Micklefield House More Detail

Micklefield House and the Kutter Family (1863–1871)
The Owner Identified, and What Became of the Family
A contribution to the archives of the Aireborough Historical Society

By Hermann Hampe (Hanover, Germany)

1. The Author, and How This Research Began

I was born in Hanover in 1961, have spent much of my working life involved with old buildings and their careful restoration, and have spent several decades researching military history. My published work includes Legacies in Steel (Casemate, 2019), Weapons of Warriors (Schiffer), the Deadly Beauties series on historical firearms, and Steel Waves (on naval daggers of the German Reichsmarine). The common thread of my work is a simple conviction: that an object with a name on it is a document, and that the research it demands is owed to the person behind the name.

That conviction is what led me to Rawdon.

In November 2018, at a militaria fair in Kassel, a German naval officer’s 1901-pattern dagger surfaced on a dealer’s table. Its scabbard was engraved beneath the mouth with a single name: Kutter.

The German navy lists identified a Kapitän zur See of that name who had retired as a Rear-Admiral. I acquired and restored the dagger, published a first account of it, and reconstructed the owner’s biography from primary printed sources. That reconstruction ran backwards from Kiel and Darmstadt to its beginning — and its beginning is in the village of Rawdon.

2. Solving a Missing Link in Micklefield’s History

The published history of Micklefield House records its owners and occupants in an almost unbroken chain:

• 1616: First historical reference.
• 1662: Rebuilding of the structure.
• William Leavens (1747–1818): Owner.
• William White: Nephew of Leavens, who rebuilt the house in 1847 to the design of John Tertius Fairbank (his date stone still stands above the door).
• 1863: The estate is auctioned off in lots.
• 1871: Thomas Arton, the Bradford stuff merchant and later Rawdon councillor, buys the house (adding the west extension in 1872).
• Later Years: Passes to private owners including John Rhodes of Spring Head Mill, Guiseley, until its purchase by Rawdon Urban District Council in 1930 for £4,500.

The Missing 1863 Purchaser

One link in that chain has long remained unexplained: the purchaser of 1863.

Records named him as William Kutter of Buckstone Cottage, Rawdon, noting that he never occupied the house itself, letting it instead to the Godwin family (John Venimore Godwin served as Mayor of Bradford while living there). Willcock’s History of Rawdon observed that the name sounded German but could not place the man, closing its note on the family with the remark that their story was one “for a creative writer and not an historian.”

This paper supplies what can now be documented.

3. The Purchaser Identified

William Kutter was a partner in Aders, Preyer & Co., linen and worsted yarn merchants, trading from at least 1854. The firm held premises on Peckover Street, on the edge of Bradford’s “Little Germany,” alongside a house in Manchester.

The purchaser of the grandest house in Rawdon was thus no landed gentleman, but a working merchant with solid trading money and modest habits. Micklefield was held purely as an investment for eight years and never lived in by the Kutters. The family lived across the parish at Buckstone Cottage — by local historical reckoning, the cottage to Buckstone House, near the old Buck Stone on the Apperley side.

Local Tradition: Unverified tradition holds that the father was a stuff merchant born in Belgium; if so, Verviers (the capital of the continental worsted trade) is the natural guess.

Two Clarifications for the Local Record

1. The Godwin Tenancy: John Venimore Godwin lived at Micklefield as an adult tenant of Kutter, not as a child, and served as Mayor of Bradford from the house. His son, J. A. Godwin, later became Bradford’s first Lord Mayor in 1907.
2. 1860s Photographs: The evocative 1860s photographs of Micklefield House in the Society’s collection are Godwin’s own work. The tenant was a founder of the Bradford Photographic Society, which explains why the house’s appearance in that decade is so remarkably preserved.

4. The Kutter Family at Buckstone Cottage

Three children of the family are documented during the Rawdon years:

• William Kutter (The Younger): Born 25 April 1863. Correction: Previous accounts claimed Micklefield House was his birthplace. However, local records show the Godwin family occupied Micklefield before the 1863 sale and remained until ~1870. The boy was almost certainly born at Buckstone Cottage.
• Gustavus Kutter: Died in 1869, aged four, and was buried in Rawdon churchyard. A heraldic stained-glass memorial window in the south aisle of Rawdon Parish Church was destroyed by vandals in the 1980s.
• Lorry Valeria Emily Kutter: Born around 1866. In 1886, she married Georg Hermann Karl von Dincklage, son of a Prussian cavalry officer.

The family’s English chapter closed in stages: the Micklefield estate was sold to Arton in 1871, the parents later moved to Ilkley, the mother died in Paris, and the father passed away in the St Pancras Hotel in London — a wool merchant’s death, in transit.

