1 00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:08,280 My name is Mark Davis. I am an independent Oxford local historian and guide with a particular interest in the city's waterways. 2 00:00:08,280 --> 00:00:11,760 And I am standing now above the River Thames on the footbridge, 3 00:00:11,760 --> 00:00:19,040 which carries the Thames pass over the River Medley, about two miles upstream from Farley Bridge. 4 00:00:19,040 --> 00:00:24,500 To the Southwest, I can see some new wooden fences and a lawn with tables and chairs. 5 00:00:24,500 --> 00:00:29,480 This is the new medley beer garden to which I refer again shortly. 6 00:00:29,480 --> 00:00:33,080 Beyond it, there is a substantial stone wall and a bit farther, 7 00:00:33,080 --> 00:00:41,720 still just visible through some trees on the roof and upper windows of a large house with some adjacent outbuildings and sheds. 8 00:00:41,720 --> 00:00:48,650 I just met Lee Manor Farm, a place with which I have a personal association to empire in North America 9 00:00:48,650 --> 00:00:54,440 and India for some 20 years while I researched the history of this location. 10 00:00:54,440 --> 00:01:01,700 I had absolutely no knowledge of this. That research included a section about meddling in my first local history book. 11 00:01:01,700 --> 00:01:06,290 When I brought things right up to date by interference as an owner, Charles G. 12 00:01:06,290 --> 00:01:16,730 In the late 1990s. Subsequently, I included descriptions of medley on guided walks or in passenger boat commentaries and magazine articles, 13 00:01:16,730 --> 00:01:22,250 and published a second edition of my book A Towpath Walk in Oxford. 14 00:01:22,250 --> 00:01:31,550 Yes, in all that time, I had no inkling that I had any personal connexion that the entire 83 acre farm had once belonged to an ancestor. 15 00:01:31,550 --> 00:01:39,860 Why would I, when that ancestor was born in Ireland, lived all his adult life in India and quite possibly never even set foot in Oxford. 16 00:01:39,860 --> 00:01:47,730 But before I tell you about this peculiar coincidence, let me first summarise the long and well-documented history of Metal Manor. 17 00:01:47,730 --> 00:01:57,900 The name Medley can be traced back to the Saxon period as the middle island in the 12th century came into the possession of nearby Osuna IP, 18 00:01:57,900 --> 00:02:02,580 but passed into Henry the its clutches in the H in the 1840s. 19 00:02:02,580 --> 00:02:08,160 As a result of the dissolution of the monasteries by the early 18th century, 20 00:02:08,160 --> 00:02:18,540 Medley had passed into private hands and it is the purchase in 1720 by Benjamin Sweet, one time sheriff of Oxfordshire, which set in train. 21 00:02:18,540 --> 00:02:27,330 The sequence, which resulted at the end of that century in the ownership by British East India company ancestor Matthew Leslie. 22 00:02:27,330 --> 00:02:33,690 It is a sequence in which all the owners came from County Cork in Ireland, 23 00:02:33,690 --> 00:02:41,280 which is where Benjamin Sweet had family, to whom he bequest the estate upon his death in 1740 for. 24 00:02:41,280 --> 00:02:47,160 Suites have become wealthy as the British Army's paymaster during the nine year war with France and 25 00:02:47,160 --> 00:02:53,910 subsequently became the victorious Duke of Mowbray's financial agent at planning on purchasing madly sweet, 26 00:02:53,910 --> 00:03:01,200 immediately set about constructing an imposing three storey mansion with a commanding view as a port matter. 27 00:03:01,200 --> 00:03:07,350 This inspired the Oxford diarist, Thomas Hearn, to comment that it shows him to be whimsical, 28 00:03:07,350 --> 00:03:15,850 the place being drowned often in winter and sleeping only a place of pleasure to go Caesar by boat in the summer season. 29 00:03:15,850 --> 00:03:21,910 Indeed, Medley had enjoyed a reputation as a hospitality destination since at least the early 17th century. 