Charles James Freake
Freake’s father, Charles Freake, was originally a coal merchant. But in the 1820s he took a lease of the Royal Oak public house in Elizabeth Street, Belgravia, on the Grosvenor estate. It seems that being a pub landlord then became his main business. But he also speculated in building locally in a small way. In 1837 he granted his son (who was described as a carpenter) a sub-lease of a small mews house in Royal Oak. In 1838, Charles James Freake (now described as a builder) acquired some house plots in Elizabeth Street. Over a five year period he built forty houses in South Eaton Place and Chester Row, and on the south side of Eaton Square.
The estate's London surveyor from 1828 to 1845 was George Basevi In 1843 Basevi and Freake were involved in a joint project in Chelsea. Basevi had designed St. Jude’s Church and Freake had been appointed to build it. So when a new tract of land became available for development in 1843 when the lease of Thomas Gibbs’ nursery expired, Basevi used his influence to obtain the contract for Freake. The trustees signed a building agreement with Freake in April 1844.
Over the next decades, the trustees entered into new building agreements with Freake in 1849, 1850, 1855, 1861, 1862 and 1883. The land he took on included nearly all the estate west of Pelham Crescent, and amounted to forty acres. All the leases of houses were granted direct to Freake, rather than (as had been the case with Bonnin) to backers or speculators. These leases were generally for terms of between eighty six and ninety nine years, at an average annual rent of £75 an acre.
Freake began work on Sydney Place in 1844 and the houses were ready for occupation two years later. Sumner Place was completed by 1851. Onslow Crescent was built between 1851 and 1856. (It had not survived. Melton Court now stands on its site). Onslow Square followed in 1865.
Freake was clearly a shrewd businessman. A piece of land between the Smith's Charity estate and Fulham Road came on the market. Freake promptly snapped it up and then offered to sell it to the Smith’s Charity trustees. A private Act of Parliament had to be passed to allow the trustees to buy the land, but the deal went ahead. They paid Freake £5,666 in Old South Sea Annuities and leased the land back to him for seventy seven years at a yearly ground rent of £170. The houses he built on this land were originally called Cranley Terrace (in honour of the Earl of Onslow, one of whose titles was Viscount Cranley). They are now Nos. 48-78 (even) Fulham Road. Behind Cranley Terrace Freake built Sydney Mews as a complex of stables,and workshops for his firm.
Clearly Freake was not the sort of businessman to simply sit back and hope new projects would arrive. He actively created his opportunities. In 1851 The Commissioners for the Exhibition of 1851 were seeking to complete the rectangle of land between Queen’s Gate, Kensington Road, Exhibition Road and Cromwell Road where the museum district stands today. Freake knew that the Smith’s Charity owned a pivotal piece of this land in St. Margaret’s parish, Westminster, called the Carpet Ground. He also knew that the The Commissioners for the Exhibition of 1851 owned nearly four acres of land near Onslow Gardens which separated the Smith’s Charity’s developed estate from the remaining undeveloped part of their estate to the west, which was still occupied as nurseries and called Brompton Heath. Although the Carpet Ground was an acre smaller, Freake negotiated a straight exchange in 1852. This allowed the Smith’s Charity trustees to join up the two parts of the estate. It also gave Freake a whole new area to develop.
In 1861 Freake began work on the newly acquired land and the Charity’s existing land further west. Cranley Place was completed by 1867 and Onslow Gardens by 1878. Cranley Gardens was begun in 1875 but finished after Freake’s death. Evelyn Gardens was incomplete when Freake died in October 1884 and C. A. Daw and Son completed the work.
In the 19th century the provision of a place to worship was as important as the provision of sewers. When Onslow Square was being constructed, Freake persuaded the trustees to donate a site nearby, he donated £5,000 towards building costs, and he constructed St Paul’s church which was consecrated in 1860. It seated 1,550 people. There were 1,180 seats in rented pews and 370 in free seats. Smith’s Charity derived an income from pew rents. This was the 19th century equivalent of buying a seat at the opera.
By 1865 Freake, was sufficiently established in society to go straight to the top with his next church scheme. He approached Bishop Tait, the Bishop of London with a proposal to build St. Peter’s Church in Cranley Gardens. Freake persuaded the Smith’s Charity trustees to donate a site and he offered to build it entirely at his own expense. The foundation stone was laid by Mrs Freake on 21st July 1866. The Bishop of London consecrated the church on St Peter’s Feast Day, 29th June 1867. As patron, it was Freake’s right to appoint the vicar and he appointed Francis Byng. Mr Byng was very interested in the musical and ritual side of church life. The organist he employed was Arthur Sullivan, who was later to become the musical half of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. He became a close friend of the family. (In 1975, St. Peter’s was taken over as the cathedral church of the Armenians in London.)
In the early days of his building work on the estate, Freake had to build his houses to Basevi’s designs. But Henry Clutton who succeeded Basevi in 1845 confined himself to the role of estate surveyor, and Freake and his staff took over responsibility for design. Freake’s buildings were generally in the style established by Basevi, with some embellishments, but essentially with little variation from the original “Italianate” design. His houses grew larger as his operations extended westwards. This was mainly achieved by extending the ground floor much further back to give more useable space at ground level. It was only in 1883 that Freake began building houses in the newly fashionable “Queen Anne” style for the southern end of Cranley Gardens. Most of Freake’s houses have survived and have been changed externally very little. Only a few have been demolished. The most significant changes have involved the internal conversion of houses into flats.
Freake was the dominant figure in the development of the Smith’s Charity estate. Over a period of some forty years his firm built 330 large houses, about a hundred coach-houses and stables, and two churches in the estate. As well as building the houses, his firm often took responsibility for the infrastructure and constructed the roads and sewers and laid out the communal gardens.
Freake kept an office on the estate, which was usually a house awaiting the final fitting-out for a tenant or purchaser. A more permanent office was established after his death. There was still a Freake Estate Office at No. 97 Old Brompton Road in 1963. During the seventy or so years after his buildings were completed, Freake and then his estate, were collecting far more in rent than the Smith’s Charity.
Freake lived on the estate for most of the years during which the development was proceeding. In 1860 he moved to No. 21 Cromwell Road, which continued to be his London home for the rest of his life. Freake may have been the son of a coal merchant, but in his later years he rose to a position in high society. The Prince of Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh were guests at 21 Cromwell Road, where he put on lavish musical and theatrical events. Freake built the National Training School for Music at his own expense in 1874-5. (It is now the Royal College of Organists). This particular piece of public charity earned him a baronetcy in 1882, so that for the last two years of his life he was Sir Charles Freake.
Freake died, a wealthy man, on 6 October 1884, leaving an estate worth £718,000.
Lady Freake survived her husband by many years and died in 1900. Clearly she maintained the friendship the Freakes had formed with Sir Arthur Sullivan when he was appointed organist at St Peter's church because Lady Freake was organising the flowers for his funeral just a week before she herself died.