The Hammonds of St. Alban’s Court-revised 20.5.2013
William Osmund Hammond (1790-1863), married Mary Oxenden in August, 1815, and took over St. Alban’s Court in 1821 on the death of his father, William Hammond of St. Alban’s Court and White Friars, Canterbury. William Osmund was the author of a book, “Journal of a Tour in Wales and Ireland”, published around 1813. He had been accompanied by his brother, Maximillian, probably part of a “Grand Tour” to complete their education.
As part of his duties as a justice of the peace William Osmund contributed to the Poor Law Commissioners’ Report to Parliament of 1834 coming out strongly against the system then in operation as being too benevolent to recipients and conducive to idleness.
William Osmund was succeeded by eldest his son, William Oxenden Hammond, born in 1817. Other sons were Egerton Douglas Hammond, 1822-1897), a clergy man, and Maximillian Montague Hammond (1824-1855), a career soldier killed at Sevastopol during the Crimean War. There is a memorial him in St. Mary’s Church and he was the subject of a biography “Memoir of M.M. Hammond, Rifle Brigade”, written by his brother Egerton and published in 1858.
- “Memoir of M.M. Hammond”
Captain Hammond left a widow, Anne Rose, whom he had married in 1850, and two young daughters, Nina and Millicent.
The second son of William Osmund Hammond and his wife, Mary, he gained a BA at Merton College, Oxford, in 1845. A man of strong social conscience Egerton was keenly interested in the conditions of local farm workers and published ‘Farm Servants and Agricultural Labourers: their moral and religious condition,’ in 1856. The original essay was awarded a prize by Sittingbourne Agricultural Association. In memory of his younger brother Maximillian was killed in the assault on the Redan at the Siege of Sevastapol on 8th September, 1855 he published an account of the life of his younger brother ” Memoir of M.M. Hammond, Rifle Brigade” in 1858. The memoir proved popular and was in its eighth edition in 1860. Egerton Hammond married Maria Whitehouse in 1847 and they had two sons and three daughters. The Reverend Egerton Douglas Hammond was vicar of Northbourne from 1852-1859 and then served as Rector of Sundridge, Sevenoaks from 1859-1890 and died in 1897.
His memorial in St Mary’s church Nonington states:
In the quiet churchyard
of Chilton Foliat Wiltshire
waiting for
the resurrection morning
rests the tired body of
EGERTON DOUGLAS HAMMOND
for thirty one years rector of
Sundridge Kent
The second son of
WILLIAM OSMUND HAMMOND
of St Alban’s Court
in this parish
Born June 24th 1822
Died March 10th 1897.