We believe this lady is a member of the Morgan family of Gillingham, many of whom emigrated to New Zealand early in the 19th century. We would welcome any information about her.
Real Lives
Gundry
Life for the agricultural labourer in the 19th century was difficult. Low wages, little job security and large families made it a struggle for a man to feed, clothe and keep a roof over the head of his family. Some Dorset men moved to Wales to work in the mines, allowing better pay but worse conditions. It was not until the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th that young men in any numbers were able to seek out a better future for themselves.
It would have been difficult for Thomas Gundry to support a wife, six children and his widowed mother-in-law on an agricultural labourer’s wage but he does appear to have enjoyed a measure of job security, for he was able to live out his life in one area: Walditch near Bridport in West Dorset. He and his wife Harriet had several children; his son Walter was born at Walditch in 1849 and later, in 1871, he married Emily Hawkins who he met while living and working at Bothenhampton.
Like his father, Walter was an agricultural labourer and like many other men working on the land in the 19th century he had to take work wherever it was offered. Through out their married life Walter and Emily, with their growing family, were constantly on the move. At the time of his marriage Walter was living at Bothenhampton with his uncle who was a Dairyman; the couple’s first child was born there. Two years later they are at Bradpole and from there they moved back to Walditch before going to Bradford Peverell; then it was onto Portesham, where they stayed for five years before travelling onto Piddletrenthide. Here their last child, Leonard, was born on 14th of October 1889.
From Piddletrenthide Walter and Emily moved to Dewlish, where Walter was working as a Thatcher. Two sons, Frederick and Joseph, were working as Carter Boys and their youngest, Leonard, was still at school. In their sixties Walter and Emily lived at Compton Valence. After 47 years of marriage Walter passed away in 1918 aged 68; Emily passed away early in 1923 aged 76.
At the age of 17 the youngest son, Leonard, was working as an agricultural labourer like his father and grandfather. He wanted more out of life so he left home and took a job with the Eddison Steam Rolling Company of Dorchester and soon found himself driving a steam roller for the Newton Abbot Rural District Council in Devon.
In 1913 Leonard Gundry left Dorset for London, where he joined the Metropolitan Police and served for 26 years; for the last eight years with the police he held the rank of Inspector. His time with the police saw him working in Camden Town, Whitehall, Kensington, Stepney, Bethnel Green, Hackney, Islington and Shoreditch. As a Constable in ‘A’ Division he saw duty at Buckingham Palace, St. James Palace, Marlborough House and No 10 Downing Street.
In 1918 he married a London girl, Ethel Brabham, and had one son, Alfred, who had a career in banking. Leonard Gundry was a man who broke free and secured for himself a better standard of living and a better life.
William George Hawtry Bankes V.C.
The Victoria Cross is the highest military decoration awarded for valour in the face of the enemy. The second Dorset man to be awarded the medal was William George Hawtry Bankes of Kingston Lacy, who was born here on the 11th of September 1836. He was the fifth child born to George Bankes M.P. and Georgina Charlotte Nugent. Educated at Temple Grove, a preparatory school established in 1810 but still in existence today, Bankes later went on to Westminster School.
According to regimental sources his joining the military probably had more to do with keeping in touch with his friends; it seems he displayed little enthusiasm for a career as an officer. Nevertheless, on the 3rd of March 1857 William Bankes was commissioned as a Cornet in the 7th Queen’s Own Regiment of Light Dragoons (Hussars). The regiment left for India aboard the clipper Lightning on the 27th August 1857 and arrived at Calcutta on the 25th of November after an 88 day voyage; the regiment disembarked on the 1st of December and moved to Fort William.
From Fort William the 7th Hussars moved to Rannegaige, arriving in mid-December. In a letter home William commented that the terrain looked very similar to that of Studland Heath in Dorset. From here they moved on foot some seventy miles to Allhabad, the officers being carried in palaquins. Here horses had been acquired by an advance party who had travelled to India earlier. William Bankes reported that it took only two weeks to break in the horses, a remarkably short time. The Regiment set off on horseback to Cownpore and then on to Lucknow.
Regimental records show the 7th Hussars were in active service, escorting convoys from Cownpore to Lucknow between the 4th and 24th of February. The regiment was present and actively involved throughout the operation involving the siege and relief of Lucknow.
The record of these events says : ”On the 19th (March) in a skirmish near Moosa-Bagh, Capt. Slade and Lieut. Wilkin were severely wounded. Cornet W.G. Bankes mortally and two men mounded. The latter officer (Bankes) particularly distinguished himself when Capt Slade was wounded, by gallantly leading the troop and thrice charging a body of infuriated fanatics, who had rushed on the guns employed on shelling a small mud fort, killing three of the enemy with his own hand, and receiving 11 wounds of which he afterwards died, He was awarded the V.C. for his gallantry on this occasion”.
Cornet Bankes was seriously wounded during the attack on Moose-Abagh. He was moved to the military hospital where he had his right arm and right leg amputated by the Surgeon, General Sir Colin Campbell. His Commanding Officer, Colonel Hagart, and Sir Colin Campbell, both wrote letters to his parents informing them of his condition from which he was expected to recover but on the 6th of April 1858 he died from an infection to his wounds. There is an account of his condition at the field hospital. It reads (giving the condition of William Bankes): “… one leg is lopped off above the knee; the other is nearly severed; one arm is cleft to the bone; the other has gone entirely, and about the body are many slashes. When Dr. Russell went to see him afterwards, the brave youngster was quite cheerful and is reputed to have said ‘they tell me, if I get over this I can go yachting…” We believe the Dr Russell referred to is the war correspondent William Howard Russell; he certainly covered the Indian Mutiny for The Times.
