Frederick John (1868-1950)
Frederick John Meadows was born in Leytonstone on 8 November 1868, the younger son of Edwin Lewis Meadows, and was baptised at St John the Baptist, Leytonstone, on 10 December 1868. When the family moved to Kent he followed his father into the cement works at Frindsbury, starting as a clerk and becoming a manager by 1901.
He later became a publican, keeping The George and Dragon at Westerham, The Organ at Ewell and The Alma at Deal. At Westerham he was proprietor of the George and Dragon from at least 1908 until May 1916, when the licence passed to Mary Ann Richards. He was already hiring out cars from London Road, Westerham, by 1917, with a wartime petrol permit, and kept the business going after the war. In the 1921 census he was a hackney car proprietor there, living with his mother and his sister Grace. He died on 27 December 1950, and probate was granted to his nephew Edwin Henry Meadows (the records).
The records
The Westerham Herald carried his advertisements for the George and Dragon from 1908 to 1915: “offers good accommodation at reasonable charges. Proprietor – F. J. Meadows. Good stabling & motor accommodation. Motor for hire.” The temporary transfer of the licence “from F. J. Meadows to Mary Ann Richards” was granted in May 1916 (Westerham Herald, 13 May 1916; Sevenoaks Chronicle, 19 May 1916).
In October 1917 he advertised as “Motor Proprietor, London Road, Westerham (opposite Post Office)”, having obtained the necessary permit from the Petrol Control Committee (Westerham Herald, 27 October 1917). From 1919 to 1922 the same paper carried “F. J. Meadows, London Road, Westerham. Motor cars for hire”, later “Open & closed cars for hire. Customers’ cars driven, if required, at owner’s risk. Phone 29.”
1921 census, London Road, Westerham: Frederick John Meadows, head, single, hackney car proprietor and employer; his mother Emily Jessie, 78; his sister Grace, 45, advertisement representative for the Daily Telegraph. He gave his age as 47, five years short.
By November 1933 he and his sister Grace were at The Organ Inn, Ewell, from which they subscribed to a Westerham appeal (Westerham Herald, 25 November 1933). Death: 27 December 1950 (death index, Bridge district, Kent). Probate London, 10 December 1951, to Edwin Henry Meadows (England & Wales Government Probate Death Index).
The Organ, Ewell
In Frederick John’s time ‘The Organ’ faced directly onto London road. In 1914 it was described as a timber building, old but recently done up. There was also a timber and tiled stable with four stalls, and a coach house. At that time it was owned by Halder and Collyers Brewery Co. The Ewell Parish News Feb. 1973 suggested that the name had been given when Henry Willis built the church organ. His men had the habit of walking up to what was then a small inn on the London Road during their mid-day dinner break. Unfortunately the dates don’t match, since the church organ was built in 1865. The pub was rebuilt and re-oriented in the 1930s when the Ewell By-Pass was built. The name was lost in 1998 when the pub reopened as Jim Thompson’s. It appears that it was later revived as The Organ and Dragon but finally, in 2014, it was demolished to make way for a Lidl Supermarket.
Painting seems to have been a pastime for Frederick John rather than a profession, and only one of his pictures, The Coast Path, is known. He died in Kent in 1950. More about the family is on Edwin Lewis’s page.
by Edwin Lewis Meadows