ARCHIVE OF WILLIAM BALCOMBE LANGRIDGE OF LEWES, SOLICITOR AND CLERK OF THE PEACE

LAN

ARCHIVE OF WILLIAM BALCOMBE LANGRIDGE OF LEWES, SOLICITOR AND CLERK OF THE PEACE

1411-1862

LAN/1 - 13 Professional: accounts and memoranda, 1785-1838

LAN/14 - 20 Professional: WBL as a notary public, 1788 - 1837

LAN/21 - 22 Professional: precedents, 1765 - 1816

LAN/23 - 56 Professional: papers, 1748 - 1862

LAN/57 - 116 Professional: deeds, 1742 - 1818

LAN/117 - 134 Professional: draft deeds, 1785 - 1826

LAN/135 - 178 Professional: abstracts of title, 1411 - 1789

LAN/179 - 200 Professional: cases with counsel's opinion, 1791-1828

LAN/201 - 244 Professional: bankruptcy of Thomas Harben, 1793 - 1795

LAN/245 - 294 Private: deeds of W B Langridge's own property

LAN/295 - 299 Private: property

LAN/300 - 303 Private: other documents, 1792 - 1820

LAN/304 - 313 Private: plans, 1768 - c1820

LAN/314 - 329 Private: slate business, 1818 - 1832

LAN/330 - 334 Private: papers, 1799 - 1882

LAN/335 - 337 Private: sea charts, 1801 - 1807

<span class="wrapper"><p>A small family archive, relating largely to the property of the Balcombe family at Streat, the Johnson family at Waldron and former Vidler property at Esher in Surrey, was deposited by London solicitors in 1963 and 1966 (AMS 5706). It also contains settlements and partitions of the entire estate, 1804-1868, and a large bundle of certificates of birth, baptism, marriage, death and burial of members of the Langridge and related families, 1757-1866, produced in Turner v Cooke in Chancery in 1866 and 1867</p> <p>Further counterpart leases and deeds of the former Vidler Estate at Esher, 1830-1850, are among the records deposited by Messrs Blaker, Son and Young of Lewes, solicitors, ACC 5702/84</p></span>

English

16 series

Documents are open for consultation unless otherwise indicated

Introduction

William Balcombe Langridge (1757-1845), clerk of the peace 1806-1831, was also a solicitor in private practice in the town. A number of his private papers remained with the county records, no doubt because of the conjunction of circumstances by which the clerkship remained in the family until 1882, and the record room of the County Hall, built in 1808-12, was available to house the records undisturbed

Langridge was baptized at Lewes All Saints on 1 November 1757, the son of William Langridge and Mary Balcombe, whom he had married at the same church on 9 February 1755. William Langridge was a carpenter by trade (see LAN 80 and 295); his yard, at the bottom of Dolphin Lane and St Mary's Lane (now St Nicholas Lane and Station Street), was later developed by his children as Lansdown Place (see LAN 295 and AMS 6589). The father was buried on 29 September 1801 at the age of 85, followed soon after by his wife, on 24 November 1802 aged 78 (PAR 410). An account of the expenses of the executorship of William's estate appears in his son's Client's Cash Book (LAN 8), where we find that the cost of proving the will at the Prerogative Court was £63 10s 10d

On 8 February 1805 at St John the Evangelist, Westminster, Langridge married Abigail Vidler, daughter of John Vidler of Millbank, coach-maker (Sussex Notes and Queries 10 (1944-45) 185; ACC 5702/84); she died in 1858

W B Langridge was clerk to the Lewes attorney Josias Smith by January 1779 (AMS 5720/15-17), and was still associated with him in 1781 (ASH/L 580) and 1782 (AMS 6300/3/4). He appears in the Law List as an attorney at Lewes from 1782 to 1837. In 1788 he was appointed commissioner and trustee for Newhaven Harbour on the death of Thomas Chowne (QO/EW29). Perhaps this, with his qualification as a notary public, may account for the presence in the archive of Registers of Protests (LAN 14 and 15) which begin at that date

