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Joseph Dart was the Secretary of the East India Company in Leadenhall Street, London from 1818 to 1829 and had previously been assistant secretary there from at least 1814 (1).  Intriguingly, he was also Secretary to the Secret Committee on the Burmese War 1823-1828. There are several references to his business correspondence with officials and agents of the Company abroad (2) and these encompassed not only India but all countries and islands where the East India Company traded. 

The census records tell us that Joseph Dart lived in Upper West Terrace from some time prior to 1851 until his death in 1866 and that he had been born in Warminster, Wiltshire.  His parents appear to have been Philip and Mary Dart and he was born on the 8th June 1773 and christened at Bath Abbey in April 1774 (3). 

In 1841 he was living at Tidwell House just a few miles away from Budleigh and at that time his wife Elizabeth (née Frances) was still alive and his 17 year old daughter Ellen was at home with them.  His younger son Philip Francis was a 15 year old scholar at school at Exeter College, Oxford; he subsequently became a solicitor.  Both of these children had been born in London and they were baptised at St. Andrew Undershaft, Aldgate, London(3), near their father’s workplace.  Joseph’s eldest son Joseph Henry (1817-1887), who was also an alumnus of Exeter College, made his name as a conveyancer for the Court of Chancery and later in the High Court of Justice; details of his life can be found in his obituary which was printed in The Times newspaper on 1st July 1887. 

After their father died at the age of 93, Ellen and Philip Dart continued to live in the house in Upper West Terrace.  Philip died in 1872 and Ellen in 1881 and both are buried in East Budleigh Churchyard along with their other brother Rev. Charles Lewis Dart (curate of Revelstoke) who had died at the young age of 26 in 1853(4).  As both Philip and Elizabeth were unmarried it would appear that the house in Upper West Terrace (known as Ingleside at the time of the 1891 census) passed to Adeline Pennel Dart who was the widow of Joseph Henry Dart.  She occupied the house from October 1890 (5) and lived there until her death in February 1908. She is buried in the north aisle of East Budleigh Church. 

Ingleside was more recently owned for many years by Colonel Chichester (6).  It finally became a hotel but was demolished in the 1970s when the flats at Ingleside Court were built.

Compiled and researched by Roger Lendon © 2009

1Records of East India Company

2Asiatic Journal and monthly miscellany 1823, 1826   Google Book Search

3Family Search.org

4East Budleigh Memorials recorded at Fairlynch Museum

5Kelly’s Directory

6Budleigh Salterton in bygone days Jim Gooding Devon Books 1987

55 BS-B-00008 Biography any