Chapter 5: Fashionable heyday

Then, the identity of one person who lived at the house is revealed through a search for ‘Exmouth House’ in the probate inventory at The National Archives. This shows that Orlando Jones, described as ‘of Exmouth House, Hastings’, made his last will and testament there on 4 June 1843. He died there on 13 June that year, and his will was proved in London on 27 July 1844.47 The will is mainly devoted to dividing up shares in Orlando Jones’ starch patent, which he had obtained in 1840, extended to the United States in 1841. The patent was for a new method of making starch from rice as against wheat, resulting in a superior and cheaper product, and - in an age heavily dependent on starched products, such as was the Victorian era -- it was clearly extremely lucrative. Indeed, Jones may already have been almost a millionaire by modern standards, and his residence at Exmouth House is therefore a tribute to the status and opulence of the house at this stage in its history. After Jones’ death, a factory making starch according to his new method was opened on the river Thames at York Road, Battersea, in 1848, of which pictures survive (below), and the business was sold to Colmans of Norwich in 1901.

The Jones starch factory at Battersea (top) and Token for Orlando Jones starch (bottom)

47 PROB 11/2005/69. For his date of death see Brighton Gazette, 22 June 1843.