Cesar Picton

[poliphilo]

Back to Thames Ditton.

This is Cesar Picton's House.

Picton began his life as a slave in Africa and ended it as an English gentleman. He was purchased as a child in Senegal in the 1750s and given- along with a parakeet and a "foreign duck"- to the Philips family of Norbiton- with whom he lived as one of those cute little turbaned pets you see in18th century portraits and later as a trusted house servant. When his employers died he used a legacy of £100 to set himself up as a coal merchant in Kingston-upon-Thames; the business prospered and he died wealthy- at the approximate age of 81- in 1836.

Comments

[athenais.livejournal.com]

So this is where he ended up. I read about him, but I couldn't picture Thames Ditton at all.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's very pretty. You're driving through the unvarying sprawl of outer London and you turn down a side street and there it is- and you're back in the 18th century (well, almost.) The gardens of Hampton Court Palace are just across the river.