A History of Caroline and Edward Gannon

​At Aldringham Church there are two beautiful stained-glass windows. Looking into these, for an open day at Aldringham Church revealed a fascinating history of the philanthropic siblings Caroline and Edward Gannon.
They were born in 1830 and 1825 to Michael and Susannah Gannon in London. In 1835 their father Michael died, leaving them well provided for. The family settled in Richmond, London. Their mother, Susannah, took in orphaned sisters Sophia and Ada Rodgers. In 1851 Edward was living in Stockbridge, Hampshire while the rest of the family lived in Aldenham, Hertfordshire.
In 1852, Susannah died and Caroline, Sophia and Ada lived for a time in Scotland. In 1868 Sophia married Samuel Smythe of Aldeburgh, onetime secretary of the August Bank holiday fete and gala and business owner in the town. At around the same time, Edward and Letitia purchased Stone House, Aldringham.

While Caroline appears to have permanently lived at Stone House, Edward also kept a house in Shepperton, Middlesex, where he served as a magistrate. Later, he purchased a house in Southwold and was appointed a magistrate in 1876. He went on to serve as a director of Southwold Railway and commissioner of the harbour. Standing as a Liberal, Edward was elected to the town council and in 1881 was appointed an alderman of the town. Later he was elected as deputy mayor. Edward also acted as surveyor of the highways in the parish of Aldringham cum Thorpe and a visitor to East Suffolk Hospital.

​In 1889, Edward stepped down as an alderman of Southwold. The following year, the Reverend Charles du Gard Makepeace was appointed vicar of Aldringham Church. The brother and sister became close friends of the new vicar. Around the same time, Edward and Caroline funded the building of the Thorpe Fisherman’s Bethel which stood roughly where the Heritage Hut stands today.

Caroline Gannon with Lucy Rapson who cared from 1884 to 1896t

​Four years later, on 21st October 1894, Edward died leaving his entire estate to his sister. Caroline arranged for the installation of the east window in her brother’s memory designed by Alexander Gibbs and Co, which depicts the feeding of the multitude in the desert from seven barley leaves and a few small fish. She also commissioned the same company to make a pulpit, altar table, reredos and communion rails.

The tribute to Edward reads ‘A man of spotless integrity. A succourer of many in distress. He was especially respected for his touching devotion to his paralysed sister, which made him her inseparable companion through ten years of helplessness.’ A church service was held at the end of July 1895 to dedicate the window. A newspaper from 1895 notes that the window design reflects Edward's generosity towards the needy. As a magistrate, he would, the Ipswich Journal notes, hand down a sentence while quietly helping the offender’s family who had lost their breadwinner.

On the 8th November 1896, Caroline died aged eighty-one. She was buried alongside her brother in the churchyard. The inscription to Caroline reads: ‘She left no relatives, but many around her and at a distance in different ranks of life to mourn her
loss as a benefactress. As a fosterer of orphanhood and educator of youth though paralysed in body for nearly twelve years, her mind remained unclouded and ever active in benevolent intentions. She continued her brother’s charities and added to them, she fenced and planted the churchyard, repaired and beautified the church, doubled the endowment to the benefice, and erected a monument to her brother in token of her ‘intense affection for his memory.’

In her memory, the west window, see above, was installed depicting a disabled man being lowered through a roof to Christ, a reference to Caroline’s own disability. An inscription reads: ‘This window is placed here in grateful memory of Letitia Caroline Susannah Gannon who died 8th November 1896 aged 81 years, helpless from paralysis during 11 ½ years. She abounded in most generous gifts to the poor, the church, the churchyard and the endowment.’

Caroline appointed Robert Flick, Samuel Flick, and Reverend Makepeace as her executors. She bequeathed ‘all my wearing apparel jewellery and trinkets’ to her companion Lucy Rapson. Along with a legacy of £2500, around £300,000 in today’s money, ‘in gratitude for her great kindness to my late brother and myself.’


Other smaller legacies were left to friends and relatives including £1000 to her adoptive sister, Ada, and £500 to her sister, Sophia Smythe. Each servant employed at the time of her death received one year’s wages. The Eastern Counties Idiot Asylum, the Church Missionary Society and the Working Men’s Mission in London all received legacies. The remainder of her estate was to be held in trust managed by Robert Flick, Samuel Flick, Frank Garret and Reverend Makepeace ‘to be devoted by them to such charitable purposes as they in their absolute discretion shall think proper.’
Stone House along with a property owned in Southwold were placed up for sale. The contents of Stone House included: paintings attributed to Gainsborough, Vandyke and Rubens, 700 books and Chippendale chairs.

Among the first charitable donations was £2340 to fund a wing, the Letitia Gannon Wing, at the Jenny Lind Children’s Hospital in Norwich the first children’s hospital outside of London. This was under the condition that the children of Aldringham and its environs should have priority admission.

Funds were provided to build facilities which became known as the Gannon Reading Rooms. During the nineteenth century, reading rooms became popular for educational and social purposes. Often funded by the philanthropy of the middle or upper classes some saw them as an alternative to a visit to the local inn and thus encouraging sobriety, others as a means of providing accessible educational material to the working classes in rural areas. Three were funded in Walberswick, Westleton and Saxmundham. The memorial stone for a Gannon Reading in Westleton was laid in 1901. In a speech, the stone layer, Lady Constance Barne, thanked Reverend Charles Du Gard Makepeace for ‘procuring the greater part of the money.’ The room remained open until the later 1960s.

Funds were also provided to build the Gannon Memorial Mission Rooms in Thorpeness at a cost of £711. Premises which were used as a chapel until the church in Thorpeness was consecrated in 1937 and for social events. Today, only the Gannon Rooms in Saxmundham remain for community use. Those in Thorpeness and Westleton are private homes.

​The trustees' decisions were not always met with approval. Sophia, Caroline’s adoptive sister, wrote angrily to the East Anglian Daily Times questioning why Stone House had been sold rather than being converted into an ‘isolation establishment’ which was so needed. She questioned why ‘so much of her money’ was being spent ‘on places wherein she had never set foot.’
In total over fifty different causes were supported including the RNLI, Norwich Cathedral and Theberton Church.

Saxmundham