Closing the Book on Joshua Goodland

On more occasions than I care to recall, I've absolutely wasted a dollar. But sometimes $1.00 is brilliantly spent, as in the case of my on-line purchase (+ $3.99 shipping!) of the useful book we'll examine today.

Vyvyan Holland's 1954 autobiography, Son of Oscar Wilde, begins: "I was born in my parents' house in Tite Street in November 1886… My arrival was somewhat of a disappointment to my father, who wanted a daughter to remind him of his sister, Isola…

In my birth certificate, my father's profession is given as 'author'. The declaration was made by my mother; my birth was not registered for some weeks after I was born, as my father and mother each thought the other had seen to the matter. When the time came, no one could remember the exact date on which I had been born… though everyone was sure it was during the first five days of November."

These paragraphs reside on the first page of Chapter One, ironically entitled "The Happy Years." Holland's life among guardians who sought to keep his identity a secret, and in a world that misunderstood or even reviled his father, seems to have been anything but idyllic.

His birth in 1886 made Holland ten years older than George Mills, and, although ten years is no blink of the proverbial eye, some of his life is instructive in understanding the world in which Mills was raised, especially regarding higher education in England.

What's most useful to us here, however, is that Holland records some details of his friendship with Joshua Goodland, a man who was also a major influence on the life of George.

We first meet Goodland in this text as Holland arrives at Trinity Hall [right], sent by his guardian family (which loves him none too well) to study Law after he is told matriculation to Oxford (his father's alma mater) is out of the question: "Before starting serious reading at either University one had to pass one's Preliminary Examination at Cambridge (or Responsions at Oxford), or be excused from it. If my Higher Certificate had included Greek, I would have been excused from this Preliminary Examination (known as the Little-Go). As it was, I had to take the whole examination and learn Greek in the bargain."

Just an aside: We know, for example, that when George Mills returned from the First World War, he was excused from taking Responsions at Oxford. We don't know for sure, but I would guess skipping Responsions was a boon to Mills because my hunch is that he, too, had neglected to study Greek in depth.

Holland continues: "Luckily the summer term at Cambridge had not yet begun, and, as I would naturally not be going up until after Long Vacation, this gave me the whole summer in which to prepare for my Little-Go in June. So I was sent up to Cambridge to prepare for the examination in charge of Joshua Goodland, with whom I lived in rooms at Trinity Street. I resented this very much, as I considered I was once more being thrown to the lions."

The year was 1904, and Holland is being raised by guardians who, frankly, don't seem to care very much for him personally, or for the memory of his father, Oscar Wilde.

"Goodland was about twelve years older than myself. He was a very sympathetic man, who afterwards became one of my greatest friends, but at the time I resisted all his attempts at friendship. I was not yet a member of the university and knew no one there, whereas he had taken his degree in Law the previous year and knew a great number of people. I felt that I was in the way in his sitting-room and tried to keep out of it as much as possible. I worked hard and neither drank nor smoked. Neither did I talk much. I spent most of my time, when not attending lectures or being coached in Greek and Paley's Evidences of Christianity, reading in my bedroom."

According to Holland, we know Goodland had earned his undergraduate degree in Law by the spring of 1904, and in 1903 if Holland is being literal. We can also begin to see Goodland as the kind of sympathetic man who could nurture a bright but wounded adolescent like Vyvyan Holland, as well as a bright young man in pain like George Mills.

"One day, when this had been going on a fortnight, Goodland tackled me on the subject after dinner. And I told him frankly that I knew I was redundant in his scheme of things and I thought it was more tactful to efface myself as much as possible. He then said: 'Look here, there must be some mistake somewhere. When I first saw your guardian, he told me you were a most difficult case, that you were idle, drank to excess, and frequented bad company. Yet you work very hard, refuse to drink even a glass of beer, and so far from frequenting bad company, never seem to speak to anyone at all.' That was typical of the 'family,' who delighted in being able to find fault with me and to prove to themselves that I was thoroughly bad."

Holland continues: "When Long vacation came, the problem with my disposal once more became acute. Goodland was going to Scandinavia with his good friend Peter Wallace, who had been at Trinity Hall with him. He offered to take me with them and my guardian accepted the proposition and obtained permission of the Chancery Court for me to leave England and go to Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.

In point of fact, we altered our minds at the last minute and went to Riga instead, by a Russian freighter through the Kiel Canal. From Riga we went back to St Petersburg, Moscow, and Nijni-Novgorod and back to St Petersburg, where we took a coasting steamer to Stockholm. We eventually ended up in a little village called Bydalen, about three hundred miles northwest of Stockholm, where we remained about a month before returning to England. I had to keep very quiet about having been to Russia, as the country was in a very unsettled state after massacres in front of the Winter Palace in St Petersburg [Bloody Sunday, depicted at right], and the Chancery Court would never have given me permission to go there."

