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Arthur Hutchins was an elder brother of Colonel Alfred Hutchins (1). Arthur and two of his sisters, Isabel and Rosa, first appear in the town directory in 1906; in the 1901 census they were recorded living in Dorking. It is probably no co-incidence that Colonel Hutchins came to Budleigh around the same time and the two households were within 5 minutes of each other as Arthur and his sisters lived at Sherbrook on West Hill (on the road now called Sherbrook Hill). They lived in the house until at least 1916 and in that year both of the sisters died. The family appear to have been comfortable financial because probate records show that Isabel left effects worth £6,553 and Rosa £6,454. Arthur moved at some time after their deaths to Hillsdene on West Hill where he died in 1922.  The executor to all three Wills was Sir Philip Percival Hutchins KCIE a younger brother who had worked in the Madras area of India, was a Judge of the Madras High Court, and had been a member of the Viceroy’s Council. The family connection with Madras was strong as Alfred was a Colonel in the Madras Army and Arthur was a Madras Civil Servant.

Arthur Hutchins was born in 1835 in Streatham, Surrey, one of the 12 children of a dentist, William Hutchins, and his wife Isabella. William had his practice in Hanover Square but they also had a country house in Streatham where the family spent their summers. In the biography of John Beames (2) John recalls his time in Streatham (where his father was curate of St. Leonard’s Church) and mentions that Arthur and Philip were at a private school with him called “Edwardes”, named after the man who ran the school. He also gave a rather unflattering description of William Hutchins as being “a shrivelled-up old dentist”. Beames was obviously rather acerbic because he also described Philip as “a stuck up prig”.

Arthur went on to King’s College School in The Strand from where he matriculated in 1855. He was obviously destined to go to India as a Civil Servant because he attended Haileybury College from 1855-7 where he received several prizes for Sanskrit. He went out to the Madras Presidency in 1857 and what little I know about his career is shown below.

In 1861 he was appointed Assistant to the Collector of South Arcot (3), was Sub-Collector at Negapatam in 1866, and by 1869 he was Principal Assistant Collector to the Collector of Vizagapatam (4). One of his jobs in 1863 while he was an Acting Head Assistant Collector appears to have been to help with settlement of areas of land known as talooks, and the granting of puttahs (leases) in Negapatam and Nannilam. He was described in a subsequent report as being a European Covenanted Assistant during this process and he and another man were said to have done “their utmost to get the settlement of the talooks entrusted to them carefully made”(5).

His last appointment was as Joint Magistrate and Sub-Collector at Tanjore and he was invalided out on a pension in 1870 although he left India in February 1869 on furlough (3). Back in England at Hanover Lodge in Lower Sydenham he was advertising his services in 1872 as an instructor for the Tamil language (6).

Unlike Colonel Alfred Hutchins, Arthur seems not to have engaged much with the public or social activities in the town, although he was appointed Association Secretary to The Christian Literature Society for India for Budleigh Salterton and Exmouth jointly in 1905, and he did contribute with his brother to the building fund for the rifle club in 1908, being erroneously described as “Sir Arthur Hutchins” in the newspaper account (7).

Researched and Written by Roger Lendon © 2018

(1) Hutchins, Colonel Alfred OVApedia
(2) “Memoirs of a Bengal Civilian” quote in www.streathamsociety.org.uk/uploads/2/2/8/6/22863074/spring_2017.pdf
(3) Allen’s Indian Mail
(4) Mentioned in “Colonial Land Tax and Property Rights:..” T V Kumar
(5) Reports on the Settlement of the Land Revenue of the Provinces under the Madras Presidency. Board of Revenue Madras 1867
(6) The Athenaeum: Journal of Literature, Science, the Fine Arts, .. 1872
(7) Saturday 31 October 1908, Exeter and Plymouth Gazette

BS-B-00087 Biography

FOOTNOTE

For completeness it is worth noting that there was another contemporaneous family called Hutchins in the town. I have been unable to find an obvious connection between the two families but it interesting that one of the family, Leonard (who did not live in Budleigh), was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Madras Staff Corps. The family initially consisted of, Sarah Hutchings (nee Page) the widow of David Hutchins 1811 to 1859, and three of her six children – Mrs Frances Bailey and the Misses Julia and Blanche Hutchins. The town directories and censuses show that they lived in Estella in Cliff Road from 1883 to at least 1901 as neighbours of Dr Brushfield.  Dr Brushfield apparently had the lease on the two semi-detached properties uphill from his house called Rock Villas which he sold just prior to his death and which eventually became the early Rosemullion Hotel (see the folder in Fairlynch Museum on the Rosemullion compiled by Anita Jennings).

By the time of the 1911 census Estella is recorded as being in Golf Road so the Hutchins appear to have moved and taken the house name with them. The mother died in 1900, Blanche in 1912, and Frances in 1925. Julia married Edgar Layard in 1914 who was the son of Edgar Leopold Layard (see Layard, Edgar OVApedia) and they lived in Dark Lane. It is likely that Frances Bailey moved from Estella after her sister’s marriage andwhen she died in 1925 she was living at Parkholme, 14 West Hill, which at that time was divided into apartments (1923 commercial directory).