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Queen Mary
visits Captain Anthony
Towards the end of April 1927 Queen Mary, wife of
George V, had been staying down in Sussex - at
Paddockhurst, Viscount Cowdray's 'picturesque seat'
near Turner's Hill. While in the country she made time
for a few trips out, and on the afternoon of Wednesday
27 April visited Brighton's Royal Pavilion. The
following afternoon found her in an antiques shop in
Lewes High Street (she was famous for her love of such
things), and at 6.10 pm that same day, accompanied by
Lady Bertha Dawkins (third daughter of 1st Earl of
Lathom, and living at Wyck House, Wadhurst) and Lady
Mount Stephen, her Daimler drew up in front of Horsham
Town Hall, just in front of Hoad and Taylor's, the
builders.
What brought her to Horsham? Antiques, again, and the
fact that the owner of a Market Square shop was known
to her. For Captain George Henry Anthony had
established his Armada Antique Galleries ('fine old
furniture, bronzes, glass, old prints and pictures')
at what was then number 6 in the square towards the
end of 1925, and he and his wife had, a little later,
moved into The Causeway House – now Horsham Museum.
They were resident there by 1927.
He was clearly a man with connections, and as the
local paper put it, he 'was known to the Royal
Family'. Let us return to him in a minute.
The Queen's visit was unofficial, but the word quickly
got round, and a crowd soon gathered. She was in
Captain Anthony's shop for no more than 20 minutes,
but also found time to admire the window next door.
This belonged to the Horsham Co-operative Weaving
Industry for Disabled Soldiers, and she was a keen
supporter; she had recently purchased one of their
scarfs at a recent exhibition.
As she left, the crowd applauded, menfolk bared their
heads out of respect and onlookers leant out of the
corner windows of the King's Head across the square
for a really good view. She graciously bowed in
acknowledgement, and it was noted that she looked in
excellent health, and was well turned out in grey,
'with a toque of heliotrope tint, a spray of
heliotrope flowers, and grey shoes and stockings'. Her
Daimler then set off up East Street towards the
Brighton Road, and in what must have been his finest
moment, PC Pennicott 'signalled her car smartly round
the corner'.
Whether or not she made a purchase at Captain
Anthony's we do not know, but it has been said that
she had a disconcerting habit from time to time, when
staying at some country house or other, of expressing
a particular admiration for one or other of her host's
pieces, following which it was difficult (no –
well-nigh impossible) for the latter not to offer it
up as a gracious gift to Her Majesty. But the
newspaper report of her visit to Horsham does not
state whether or not Lady Bertha left the Armada
Antique Galleries with a parcel under her arm.
But what of Captain Anthony? He sounds like a most
interesting man, and I wish I had a full picture of
him. But I do know that he suffered the loss of a leg,
probably in the Great War – as indeed did another
prominent Horsham figure, Bob Grennop, once a pupil
and later a long-serving master at Collyer's. I also
know that Anthony, who had one son, was a talented
artist (the local paper called him 'a fine landscape
artist'), some of whose pictures are in private hands
today, and he once tutored the children of the
Romanian royal family - so he was a man of parts:
soldier, antique dealer, artist and teacher.
Now for some dates. He was from Lancashire, born on 3
December 1875 to Burdon and Leticia Anthony who lived
at Green Lane, Seaforth, Litherland. He attended Rossall, a public school
in Wales, and later taught there. From 1909 he was
seconded as a governor to the Romanian royal family,
and assisted with the upbringing of Prince Carol
(later King Carol II, who took the throne in 1930 but
fled from it in 1940) and Prince Nicholas. At one
point he accompanied the latter on a three week
holiday to England, during which he was introduced to
Queen Mary, and it was this meeting that forged his
royal connections and later led to her making more
than one visit to his shop.
He served with the Manchester Regiment, and was in
France during the Great War. But he was injured only
three months after arriving there in 1914, and
returned home - only to go back later, when he served
on the Dispersals Board (more). After the war he
further developed his artistic interests, and for a
while became a pupil of Philip de Laszlo (1869-1937),
a well-known Hungarian painter and society figure of
the time, who specialised in portraits and painted,
among others, King Edward VII. Anthony exhibited
regularly with the Society of Sussex Artists, and his
work in a London exhibition caught the eye of Queen
Mary, who bought several of his pictures.
As we have seen, the Anthonys came to Horsham in the
mid-1920s, and he was still recorded as being at The
Causeway House in 1934. It looks, from the street
directory records, as if he had vacated his Causeway
home by 1937-9, although at that time he was still the
proprietor of The Armada Galleries. In 1941 the
fledgling Horsham Museum moved to The Causeway House,
utilising a couple of rooms, and shared it with the
local WVS and ARP organisations. A leaflet, giving a
brief history of the museum, states that West Sussex
County Council bought Causeway House (by then the
prefix 'The' had been dropped) from Captain Anthony on
30 June 1950, but this is incorrect, as he died on 13
August 1943 at the age of 67, and is buried at Hill's
cemetery.
After he vacated Causeway House - and whether or not
he retained ownership of it until his death - it is
likely he went to live with friends locally (by this
time it looks as if his wife had also died or they
were separated), and immediately after his death Mrs
Jeans, one of those friends who was the wife of
Captain Jeans, an aide-de-camp to King George VI and
who lived at Pond Farm in Southwater, looked after his
Armada Galleries for a while. At that time his son,
Private GEP Anthony, was serving with the Queen's
Regiment in Egypt.
Causeway House, incidentally, for readers who do not
know Horsham well, is one of the finest in that
street. There may have been a building on the site as
early as the 13th century, and the earliest part of
the existing structure dates back to about 1450. It
was modified and added to in about 1600 and later in
the 18th century, but has been little touched since
then. It is now holds Horsham Museum's collections,
and visitors cannot fail to be impressed by its
splendid wooden panelling, broad floor boards and
creaking staircase. |
