JUDGE PERCY GYE

 

Piper's Field was built for Percy Gye, who was then in his mid-60’s and a county court judge for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.

 

Percy Gye was born in Lambeth in 1845. He was the fifth child of Frederick and Sarah Gye. He was admitted to the Bar at the Inner Temple in 1872.  In 1880, he married Sara Fanny Constance Sant in Kensington, London. Sara was born in Marylebone, London in 1856, the daughter of James Sant R.A., a noted portrait painter.  They had three children, all born in London – Denison Allen Gye (1881-1917), James Addison Gye, (1886 - 1971) and Sylvia Constance Sant Gye,(1890-1977).

 

Percy Gye was appointed to the Hampshire County Court in 1896 and by 1901, the family had moved to Abbey Hill, Worthy Road, Winchester. The eldest son, Denison Allen, had left home before Piper’s Field was built. He graduated from Oriel College Oxford in 1904, and then worked for the Agricultural Bank of Egypt and later the Egyptian Ministry of Finance. He joined the Zion Mule Corps in 1915, serving at Gallipoli, and then transferred to the Royal Horse Artillery. The two younger children, James Addison and Sylvia were living at home in 1911.

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Insert Percy’s legal career ………

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Percy Gye also invented a landing net, used in fly fishing and know as the Gye Net , and registered two patents, a ‘safety latch lock and handle fitting for railway and other carriage doors’ and ‘curtain poles rods rings and hooks for hanging curtains in bay and bow windows and other places’.

 

Percy Gye died in June 1916 at Piper’s Field. He had presided over the Winchester Crown Court the week before his death, but was then unable to make the journey to Romsey for a similar purpose, and died of heart failure. His obituary in the Portsmouth Evening News states that ‘he was always a friend of the poor litigant and frequently dealt rather firmly with the hire purchase and credit purchase systems, when in his opinion people had been induced to purchase things they could not afford’. It also records that he was ‘a great lover of animals and a strong supporter of the RSPCA’.

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His widow, Sarah, continued to own the house until 1923, when the house, described as ‘one of the most attractive sites in Chilbolton Avenue, an exceptionally bright and sunny house, well planned and situate in a most tastefully laid out garden and grounds’ was reported as having been sold.

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The eldest son, Denison, was an acting Captain in 1917, with the Royal Horse Artillery on the Western Front. He was killed in action on 28th Feb 1917 and is buried in a Commonwealth War Grave in the Guards’ Cemetery, in Combles, France. Younger son, James Addison, married Anna Olivia Carey in 1925. Anna Olivia was born in Sori, near Genoa, Italy. They ran a guest house called Villa Le Rondini, Sori, for several years. Sarah Gye died in 1948 in La Baita, Sori. Anna died in Sori in 1959 and James died there in 1971. The death of Sylvia, who had been advertising her services as a repairer and restorer of valuable porcelain and enamel, is recorded in nearby Genoa, in 1977.

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See Who's Who - https://doi.org/10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U197362

 

For a description of life for the guests at Le Rondini, see Tony Hart’s ‘A Portrait of My Dad’, ch. 4.

 

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