(1821-1883)
The extraordinary history of Patience Swinfen’s inheritance and her struggles to establish her ownership of Swinfen Hall has been the subject of numerous articles and at least two books. The ex-parlourmaid’s claim to this extensive property and her eventual victory was a Victorian sensation. The legal wrangles made national headlines, but the story of her second husband and eventual master of Swinfen Hall is much less well-known.
The property developer
Charles spent his early childhood in a prosperous part of Glasgow. His father called himself William Brown, but Charles preferred the old Scottish family name of Broun. His sons also used the Broun surname. After attending Glasgow University, he became a landowner and property developer, buying an estate at Wemyss Bay in Renfrewshire. His pet project was Castle Wemyss, a large home he constructed for his family with wonderful views over the sea and surrounding countryside.
First married in 1846, he was widowed just one year later. Two years after the death of his first wife, he married Annie Rowand. Annie experienced seven pregnancies in the ten years following her marriage, but only four of her children survived. Then Annie herself died at Castle Wemyss when she was 37 and her youngest child was only one, leaving Charles a widower for the second time.
A disputed will
Three years later Charles met Patience Swinfen. She was the widow of Henry Swinfen, only son of Samuel Swinfen, owner of Swinfen Hall, a large estate near Lichfield in Staffordshire. Henry had been living a dissolute and aimless life in Paris and London when he met Patience, then an 18-year-old parlour maid in a London lodging house. They married without informing their parents and spent the next seven years travelling on the Continent. Attractive and much more intelligent than her husband, Patience charmed all those she met, including Henry’s father.
But Henry died in 1854, pre-deceasing his father who died shortly afterwards, leaving Patience with an uncertain inheritance. Samuel had rewritten his will during his last illness, leaving Swinfen to her, but this was challenged by other family members.
Legal wrangles
A series of court cases ensued involving several celebrated lawyers, including Charles Rann Kennedy, who acted for Patience. Their relationship became close, even romantic. Kennedy presented Patience’s claim with great eloquence and fervour. They won the case. But Kennedy over-reached himself, bringing a case for damages against the Lord Chancellor. He had hoped to further his career by this move but he lost this case. He then tried to claim a large sum of money from Patience, who resisted.
It was at this point that Patience met and married Charles Broun, much to Kennedy’s chagrin. Patience and Charles were then dragged back into the courts by Kennedy in what became a scandalous trial that they eventually won. Hilda Cotterill-Davies, only daughter of Charles’s eldest son, did not inherit the estate because he left it to his younger son. It was sold after his death and is now a hotel.
For more information on this story see: Angela Coulter, A Stream of Lives, Matador Press 2021, available from Troubador Bookshop