Posted on Sep 21, 2025
FRANCIS TRESS Children of West Malling have been educated on this site for over three hundred years. The plaque in this photograph is in St Mary’s Church. It states in 1623 Francis Tress, gentleman, gave £40 for building a Free School, 15 shillings and 4 pence for repairing it, two silver cups and 6 shillings and 8 pence yearly to the poor to be paid out of a piece of land called Coussin’s Plat (sic) occupied by William Chapman a gentleman. Little is known about Tress. His name could be a corruption of Tracey. There are ancient tombs attributed to the Tress family in Offham Churchyard. It is not known where Tress lived in West Malling. The house may stand today. The Historian Edward Hasted in 1798 recorded that Tress also gave the land for the school and charged one of his houses here 13 shillings and 8 pence per annum for repairs. Four principal freeholders were appointed to administer the charity for ever which is vested in the Ministry. In 1798 it was being paid out of Robert Sutton’s estate. The schoolhouse was occupied at 2 guineas per annum by the Master’s widow. The Ordnance Survey Map of 1800 shows the building. The 1865 map notes it as a school for endowed boys. The school continued, and there are still residents living who attended as pupils. In the mid twentieth century the school became private houses. The forty ton stone inglenook fireplace was removed from the Master’s house (no. 3) but the house still retains elements of Tress’s original school. The school is an important part of local social history. Anyone who has information should contact West Malling Parish...
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Posted on Sep 21, 2025
PETER WOOLRIDGE TOWNSEND joined the Royal Air Force in 1933. He was one of three pilots that shot down the first enemy aircraft over England at the start of World War 2, which led to him being awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC). In 1940 he was a notable pilot in the Battle of Britain, acting throughout the action as squadron Leader of 85 Squadron in Hurricanes. In August 1940 he was shot down and wounded over Tonbridge. He was awarded a Distinguished Service Order (DSO) in 1941. He went on to fly Spitfires and led a night flying squadron. In 1943 he became commanding officer of RAF West Malling, and was promoted to Group Captain in 1948. Douce’s Manor was used as accommodation, and also served as the headquarters for RAF West Malling and the officers’ mess. Townsend was credited with a total of eleven kills. He is also known for his romance with Princess Margaret, whom he met when, after the war, he became equerry to King George VI. Unfortunately Townsend was divorced, and in the social environment at the time a marriage would have been met with severe disapproval, so the Princess broke up the relationship. He spent most of his later life as a writer. Also stationed at RAF West Malling between April and December 1941 was Guy Gibson, then acting Squadron Leader of 29 squadron of Bristol Beaufighters. Later Wing Commander Gibson went on to lead the famous Dam Busters raid in 1943 for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross, Britain’s highest military award for bravery. More...
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Posted on Sep 21, 2025
Admiral CHARLES STEWART bought Malling Place in 1718 and installed in it a captured Spanish ship’s mast and leather covered doors. The son of a Viscount, he saw service in the Nine Years War, wars of the Spanish Succession, Quadruple Alliance, Austrian Succession and other campaigns. Early in his career he lost a hand. In 1720 he commanded a squadron against the Sale Rovers and Mediterranean Pirates. He negotiated a treaty with Morocco and obtained the release of 296 British prisoners. He served as Commander in Chief in the West Indies becoming a Member of Parliament for Malmesbury 1723-1727 and Portsmouth 1737 until his death. A mahogany Spanish ship’s mast in the staircase and leather covered doors in Malling Place come from his active service. More information...
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Posted on Sep 21, 2025
THOMAS SELBY was born in November 1791 in Gillingham, Kent. At the time of writing, we know little about his early life and any additional information would be gladly welcomed. What is known, however, follows. His parents were Thomas and Mary Selby who were living in the Bishop’s Palace, Otford around the time of his birth. In 1817 he married Louisa Cline at Hythe, but sadly she died in 1831 and in the same year he married Marie de Loecker (a Belgian) in Lambeth. Basic information on Thomas Selby can be found here, although the mention of a third wife is believed to be incorrect. In 1828 he went into partnership with his younger brother George, who was a solicitor practising in London, and his cousin Silas Norton joined as well. (There is a separate plaque in West Malling to Silas Norton.) Thomas continued to practise in West Malling, but in the 1850s the practice ran into financial difficulties. What actually went wrong is very complex, but it seems that he and his brother had accumulated enormous debts, amounting to over £20M in 2021’s value. The partnership dissolved in 1844 and all three went bankrupt. Thomas Selby and Silas Norton applied for discharge certificates in November 1855, and George Selby followed soon after in December of the same year. Perhaps Thomas was already thinking of retiring, but in the middle of 1855, he sold off his considerable assets (probably including Abingdon House) and a little later moved to France. His wife Marie died in Boulogne-sur-Mer in 1858, and Thomas died there in 1874 leaving less than £200 to his son Thomas. The story of the bankruptcies is a very complex one and they were no doubt very notable and scandalous events of the time. There is more information with links to external documents here. In 1827, while he was living in West Malling, he and two others, Silas Norton and Lord Harris, founded the West Malling, then Town Malling, cricket ground (see the blue plaque for Norton). In 1835 Selby enticed Fuller Pilch to move to Kent (see the blue plaque for Pilch), and in 1836 Selby inaugurated a new Kent County Cricket Club with the West Malling ground as its headquarters, and he became the team selector for matches. Thomas Selby was also a cricketer himself, and played on the Kent cricket team from 1839 to 1841. In this period West Malling was the centre of Kent cricket. Here Kent played the Town Malling Club itself as well as sides from Sussex, Nottinghamshire and England. Crowds of over 6,000 spectators would gather for these matches, in an outer circle surrounding only about half the current ground, in the pavilion corner. The circle would contain carriages of the nobility and gentry, hop wagons covered with awnings made of hop cloths, marquees and booths. Order was kept by the cracking whip of a “ringmaster”. The...
