to be dissolved with all convenient speed; all property to be sold, and converted into ready money, to meet all claims; a final distribution of assets to be made; no sale by private contract to any shareholder being allowed. This deed was signed, sealed, and delivered by the said F. W. Tweed, and witnessed by J. S. Cropper, Horncastle, July 18th, 1855.
On Nov. 6th, 1889, a meeting was held to consider whether the company should be wound up; but it was decided to continue it, and of late years the financial position of the company has improved; the report for 1906 shews total receipts for the past year, £145 13s. 1d.; expenditure £87 2s. 10d.; leaving balance £58 10s. 3d.; allowing a dividend of £1 10s. per cent., the sum of £6 0s. 3d. being still in hand. Offices on the same premises are rented by Mr. Reuben Roberts, Corn Merchant.
THE WHELPTON ALMSHOUSES.
The Whelpton Almshouses are situated in Queen Street, on its east side, being six small residences, for the reception of deserving poor persons, natives of the town. They were established in the year 1861, under the following circumstances.
The late Mr. Geo. Whelpton was a shoemaker, occupying a small shop, one of several then standing in the Market Place, on or near the site of the present Stanhope Memorial;[1] the whole of these being cleared away when the late Honble. Edward Stanhope presented that piece of ground to the town, for the enlargement of the Market Place. He resided in a small house in Stonewell Row, but afterwards removed into better premises in Queen Street. While living in Stonewell Row he purchased some furniture cheap, at an auction, and in a drawer of one of the articles purchased he found a recipe, said to have been written by a Boston doctor, for the medicine eventually to become known universally as "Whelpton's Pills" (a powerful stomachic, for kidney diseases, &c.), and from the sale of which he and other members of his family realised large fortunes.[2] His wife had been for some time in a bad state of health, and after she had consulted various doctors without deriving any benefit from their treatment, he decided to try for her the prescription which had thus accidentally come into his possession. The result was so satisfactory that other sufferers applied to him for the pills, which for a time he freely gave to his neighbours; ultimately, however, these applications became so numerous that he was obliged to make a charge.
As he began to realise a considerable income from this source, he gave up the shoemaking business, and left Horncastle; his first move being to Derby,[3] where he occupied a residence known as "St. Anne's House," afterwards moving to London, where he, at first, lived in Crane Court, Fleet Street, which still continues to be the depot of the pill business. He subsequently
- ↑ Robert Whelpton, the father of George, who was also a shoemaker, used to relate that he made shoes for Sir John Franklin, before he went out as Governor of Tasmania. Sir John, a native of Spilsby, was brother-in-law of Mr. Henry Selwood, who lived in the house on the west side of the Market Place, now occupied by Mr. R. W. Clitherow, which would be opposite Whelpton's shop. Sir John was Governor of Tasmania 1866-1842.
- ↑ William Thomas Whelpton took as a residence 69, Gloucester Crescent, Regent's Park. London; and Henry Robert Whelpton resided in Upton Park, Slough.
- ↑ While at Derby he revisited Horncnstle, driving over in a hired carriage, with pair of horses, and it is said that a local wag, seeing his carriage in the Bull Hotel yard, wrote upon it with chalk:
"Who would have thought it.
That pills could have bought it?"
