Sir Gregory Page, 2nd Baronet (c. 1695 – 4 August 1775), was an English art collector and landowner, and a
baronet
A baronet ( or ; abbreviated Bart or Bt) or the female equivalent, a baronetess (, , or ; abbreviation Btss), is the holder of a baronetcy, a hereditary title awarded by the British Crown. The title of baronet is mentioned as early as the 14th ...
in the
Baronetage of Great Britain
Baronets are a rank in the British aristocracy. The current Baronetage of the United Kingdom has replaced the earlier but existing Baronetages of England, Nova Scotia, Ireland, and Great Britain.
Baronetage of England (1611–1705)
King James I ...
.
He was the eldest son of
Sir Gregory Page, 1st Baronet
Sir Gregory Page, 1st Baronet (c. 1669 – 25 May 1720), of Greenwich, Kent, was an English brewer, merchant and Whig politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1708 and 1720.
Early life
Page was the eldest son of Gregory Page (died 1693) ...
, and his wife Mary, the daughter of Londoner Thomas Trotman. He followed his father in becoming a director of the
East India Company
The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...
, and from 1717 began expanding his land holdings in Kent and London.
[Sebag-Montefiore, Charles (2004]
"Page, Sir Gregory, second baronet (1689–1775)"
''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, He succeeded to his father's baronetcy on 25 May 1720. He married on 26 May 1721 Martha, third daughter of Robert Kenward, of Kenwards in
Yalding
Yalding is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Maidstone in Kent, England. The village is situated south west of Maidstone at a point where the Rivers Teise and Beult join the River Medway. At the 2001 census, the parish, which incl ...
,
Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
. They had no children. She died on 30 September 1767 and was buried 7 days later at
Greenwich
Greenwich ( , ,) is a town in south-east London, England, within the ceremonial county of Greater London. It is situated east-southeast of Charing Cross.
Greenwich is notable for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich ...
.
Cokayne, George Edward
George Edward Cokayne, (29 April 1825 – 6 August 1911), was an English genealogist and long-serving herald at the College of Arms in London, who eventually rose to the rank of Clarenceux King of Arms. He wrote such authoritative and standar ...
(1906)
Complete Baronetage
'. Volume V. Exeter: W. Pollard & Co. . p. 24
Page invested a substantial part of his fortune into further property, particularly in what was then north-west Kent. In 1723, he built a manor house in the
Westcombe Park
Westcombe Park is a largely residential area in Blackheath in the Royal Borough of Greenwich, South East London, England. It is bounded by the main London-Dartford railway line to the north, the Blackwall Tunnel southern approach to the east, ...
area, just north of
Blackheath Blackheath may refer to:
Places England
*Blackheath, London, England
** Blackheath railway station
**Hundred of Blackheath, Kent, an ancient hundred in the north west of the county of Kent, England
*Blackheath, Surrey, England
** Hundred of Blackh ...
, but later preferred to live in a huge mansion at Wricklemarsh nearby. This was designed by
architect
An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...
John James, built for £90,000, and stood in a park, once the property of Sir
John Morden. A ground plan and cross-section through the mansion's rooms were included in ''
Vitruvius Britannicus
Colen Campbell (15 June 1676 – 13 September 1729) was a pioneering Scottish architect and architectural writer, credited as a founder of the Georgian style. For most of his career, he resided in Italy and England. As well as his architectural ...
'' in 1739,
[ and according to a contemporary description, Wricklemarsh was:
:"one of the finest houses in England, resembling a royal palace rather than a residence of a private gentleman. The gardens are laid out in the most elegant manner and both the paintings and furniture are surprisingly fine. All rooms are hung with green or crimson silk damask and the cornices, door-cases and chair-frames are all carved and gilt. The chimney pieces are all of fine polished marble."
The surrounding land later formed part of the Blackheath Park housing estate created by ]John Cator
John Cator (21 March 1728 – 26 February 1806) was an English timber merchant and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1772 and 1793. He became a landowner and property developer with estates in later life in: Blackheath, Beckenh ...
, after he purchased, stripped and eventually demolished Wricklemarsh between 1783 and 1800. Page's other property investments included the purchase of Battlesden Manor in Bedfordshire
Bedfordshire (; abbreviated Beds) is a ceremonial county in the East of England. The county has been administered by three unitary authorities, Borough of Bedford, Central Bedfordshire and Borough of Luton, since Bedfordshire County Council wa ...
from Lord Bathurst
Earl Bathurst, of Bathurst in the County of Sussex, is a title in the Peerage of Great Britain.
The medieval English word was Botehurst, thought to date at least from the 13th century. Bote is the origination of Battle, although the family m ...
in 1724. In 1733, for £19,000, Page bought the dilapidated Elizabethan manor house at Well Hall
Well Hall is a place to the north of Eltham in the Royal Borough of Greenwich in southeast London, England, with no present formal boundaries and located east-southeast of Charing Cross.[Eltham
Eltham ( ) is a district of southeast London, England, within the Royal Borough of Greenwich. It is east-southeast of Charing Cross, and is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. The three wards of Elt ...]
, demolishing it to build a new mansion home, Page House (eventually demolished in 1931).
Page's fields of interest were said by the ''Dictionary of National Biography'' to include "scholarship and languages, engineering
Engineering is the use of scientific method, scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad rang ...
