Thrale history

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in the brewery only ten days before his marriage, so it is possible it could have been his wife's dowry. By 1702 he was prosperous. He could afford such items as 'man's livery, new saddle and bridle, wine for Hunt, long wigs and short wigs, shoes, shirts, and books for schooling for Thomas Halsey'. In 1719 he was governor of St. Thomas's Hospital and in 1722 and 1727 elected M.P. for Southwark. He was a director of the South Sea Company. He died in 1729 Lord of the Manor of Stoke Poges and owner of an estate including property at Newington, Camberwell, Croydon and Mitcham. His only surviving daughter Anne had married Richard Temple, Lord Cobham, and it was to his wife Anne, and daughter Ann that the estate was left, then to Lord Cobham for life. and failing issue of the marriage, to his niece Anna Smith of St. Albans.¹¹ Anna must have had an exceptional personality for she is the binding factor between the St. Albans and Streatham families being mentioned in the wills of members of both families.

The succession of the brewery created problems for Lord Cobham and Anne his wife. As Sir Richard Temple he had served in Flanders under the Duke of Marlborough, when Duchess Sarah Jennings was managing her husband's Sandridge estates so efficiently and severely and having tussles with the contemporary Sandridge Thrales. Temple later obtained a patent raising him to the rank of Viscount Cobham. He was later a Field Marshal (because he assisted with the military feat of bringing down the fall of Robert Walpole!) and is perhaps best remembered as a friend of Pope. He therefore sought the lucrative advantage of involvement with such a brewery, but not a direct connection.¹²

As no doubt a family solution, Edmund Halsey looked towards his old home and considered the marriage of his sister Anne Halsey to Ralph Thrale of Offley. It is also worthy of note that back home at St. Albans the two families of Halsey and Thrale knew each other; it was in 1732 that Ralph Thrale of No Mans Land had married Sarah Halsey of Kimpton. It was therefore Anne Halsey's son, Ralph Thrale, who came to work at the brewery. The similarity in careers between Edmund Halsey and Ralph Thrale is remarkable. Edmund was eminently handsome according to Mrs. Thrale's later writings. He worked as a broom stick clerk and then eventually owned the brewery: old Child however was very fond of his nephew. Ralph Thrale worked for twenty years at six shillings a week according to Boswell, but one rather queries the veracity of this. Whatever the truth he made himself indispensable and although Edmund, in later years, affecting the character of an old beau and

Footnotes

11. History of Anchor Tavern.↩︎
12. Much help in collating material at this point is acknowledged to S.B. Seeley M.A. - "Mrs. Thrale" - published Seeley & Co. 1891. Also F.E. Halliday - "Dr. Johnson and his World" - Thames & Hudson. Fanny Burney's Diary; Peter Quennell "Samuel Johnson - His Friends & Enemies", Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1972. "The Impossible Friendship - Boswell and Mrs. Thrale" by Mary Hyde: Chatto & Windus 1973.↩︎