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January, 2010:

The 1846 Dorset Summer Assize

Jan 31st, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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The 1846 Summer Assize started with all of the usual pomp and ceremony. The Judges, Mr Justice Erle and Mr Baron Platt, arrived in Dorchester at seven o’clock on the Friday evening and were met just outside of the town on the London Road by The High Sheriff, Charles Porcher Esq., accompanied by his Under Sheriff, Thomas Coombs, Jnr., Esq., and other officials.

The Judges were then escorted in a procession led by a corps of Javelin Men in fine liveries, under the command of Mr. Mark Baker. The Sheriff and Under Sheriff followed in their official carriage drawn by four horses and the cavalcade made its way to the Shire Hall.

On Saturday morning the Judges accompanied by the High Sheriff attended a service at St. Peter’s Church where the Rector, the Rev. J.M. Colson, welcomed them. The mayor of Dorchester, George Curme Esq., was present, accompanied by the borough magistrates and members of the council. The Rev. Charles Baring Coney of Kimmeridge preached the Assize Sermon.

In an address before the commencement of the hearings Mr. Baron Platt commented “there have been great efforts made in this country of late years, by the nobility, by the gentry, by the influential traders of this land, and particularly by the ladies, which I am happy to say have had a beneficial effect.” He went on to say that there had been a real diminution of crime throughout the country but that this improvement had not extended too the southern counties, including Dorset.

The Judge said, “It happens too often that the child of crime, after conviction and suffering punishment, is cast out of prison friendless, characterless, cheerless.” He continued: “surely, gentlemen, it is useful if something can be done for the purpose of giving a reasonable means of bringing back, if possible, this individual to the station he once held in society.” We hear echoes of this today.

It is worthwhile looking at some of the cases heard and the punishments handed down.

William Rideout, aged 56, was before the court accused of stealing six bushels of potatoes, the property of Richard Paviour, at Sturminster Newton Castle. The prosecutor had put the potatoes in a box in his stable from where they were taken. The local newspaper report says “suspicion was excited, and at the bottom of the prisoner’s garden a heap of potatoes was found covered over with grass, just the quantity that was lost, and the same, a mixture of white and purple.” The jury found the prisoner guilty but recommended he be dealt with leniently on account of a long prison sentence he had already served. Mr Rideout was sentenced to be imprisoned for two months, with hard labour.

Charles Barnes, aged 16, was charged with stealing a silver spoon from his master, Mark Andrews, at East Burton. The prisoner left Mr Andrew’s employment without giving any notice; the spoon when missed was traced to a silversmith’s at Wareham. Charles Barnes had sold it for 9s 6d and told the court he had picked it up in the road but the jury did not believe him and found him guilty. He was imprisoned for 6 months, with hard labour.

On a charge of murder was James French, aged 35, found to be suffering from insanity but nevertheless guilty and sent to prison. The following extract from the evidence given by Thomas Jackson to the court provides an insight into life and the sleeping arrangements in a lodging house of that time.

“I keep a lodging-house at Lyme Regis; I knew the prisoner, who was lodging in my house on the night of the 8th instant. At half-past ten at night I saw him in the bedroom, and carried him a cup of coffee; three of my children and John Steers, the deceased, were in two other beds; I saw Steers in bed, and he was asleep at the time I was in the room; I remained about five minutes, and went down to supper, and then retired to bed about eleven o’clock; I saw that French was awake when I was going to bed, and I desired him not to disturb me again, and wished him good night.”

Perhaps the most interesting case to be heard was that of George Boyt, charged with killing and slaying Isaac Gerrard at Corfe Mullen by shooting him. He pleaded guilty and the jury returned a verdict of guilty but without malicious intent. Mr Baron Platt sentenced him to one month in prison without hard labour. Boyt was no doubt relieved at the sentence and probably a little apprehensive when a little while later the Judge called him back before him. The Judge told him he had reconsidered his sentence and because he was convinced there was no malicious intention he reduced the sentence to one week in prison without hard labour. George Boyt was released two days later on the 23rd July 1846.

The First Churchills of Round Chimneys

Jan 29th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Whenever the name Churchill is mentioned people naturally think of Sir Winston of the Second World War, twice Prime Minister, and associate his family with Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire. After all, this was the seat of the Churchills as the Dukes of Marlborough in the 18th century. And, true enough, it was here in 1874 that the soldier statesman Sir Winston of the 20th century was born.

Less well known (if at all) is the perhaps not-so-surprising fact that the great man’s earliest documented ancestor was another Sir Winston, though one who never lived outside of the 17th century.

