The Slaugham Archive
Handcross Park and the Blake MillionsThe photograph of Handcross Park appears in the memoirs of Mrs Ena Tulley (1897-1973), the wife of Ralph Tulley of the village post office.
She describes the early history of Handcross House and Handcross Park and a transcription of this can be found by selecting Open Document.
Handcross Park was selected to appear in a book dedicated to recording all the important country houses in Britain in the early 1900s. The work informs us that a veteran of the Peninsular War (1807-1814), General Robert Dudley Blake, purchased a plot of land in Handcross on which he built Handcross House in 1825, and where he lived until his death in 1850.
Robert married an Irish girl, Helen Sheridan, and they had one child who died in infancy. On Robert’s death, Helen inherited the whole of his large estate, and she also inherited the whole estate of Robert’s brother, Sir Francis Blake, who died without legitimate issue.
On Helen’s death in 1876, aged 76, her estate amounted to about £120,000 in property and cash, making her a multi-millionaire in today’s money. She died intestate and as no legimate claims were received (although several illegitimate claims were filed; 48 at the last count!) the whole estate was seized by the Crown (but see comment below).
There is a lot of fascinating information on the internet describing the “Blake Millions”.
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Picture added on 13 September 2018 at 11:40
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Handcross Park
Handcross Park
I have written 20,000 words about the real heirs to the Blake millions.
Helen was born in County Cavan in Ireland and died in 1876. At the time of her death she had a brother called Thomas Sheridan who was my two times great-grandfather. He died in Dublin in 1900 and was buried in Glasnevin cemetery.
At the time of his death, people in Ireland only spoke Irish and most of them couldn't read or write in any language. The Crown solicitors inserted a very small advertisement in the London Times and they knew very well that Thomas could neither read nor write. It became statute-barred and so the Blake millions went to the Crown.
I met Sir Michael Blake at his home in Cornhill-on-Tweed and he told me that people from all over the world had written to him claiming to be related. I was introduced as his distant cousin from Ireland to the local vicar and he showed me where Helen was buried.
Sir Michael is the grandson of Helen's illegitimate son of Sir Francis Blake. I have a mentor from the Dublin branch of the writers’ centre who told me that Sir Francis Blake had two illegitimate sons whom Helen loved dearly and she sent them to Trinity College in Dublin.
The reason I am writing about this story now is because I want to put an end to people claiming to be related to Helen when they know they are not. People from all over Ireland are still claiming to be related to Helen and they certainly are not. Helen’s mother was Ann Monaghan and many people called Monaghan visited London at the time and came back poorer than they went.
It seems that 20,000 words are too few to have a book published. My mentor in Dublin told me to try to get someone, anywhere to give me actual pictures so that I can fill a proper illustrated book with the story I have written.
I don’t actually care about the money; I just want people to know that the real heirs to the Blake millions were my mother’s family.
Helen was born in County Cavan in Ireland and died in 1876. At the time of her death she had a brother called Thomas Sheridan who was my two times great-grandfather. He died in Dublin in 1900 and was buried in Glasnevin cemetery.
At the time of his death, people in Ireland only spoke Irish and most of them couldn't read or write in any language. The Crown solicitors inserted a very small advertisement in the London Times and they knew very well that Thomas could neither read nor write. It became statute-barred and so the Blake millions went to the Crown.
I met Sir Michael Blake at his home in Cornhill-on-Tweed and he told me that people from all over the world had written to him claiming to be related. I was introduced as his distant cousin from Ireland to the local vicar and he showed me where Helen was buried.
Sir Michael is the grandson of Helen's illegitimate son of Sir Francis Blake. I have a mentor from the Dublin branch of the writers’ centre who told me that Sir Francis Blake had two illegitimate sons whom Helen loved dearly and she sent them to Trinity College in Dublin.
The reason I am writing about this story now is because I want to put an end to people claiming to be related to Helen when they know they are not. People from all over Ireland are still claiming to be related to Helen and they certainly are not. Helen’s mother was Ann Monaghan and many people called Monaghan visited London at the time and came back poorer than they went.
It seems that 20,000 words are too few to have a book published. My mentor in Dublin told me to try to get someone, anywhere to give me actual pictures so that I can fill a proper illustrated book with the story I have written.
I don’t actually care about the money; I just want people to know that the real heirs to the Blake millions were my mother’s family.
Added by Maureen Fagan (Ireland) on 21 March 2022
Her estate was worth about £120,000, about £15,000,000 in today’s value, but she had only made specific legacies of £19,400 in her will with no provision as to what was to happen to the residue. In its infinite wisdom, Her Majesty’s Treasury, who were responsible for the distribution of all assets left by a deceased person, decided to honour most of the specific bequests even though the will was unsigned, but the residue had to come under the laws of intestacy. In the event, none of the dozens of claims received was accepted as legitimate by the Treasury and therefore the bulk of the estate passed to the Crown.
One bequest which was honoured was £6400 to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution for its Irish service to purchase two boats, the “General R Dudley Blake” and the “Helen Blake”. The RNLI Annual Report of 1909 confirms that both these boats were in use in Ireland and that they had been financed by an “endowment from Helen Blake”.
In 1914 the “Helen Blake” took part in a famous rescue of many of the crew of the “Mexico”, a shipwrecked Norwegian schooner, off the coast of Ireland, but the lifeboat was wrecked. However, in 1938 another boat was built with the same name and again credit for its purchase was attributed to “a legacy from Mrs Helen Blake of Sussex”. It is not clear how a third lifeboat appears to have been purchased by the generosity of the same legacy over 60 years earlier, except that the RNLI Annual Report of 1909 showed regular amounts being received from two Trust Funds: Blake Lifeboat Maintenance Fund and Blake Lifeboat Reward Fund. Perhaps these funds helped to finance the building of the replacement boat.