"Franche" 2 De Warrenne Road, Lewes:
Part of the Wallands Park Estate
"Franche" 2 De Warrenne Road
DL/A/25/89 · 2 Aug 1894 · East Sussex Record Office
2 & 4 De Warrenne Road, Lewes for C Errey, 1 Milton Terrace, Lewes by Alfred A Oakden, 10 Cornfield Road, Eastbourne and 16 High Street, Lewes, architect and surveyor
Plan of Freehold Building Land comprising the remaining portions of the Wallands Park Estate, Lewes, Sussex
ADA/ACC2933/1/6/2 · 29 Sep 1905 · East Sussex Record Office
Plan to deed dated 29 Sep 1905 (SX 2017); includes Prince Edwards Road, King Henrys Road, De Warrenne Road, Gundreda Road, Ferrers Road, Fitzjohns Road, De Clares Road, Leicester Road, and Valence Road
DL/A/25/343 · 3 Mar 1909 · East Sussex Record Office
2 De Warrenne Road, Lewes for John P Martin, Franche, Prince Edwards Road, Lewes by W[illiam] R[ussell] Davey and Company, 84 High Street, Lewes, builders
1911 Census: John Pattinson Martin (33); his wife Eva Martin (32); their children John Pattinson Martin (5) and Richard Spurway Martin (1)
(John Martin & Eva Spurway were married in 1904 in Hampstead)
Will: John Pattinson Martin of Old Tiles, Cuckmere Road, Seaford d.24.11.1936 (aged 59) at Dukes's Drive, Eastbourne. Probate to Eva Martin widow, John Pattinson Martin estate agent and Richard Spurway Martin dental surgeon. Effects £19,362 6s 4d
Will: Eva Martin of "Lynwood" St Andrews Road, Great Malvern, Worcs. d.02.08.1950. Probate to John Pattinson Martin estate agent and Richard Spurway Martin dental surgeon. Effects £9,547 18s 6d
I plan to use the notes below as pointers to the various occupants of houses in De Warenne Road. At present I do not have access to Street Directories and the like for further information.
1921 Census: Charles Doland Crisp (57) Manager of the Norwich Union Life Insurance Society; his wife Alice Crisp (56); and one servant - Catherine Jane Jones (25) a cook, from Llanwrst in Denbighshire.
His wife Alice died in 1935 aged 70, while her husband Charles lived on until 1956 (see below).
DL/A/25/520 · 25 Oct 1922 · East Sussex Record Office
Conservatory, ‘Franche’, 2 De Warrenne Road, Lewes for Colonel C D Crisp by A W Wycherley, 60 High Street, Lewes, house agent and valuer
1939 Registers: Charles D Crisp b.18.02.1864 (75) retired insurance manager; Charles H Eldridge b.25.05.1875 (64) gardener & his wife Louise J Eldridge b.23.03.1879 (60) housekeeper.
Will: Charles Doland Crisp OBE of "Franche" 2 De Warrenne Road, Lewes d.05.02.1956 (aged 91) Probate to Norwich Union Life Assurance Society. Effects £26,486 4s 0d
From the Lewes History Group: Bulletin 104, March 2019
Lt.-Col. Charles Doland Crisp, O.B.E.
Charles Doland Crisp was chosen Mayor of the Borough of Lewes on eleven occasions – more than anyone else. He was elected to this post in 1923-1925, 1938-1944 (so in office right through World War II) and finally in 1949. When he retired as Mayor in 1950 he was in his mid-eighties. He was a Conservative councillor who also represented Lewes on East Sussex County Council for many years following his first election in 1925. Who was this remarkable public servant, remembered today primarily by a road named after him on the Borough Council’s Landport estate?
A basic biography is available. He was born in Hammersmith on 18 February 1864. His father, also called Charles Crisp, was a piano tuner. He had an elder and a younger sister. He followed the example of his elder sister, and trained as a teacher at the Anglican Culham College in Oxfordshire. In 1886 he married Alice Kemp, a Whitstable oyster merchant’s daughter, whose brother was also a teacher, and they had a daughter and a son born in 1887 & 1889. In the 1891 census he was a certificated school master at Shere in Surrey, where he was headmaster. By 1901 he had changed his career to become a superintendent in a life insurance office. He joined the Norwich Union in 1906 and worked for them for the rest of his working life, retiring as a director on New Year’s Eve 1937. He returned to London, living at Melrose Gardens, Hammersmith, in 1901-2, Wexford Road, Clapham, from 1903-1905 and Whitehall Park, Islington, 1909-1912.
His son served as a Royal Navy officer before, during and after the Great War, attaining the rank of Lieutenant Commander. Charles Doland Crisp was 50 when the war broke out, but nevertheless served first in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and later in the army, rising rapidly through the ranks to become a Lieutenant-Colonel and deputy commandant of the cadets in the County of London Territorial Force. In recognition of this work he was awarded an O.B.E. in 1920.
In 1920 Lt-Col Crisp and his family moved to Lewes, with their home at ‘Franche’, 2 De Warenne Road. He lived there until his death. He was elected to the Borough Council in 1921 to and the County Council in 1925. As mayor he became a local magistrate. His wife Alice died in January 1935, after which his married daughter served as his Mayoress. He was in his late seventies by the start of World War II, but in addition to serving as mayor he also acted as Town Clerk and sub-controller for the Lewes A.R.P. wardens. He was said to have been on duty for every one of the town’s 1,051 air raid alerts. In 1940 he was made a Freeman of the Borough. The Duke of Norfolk chaired a public dinner given to mark his 90th birthday. He died in 1956, a few days before his 92nd birthday.
However, this impressive career is only one aspect of Charles Doland Crisp’s life. He was an active freemason but his passion was for sport, in particular football. In his youth he embraced a number of sports, playing in goal as an amateur first for Oxfordshire and then for the London Hotspur team. He was also played cricket, golf and tennis, swam, was a good middleweight boxer and ran the 100 and 200 yards for Ranelagh Harriers. In the 1940s he chaired the Sussex branch of the Amateur Athletics Association and in later life he took up bowls.
He also became deeply involved in the organisation of football as it became more professional. He was a founder-member of the football referees union in 1908, becoming its London regional organiser and serving as an official at the London Olympic Games football tournament in 1908. He was chairman of the Middlesex Football Association for several decades, before and after he moved to Lewes. He was the Middlesex F.A. representative to the national F.A., where he served on the disciplinary and refereeing committees, and on the committee that revised the game’s rules. In 1912 he helped establish the Athenian League, for amateur football clubs in the London area. In 1913 he became the first new director of the Arsenal F.C. after they moved to Highbury stadium and remained in that role for more than a decade. He resigned after a disagreement with the chairman (who had made his chauffeur a member of the Arsenal ground staff).
He transferred his allegiance to Chelsea F.C., where he was a director through the 1930s and became chairman. He resigned from the Chelsea board in 1940, to focus on his wartime duties in Lewes. He was also involved in the development of football in other European countries, especially Belgium. Later in life he was a director of the Lewes Wanderers and president of the East Sussex League. He was much in demand as a speaker and writer on football topics, owning his own sports newspaper at one period. In 1923 he gave a talk entitled ‘Humours of Football’ on BBC Radio, the first recorded broadcast BBC feature on football. He contributed football columns to several newspapers including the Sussex Express.
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