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A Floating Gold-Mine
By F.R.Temple.
Extracted from the Wide World Magazine – May 1907
This article deals with an extraordinary American Millionaire, who has lived for nearly
twenty years on board a palatial steam-yacht moored in an Essex river. Occupying some part
of his time by giving away large sums of money to certain proportion of the scores of
applicants who besiege him day and night. Sometimes this eccentric gentleman even bestows
hundreds of pounds upon lucky persons without them asking! This seemingly incredible state
of affairs is described below.
How many readers of the Wide World Magazine, possessing an ocean going steam yacht and
blessed with an abundance of riches, would elect to constantly reside on the vessel,
moored in one spot, for nearly twenty years – and that spot an anchorage in an
exposed East Coast estuary, where the ordinary contrast between the English winter and the
attractions of sunnier climes is often strongly accented?
Such is the strange procedure of an American owner, whose steamship, the Valfreyia, has
long been a familiar object in the River Colne, Essex, where he furnishes what are
probably unique contributions both to the annals of yachting, and the records of
philanthropy. It is now about nineteen years since Mr Bayard Brown’s yacht, the Lady
Torfrida (afterwards sold to the Grand Duke Michael of Russia, and replaced by the
Valfreyia), terminated an extended cruise by dropping anchor a few hundred yards of the
small Essex seaport of Brightlingsea, where the Colne is about half a mile wide, near its
confluence with the North Sea. There Mr Brown has ever since remained, the big yacht being
in continual use as a marine house-boat summer and winter.
Valfreyia, originally owned by Sir Wm. Pearce, Bart. Is a fine screw steamer of seven
hundred and thirty five tonnes, handsomely appointed, with modern equipment, electric
light, auxiliary steam and electric appliances, steam launch, etc., and was constructed at
a cost of about forty thousand pounds, apart from the expense of decorating and
furnishing. Besides spacious quarters for owner and friends, she provides accommodation
for a crew of about three dozen men. Although in the nineteen years since the Valfreyia
was launched there have been great developments in yacht construction, as in all branches
of marine architecture, there are today but few privately owned vessels of larger size
afloat; and among the fleet of big yachts seen every season on the Colne yachting station
none presents more graceful or smarter lines.
 For a long time after Mr. Brown’s arrival steam was constantly
kept up and a full crew maintained, ready to start for any destination at the shortest
notice. These unusual circumstances, with others, directed public attention to the yacht,
and numerous stories were in circulation, many of them unfounded rumours, with regard to
the vessel and its owner. But when the scale on which Mr Brown remunerated persons who
rendered him little services ashore, and distributed largess among even those who did not,
became know, passing attention quickly developed into eager interest and speedily
culminated in popular excitement.
People of the district almost tumbled over one another in their rush for the
millionaire’s yacht, and not a few received substantial donations, in some cases
amounts largely exceeding their highest expectations. An immediate result was the advent
of hold hunters not only from very many districts of Essex and Suffolk, but from London
and places even more distant, all intent on obtaining relief from financial embarrassment
or the immediate exchange of a daily routine more or less uncongenial for a future of
leisured affluence.
These included visitors who tenaciously claimed kin with the millionaire, some of them
taking up temporary residence in the locality to press the claim, and proving a source of
annoyance through their unfortunate delusions.
It is not surprising to find, therefore, that the visits of the suppliants were after a
little time severely, if somewhat capriciously, discouraged. Local boatmen received
subsidies of one pound a week each, on condition that they did not ferry people to the
yacht, and for days, even weeks at a time, the Valfryia’s owner would take no notice
of the flotilla of boats in waiting. This soon weeded out the long distance applicants,
who, with all their zeal, could not afford the uncertainty of the game, even though aware
that, occasionally, Mr Brown, relenting, gave distributions of cash on a more than lavish
scale. But the pursuit of the millionaire by many people of the adjacent districts, and by
numbers from a greater distance who have managed to get a place on the list of those to
whose personal applications he responds (occasionally, if not regularly), continues till
the present time. And so, while the conveyance of suppliants to the yachts forms the chief
occupation of most of the local boatmen, the pilgrimage to the Valfreyia to solicit the
bounty of its owner has long been one of regular industries of the district.
A very large number of persons have participated for years in Mr Brown's benefactions,
and to a surprising extent. Nor are they simply the poor and destitute. They include
labourers, boatmen, gardeners, artificers, and foremen in various trades, yachtsmen and
sailors, ex-public servants (and wives and other female relatives of these), with a
liberal admixture of publicans and innkeepers, shopkeepers and other traders, and a
sprinkling of farmers, salaried officers of large corporations, etc. Even professional men
and persons who are owners of freehold property of material extent have received cash
gifts of large amount.
Many cottagers have long been in receipt of one pound and more per week, while some of
the other classes get several pounds – even ten pounds and upwards frequently –
and all occasionally have extra donations of considerably greater sums. Local agricultural
labourers earning thirteen shillings a week have been handed as much as fifty pounds at
one time – equal to eighteen months wages; donations to other astonished recipients
have run into hundreds at a time. Some of these sums, incredible as it may sound, have
been given unsolicited to traders and professional men with whom the millionaire has had
some personal dealings. To a local curate he sent three hundred pounds, intended as a
wedding present; and there are various substantial farmers and others in the immediate
neighbourhood who admit receiving from him in two or three recent years several hundred
pounds or more each. Some have even got as much as a thousand pounds at one time.