, construction
Construction is a general term meaning the art and science to form objects, systems, or organizations,"Construction" def. 1.a. 1.b. and 1.c. ''Oxford English Dictionary'' Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) Oxford University Press 2009 and com ...
, naval architecture
Naval architecture, or naval engineering, is an engineering discipline incorporating elements of mechanical, electrical, electronic, software and safety engineering as applied to the engineering design process, shipbuilding, maintenance, and o ...
and surveying
Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is ca ...
, collecting
The hobby of collecting includes seeking, locating, acquiring, organizing, cataloging, displaying, storing, and maintaining items that are of interest to an individual ''collector''. Collections differ in a wide variety of respects, most obvio ...
and building". The Wricklemarsh mansion was lavishly furnished and housed Page's art collection, which included works by Rubens
Sir Peter Paul Rubens (; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat from the Duchy of Brabant in the Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium). He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque traditio ...
, van Dyck
Sir Anthony van Dyck (, many variant spellings; 22 March 1599 – 9 December 1641) was a Brabantian Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England after success in the Southern Netherlands and Italy.
The seventh c ...
, Claude Claude may refer to:
__NOTOC__ People and fictional characters
* Claude (given name), a list of people and fictional characters
* Claude (surname), a list of people
* Claude Lorrain (c. 1600–1682), French landscape painter, draughtsman and etcher ...
, Poussin
Nicolas Poussin (, , ; June 1594 – 19 November 1665) was the leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, although he spent most of his working life in Rome. Most of his works were on religious and mythological subjects painted for a ...
, Veronese
Veronese is the Italian word denoting someone or something from Verona, Italy and may refer to:
* Veronese Riddle, a popular riddle in the Middle Ages
* ''Veronese'' (moth), a moth genus in the family Crambidae
* Monte Veronese, an Italian chees ...
, Salvator Rosa
Salvator Rosa (1615 –1673) is best known today as an Italian Baroque painter, whose romanticized landscapes and history paintings, often set in dark and untamed nature, exerted considerable influence from the 17th century into the early 19th ...
, Nicolaes Berchem
Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem (1 October 1620 – 18 February 1683) was a highly esteemed and prolific Dutch Golden Age painter of pastoral landscapes, populated with mythological or biblical figures, but also of a number of allegories and genre ...
, and Adriaen van der Werff
Adriaen van der Werff (21 January 1659 – 12 November 1722) was a Dutch painter of portraits and erotic, devotional and mythological scenes. His brother, Pieter van der Werff (1661–1722), was his principal pupil and assistant.
Life
At the ag ...
. Sir John Soane's Museum
Sir John Soane's Museum is a house museum, located next to Lincoln's Inn Fields in Holborn, London, which was formerly the home of neo-classical architect, John Soane. It holds many drawings and architectural models of Soane's projects, and ...
boasts eight Dutch East India Company
The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...
wood chairs inlaid with the coat of arms of Page and Kenward in mother of pearl. Page founded and patronised the Free and Easy Society, a dining club for gentlemen, for which Qianlong era
The Qianlong Emperor (25 September 17117 February 1799), also known by his temple name Emperor Gaozong of Qing, born Hongli, was the fifth Emperor of the Qing dynasty and the fourth Qing emperor to rule over China proper, reigning from 1735 t ...
Chinese armorial punch-bowls were made c. 1755.[
He supported the creation of a new charity in London called the ]Foundling Hospital
The Foundling Hospital in London, England, was founded in 1739 by the philanthropic sea captain Thomas Coram. It was a children's home established for the "education and maintenance of exposed and deserted young children." The word "hospital" w ...
. In its Royal Charter
A royal charter is a formal grant issued by a monarch under royal prerogative as letters patent. Historically, they have been used to promulgate public laws, the most famous example being the English Magna Carta (great charter) of 1215, bu ...
, issued in 1739, he is listed as one of the original governors. The charity worked to save abandoned children from the streets of the capital.
Upon his death in 1775, Page's fortune was bequeathed to his great-nephew Sir Gregory Turner, 3rd Baronet of Ambrosden
Ambrosden is a village and civil parish in Cherwell, Oxfordshire, England, southwest of Bicester to which it is linked by the A41 road, and from Oxford. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 2,248. The parish is bounded by the ...
, Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its largest settlement being the city of Oxford. The county is a centre of research and development, primarily ...
, who added 'Page' to his surname to become Sir Gregory Page-Turner. Page-Turner was the grandson of Page's sister Mary by her husband Sir Edward Turner, 1st Baronet
Sir Edward Turner, 1st Baronet (1691 – 1735) was an 18th-century investor, landowner and baronet.
He was born in London the son of John Turner, a well-to-do London merchant (d. 1708) and educated at Bicester Grammar School. Like his father, ...
.[
Page was interred in the family vault at ]St Alfege's Church, Greenwich
St Alfege Church is an Anglican church in the centre of Greenwich, part of the Royal Borough of Greenwich in London. It is of medieval origin and was rebuilt in 1712–1714 to the designs of Nicholas Hawksmoor.
Early history
The church is de ...
,[ on 14 August 1775.][
]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Page, Gregory, 2nd Baronet
1690s births
1775 deaths
Baronets in the Baronetage of Great Britain
British art collectors
English landowners