As life deserted William Bankes, Queen Victoria wrote of him in a letter to the Princess Royal: “There is a poor young man, of the name Bankes, who has been cut almost to pieces, he fell and was surrounded by a set of fanatics who cut at him, his thigh was nearly severed from his body, and so was his arm! Besides six other desperate wounds! He has had his right leg and his right arm amputated, and yet they hope he will live. This is, they say, the pattern of patience and fortitude”. Later Queen Victoria presented the award to his mother at Kingston Lacy; it is now on display at The Queen’s Own Hussars Museum.
His fellow officers placed a memorial plaque in Wimborne Minster commemorating their fallen comrade. In St. Nicholas Church at Studland there is a stained glass window to his memory and in Westminster Abbey, at the west end of the North Transept, there is a memorial window dedicated to him.
Faces of Trent
This picturesque village with its many stone houses and thatched cottages has changed little over the years. Frederick Treves commented in 1907 that someone revisiting from a century earlier would find little changed and the same could be said today. The births, marriages and deaths in the village have been registered in the Sherborne district since the start of the registration service in 1837 but it was not until 1896 that the parish was transferred from Somerset to Dorset.
There are several photographs in the gallery of inhabitants of Trent who lived in the 19th and early 20th century. Here is what the registers and census returns reveal about their lives.
The Revd. Charles Richmond Tate
Mr Tate came to Trent in 1875 to take up the position of Rector, a position he held until his death in the summer of 1895. He was born at Portsea in Hampshire and moved to Trent from Send in Surrey. The Trent congregation would have noticed changes at the Rectory. The wife of his predecessor was an heiress who maintained a household that included a steward, butler, page and a retinue of house and parlour maids. Villagers would touch their hats and curtsey even to the empty carriage and pair!
Charles Tate and his wife came with no such airs and graces and made do with a cook and parlour maid. He was a fellow of Corpus College, Oxford.
Charlotte Batson
Born Charlotte Garrett sometime around 1827-1830, she was the daughter of William and Mary Garrett of East Chinnock, Somerset. Charlotte’s life seems to have been one of hard work: in the 1851 census she, her sister, and her brothers are all described as agricultural labourers; she was widowed twice. In 1860 she married George Colley, an agricultural labourer – Charlotte at the time was a laundress. The couple lived at Marston Magna with her mother-in-law, Mary Colley (73) who was formerly a glove maker. George and Charlotte had two children: Edward born in 1862 and Sarah born in 1864. George Colley died early in 1874, aged 51 years.
Widowed at 45, it is easy to imagine an offer of marriage, however soon after the death of her first husband, would have been attractive. In the summer of 1874 she married a 72-year-old widower, William Batson, an agricultural labourer who was also Trent’s Parish Clerk.
In 1881 the couple were living at Five Elms, Trent Road, Trent; with them was Charlotte’s son Edward. From the 1891 census we learn that Charlotte is again widowed and working as a laundress living at Wrigs Lane, Trent. By 1901 she has moved into one of Trent’s Almshouses. Charlotte died in the summer of 1908; we believe she was probably a couple of years older than the 72 years declared on her death certificate.
Levi and Mary Garrett
Levi Garrett was the son of Nathaniel and Rebecca Garrett, being baptised at St. Andrew’s Church in the village of Trent on the 24th of August 1823. In the summer of 1850 at the age of 27 Levi
married Mary Bosey, who was 25 years old. The couple spent the first few months of their marriage living with Levi’s widowed mother, Rebecca, who lived to the age of 90. She spent the last six years of her life living in one of the Almshouses, where she died in the Spring of 1867. Mary Bosey was the daughter of Thomas and Ann Bosey.
In the 1851 census Levi and Mary are both described as Agricultural labourers. Between 1852 and 1870 they had three daughters and two sons. In 1901 Levi and Mary were living at The Plot, Trent. Levi died late in 1905; his age at death was given as 77 but his baptism record would suggest he was nearer 83. Mary died the following year.
Henrietta Melmoth
George Garrett was born in 1835 in the village of Trent. The 1870’s seem to have been George’s decade, for in 1871 he was working as a Thatcher and living with his widowed mother, Frances, but by the end of that year he had met and married Jane Hunt. Jane was from Avening near Cirencester in Gloucester, which is where the couple married in the autumn of 1871. Their only child, named Henrietta, was born in the spring of the following year. By 1881 George Garrett had established himself as a farmer with 46 acres upon which he employed two labourers.
Henrietta attended the village school and in 1891 at the age of 19 she was employed at the school as an assistant teacher; the family lived at the School Building in Mill Lane. The 1901 census tells us that George Garrett was still farming at Gore Farm, Trent, and that Henrietta was living with her parents. George Garrett passed away in the spring of 1903.
With Henrietta’s help her mother continued with the farm. In the 1911 census Jane Garrett is described as a Farmer. It reveals that living with the mother and daughter is James Desmond Melmoth, who is described as a Servant and Farm Bailiff. We also learn he is 33 years old and was born in Hampshire.
Jane Garrett lived to see Henrietta and James Melmoth married early in 1916 when Henrietta was 44. Her mother passed away early the following year.
Sarah Hart
Sarah Edds was born in Trent in 1820. In both the 1841 and 1851 census returns she is shown as working as a House Servant to John Pitman. In 1841 John Pitman and his brother are farming at Adber, Trent. John Pitman had returned by 1851 and moved to Queen’s Camel in Somerset; the census for that year reveals that Sarah Edds continues to be employed by him as a Servant.
In 1856 Sarah married William Hart, who was born in Nether Compton in 1808, being twelve years older than Sarah. William Hart worked as an agricultural labourer and died early in 1874. Judging by the 1881 and 1891 census returns Sarah had a pension, probably from her employment with John Pitman. After her husbands death she moved to the Almshouses in Trent where she lived until her death in 1896 at the age of 76.