Holland then writes a paragraph much of which can be found on-line: "Having been duly entered as an undergraduate at Trinity hall, I spent the remainder of the Long Vacation at Seaford, with Goodland and another Law coach. And there I had the misfortune to learn to play golf, an affliction from which I have never wholly recovered."

By 1907, however, Holland began to realize that studying Law was not for him. He relates: "So after another May Week I said goodbye to Trinity Hall and my friends there. It seems strange to me now that all the time I was at Stonyhurst and Cambridge my most intimate friends, such as Joshua Goodland, Gerald Seligman and Ronald Firbank, were quite unaware of my identity [as the son of Oscar Wilde]. But before I went down I told one or two of them. When I told my great friend Joshua Goodland, he said: 'I always thought there was something mysterious about you. And now I know why. But what does it really matter? Your father was a great writer.' And that cheered me as nothing else could have done."

Once again, we see that Goodland has the ability to assuage someone's pain with acceptance and reassurance—things for which George Mills must have hungered as well.

The final selection regarding Goodland proceeds some months after Holland has departed Cambridge: "Then one day Joshua Goodland came to see me and told me that he and Peter Wallace, with whom I had travelled to Russia and Sweden, were going to Canada on a shooting expedition in the north of Quebec, and I asked whether I could come too. As they were off in a week, this did not give me much time for preparation. But the world was free then. No passports were required for the American continent; there were no currency restrictions and passages were easy to obtain."

Later, he describes the trip itself: "And on 22 November 1907, I sailed from Liverpool on the R.M.S. Victorian, of the Allan Line, bound for Halifax, Nova Scotia.

This American trip lasted altogether five months, during which I spent a great deal of money I could ill afford. Goodland and Wallace were growing restless and decided to move on to Japan. But I began to take stock and had a feeling of lusisti satis and decided to return to England alone. So I left them at Monterey and took the train from San Francisco to New York. I began to have a guilty feeling of 'Life is real, life is earnest' and that I must buckle on my armour."

Now, Holland was under the guardianship of a family named Scoonce, and one must assume that they were responsible for him. He needed their permission to make this trip, so one might assume that they were making sure he had an allowance that provided a roof over his head and food on his table, even when he was attending Cambridge.

And am I correct in assuming that one must have paid some sort of tuition to an institution like Cambridge at the time, and that the Crown did not cover all costs for scholars who could pass the Little-Go?

Goodland was a Law coach while at Cambridge, and may have even done some work as an architect, but if the latter were true, Holland doesn't seem to have been aware of it. Joshua also took a great deal of time off from both his studies and his coaching, and when he travelled, the record shows it was first class, and the stays away from home were lengthy (as we can see from the fact that they stayed in America for five months before Goodland departed San Francisco for Japan).

Could Goodland have supported himself, gone to school, and supported a relatively expensive and time-consuming travel habit without some outside aid as well? No, and that's why we suspect that his brother, Gillmore Goodland, must have been the financier behind Joshua's education in the discipline of Law at Cambridge.

Just what were the travel costs then, even for a student who had a benefactor like Holland? After riding the train through Chicago (and visiting a doctor there for a case of bronchitis), he relates: "I was now getting near the end of my funds, and when I had booked a second-class passage to England on an American Line boat for £15, I had to watch every cent. So, on this my only visit to New York, I spent time walking about the streets, admiring the sky-scrapers and going to museums and art galleries during the three days I had to wait before my boat sailed. I dare say that I saw more of the surface of New York in those three days than most visitors see in a month.

The voyage on the ship was uneventful. I played bridge most of the time at ten cents a hundred and made about twenty dollars, which enabled me to remunerate the stewards adequately; when I arrived in London I had about thirty-three shillings left, which was cutting it a little fine in a journey all the way from San Francisco."

Imagine what gratuities must have been expected from first-class passengers in 1907! Travel, although the merest fraction of what the same trip would cost today, seems to have been relatively expensive. Twenty five years later, my own father would work summer vacations from high school cutting granite for street curbing in the hot sun in Philadelphia for $10 a week. One wonders exactly what $20 was worth in 1908!

Anyway, the fact that Goodland moved on to Japan [below, right, in 1908] and points in the Far East and South Seas, continuing to sail first-class and presumably providing appropriate remuneration for his stewards, indicates he had far more disposable income than a student typically might have, unless coaching Law was a veritable "cash cow" at the time.

Holland eventually returned to Cambridge to finish his degree and take examinations after a period of relative freedom, living in Kensington. He remarks: "It was strange to be back under the comparatively strict college discipline."

George Mills would have been 13 years old at the time, living in Kensington with his parents and younger sisters—at least when he wasn't in school at Parkfield in Haywards Heath. It's even possible the paths of the two crossed. Relative freedom would have been what George enjoyed as a young man, living at home in that part of London, and it seems certain that when George arrived at Christ Church at Oxford in October 1919, adjusting to that "comparatively strict college discipline" may have presented a problem similar to his handling of the discipline under which he'd wilted while in the military during the preceding three years.

