Owners and Occupiers of Ottershaw Park

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Thomas Sewell [owner 1761 - 1784]
Thomas Sewell was a barrister in Middle Temple, MP for Harwich in 1758 and for Winchelsea in 1761. He served as Master of the Rolls 1764 - 1784 and was knighted and appointed privy councillor in 1764. He had nine children by his first wife Catherine and after her death in 1769 married Mary Elizabeth Sibthorpe. Thomas died intestate on 6th March 1784 at the Rolls House aged 72 and was buried in the Rolls Chapel. Mary, his second wife died in 1820.
Thomas Bailey Heath Sewell [owner 1784 - 1796]
Son of Thomas Sewell born 1746 and Lieutenant Colonel in the Surrey Light Dragoons, Fencibles raised in 1794 to help thwart a possible French invasion. He married Lady Elizabeth Bermingham in 1774 by whom he had three children. He died in 1803 and was buried in the Chancel of Chobham Church.
Edmund Boehm [1796 - 1819]
Edmund Boehm, a wealthy West Indian merchant, married Dorothy Berney in 1781. An extravagant life style and depression of trade during and after the Napoleonic Wars caused their bankrupcy in 1819 and they retired to a cottage in Sidmouth. Edmund died in 1822 in West Cowes aged 82 and there is a memorial to him in Chobham church. From 4th August 1827 Dorothy occupied a "Grace and Favour" apartment, no. 36 (now the shop in Base Court), at Hampton Court Palace. In the 1841 census she was recorded as living on "independent means" with three servants. She died later that year.
Major General Sir George Wood [1819 - 1824]
George Wood, knight, Commander of the Bath and was at one time a General in the Bengal Army and the East India Company. He had a daughter Georgina and a son George who inherited the estate in 1824. The Wood family mausoleum is in Brookwood Cemetery in Woking (plot 30). Built in the late 1850s? to a design by an unknown architect it is largely of marble. The roof is damaged and parts of the stone decoration on the walls has decayed badly and requires extensive repairs. The coffins are stored above ground which may complicate restoration work. The glass window at the rear has been smashed (although it is now bricked up).
George Wood Jnr [1824 - 1841]
Son of Major General Sir George Wood. He let Ottershaw Park to Lord Belfast in the 1830's and leased, then sold, it to Richard Crawshay in 1841 whereon his Mother moved to nearby Potters Park.

Richard Crawshay [owner 1841 - 1859]
Richard Crawshay (1786 - 1859) was eldest son of the famous ironmaster William Crawshay who owned an ironworks at Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales. Richard shared in the prosperity of the family but preferred the life of a country gentleman. He married Mary Homfray by whom he had 4 sons and 8 daughters. Richard leased Honingham Hall in Norfolk where he indulged in his hobbies, brewing and farming. He also bought an estate at Rowfant in Sussex and later leased and finally acquired Ottershaw Park in 1842. It is interesting to speculate if the brewery which Richard Crawshay built in the Bothy at Ottershaw Park was done so out of his interest in brewing. He appears to have brought several members of his staff with him to Ottershaw from Norfolk, including the Bailiff, William Sapey and his wife, the cook, Martha Chitty and an old labourer, William Carr. Richard is recorded as having engaged in some risky pursuits including taking a ballon ride from Norwich to Yarmouth in 1831. He died of apoplexy in 1859 and was buried in St Pauls Churchyard, Addlestone. His wife died four years later and was buried beside him. In his will, apart from providing for his family members Richard Crawshay left small bequests to all of his servants including William Sapey, Sarah Marter (Housemaid) and Ann Bartley (Lady's maid).

Sir Thomas Edward Colebrook [owner 1859 - 1883]
Sir Thomas Edward Colebrooke Bart., born in 1813, was the only surviving son of Sir Henry Thomas Colebrooke, the first great Sanskrit scholar of Europe. He married Elizabeth Mary Richardson in 1857 with whom he had a son Edward Arthur in 1861. In 1864 he gave land on the edge of the estate for the building of a church, churchyard and vicarage. He also met the entire cost of construction and endowed the church with £100 per year. In 1868 he pulled down the conservatories at either end of the Mansion and moved the kitchens from the "Gothic Chapel" to a newly built East wing. In 1869 he conveyed a further parcel of land for the founding of a Church of England School which he sat on the school management committee. Sir Thomas was MP for Lanarkshire and for many years he was chuchwarden at Christchurch, even continuing in this role for several years after he sold Ottershaw Park in 1883. From May 1882 until November 1883 when Ottershaw Park was sold to Lawrence Baker, the property was leased by Reginald the 12th Earl of Meath and his wife Mary. Lady Meath was a philanthropist and founded several charities for the relief of poverty worldwide including founding the Meath Home (now ICAN) in 1885 in Brox Road. During this time Edward Colebrooke's London address was 37 South Street, Park Lane, London.

