TAPPS (afterwards TAPPS GERVIS), George William (1795-1842), of Hinton Admiral, Christchurch, Hants and 4 Stratford Place , Oxford Street, London

Tapps, an eccentric and ‘opulent’ philanthropist given to staging merrie England frolics with his tenantry, had made no mark in the unreformed House following his purchase of a seat for the ‘pocket borough’ of New Romney.1Hants. Advertiser, 10 Sept. 1842. Hitherto regarded as an anti-Catholic Tory, he was an odd choice of candidate to be selected by the local reformers of Christchurch at the 1832 general election, and not their first, but evidently their best hope of breaking the Tory Rose family’s ancestral hegemony over the constituency, which had been expanded by the Reform Act to include the Tapps estate, which was ‘the largest’ in the district.2HP Commons, 1820-32, ii. 429-30; W. Ashworth, The genesis of modern British town planning (1954), 42. Listed by most contemporary sources as a ‘moderate reformer’, at his unopposed return he insisted that he ‘was no party man’ and ‘thoroughly independent’, and promised to ‘act according to the best interests of his judgement’ in protecting the ‘safety of the constitution’.3C. R. Dod, Annual Biography (1842), 393; Hants. Advertiser, 15 Dec. 1832; R. Lavender, From Pocket Borough to Parliamentary Democracy (1976), 15.

Tapps rallied behind the Whig ministry on the address, 4 Feb. 1833, but thereafter barely attended and made no known speeches - his only other confirmed vote of this session being in the radical minority for repeal of the window tax, 30 Apr. 1833, though he was also credited with one against the property tax.4R. Gooch, Book of the Reformed Parliament (1834), 12-13, 34-35; Parliamentary Test book (1835), 155. Re-elected unopposed at the 1835 general election, when he was described in some papers as ‘a Conservative’, he was listed by the Liberal press as one of the ‘doubtful men’ who wished to give Peel’s ministry a ‘fair trial’.5Salisbury Herald, 10 Jan. 1835; Examiner, 8 Feb. 1835. He does note, however, appear in the Conservative gains listed in R. Stewart, The Foundation of the Conservative Party, 1832-1867 (1978), 374. He duly voted in Peel’s minority on the speakership, 19 Feb., and according to one account on the address, 26 Feb., but was absent from the crucial division on Irish church appropriation, 2 Apr. 1835.6Parliamentary Testbook (1835), 216. He had succeeded to his father’s estates and baronetcy that March, and in accordance with the terms of his inheritance assumed the additional name of Gervis, the patronymic of his great-grandmother, at the end of that year.7Prob. 11/1851/523; Annual Biography (1842), 392.

Absent from the parliamentary record for the 1836 and 1837 sessions, at the 1837 general election Tapps, who was by now regarded as a ‘liberal reformer’ in Tory papers, announced his retirement.8Standard, 19 July 1837. With no hint of intentional irony, the defeat in the ensuing contest of his Liberal nominee Colonel William Gordon Cameron by the previous boroughmonger Sir George Rose was hailed as a ‘glorious victory’ over the ‘chains of great proprietory ownership’ and ‘influence’.9Hants. Advertiser, 29 July 1837.

In April 1836 it had been reported that Tapps was about to ‘lay out a large sum in the formation of entirely new watering place on the coast’, located between Christchurch and Poole.10Standard, 13 Apr. 1836. He is now widely credited with having ‘founded Bournemouth’, even though the plans he commissioned from the architect Benjamin Ferry, a pupil of Pugin, were never fully realised.11D. Cannadine, Lords and Landlords: the aristocracy and the town, 1774-1967 (1980), 65; Ashworth, Town Planning, 42. He took an ‘active part’ in the resort’s early development, overseeing everything from the purchase of bricks and lime to the layout of Westover Gardens, and constructed its first hotel, the Bath Hotel, which was opened in 1838.12Ashworth, Town Planning, 42.

Tapps also attracted publicity for local acts of charity, such as his donation of £40 to the girls of the National School for new clothing, following which the local paper hoped that he would cast his ‘kindly eye’ on the boys as well.13Hants. Advertiser, 15 Apr. 1837. He was also ‘remarkable for sending round to inquire for sick females’, to whom he would despatch ‘a supply of needful articles’, and for his support of friendly societies.14Hants. Advertiser, 10 Sept. 1842. His penchant for ‘ancient practices’ and ‘mirthful pastimes’ on his estate included the annual assembly of 500 tenants for a dinner in the park and ‘old English sports’, such as the ‘holding of prize pigs with larded tails’. ‘If a fine strong young woman had a handsome cap’, it was recalled, he would ‘offer half a crown to the woman or girl who could tear it from the owner’, with a reward of double that if she managed to protect it.15Annual Biography (1842), 392-3; Hants. Advertiser, 10 Sept. 1842.

Tapps died in his 45^th year at Hinton Admiral, 27 Aug. 1842.16Liverpool Mercury, 2 Sept. 1842. This date amends that given in HP Commons, 1820-32, vii. 367. Reaffirming his reputation for ‘no small degree of eccentricity’, his extremely long and complex will made provision for the main arteries in his arms and legs to be slit open by a surgeon prior to burial, in a procedure probably intended to confirm the extinction of life.17Prob. 11/1970/747. He was succeeded in the baronetcy and family estates by his eldest son George Elliot Meyrick Tapps Gervis (1827-96), who in 1876 assumed the additional name of Meyrick on succeeding to the property of his uncle Owen Meyrick at Bodorgan, Anglesey.