In addition, Holland describes some of what University life would have been like in England during the early 20th century: "Not only had I to start an entirely new train of thought in studying Law, but I also took up rowing. Trinity Hall was a famous rowing college, and the sport was almost compulsory if you were there as an undergraduate. It almost amounted to treason to prefer another form of athletics, and although we had cricket and football blues in the college, they were looked upon with disfavor and even grave suspicion."

Interestingly, Oxford's own website reminds us today: "The University’s top athletes gain the status of ‘Blue’ – an accolade that stems from the first boat race in 1829, when Cambridge tied light blue ribbons to their boat and Oxford adopted Christ Church’s dark blue."

Christ Church was the college George Mills attended at Oxford, and likely a hotbed of rowing as well. One wonders if the long, lean, but very slightly built Mills, sporting a below average chest and girth and some nasty varicose veins, had much success.

Holland continues, writing of a student 'going down,' or entering the working world after graduation: "It is the same with his games. He plays cricket and football or rows [a Cambridge team is seen, left, in 1907] at his schools, and does the same thing when he reaches university. His great shock comes when he goes down."

Mills, like Goodland and Holland, was a lover of sport and games. It's easy to understand why teaching school might have appealed to George, resigning himself to that off-to-work-every-day, no-fun-and-games life after Oxford. The option being able to assist in the coaching of sports at a preop school would have had great appeal.

This final insight from Holland [below, right] regards University life of the era in general: "We all had an exaggerated idea of our own importance. We interpreted the word 'university' as being the center of the universe, round which everything else revolved. The prominence given in the press to events like the Oxford and Cambridge Boat race fostered this illusion… We sincerely thought that for all practical purposes a man's life was over when he went down and started a weary round of grinding work to keep body and soul together. And we thought that at the age of forty a man might as well be dead…

It was, I suppose, part of the general intolerance of youth and a sign of healthy enthusiasm. Sometimes we wondered how on earth people amused themselves in the outside world while we, the real lords of creation, were up at universities during term time."

There must have been aspects of university life that George Mills loved—or at least loved vicariously. At 25, upon leaving Oxon, Mills was ill-prepared, and still certainly not of a mind to grow up.

Though an intelligent fellow, George clearly seems to have chafed under the burden of academia. A lover of sport, fate failed to provide him a body that would have been hearty enough to compete, allowing him no respite while at Oxford in sculling or other physical recreations (his father, while there, had played competitive Chess). And being a child in a well-to-do family of many accomplishments, he seems to have been bereft of much self-discipline or ambition.

Still, I imagine Mills, upon his departure from Oxford, very much feared the lifelong death sentence that Holland describes above: Going down without any visible means of support, without a degree, and without a father who was likely to sympathize much with his son's shortcomings.

One thing that his attendance at Christ Church would have provided Mills was a sense of somewhat equal footing when he became acquainted with the robust Joshua Goodland. Although Goodland was sensitive and empathetic toward others who were struggling, be it academically or socially, it is unlikely much could have come of their meeting if Mills hadn't attained a level of confidence—perhaps even a level of comfort—with himself, making him receptive to Goodland's friendship and advice.

Something changed in George Mills between leaving the army with what must have been a certain sense of failure and his brief career as a schoolmaster that almost immediately led to him becoming a published author of multiple texts.

Oxford and the people he met there, to some degree, played an important role.

So did Joshua Goodland.

Looking at the Life of J. Goodland: Part 3

When Gillmore Goodland's family boarded the S.S. Saxonia along with former neighbour Edmund Stephenson in 1918, bound for New York and then Hollywood, their "nearest relative" recorded on the ship's manifest was not Gillmore, waiting in North America.

It was Joshua Goodland [pictured, left, circa 1930; image courtesy ELHS], Gillmore's younger brother, a barrister who lived with his wife, Florence, and his daughter, Josephine, at 144 Ashley Gardens in London.

From everything we now know, Gillmore Goodland financed his brother Joshua's re-education in the field of Law. As we've seen, Joshua had been first an assistant teacher in Exmouth, and then spent most of the final decade of the 19th century in Cardiff, Glamorganshire, as a "probationer," studying to become an architect. He passed his exams and even mentored another architect for a year before eschewing it all and beginning his legal studies at Cambridge in 1901.

Looking over the life of Gillmore Goodland, it's easy to see why he might have wanted a barrister on hand, especially one he could trust inherently. Gillmore ran afoul of the law on several occasions—a couple of bankruptcy proceedings in England, an arrest in Mexico [right], and a civil lawsuit in the United States. It's clear how very much he liked money. What we don't know is the exact nature of his dealings to acquire it.

Gillmore loved to travel first class in his capacity as a mining engineer and consultant. This proclivity to see far off lands also seems to have rubbed off on Joshua, who spent much of his time during his eight years studying at Cambridge travelling around England, Europe, and the world.

