by Nicholas Schofield
The statue of the Sacred Heart was placed in Our Lady of Lourdes and St Michael church in 1938 as a monument to two of the parish’s great benefactors: William Crosbie Gilbey (1860-1926) and his wife Margarita (1864-1937), who lived at The Lea, Denham. The statue, which was originally paired with one of Our Lady on the other side, were carved in limestone from Nailsworth (Gloucestershire) by John Gough of Teddington, who was also responsible for the carving above the Lady Altar.
William Crosbie Gilbey was the second son of Alfred Gilbey who, with his brother Walter, had founded the famous wine merchants W. & A. Gilbey in 1856 on their return from the Crimean War. The firm quickly expanded, using The Pantheon on Oxford Street as its administrative headquarters and a large warehouse in Camden Town, just off the Regent’s Canal. Tipples such as ‘Gilbey’s Gin’ became a familiar brand. William became chairman of the company and was well-liked by his employees; the seventeen members of staff from Camden who attended his burial at Denham in 1926 had an aggregate of 814 years’ service between them!
In 1886 William married Margarita Petra Gordon y Moreno, belonging to a Scottish family of wine merchants who had settled in Jerez de la Frontera (Spain) in the eighteenth century on account of their Catholic faith and Jacobite sympathies. They moved to The Lea, a property with spacious grounds in Denham, where they raised their eight children. The 1911 Census also lists eleven staff, including a butler and two footmen. The house later became a children’s home and is now the Anoopam Mission, just off the M40.
In his youth William was a keen sportsman and member of the Old Berkeley Hunt, of which his brother, Alfred, was a one-time Master. In the years leading up to the First World War, he transformed part of the grounds of The Lea into a golf course and later he became closely associated with Denham Golf Club. He was also a keen gardener and opened a hatchery on his estate where he lovingly reared trout and salmon – indeed, he hoped to stock the Thames with the latter!
The family became much involved in local affairs: William acted as a magistrate (JP) and Margarita was for many years President of the Denham Women’s Institute. They were regulars at the Catholic Church in Uxbridge and acted as generous benefactors, helping with the founding of the mission in 1892 and the building of the present church in 1931.
Four of their children were baptized at the first temporary Catholic church, as well as their grandsons, Peter Hubert (1914) and John Hugh Philip (1915), who inherited from their mother the titles of Ninth and Tenth Baron Vaux. Peter was a monk at Ampleforth Abbey by the time he succeeded to the title and became the first Catholic monk to sit in the House of Lords since the reign of Mary I.
During the 1920s and 30s the grounds at The Lea were lent each July for the parish garden fete. There would be a whole range of stalls and entertainments, with appearances from the choir of St Mary’s School, the North Hyde Band, members of the RAF and an orchestra conducted by Jabez Osborn Jnr, whose family had once lived in the Presbytery. At the 1935 fete there was a baby show, an ankle competition and a man hunt for a character called ‘Nobby Clark’, organized by the curate, Fr Ormiston.
William Crosbie Gilbey died suddenly on 30 January 1926, aged 65, as he was leaving a dinner party at Denham Place, hosted by his friend, Basil Forthergill. He left an estate of £101,987 gross (worth £6.2 million in 2020). Margarita lived on another eleven years; they were both buried at the graveyard in Denham.
