William Paxton (1744-1824,) was the son of a Scottish wine-merchant who spent much of his childhood in London. He enjoyed it so much, that at the age of twelve he joined the Royal Navy as a Captain’s servant, rising through the ranks to become a midshipman and ultimately an officer on a British Merchant ship bound for India. There he made a fateful decision; he trained to become an assayer, analysing minerals and ores to establish their worth. His worth was recognised when he was made assay master at Fort Worth in Bengal from where he went on to form his own company.
Some won great fortunes in India. Most died in action or from tropical disease as the numerous memorial plaques in obscure country churches bear witness.
Like many at the time, he made his fortune in India and returned to Britain immensely rich and determined to become a landed gentleman.
In 1789 he purchased Middleton Hall, replacing it with a brand new and much grander mansion. It even had water closets, with water fed from a rooftop cistern, fed in turn by a small reservoir built in the side of a neighbouring hill. Rural Carmarthenshire had never seen the like.
Paxton totally transformed the surrounding parkland. A three acre double-walled garden was built, the double walls of stone and brick creating a milder microclimate, which extended the growing season for vegetables and fruit. Within the garden he built a large greenhouse with underfloor heating which allowed peaches and other more exotic fruit to be grown.
He developed woodland and a complex necklace of lakes, dams, and waterfalls, and when he discovered the healing properties of the water, piped it into his mansion as well as building a public bathhouse outside the estate for local people. People flocked to sample the healing waters to the great benefit of the immediate community.
The entire neighbourhood benefited from William Paxton, (now a sir). He founded a charity school at Llanarthne, leased land for the building of the Bethlehem Baptist Chapel, and subscribed the then substantial sum of £1000 for a canal as well as improving Kidwelly Harbour.
His greatest contribution to the area was perhaps the regeneration of the then run down town of Tenby. Recognising the growing demand for the sea-side holiday when much of Europe was being trampled by the Napoleonic wars, Paxton developed a prestigious bathhouse in Tenby which attracted a steady influx of visitors. He built lodging houses for the new ‘tourists,’ provided fresh drinking water, widened streets, built new roads and a brand-new theatre for the town. Similarly, he improved the water supply for the county town of Carmarthen, replacing leaky wooden pipes with new iron pipes.
And his relevance today? The Middleton Hall estate along with his pioneering work in agriculture and landscaping provided the basis for today’s prestigious National Botanical Garden of Wales.
Not bad for a boy who went to sea at the age of twelve.
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