Joshua settled in as counsel on some very substantial cases before the First World War, and worked for the government as an advisor in the Department of Munitions during that conflict. He subsequently was awarded an M.B.E. in January 1918 for his work on behalf of the crown.

Later in 1918, we know he was involved in an extremely high-profile case on behalf of the Department of Munitions and the Metropolitan Water Board of London.

At the end of the war, Gillmore's family's departure from the U.K. in 1918 coincided with Joshua's return to private practice in London.

By 1921, Goodland's London telephone directory listing is twofold: "Central  . .  . .  . 99 Goodland, J  . .  . .  . .  . .  1 Papr Bldgs Tmple EC4," and "Victoria  . .  . .  7691 Goodland, Joshua, Barrister-at-law  . . 144 Ashley Gdns S.W.1." The Paper Buildings [left], even today, are prime real estate for barristers in the Temple District. Goodland obviously was doing quite well for himself and his family.

Goodland had become a barrister, at least in part, to help his brother in Gillmore's frequent dealings with capitalists and investors regarding their mines. Once the elder brother skipped the country, however, Joshua would no longer have had any substantial tie to a profession that really had not been his "first choice."

While Joshua might easily have returned to the discipline of architecture, we have come to realize that that was not his first choice, either. His father had been a "certificated elementary school teacher," and as an adult, he had assisted at the school during his own first steps into adulthood.

By 1 May 1922, we find a ship's manifest of interest. On it, Mrs F.A. (Florence) Goodland of "144 Ashley Gardens" and Miss M.E. (Margaret) Goodland of "Westminster" [both "domestics"] steamed into London from Sydney on the S.S. Borda of the shipping line P. & O. S.N. Co. Ltd. That would be Joshua's wife, Florence, and his sister Margaret, the latter then sporting a Westminster address. That gives us a clue as to how Gillmore Goodland's family was able to live in London while he was ensconced in America from 1915 through 1918.

It also gives a good idea of how close the Goodland family attempted to remain in general, despite the vast distances between and among many of them. It would be uncanny to me to find that Margaret Goodland hadn't been visiting her brothers Ernest and Kenny, and possibly even Theodore, along with her sister-in-law, Florence, whom they had likely never met.

The following years, 1923, 1924 and 1925, reveal telephone listings for Joshua Goodland, barrister, at home in Ashley Gardens and at his offices in the Paper Buildings.

Not in 1926, however.

By that time, Joshua Goodland had made a career move. This vocational change also entailed a geographical move from central London to Eastbourne, Sussex. Goodland's new career would begin at a local preparatory school, Warren Hill. Joshua had taught in Exmouth, taken a student under his wing immediately after becoming an architect in 1899, and had served as a law coach at Cambridge and thereafter in London. In some ways, he had always been a teacher, so this shouldn't have come as too much of a surprise to anyone.

Warren Hill School in Meads [below, right; image courtesy ELHS] had been run by Michael Arthur North and Frederic Rogers Ebden under the auspices of the firm North & Ebden until the partnership was dissolved officially on the "31st Day of December, 1924," and announced in the London Gazette on 15 May 1925.

That dissolution, for some reason must have attracted Goodland. Joshua was quite possibly an advisor in the proceedings, or perhaps he heard of it around chambers. We do know Goodland was an enthusiast of golf and loved playing in Sussex in the summer. Joshua turned 52 in 1925 and, although a fit-looking and energetic man, the weight of the law and of private practice may have become a real burden to him, so a move to a quieter setting by the sea may have greatly appealed to him—and why not?

Perhaps it had even been what we today might call a 'mid-life crisis'—a desire to return to the pursuits of a simpler and seemingly happier time.

For whatever reason, Joshua committed himself to a return to the discipline of education in 1925. He likely would have had some savings in the bank, and with experience in the law and in contracts, it would seem that he could have made himself quite valuable to F. R. Ebden while becoming his partner.

Far from being cloistered in Eastbourne and quietly enjoying his waning years, we find Goodland mentioned in Volume 6 of the periodical Hockey Field and Lacrosse, distributed by the All England Women's Hockey Association in 1926. His name is mentioned in an item as having been selected to serve on an "Umpires Sub-Committee." How unusual might it have been for one of the Heads of a boys' prep school to not only serve as an girls' hockey umpire, but to serve on the Association's Umpires Sub-Committee back in 1926?

If anyone needed further proof of Goodland being an avid sportsman, even into his fifth decade, membership on that committee would seemingly do the trick! After that 1926 mention, though, we lose track of Goodland to a degree.

We've read a promotional leaflet from Warren Hill, circa 1930, in which his school is described in great detail, and, of course, we've seen Goodland mentioned as being the "sometime Head Master" of Warren Hill in the dedication to George Mills's Meredith and Co.: The Story of a Modern Preparatory School in 1933. It has been assumed that "sometime Head Master" referred to Goodland's partnership with Ebden.

