The Fitzrovia district of London, showing addresses connected with Charles Wells.
At first Charles lived in a small single room in Fenchurch Street – a busy, grimy thoroughfare that had long been associated with shipping and the oceans. The headquarters of the East India Company, an organisation which had effectively governed much of the world’s population, had once been based here. And it was here that ship owners and merchants had their premises, as did lightermen, engineers, tobacco brokers, boiler makers, Madagascar agents, rope manufacturers and a melange of other marine trades and industries. And above the bustling shops, warehouses and offices lived many individuals and families in impoverished surroundings.1
For Charles at this stage in his career, the most attractive feature of Fenchurch Street was probably the low cost of lodgings, plus the fact that his patent agents, Phillips & Leigh, were within walking distance. And it may be that Charles wanted to follow his father’s lead, because Charles Jeremiah Wells had once occupied an office in the street at Langbourne Chambers, immediately prior to abandoning his career as a solicitor.
With so much instability, both in his domestic life and in his business, this was doubtless an anxious time for Charles Deville Wells. But his circumstances appear to have improved quickly because later in 1887 he had already moved to more elegant surroundings in central London. His new home, 53 Charlotte Street, was situated just to the north of Oxford Street, in an area generally described as middle class and well-to-do.
At the same time as relocating his business he also changed his method of operation.
Since his arrival in Britain he had applied for many patents, only a handful of which had proceeded beyond the provisional application stage. All of them had been submitted in his sole name as the inventor. But now he decided to target reasonably wealthy individuals and offer them an opportunity to share in the proceeds of his patents. They would provide finance to enable him to develop his ideas and he, in return, would take care of the engineering side of things and obtain the patent. The plan was that his backer would be named as co-applicant for the patent alongside Wells, and would receive a quarter of all profits generated by the invention.
He first advertised for a solicitor’s clerk to copy sales letters. In this era there was no quick or easy way to duplicate documents, other than to write them out by hand, a laborious and immensely tedious task. Henry Baker Vaughan, a man in his late twenties, applied for the job, and Charles Wells agreed to pay him 12s 6d for every 500 copies. With a wife and three small children to support, the young clerk gratefully accepted.
Now Wells had to find likely prospects for his scheme. He almost certainly referred to the publications of the day, such as Kelly’s Post Office Directory, The Army List and Crockford’s Clerical Directory. When Vaughan delivered the first batch of 500 letters, Wells – who was either extremely short of ready cash or in a mean-spirited mood at the time – gave him only 7s 6d, instead of the promised 12s 6d. Nonetheless, Vaughan would continue to work for Wells on and off for several years.
The initial letter sent to potential investors was only a few lines in length – just enough to tempt the recipient into asking for further information. Then, having hooked the prospect, Charles sent a more detailed proposal. In March 1887, one of the first to reply was Frederick John Goad,2 who invested £25 (£2,500) as a quarter-share in a patent for ‘incandescent electric lighting’. Another of Wells’ early sponsors was James Thomas Pickburn, a man in his mid-sixties, who had been the publisher of a paper called the Clerkenwell News (which later evolved into the Daily Chronicle and, later still, the News Chronicle – important national daily newspapers of their time). In 1888, Pickburn financed a ‘hot-air motor heated by gas’.
The impressively named Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Rhenius Evans Drake-Brockman was an officer in the Royal Engineers, and had served in India for the past twenty or so years. As he approached the age when he would have to leave the army, he was doubtless looking for a safe investment to see him through his retirement. He is listed as joint applicant with Charles Wells on a proposal for ‘water-borne vessels’. For people such as these, with capital to invest, but perhaps lacking the time, opportunity or know-how to run a business themselves, Wells’ inventions must have seemed attractive propositions.
Two Australian-born brothers, Montague and Richard Churchill-Shann, were already engineers and inventors in their own right.3 They were co-applicants with Wells for a patent involving ‘candles, wax matches, tapers etc’. It seems likely that, in this instance, Wells acted on their behalf as a kind of patent agent.
But the inventions he promoted with these partners usually fared no better than those he had put forward on his own. An exception came in December 1887, when he submitted a joint application (No. 16,711) in his own name and that of Lizzie Ritchie. The innovation this time was a musical skipping rope, and it turned out to be one of the few patents of his to proceed past the provisional application stage. Wells later claimed to have sold the patent for £50 (£5,000).
