Ingles de la Peseta

Sir George Langworthy (left) in 1917, Torremolinos. (pic historiatorremolinos.com)

At the turn of the 19^th century a wealthy English nobleman and his wife bought the old Torremolinos carabineers barracks called Castillo Santa Clara or Santa Clara Castle and surrounding lands.

It is not known how much Sir George Langworthy Southan paid the owner, a Doña Luisa Darrien, for the land located on the rocky promontory known locally as la roca or the rock, which dominates the Torremolinos coastline splitting La Carihuela from El Bajondillo.

The Langworthys employed numerous locals who helped them develop the estate into a luxurious summer property with plush gardens and viewing points on the edge of the rock, overlooking the sea.

According to unverified accounts, the young couple had moved to Torremolinos due to the poor health of the Langworthy’s wife, Annie Margaret, who was born in Punyat, India of British aristocratic stock.

Sir George was an Englishman born in Rusholme, Lancaster in his mid-30s who would one day be remembered as El Ingles de la Peseta, or the Englishman of the peseta.

 Langworthy was by all accounts an extremely generous man who turned his grief to charity after the death of Margaret, aged 40, in 1913 shortly before the outbreak of World War I.

His time on the frontline was cut short and he was discharged on mental health grounds returning to his beloved Torremolinos.

Local reports suggest he was overcome by grief, unable to recover from the loss of Margaret, turning his attentions and considerable fortune to help the local people of Torremolinos.

A staunch Protestant, he turned his Castillo Santa Clara, then known as Castillo del Ingles, into a refuge for the local needy and destitute, of which there was no shortage in Torremolinos, at this time a town populated mostly by humble fishermen whose families lived off the fruits of their daily catch.

According to numerous reports he would pay local people a silver peseta for reading out a passage from the Bible, or some other religious text.

Locals would queue to read the passage – known locally as receiving their ‘treatment’ – in exchange for their silver peseta which at the time could feed a family for a day.

This was an era when the Spanish where in extreme economic hardship.

There have been some reports suggesting some conflict with the local elite, which in line with the rest of Spain were fervent Catholics and did not approve of this open encouragement to practice another faith given Langworthy’s Protestant beliefs.

Some say there were those of high standing in the local community which joined the local clergy in their condemnation of the reading of these religious texts.

One example which illustrates just how threatened some of the local influential Catholic people felt by Langworthy’s Protestant message is the case of El Vigia.

Juan Heredia and Luisa Huelin, a Catholic family who grew concerned about Langworthy’s Protestant teachings lived in a property adjacent to Santa Clara, called the finca ‘El Vigia’.

They suspected he was taking advantage of the uncultured humble locals paying them to submit to his religious beliefs, in other words, buying their faith, or pesetas for prayers.

Fearing the locals would succumb to the perceived religious bribery, Juan and Luisa sold their property for a token figure of 10,000 pesetas in October 1930 to a Catholic institution.

The condition of the sale was that the institution agreed to use the land to set up Catholic teaching centre.

This would later become the nuns school called Colegio de la Medalla Milagrosa ‘El Vigia’.      

Regardless of religious concerns, Langworthy was named 'Hijo Adoptivo y Predilecto de Torremolinos' or ‘Adoptive son of Torremolinos’ by the Town Hall in 1918 who considered him ‘father to the poor’.

Over the next fifteen or so years Langworthy would literally give away his fortune of approximately 12 million pesetas.

By the late 20s he was broke, left only with the Torremolinos property and his army pension. To prevent having to sell the property Langworthy made a deal with four of his staff, whose wages he could no longer afford, to give them the lease to the land so it could be opened as a hotel which would become the very first in Torremolinos.

By 1930 Santa Clara had opened as a hotel, initially attracting many of Langworthy’s acquaintances from his time in the military.

One of the first notable guests that would stay at the hotel Santa Clara was Spain’s Surrealist eccentric genius Salvador Dali.

Gala in Torremolinos 1930

Dali and his then lover and eternal Muse, Gala, stayed in Santa Clara for several weeks in May 1930.

Gala would raise the eyebrows of the extremely conservative local women soaking up the Torremolinos sun top-less as Dali finished his painting El Hombre Invisible (The Invisible Man).

El Ingles de la Peseta would spend his remaining years in retirement living in a small house on the grounds of Santa Clara, overlooking La Carihuela until his death in April 1945, aged 79.

In the years of rationing and hunger which followed the Spanish civil war (1936-1939), locals would give this English gentleman El Ingles parcels of food, sugar and fruit, as small tokens of their gratitude.

He was buried in the English cemetery in Malaga next to his beloved Margaret.

According to local accounts, and the town hall, the entire Torremolinos attended his funeral as a symbol of gratitude and love from a community who Langworthy had helped in more ways than one.

Ironically it was an Englishman’s refusal to lay off his staff which resulted in the birth of the Costa del Sol as a tourist resort some 80

Dali was in Santa Clara in 1930

years ago.

Years later, in 1973, the massive Castillo Santa Clara hotel which stands today would be built initially as a high end macro hotel, and now a private apartment complex which externally at least seems to be in the process of being reclaimed by the sea, slowly rotting.

It wouldn’t be until 1990 that the road that leads to Santa Clara would be renamed Castillo del Ingles or Englishman’s Castle.

Aside from this there is little recognition of a man who devoted his life to help others in need in Torremolinos.

Many consider Langworthy the first promoter of the Costa del Sol tourism, although history suggests this perhaps unfair that he would be best remembered by his ‘gift’ to his staff at a time when he had lost everything including the love of his life.

In Torremolinos it seems the kindness and generosity afforded to the extremely impoverished and simple locals by this once wealthy English philanthropist has been forgotten by most, except perhaps by those whose grandfathers told them of that Ingles de la Peseta that many years ago showered them with love.

As usual if you can add any info to this story or have any photos send me an email or leave a comment below

Sources: the excellent historiatorremolinos.com and Torremolinos Town Hall