James Henry Luddington Archer (1880-1909) - "Sometime of Manila and Bautista"

​by Chris Phillips

In his book A-Z of Ely local historian Michael Rouse writes: “The Archer family of solicitors were arguably the most powerful figures in Ely during the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries” and it was into this privileged background that James Henry Luddington Archer was born in 1880. 

​His parents were Harold and Sophia (née Luddington) Archer who had married on 19th April 1877 in Littleport parish church where the service had been conducted by the groom's brother Goodwyn Alfred Archer,  Rector of Campsea Ash in Suffolk.  The match was a good one and connected the Archers to the Luddingtons who were wealthy landowners in the village. The 1871 census had noted that Sophia's father, James Luddington farmed 1,850 acres and employed 51 men, 19 boys and 15 women - a sizeable workforce. ​

​After their marriage the Archers first lived on Back Hill in Ely.  A son, Goodwyn Luddington, who was later to carry on the family firm, was born there in 1878 and James followed in 1880. Later came five daughters – Eleanor, Jessie, Marguerite, Hilda and Dorothy Adeline born between 1881 and 1891 and at some point while the girls were still small the Archers moved into the large house on the Market Place which served as both home and office for Harold. The 1891 census records as present all save the two boys – who were away at school - plus an Aunt Adeline (Archer) aged 70, a Governess, an Invalid Attendant (for the aunt no doubt), a cook, a housemaid and a nurse for the baby – a busy household without doubt and by any standard, well-to-do. 

James' schooling was very much in line with that received by English boys from solidly middle class backgrounds. He was at first a pupil at Rev'd J. Morgan Brown's prep school at Glebe House in Hunstanton, Norfolk and from there went to Framlingham College in Suffolk. The College had been founded in memory of Prince Albert in 1864 and when James studied there it was under the headmastership of another clergyman – Dr Inskip. It was not considered to be a public school of the first rank but by the time he left he would have received a sound enough education and, having apparently set his heart on working overseas, went from Framlingham to join the firm of Messrs Houlder Bros.  & Co. of London.  Originally ship and insurance brokers Houlders had acquired their own ships and by the time James was with them they had an extensive trading network especially with South America. It was they who had pioneered the shipping of frozen meat from the River Plate.  It could have been, however, that this appointment was not quite what James was looking for because after a while he was back in Ely where in 1901 the census recorded him living with his family at Archer House and described his occupation as 'articled clerk – solicitor'.

​Be that as it may, however, a year later James accepted an appointment with Messrs Smith, Bell and Company and joined the firm in Manila, the capital of the Philippines. It must have seemed an exotic appointment to the Archer family and to James an exciting opportunity to fulfil his long-held ambition to work overseas. The Philippines from the 1560s until 1898 had been under the rule of Spain but in that latter year there was an ill-fated bid for independence thwarted only when the country was ceded to the United States and a brief war against the Americans ended in defeat. James landed in Manila only months after the last shots were fired and found himself appointed his new company's agent up country in the town of Bautista which lay just over a hundred miles north of the capital. Smith, Bell and Company had been in the Philippines since 1868 and traded in abaca or Manila Hemp, a tough natural fibre that was much sort after at the time.

There is no way of knowing what James thought of his new life or of the little town of Bautista but its growing importance as a trading centre probably meant that there was an element of 'society' into which he would soon have been welcomed. Perhaps he also mingled with the ilustrados – educated Filipinos who had adopted the culture and language of Spain and who played an important role in their country's economic and political life.  But his time in Bautista was cut short. The Cambridge Independent Press reporting his death and funeral in 1909 said “He unfortunately sustained injury through an accident from which he never completely recovered. He sought rest and change in Japan but eventually came home to Ely with no chance of recovery.”  There could, of course, have been an accident and almost certainly a period of time spent in Japan but when James returned to Ely he was in fact suffering from cancer of the blood and died on Sunday, 14th February 1909 at the family home – his father and perhaps other members of the family were at his bedside. He was buried on 17th February in grave no. Cb250. The Vicar of Holy Trinity officiated at the funeral and a large crowd of family and friends gathered at the graveside. The Chief Constable, Captain Mander, was there to pay his respects and the press reported “a large number of beautiful wreaths”.

James Archer was 29 when he died but he had lived something of his dream and on his memorial he was described as he would surely have wished to be as “Sometime of Manila and Bautista”.