The identity of his co-applicant, Lizzie Ritchie, has never been established. In fact she may not have even existed. Her name, though, will crop up several times in Wells’ story, and it seems she was possibly a creation of his vivid imagination, whose presence he could magically invoke – like the genie of the lamp – whenever the need arose. Charles variously described her as his business partner and his niece. On another occasion he said he was her guardian. Of course, all of these claims could have been true, but it is unlikely.
In addition to developing his own ideas, Charles carried out many technical assignments for Francis Knoeferl, an engineer of German origin based at 100 Bolsover Street – just around the corner from Charles’ own address in Charlotte Street. Knoeferl did general engineering work and had registered a few patents of his own. While Wells was there he met another German engineer, 30-year-old Hermann Eschen, who lived nearby at 142 Great Titchfield Street with his wife and two young children. In fact, it was Eschen who had made the prototype of the musical skipping rope.
In late 1887 Wells and Eschen happened to meet again in the street and Wells offered him some freelance work, adding that he would give him a three-month trial initially, with the promise of more work afterwards if all went well. Eschen agreed to leave his job with Knoeferl and work instead for Wells for £2 12s per week. Wells would design an invention – arc lamps and hot-air engines were just two examples – and Eschen made the necessary working models. Charles Wells then moved into 115 Great Titchfield Street, almost opposite Eschen’s home, and rented what were described as ‘small business premises’, with a workshop and a room to live in.
In Eschen’s words, Charles was ‘always busy, always at work … a hardworking man’. When Eschen was at home, Charles would often turn up at all times of the day or night with a roll of drawings under his arm and an idea for something new which he wanted Eschen to make. Sometimes people came to see the models. The two engineers became firm friends, and Wells later appointed Eschen as manager of his business. Later still, they submitted joint patent applications for a loom-picking mechanism and for an inkstand.
But there is no evidence that this rush of activity resulted in any significant profits for Charles. Nor is there any reason to believe that his backers received a return on their investment, since no one could be persuaded to buy the patents, except for the musical skipping rope and a few others. Clearly he was not going to make a fortune like this. According to Eschen, the preliminary models – usually made of wood – cost Wells £7–10 apiece to produce (£700–1,000). A working model of an engine in metal could cost as much as £30–50 (£3,000–5,000). Any profit from the few successes was quickly wiped out by the failures, which were more numerous.
Wells’ strategy of finding a backer and taking out patents jointly with that person seems to have lasted from early 1887 to mid-1888. Then he came up with another new version of the plan: this time he advertised for the financial backing first. And it was only when he had found someone to fund the invention that he would go ahead and file the patent application – usually in his sole name. As in the past, he offered his sponsor a quarter-share in the proceeds. From early to mid-1888 he started to place frequent advertisements in the press for persons with money to invest.
In the late nineteenth century newspapers and magazines filled the role which, in future decades, would be filled by radio, television and the cinema (and much later by the internet, email and social media). More than 2,500 newspapers and periodicals were sold in Britain: 673 of these were published in the London area alone. By the late 1880s they were readily available to people at all levels of society, and they were cheap. Popular journals such as the Morning Post and Reynold’s Newspaper cost just a penny, and The Times was 3d. Aside from news and opinions, the press carried pages of small advertisements and announcements, some bearing poignant messages between lovers, others offering horses and carriages for sale, properties for sale or rent and job vacancies. Individuals and businesses – some of doubtful integrity – placed advertisements offering investment opportunities or asking for loans. Many people read these pages of announcements avidly from beginning to end, often responding to offers that attracted them.
Charles would become a master of the medium. His notices usually took the form of a three- or four-line classified advertisement under the heading of ‘Investments & Partnerships’, or some similar category. His initial efforts were of a tentative, low-key nature, providing no hard information whatsoever, and relied on the reader’s curiosity to elicit a response.
Despite its cryptic nature, this advertisement must have elicited a satisfactory response because Charles repeated it for several years. One early reply came in July 1888 from Charles Joseph White of Acacia Cottage, Bournemouth – a retired medical man of about 60. Wells offered him the chance to invest £30 for a quarter-share in an improved electric arc light. Dr White knew nothing about arc lights, but trusted Charles Wells, whom he considered to be ‘an honest man, if a poor one’. He consulted a friend who knew something about electric lighting and who told him it was very likely that worthwhile improvements could be effected and that there was probably a great deal of money to be made. Just to make sure, White visited Charles Wells at the Great Titchfield Street premises in London. Wells said he hoped to achieve a 37 per cent saving in electricity and explained that his invention would do away with the need for opaque globes. He also referred White to his patent agents, Phillips & Leigh, for confirmation of his bona fides. Wells was, if nothing else, one of their most regular customers, and, for all they knew, he was a genuine inventor. On the strength of their endorsement, Dr White sent an initial down payment of £5, followed later by an additional £25.
