Family Histories
Discovering the history of your family is a fascinatiog, often frustrating, hobby and is reputedly the most popular passtime in Britain today and the popularity of TV shows such as "Who do you think you are?" and the number of magazines on the subject on newsaget's shelves would seem to support that belief.
Many people begin their involvement with local history having started with their family history and, having discovered a 'family clusyer' in one particular place, decide to try and better understand that place and the roles their ancestors played there. Others take up local history because it is where they live, or once lived, and it hilds a special place in their feelimgs.
Every community is composed of people and every one of those people is somebody's relative, however dostant that relationship may be, and every one of those people has a history of theit own
We cannot research the family histories of everone who has ever lived in Oatlands, but we have done some research on people who played a significant role i the history of the village and have maaged to unearth details that a family historian may not have done. Because of our specialist knowledge and interest.we often use archived documents would not normally consider and, while it would be an impossibly large and time-consuming task to record every name we encounter, we note any references to 'names that we know' and, i this way, have helped many family historians with their researches.
As mentioned earlier, there are some people in whom we take a particular interest and for those we have built family trees, traced living descendants and discovered many previously unknown facts.
If you have an Oatlands connection in your family history, please contact us. Whether you are a seasoned family historian or just starting out, we may be able to help each other.
Stephens of "Kensington Lodge"
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The Cornish Family of "Lea Croft"
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The Peppercorne Family
James Watts Peppercorne plays a very, very, significant role in the history of Oatlands. At the sales of 1846, he was the main purchaser in terms of land acquired and ended up as owner of the Mansion and its gardens as well as the Estate Farm and other plots, but it seems highly likely that it wasn't his money that funded the purchases.
James Watts Peppercorne, at the time of the sales, was a stockbroker and had earlier been in business with his father William. In 1840, there were "proceedings in Chancery" involving William doing a 'shady deal' and selling his own shares in a canal company to a client via an intermediary who had held the shares on William's behalf only long enough to cover the transaction. The case became a 'legal precedent" (known as Gillett v Peppercorne - 1840) and the judge in summing-up stated quite clearly that William had commited an act of fraud. Although there was no prosecution, the repercussions were large and, amongst other things, William resigned from the London Stock Exchange in 1842 and retired to Bexhill.
We are still collecting information, but it is beginning to look as if James followed in his father's footsteps with regard to monet, certainly in respect of Oatlands. In 1857 there is a letter from the "trustees of George Augustus Young" instructing the builders, who were converting Oatlands House (the mansion) into a hotel, to stop work immediately until Peppercorne had repaid the mortgage of £8,000 - a not inconsiderable sum at that time.1861 saw him as the defendant in a court case initiated by his partner in the stockbroking business, Charles Peppercorne, who was also his cousin.
James died on the 9th of December 1861 and in 1863 his widow, Louisa, was being sued by various members of her family (who had, presumably, invested money) and, in turn, Louisa ended up suig her own daughters and their husbands. Louisa was declared bancrupt in September 1866 and by 1881 was living in lodgings in Weybridge with her daughter Emily.
We have made contact with several descendants of James Watts Peppercorne and two of them are researching the family history, enabling us to to progress this family history at a good rate.
The photograph on the left shows Emily Peppercorne but the date is unknown.
William Dyzart - Anderson's Road
The family tree of William Dyzart is an odd one. We first encountered William when we were transcribing the 1891 Census - where the surame appears as "Dygart" - there, in the 'place of birth' column was "Not known, Being found deserted" and thus began a fascinating story and a family tree that has no roots...
Although we now know the facts surrounding William being "found deserted", we haven't progressed William's tree very far yet as other things have taken priority - but we will...