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December 24th, 2009:

Elizabeth Martha Clarke: “a most kind and inoffensive woman..”

Dec 24th, 2009
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Saturday the 9th of August 1856 saw Dorchester enveloped in penetrating drizzle. This miserable weather did nothing to dissuade the people of the town from being on the streets early, joining many from towns and villages the length and breadth of the county who where already assembling to witness the awful event to take place early that morning. The local newspaper estimated four thousand were out in the town.

Elizabeth Martha Clarke was in Dorchester. She had snatched only two hours sleep that night and declined breakfast deciding instead to make do with a cup of tea, for in a little over an hour she too had to keep an appointment she could not break. Those with her had noticed a quiet determination to see the business through with dignity. However, it is likely her mind was elsewhere probably recalling other times and wondering at the events that had brought her to Dorchester.

She had spent her childhood and most of her early adult years in an area known as Marshwood Vale, a quiet rural part of West Dorset where her father worked as a farm labourer and occasional dairyman and where even today it is narrow winding lanes that pass for roads. Her mother and father John and Martha Clark were married at Burstock on the 18th of February 1800; her mother’s maiden name was Hussey. She was one of eleven children and soon became known simply as Martha.

The 1830’s were the best years of her life. Probably through her father’s work she met Barnard Bearns a widower and a farmer of twice her years; they married on the 27th of December 1831. He came from the village of Askerswell and farmed land in the Powerstock area where he rented a prominent house ‘Meadways’ by the Maggerton River. Now no longer a farm labourer’s daughter, she was a farmer’s wife and content with her lot.

Barnard was for a while an Overseer to the Poor and well respected in the community.  They were happy with each other despite the difference in their ages. Their two sons both died in 1835, William was born in 1832 and Thomas in 1834. On the 4th of May 1840 the couple witnessed the marriage of Martha’s sister Ann to John Record at Whitechurch Canonicorum.

These were difficult times for anyone earning their living from the land. Records show that late in the decade Barnard had financial difficulties. He ceased to be an Overseer to the poor and had to surrender his holdings at Powerstock.

Her husband died leaving her the sum of £50. She found work as the housekeeper to two farming brothers John and Robert Symes who held Blackmanston Farm in the Purbeck hills, quite a distance from the Marshwood Vale. It is likely she knew them previously. Both brothers were born near Powerstock; John in1805 and Robert in 1811 and the brothers habitually returned to the Marshwood Vale to hire their labour. Martha was housekeeper to the Symes brothers for 14 years and John Symes described her as “a most kind and inoffensive woman.”

Also from the Marshwood Vale area was Robert Brown who was dairyman on the Symes’ farm and his son John was employed there as a shepherd. A relationship grew between Martha and John Brown. Despite the fact that she was twice his age the couple married at Wareham on the 24th of January 1852. Soon after their marriage they returned to the Marshwood Vale and the remote hamlet of Birdsmoorgate.

They lived in a house with a small shop from which Martha sold sweets and groceries. Her young husband acquired a horse and cart and set up in business as a Carter. John’s cousin lived in the hamlet along with just a dozen or so other souls including Mary Davis a young woman well known to Martha, who had the other shop in the village. But it wasn’t trade that connected the two women as rather a matter of the heart.

Perhaps it was inevitable in a such a small community that an attraction would blossom between John a young man married to a women twice his age, and Mary a young woman married to a man almost old enough to be her grandfather.

There is no doubt Martha was jealous of the attraction Mary held for her husband. John would come home late, often drunk, offering vague excuses about where he had been. Martha knew full well that he had been with Mary; she had spied on them often enough to be in no doubt.

John arrived home at 2 o’clock in the morning of  Sunday July 6th – he was drunk and vomiting. The couple argued about his supper and where he had been to such a late hour. As was often the case John was being physically and verbally abusive towards his wife when something within her snapped. She retaliated landing several blows to his head.  A moment later and John Brown lay lifeless on the floor. 

Thirty-four days had passed since Martha killed John Brown. In that short space of time there had been an inquest, Martha had been arrested, charged, tried and sentenced. The infamous Jeffreys who held court some two hundred years earlier was not alone in dispensing quick and rough justice at Dorchester.

Early on the morning of the 9th of August 1856 Mary Davis set off from Birdsmoorgate to see Martha Brown but the people of the village of Broadwindsor recognised her and insisted she turned back. There was little sympathy for Mary Davis because people knew that Brown would have been alive that day had she not encouraged his attentions.