Wells immediately lodged an application at the Patent Office, paying the £1 fee for a provisional patent. He then forwarded the receipt to White, who – failing to inspect the document closely – believed that this was the patent certificate itself.
Emily Forrester, a woman in her mid-forties, lived with her husband on the seafront at Deal, Kent. One day she spotted the ‘Fortune’ advertisement and wrote for further particulars. Wells sent a letter in reply in which he mentioned a German engineer, Nikolaus Otto, who had invented a pioneering internal combustion engine twelve years previously. Wells claimed that Otto was earning £400 (£40,000) per week from his discovery, adding that he, Wells, required just £30 for a quarter-share in his own patent gas engine. He assured Mrs Forrester that he would be able to sell the patent ‘at once’ for a substantial sum. Before parting with her money, she visited Wells in London. On seeing the model of the engine she agreed with Wells that the invention ‘must be valuable’ and promptly forwarded her £30 to him.
Wells became increasingly skilful in his use of the media. At an early stage he took expert advice from advertising agencies such as Brown, Gould & Co. of New Oxford Street, and – in particular – Willing’s4 of Piccadilly. James Willing claimed that his company acted as ‘agents for all metropolitan, provincial & foreign newspapers’, and published an annual handbook, Willing’s (late May’s) British & Irish Press Guide (yearly), which listed every newspaper and periodical available to the public. The volume is a testament to the high level of sophistication already prevailing in the advertising industry of that period.
Willing offered his clients free advice as to ‘the position, importance and value as an advertising medium, of any publication’. A particular bonus was the facility for advertisers to have replies sent to Willing’s offices, where they were provided with individual mailboxes. Willing’s handbook emphasises that the letters ‘can be retained until called for, or will be forwarded to the advertiser’s address if preferred. … Strict confidence may be relied on, the names and addresses of advertisers never being communicated unless express permission is given.’ This suited Charles Wells very nicely.
Each advertiser’s mailbox was identified by a box number, or the person’s initials, or a ‘password’ displayed in the advertisement instead of an actual address. Advertisers could thus conceal their true names and whereabouts, while the system also helped them to identify those advertisements generating the best response. At first, Charles simply used his own initials, ‘C.W.’, or a box number. He later found that the use of carefully chosen code words – such as ‘Security’, ‘Bona Fides’, ‘Investor’ and ‘Gold Mine’ – helped to instil confidence and create a powerful sense of substance and financial probity:
FOUR HUNDRED POUNDS a YEAR. — Gentleman compelled to SELL, at inadequate price of £250, SHARE in PATENT, to bring in over above sum for over ten years. Full investigation. — Write to ‘Investor,’ 54, New Oxford Street, W.C.
Wells also experimented with subtle changes to the basic announcements, and from time to time he introduced completely different ones. Often he would place two advertisements side by side in the same paper – perhaps testing the relative effectiveness of each, or in the knowledge that different offers might appeal to different people. As time went by, he phased out the advertisements which relied on mystery and intrigue to whet the appetite of would-be investors: he replaced them with a more direct offer, which promised spectacular amounts of profit. Here, too, he appreciated that certain people had more to invest than others. Rewards which might seem unrealistically large to one person could be viewed by another as too paltry to bother with. Therefore he experimented by quoting different figures: £400, £750, £25,000, £50,000, £100,000 … and, if anything, the amounts seemed to grow larger as time went by.
His annual advertising budget also increased, eventually reaching £350 (£35,000). Henry Vaughan, Wells’ long-suffering clerk, later estimated that he had written 3,000 letters in response to enquiries generated by the press advertisements. Although his replies to enquirers were all broadly similar, Wells would personalise them to a small degree, to suit each applicant. If a woman wrote, for example, he would always stress that the investment was very appropriate for a lady.
Catherine Mary Phillimore, a 40-year-old spinster, lived with her two sisters and their elderly mother in a mansion at Shiplake, near Henley-on-Thames, with no fewer than eight servants to attend to their needs. Her uncle had been Speaker of the House of Commons; her late father had been a judge, politician and close friend of Prime Minister Gladstone; and her brother, Walter Phillimore, was also a senior judge.
If she had been born a few decades later, Catherine would almost certainly have attended a university. As it was, her father had arranged for her to receive a private education at home. She became an expert on Italian art and literature and by the late 1880s, when her path crossed with that of Charles Deville Wells, she had written eight books which had been published. She had also translated several Italian books into English, and was a contributor to Grove’s Dictionary of Music.
