The Macrae Family and Kerala

Research and text by Dr Richard H Johnston

Born in Stornoway in 1858, Alexander William Macrae went to India in 1877 to become a coffee planter.  In 1880 he joined Pierce Leslie & Company, a still-existing East India trading company founded in 1862, which dealt in coffee, cashews, coir yarn, spices, essential oils etc. The company also acted as shipping agents, agents for Standard Vacuum Oil and Lloyds of London, were managing agents for tea and coffee estates, and manufactured tiles.  The headquarters of the company was the Pierce Leslie Bungalow, a large rambling mansion at Fort Cochin in Kerala, where it is now a tourist attraction.  Macrae pursued a successful career in Kerala, becoming a partner in the company.  In 1901 when Pierce Leslie became a private limited company, he was appointed Managing Director, and subsequently became Chairman in 1917.

Colonel of the Malibur Volunteer Rifles, formed 14 Aug 1885, Alexander Macrae was made a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire (CIE).  He was also a Justice of the Peace.  He returned to England in 1911, firstly to the Isle of Wight, then to Yateley.  He died 2 Feb 1920 aged 62, and is buried in Yateley churchyard.

In 1890 Col. Macrae married Sylvia Frances Ferguson, born in Calcutta about 1872.  She was the daughter of Thomas J Ferguson an East India merchant and agent who worked for Aspinwall & Co. based in the Indian State of Kerala, and in Lewisham.  Mrs Macrae died  16 May 1935 aged 63 and is buried in Yateley churchyard with her husband.

Many large houses were built in Yateley during the first half of the 20th century but only Kerala had a ‘lodge’ at the end of its driveway.  Occupying such a carefully chosen site, away from other buildings, in such a large plot of land, the house commanded splendid views across the Blackwater valley to Finchampstead.  Ellen Eggar from Farnham, a professional garden designer, laid out the gardens and parkland.

The house was built over several years from 1907 on an 11 acre field, originally part of West End Farm.  The architect is not known, but the house was conceived on an impressive scale, as may be seen from the 1935 photographs.

Richard Kelsey, owner of West End Farm, sold the 11 acre plot in November 1906 to William Percival Chataway of Alexandria, Egypt for £1,044.  Some construction work may have started on the site in 1907.  In 1909 the house, almost certainly still under construction, was valued at £1,404, and the land at £600.  By October 1911, when he defaulted on the mortgages, Chataway held mortgages on the property (then known as Eleven Acres) totalling £3,936 7s 6d.  It seems that Chataway never lived there.

In 1929 Mrs Sylvia Frances Macrae bought the very large field up to the Common, opposite Kerala on the south side of Monteagle Lane, from Richard Kelsey’s daughters.  The whole Kerala estate now comprised some 26 acres (10.4 ha).

In 1912 the mortgagees resold the house (now renamed The Mount) at a substantial loss for £3,262 10s to Alexander William Macrae, of Totland Bay, IOW.  The house was still not complete.  Extra building work was completed near the house, the gardens were laid out, and the Lodge , now Robin Hill, was built for the Head Gardener, together with another house, now Hornbeam Cottage, for the chauffeur.  All of these are shown on the 1931 map. Even in their original unextended form, these two servant houses were large for their purpose. Macrae renamed the house Kerala, the Indian State where he had made his fortune.  In 1920, the year of Col. Macrae’s death, the house was valued at £8,500.

After Mrs Macrae died the whole property was put up for auction by her two surviving children, and the eleven acres including the house was conveyed to Captain Charles Woollcombe RN on 9 November 1936.  He and his wife were living there at the outbreak of WW2.  Captain Woollcombe was re-enlisted in 1940 aged 56.  The main house was said to have been an RAF Convalescent Home during part of WW2.  The field to the north of the house and the field on the south side of Monteagle Lane were deployed for the agricultural war effort.

On 3 August 1944 Charles Woollcombe conveyed his entire property to Mr & Mrs James S Iredell who lived at Hornbeam Cottage.  They broke up the landholding into smaller units.  In particular on 17 May 1945, they sold the main house with approximately 3 acres forming the ornamental garden to the south and east of the house to the Baptist Union Corporation.

Charles Mackenzie Macrae was the eldest son of Col. A W Macrae and his wife Sylvia. Commissioned a Lieutenant in the 1/4th Hampshire (Territorial) Battalion he was killed in action, aged 21 years, on 5 July 1915 by a bullet in the head at Curman Sapha Creek, Mesopotamia, in what is now Iraq.

Dorothy MacKenzie Macrae was the secretary of the Yateley Red Cross, captain of “the Flamingoes” hockey club in Yateley, and also helped to run the Yateley Boy Scouts. She married Edward Guy Norton Harper and lived at Wagsbarne Farm Rotherwick.

Kenneth Norman MacKenzie Macrae, younger son Col. A W Macrae and his wife Sylvia, was a Cadet in the Royal Navy during WW1 and subsequently became an auctioneer. He became a trustee of Yateley Cottage Hospital in 1924. By 1935 he was living in Bayswater.

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