But this earlier Winston Churchill was no Oxfordian; nor was he a Londoner or a native of the home counties. In fact he was of true Dorset origin, first seeing the light of day in a remote farmhouse situated in the mid north-west parish of Glanvilles Wootton, called Round Chimneys. The three evenly spaced small chimneys which give the farm its name appear in an relatively early photograph, along the apex of a roof sloping much further down at the rear than at the front, but the house also has an economy of windows and smooth-rendered walls giving it the appearance of an American-style farmhouse that would not look out of place in the Allegheny foothills of Pennsylvania.

In 1620 however, when the earlier Winston Churchill was born here, the farmhouse would likely have looked quite different. Although there appear to be no records of who his parents were, they evidently brought young Winston up in the Royalist tradition of a Cavalier. He became a Member of Parliament as well as holding a position in the Royal household known as the Board of Green Cloth. As a Royalist he fought on the side of Charles 1 in the Civil War, but following the defeat of Charles he had to forfeit his estates. As a member of the Board of Green Cloth Churchill may have had a hand in formulating resolutions such as the one passed in June 1681 that cherry tarts should be issued to the Maids of Honour instead of gooseberry tarts, as cherries were cheaper. Later he also joined the only recently formed Royal Society.

It was noted that Winston was a surprisingly superstitious man. Harking on the fact that he happened to be born and baptised on a Friday, he went through life believing it to be his lucky day. So much so evidently, that he saw to it that he married and was even knighted on Friday too, though it is not recorded whether, as he believed he would, he died on that day.

As a loyal and respected member of the Royal household Churchill received a knighthood at some time, either from Charles 1 or 11. In 1648 his daughter Arabella was born, followed in 1650 by the arrival of a son, John, then another son, Charles, after John. It was John Churchill who grew up to be the first Duke of Marlborough and who somewhat eclipsed the obscure and lesser-known standing of his father. But like Winston, John Churchill (or “Corporal John” as he came
to be known) became a Royalist soldier whose advancement was spurred on by his sister Arabella when she became mistress to the Duke of York, later James 11.

When the first Winston did die in 1688 at the age of 68, it was not before he had left a written legacy in the form of a history of the English kings titled Divi Britannici.

John Churchill, who as we have seen was also born at Round Chimneys, was brought up as an Anglican and educated at St Paul’s School in London, where the masters failed to inspire him with any tastes in literature, though he was handsome, with attractive manners. In 1678 he married Sarah Jennings, a lady-in-waiting to Princess Anne, and was raised to the peerage in 1682. He once saved the life of the Duke of Monmouth at Maastricht, though this would later prove to have been a futile and undeserved intervention. For by 1685 Churchill was second in commandof the King’s troops dispatched to suppress Monmouth’s western rebellion, and so was largely responsible for the Duke’s capture and execution. It was as if Churchill had saved a life only to take it later.

Before becoming the founder of the Marlboroughs John Churchill became 1st Baron of Sandridge. Under this title and at the head of 5000 men he defected to William, Prince of Orange in 1688, once James 11’s Catholicism had become notorious and at odds with Churchill’s Anglicanism. After campaigning in the Netherlands and Ireland, in 1701 Churchill was made 1st Duke of Marlborough by Queen Anne and sent by her as Commander-in-Chief of the Anglo-Dutch alliance to fight in the War of Spanish Succession, which brought Gibraltar under British colonial dependency.

Between 1702 and 1711 Churchill was primarily engaged in fighting the French, where his fame reached a climax in the campaign of Ramillies. He drove the French from occupation of Spanish Gelderland, but Churchill’s crowning glory came when he fought and won the Battle of Blenheim in 1704.

The outcome of these campaigns made this Dorset soldier-farmer’s son largely responsible for altering the course of European history by thwarting France’s attempts to join forces with the Bavarians. For these actions a grateful King and country rewarded John Churchill with the gift of the estate of Woodstock Manor in Oxfordshire. Here Churchill built the great palace that upon its consecration has honoured and perpetuated the place name of his crowning military triumph in its own.

Of the Duke, it was said that he never lost a battle or failed a siege. His domestic life however, somewhat tainted the success of his military career. He had to suffer intrigues perpetrated by his wealthy wife who was keeper of the Privy Purse for Queen Anne, as well as becoming her confidant. In 1711 his standing with the Whigs, upon whom he depended, was fatally undermined when, making an ill-judged demand that he should hold a Captain-Generalship for life, he gave his enemies a chance to topple him. Churchill was recalled and politically savaged in Parliament.

Rather than have to face the hostility of his compatriots, the Duke made a quiet retirement abroad. He was made Captain-General by George 1, though he was never considered trustworthy again, and after some years in declining health he died from a stroke in 1722.

Churchill’s eldest daughter was Lady Anne, who married Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl of Sunderland in 1700. Their son, also called Charles, became the 3rd Duke of Marlborough and 5th Earl of Sunderland upon the death of Lady Anne’s sister, who was Duchess of Marlborough in her own right after Anne and Charles had pre-deceased her.

