Richard Goodlad is mentioned by William Cobbett in his Rural Rides: “In coming along yesterday, from Waltham Chase to Soberton Down, we passed by a big white house upon a hill that was, when I lived at Botley, occupied by one Goodlad, who was a cock justice of the peace, and who had been a chap of some sort or other, in India….”.

 

Possibly, like many others, Richard had made his fortune in India and chose to buy a country estate when he retired home to England. He served as Sheriff of Hampshire in 1818 and is frequently mentioned in Droxford’s parish records. He and Frances Leonora died within eight days of each other in January 1821 and are commemorated on a plaque inside Droxford church.

 

Neither Leonora nor her sister Elizabeth married and in 1873 they moved to Jervis Lodge, after it had ceased to be the village parsonage. Leonora could be described as an archetypical Victorian spinster who became a benefactress for Swanmore. Among her many donations were the 400 books she presented in 1872 to the new parish library, established at the village school. Books could be borrowed on Mondays at noon and on Saturday evenings at a cost of a halfpenny per volume or for an annual subscription of one shilling and sixpence (7½p). Leonora also provided the transport – a horse-drawn van – that would take the church choir on their annual summer outings, as well as donating the annual prizes for the village Sunday School.

 

Following the library donation, Leonora established “The Leonora Goodlad Charity”. She wanted to support the educational and social development of future generations of young people in the parish and in her will set aside some of the land that she owned to provide an ongoing income for her charity.

 

The land is now owned by the Swanmore Educational Trust – formed in 1981 by the merger of Leonora’s charity with the “The School Allotments Charity” founded in 1863 – and it provides the main source of the trust’s income today. According to Peter Watkins (author of Swanmore since 1840) the land was originally on the site of where Swanmore College now stands. However, in the 1960s the County Council traded land on the opposite side of New Road for Leonora’s legacy to enable the school to be built. The Swanmore Educational Trust thus owns land that covers the site of the village hall and to the south of it an area known as the Old Scout Hut and Trough Fields. This means that the residents of Goodlad Road overlook the fields and the Village Hall that are directly connected to the lady their road is named after. The trust is not permitted to sell the land, and the Trough Field (nearest to Goodlad Road) is designated a Site of Importance for Nature Conservation (SINC) meaning that it cannot be developed.

 

Following Leonora’s death many in the village were determined that her generosity should be remembered and in 1896 some 156 parishioners contributed more than £82 (equivalent to almost £14,000 in today’s money) for a memorial. This took the form of a stained glass window at St Barnabas, over the pew on the north side of the nave where she habitually sat; in addition the memorial fund bought a silver gilt chalice and paten, cruet and alms dishes used in church services. There is a story that her will also made provision for each child of the parish to receive either a prayer book or bible.

 

Richard Redfern Goodlad was also a local magistrate and, like his father, served as Sheriff of Hampshire in 1876. He also frequently supported village developments: he gave £100 in 1864 to help build the new village school and also paid for the church lych gate in 1867 in memory of his first wife, Emma.

 

Richard Redfern Goodlad died without issue in 1880 and Leonora and Elizabeth moved back to Hill Place. Their sister Frances Eliza had married the Revd Andrew Alfred Daubeny in 1828 and had five children; however, by 1880 only one was still alive – Walter Augustus Daubeny (1838–1914), a Major in the 3rd Regiment of Foot and described by some as a “thin, aristocratic figure, with an ascetic appearance, slow moving, unsmiling and something of a martinet”. Some time after the sisters returned to Hill Place, Major Daubeny came to join them and when Leonora died in 1895 he inherited the estate.

 

The Hill Place Estate was extensive – in all 1,059 acres. As well as its gardens and park covering 46 acres it included many of the local farms – including Jervis Court (62acres), Hill Farm (169acres), Cott Street Farm (218 acres) and Upper Hill Harm (176 acres) – as well as numerous houses such as Jervis Lodge, Hampton Hill Cottage and Church Cottage. When Walter Daubeny died on 30th April 1914 there was no direct heir to inherit. In July the furniture was sold in a three-day sale and in May 1916 the entire estate went under the hammer.

 

Leonora’s legacy, lives on – although, sadly, no photographs of this remarkable lady are known to have survived.

 

If you have any additional memories of Leonora Goodlad, please send them to DEO@swanmorepc.org.uk so that they may be included in future updates of this information page.