The most interesting post-1926 reference to Goodland, however, is another one from 1930. It's on page 1960 of Crockford's Clerical Directory, published by the Oxford University Press in that year. Although I can only read a "snippet" of the text on-line, it records a list of former and current bishops and priests, among them "J. Goodland,  P.-in-c." following an entry for a "G. Camp,  I." (Did the capital "I" mean 'incumbent'?)

Where exactly Goodland served as a "Priest in Charge" in 1930 cannot be determined from this snippet, but it is presumably somewhere in or near Eastbourne. Wherever he was "in charge," he may have been waiting for bishop to offer an incumbency and change that title to "Vicar."

It seems that Goodland's 1925 love affair with education was a brief one. Perhaps he simply looked at partnership in the school as an investment. Perhaps he found he liked dabbling in education and theology simultaneously.

Either way, we now have a much clearer idea of what George Mills meant by "sometime Head Master" of Warren Hill School. This was likely not a reference to sharing duties with Ebden, but to splitting time between school and church.

It's interesting to note, though, that Goodland appears amongst archival photographs circa 1930 without any sort of clerical accoutrements. In fact, Goodland looks quite worldly and dapper in a taut bow tie and nicely tailored, double-breasted suit [top, left]!

Joshua Goodland took over Warren Hill School himself in 1931, dissolving by "mutual consent" his partnership with Ebden on 1 August, according to the 7 August 1931 issue of the London Gazette. Goodland resolved to receive and pay "all debts due or owing to the said late firm." Goodland at this point seemed to have been staying the proverbial course. Warren Hill School was all his!

The 1932 Eastbourne telephone directory features this new entry: "Goodland Joshua , Warren Hill Meads . . . Eastbourne 204."

There is no continued entry, however, in 1933. Well, at least not in Eastbourne!

Here's his 1933 entry [left]: "Goodland Joshua, River ho St Peters rd Twickenham . . . . . POPesgve 3563."

Needless to say (but I'll say it anyway), residing in Twickenham, almost 90 miles NNE of Meads, made a daily commute to Warren Hill quite impossible.

We do know, however, that Goodland at some point sold the school to Bertram George de Glanville, a former long-time magistrate in the Ceylon Civil Service and more recently the Chairman of the Colombo Port Commission, through his final appearance on "The Dominions Office and Colonial Office List" in 1932.

Goodland sold the school to de Glanville sometime after 1932, probably in 1933, when the telephone record for Eastbourne 204 changed from "Goodland Joshua, Warren Hill Meads" to "Warren Hill, Preparatory School, Beachy Head rd."

Warren Hill [right; image courtesy ELHS] remains listed as noted above until 1936, when it disappears from the telephone record. Eastbourne's 1936 directory does contain the listing: "de Glanville B.G., Ascham Lodge . . . . . . . . . Eastbourne 204."

That number at de Glanville's private residence is the same number as had been Warren Hill's. It is questionable at that point if the school still existed, or was simply hanging on perilously, hoping for a miracle in the midst of a worldwide economic depression.

On page 55 of the 29 June 1937 edition of the London Gazette, we find the following item:

No. 1600. DE GLANVILLE, Bertram George, Ascham St. Vincents Lodge, Gaudick Road, Eastbourne, Sussex, SCHOOLMASTER, lately carrying on business and residing at Warren Hill, Beachy Head Road, Eastbourne aforesaid.
Court—EASTBOURNE.
Date of Filing Petition—May 14, 1937.
No. of Matter—2 of 1937.
Date of Receiving Order—June 27, 1937.
No. of Receiving Order—2.
Whether Debtor's or Creditor's Petition—Creditor's
Act of Bankruptcy proved in Creditor's Petition—Section I-I (G.), Bankruptcy Act, 1914.

Warren Hill was quite certainly out of business as dawn broke on the year 1937.

Joshua Goodland probably was fortunate to find a buyer returning from decades overseas, a man who was unaware of the financial climate of the times. I hesitate to conjecture that the deal was in any way shady—caveat emptor, after all.

Unlike Gillmore Goodland, who fled his creditors, de Glanville, incidentally, made his debts for "5s. in the £" by 3 November 1937, according to the London Gazette dated 16 November (page 7239).

Goodland, who had been dabbling in religion as well as education, had closed the book on his life as a Head Master.

And next time we'll examine the remaining years of Joshua's life, as well his last career change…

Joshua Goodland, RIBA, and the ARB

I've been so wrapped up in documenting the extremely interesting lives of various members of the Goodland family—a task that is still incomplete pending the completion of the younger Gillmore Goodland's life story—that I neglected to impart some information regarding the Goodland of our primary interest: Joshua Goodland, future mentor of George Mills.

In wondering how Joshua's architectural career may have overlapped his time as a law student at Cambridge, I queried a couple of resources about him.

