Biographies

The First Earl of Shaftesbury

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The first Earl of Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, was a quite amazing man who in a frenzied, tumultuous and almost feverish life changed from the Royalist to the Parliament side in the Civil War, later serving under Charles II. He lived from 1621 to 1683, and was only 10 when he succeeded to huge estates at Wimbourne St.Giles in Dorset and elsewhere, his mother having died in 1628. He entered Exeter College, Oxford and Lincoln’s Inn, and was elected MP for Tewkesbury in 1640.

In 1642 he was accompanying King Charles I at Nottingham and Derby, conveyed the offer of the Dorset gentry to support the king, and actually raised foot and horse at his own expense. Yet when it seemed he might become governor of Weymouth he resigned his commission and joined with Parliament. Soon he was in charge of the forces in Dorset, capturing royalist strongholds and taking Corfe Castle in 1646.

From 1646 to 1648 he was Parliamentary High Sheriff for Wiltshire, and in the succeeding years he sat for Wiltshire in Cromwell’s parliaments, served on the council of state and was actually imprisoned as a political suspect in 1659, seized the Tower of London and persuaded the Fleet to declare for Parliament.

In March 1660 he was negotiating with Charles II. Two months late he was admitted as a privy councillor and in June he received a formal pardon for his past actions. In 1661 he was created Baron Ashley and became Chancellor of the Exchequer, and in the following years he received grant of land in Carolina and an interest in the Bahamas. In 1667 he became Lord Lieutenant of Dorset.

He was a supporter of the Duke of Monmouth, and in 1672 we find him approving Charles II’s Declaration of Indulgence for Protestant dissenters. The same year he was created Earl of Shaftesbury. He once annoyed the king’s mistresses by refusing grants of money to them, and he was also opposed to the prevailing despotic rule in Scotland. In 1673 he was dismissed as chancellor, and the next year from the Privy Council and as Lord Lieutenant.

Refusing to obey the king and leave London, he was imprisoned with others by order of the House of Lords in 1677 but released the following year, when he supported the ‘Papist Plot’ scare movement. The same year he was leading the Opposition in Parliament and president of the Privy Council, though he was soon dismissed from office.

After bringing in a Bill to repeal penalties against Protestant dissenters, he was committed to the Tower and charged with high treason in 1681 but was released by a Whig grand jury, and soon after he was planning a revolt in London, Cheshire and the West of England. Escaping to Holland via Harwich, he was made a burgher of Amsterdam in 1682. There he died: his body was brought back to be buried at Poole in Dorset.

Thomas Hardy

Feb 14th, 2011

by Dorset Ancestors.

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Thomas Hardy photographed between 1910 and 1915

Florence Emily Hardy (nee Dugdale)

Feb 14th, 2011

by Dorset Ancestors.

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Florence, Thomas Hardy's second wife and previously his secretary who he married in 1914. Photographed at the seaside in 1915.

Pamela Digby

Dec 30th, 2010

by Dorset Ancestors.

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It is interesting to note how widely those of Dorset origin destined to be famous will eventually travel in the course of their lives. But who would have thought that a girl from a Dorset family, born 90 years ago, would have risen to such a high position in society as to become our most famous prime minister’s daughter-in-law and, ultimately, nearly the most influential non-American ever in US politics? But this indeed was the remarkable destiny of Pamela Digby.

Pamela Beryl Digby was born on March 20th, 1920 into the aristocratic Digby family of Minterne House, Minterne Magna, above the Cerne valley in rural mid-Dorset, a manor which the family had held over many generations from about the mid-16th century onwards. Pamela was the eldest of the four children of Edward Kenelm Digby (the 11th Lord Digby, Earl of Minterne) and Lady Pamela Bruce, being therefore baptized in the name of her mother. Later, Minterne House would become the seat of her elder brother, who became the 12th Earl.

Pamela was educated through private tuition, and then at the instigation of her mother gained a qualification in domestic science. Following a year at a continental finishing school to round off her education, she settled in London for The Season of 1938, was presented at court, then landed a job as a translator (she spoke fluent French) with the Foreign Office. Her Dorset roots, however, may have lain behind the remark she is reported to have made to the high-society women of her inner circle in those early years: “I felt a real country bumpkin”.

But then in September 1939 on the outbreak of war, a phone call became the lynch-pin ratcheting Pamela up the society ladder several rungs at a time and changing her life forever. The caller was Winston Churchill’s son Randolph, then a 28-year-old army officer. Churchill had in fact intended to invite an absent friend of Pamela’s out to dinner, but Pamela instead took up Randolph’s invitation and went in her place. Mutual attraction must then have gone into overdrive that night, for just two weeks later the pair announced their engagement. Churchill Jr married Pamela on October 4th that year.

