Dorset Ancestors Rotating Header Image

Beaminster

After the Rebellion

During the summer of 1685 the West Country was in turmoil. The Duke of Monmouth’s short lived campaign to seize the throne failed, leaving many mothers without husbands and sons. Those of Monmouth’s supporters who survived the fight faced a journey to Dorchester and the rough justice dispensed by Judge Jefferies at what was to become known as the Bloody Assizes. (See our article: the Monmouth Rebellion, published 18th October 2012 in the General Category).

The 800 or so who were sentenced to be transported were the fortunate ones; nearly three hundred were sentenced to death and for many of those the journey out of this world was to be a cruel and barbaric one. A few saved themselves by testifying against their fellows, while some wealthy individuals were able to buy themselves a pardon and a lucky few managed to escape and blend back into their communities when the hue and cry had died down. (See our article: Prideaux Family at Forde Abbey published 20th July 2012 in Real Lives Category).

Supporters of Monmouth continued to be sought out until the announcement of a General Pardon in March 1686. One was James Daniel, a lawyer, who lived in Beaminster. Following the defeat at Sedgemoor he fled to his home town and hid in a closet in his house. Hearing that soldiers were heading towards Beaminster looking for him he hurried west out of town to Knowle Farm, where he hid in a barn and covered himself with straw.

The soldiers arrived at the farm and charged into the barn, stabbing at the straw with their bayonets; amazingly they missed him. Eventually, the soldiers abandoned their search, leaving the fugitive to wonder about his miraculous escape. He was sure God had saved his life.

Four years passed before things improved for the better and James Daniel’s life could return to something resembling normal. The first thing he did was to buy the barn and the land around it, establishing a private burial ground so he and his descendants would lie where he believed God had saved him. James Daniel lived a further three score years reaching the age of 100 before it was time for this former Rebel to return to Knowle Farm one last time.  The burial ground remains to this day. Just 40 ft by 24 ft it is surrounded by a hedge of holly and a low stone ivy-covered wall, being entered through two large iron gates.

Those who fought on the side of the king returned to their homes and occupations, while some of the landed gentry who had supported the royal cause were received and thanked for their loyalty and service personally by the king in London.
 
In the thick of the battle commanding a troop of Dorset Horse was Thomas Chafin from Chettle. He was a devoted family man who frequently sent letters home to his wife; some of these have survived and provide us with first hand accounts of life on the field of battle, as well as giving us a glimpse into his relationship with his wife and his pride at being presented to James II.
In an early letter home Thomas Chafin tells of how his cousin was killed “barbarously” and goes on to say that one of his friends saved himself by hiding in a plot of kidney beans and how another escaped by running into a garret: “he was running as fast as he could thither and he and Thomas Clements and his gardener with him, well armed.” In another letter home he says: “after being fallen upon by rebels there was an hour’s fighting and away they ran”. He goes on to claim they took and killed a thousand of the rebels and captured three loads of arms.

In a further despatch to his wife who he addresses as: “My Dearest Creature” and  closes with “… and blessings to the brats and let Nancy take true love from her Deare Tossey,” Chafin tells her they “had totally routed the enemies of God and the king and could not hear of 50 men together of the rebel army. Every hour they picked up rebels in fields, hedges, and ditches including the Duke of Monmouth’s valet; the duke’s last words to him were that he was undone”.

The Duke of Monmouth was captured hiding under a tree near Cranborne Chase, at a spot still referred to as Monmouth’s Ash. He was running from the battlefield, trying to get to Poole, where he hoped to secure a passage back to Holland. Instead he was taken to London under a guard of soldiers from 1st King’s Dragoon Guards and executed.

It is not clear if Chafin and his men were a part of that guard but certainly Chafin was in London for Monmouth’s execution, a fact he reports to his wife. He describes how he and Thomas Erle were presented to the king, who gave them his hand to kiss, so that the whole company gazed on them and wondered who they were.  “Pray let ten cock chickens and two hens be sent to Thomas Erle’s speedily” Chafin orders, his wife adding: “The Duke of Monmouth’s head was severed from his body yesterday morning on Tower Hill. Blessing to Brats. So farewell, my dearest deare Nancy, quoth Tossey”.

The outcome of the conflict impacted the lives and relationships of many Dorset people. Some were cruelly sent to their deaths, some were shipped-off to far-away shores with no hope of seeing their loved ones again, and some were royally rewarded.

Princess Victoria’s Tour of Dorset

July 1833. Fourteen years before the first railway tracks are to be laid in Dorset, travel is by horsepower or by sea and at Weymouth the population is in festive mood, excited at the prospect of greeting a 14-year-old Princess who will one day be Queen. It was the start of a royal tour to acquaint the people of Dorset and Devon with the woman who one day would rule over the greatest empire the world had ever seen.