Here are their recent replies, the first one being from the Architects Registration Board, an organization that apparently uses their limited supply of on-hand punctuation marks quite sparingly:


RE: Goodland, Joshua
Jamie Bloxam [JamieB@arb.org.uk]
Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2011 12:53 PM


Dear Sam

Thank you for your email and sorry for not getting back to you sooner. I can’t find any information on Joshua Goodland – I have looked in our archive Registers that go back to 1933 but can’t find any record of him. Have you tried the Library or the Royal Institute of British Architects [ RIBA] their number is 020 7580 5533 or you can visit their website http://www.architecure.com

Please do let me know if you need any further information

Kind regards
Jamie





Jamie Bloxam
Registration Administrator
Architects Registration Board


You'll actually find their website at: http://www.architecture.com/. Anyway, I had, indeed, already contacted the Royal Institute of British Architects [pictured below, right], and here's their reply:


RE: cm : Goodland, Joshua
Info [Info@inst.riba.org]
Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2011 11:27 AM


I regret I cannot find anything on the above architect. I have checked to see if he is a member of the RIBA – but there is no record for him. Architects did not have to be members of the RIBA, nor would they have had to have formal architectural degrees. Most, during this time, would have been apprenticed to an architectural practice for their education.

Sorry I cannot help you further.

Kind Regards

Claudia Mernick
Riba Information Centre


Thanks, Claudia!

That's actually a great deal of help. We now know that, probably with a letter of reference from Cardiff's G. E. Halladay (his architectural master) in hand, Joshua Goodland could have done architectural work throughout England at the turn of the century without any sort of license or registration at all. Caveat emptor?

Now, I don't think that Goodland was designing any vast, multi-storied buildings or sprawling factories for major corporations between 1900 and 1908, but it would have been possible for him to have done minor commissions for local builders.

My only question about that would be: Is it reasonable to think he could have met with those builders, looked at sites, negotiated terms, drawn plans, and studied law at perhaps the most prestigious and presumably demanding law school in Britain—as well a serving as a law coach to others during that span of time—and still have had time to take the frequent long holidays away from Cambridge [left] that we know he took?

After all, Goodland at the very least spent months on a hunting excursion in North America, traveled throughout Sweden and Russia, took at least one trip around the world, and spent vacations golfing in Sussex. That's a pretty full plate for a man who is struggling to make ends meet.

Hence, it still seems probable that, despite income as a sometime law coach and a sometime architect, while paying tuition as a full time law student (We have no knowledge of any sort of scholarship allowing him a free education at Cambridge) and coming up with rent for a flat on Trinity Street, Joshua was receiving financial aid from another party.

That party must have been his brother Gillmore, a man, we'll find out, who was frequently in need of a good lawyer, and who may have bankrolled Joshua for just such a purpose.

More about the fascinating Gillmore Goodland next time…

Looking at the Life of J. Goodland, Part 2

Last time we took a look at the early life of Joshua Goodland, but since we left him at 9 King's Bench Walk in the Temple district [left], I've discovered a few more documents that provide additional insight into those years.

On a 1907 ship's manifest, there is a record, very difficult to discover, that clearly shows school mates Goodland, Vyvyan Holland, and Peter Wallace all entering Canada bound for Quebec. Undoubtedly, this is the trip that Holland referred to in his autobiography in our last posting. The trio of friends departed Liverpool on 22 November 1907 sailing on The Victorian and arrived at Halifax, Nova Scotia, on 29 November 1907 for immigration purposes before traveling on to St. John's, New Brunswick.

Each listed his final destination as Montreal. Little else is recorded on this document save the fact that two "saloon" passengers who traveled with the three were deported. The documentation of the occupants of steerage, however, is rife with information about each individual. It's apparent a sort of class system was functioning that day as The Victorian put into port at 4:45 p.m.

In addition, a record in the book of Cambridge University Alumni, 1261 – 1900, provides the following information: "Adm. at TRINITY HALL, 1900. S. of Gillmore, deceased, of Exmouth, Devon. [B. July 17, 1873.] School, Combe Down, Bath. Matric. Michs. 1900; B.A. and LL.B. 1904; M.A. 1907. Called to the Bar, Inner Temple, June 12, 1907. On the North Eastern Circuit. A law ‘coach’ in London. F.R.G.S. During the Great War, 1914-19, legal adviser to the Priority Dept., Ministry of Munitions; M.B.E."

That was found under the entry "Joshua Goodland," and further categorized by "College: Trinity Hall," and "Entered: Michs 1900." It further provides his date of death at this point, but that would be getting ahead of our story!

Examining the rest of the entry above, it provides some information we already know: Joshua was the son of Gillmore Goodland of Exmouth, Devon. We do learn, however, the exact date of his birth: The 17th of July 1873.

Goodland seems to have attended school in Combe Down, Bath, Somersetshire. Presumably this school is still there, now known as the Combe Down Junior School [right], which was constructed the Gothic style in 1840 and enlarged in both 1887 and around 1900. With Goodland having been born in 1873, the first enlargement would have been started when he was 15—a time when he, indeed, could have been attending.

