Lt. Col. Robert William SHIPWAY J.P. ²

  General Notes:

Census 1881: Hampstead, England, Head, Breeches maker
Census 1891: head, leather breaches maker, Hampstead, England
Census 1901: age 59, head, Lt. Col (retired) Army officer, Man. Director


Lieut-Col Shipway's Pedigree
By James Widom and Val Bott
http://brentfordandchiswicklhs.org.uk/local-history/people/col-shipway%E2%80%99s-pedigree/

Brentford & Chiswick Local History Journal No 5 (1996)
A prominent Chiswick figure
Lieut-Colonel Robert William Shipway moved to Grove House, Chiswick in 1894. This 18th century mansion was part of the property of the Duke of Devonshire, then Chiswick's largest landowner. The Duke had begun to develop part of its estate as a well laid out upper-middle class suburb between the Thames and the railway but most of the grounds remained.

Born in 1841, the son of a tailor, Shipway previously lived in Ealing with his second wife, Helen, and four children and was rising up the social scale. An active Conservative, he served as a Middlesex County Councillor and from 1905 was to be a JP on the Acton Bench, eventually becoming Deputy Chairman. He and his wife supported the League of Nations organisation whose fund-raising fetes at Grove House became an annual event; he even ensured that the 1928 fete went ahead when he was ill and, as it turned out, on his death bed.

Shipway was a military type, described as 'a fine figure of a man'. A crack shot who won a number of silver cups, he was said to have a shooting box in Austria and he festooned Grove House with big game heads and bear skin. Shipway was also an enthusiastic amateur photographer and presented his own photos of local beauty spots for display in Chiswick Town Hall and Library. When he became involved, at his wife's insistence, in the purchase, restoration and opening of Hogarth's House as a museum his photographs were used to illustrate the 1904 guide book.

Over many years he was involved in the Queen's Westminster Rifles, a volunteer regiment established in the 1860s and a Victorian equivalent of the Territorial Army. He rose to the rank of Lieut-Colonel and was given the Volunteer Decoration, a volunteer officers' award given for long service and good conduct which was introduced in 1892. He was a director of Hammond & Co, the family breeches-making firm in Oxford Street, and left £93,000 when he died in 1928.

Robert married Helen CLARK, daughter of George CLARK and Unknown, in 1873. (Helen CLARK was born about 1847 in St Pancras, London, England, died on 28 Mar 1925 in Chiswick, England ⁴ and was buried on 2 Apr 1925 in Kensal Green, London, England.)

Robert next married Caroline CLARK, daughter of George CLARK and Unknown, on 11 Aug 1863 in St James, Westminster, London, England.¹ (Caroline CLARK was born about 1839 in Ealing, London, England and died on 20 Nov 1871 in London, Middlesex, England.)