Back in Dorchester that same morning Martha had decided to wear a black figure-hugging gown, which showed off her shapely figure. Mr Clementson and the Rev. Henry Moule were with her and gently reminded her it was time to leave: she decided, despite the drizzle, to walk rather than ride in the van.

She climbed the first flight of steps and at the top was met by William Calcraft – the public executioner. He bound her hands and she ascended the second flight of steps from where she could see the sea of faces surrounding the scaffold. She turned to Mr. Moule and thanked him for his kindness. Mr Clemetson had been overcome with emotion and sadness that his efforts to secure a reprieve had come to nought. He was unable to come to the top of the scaffold with her.

Calcraft placed her on the drop, put a cap over her head and adjusted the rope. The bolt was withdrawn and Elizabeth Martha Clarke left this world for a better place where we must all hope she was met with forgiveness and a more sympathetic justice.
 
Her lifeless body hung for the hour dictated by law, viewed by the thousands who had attended this awful event, most of them drawn there by a morbid curiosity. Amongst the crowd was a young man destined for literary greatness: the sight he witnessed that morning stayed with him for the rest of his life. Later the memory of that day was used to dramatic effect in one of his most powerful and popular novels, which is probably why the memory of this most kind and inoffensive woman lives on.

Bridport to the First Charter and Beyond

Dec 24th, 2009
by Dorset Ancestors.
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In 2003 the West Dorset town of Bridport celebrated the 750th anniversary of the granting of its first charter. This account is a short history of the major developments in the town up to that time and thereafter.

Little is known of the settlement of the area where Bridport grew up, prior to the 9th century. The nearest Iron Age fort is Old Warren at Little Bredy. The name also appeared in a document when land at Little Bredy was granted to Cerne Abbey in 987, but few artefacts of the period from about 4000 BC to 43 AD have been found. The Romans appear to have introduced the tradition of cultivating hemp and flax in the rich alluvial soils of the Brit and Asker River valleys, but did not establish any camp or town on the gentle intervening spur between the valleys.

With the incoming Saxon settlers however, the town’s history can be said to begin. Bridport began as an artificial creation in 878 AD first known as Brydian, just one link in a system of fortified burhs built by King Alfred as a defence against the Danes. The land chosen was part of the royal manor of Bradpole, and therefore a crown possession from the start. Brydian was allotted 760 hides of land, and became a centre of local administration and commerce. The burh was surrounded by a rampart of earth, turf and timber, and was probably surmounted by a timber palisade. Within this enclosure the settlement was laid out on a gridiron pattern with a wide main street. This survives in the present town as the southern end of South Street. Within the burh there would have been ample accommodation for tradesmen, and there would have been several churches.

During the reign of King Athelstan (925 to 939 AD) a mint was established in the burh, though the Brydian mint was relatively unimportant. Coin-production here continued until after the Norman Conquest, though this appears to have ceased soon after. As the town was crown property, it is likely that William I ordered the building of a castle at Bridport, and it has been suggested that a slight elevation in the ground to the east of South Street is probably the denuded remnant of the castle motte.

During the Norman period land in the Bridport area not owned by the Crown was mainly vested in the Church in the form of abbeys. A Church belonging to St.Wandrille’s Abbey existed in Bridport in 1086, and is believed to have been the antecedent of the present St.Mary’s. Many other religious houses were already in existence by the mid 13th century.

The main period of urban development appears to have occurred in the early 13th century. The influx of population from the rural manors into the town necessitated an extension of the town boundaries by 1250. By this time a new town had been laid out to the north of the earlier Saxon burh, with two main streets meeting at a T-junction. These streets replaced South Street as the main streets of the town. Trade was then drawn away from the Saxon settlement and towards the new market area with its wide streets and regular burgages. It was the growth in the town’s economy and status, due largely to the stimulation of industry to meet the demand for rope to supply King John’s military ventures, that led to Bridport qualifying for the receipt of its first Royal Charter from Henry III on June 22nd 1253.

This Charter, which had been obtained principally by the Dean of Wells, Giles de Bridport, effectively founded the borough. In the Town Hall can be seen a roll of the Bailiffs from 1290 together with the original precept from the Sheriff of Dorset to the Bailiff calling for the election of two MP’s. Edward I granted the right to return two members, and twelve burgesses were empowered, from which two Bailiff members were elected. It is recorded that Thomas Newburgh and Robert Hill were the first members representing Bridport at Westminster. From early on, a proportion of Bridport’s population comprised immigrants from Normandy.

