Herbert Hoover - in the White House!
Hoover came to England in 1897, when he was taken on by the mining firm of Bewick, Moreing & Co. For the next four years he was mainly abroad, working in mines in western Australia and China.
However, in the spring of 1902 he returned to England. Hoover's memoirs (1952) state that: 'My wife searched out a small country house at Walton-on-Thames'. In a footnote he added the ironic twist: 'curiously it was known as The White House'. Hoover lived there for only a short time, and was soon called away oversees. Mrs Hoover stayed there a little longer, but by the birth of her child in 1903 she was living in London, overlooking Hyde Park. The property still stands today, on West Grove. |