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Posted on Sep 21, 2025
FULLER PILCH was born in Horningtoft, Norfolk on 17 March 1803. He had two elder brothers who were professional cricketers. He started his own cricketing career at Lords in 1820 playing for Norfolk against Marylebone. By the late 1820s he had become recognised as the best batsman England had produced, and that continued until the appearance of WG Grace in the 1860s. He developed a style of playing forward to the ball to rush the bowler. This shot became known as the “Pilch Poke”, and that term is still recognised today. In 1835 he transferred to the Town Malling team on a salary of £100 a year, and took over the Cricketers’ Inn which had a cricket field attached (Kent’s county ground at the time). The Cricketers’ Inn later became a private house and is recorded as the last building in Ryarsh Lane. In 1842 the county ground moved to Canterbury, and so did Pilch – to play for Kent’s county side, where he remained until he retired in 1855, having played for Kent through 19 seasons. He amassed a total of 10 centuries – which was quite an accomplishment when you consider how poor some of the pitches were. There is a plaque at the Old Cricket Ground, which is now accessed from Norman Road, which gives a brief history of cricket in West Malling and Pilch’s starring role in it. Pilch never married, and died on 1st May 1870 of dropsy, aged 67. He is buried in St Gregory’s Church in Canterbury, where there is a large monument to him. More...
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Posted on Sep 21, 2025
WILLIAM PERFECT was probably born in Bicester in 1737. His father became vicar of East Malling in 1742. From 1756 the family was resident in West Malling High Street. William married three times and fathered ten children. In November 1749 William Perfect became apprenticed to William Everred, a surgeon in London. He also studied under Colin McKenzie who was a strong advocate against the practice of wearing swords and cloaks at births! By 1757 he was practising in West Malling referring to himself as Surgeon, Apothecary and Man-Midwife. His studies and subsequent books show he was at the forefront of the new medical interest in Mid-Wifery. Perfect was also a noteworthy poet of the period. His poetry was first published in Martin’s Magazine 1755. In 1765 Perfect became a Freemason despite the French Revolution creating public suspicion of the organisation. By Royal Patent of the Prince of Wales he was appointed in 1795 as Provincial Grand Master of the Provincial Grand Lodge of Kent. His second child, Sarah, went on to marry Sylvester Harding, a well-known miniaturist painter at the time whose work is still famous today, and London’s National Portrait Gallery once staged a retrospective exhibition of his work. William Perfect died in 1809 was buried in the tomb he constructed in East Malling Churchyard. His triple oak and lead coffin was brought at midnight from West Malling by torchlight in a cortege drawn by black horses. Medical Perfect wrote articles on autopsies such as the examination of the body of a woman who died after eating a large quantity of cucumbers! His first medical book Methods of Cure in Some Particular Cases of Insanity was published 1778 and Cases in Mid-Wifery, two volumes, 1781 and 1783. These books are of great interest to social historians as they show the social care systems in place and details of local conditions in 18th century West Malling. He wrote against the practice of flinging corpses of hanged men into a common pit and tried to relieve the conditions for prisoners. Inoculation against Smallpox was introduced into England in 1721 with great suspicion. In 1761 Perfect was advertising inoculation and with Dr Porter inoculated much of Kent, and orchestrated inoculation over a large part of England. He inoculated thousands from his home. By 1770 he was well known for his advanced care of the mentally ill, and in 1774 was licensed to care for up to ten patients in his own home with his family of ten children. He wrote on humane care systems. Later he bought two other High Street houses. In 1783 he became an MD, then a member of The London Medical Society in 1795 with a consultancy in the Strand. With his son he was probably a founder of The Benevolent Society for The Relief of Widows and Orphans of Medical Men in Kent. Literary Perfect’s poetry was first...
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