From 1885 to 1900 he was Member of Parliament for South Hampshire in which constituency Havant was then included. He was active in public life and took a benevolent interest in the affairs of the locality and we are told that the extensive grounds of Leigh Park were frequently thrown open to the public and there used to be numberless excursions from Portsmouth and the surrounding countryside to enjoy the amenities of the Park. It was a favourite outing for Sunday Schools in particular and cricket was regularly played on the ground which General Fitz Wygram maintained there and it was doubtless here that our Vicar received his earliest tuition in the game.

Our informant from Havant tells us that “the regular annual contributions to the church of St. Faith by both Sir Frederick and Lady Fitz Wygram (on a generous scale) show the benevolent interest they took in church affairs. They were regular attenders and drove in their liveried carriage as was the custom.”

Sir Frederick’s memorial in Havant church, the handsome west window of two lights showing St. Gabriel and St. Michael, bears the words from the Acts, “After he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep and was laid with his fathers.” This was on December 9th, 1904, when he was eighty-one. His wife, Selina Frances, died fourteen years earlier, on April 17th, 1890, aged seventy-five, and her memorial is to be found on the north side of the chancel, a window of three lights showing Faith, Hope and Charity.

Their son and heir, Frederick Loftus, was born in 1884 and suffered so severely in the 1914-18 War that he died later of his injuries. His memorial, a window in St. Faith’s south transept depicts the Saints St. Michael, St. George and St. Hubert and bears the words, “In loving memory of Sir Frederick L. Fitz Wygram, Baronet, M.C., Major, Scots Guards, died from effects of Great War, March, 1920, aged thirty-five.” A sister continued to live at Leigh Park until the 1939 War when the family home was taken over by the Admiralty.

The family is mentioned in the book, “The King Holds Hayling Island” as having been responsible for certain enfranchisements, and certainly General Sir Frederick seems, in common with his younger brother, to have been a man of advanced ideas and with great concern for the well being of his tenants. The Surrey Comet, under the heading, “Noble Example” tells us that he entertained employees of his estate to dinner and urged them to join Friendly Societies to provide annuities in their old age. So anxious was he to recognise the services of those who had worked on the estate for forty years that he offered every one of them a cottage, rent free, for the rest of his life; and further undertook “to find a farm for any labourer on his estate who had saved a small sum sufficient to stock it.” Nevertheless, kind as he was to his staff, we are told that he controlled them “with a discipline that was almost military.”

The Leigh Park Estate has now been developed as part of Portsmouth’s “overspill” but the family is remembered by having several roads named after them.

Coming as he did from a family background of responsibility and concern for the working classes it is not surprising that the Rev. F. J. Fitz Wygram also became a local benefactor. After being educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, he took holy orders and began his clerical life at Sittingbourne, in Kent. In 1863 he was invited by the Rev. J. Burrow, of Hampton, to take over the new outlying parish of New Hampton and its new church, of which even the Bishop of London at the induction ceremony is reported as having said, “it is a barn of a church and a wilderness of a place.”

However, Mr. Fitz Wygram having fallen in love with, and married, a local girl, Alice, one of the daughters of Sir Henry and Lady Ward, regarded his new parish as fruitful ground. He was a man of considerable private wealth and he devoted himself to social reform in a most thorough manner. He was loud in his denunciation of drink—the local papers of the period record many cases of drunkenness—and he tried to abate this national curse by founding comfortable cottages for the working classes at rents they could afford. To do this he gradually bought up slum property in his parish, demolished it and replaced it by new houses. As has already been said, Cross Street, the old “Swindle Street,” through which only the policeman and the vicar dared to go alone, was entirely rebuilt by him, whilst School Road was erected by him to house some of the most “wretched” of his parishioners. The Fitz Wygram Coffee House and Social Club was built on the erstwhile site of a row of tumble-down cottages which he owned and was another of his social achievements, as were the church schools also, for Mr. Fitz Wygram took a keen interest
in education.

The Station Road School in Hampton was erected mainly at his expense to meet the demands of the Education Department and to obviate the necessity of forming a School Board. He also became a governor of Hampton Grammar School and saw the completion of the Sunbury Road building just before his death; his name may still be seen on the foundation stone.

His personality dominated the whole district. St. James’s Church was remodelled, with large contributions from his own pocket by the addition of the north and south aisles, a new sanctuary and vestry and organ.

