Robert Joseph Gaubert, his family and Barkers Department Store

I am very grateful to Duncan Harrington of Silverton, Devon who sent me the following information in March 2009 -

Aimee Louise Gaubert (1866-1913) married my grandfather Cecil Charles Harrington (1861 - 1927) in 1894. Aimee was born at 31 Goodge Street, St Pancras on 19 Sept 1866, the younger of the two daughters of Robert Joseph Gaubert and Louise (on some censuses Louisa) Salome Bayard. Your website has Louise's birthplace as "Strosbury", in fact it should read Strasburg, France. Although Robert Gaubert was a hairdresser by profession he made most of his money as a property developer who had the good sense to buy into areas of London which were soon to take off. As you know he moved to Kensington in the 1870's where he bought the freeholds of a number of residential properties. A generation earlier Kensington had been turning from a quiet Middlesex village into an outer London suburb - a district of mostly servants' accommodation whose employers lived in the more fashionable areas of Bayswater, Brompton and Belgravia. But by the 1870s improvements in transport meant that wealthy families who could not afford these areas were settling in Kensington and prices soared. Robert's shrewdest investment was probably the purchase of the Head Lease of 85 Kensington High Street which he sub-let to John Barker and which became part of Barkers of Kensington. He remained Barkers' landlord for the remainder of his life. He later realized the up-coming potential of Ealing and moved there in the 1880s. He died in Ealing in 1890 leaving most of his fortune to be divided between his two daughters, Marie Caroline Gaubert (1856-1921) and Aimee.

The 1891 census shows the recently widowed Louise and her two daughters still living in Ealing, but Aimee is living a few doors away from her mother and sister. Quite how she met my grandfather, I don't know but he had lived for much of his early life just off Kensington Church Street so it is likely they knew one another from this period. I have a suspicion that her father may have warned her off Cecil but he renewed their friendship after Robert's death. Can't prove that of course.

Cecil Charles Harrington was born at 11 Berkeley Gardens, Kensington on 24th January 1861, the second of the seven children of Henry Harrington (1827-1914), a butler, and his wife Eliza nee Woods (1833-1898). After working briefly as a clerk, Cecil became a professional violinist around 1881, becoming a founder member of the new Lyceum Theatre Orchestra which was reformed and re-launched under Henry Irving in 1882. He remained a theatre musician for around twenty years before becoming a music teacher. Although I think he was quite good at what he did, theatre orchestras did not pay well and Cecil continued living with his parents until he was 33, by which time the family had moved to Fulham. But Cecil's fortunes changed after he married Aimee. She had been left independently wealthy by her late father; she and her sister each inheriting half of his property portfolio, including a half-share each of Barkers. They married at St. Peter's, Ealing on 3 October 1894 and soon moved away from west London to Hampstead. By 1901 they were living in a mansion flat at 31 St. James' Mansions, West End Lane, West Hampstead. Aimee's sister Marie moved a few doors away. Was she keeping an eye on her sister? Did she already mistrust Cecil? She had good reason to.

The 1911 census shows them at 19 Fawley Road, West Hampstead, just off West End Lane and by this time Marie has moved in with them. A few doors away lived a young maid, Ethel Clark, with whom Cecil was having an affair. Aimee was quite ill by this time suffering from cirrhosis. Had his unfaithfulness driven her to drink? When Aimee died of cirrhosis on 14 December 1913, Ethel Clark was six weeks pregnant with the baby that would be my father. Aimee was buried in West Hampstead cemetary, Fortune Green, (plot F.1.118), a sad and premature end to what I suspect was a rather unhappy life. Cecil was interred in the same grave after his death in 1927.*

Cecil waited some six months, probably to get his hands on Aimee's money, before marrying Ethel Clark at Windsor Registry Office in June 1914. My father Charles Harrington was born two months later. Cecil Harrington inherited Aimee's wealth, including the half-share in Barkers. Marie retained the other half. The portfolio of properties, leases and other securities still formed part of Cecil's estate when he died of tuberculosis in Egham, Surrey on 26 November 1927. My father was his only child. Marie Gaubert never married and moved to Steyning, Sussex where she died in 1921.

I have birth, marriage and death certificates for Aimee. If you want them let me know and I'll scan them. Incidentally, her birth certificate records her name as Aime (there is an acute accent on the e but my email can't type an accented e). Probably a clerical error at the time as this spelling would, I think, be a male name in French.

I should imagine Aimee's name was pronounced "emmay" in the French manner not like the English "Amy". Please tell me how you pronounce your surname. Is it pronounced in the French manner as "go-bear" or "gor-bear", or in the English manner as "go-bert" or "gor-bert"?

*I visited their grave in 2005. Completely overgrown and untended for years. My wife and I spent hours clearing the undergrowth and cleaning the white marble cross. Their names are still there in lead lettering. Probably all overgrown again by now. I have "before and after" pictuures of the grave if you want them.

John Barker was born at Loose in Kent on 6 April 1840, the son of Joseph Barker, a carpenter and brewer. He was an apprentice to a Maidstone draper and later worked in drapery shops in Folkestone and Dover before moving to London, in 1858, to join Spencer, Turner & Boldero, furnishers and drapers of Lissom Grove, Marylebone (pictured right where my paternal grandfather worked - RMG).

Barker was an ambitious man and in late 1870 opened a small linen drapery shop on his own account in Kensington. His initial premises at 91 and 93 (then 43 and 44) Kensington High Street, recently rebuilt under the Kensington improvement scheme, quickly proved inadequate and, by the end of 1870, Barker had annexed 26 and 28 Ball Street . In 1871 he moved into 87 Kensington High Street.

The following year he acquired the stock and premises of a draper at 89 Kensington High Street and 24 Ball Street which were, in 1873, extended into a newly acquired parcel of land behind 85 and 87 Kensington High Street. In 1880 Barker also took over 77 Kensington High Street, 14 and 16 Ball Street . Later the same year he purchased 75 Kensington High Street, the stock in a trade of a grocer.

From the outset Barker had envisaged the creation of a vast store selling a huge range of goods, and accordingly took every opportunity to acquire the leases and freeholds of adjoining premises. By 1880 he was trading in fifteen shops and boasted an annual turnover of £150,000, almost four times the invested capital, and an annual profit of £8,500. The expansion of the business continued unabated with the acquisition of 95 and 97 Kensington High Street, on the corner of King Street, in 1885, and the purchase of the former London and County Bank and two shop premises at 67-71 Kensington High Street, in 1888.

The following year 63 and 65 Kensington High Street, 2, 4 and 6 Young Street and 6 Ball Street were purchased and immediately pulled down to make way for a handsome six-storey building, with a high mansard roof, offering some 30,000 square feet of floor space. This new wing was completed in December 1889.

By 1895, save for two shops (numbered 73 and 85), the company owned every property between King Street and Young Street. The growth of the business continued with the rebuilding of the Ball Street property in 1897, and acquisition of numbers 48½, 52, 54 and 56 on the north side of Kensington High Street in 1898. In 1900, 73 Kensington High Street was finally acquired and negotiations successfully concluded with London County Council for the provision of a building lease for a site with a 440-foot frontage on to the north side of Kensington High Street and two new side streets. Soon afterwards plans were laid for a large warehouse with flats above, along the lines of Harrods’ recent development in Knightsbridge, and work began on rebuilding 42-60 Kensington High Street.