So Round Chimneys Farm played a direct role as the setting for the roots of two of the country’s leading aristocratic families. However, the farm is not the only Dorset connection with the Churchill’s. Canford House, for instance, was once the home of Lady Wimborne, wife of Ivor Guest but formerly Cornelia Spencer Churchill, sister of the high Tory statesman Lord Randolph Churchill. By his American wife Jennie Jerome, Randolph was the father of the latter Sir Winston, who was therefore Cornelia Wimborne’s nephew. Furthermore, Sir Winston’s own son Randolph married Pamela Digby, heiress of the Digby’s of Minterne House.

The wheel comes full circle when we learn that after the Reformation Winchester College granted Minterne House, originally the Manor of Cerne Abbey, to none other than the first Sir Winston Churchill. He in turn left it to his younger son, General Charles Churchill, who also owned a town house in Dorchester which later burnt down in a fire in which his widow perished.

Note: We have received an email from a descendant of the Winston family informing us that the parents of The First Winston Churchill (1620-88) were John Churchill and Sarah Winston, daughter of Sir Henry Winston of Standish in Gloucestershire. Sir Winston received the ‘Winston’ from his mother’s maiden name to keep it in the family. Sir Henry Winston’s line goes back to the Winstons of Tre- Wyn, Pandy, Monmouthshire, Wales who were knights and later gentry.

Cerne Abbas – St. Mary’s Church

Jan 28th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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The worn down curved stone steps at the entrance to St. Mary’s church are testimony to the numbers who have come here to worship over the centuries since this church was built by Benedictine monks around 1300. The first vicar was inducted in 1317. There had been a Benedictine Abbey here since 987 AD – dissolved in 1539.

The difference between the outside and inside of this church is breath taking. Viewed from the outside, as parish churches go, it is ordinary, except perhaps for its tall west tower that has a statue of the Virgin Mary above a large four light west window: it is one of the few not to have been destroyed in Cromwell’s days.

St. Mary’s comprises a tower, nave, chancel, north and south aisles, with a porch off the south aisle. The roof area over the nave is higher than over the two aisles and it is the windows in this heightened area that flood the inside of the church with light emphasising the feeling of being in a large airy and uplifting space. These upper windows, or clerestory, were installed in 1530 by Thomas Corton, the last abbot of Cerne Abbey.

Entering the church you step into the tower area, to each side of you the north and south arches of the first stage of this three stage early 16th century tower: ahead of you the larger east arch and the screen, erected in 1749, leading into the nave. Before you go any further, look upwards at the interior of the first stage of the tower beautifully lit by the large west window – high above you hang six bells.

Proceeding down the nave’s central aisle, over three large slab memorials, to the stone screen with its six lights either side of a central entrance into the chancel. On each side of the nave are four arches and above these are painted shields with biblical texts. The records show that in 1679 Robert Ford was paid twelve guineas for painting three of them. Hanging over the nave a large chandelier probably 18th century, the modern seating replaced the pews during major restoration works in 1960/61. The carved pulpit is dated 1640. The north and south aisles have modern electric light fittings that seem out-of-place.

The chancel’s large east window bathes the area with light and here you can see parts of the original 14th century church. The window includes illustrations of numerous late 14th century shields-of-arms. The lancet windows on each side of the altar are the original early English windows. Recent restoration work revealed the windows and a blocked doorway on the south chancel wall. There is a 14th century piscina in the wall to the right of the altar and what is thought to be a consecration cross can be seen on the north wall of the chancel.

The font located in the south aisle near to the south porch is probably mediaeval, its octagonal bowl mounted on a modern base and plinth. The cover was added in 1963.

About the church are many memorials to many families including Dr. William Cockeram 1679, Thomas Cockeram 1862 and his wife Anne 1847; Robert Farr 1720; Elizabeth Foord 1766 and Robert Foord Snr 1768; George and Susanna Turner 1750; Samuel Randall 1785 and his wife Elizabeth 1769; Thomas Boys 1774, and others.
 The Notley family is referred to in two of the floor tablets in the nave. The family, we are told, were early settlers in America and owned Cerne Abbey Manor in Washington, the site on which Capitol Hill stands today.

We have placed several photographs of St. Mary’s Church in the gallery.

Alice Maud Trent (1887 – 1937)

Jan 26th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Keeping Her Memory Alive

The village of Winfrith, with its thatched cottages, shop and old church, lies equidistant from Dorchester and Wareham in the farming county of Dorset. It hasn’t changed much since 1887 when Alice Maud Trent was born there, daughter of an agricultural labourer.

She must often have walked the four miles over the hills to Lulworth Cove, the beautiful circular inlet where the tides come in from the English Channel, and perhaps she dreamed of other lands, for she was to sail the world’s oceans.