But from early on the marriage of the younger Churchills was in trouble. In the spring of 1940 Pamela’s father-in-law became Prime Minister and invited her to live in at 10 Downing Street, though it could be said that the reason was not entirely familial. By this time Pamela was pregnant and with the Blitz about to break upon London the move was probably more out of concern for the expectant mother’s safety. And it was here, taking refuge in the cellars of the PM’s London home that Pamela saw out the worst of the bombing in relative security. Her son Winston Jr, the future Conservative MP, was born at Chequers that October.

With the help of Lord Beaverbrook Pamela later secured a position at the Ministry of Supply. She was then 21 years old, but was already about to be swept up by the second of several romantic liaisons in her life. The man in question was Averill Harriman, a 49-year-old Special Liaison Officer to President Franklin Roosevelt, who had connections with the Ministry. Pamela’s affair with Harriman was a diversion from her unhappy marriage, though she did not divorce Randolph until 1947. This second affair initially lasted until December 1941, when Pearl Harbour propelled the US into the war and Harriman was recalled.

Once more becoming available, Pamela embarked upon another romantic tryst, this time with American broadcaster Ed Morrow, well known for his live roof-top reports from London when the Blitz was at its height. The Prime Minister, possibly keen to promote cordiality with the thousands of billeted American troops, is thought to have encouraged Pamela to conduct salons aimed principally at GI’s. At these salons Pamela entertained Generals Marshall and Eisenhower, as well as Anthony Eden, Hugh Gaitskell, and Edith Sitwell.

The war over, the divorced Mrs Digby Churchill and Winston Jr moved to Paris, where the salons became famous with anybody who was anybody in wealth, politics or letters. Pamela’s admirers included the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, the Rothchilds, Duff-Coopers, Cecil Beaton, Nancy Mitford, Frank Sinatra, Porfirio Rubirosa, Ali Khan, Stavros Niarchos, and Aristotle Onassis. Another client was Gianni Agnelli, heir to the Fiat fortune, with whom Pamela embarked upon an affair lasting five years. During this affair she converted to Catholicism, even adopting an Italian accent. After Agnelli, she took up with antiques connoisseur Elie de Rothchild, a romance that endowed her with expertise in antiques.

From 1955 onwards Pamela spent ever more time in the States. This led in 1960 to her second marriage, this time to theatre producer Leyland Hayward, a union that made her an authority on Broadway matters. She also took up her salons again, though this time mainly for a clientele in the arts. As Mrs Hayward, Pamela enjoyed ten years of considerably more wedded bliss than she had experienced with Randolph Churchill.

But in 1970 Hayward died. Four months later his widow was re-united with Averill Harriman, who by this time was 78 and now an available widower. With no war or upheaval to confound their marital plans the former wartime suitors were married in 1971. By this time the statesman had been in the service of every Democrat President since Roosevelt, had been Governor of New York, and had even stood as a presidential candidate himself. With Averill, Pamela travelled widely, visiting Andropov and Gorbachev in Moscow, and had acquired a great depth of knowledge about European affairs.

Harriman introduced Pamela to all the great Democrat stalwarts including Truman, Johnson and the Kennedys. Following personal involvement in the unsuccessful campaign for Muskie in 1972, Pamela then helped with Carter’s successful campaign in 1976. When Harriman’s health was failing in 1980 he is believed to have encouraged his wife to take on his political mantle, but by the time of his death in 1986 the Democrats were losing to Reagan and Bush.

With Harriman gone, Pamela established PAMPAC, a Political Action Committee to organize meetings and raise funds to elect a Democrat president. Pamela is also credited with introducing Bill Clinton to the Democratic establishment and supporting him in his campaign, just as she had backed Dukakis and Gore in 1988. It was even said that Pamela had become the most powerful woman in America after Hilary Clinton. Rumoured to have turned down an offer to be Ambassador to Britain, her knowledge of the country and its language made her the obvious choice for France’s Ambassador instead. So looking at least 20 years younger than her age, Pamela began her new consular career at the US embassy in Paris – still keeping up with her hosting!

Yet despite her youthful lust for life, Pamela Beryl Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman died in Paris on February 5th, 1997 aged 76. On the 13th she was flown back to America for burial in the National Cathedral, Washington. In her will she left her son Winston £6.2 million even though she did not approve of him leaving his own wife.

Today Minterne House is the centrepiece of extensive gardens with streams, lakes & waterfalls; parkland and 20 acres of woodland open to groups by appointment, a far cry from their quiet privacy when a girl called Pamela passed her childhood here 80 years ago.

Newman Flower – Publisher

Dec 27th, 2010

by Dorset Ancestors.

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Newman Flower (see article in the Biographies Category).