We know Goodland, 7 years old, was at home in 1881 and is listed on that year's 3 April census as a "scholar." It isn't unreasonable to think that young Joshua was first a student in his father's own school; the senior Gillmore, as we know from the same document, was a "Certificated Teacher [at an] Elementary School."

Goodland's next level of education likely came relatively soon after. The 1891 census, taken on 5 April, describes Goodland as a "school teacher's assistant," although he was at home with his mother when the census taker arrived.

After having thought that Joshua's father might have been at school that day, it turns out that Gillmore, Sr., was in the Rose Hill section of Worcestershire at 3 St. Mary's Terrace visiting 77-year-old widow Esther Willets and her companion, Jane C. Scarfe, 42. Next to "companion," however, someone else has clarified the entry by writing, "Dom." Presumably that means "domestic," as it is also written next to the occupation of "nurse," which described 50-year-old "servant" Lucian Dowell. There were two other servants in the home at the time, a cook and a housemaid.

Willets was described as "living on her own means." Goodland, 49 at the time, is described as a "1st class certificated teacher," next to which a different hand had boldly written, "School."

The senior Goodland would pass away in 1893.

What occupied Joshua between 1891 (and especially following the time of his father's death in 1893) and entering Trinity Hall [left], Cambridge, at Michaelmas in September 1900, was at first unknown. We did have a clue, though. In the 1901 census, taken that year on 31 March, just 5 months after beginning at Cambridge, you will recall Goodland, then aged 24 years, was visiting a building contractor in Bristol, and Joshua's occupation is listed as "architect."

In fact, Goodland is mentioned in a 2001 text, Directory of British Architects 1834 – 1914, Volume 1: A – K, by Antonia Brodie (Royal Institute of British Architects, 2001) . Architect Edgar John Pullar (1876 – 1929) is listed as having been Goodland's assistant in 1899. There is no listing for a Joshua Goodland in the book's first volume, though, perhaps simply meaning that Goodland never had become a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

It is unclear exactly what sort of qualifications might have been required. Pullar, according his listing, had "attended King's College, London 1892." Seemingly more important is the next line: "Articled to Charles James Chirney Pawley (b. 1854) 1893 for 5 years." Pullar then served as "Assistant to Arthur Green (d. 1904) 1898-99, and to J. Goodland 1899." Finally, "Passed qualifying exam 1901."

Would I be wrong in assuming that Goodland had been "articled" to someone himself, perhaps for 5 years during the time between the 1891 census and entering Trinity Hall in 1900?

In an 1897 item entitled "The Intermediate: Newly registered students," the Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, volume 4, listed the results of the Intermediate Examination held in London, Manchester, and Bristol on 15th, 16th, and 17th for probationers "ult." March in 1897. Below, the article states: "The following candidates passed and are registered as students:… GOODLAND: Joshua [Probationer 1893]; 1, The Parade, Roath, Cardiff [Master: Mr. G. E. Halliday*]." (The asterisk indicates that Halliday was a member of the Institute.)

Goodland apparently served with George Eley Halliday (1858 – 1922), an architect whose office was at 19 Duke Street in Cardiff until 1897, and 14 High Street in Cardiff, Wales, in 1897. Halliday is also listed as having "The Hermitage, Llandaff, South Glamorgan, Wales," as his address in 1897. Halliday, just months after Goodland's examinations, became a member of the FRIBA on 14 June 1897 and later was listed in Who's Who in Architecture in 1914.

Goodland had taken "The Intermediate" in March of 1897, implying that there must have been a final examination to come. In its "Register of Students," the 1903 Kalendar of the R.I.B.A. simply lists "GOODLAND: JOSHUA, 1 The Parade, Roath, Cardiff" as having been a student between the years 1893 and 1897.

No mention is made of a final examination—taken by anyone. Pullar's entry above does mention a "qualifying examination," and could that have been "The Intermediate" that Goodland had already taken? I can find no documentation that Goodland passed a final examination after Marh 1897, although one must assume that Pullar, above, could not have been Goodland's assistant if they were both students—or could he have?

My assumption would be that, for Pullar to have assisted Goodman, the later must have been actively involved in the designing and/or production of architecture. If not, with what, exactly, would Pullar have assisted Goodman?

Nevertheless, their union in 1899 took each man in a different direction: Pullar to a career in architecture, primarily in Asia, and Goodland, within a year, to Trinity Hall, Cambridge, as a 27-year-old student.

Goodland's life's work, even at the relatively tender age of 27 had already gone in two different directions. First, we know he assisted his father at an elementary school in Devon. Upon his father's passing in 1893, Goodland became an assistant to George E. Halliday, a Welsh architect in Cardiff, and seemingly had begun that career. Suddenly, at the turn of the century, Joshua was then off to university.

