John Sutton, known as Jack, was born in Houghton, Hampshire in April 1862, the third of nine children born to Jesse Sutton and his wife Helen (née Child). In 1881, according to the Census, the family was living at 9 Sage Lane in Froxfield near Petersfield.
Cottages at Sage Lane
Jesse was a master blacksmith at the Basing Home Farm on the Basing Park Estate and Jack, aged 18, had started work as an assistant engineer, probably working alongside his father.
Basing Park Estate was owned by William Nicolson, a highly influential gin distiller and politician. He bought the estate in 1863 to establish himself as a member of the landed gentry. He proceeded to buy up adjoining farms and modernise the whole estate as a set of model, planned farms.
Jack’s job was probably to regulate the steam driven boiler housed in the Estate’s stone-built engine house. The boiler powered giant threshing and crushing machines housed in the adjoining barns through a system of iron driving wheels, line shafts and thick leather belts running through openings in the brickwork.
Engine houses were built almost exclusively by wealthy aristocratic or industrialist landlords to show off their modernisation efforts and architectural historians estimate that they existed on only about 2-3% of all Victorian farms.
Jack’s mother, Helen, died in 1887 at the age of 52 and his father, Jesse, the following year at 62. This may be when Jack moved on but his first job probably influenced his future career.
Dog Kennel Green Cottages
On December 9th 1890 Jack married Rose Lyon in Holy Trinity Church, Guildford. The bride’s father, William Peake Lyon had recently returned from some years working on the railway in Hackney to take over the family butcher’s shop in Guildford High Street, where you can now find a branch of Jigsaw.
The census tells us that by 1891 Jack and Rose were living in Dog Kennel Green Cottage in Effingham with two other families. By now, however, Jack had progressed from ‘assistant engineer’ to ‘electrical engineer.’ This was an unusual job title for the Victorian age.
Electrical engineering was a completely novel career as electricity had only recently been introduced to the most affluent homes. Cragside in Northumberland was the first home to be lit by electric light in 1878. The supply came from a hydroelectric generator. It was the home of the industrialist William Armstrong, a friend of the light bulb’s creator Joseph Swan.
Electrical street lighting was another recent innovation. Godalming was the first town to generate electricity for both street lighting and the supply of wealthy private homes in 1881.
Godalming’s electricity was powered by a Siemens generator connected to a waterwheel on the River Wey, belonging to local mill owners, the Pullman brothers. The first electric street light in Britain is believed to have been in Newcastle only two years earlier.
The Electric Lighting Act of 1882 allowed local authorities and private companies to supply electricity on a commercial basis but this was only available to the wealthiest as electricity was very expensive. Running just five light bulbs for a day could cost as much as a worker would have earned in a week.
The early infrastructure was very poor and fragmented. More than 480 independent suppliers produced electricity at different voltages and frequencies. Until the National Grid was created in 1926, these disparities made it impossible to have a nationwide supply and in 1919 only 6% of homes had electricity. By the end of the 1930s, however, with the standardisation created by the National Grid, that figure had soared to 65% of all homes.
Dunley Hill House Looking north-west (c1910)
Jack and Rose were living at Dog Kennel Green, on the western edge of Ranmore Common. Given his location Jack’s new employer was probably Admiral Frederick Augustus Maxse who owned the nearby mansion Dunley Hill House on Ranmore Common and the associated farmland. Admiral Maxse was known for his forward-thinking views and for modernising his Surrey estate but Jack’s precise job is unclear.
Jack and Rose’s first three children were born while they were living in Effingham. John Leonard Jesse (Uncle Len) was born in 1894, William Gilbert (Uncle Gilb) in 1896 and my grandmother, Olive Rose in 1898. Their later children Reginald (Uncle Reg), born in July 1901 and his brother Frederick Lawrence (Uncle Fred), born in 1904 arrived after his move to Gatton Park.
Jack and Rose outside East Lodge, c1930
Four of the Sutton children outside East Lodge c1903 Gilbert, Reg (on chair) Len and Olive
At some point between 1899 and 1901, Jack and Rose moved to East Lodge at Gatton Hall where Jack had got a new job as an electrical engineer. Sir Jeremiah Colman had bought Gatton Hall in 1888. As the owner of Colman’s Mustard, he was immensely wealthy and so had the enormous financial resources required to introduce modern facilities to his estate.
In 1897, the recently formed Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE) had introduced safety rules and during the late 1890s, some of the most affluent homes began to adopt electric wiring. To have employed an electrical engineer so soon afterwards would suggest that Colman was an early adopter of the new technology. However, there was no public electrical grid connecting Reigate or the surrounding mainly rural areas. For large estates like Gatton, having electricity meant being entirely self-sufficient.