Guns were fired as her yacht appeared off St. Alban’s Point and as the ship dropped anchor off the Esplanade buildings and the royal party came ashore in the royal barge, Royal Salutes were fired

Princess Victoria’s home was Kensington Palace, but Norris Castle on the Isle of Wight was her summer base. Accompanied by her mother, the Duchess of Kent, the yacht “Emerald” was towed by a naval steam packet from Portsmouth. With the Princess was her adored King Charles spaniel “Dashy”. The Duchess was “dreadfully” sea-sick on the journey along the south coast, according to Victoria’s diary, which she kept assiduously throughout and which is today preserved at Windsor Castle.

The townspeople of Weymouth turned out and greeted their royal highnesses as illustrious visitors.  It seemed the whole population was proceeding from the King George III statue to the Quay. God Save the King was played as the royal party mounted the King’s Stairs used by King George III on his frequent holidays in the resort; they were then driven in carriages to the Royal Hotel facing the beach.

The following day after an official reception the princess and duchess travelled in a carriage to Melbury House in north Dorset to be entertained there by the Earl of Ilchester.  They were accompanied out of town by many of the inhabitants and a detachment of Lt.Col. Frampton’s Troop of Dorsetshire Yeomanry. Every prominent building in Dorchester was decorated with flowers, and there were flags waving and the sound of bells and cannons as horses were changed en route to Maiden Newton and Melbury, where according to Victoria’s diary they arrived at about 5 p.m.

A visit to Sherborne Castle had been suggested but did not take place. While at Melbury their royal highnesses ascended a tower and had the shapes of their feet cut on the leads. They enjoyed the park, the lake, the great house, and the church.

After a two-night stay the party was on the road again at 9.15 a.m. on August 1 to be “enthusiastically received” at Beaminster, where there were arches of flowers across the road. The carriage passed through the recently opened Russell Tunnel. The Dorset County Chronicle told of “spontaneous outbursts of enthusiasm” being received everywhere the royal party went.  This was at a time when there was pressure for a republic; it was the period of the Reform Act and agricultural disputes, which in a few months would become illuminated as several agricultural labourers from a small Dorset parish would emerge to become those Dorset heroes forever remembered as the Tolpuddle Martyrs.

At Bridport the ‘royals’ were given a hearty reception by the inhabitants but, according to Hine’s History of Beaminster, were angry that they were “not received by the Mayor and Corporation”.  Then onto Charmouth and Lyme Regis, where there were triumphal arches – and where the “Emerald” was waiting. Every boat in port was filled with paying spectators. Here, in 1685, the Duke of Monmouth landed to lead a revolt against King James II. Mayor John Hussey, in his public address, noted that the princess’s visit was taking place on the anniversary of the Protestant Succession to the throne.

Here, as she boarded the yacht, Princes Victoria was reunited with Dashy her dog. Sailing to Torquay, she remarked on the beautiful coastline and cliffs but both she and her mother were sick on approaching Torquay. From there, after an overnight hotel stay it was off by sea to Plymouth for several days in Devon.

On August 7 an informal return trip was made by coach, changing horses at six places including Bridport and Dorchester, with a military escort from Winfrith to Wareham and Swanage. Passing Corfe Castle, the princess noted in her diary some of the climactic events in history that had taken place there. The reception at Swanage was unforgettable for the young princess, and she must have been sorry to leave Dorset as she embarked with her mother on the “Emerald” for “dear Norris.”

It had been close on six weeks of strenuous activity since they left London. The ‘Royal Progress’ was one of a number leading up to the crowning of Queen Victoria. When that happened, exactly five years after her tour of Dorset, the county must have been proud to have been part of the grand design.. In Sturminster Newton, Gillingham, Cerne Abbas, Sydling, and Evershot, there were demonstrations of loyalty on the occasion of the “beloved Queen’s” coronation, but most of all perhaps in those communities the Queen had visited as a girl. Celebratory dinners were held in Ilchester and Lyme Regis, and at Dorchester there was a ball and much merriment at the King’s Arms and a gathering at the Antelope Hotel and a band wound its way around the streets.

Residents of an almshouse in South Street were regaled with roast beef, plum pudding and beer. At Weymouth, meanwhile, all the shipping in the Bay and Portland Roads was gaily attired and there was a procession along the Esplanade. Along the coast at Poole no less than 2,000 Sunday school children gathered for a “substantial dinner”, while vessels at Bridport Harbour were dressed overall.

