The History Group

Leader:  Ronald (Yogi) Godwin - history@ashbyu3a.co.uk - phone 01530 467840

Yogi is ably assisted by Jane Barnett, Barbara Ball, Colin Ellis, Jane Harris and Isobel Salt

All Ashby u3a members are welcome at our meetings.

All meetings with speakers will be held at Packington Memorial Hall on the 4th Thursday of the month.
Doors open for Packington meetings at 2.15pm. Admission £2

Due, in part, to the cancellation of the trip to Leeds, the History programme has been revised as shown below.

Thursday 24th September.

Yogi and 'Francis Rawdon Hastings, 1st Marquis of Hastings 1754 1826.'

Once more our very own Yogi enlightened us with an account of someone who has had a significant influence on this part of the world.

He started by asking five questions of us:

1: Was he important?
2: Was he importance to Ashby?
3: Was he a hero for Ashby?
4: Was he important nationally?
5: Was he an important entrepreneur?

He was born in Moira in Antrim and gave the name to our own Moira near the end of his life, with said life being a bewildering foray around the world, and a bewildering array of titles.

He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, inheriting great wealth, including Donington Hall. Educated at Harrow and Oxford, but seemingly without distinction, he joined the Army as a junior Ensign. After doing the Grand Tour he was promoted to Lieutenant and went off to America in 1773 to fight in the War of Independence. He so distinguished himself that he was promoted again and again eventually to the rank of Adjutant General. The War took him all over the continent until in 1781 he relinquished his command due to ill health and set out for England. Captured enroute by the French he was exchanged and entered the Irish Parliament and became deeply involved in the complicated politics of Irish attempts at freedom. Honoured by George III in 1783 he became Baron Rawdon and was drawn into the circle of the Prince of Wales, somehow loaning him thousands to help support ‘Prinny’s’ lavish lifestyle. In 1793 when war broke out with France, he was made a Major-General and briefly fought in Belgium. He was made a full General in 1803 as Commander-in-Chief Scotland. This led, by one of the quirks of the system, to him becoming Governor General of India. So, in yet another startling switch in his life, he sailed for India and became embroiled in many military campaigns there.

Meanwhile his private life was no less interesting. In 1804, aged 50, he married a young lady of 24, Flora, Countess of Loudon, by whom he had six children. This lady seems to have been as free with his money as was the Prince of Wales racking up debts of £7,000 (equivalent to at least £700,000 today). His own debts were around £300,000! In today’s they eventually owed £48 million….

On return to England he engaged in many enterprises, not the least in helping develop the coal and clay fields near Ashby in an area that became known as Moira. The mines here had to be pumped out using the new Newcomen engine as motive power, so he started a Spa to use the water. But, for some reason, the inhabitants of Moira weren’t interested in this enterprise, and he transferred it to Ashby. But his entrepreneurial skills seemed not to have extended to logistics, and this enterprise failed, too. It seems that the whole business of transporting the water by tanks and the canal to Willesley, transfer to the tramway system and then offloaded to the Baths was not viable. It is not known why he did not construct a pipeline from the vast quantities of clay at his disposal. Likewise, the short-lived iron furnace at Moira was not successful, very likely because of the inferior grade of ore in use. Curiously, among the many factoids surrounding his life, of only three Prior Park Roads in the country, one is here in Ashby, one in Rugby and the other is in Bath.

In the end he was appointed Governor of Malta in 1824 but died enroute back to England in 1824. Macabrely, his wife, following his wishes, cut off his right hand and preserved it to be buried with her.

Yogi then asked us to vote on the issues he posed at the beginning. The views of the members were interestingly mixed, possibly because Francis spent relatively little time here and basically bequeathed little to Ashby except a splendid but out-of-place Spa, a near neighbour its name, and a splendid Georgian Terrace beside the Royal Hotel.

The Q&A session was very lively, once more proving how fascinating and educational are Yogi’s talks.

Earlier history meeting