St. Andrews was the church of the planned town to the north of, but continuous with the Saxon burh and it is noted that this church was in use as a priory by Carmelite friars around 1265. It formerly stood on the site of the present Market House-cum-Town Hall. Buildings originally occupied the space behind the Town Hall, but these were later demolished. St.Mary’s Church in South Street however is almost certainly older than St.Andrews, though much of the present building dates from the 13th century.

However, early in the 14th century there is evidence of an economic downturn, largely attributed to the wet summers of 1315 and 1316 which severely affected crops and food. Bridport was one of the first coastal towns to suffer the effect of the bubonic plague epidemic, during which peasant and labourer mortality was very high. Despite difficulties, Bridport by the end of the 14th century was the fourth largest borough in Dorset.

It is informative to see how the wills of the victims give an insight into the lives of the town’s citizens at the time. Buildings were in multiple occupation and use. Some of the wills mention land suitable for growing hemp. Land seems to have been in small parcels of 1 rood (about 9.75 acres,) and usually left to surviving family members. The forerunner of the Greyhound Hotel, formerly a tavern, came into the possession of the town authorities by means of a reversion included on a will of 1386.

The market function of the town was originally catered for by The Shambles or Butchers Row, which formerly occupied the road intersection area. Documents record that in 1556 Thomas Balston Bocher was granted two shambles in the market of Bridport for his butchery business. However, the ground floor space of the Town Hall to this day is used as a market. Elizabeth I granted Bridport the right to hold three annual fairs and a Saturday market. The broad span of the main streets today reflects the allocation of space for the market, the fairs, bull baiting, the stocks, pillory and even hangings.

Not least among the trades and industries, which had attracted Bridport’s royal patronage, were the net, rope and sail makers. These industries were fully established by 1250, and were based upon hemp and flax grown locally. The ropewalks needed to bind the rope strands together have left their mark in the long alleyways still to be seen off the main streets. Such was the industry’s importance that in 1322 six Bridport ropers were sent to Newcastle to train workers for the fledgling rope industry there. But by the 15th century rope and sail making were already experiencing the threat of competition from low-cost producers in Genoa, Normandy and elsewhere in England.

At first the workers petitioned Henry VII, warning the King that competition from abroad could devastate the economy of Bridport. When a ropewalk was set up in Burton Bradstock, the ropers of Bridport petitioned Henry VIII to pass in 1530 what might be called “the 5-Mile Act.” This act banned the sale of hemp within 5-mile radius of the town other than at its market and for the maker’s own use. This appears to have worked in the short term, for Bridport was able to maintain its lead.

Although critical to the town’s economy and status, the development of the harbour and port is a matter of considerable ambiguity among historians. The earliest reference to a harbour at Bridport appears in Hundred Rolls of 1280. It is noted that ships were coming up the river as far as the borough by1280, indicating that some quay or harbour must have been in existence from 1256. Then in 1388 Richard II made a grant to Richard Huderesfield for the purpose of re-making the harbour, which by this time had evidently fallen into disrepair. Little had been done, though, towards this end by 1392 when the King issued a second grant, this time to the Bailiff of the Vill of Bridport.

The quay facilities did however receive some help in the 1440’s, when ecclesiastical authorities raised funds for its reconstruction and maintenance. In 1619 James I granted Bridport a Charter “confirming the rights and privileges of the borough” and granted letters to the bailiffs allowing them to raise revenue towards the upkeep of the harbour. Then in 1670 Charles II granted powers to repair the old harbour or construct a new one in return for a levy payable to the exchequer. But the serious effort to build a proper harbour was persistently dogged by silting up of the outlet due to drifting Chesil sand, and would not be realised until the early years of the 18th century, even though sea-borne trade continued throughout this time.

Then in 1588 came the Armada. Two sea battles on the 23rd of July could be heard and seen by the people of Bridport. Bridport men in the Dorset Militia followed the battles eastwards overland until the fight died away in the afternoon. For a time afterwards the town experienced economic difficulties due to the familiar problem of harbour blockage. Also about this time Beaminster and Lyme Regis contributed funds for the building of a market and a school, the latter of which is thought to have stood near the present market house.

Bridport was much involved in the emigration to the New World in the early 17th century, and it has been estimated that about 200 local people sailed to Massachusetts between 1620 and1650. At least some of these would have come from the town or its west Dorset hinterland, including Symondsbury and Askerswell. The town was also assisting the policing of the coast, in operations against pirates operating out of Lulworth Cove and Studland Bay. For example in 1613 the Bailiffs of Bridport paid the princely sum of 11s.3d for expenses incurred in the imprisonment of captive pirates. This fact suggests that some kind of harbour was in operation, despite a reference in Queen Elizabeth’s Charter to a blockage by sea and wind sometime after 1619.

