gates. At the back, there was "an excellent and extensive garden productive Garden, well stocked and walled around, and a field of meadow land"(18). They also embarked upon improvements to the house. No expense was spared: they called in carpenters, builders, plumbers; - who were destined to join the list of Milburn's creditors.
Meanwhile, Martha was living in the Crescent, in Kingsland. Over the next few years she moved address frequently. Perhaps this was because Milburn was forcing her to live in ever cheaper accommodation, as his money problems started to build up again. Probably she saw much less of Milburn as time went on; why should he be interested in her now that he had her money? In future, as the court paid out certain sums of money, it would go automatically to him rather than to Martha. He had no further need of her.
Until June 1805, Mary Ann had been at boarding school in Bromley. After leaving school, she came to live with the Milburns. Thomas was still attending Burlington House School in Hammersmith. During the holidays, he stayed with Martha and William Milburn - at least, when Milburn was around. Milburn was the head of the household, and was now responsible for the children's upkeep. He was almost certainly allowing them no money at all, but was providing them with board and lodging. He charged them for board, lodging, washing and pocket money, but as he was in possession of their money (or some of it), this only meant that he could justifiably take some of it for himself. What an odd household it must have been; with a criminally irresponsible bigamist at its head, an infatuated and helpless young woman as the mistress of the household, and two very insecure children looking on and learning from their example.
In the following November of 1806, back in court again, John Butler gave his answer to Martha's accusations in a statement full of errors and exaggerations. Now that Martha was accusing everyone of dishonesty, it was in their interests to make out that William Habgood had not had very much money at all in his lifetime. Trade had not been very good for William, John Butler said, since the time when Samuel Buxton had joined the business. He joined in the process of besmirching Martha and William Milburn: she should have been made a ward of court "to prevent her making an improvident marriage with a person who was at that time paying his addresses to her and who ... was a person without property and was not a fit and proper match for her or fit to be trusted with her property, and which person ... has since become a bankrupt"(19).
John Butler's son Richard also spoke up, and backed up his story about the business being in decline when William died. Indignantly, he denied that they had allowed favours or indulgences to the customers; on the contrary, they had suffered great loss through their diligence in collecting the money. He had to admit, however, that "they have in some instances compromised and received compositions for such debts"(20).
To prove that they had not taken an undue number of William's old customers, they made lists of who had been customers of William's and who were now customers of theirs, laboriously listing about three hundred customers in all. There had been no need to buy the goodwill, they said; the goodwill became vested in Samuel Buxton by survivorship.
Now, for the first and only time in the Court of Chancery, someone cast aspersions on William's sanity when he was making his will. John Butler's son, Richard, told the court that William Habgood had not been in his right mind when he made his will. The court disregarded this statement; it sounded so much like spitefulness. No-one else ever referred to William's insanity again.
The accusations became ever more vicious and the bitterness more intense. To the person making the accusations, it probably seemed at the time that they would be constructive, and would influence the court in their favour. In reality, however, this was not achieved. The result of the accusations was to slow the case down in court to the point where there was no end in sight. The original cause - to protect the children and safeguard their inheritance - had almost been lost sight of by all parties, as the level of accusations became ever more detailed, indeed almost trivial. Probably none of them really thought that the Master of the Court would consider every minor point that had been put to him; all the parties were simply lost in an ever-widening family quarrel, in which issues of increasing irrelevance were introduced. But though the issues were becoming comparatively trivial, it was still necessary for each party to defend himself against the accusations, and this often involved counter-attacks on the accuser. And as long as Milburn's creditors were threatening him, he would scrape the barrel to produce more and more reasons why everyone else should hand over more money to Martha.
If the court had at any point made the decision that the case should be sorted out once and for all, come what may, all the varying arguments might have been of some use. However, hearings took place in front of the Chancellor or a Master of the Court without anything really being achieved. Progress was not just minimal; the end of the case actually seemed to become more remote as time went on.
The solicitors probably encouraged the increasing scope of the case and the lengthening time span, because this was obviously to their benefit. The solicitors, the clerks, all those whose livelihood was obtained from the administration of the law, were profiting greatly from the ever-increasing anger and frustration.
So it was that Martha made new accusations about missing sums of money. She told the court that Richard Fisher and the partners had "sold out £5000, part of the 3% annuities ... and did not invest or replace it ... (though they) replaced some at a much lower price than it sold for. The difference between selling and replacing was considerable, and the same was appropriated to the use of them"(21). Again she stressed to the court something she had already told them: when the partners arranged the sale of the house in Rood Lane, they did not publicise the sale sufficiently, and only gave a little notice of the sale, deliberately, "and therefore very few people except themselves attended and they at such sale purchased several articles and a great amount at very low and unfair prices"(22). And could they please tell her what was to be done with Thomas and Mary Ann?
In answer to Martha's accusations of embezzlement, Fisher and the partners repeated that William's estate wasn't really worth very much; they didn't know how much it was worth - perhaps £18000 or £20000; the goodwill wasn't worth much; they had no idea how the company was run; they didn't know what the debts were; they knew it had been failing for the last few years, and that was why William was giving up the business; he hadn't really been very rich at all. And these were the very people who had made sworn statements two or three years before talking about "a very considerable personal estate and effects of great value"(23). And they had no idea what was to be done with the other two children; though Fisher said, of course Thomas was entitled to the real estate in Cricklade; he was the heir at law.
The repetition involved was enormous. Again and again, the history of the case was related to the court, and copied out meticulously by clerks, time after time. Occasionally new details would creep in, as the bitterness increased.
Poor James and Robert, back in Gloucestershire, accused no-one, but were accused by everyone: by Martha, who wanted them to hand over what money they had; by Richard Fisher, who also demanded the money of them; and by the courts, who obviously were dissatisfied with their previous incompetence, and who were requiring a reckoning of the money they had. It was a sad way for these old men to end their days.
James and Robert's solicitor, Joseph Pitt, and others, had been working on the inventory for a very long time now. At last it was finished. It listed all William's possessions and assets - the loans and mortgages he had granted, the annuities he had taken out, his gold, his silver, his cash - even the money that was found in his coat pocket after he died. It listed every item of furniture in the house in Rood Lane, and in the house in Stockwell. It listed every scrap of lace, ribbon, calico and linen, every piece of shelving in his two warehouses. It listed all the traders who had owed him money, and how much and what for; it showed the price of the bread that was given to the poor at his funeral, and the cost of inscribing his tomb. It showed the fees charged by the vicar who had visited him on his deathbed, and the surgeon's fees, and the cost of medicine for William, and also for Mary Ann, because she had been ill at the same time as her father back in 1803.
It was a massive document. Thirty huge sheets of parchment,
full of prices and valuations. Eventually it was presented to the
court.
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(C) Judith Habgood-Everett 1995
Last updated: 31/1/2007
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