John Robert Featherby

John Robert Featherby was an English brick manufacturer, businessman, and civic leader who played a central role in the late-Victorian and Edwardian development of Gillingham, Kent. A partner in the family firm G. Featherby & Co., he helped supply bricks and cement for the town’s rapid expansion during the growth of Chatham Dockyard, while also serving as a director of local utilities and related industries.

Active in public life, he was chairman of Gillingham Urban District Council and, following the grant of a royal charter in 1903, became the first Mayor of Gillingham Borough Council, later receiving the Freedom of the Borough for his long service.

Featherby was the younger son of George Featherby (1821–1903) and his first wife Amelia; John Robert was born in 1848 and died at his home “Bleak House”, Gillingham, in July 1922 (aged 74).^[1] Featherby made his career as a brick manufacturer. He was a partner (with his father George and brother Edward) in the firm G. Featherby & Co., brickmakers and cement merchants, operating the Court Fields Brickworks at Gillingham and at Hope Wharf in Peckham.^[2] Under his family firm, brickfields were developed at Court Fields, Gillingham, and earlier at Rainham. (George Featherby had opened the Rainham works and later acquired the “Courtfields” estate in New Brompton.)^[3]

The younger Featherby continued the business, at one time supplying bricks to local construction and possibly even the nearby Royal Navy dockyard. By the late 19th century he was also connected with brickmakers in Sussex.^[4] (In the 1880s the family’s brick company was formally dissolved and carried on by George Featherby alone.)^[5]

Featherby’s brickworks supported the rapid building boom in Gillingham and New Brompton as Chatham Dockyard expanded. He also diversified into related industries: he served as a director of the Gillingham Portland Cement Company and of the local Waterworks Company, and was a founder-director of the Chatham & District Laundry Company (1890s).^[6] Additionally, he maintained his father’s interests in horticulture. The Featherbys had established large glasshouse vineries (started 1884) on their estate, and John Robert Featherby continued to run them, even selling produce on Covent Garden market. (His knowledge of fruit-growing was noted in his obituary as a “distinctly developed” side of the family business.) ^[7]

Featherby was also known in civic and county bodies. He held several honorary public offices beyond the Council: he represented Gillingham on the Rochester Bridge Trust and on the Medway Conservancy Board.^[8] Locally, he had been a member of the old Board of Health (the Victorian sanitary authority) and later was elected to Gillingham’s Urban District Council (UDC) in 1897.^[9] He became Chairman (1960s title: Mayor) of Gillingham UDC in 1899, and carried this role through to the Council’s elevation to borough status.^[10] When Gillingham won its Royal Charter in 1903, John Robert Featherby was chosen as the first (charter) Mayor of the new Borough of Gillingham.^[11] During that incorporation campaign he “played an active part in securing the charter” and presided over public meetings to overcome opposition.^[12] As a reward he was elected an alderman on the new Borough Council. In 1921, in recognition of his long service, the town awarded him the Freedom of the Borough.

Aside from local politics, Featherby held several traditional civic offices: he was Foreman of the Court Leet for many years until its abolition in 1885, and even served as High Constable of Gillingham in 1892. He was also an overseer (tax officer) for 1886–1896. In appreciation of his contributions, a ceremonial mace was procured by public subscription (largely at the instigation of the Mayoress, his wife) during his mayoralty. Featherby enjoyed music and was noted for his “very fine voice”.^[13]

John Robert Featherby was born into a large family. His father George Featherby (born in Cobham, Kent, 1821)^[14] had emigrated to Australia (as a blacksmith) and returned to England in the 1850s; he settled in the Gillingham area, where he became a pioneering brick manufacturer.^[15] George died in May 1903 at the age of 81. John’s mother was Amelia Ann (née Bullbrook); she died in 1874. John Robert was one of at least five children: his elder brother Edward George Featherby (b.1845) died in 1890 (aged 45) while on business in Mexico.

In 1872 John Robert Featherby married Anna Louisa Frost (1848–1911).^[16] (The family tomb lists Anna Louisa as his wife, and also records a “Maria Frost” born 1852 – almost certainly a sister of Anna, indicating that Frost was Anna’s maiden name.)^[17] John and Anna Featherby had at least four children (as later obituaries note): two sons and two daughters.^[18] Their elder son Charles Benjamin Featherby was born 1876 and died just after his father in July 1922 (aged 46).^[19] The younger son, Harry George Featherby (b.1874), went on to become managing director of the family engineering firm Featherbys Ltd. in Bishop’s Stortford (his success was attributed in part to his father’s influence).^[20] The names of their two daughters are not recorded in the sources consulted; but John R. Featherby’s obituary explicitly states he was survived by two daughters (the Mayoress was one of them).^[21]

The Featherby family remained a fixture in Kent into the 20th century. John Robert Featherby is interred in the Featherby family tomb at St Mary Magdalene's Church, Gillingham, marked by a tall grey stone inscribed "The Family Grave of John Robert Featherby JP." Also interred are his wife Anna Louisa (died 20 December 1911, aged 63), his father George Featherby (died 21 May 1903), his mother Amelia (died 19 August 1874), and his son Charles Benjamin (died 23 July 1922, aged 46).^[22] For example, probate records show John R. Featherby of “Bleak House, Gillingham” left an estate of about £18,744 in 1922. His father George’s estate was over £28,600. (These probate entries can be found in the Principal Probate Registry indexes.)^[23]

Featherby’s name survives in the topography of Gillingham. One of the town’s longest east–west roads is Featherby Road, which runs from the Rainham Road (A2) towards Twydall; it was named in his honour.^[24] (The adjacent historic Bleak House was his Gillingham residence.)^[1] In the social history of Gillingham, Featherby is remembered as the “man who piloted Gillingham through its early stages as a borough”.^[25]

Primary materials on J. R. Featherby would be found at the Medway Archives Centre. Its catalog shows a Gillingham Borough Council archives including printed minute books from 1903–1998 (ref. GBC/AM3/1), which superseded the Gillingham UDC minutes (1894–1903).^[26]

• Gillingham Urban District Council
• Gillingham Borough Council
• Mayor of Gillingham