During the Civil War, it appears that Bridport did not suffer the degree of damage or casualty as did Weymouth, Lyme, or Corfe, probably because it was not a defended or walled borough. After the Restoration in 1660 the town’s authorities, woefully short of revenue, resolved that repairs to the Church and the roads would have to come out of parish rates. On the 11th of June 1685, the Duke of Monmouth and his rebel army landed at Lyme and immediately moved to attack the militia at Bridport, though this was based at the east end of the town at the time.

Then, 1721 an act of Parliament legislated for a harbour and piers to be built, these being completed twenty years later. To the west of the harbour a shipyard was established which would be a success from the beginning. It is not known exactly when Nicholas Bools (or Bowles) founded the shipyard, but a 52-ton sloop called ‘North Star’ was, in 1789, the first to leave one of the six slipways at the harbour. Between 1772 and 1879, when the yard closed, altogether 353 timber ships were built and launched, often at the rate of four or five a year for several consecutive years. Many of these vessels were involved in the growing overseas trade, exporting cargoes of rope, sail, nets, butter and cheese, while importing mainly coal timber, hemp and flax.

As in many other English towns there grew up a thriving coterie of clock and watch maker-repairers in Bridport from around 1700. Daniel Freake, John Bishop, J Dashwood, W Brown and Adam Cleak were the craftsmen in the forefront of the local horology business. Cleak, for instance, came from a family of Exeter clockmakers and set up shop in West Street. It is interesting that through his sister’s marriage Adam Cleak had a nephew, John Summerhayes Jr, who emigrated to New York and himself established a clock-making business there in about 1820. It should therefore be pointed out that anyone with this or a similar name living in New York State today may be able to claim Dorset ancestry through this single migrant to the New World.

In 1906, discussions on the planning for secondary schools in Bridport took place. The town experienced a drought from July to October in 1911, during which time a Regatta was held at West Bay. Then in the spring of 1913 a Town Council proposition to provide a Municipal Market for livestock caused much opposition. Bridport had at this time about eleven hundred burgesses, who were to be replaced by the Representation of the People Act of 1918.

In its own way Bridport, like every town and village in the land, had to endure the devastating years of the two World Wars. The invasion of Belgium in August 1914 led that November to the arrival of about 40 warmly welcomed refugees in Bridport. During this conflict the town’s industry went into hyper-drive to produce huge volumes of supplies. Between the wars however, there were as elsewhere, definite signs of a recession. A report headed ‘Ropes, Nets and Halters’ made it clear that this industry was showing every sign of decline and contraction.

Bridport marked the 700th anniversary of the first charter in 1953. By this time the harbour was declared to be no longer a profitable operation. Until the early ‘60’s the population of the town was in decline in response to economic circumstances. By 1963 it had declined to 6,530. The old custom of beating the boundaries was re-instated in September 1968.

Peter Beckford – Squire of Steepleton

Dec 24th, 2009
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Regular users of the A350 between Blandford and Shaftesbury are routinely confounded and irritated by a series of hazardous left and right hand bends just north of Stourpaine and someway south of Iwerne Minster. Such bends often arise when the course of a road has been determined by the furlongs and headlands of medieval open-field systems. But the Stourpaine – Iwerne bends are considerably more recent being part of a landscaping re-organisation around an estate owned by one of Dorset’s more flamboyant Hanoverian country squires – Peter Beckford.

Beckford was born in 1740 into an aristocratic family who had made their fortune from the ownership of sugar plantations in Jamaica. His father was Julines Beckford and his mother Elizabeth Ashley, was the daughter of the MP for Bridport. Julines elder brother, known as ‘Alderman’ Beckford was a highly influential figure in Parliament and in the City, reputed to be at the time the wealthiest commoner in England.

Peter spent his later childhood at Steepleton, a house and estate now lying in the loop formed by the road-bends near Stourpaine. Julines Beckford had bought the mansion in 1745 when he became attracted to the brick stables and kennels already on the estate. Steepleton was then still a modest residence but later Julines bought the adjoining estates of Durweston and Shillingstone. This suited Peter’s father, as he was a keen huntsman, but he also indulged a passion for sports, languages, art and music, interests his son inherited. He further added another wing to each end of the house in about 1758.

As a young man Peter Beckford went on a grand tour of Europe and spent a number of years in Italy when he was portrayed with one of his dogs by the painter Batoni and met Muzio Clementi, a musical prodigy who Beckford brought back to live with him at Steepleton. Clementi remained in Dorset for the next seven years before moving to live and work in London.