In January 1889 she saw an advertisement referring to a patent. In reply to her enquiry Wells sent a letter very similar to the following:
115 Great Titchfield-street, W.,
London.
Dear Madam,
The investment would just suit a lady, as there is no further trouble than to cash the share you would have in eight weeks and the royalty for fourteen years … As an example of the price paid in our day for inventions I may name the Gatling Gun, the price paid for the patent being over half a million sterling — £620,000 [£62 million].
Wells had clearly tailored his reply ‘to suit a lady’, although it is not known what effect his mention of the Gatling Gun might have had on her feminine sensibilities. His letter goes on to say that he needed an investment of £60, which he assured her would be ‘bound to bring in money, even a large sum in a few weeks, and a very high yearly income’. He asked for an initial payment of £5 to take out the patent, adding that he would send the ‘provisional certificate … as a valuable security’ within about five days, whereupon the balance of £55 would become payable:
With this money I would make a sample of the invention, to be ready in six to eight weeks the very outside; and then, having patent and sample, I would have no difficulty in obtaining at once a large sum for the patent; and if we take into consideration the big sums paid in our days for such patents, we might look upon £400,000 [£40 million] as a poor remuneration, and the sum mentioned to you as a yearly income is ridiculously small. However considerable the financial results may be, I offer you a one-quarter share of all the patent will bring in for fourteen years.
In closing he writes:
… I am prepared to prove that I am quite certain of a wonderful success, as I am willing to repeat in your presence experiments that will prove to the most unscientific person that the saving is positive, practical, and much greater than I mention.
I remain, dear Madam, faithfully yours,
C. Wells.
The invention in question was a device intended to give a 40 per cent fuel saving in steamships. The Victorian world relied on steam power: every train, factory and pumping station was driven by a steam engine, and of the 170 million tons of coal mined each year in Britain, a significant proportion was used as fuel for these machines. Any invention of the kind that Charles proposed would indeed be worth a fortune.
And the idea was not as far-fetched as it might seem. Although the performance of steam engines had significantly improved over the years, there was still a long way to go. No steam engine had ever achieved much more than 10 per cent efficiency in converting the energy within the coal into motive power, and it must have seemed that there was still plentiful scope for further enhancements, if only some clever inventor could find a way to implement them.
With his letter to Miss Phillimore, Wells enclosed an elaborate prospectus about his invention, together with a long list of other inventions which had earned ‘immense sums’. He neglected to mention, however, that all of these innovations had been patented by other people, not by him.
After receiving Miss Phillimore’s deposit, he applied on 16 February for the provisional patent. It is impossible to say for certain what was in his mind at the time. Had he convinced himself that everything would turn out all right in the end – that he would make his own fortune and make his investors rich at the same time? Or had he already made a conscious decision to defraud his backers? Did he spare a thought for them at all?
It may be that Wells, with his unconventional upbringing, belonged to a certain group of people who have little empathy with others. Speaking in the most general terms, psychiatrist Dr Francesca Denman says:
Generally, if you don’t belong anywhere or owe anyone a particular duty, it’s easy not to think of them as people, and you might not feel bad about swindling them. … He must have been charming and persuasive. There is probably an element of anti-social personality disorder – not caring about other people and being willing to con them … He sees you can get money up front and then realises, ‘why bother to do the work?’
Thus we cannot be quite sure whether at this stage he viewed Miss Phillimore and the other investors as genuine clients or as dupes. But there was something about Miss Phillimore that he did not know, and could hardly have discovered, even if the thought had occurred to him. Miss Phillimore’s family owned swathes of land in London’s fashionable Kensington, and when her father had died some three or four years previously, he had left a fortune to his heirs. At any time of her choosing, Catherine Mary Phillimore could dip her slender, perfectly manicured fingers into a pot of family money worth several million pounds in today’s terms.
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1 The area was designated ‘poor’, with an income of 18s to 21s a week for a typical family. (Booth Poverty Map 1898–99)
2 Probably the Islington watchmaker and jeweller of that name. Wells could have obtained his particulars from Kelly’s Directory, which lists the family business, Alfred Goad & Sons.
3 The two brothers later patented inventions of their own, including several relating to marine propulsion. Decades later, one of these was cited as an underlying patent in the specification for the hovercraft.
4 The company amalgamated with a firm called May’s in 1889, and for some time afterwards the names May’s and Willing’s were used more or less interchangeably.