Victoria, who first learned of her destiny at the age of 10, moved into Buckingham Palace. Her marriage to Albert was to come. She served as queen until 1901, becoming Empress of India in 1876, creating a new ceremonial style of monarchy, with social rather than political emphasis, and thus preserving it, and giving her name to a whole new age of modernism and expansion.

Notes: Extract from Dorchester’s Municipal Records relating to this story:

1833: Aug 2nd. Locket, for ringing on occasion of the Duchess of Kent and the Princess Victoria passing thro’ Dorchester (Per order of the Mayor) £1.0s.0d.

Paid Oliver, Churchwarden of The Holy Trinity (Per order of the Mayor) expenses incurred on the above occasion £1.17s.0d.

Thomas Hine and His Fine Brandy

For those living in Beaminster the name of Hine would have a familiar ring, especially if they live in Hogshill Street. The White Hart brewery, almost half way up the street on the right, was formerly the premises of the Hine family – specifically Thomas Hine, founder of the Cognac-distilling business that bears his name.

Thomas the distiller was born in 1775, one of seven sons of another Thomas Hine and his wife Elizabeth, who also had four daughters (the baptisms of five of these eleven children were recorded in the Congregational Chapel register.) The father, Thomas senior, was descended from the senior of two lines or branches of the family that can be traced back to one Thomas Hine, then landlord of the Three Horseshoes inn in Powerstock, and his first wife Edith. The family line, in which the last Thomas (the Cognac maker) belonged, began with the marriage of the landlord’s son, Thomas Jr, to Elizabeth Daniel in 1762. Elizabeth was the great-granddaughter of the Royalist rebel James Daniel who fought on the side of Monmouth at Sedgemoor.

Thomas Jr became a cloth maker in Beaminster, dealing in products that included drab cloth, sheeting, blanketing, serge, flannel, hankies, thread and buttons. His premises were at what is today No 21 Market Square. Aside from his trade, Thomas was also a leading light of the town’s Congregational Chapel for 50 years. In 1767 his name appeared on a list as a subscriber, collecting funds for repairs to the meeting house. He was admitted as a communicant in 1777 and made a deacon in 1796.

The following year Jeremiah Newman, a surgeon of Beaminster, sold 19 Hogshill Street (later known as Devonia) to Thomas. This building was raised on the site of three former timber houses that had burnt down in the Beaminster fire of 1781. Elizabeth Hine died in 1814, and when Thomas died in 1817 Devonia came into the possession of his eldest son James, who in turn would pass it down to his brother Richard within a year.

Cognac maker Thomas Jr became the best known of the sons of Thomas and Elizabeth. As a young man he may have worked for some time as a cloth maker in his family’s tradition, though unlike some of his brothers he did not remain at home to pursue his father’s occupation. Instead he evidently cultivated an abiding fascination for all things Gallic, notwithstanding the intense animosity prevailing between England and Napoleon’s ascendant Frankish Empire at the time.

Out of a desire to learn the French language and culture, Thomas crossed the Channel in 1793 when the revolution was already underway, and proceeded to Jarnac, soon after which, war with England broke out. Consequently, expatriate Britons or visitors found themselves being promptly incarcerated as prisoners of war, and in September 1793 Hine was himself arrested and imprisoned in nearby Cognac.

As it happened this town, in the French Department of Charente, had been a centre for the distilling of high-quality brandy since the 17th century (the names Cognac or Armagnac incidentally, have also since become applied to the casks or barrels in which brandy is matured.) However, Hine had friends at the town hall and through their good offices and intervention Thomas was released in May 1794.

Once freed, Hine found employment with the local business of Ranson, Delamain & Co., brandy producers of Jarnac. This brought him into romantic contact with Delamain’s daughter Francoise Elizabeth and three years later in 1797 they were married. Not long before or after, Thomas became a partner in the business, and Ranson, Delamain & Co became Thomas Hine & Co., from where the couple’s descendants spread the name of Cognac throughout the world. Thomas had found his vocation for life, and came to serve as an honorary citizen on Jarnac’s Municipal Council for many years until his death in 1822.

Thomas’s eldest son by Francoise became the first first-generation descendant of an English immigrant ever to be elected mayor of a French town. Today the sixth generation of Thomas Hine’s descendants maintain the distilling business at the Jarnac headquarters, from where they distribute their product to 150 countries.

The two lines of the family remaining in Beaminster however, finally ceased in 1939 with the death of Richard Hine, the town’s chemist, but also a photographer, Congregationalist and popular local citizen. He also wrote a history of Beaminster that was published in 1914. When the chapel was closed and converted to use as the museum, memorabilia of this Hine was put on display in the ground floor gallery. Richard was not a descendant of Powerstock innkeeper Thomas by his first wife Edith as the Cognac-making Thomas had been, but by his second wife Lydia.