Dr. Thomas Sydenham MA, MB – the English Hippocrates

Dec 20th, 2010

by Dorset Ancestors.

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Thomas Sydenham was one of the three foremost Dorset men of medicine (the others were Francis Glisson and Frederick Treves,) but of the 17th century, when scientific and medical knowledge was in its infancy and riddled with superstition. Of his earliest years next to nothing is known, other than that he was born at Wynford Eagle in 1624, the eighth in a family of ten children.

While still in his teens he entered Magdalen Hall in Oxford where at 18 he matriculated as a Fellow Commoner. When Magdalen later merged with Hertford College, Sydenham underwent another two years of uninterrupted studies. But the Principal was a leader of the Puritan Party at Oxford and through his indoctrination Thomas joined the movement.

As the Sydenhams were a military family, Thomas left Oxford in 1642 to fight on the Parliamentary side in the Civil War, in the ranks of which two of his brothers also served, but who were killed in action. Thomas himself was once wounded, while on another occasion he was falsely given up for dead.

He was able to return to Oxford in 1647, where he had the good fortune of an introduction to Dr Thomas Coxe, then treating his brother, and it was as a consequence of this chance meeting that Sydenham was persuaded to take up medicine. He became a Fellow Commoner at Wadham College and in 1648 was created Bachelor of Medicine. However, this BM was granted by the then Chancellor, the Earl of Pembroke, without a degree in the arts first having been taken. Sydenham then later took his MA, but when hostilities broke out again in 1648 he returned to army service for a time as a Captain.

Home again after the war, Thomas married Mary Gee at Wynford Eagle and following his resignation from an All Souls Fellowship, was free to pursue a double career in medicine and politics. After an unsuccessful attempt to enter Richard Cromwell’s Parliament as MP for Weymouth he made his home and set up his practice at Westminster. Sydenham attended lectures at Montpelier, the chief seat of Hippocratism and there learnt the cooling method for fevers, but met difficulties in 1653 when he attempted to enter the Royal College of Physicians, due to an absence of degree documentation. However upon the intervention of Robert Boyle over the admission enpasse, he passed three exams and was then registered MA and MB at Oxford.

Early in his practice Sydenham became pre-occupied with research into finding a cure for gout, a condition in which he had personal as well as professional interest since he was himself a sufferer. When the Plaque struck London in 1665 he moved his family to the country, an action which drew down upon him the approbation of the medical establishment, though he soon returned alone to fight the pestilence. Thus Sydenham showed his more typical humanitarianism and benevolence to his poor patients. He was a physician of noble sincerity. He once allowed one patient the use of one of his own horses when he believed the man would benefit from some riding exercise.

About this time Sydenham published his first book, a Latin treatise on fevers. He was noted for specialising in contagions, but also worked on the applications of quinine and a cooling method for treating smallpox. He was in no small measure responsible for exorcising from contemporary medical practice much of the superstition and quackery, which then encumbered it and was sceptical about the common practice of bleeding for most ailments.

Furthermore, Sydenham insisted that disease symptoms should be observed with great care if a correct diagnosis was to be made. It was this professionalism which gained him a great reputation at home and abroad. He would never prescribe generally accepted medicines or treatments unless they were tried and trusted remedies proved to be effective. With calm logic he advocated the study of symptoms, working with, not against, the natural order, rest, patience, courage, fresh air in the sick room and the use of common sense in applying medical knowledge.

Sydenham’s success caused his rivals to belittle his methods, when it was really theirs, not his, which were inferior. As, ironically, the Sydenham approach was readily sought after by medical men abroad, he was not unduly fazed by criticism. Hi logic furthermore won him the admiration of the Dorset surgeon Frederick Treves, who in support wrote “..he threw aside the jargon and ridiculous traditions with which medicine was then hampered and applied it to common sense.”

It was not until 1676 that Thomas Sydenham became Doctor of Medicine at Cambridge – 28 years after his BA was obtained, and it is thought that the delay was due to his pre-occupation with his practice. But the doctor had little regard for academic honours. His early abortive attempt to gain admission to the CoP as a Fellow was probably due to some internal wrangling, though this is disputed. Sydenham, nevertheless, continued to be held in high esteem.

Thomas Sydenham published five works, all of them a priceless contribution to medicine. He died at his Pall Mall home in 1689, the consequence of a severe attack of gout.

The Stuart Hibberd Story

Nov 28th, 2010

by Dorset Ancestors.

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“Goodnight, everybody, goodnight”

This mellifluous farewell would have been familiar to those with radios tuning in to the then Home Service of the BBC during the post-war years. The “Golden Voice” belonged to Stuart Hibberd, one of the earliest celebrity broadcasters of the Corporation’s early and intermediate periods, who with his friend and fellow Dorsetman Ralph Wightman set an example of a standard in radio presentation, which has now largely lapsed. By the time of his death in November 1983 at the ripe old age of 90, Hibberd could look back on an illustrious career, and one not without its firsts in the field of radio.