5. What Became of the Son: Rear-Admiral William Kutter

On 23 April 1878 (two days before his 15th birthday), the Rawdon-born William Kutter entered the Imperial German Navy as a cadet.

1878: Enters Imperial German Navy as a Cadet
1892: Promoted to Lieutenant-Commander
1896: Takes Torpedo-Boat Command
1899: First Officer, Battleship Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm
1899: Commander, Gunboat Habicht (West African Station)
1904: Promoted to Captain
1908: Retires to Beseler-Allee in Kiel
1914: Recalled to command the I. Baudivision (Kiel Station)
1916: Final discharge; granted rank of Rear-Admiral
1941: Passes away in Darmstadt, aged 78
“`[cite: 1]

An English-Born German Commander in the Boer War

During the opening weeks of the Boer War (late 1899), Kutter commanded the gunboat Habicht and brought her into Cape Town for a refit[cite: 1]. In the sharpest Anglo-German naval crisis of that war, the German warship in Table Bay was commanded by a man born in Yorkshire who, by the law of that era, was arguably still a British subject[cite: 1].

World War I Service & The Toulon Intrigue

Recalled in 1914, Kutter managed the construction, docks, and harbor craft of Kiel — Germany’s primary Baltic naval base[cite: 1]. Upon his discharge in 1916, he received the honorary rank of Rear-Admiral (Marine-Ehrenrangliste)[cite: 1]. He died in Darmstadt on 8 October 1941[cite: 1].

A Darker Margin of History:
In the 1930s, Kutter’s nephew — Hans-Günther von Dincklage (later known as the wartime companion of Coco Chanel) — ran a German intelligence ring targeted at the French naval base at Toulon[cite: 1]. French counterintelligence files show that in February 1935, the 71-year-old retired Rear-Admiral travelled across France to stay three weeks at his nephew’s villa in Sanary-sur-Mer[cite: 1].

Whether Kutter was utilizing his specialized technical knowledge of naval ports to assist his nephew, or simply visiting the Riviera as an ordinary tourist, remains an open historical question[cite: 1].

6. A Grave Kept by Strangers

Forty years after little Gustavus was buried in Rawdon, Admiral Kutter lost his own daughter: Jutta died in Kiel in March 1909, aged just 21 months[cite: 1].

The family erected a grave monument on Kiel’s Nordfriedhof — a sleeping marble child sculpted by Hans Dammann (modelled after a painting by Francine Charderon)[cite: 1]. To this day, people with no connection to the family lay flowers at the grave, kept alive by local memory[cite: 1]. A few years ago, an elderly Kiel resident paid for the monument to be professionally cleaned[cite: 1].

7. Sources and Open Local Questions

References Used

• Trade Directories: Bradford and Manchester directories (Aders, Preyer & Co., Peckover Street)[cite: 1].
• English Records: Historic England list entry 1424014; Willcock’s A History of Rawdon; Edwards’ History of Rawdon Parish Church (1923); Aireborough Historical Society photographic collection[cite: 1].
• German Records: Ranglisten der Kaiserlichen Marine (1901, 1903, 1908); Marine-Ehrenrangliste 1914–1918 (Stoelzel, 1930); Kiel address books and local press (1909); Darmstadt directory (1935)[cite: 1].
• French Records: Counterintelligence dossier published in Hal Vaughan, Sleeping with the Enemy (2011)[cite: 1].

Open Questions for Local Historians

If local researchers can help resolve any of the following, the author would welcome the knowledge:

1. GRO Birth Registration: William Kutter the Younger (April–June quarter 1863, Wharfedale registration district) to confirm the exact recorded birthplace[cite: 1].
2. 1863 Auction Date: The specific month of the estate auction in the Leeds and Bradford press[cite: 1].
3. Census Records: 1861 and 1871 census households for Buckstone Cottage (to verify the mother’s name and father’s birthplace)[cite: 1].
4. Exact Location: Precise physical identification of Buckstone Cottage[cite: 1].

1878: Enters Imperial German Navy as a Cadet
1892: Promoted to Lieutenant-Commander
1896: Takes Torpedo-Boat Command
1899: First Officer, Battleship Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm
1899: Commander, Gunboat Habicht (West African Station)
1904: Promoted to Captain
1908: Retires to Beseler-Allee in Kiel
1914: Recalled to command the I. Baudivision (Kiel Station)
1916: Final discharge; granted rank of Rear-Admiral
1941: Passes away in Darmstadt, aged 78
“`[cite: 1]