Lord and Lady Meath [leased Ottershaw Park 1882-3]
From May 1882 until November 1883 when Ottershaw Park was sold to Lawrence Baker, the property was leased by Reginald the 12th Earl of Meath and his wife Mary. Lady Meath was a philanthropist and founded several charities for the relief of poverty worldwide including founding the Meath Home (now ICAN) in 1885 in Brox Road.

Lawrence James Baker [owner 1883 - 1909]
Lawrence James Baker bought Ottershaw Park in 1885 and moved from Haydon Hall, Eastcote near Ruislip. He was stockbroker and in 1885-6 was MP for Frome and later a Liberal candidate for Chertsey. In 1898 he became high Sheriff of Surrey. He was churchwarden at Christ Church from 1884 until 1897. He was responsible for the building of the cottages in Bonsey's Lane. He put the estate up for auction in 1907 but it failed to sell. It was eventually sold to Sir Fredreich Eckstein in 1910 at which point he moved to Brantridge Park, Balcome, West Sussex. He later moved to Brambridge Park near Eastleigh in Hampshire where he died in 1921 aged 94.

Sir Friedrich Gustav Jonathan Eckstein [owner 1910 - 1921]
(Portrait possibly by Sir William Orpen who is known to have painted several members of the Eckstein family)
Sir Friedrich Eckstein was a German born on 9th April 1857 in Birkach near Stuttgart. He pioneered the development of South African gold mines together with his brother, Hermann Eckstein, founder of the famous Witwatersrand mining house of H Eckstein & Co. (Corner House) in 1887. Later he was a partner in the Werner Beit Co. of London. He succeeded Sir Julius Weinher as Chairman of the Central Mining & Investment Corporation, but was finally forced out of office by anti-German hysteria that broke out at the beginning of the First World War. From 1888 Eckstein lived in Johannesburg where he had a grand house called Warrington Hall in the suburb of Doornfontein. He married Catherine Mitchell of Kimberley on 30th April 1890 with whom he had a a daughter, Herminie Beatrice and a son, Bernard Friedrich, and in 1901 he moved to England, first to The Walsingham Hotel, Piccadilly and then to 18 Park Lane, London. He was granted Brithish nationality in 1906. He bought the main part of Ottershaw Estate on January 1st 1910 and several other adjacent lots from various other landowners later that year. He greatly improved and enlarged the estate and demolished the existing mansion to build a larger one in its place. It is said that his wife did not approve of the new mansion and refused to live in it. In addition, he made many other improvements to the estate including the enlargement of the North lodges and erected of a pair of ornate wrought iron gates between them. The kitchen gardens were redesigned and four cottages were converted to form Durnford Lodge. Furthermore, the Bothy may have been substantially altered at this time. When he moved from Ottershaw in 1919 he took up residence at Oldlands Hall, Fairwarp, Sussex where he died and was buried in 1930. He was created a baronet in 1929 for "services to the inhabitants and Government of Sudan". His wife died in 1935 in Manaus, Brazil.

Miss Susan Dora Cecilia Schintz [leased 1919 - 1921; owner 1921 - 1931]
Dora Cecilia Schintz (as she signed herself) was born in Liverpool about 1869, daughter of the Swiss born Hans Gaspard (c.1837 - 1912), naturalised as a British subject in 1875 and his wife Anna Julie nee Bleuler (1843 - c.1921). The family lived in the vicinity of Liverpool; in the 1870's Sandfield Park, West Derby, in 1881 Sefton Park, Toxteth, in 1891 Mossley House, Wavertree and in 1901 Childwall Hall.

In 1906 her parents gifted her Thickthorn estate (now Kenilworth Manor, a nursing home) in Kenilworth, Warwickshire where she bred prize-winning hackney horses. Before WWI she showed them at prestigious events around the country. On her father's death she inherited about 300 thousand pounds in a trust from which she received a substantial private income and an estancia in Argentina which she sold in 1921. In 1919 she bought Hurtwood Edge near Cranleigh, Surrey (which in 1970 became the home of Eric Clapton) and took up residence at Ottershaw Park. Hurtwood Edge and the Thickthorne estate had been sold by 1923.

The Ottershaw estate, including the outlying farms and cottages cost £100,000 and she spent and additional £25,000 on improvements. Her gardeners Alfred Dyer and his uncle, Arthur Lawrence, together with their families came with her from Childwall Hall as did her Chauffeur, Frederick Lionel Rapson. Miss Schintz later said she moved to Ottershaw for the sake of her elderly mother who had suffered emotionally from the tragic deaths of her son and husband. Miss Schintz believed her mother would benefit from the beautiful countryside of Surrey but she died on 22nd September 1921 the day before the property was finally conveyed to Miss Schintz from Eckstein. Until this date she had presumably leased the estate. By November that the same year the estate was again on the market but failed to sell. She is said to have had a lady companion who she pushed around the estate in an invalid chair. This in fact may have been her mother. Interestingly, amongst the items up for auction in the 1930 furniture sale was an invalid chair which had been stored in the garage at the Bothy!