Wealthy land owners often built private powerhouses in cellars or separate outbuildings. Electricity was usually created by steam or oil driven dynamos and stored in banks of heavy acid batteries.
It is most likely that Sir Jeremiah Colman used electricity to light the famous Marble Hall at Gatton and perhaps the main reception rooms. He also had a world-famous collection of rare
East Lodge, Gatton
and interesting orchids in the estate’s extensive glass houses, which may well have been heated by electricity. (This collection was donated to the Cambridge University Botanic Garden in 1933.)
My grandmother, Olive Pendrill née Sutton told me that when she and her brothers saw a carriage coming down from the ‘big house’, they would rush to close the gate to the main road outside East Lodge while the carriage was momentarily out of sight.
They would then be given a penny for being ‘good children’ and opening the gate again!
In March 1912, Jack was elected to the Parish Council, chaired by Sir Jeremiah. The Dorking and Leatherhead Advertiser also recorded that at the Parish Meeting he was re-elected, along with George F Hempson, as an inspector under the Lighting and Watching Act.
The lighting accounts for the past year were also presented and adopted, and a precept made upon the overseers for the lump sum of £16 for upkeep of the lamps and for incidental expenses during the year 1912.
The Lighting and Watching Act had been passed on August 28th 1833 and allowed local parishes in England and Wales to purchase lamp posts, contract fuel or gas supplies and maintain public lighting. Taxpayers and ratepayers within the parish could vote to adopt the Act's provisions at local meetings and elect specific inspectors to manage the execution and finances.
This was Jack Sutton’s role. He had the same responsibility nearly twenty years later when the Surrey Mirror of March 27th 1931 reported that funding for the upkeep of the lampposts in the following year would now be £25.
The family continued to live at East Lodge until at least late 1931 as Jack and Rose appear on the Electoral Roll there. However, by 1933, they had moved to 132 Station Road Redhill with their son, Gilb. Since Jack would have been 70 in 1932, it is reasonable to assume that he had retired from his job as an electrical engineer and that he and Rose needed to move. East Lodge had been their home for over thirty years.
THE LATE MR. J. SUTTON. – The funeral of Mr John Sutton, of Station Road, Redhill, who passed away on July 7th, aged 75 years, took place on Saturday. The interment in Redstone Cemetery was preceded by a service in St Matthew’s Church, both services being taken by the Rev A Shirley. The late Mr Sutton was for 34 years in the service of Sir Jeremiah Colman, Bart., at Gatton Park, where he held the position of electrician. The mourners at the funeral were: Mrs Sutton (widow), Mr and Mrs J L Sutton, Mr and Mrs R Sutton and Messrs W G and F L Sutton, sons and daughter-in-law), Mr and Mrs A Pendrill (daughter and son-in-law), Mrs A Clark (sister-in-law) and Mrs H Johnson (niece). Others present included: Mr and Mrs A Ansell, Mrs Pakeman, Mr Drew, Mr and Mrs G Collip, Mrs Ballantyne and Mrs Bound. Flowers were sent by the wife and family, “Cis, Bert and the children”; “His loving sister”; Mrs Stevens; L Dean (Croydon); Mrs Dean and family; Mr and Mrs Ansell and Daisy; “From little Jean”; Mrs Bound; Mr and Mrs G Collip; “From old friends at Gatton”; “Fred, Aggie and family”; and Mr and Mrs Pakeman. The funeral arrangements were carried out by Messrs. J Stoneman and Sons Ltd, of 100 Station Road, Redhill and at Reigate. Mrs Sutton and family wish to thank all kind friends for messages of sympathy and beautiful flowers sent, in their sad bereavement.
Jack Sutton died on July 7th 1937 at the age of 75. His funeral was reported in the Surrey Mirror on July 16th. Many people came to his funeral.
Christine Kirby
The Town of Godalming illuminated by the Electric Light. Illustration for The Graphic, (1881)
Houses on Sages Lane, (2014), Shazz
Dog Kennel Green Cottages at Dog Kennel Green, (2008), Hugh Craddock
East Lodge, Gatton (2011) Peter Trimming
Steam Boilers Facebook Group, Kyle Jordan-Ivers, (2025)
Effingham Local History Group https://elhg.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/lionelatherton.pdf
britishnewspaperarchive.com
Legislation.gov.uk
The Genealogist, https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/
Nationalgrid.com
bioc.cam.ac.uk
Godalming Museum
Wikipedia