Most of Mr brown’s disbursements are on a scale of princely munificence. The
captain of his yacht, apart from periodical gifts, has for many years enjoyed a salary of
one thousand pounds per annum, and it may, perhaps not be without interest to mention that
the earliest of the transactions which transformed the Valfreyia into a floating gold mine
in local estimation was the payment by the owner of ten pounds to a small innkeeper for
driving him some three miles to the shore at the close of an evening walk.
At one time the sums donated on board the yacht must have reached two thousand pounds
monthly. They are now much less, but it has been computed that, since his arrival in the
Colne, Mr Brown’s distributions to individuals have aggregated something like a
quarter of million pounds sterling.
Practically every day, summer and winter, some boats are ranged round the yacht;
sometimes twenty of thirty are assembled at one time. Containing sixty or seventy people.
Of these the majority are women some of whom walk five or six miles to the shore, hire a
boatman (paid partly by results), and trudge home again afterwards; and this they will do
on several consecutive days, even in bad weather, until, in their own phraseology they
"get paid".
Early in the afternoon the boats assemble in groups round the yacht the occupants
prepared with wraps and refreshments for the contingency of a protracted wait. From the
shore the boatmen watch for signs on the yacht – distant some three or four hundred
yards – that the owner is astir, while their prospective passengers shelter close at
hand.
Mr Brown is not an upholder of the early rising convention, and, like his celebrated
countryman, Mr T.A.Edison, does not see why people go to bed merely because it is night;
so the afternoon is sometimes very far advanced before he quits his private apartments. If
he has not appeared by five or six 0’clock the curious assembly begins to disperse,
some having trains and other conveyances to catch, but a number will occasionally remain
for hours later.
When the millionaire does appear on deck in the afternoon he may cause it to be
announced that he has nothing to give, and act accordingly for a time, at least; or he may
remain apparently oblivious of the presence of the flotilla. Perhaps he will at once
approach the side and raise his hat to the suitors, when a number of the more favoured
applicants then ascent the gangway in Indian file, receive their gifts from him
personally, make their bows, and descent. This is the work of a few minutes. The gangway
is drawn up and Mr Brown retires below or paces the deck above a row of upturned
disappointed face. Ere long his is listening over the side to the stories and appeals of
individuals, some of whom may be invited on board to talk over their cases. A
supplementary distribution often ensues, the donations being dropped down into the boats
– sometimes, it is said between the boats, the yacht owner pretending to share in the
consternation of the suitor as the gift, or part of it, sinks from sight, but invariably
making the loss good. At last a halt is called and the afternoon visitors depart, as a
rule; but unsatisfied applicants sometimes cling on for hours, joined later by the
contingent of "locals" who attend only at night, and who often have prolonged
interviews with the owner on boat till midnight or even the small hours, That some of the
applicants seem to think they have acquired prescriptive right to Mr Brown’s bounty
is evidenced by their noisy explosions of impatience now and then. They even venture upon
remonstrance’s, not very mildly expressed a procedure which usually appears to amuse
the unconventional philanthropist.
Persons ignorant of what constitutes a legal claim have actually sued to compel payment
of money gifts alleged to have been promised, one actually obtaining judgement through the
proceedings being undefended, so that the millionaire, to the great surprise of the
district, was afforded the unwonted experience of a couple of years ago of having the
county court bailiffs in temporary possession of his yacht!
It will be apparent that the methods of Mr Brown’s benefactions are not exactly in
consonance with those customarily adopted by practical philanthropists. Nor is he a great
supported of charities through the usual channels, although several local clergymen
receive sums from him annually for the poor of their parishes. For this some, at least go
out like the other applicants, as it is understood that no notice is taken of written
appeals, and so a vicar of the Church of England may be seen among those who patiently
wait in boats to see the millionaire. The protracted waits now frequently imposed on many
who formerly receive their gifts almost immediately they arrive is locally regarded as a
sign that Mr brown is tiring of the everlasting attentions of those who diurnally watch
his movements and shiver by the hour at his gangway. Lately many of the regular
participants in his bounty have attended for five consecutive days before receiving
anything for the week. In that period some of the women occupied fifty to sixty hours, and
walked over fifty miles in quest of one week’s dole. With whatever feeling the
suppliants originally embarked in this enterprise, there is very little diffidence
exhibited nowadays, although the promptitude with which attempts to photograph the
assembled boats is resented points its own tale, The spectacle presented by the stream of
importunate suitors is not one comforting to Anglo-Saxon pride and the violent rush for
his bounty can scarcely have enhance whatever opinion of the average Briton Mr Brown
entertained at the time of his arrival. On the other hand, there is a firm conviction
among the more discriminating in the district that the exercise of the millionaire’s
benevolence in the manner described has had a detrimental local effect, and that the
status and prospects of many of his pensioners, and of their families, will not be
ultimately benefited by what may at present appear to be their good fortune. During recent
years the owner of the Valfreyia, it is understood, has received more than one large
bequest, under wills of relatives, and he is reputed to be a millionaire several times
over. Formerly he went somewhat frequently to London and other places on business and
social visits, also walking and driving in the neighbourhood. But now though occasionally
going to London for a day, he rarely leaves his yacht, sometimes not even going ashore for
months. The only other occupants of the steamer being the skipper and a dozen hands (local
men, periodically of duty ashore0, possibly the extraordinary pursuit maintained by the
people provides not altogether unwelcome interruptions to solitude which might, perhaps,
be appreciated by the student, writer, painter, or inventor - to none of which classes,
however, does this eccentric recluse appear to belong. |