Miss Schintz devoted much of her life and money to charities and to supporting British industry. During WWI she financed an auxilliary military hospital at Arrowe Hall, Birkenhead, near Liverpool and later equipped and funded a home for the incurable. It was while she was running Arrowe Hall Hospital that her life became inextricably linked with that of Frederick Rapson (click for more) who she supported financially. She did this through a number of loans and share purchases, but her money was mainly lost as the enterprises failed. To finance her investments she started to sell parts of the estate starting with the outlying farms which were put up for auction in 1922 but failed to sell.

Whilst at Ottershaw she is said to have driven hackneys which were probably stabled at Home Farm. Sixteen animals were destroyed when she left Ottershaw as she was concerned that another owner might mistreat them. She was very kind to her servants and at Christmas took the children from the estate in her Rolls-Royce to the pantomime and treated them with sweets and chocolate.

[By 1930 Miss Schintz was living in the Bothy as in the previous years] she claimed that Joseph Wyatt, her principle mortgagee, had threatened to precipitate bankrupcy proceedings if she did not move out of the Mansion. Miss Schintz lost a great deal of money through her various investments and had borrowed and had remortgaged her estates. She was declared bankrupt in July 1930 and had to sell her estates and she moved to Eastborne, initially to the St John's Hotel. She was too ill to attend bankrupcy proceedings in 1930 and 1931 and was diagnosed by a Harley Street doctor as suffering from neurasthenia, insomnia and depression.

In October 1930 the contents of the Mansion were auctioned, with thousands of people reported to have attended the viewings. In the same month the entire estate was offered at auction but only outlying farms were sold. At a subsequent auction in May 1931 several small plots including No 1 Bonsey's Lane, land on the western side of the estate, the North Lodges and a plot on Chobham Road (Wethersfield) were sold but there were no bidders for the rest of the estate.

There seems to have been a long and complicated series of exchanges culminating in a lawsuit brought by Miss Schintz's trustees in bankruptcy at the High Court in 1932 in which it was claimed that she had been cheated by her principal mortgagee, Joseph Wyatt. It is said that the terms of sale of the Estate allowed her to return annually to sit on the terrace and look at the view over the lakes which she loved so much. Whether she ever did return is not known.

During the proceedings she was extremely ill and confined to bed. Rapson who had also moved to Eastbourne with his family appears to have been still acting as her personal secretary and visited her regularly. In Eastbourne she was attended by her doctor, the notorious Dr John Bodkin Adams who seems to have involved himself in her personal affairs. Although tried and acquitted of murder in 1957, since Adam's death in 1983, evidence has emerged to suggest he may have helped up to 25 of his patients to their graves, after first influencing them to name him in their wills. Amongst the numerous bequests which he received were two Rolls Royces, and as early as 1933 he was a beneficiary of one of his patient's wills. One could be forgiven for speculating that Miss Schintz may have been in his sights as a potential victim!

In 1933 Rapson died and his son Freddie took on the role of chauffeur and secretary. Miss Schintz was determined to clear her name and that of Frederick Rapson and she spent years with Freddie's assistance preparing a dossier in support of her case. In 1937 she appeared again in Kingston Bankrupcy Court with Freddie in support where she again alledged she had been swindled by her advisors and that Rapson was innocent of any malpractice. Her case was again front page news and most daily newspapers carried the story. She was eventually cleared of bankruptcy and appears to have moved to Switzerland until after WWII In 1946 after a brief visit to England she appears to have returned there once again this time to Hertenstein on the shores of Lake Lucerne. Miss Schintz ended her days back in England first at the Piccadilly Hotel in London but by 1952 she had moved to Broome Park, a country hotel between Maidstone and Dover and died in Canterbury Hospital on 12th June 1954. In her will she left what little there was of her fortune to a number of former employees including several from Ottershaw Park.

Arthur E Foot CBE [Headmaster 1948 - 1964]
Arthur Foot was the first headmaster of Ottershaw School. He had previously taught at Doon School in India where he had made an outstanding contribution for which he had been awarded the CBE. Quoting from Goldsmith's (1973) account "The Headmaster not only exercised a powerful influence in shaping the character of the school but his capacity for work enabled him to add 20 teaching periods to his other duties, thus strengthening the Science and Mathematics side. His Maths examples usually showed an Indian influence; boys would be asked the calculate the speed of a fully-loaded elephant travelling from Calcutta to Bombay.

Allan Dodds [Headmaster 1964 - 1982]
Allan Dodds was appointed as Headmaster in 1964 from a very large number of candidates. Mr Dodds was a Cambridge graduate and had previously taught at St Peter's Scool in York. He was founder of the Boarding Scools Association and was appoined as a JP. He was also elected to the Headmasters' conference, the only Headmaster of a local authority boarding school to be a member. Mr Dodds successfully saw the school through a rapidly changing educational climate until its closure in 1981.