Henry Fullagar- The Granville Hotel, Ramsgate.

Guest post by Ben Kelly author of the two books about The Granville;-

The Granville Hotel - The Story of the Granville Hotel Ramsgate 1869-2012

The Granville Hotel - Revisited  

When restoration work was being carried out to a window on the 4th floor of Granville House, a signature etched into the glass was spotted. 

A ladder is needed to see it, but in the bottom pane of glass it clearly reads:

1869 H. Fullagar

The Granville was completed as a hotel in 1869 by Edward Welby Pugin, but who was Mr Fullagar?  Henry Fullagar was a painter and glazier who was born at Archbishops Palace, Canterbury in 1837.  His parents were James and Hannah Fullagar.  In the census of 1851, he was listed as living at 15 Parade, Canterbury – where his father was working as a ‘toy maker’.

He married Ellen Green Hopper (1837-1915) on 6th September 1858.  They had two children, a son named George, born in 1860 and a daughter called Ellen, who was born in 1862.  The family lived at West Street Faversham in 1861 where Henry worked as a painter.  According to local directories, in 1867 he had returned to Canterbury and was working as a painter and glazier. 

Construction on the Granville began in 1867 and provided an enormous amount of work.  For Henry to etch his name into a feature window on the front of the building I assume he must have been employed in a senior position in his trade.  At some point Henry had moved to 17 Artillery Hill (Artillery Road), a 5 minute walk from the Granville, as he was recorded here in the 1871 census.  In the census of 1881 and 1891 he had moved to 314 Kingsland Road, Hackney, London.  His occupation was again a decorator.  He died in Hackney in October 1898.

Workman pose for a photograph in the Granville Gardens, now the site of Poldark Court.  Was Henry Fullagar in the photograph?