He was a keen sportsman and encouraged his parishioners to start a football club and to play cricket. He was a popular figure both on the cricket ground, where the tram—now bus—depot stands at Fulwell, and the Saturday matches, played on the Vicarage Field in St. James’s Road, which were invariably captained by him and which were keenly looked forward to by the parishioners. In fact, his keenness on the game and his “modern” ideas were such that he encouraged his parishioners to play on Sundays provided that they attended at least one church service. These advanced ideas did not, however, prevent his appointment, even in Victorian times, as Rural Dean.

From his portrait we can see that he was a handsome, if delicate-looking man, with sensitive features; but we are told that “he was at all times a plain speaking man,” and there were doubtless some who resented this attribute since “he was not without detractors.” However we are assured that it was “indisputable that the great amount of good he effected in every direction most happily compensated for the little that some thought amiss.”

But “those whom the gods love die young,” for he was only fifty-four years of age at the time of his death, in the summer of 1881 there had been signs that his constitution was breaking. Those who were used to his familiar figure, always accompanied by a black retriever, were shocked at the suddenness of his death and the SUreey Comet of August 20th, 1881, tells us that “the Post Office was besieged with anxious enquiries as to the truth of the rumours” that had reached the village; for he was taken ill whilst on a visit to Ilkley, Yorkshire, on August 12th, and died the next day from an illness that modern medical knowledge could almost certainly have cured. His passing caused a great loss to the district, the Surrey Comet saying that “in him the parish had lost a great benefactor, and by his death a void had been created that, at present could hardly be realised.” Watching at the cross-roads for the master who never returned, his beloved dog, Scamp, lay for hours every day, and eventually died of a broken heart.

The Surrey Comet tells us that the services on the Sunday following Mr. Fitz Wygram’s death “were most affecting and were with much difficulty sustained.” “There being a general wish to take a parting look at the deceased gentleman, consent was kindly given, and a great number of people availed themselves of the opportunity on Sunday and Monday. The body was laid in the study. The features presented a most pleasant and peaceful appearance.”

An immense number of people came to the funeral, “giving affecting testimony of the deep respect in which the late Vicar was held,” and the church was packed with old and young, many being unable to obtain admission. We are told that “nearly all places of business both at Hampton and New Hampton were wholly closed for the occasion.” The majority present were attired in mourning, few could refrain from tears, and Mrs. Fitz Wygram was so overcome with emotion at the graveside that she had to be found a chair.

The Rev. Studholme Wilson, the curate, said “there has been but one feeling during the past few days, viz., that the principal source of strength to this church, a mainstay, a powerful influence for good has been taken away with the spirit of the departed saint. . . . His influence has not been confined to the few, and we are reaping, not only for a short period, the benefit of his Christian example. Ever since this Church was built he has been continually looked up to as a guiding spirit, a trustworthy friend, a safe adviser, the insight of whose opinions could never be dispensed with. Whatever has been done here that we can look back on with gratitude, owes its origin to him . . . he stood alone in the possession of faculties and experiences that we rarely see combined in a single character.”

Mr. Studholme Wilson went on to say that Mr. Fitz Wygram had brought “his energy, his liberality and excessive care to foster any scheme that might add to the spiritual welfare of this parish or make this temple a more worthy dwelling-place for the most High.”

The Archdeacon of Middlesex said that Mr. Fitz Wygram had been “indefatigable in caring for everything in his parish, the centre of work and life to his Rural Deanery . . . thoroughly interested in, and thoroughly acquainted with the duties of his office . . . there was a genuine Christian courtesy about him and in him, and it influenced all who came within its reach.

“No one was more careful than he to screen his own liberality, no one shrank more completely from any form of human praise. Why do we feel that he was such a pillar of strength to the Church? Was it wealth, was it knowledge, was it experience that made his influence felt through the whole community? No, they might have assisted him— no doubt they did—no, the great secret of his strength was the penetrating force of a consecrated life, a pure motive, the glory of God. There was no compromise with the world, no fear of sacrificing time, money or convenience if he thought there was anything to be done for God and His cause.”

The Archdeacon went on to say that Mr. Fitz Wygram had certainly had the benefit of “wealth and opportunities not available to many” but these had not been the secret of the strength the village had lost, but rather “singleness of purpose, disinterested love and desires sanctified in a growing realisation of Christian Service.”

The address ended with the prayer that the strength of the Christian example shown by the late Vicar should rise again to help those left behind on their way, to encourage them in their work, and to consecrate their lives more thoroughly “in the ranks of the Church militant on earth.”

Source: The Birth and Growth of Hampton Hill (Margery Orton)