30 00:03:21,910 --> 00:03:30,400 Its enduring appeal is apparent in these lines from a long sixteen ninety one poem by Mrs. Alice Danvers, 31 00:03:30,400 --> 00:03:36,710 a place at which they never fail of custard, cider, cakes and ale. 32 00:03:36,710 --> 00:03:45,200 Benjamin Sweet ensured that Al remained available at the location by either retaining or reopening a public house known as the Cheesecake House. 33 00:03:45,200 --> 00:03:55,380 The opening of the new Mitre Beer Garden in May of 2021 is therefore highly appropriate in sustaining a tradition of at least 400 years. 34 00:03:55,380 --> 00:03:58,530 But he was still composed of the large mansion with grazing meadows, 35 00:03:58,530 --> 00:04:06,840 83 acres plus the public house and outbuildings when it was purchased in 1764 by Colonel Matthew Leslie, 36 00:04:06,840 --> 00:04:12,900 the uncle of my identically named four times great grandfather. 37 00:04:12,900 --> 00:04:23,620 Leslie Senior had fought against the French in North America in the 1940s and 1750s, first as an assistant surgeon, then as a quartermaster. 38 00:04:23,620 --> 00:04:30,940 It was in this staff officer role that he was wounded during an ignominious defeat in 1755, 39 00:04:30,940 --> 00:04:36,230 serving alongside a certain aide de camp called George Washington. 40 00:04:36,230 --> 00:04:41,030 Four years later, Leslie fought at a successful season of Quebec, 41 00:04:41,030 --> 00:04:47,900 being one of four officers remembered in the will of the fatally wounded General James Wolfe's. 42 00:04:47,900 --> 00:04:54,420 Captain Leslie, as he was in 1764 across the metal estate from another Cork man, 43 00:04:54,420 --> 00:05:00,820 Jasper Lucas, who was related by marriage to the Irish branch of Benjamin Sweet's family. 44 00:05:00,820 --> 00:05:05,710 Lesley probably intended it as an investment or future retirement location because 45 00:05:05,710 --> 00:05:12,040 any thought of residing there vanished in 1768 when he resumed his military career. 46 00:05:12,040 --> 00:05:17,980 This time he was appointed as a lieutenant colonel in the Army, a British company. 47 00:05:17,980 --> 00:05:23,650 At least Lieutenant Colonel was the rank that he had been promised prior to departure. 48 00:05:23,650 --> 00:05:32,530 But on arrival in Calcutta, he found that during the months that he'd been at sea, several other officers had been promoted over his head as a result. 49 00:05:32,530 --> 00:05:41,140 Leslie threatened to get the first available ship at home. He was persuaded to remain, however, and was posted to the vicinity of Tatna, 50 00:05:41,140 --> 00:05:47,440 a large and commercially important city on the river Ganges in the modern state of Bihar. 51 00:05:47,440 --> 00:05:52,480 The British military generated enormous employment opportunities for Indian civilians, 52 00:05:52,480 --> 00:06:01,600 and one Patna resident who benefited by finding work within the regiment commanded by Matthew Leslie, was a remarkable young man called Din Mahomet. 53 00:06:01,600 --> 00:06:08,890 Muhammed later became the first Indian to publish a book in English and also the first to open a genuine Indian restaurant in Britain. 54 00:06:08,890 --> 00:06:12,820 Leslie, as mentioned briefly in Mohammed's autobiographical memoir, 55 00:06:12,820 --> 00:06:22,570 and I like to think that it's no coincidence that it was published in Cork, his first place of residence, after emigrating in 1784. 56 00:06:22,570 --> 00:06:30,110 But back to Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Leslie. Still feeling undervalued by the East India Company, 57 00:06:30,110 --> 00:06:36,080 he carried out his earlier threat to return home and was back in England by the beginning of 1771. 58 00:06:36,080 --> 00:06:43,700 He was recalled in 1773, but in the meantime, he had decided to demolish Benjamin Sweet's Mansion House, 59 00:06:43,700 --> 00:06:48,710 probably on account of the susceptibility to floods mentioned by Thomas Hearn. 60 00:06:48,710 --> 00:06:55,070 Such an expert in Jackson's Oxford Journal of June 1772, 61 00:06:55,070 --> 00:07:01,190 invited tenders from builders willing to remove the entire edifice by March of the following year, 62 00:07:01,190 --> 00:07:14,870 including the Wainscott marble chimney pieces, floors, timber led iron glass bricks, tiles, slates, paving stone and other materials. 