What did Goodland study there? We don't exactly know—he was calling himself an architect, not a student, during the 1901 census, as well as visiting a contractor at the time—but perhaps he simply was picking up some extra cash doing plans for a builder in Bristol while he studied law. Perhaps, however, he originally intended to and at first was studying architecture at Trinity Hall.

Either way, Goodland wouldn't stay with architecture. He earned Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws Degrees from Cambridge in 1904, and added a Master's Degree in 1907. During that time, we know Goodland also had traveled to "Russia and Sweden" with Wallace and Holland. He was called to the Bar, Inner Temple, on 12 June 1907. Having spent 7 years at Cambridge among dear friends, the almost 34-year-old Goodland moved into yet another vocation: Barrister at Law.

The Cambridge University Alumni text mentions that after taking his M.A., Goodland served "On the North Eastern Circuit." Assuming the text is in chronological order, this must have been when Joshua was a young barrister. Does it also imply that he moved around during that assignment? Joshua having become a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (F.R.G.S.) in 1906 [Its interior is shown, left, in 1912] would seem to confirm the implication that traveling didn't bother him much.

And, as we know, moving around was something Joshua would continue to do. After sailing out of Liverpool on 22 November, he did not return until arriving at Liverpool on 11 August 1908. In between, Goodland had circled the globe while using both his mother's home at Gresham House in London and Inshaw House, London, as his addresses.

The "North Eastern Circuit" must have followed, and then a stint as a "a 'law' coach in London." One thing notable about Goodland is that, in both architecture and law, he quickly went from student himself to guiding others new to the field.

An easy inference is that Goodland was a natural teacher, an area in which he would have been immersed as the son of and assistant to a schoolmaster.

We know that Goodland married on 19 June 1909 in Middlesex. The fact that Goodland had become a husband in London may imply that he was then—in mid-1909—already serving there as a "law" coach, his time on the circuit having been brief.

A 1946 issue of The Law Journal (Volume 96) explains: "It will be observed that there is nothing to prevent a student who wishes to do so from attending a law coach either before or after taking an Intermediate or Final course if he feels that additional preparation for his [examinations]," and in the early 1920's, there was an actual journal entitled Law Coach, although I can find no record of its existence before 1920 or after the publication of its third volume in 1922 [right, the best I could get].

Goodman appears to have once again begun a trip to the far reaches of the empire, if not around the world, in 1909. He steamed into Brisbane, Australia, from Colombo, Brazil, on the Oroya on 27 October 1909, presumably on his honeymoon. The actual ship's manifest, however, is not visible at ancestry.com, and there is an almost exact record, save for the date, for the same ship, the Oroya, supposedly bearing Goodland, and sailing into Brisbane from Colombo on 3 February 1909.

Was Goodland aboard both voyages? Perhaps he was so enamored of his February 1909 trip to Brisbane that he chose exactly the same shipping line and travel itinerary for a honeymoon later in the year. Perhaps an error in the transcription of the date caused the same arrival to be recorded on two separate dates—and we are not privy to which would be correct since images of the actual manifest have not been provided.

Finally, perhaps it isn't "our" Joshua Goodland at all. Without seeing the manifest, we don't know what other identifying information may have been recorded. However, there simply aren't any records of other contemporary British "Joshua Goodlands" having been born around 1873. Let's leave it at this: He probably sailed to Australia sometime in 1909.

We've seen some of the litigation in which Goodland was involved in 1912 or so, and we know his London address at the time via telephone records.

The last line of the Cambridge directory we will look at today is this one: "During the Great War, 1914-19, legal adviser to the Priority Dept., Ministry of Munitions; M.B.E."

The appeals case in the House of Lords between the Water Board, appellants, and Dick, Kerr, & Co., respondents, mentioned in our last post, did, indeed, involve the Ministry of Munitions. Goodland must have been representing them in the capacity of "legal adviser," as well as junior counsel.

On 7 January 1918, the London Gazette ran a lengthy list of those "to be members" of the "Most Excellent Order." Among the honorees: "Joshua Goodland, Esq., Classification Section, Priority Department, Ministry of Munitions." [A composite image of the entry is seen, left] In 1917, the M.B.E. had been instituted to be awarded for meritorious service by either military or civilian personnel.

With an upscale address, an MBE to is credit, and an association with high profile London lawyer Mr. Wm. Danckwerts, KC, on his resume, it's easy to see that Goodland would soon be going places in the legal profession.

We still haven't brought Joshua Goodland to Warren Hill School in Meads, however, nor have we associated him with the subject of our interest, George Mills. Such is the complexity of Mr. Joshua Goodland, Esq., MBE, who was 46 years old in 1919. That year, at the conclusion of the Great War, Goodland left the Ministry of Munitions—and we still are only three vocations deep into his life at this point, with two more professions yet to go!

We'll learn more about the labyrinthine career path of late bloomer Joshua Goodland very soon. Stay tuned…