The fortune hunter

"WHEREAS," asserts an announcement in the Oxford Journal on 24 February 1759, "Anne Coates, an Heiress and a Minor, namely, under the Age of Seventeen Years, has been seduced and convey'd away from Charlbury in this County, without the Knowledge or Consent of her Father and Mother now living at Charlbury aforesaid, by one Nicholas Wrainsford of the same Place (as it is supposed) with Intent to marry her.” Ah, the old story. A dashing but penniless ne’er-do-well exploits the romantic aspirations of a young girl of gentle birth and carries her off to achieve his own aspirations of a rather more financial nature.

“All Persons therefore,” continues the advertisement, “having Power to grant Marriage Licenses, are desired, from this Intimation, not to grant any such Licence for marrying of the said Anne Coates; and if Application should be made for the same, a Line would be most thankfully received, directed to their obedient humble Servants, Robert Robins, or Elizabeth Robins (late Coates), Mother of the said Anne. Charlbury, Oxfordshire, February 21, 1759.”

Such an intimate family crisis erupting out of the pages of a staid regional newspaper cannot but tickle our interest. We fear for poor Anne, an innocent wrenched away from the bosom of her loving family into a world where she is hopelessly vulnerable. And we already despise her wicked abductor who clearly has no other intention than to drink and gamble his way through her fortune and leave her penniless, alone and miserable. We simply must know what happened next.

In fact the young couple eventually turned up in their own good time in Romsey in Hampshire where Nicholas Wrenford and Anne Coates were married in October 1760, well over a year after their flight from Charlbury. In theory, the Marriage Act of 1753 should have prevented Anne from marrying without the consent of her mother before reaching the age of 21. So it may well have taken the young couple a while to find a compliant minister. Or perhaps Anne was by then visibly pregnant and the clergyman decided between the lesser of two evils – an illegitimate marriage or an illegitimate child. The newly-weds made their home in Staverton near Gloucester and in the following year they had a daughter, Constance.

This all seems disappointingly sedate on the part of our cunning villain. No rushed ceremony before the couple could be tracked down, plenty of time for Anne to make her escape if she wished. Perhaps a little digging into the dynamics of the Coates/Robins family might enlighten us. And the observant reader will already have spotted that the bride’s mother had been married before.

Elizabeth Woodman, as she then was, married John Coates of Charlbury in Evenlode in May 1741 and their daughter Anne was born in the following year. By the time John died in 1750 Elizabeth was left with two more daughters and a son. But it is to the family of the deceased John Coates that we must turn for the source of young Anne’s inheritance.

In 1751 John’s kinswoman Ann Coates, perhaps a cousin, made the following provision for his three girls: “I Give and Bequeath unto the three Daughters of my late kinsman Mr John Coates deceased three hundred Pounds Capital Stock in the Governor and Company of the Bank of England equally to be divided amongst them and to be paid or transferred to them as they severally attain to the age of one and twenty years or are married.” 

But it didn’t end there. In 1755 John’s sister Joan Coates had bequeathed to Anne alone – seemingly a favourite among her three nieces – a handy twenty shillings. More significantly, three hundred pounds was to be held in trust for all three girls, passing down among them one to the next should any of them die before reaching the age of 21. On top of this, the land that Joan held in Moreton in Marsh was also to pass to the nieces in similar fashion.

So what about Nicholas Wrenford? Surely he was a desperate chancer of obscure origin and dubious intent? An examination of family papers reveals something of a surprise: Nicholas, too, enjoyed certain expectations. The Wrenfords (sometimes “Wrainsford”) were a respectable local family of comfortable means. In 1765 Nicholas’s mother had inherited from his father the Rose and Crown Inn in Charlbury (on the right in the illustration), and it was due to pass to young Nicholas upon her death. His sister was to receive the White Hart in Oxford. The Wrenfords do not seem the sort to chase around after young “heiresses” for the sake of a few hundred pounds and some fields.

So who could it be who so feared losing control of Anne Coates’s fortune that they were prepared to expose a young girl’s personal affairs to the public in quite such a merciless fashion? Perhaps this startling newspaper announcement might help. According to the Oxford Journal of 12 April 1777: “The Creditors of Robert Robins, late of Charlbury but now in the Castle Gaol of Oxford, [JAG’s italics] are desired to meet the Assignee of the Effects of the said Robert Robins, Assignee in Trust for the benefit of the Creditors, on Tuesday 22st [sic] of this instant April, in the forenoon, at the Lamb Inn in Witney.”

All is revealed. Ann Coates’ step-father Robert Robins had accrued debts serious enough to land him in prison. Until the Married Women's Property Act of 1882, a bride’s property passed upon marriage to her husband. Robert Robins probably had little need of a pub, but a few hundred pounds would have eased his financial embarrassment nicely. Furthermore, Nicholas Wrenford’s will of 1767 reveals that Robins was a tenant of Anne Coate senior’s. Knowing that his step-daughter would in time inherit some of his landlady’s property, Robins may well have had hopes of influencing the young girl to convey the land to him before she had a chance to marry.

So our prejudices are overturned. By removing Anne from Robert Robins’ grasp, Wrenford was in fact acting as her saviour, not her abductor. Upon Wrenford’s early death in 1767, control of all of Anne’s property was returned safely to her. Our little heiress did need protection, yes – but the fortune hunter was not her suitor. It was her own step-father.

With thanks to Linda Hilsdon