Beckford was also interested in political economy and Government, being elected MP for Morpeth in 1767 but as he was not of the temperament to apply himself to political duties he later stood down from the seat. In 1773 he married Louisa, the nineteen-year-old daughter of George Pitt of Strathfield Saye (later the 1st Baron Rivers,) but the union was beset with some unhappiness. For a while the couple lived in London, but Beckford’s dislike of the high society of the capital compelled him to return to Stepleton. At heart it was in the role of country squire that he was most content. The Beckford’s first three children died in infancy, but eventually the couple had two surviving children: a son William Horace and a daughter, Harriet.

The incidence of the road re-organisation came about when the landowners of the estates adjoining Steepleton wanted to build a straight and wider road but on a course that would take it across part of the Stepleton estate. They therefore sent their surveyors to Beckford to explain the plan and hoped that he would approve the work, but the Squire of Stepleton was secretly adamant that he would not do so. In a display of insincere hospitality he caused the surveyors to forget the purpose of their visit by entertaining and mildly intoxicating them with glass after glass of spirits. Eventually the surveyors were left with no option but to re-route or improve the road around Steepleton’s tortuous boundary.

Like most of his family Beckford never visited the plantations he inherited in Jamaica, and so had no idea how the life of the slave-labourers contrasted with the cosy, privileged existence of an English country squire. His cousin William had taken the artist George Robertson out to Jamaica in 1774 where he painted a number of landscapes intended to portray the lush vegetation of the island, but which did not give any hint of the poverty and hardships of the slave underclass who worked themselves into early graves to create wealth for their master in England.

However, Beckford’s time abroad as an absentee landlord of extravagant spending beyond his means had led to his estates in England and Jamaica becoming run down and unprofitable. The income from the Jamaica plantations had been falling since the 1770’s as the land became exhausted and the price of slaves and stores increased. For example a Negro slave who cost £25 in 1755 cost £60 by 1770, and the government had increased the import duty on sugar. A series of five devastating hurricanes between 1780 and 1786 compounded the slump. The value of the estates plummeted, and absentee proprietors like Beckford were at the mercy of unscrupulous managers.

To ameliorate growing insolvency Beckford sold the Durweston part of his estates to Henry Portman of Bryanston in 1774, and was forced to mortgage two of the plantations to Baron Rivers for £4,000 in 1778. Hope for the Beckford fortune lay in William Horace’s being able to inherit the Pitt estates one day when Louisa’s brother George – a bachelor unlikely to marry died. But Horace had inherited much of Louisa’s immature and unstable mentality. Beckford’s heir became a profligate gambler who ran up great debts unknown to his father, and eventually had to appeal to his uncle George for £12,000 secured on Peter’s Dorset properties in order to bail him out.

Meantime, out of boredom Louisa was diverted into an affair with William Beckford, the future builder of Fonthill Abbey, though Peter chose to ignore the adulterous relationship. After becoming totally estranged from her husband Louisa went to live in Bath. His wife away, Peter spent his time hunting and building up a pack of hounds (of which he knew each by name.) He commissioned the painter Francis Sartorious, who specialised in animal studies, to portray himself on horseback, with his dogs around him. Beckford also, between 1779 and 1781, wrote a book in the form of a series of letters to a friend called ‘Thoughts on Hunting,’ a treatise that became a best seller.

In 1783 Beckford learnt that Louisa had contracted tuberculosis, and in the hope that a warmer climate might restore her health, he took her to Italy. Louisa however, succumbed and died of the disease in Florence in 1791. She was buried in the English cemetery at Leghorn. But Beckford remained abroad in Italy until forced to return to Stepleton for good when the French under Napoleon invaded northern Italy in 1799, although he returned to Stepleton for short visits a number of times in the proceeding years. His son Horace by then 22, and daughter Harriet returned with him.

Peter Beckford died a sad old man, burdened with worry and debts, at the age of 69 in 1809 and was buried in the church at Steepleton. Though he was a man of many talents, they did not bring him happiness. He lies beneath a tomb with a square entablature bearing the Latin inscription ‘PB Sibi et Suis MDCCCIX’ (Peter Beckford; To Him and To His; 1809.)

William Horace inherited the Pitt estates in 1828, and in accordance with his father’s will assumed the name Pitt-Rivers, becoming the 3rd Baron Rivers. The inheritance however, proved to be debt-ridden, and he drowned himself in the Serpentine, Hyde Park, in 1831. Stepleton remained part of the Pitt estate until 1919, when it was bought by Sir Ranulf Baker of Ranston; he later sold off the house and park.