Young and Gilling, estate agents and auctioneers, Cheltenham

Estate agents' and auctioneers' collection of documents including registers, auction sales of real estate, sale particulars relating to Cheltenham including Glenfall Estate and Posthip Hall Estate.

Documents deposited by Messrs. Young and Gilling, 3 Crescent Terrace, Cheltenham

Messrs. Young and Gilling celebrated their 150th anniversary in 1984. The firm was formed on 1 October, 1834, by a partnership between Edward John Young who carried on an estate and house agency business at no. 18 The Colonnade, and Thomas Gilling, who seems to have been a principal assistant to Mr. Hanson who had an estate and house agency office at no. 6 Well Walk, and who died shortly before 1 October, 1834. A sketch of the premises of Messrs. Young and Gilling, the Promenade, is included in Rowe's Illustrated Cheltenham Guide (1845). The early history of the firm cannot now be written from the firm's records because the early account books and other records were destroyed in salvage drives held during the second world war. Only the first account book, 1834-1836, has been retained by the firm. This is unfortunate since there is a tradition that the firm was in the fore-front of the conversion of the Promenade from a residential street to a commercial centre.

Of the founding partners the following is known:

Edward John Young was born in 1801 in the parish of St. Margaret's, Westminster, the son of Thomas and Betty Young. The family then moved to Cheltenham, where his brother Thomas and his sisters Anna, Jane and Sarah were all baptised on 17 January 1817. His father was a fishmonger whose premises in 1820 were in Regent Yard opposite the George, but by 1842 he occupied a shop at no. 17 The Colonnade, which is also illustrated in Rowe's Guide with the comment that his display of 'delicate addenda to the dinner-table has often elicited admiration from the passing visitor'. Edward Young married Caroline, daughter of Benjamin Bird, builder, of Newnham, on 30 May 1838 at Newnham. In 1851 he was living with his wife, his widowed mother, and sister Sarah at Mural Cottage, Cheltenham. He had no children to carry on the business, and died on 26 November, 1872, having appointed Henry Gilling, house agent, as one of his executors and trustees.

Thomas Gilling was born in 1801 at Glastonbury, Somerset. His wife, Sarah, came from Cheddar where their eldest son Thomas Benjamin was born in 1825. Their second son Henry was born at Stoke Lane, Somerset, in 1830. Thomas Gilling then moved to Cheltenham where his third son John was born in 1834. In 1851 he was living at 1 Bradfield House, Gloucester Road, Alstone. The occupation of his two eldest sons Thomas Benjamin and Henry Gilling was then given as 'accountant' but when his father died in September, 1852, Henry Gilling seems to have entered the firm of Young and Gilling, describing himself as 'house agent' in his will, dated 1861. Henry Gilling died on 7 June 1888 at Mornington Villa, Leckhampton. No children are mentioned in his will in which he bequeathed all his real and personal estate to his wife Ellen.

The records of the firm of Young and Gilling which have survived are of great interest for the information they provide about the changing ownership and value of property in Cheltenham and its neighbourhood, and the developments which have taken place since c.1865.