The History of Lucy Wills Nurses Home

38 Court Street, Moretonhampstead

The Lucy Wills Nurses Home was built in 1900 by George Wills of Pepperdon. He donated it in memory of his wife Lucy who had died in 1898. It was to be a home for a nurse who was to care for the poor of Moretonhampstead parish and they could be of any religious denomination. The nurse had to be qualified and a single woman, either a spinster or a widow. She was to nurse the sick of Moreton in their own homes and not in her house and she was not to receive any payment directly from her patients.

The description of ‘poor’ meant in 1900, nearly fifty years before the national Health Service, those people who were unable to pay for the medical or nursing care they needed. The nurse, later called a District Nurse, continued to live in the Lucy Wills Nurses Home until 1963. George and Lucy Wills were from non-conformist religious backgrounds, Congregationalists, explaining perhaps why the patients could be of any religious background.

George Wills bought the land, paid for the building of the house and set up a trust fund investing £1,500 to provide an income of £52 a year for the nurse. The Trust had two other members who were prominent Moretonians; Simon Newcombe Neck, a retired draper, who lived in the Great House in the Square and Arthur Clampitt Loveys who lived in Elmfield off Station Rd and was the local auctioneer and surveyor.

In 1899 George had also contemplated building a cottage hospital in Moreton but Lord Hambleden, who was the Lord of Moreton manor then, persuaded him to concentrate on setting up the Nurse’s Home and investing money to provide for her salary. Lord Hambleden himself provided the site for the Hospital and built it in 1904. George Wills built in 1905 the house or manse for the Congregational Minister next to the Congregational Chapel on Station Road. It was designed The Bowring Library was built in 1901 by Sir Thomas Bowring; he had already built the Kinsmans Dale housing estate in 1895. The Nurse’s Home, the Congregational Manse and the Bowring Library were all designed by the most prominent Cornish architect of the 19th century, Sylvanus Trevail

Lucy Walters was born in 1828 in Shoreditch, London and was the daughter of a well-established and wealthy London silk manufacturer. Her father, Daniel Walters’ silk mill was based in Spitalfields and Braintree, Essex. He specialised in weaving silks and velvets for the furnishing trade, exhibited in many national Exhibitions and supplied the silks for the ballroom at Buckingham Palace. By 1860 they were employing 300 people and their silks and velvets were considered to be equal in quality to those of the French.

Lucy married George Wills in 1854 and left for Adelaide, Australia where she had three children before returning to London around 1859 to have 5 more children here. They had one daughter Ada who died in 1863 aged 9. They lived in various large stylish houses after they returned from Australia, one in St Leonards on Sea and the others in London with always at least 4 servants. Their last house in London was No 3, Hyde Park Gate. Lucy died in 1898 aged 70 and is buried in Highgate Cemetery in London.

No 3, Hyde Park Gate Today.

In 1891 George & Lucy Wills lived here with 4 adult children & 9 servants, including an Italian butler.

They also spent a lot of time at their country home, Pepperdon House which he had bought around 1874 with his brother Richard.

George Wills’s family came from Chagford at what is now called Lincombe Farm, previously Venn Farm, before moving to Smithacott Farm in Bridford parish around 1815 and then to Moor Barton Farm in Moreton parish as tenants. His mother and his brother continued farming at Moor Barton, the largest farm in Moretonhampstead parish, after his father died and George bought it for them.

George left for Australia in 1840, when he was only 16, as a pioneering entrepreneur, taking with him drapery and textiles to set up business in Adelaide. Australia was only just beginning to open up from being a penal colony and apparently, he unpacked his drapery goods on an allotment still covered in scrub. He came back to England only to return to Australia with three brothers in 1849.

Two brothers died early on but George and his brother, Richard, who had been apprenticed to a draper in Exeter, developed the business rapidly and they founded a partnership together called G & R Wills & Co. They became importers and warehousemen expanding their business from drapery and textiles to include clothing and footwear. Richard returned to England in 1858 to set up a purchasing house in London for all the goods they needed to export to Australia. He returned to Australia, where he died in 1862, and George came back in his place to London around 1859 to take charge for good. He was well supported In Australia by Lucy’s brother-in-law Robert Tarlton who had joined them there. The company continued to expand across Australia, playing a significant role in the commercial development of South Australia and then opened branches across the world. It is still a large national company in Australia now called G & R Wills Wholesalers.

Adelaide Office of G & R Wills & Co. in 1878

After his brother died, George also set up a shipping company, George Wills & Co which became one of Australia’s most important shipping agencies. It expanded and thrived in Australia and then worldwide, being mostly involved with importing, exporting and shipping. He eventually retired in 1902. The family continued to be involved with the Company until at least 1948 when it became a Public Company. George Wills died suddenly in 1906 aged 82 in his house at Hyde Park Gate and is buried at Highgate Cemetery with Lucy.

George began to buy the Pepperdon estate in 1859 with his brother Richard but he was only able to buy a quarter of it due to complicated family legal reasons but gradually he was able to buy the rest of it, owning it completely at last by 1874, He had also bought Moor Barton from the owner for his mother and brother who were tenants there. He immediately started planning to build Pepperdon Hall with its farm buildings and cottages and he built another wing in 1886 for a billiard room, more bedrooms and offices which have since been knocked down along with the chapel. The family have said that though he was very wealthy he was also very mean and did not have an architect to design the house but built it as he thought it should be. Just before it was finished, he remembered the bathroom. which had to be squeezed into the middle of the building!

Pepperdon Hall, Today

He farmed Pepperdon successfully with the help of an agent cultivating what he called ‘a mountain waste’. He had a large flock of sheep of about 600 and a herd of bullocks of about 100. In his will he did not give the Pepperdon estate to his children but stated that if they wanted it, they would have to buy it at the market price. His son George Tarlton Wills spent a lot of time at Pepperdon with his family and is written about in a delightful book by his daughter Peggy called ‘Oliver’. It is about her brother, Lieutenant Oliver Byerley Walters MC RAF, who died on the penultimate day of World War One and reflects their love of Pepperdon and the countryside around it. In 1945 Peggy Hamilton, who had moved to New Zealand, hearing that Pepperdon was in a bad condition, sold it. It was eventually bought by the Keep family who still own and farm the estate today.

Pepperdon Estate Sale Map in 1946.

Note that some of the estate was west of the current A382.

The Wills family stopped being involved with the Lucy Wills Nurses Home in 1944 when they passed it onto the Management Committee of the Lucy Wills Nursing Association, made up of 14 Moretonians. It became a charitable trust in 1948 maintaining the house for a District Nurse to live in. In 1950 Devon County Council bought it for £1,300 from the Trustees. who invested the money to provide a fund known as the Lucy Wills’ Sick and Poor Fund with the house to be still used by a District Nurse. In 1963 the Trustees agreed to free the County Council of any restrictions on the property hoping the Council would feel morally obliged to keep it as a Nurse’s Home, but they sold it in 1964 and it became a private home as it is still today.

In the 1980s the Lucy Wills Trust, as it was now known, gave a small amount to pensioners twice a year at Christmas and in the summer and more recently only at Christmas. It amalgamated with the small Eleemosynary Trust from the Almshouses Trust and a similar Trust from Manaton. In 2022 it was decided to give the remainder of the money in these Trusts to a local charity, Wellmoor.

George and Lucy Wills

- Judy Hardiman

Moretonhampstead History