He was appointed the first clerk of the Lewes Market Company in 1791 (SAS/ACC 711), acted as clerk to the local bench of justices at least from 1793 (see the business undertaken in LAN 1, folios 200-213), and clerk to the Lewes Rape Lieutenancy Subdivision Meeting from 1793 (see LLM/E1); a little later he was joined in partnership by Christopher Kell (c1762-1841), for whom see AMS 6445. By 1831 (see LAN 293, Kell was clerk to the Lewes Town Commissioners

Among Langridge's clerks who later established themselves in their own practices were Peter Willard (1778-1821), and Christopher Kell's sons William and Nathaniel Polhill Kell (for whom see SHE)

In 1806 Langridge was appointed Clerk of the Peace and clerk of the General Meetings by the Duke of Richmond on the death of William Ellis of Horsham, for whom, indeed, he had acted in some matters for some months previously. These last two posts he relinquished in favour of his son, William Vidler Langridge, in 1831 when the court of Quarter Sessions resolved that he 'has for a long series of years, conducted himself as a most faithful and meritorious servant of the public, and highly deserving the thanks of the county' (QO/EW52). The records bear out this description and show him to be a thorough and careful administrator. He had previously acquired the clerkship of the Upper and Lower Pevensey sub-divisions in 1813 and the newly-formed Brighton sub-division in 1826, which offices, with the Lewes sub-division, he held till death: A Descriptive Report on the Quarter Sessions ... in the Custody of the County Councils of West and East Sussex (1954) 88

In politics Langridge was a liberal. In 1796 he seconded the radical candidate William Green (1734-1820), and in 1802 he seconded Henry Shelley, the unsuccessful liberal candidate, against the Pelham interest in the town (T W Horsfield, The History, Antiquities and Topography of the County of Sussex, 2 (1835), appendix p 47). In 1832 he voted for the Liberal candidates in the reform election; his former partner Christopher Kell acted in the same election as agent for the Tory candidate George Darby of Marklye in Warbleton

Although the family property lay in All Saints, Langridge's first premises were at 163 High Street in Lewes St Michael, which he occupied in 1788 (SAS/FB 50). In 1792 he purchased 139 High Street in St Anne's parish, where he served as churchwarden 1794-1800 and 1824-1836. William Vidler Langridge sold the property, where he had also carried out an estate agent's business, to George Bushby in 1851 (Sussex Notes and Queries 13 (1950-53) 319); his own residence was at School Hill House, which he owned between 1842 and 1876 (F W Steer The Shiffner Archives (1959) page x n 5). The family later developed Pesthouse Field in Lewes St Anne as the present St Anne's Crescent, where William Vidler's son William Kirby Johnson Langridge was living in 1879 (R/C 4/470)

William Balcombe Langridge played a significant in building speculation. As well as developing Lansdown Place and houses in St Nicholas Lane and Station Street on the site of his father's yard (LAN/295), he also acquired extensive waste on Castle Banks and constructed New Road (LAN/287-293)

The land tax assessments for 1825 show him holding a house and land occupied by himself in St Anne's with a rental of £20 and £9 respectively; houses and premises let to tenants in St John sub Castro parish at a rental of £1 10s 0d, and perhaps further houses in St Mary's Lane (now Station Street) owned by the 'Langridge Trust' at £3 rental; and a total of 10 tenements and a house with garden and yard in All Saints with a total rental of £16

William Balcombe Langridge was buried in All Saints churchyard 5 April 1845 where a plain granite tomb inscribed 'The Family Vault of William Balcome Langridge' was erected. He left an only son William Vidler Langridge, who continued as clerk of the peace, to the exclusion of any private practice, until his death at Brighton 10 January 1866. In his will dated 22 September 1865 and proved at Lewes 14 February 1866, he mentions his wife Isabel and son William Kirby Johnson Langridge, but not his daughter Julia, baptised at All Saints on 30 October 1842. His son succeeded him as clerk of the peace until his death in 1882; the clerkship was thus held by three generations of one family for 76 years