Stuart Hibberd was born in the east of the county into a Broadstone family in 1893, and educated at Weymouth College, from where he won a choral scholarship to St. John’s College, Cambridge. On the outbreak of war in 1914 he joined the Dorset Regiment, going on to serve with distinction in the Gallipoli campaign and also with the army in India.

Having survived the war he passed a somewhat aimless and obscure five years, during which time, in 1923, he married Alice Chichester, daughter of Lt Col Gerard Chichester, a senior officer of his former regiment. But the following year Hibberd’s big break came. Spotting a newspaper advertisement placed by the just two-year-old BBC for a Broadcaster/Announcer, he applied for the job and was accepted. Despite being a rural Dorsetian the successful candidate possessed one excellent credential he spoke RP (received pronunciation) which stood him in good stead when he was engaged to fill the announcer vacancy at the then headquarters of the BBC at Savoy Hill.

At this London station Hibberd was soon promoted to Chief Announcer. With impeccable annunciation, his voice soon became the best known on the airwaves. Hibberd was one of the very earliest of the radio newscasters, at a time when the transmission of bulletins was not allowed before 7 p.m. When live outside broadcasts of dance music were begun in the mid 1920’s the studio microphone was fitted with a cut-out switch to prevent dancers from relaying illegal adverts or messages to friends.

The General Strike of 1926 burdened Hibberd and his colleagues with additional responsibilities, as newspapers were not being printed, compelling the public to rely on the BBC for all special news of the stoppage. The Savoy Hill station had to be put under heavy police guard, which was maintained there throughout the ten days of the strike. Because of the extra news, bulletins had to be extended, and senior staff was brought in to help. One rather curious stipulation the BBC made at this time was that all announcers had to wear dinner jackets. Stuart Hibberd did not object to this ruling, but nevertheless hated the tight collars and stiff, short cuffs, which creaked when he was reading on the air!

In March 1932 the Broadcasting House building in Portland Place became operational, and Hibberd made broadcasting history on the 13th by reading the first news bulletin ever transmitted from the Corporation’s new home. The 39-year-old broadcaster initially found the building depressing, though this in no way hampered his professionalism. Few in the media would have been surprised when in 1935 at the age of 42 Hibberd was awarded the MBE for his services to radio.

The Second World War inevitably brought about something of a seismic shift in the BBC’s operations and scheduling, which included the start of regular midday news bulletins. In April 1940 Hibberd was transferred for a while to the BBC’s station at Bristol. Here, he and his colleagues became closely involved with the news flooding in from the many theatres of war and were – by proxy- an indispensable part of the war effort on the home front. Possibly to avoid the stigma of being a non-combatant “reserved occupationists” Hibberd served in the Home Guard in his out of work hours until July 1942, when he was able to return to Broadcasting House. With the slow return to normality after the war, the BBC ventured into new broadcasting territory with shows such as Tommy Handley’s ITMA; Hibberd himself took part- and sang- on Children’s Hour from time to time.

During these years too, Hibberd’s thoughts and philosophy about what made good broadcasting practise crystallised in his mind. Like all experienced broadcasters he was conscious of the importance of writing for the voice, as distinct from the printed page. This had been realised in the early days of radio, when a special technique had to be contrived. But Hibberd went further: he founded a blueprint or guide to good presentation for his successors to follow. For example he advocated that broadcasters should avoid long sentences and instead script those which slide easily off the tongue. Phrases like: “the Soviet & Finnish State” or “extraordinary orderliness of the room” should be avoided. Hibberd also eschewed parentheses, believing their use should be kept to a minimum because of the difficulty in making meanings clear, and the need to vary intonation of the voice.

For their retirement Stuart and Alice made their home in Devon, where sadly Alice died childless in 1977. Stuart always maintained close ties with his native county, and was elected Vice President of the Society of Dorset Men, a position he held for the rest of his life. His book ‘This is London’ is an autobiographical reminiscence of his experiences over 26 years of his broadcasting career and his fond memories of the many personalities he met in this capacity. Referring to the programme broadcast on Christmas Day 1946, he wrote “…the outstanding performance was given by Ralph Wightman, who introduced a man named Cross from Dorchester; he was so homely and sincere in his approach, and forthright too, that I felt very proud of my native county.”

Of Stuart Hibberd himself, it was remarked that he was unusually tall for his time, one of the loftiest men to walk the BBC corridors. He was kindly and courteous, but reticent, and modest enough never to seek fame or accolades, but was always popular with the public and colleagues.

NB: In May 1957 Stuart Hibberd was featured on ‘This is Your Life.’