63 00:07:14,870 --> 00:07:23,990 Leslie set off for India again early in 1773, having finally persuaded the directors of the East India Company in London to recognise his merit 64 00:07:23,990 --> 00:07:30,380 by appointing him to the highly important logistical role as quartermaster general so they can go. 65 00:07:30,380 --> 00:07:35,960 He would never return when he died on active service in 1778. 66 00:07:35,960 --> 00:07:46,680 By this time a colonel, his soldier was his namesake nephew who was also employed by the East India Company in Bengal, but in a civilian role. 67 00:07:46,680 --> 00:07:53,760 Younger Matthew Leslie, my four times great grandfather, also born in Cork, lived all his adult life in India, 68 00:07:53,760 --> 00:08:00,180 rising to a position of considerable seniority as a senior church and member of the Board of Revenue in Bengal. 69 00:08:00,180 --> 00:08:02,190 He retained ownership of Metal Manor, 70 00:08:02,190 --> 00:08:11,400 a property he had almost certainly never seen in a city and possibly even a country that he had never visited until 1792. 71 00:08:11,400 --> 00:08:18,870 Now, the old saying about all this is that I had researched the history of madly in ignorance of any personal connexion that 72 00:08:18,870 --> 00:08:27,480 lived on a narrow boat within a few hundred metres of a certain certain extent of metallic manor meadows since 1992, 73 00:08:27,480 --> 00:08:30,000 I might never have discovered any association. 74 00:08:30,000 --> 00:08:37,610 Had it not been for some documents retained by a later owner of the estate, namely the Oxford College of Christchurch. 75 00:08:37,610 --> 00:08:42,770 There amongst the various conveyances leases and entered in dentures. 76 00:08:42,770 --> 00:08:51,140 I came across a copy of Matthew Leslie's will and some related correspondence while researching a quite different topic. 77 00:08:51,140 --> 00:08:55,580 Otherwise, although some association with Medley would no doubt have become apparent, 78 00:08:55,580 --> 00:09:04,410 eventually the sequence of events leading to Matthew Leslie's ownership would almost certainly have remained a mystery. 79 00:09:04,410 --> 00:09:13,160 Indeed, something else which might have remained hidden is the fact that I had any Indian family associations at all. 80 00:09:13,160 --> 00:09:23,540 Matthew Leslie, Junior and three other of my expat ancestors all fathered children with Indian women in the late 18th century and early 19th century. 81 00:09:23,540 --> 00:09:27,920 Such liaisons were viewed as understandable and acceptable at the time. 82 00:09:27,920 --> 00:09:35,120 But attitudes changed subsequently, and they have not been so much of a whisper of this within the narrative of my family's history. 83 00:09:35,120 --> 00:09:40,100 Not even when a substantial biography of a great uncle was published in the 1990s, 84 00:09:40,100 --> 00:09:45,290 it was only because my Surrey stockbroker, great grandfather Matthew Leslie's great grandson, 85 00:09:45,290 --> 00:09:55,270 had been honest in the 1881 census by stating that his birth place was Calcutta, that this exotic branch of the family was revealed. 86 00:09:55,270 --> 00:09:59,830 But that's another story, albeit one going back nearly a thousand years. 87 00:09:59,830 --> 00:10:08,770 The first Scottish left of Leslie, the current story demonstrating how subtly the influence of Empire can exert itself. 88 00:10:08,770 --> 00:10:14,230 And so with the younger Matthew Leslie's death in India in 18 04, 89 00:10:14,230 --> 00:10:21,520 and if there is nothing tangible to indicate his connexion with Madeleine, he has at least fared better in India itself. 90 00:10:21,520 --> 00:10:27,850 In the modern state of Chuck Hunt, where Leslie once served as the East India company tax collector. 91 00:10:27,850 --> 00:10:32,110 There was an unremarkable township named for the time being, at least. 92 00:10:32,110 --> 00:10:34,808 Leslie Ganj.