Her father was William Trent, one of 14 children born to his father John Trent. The Trent family was a large group established primarily in the parish of Winfrith Newburgh, and especially in the Blacknoll area. William was baptised in 1852 at St. Christopher’s, Winfrith. He married Arabella Baker in 1874. She was also born in 1852 in the same place and baptised at Winfrith, and both were 22 years old when they married.

The couple had 11 children. William and Arabella both died in 1901 within a few weeks of each other from unrelated illnesses, having been born in the same year 48 years before.

Alice Maud was only 14, and had left home and the village. The most probable explanation for her whereabouts being that she was a ‘living in’ servant. The next sighting we have of her is in London where we know that during WWI she was a member of the Women’s Police Volunteers and was seconded to work with the wartime Ministry of Munitions.

She was, according to Steven Trent Galbraith, her grandson, “a very worldly woman” in the sense that at 36 she decided to go to the other side of the globe. During 1923 she worked as an asylum nurse in Australia, while visiting her sister Emma there.

She decided to return to England via the United States so as to call on her other sister, Sarah Kate now married to Henry Burden, in Brigham City in the far west state of Utah. And here a rather astonishing thing now takes place: she meets somehow or other, at the age of 37, with George Galbraith, 73 – and in May of 1924 they are married. George, who was Steven Galbraith’s grandfather, had an exciting life.

The first son born in the United States of Scottish immigrants, at 19 he was working on cattle drives from Texas to Wyoming. But when she said goodbye to Alice Maud in Australia, Emma could have had no idea that her sister would meet up with a former cowboy.

Robert Galbraith and his wife Helen had come across the Atlantic from Loch Lomond and the Trossachs, via Liverpool with four children. They settled in Illinois.

George was a perfect candidate for the Wild West. He was to have eight children by his wife Grace, and became foreman of a huge cattle ranch on the Utah-Wyoming border. He lost his wife in 1918 when he was 67, and later took his family to Utah where he made a good living from a fruit farm.

When Alice Maud married George in 1924, one of her children by law was older than she. They had a son, William Trent Galbraith, in 1925: he only lived for two days. Three years later Ernest, Steven’s father, was born when Alice Maud was 40.

The Great Depression now descended on the country. And in 1937, Alice Maud passed away: leaving a twice-married widower aged 86, and Ernest, aged 10. Two years later in 1939, George died leaving Ernest an orphan and the remaining half-brothers and sisters ranging in age from 47 to 61. One of the sisters raised Ernest to adulthood, and from the age of 16 he was going to sea, visiting ports all over the world – perhaps taking his cue from his adventurous mother and aunt.

Steven was given the middle name of Trent to keep alive the memory of the girl from Dorset. And he says today, after considerably digging into his family’s history: “The night before I married Lori, my wife, my Dad pulled me aside and gave me the ring that his father married Alice Trent with. Then, when my son Joshua was born, I named him Joshua Trent Galbraith….”  Steven hopes and expects Joshua will similarly name his first son.

It was back in 1985 that Steven started on his genealogical journey, with very little to go on, one of the family having destroyed all the documents and photographs of Alice Maud that she could find. A few have survived.

We have only the briefest information about the youngest sister Alice Emma Trent, baptised March 10, 1895. She was only six years old when her parents died and it is likely she lived with the eldest child in the family, Rhoda Trent. She had married and was still living in Winfrith. All we know about Alice Emma is that she travelled to Australia where it is believed she married a man named Ernest Cummings and lived in New South Wales.

It is worth saying something about Alice Maud’s sister Sarah Kate. We know she was at home in 1901 when she would have been 16 years old. The next we know of her is that she is in the United States working as a maid in the household of Lord Bryce, the British Ambassador.

She decided to stay in the United States and travelled to Brigham City, on the shores of the Great Salt Lake and surrounded for hundreds of miles by mountains up to 10,000 feet – a vast contrast to the rolling wolds of native Dorset. Here she married Henry Burden. We think there is little doubt she knew him before travelling because he, like her, was from Winfrith.

In June 2002 Steven and Ernest came to Dorset: they met Trent family descendants still living in the area and others travelled to meet them.

Steve related how when a 12 year old boy his Mother had told him how difficult it had been for his father as a youngster and how other family members had “tried so hard to destroy the memory of Alice Maud Trent.”  Steve says “ She and my Dad in a way to keep her memory alive, gave me Trent as a middle name and they asked me if I would like, it would be a nice thing if I did the same if I ever had a son.”

Those few days in Dorset the culmination of years of searching mean Steven has fulfilled a promise he made 36 years ago, when as a 12 year old boy he pledged he would find her and keep her memory alive.

More photographs of Alice Maud Trent and a photograph of Steven Trent Galbraith with his father Ernest taken during their 2002 visit to Dorset, can be found in the gallery section.

Ernest Galbraith passed away on the 28th June 2003.

Photos in the gallery

What the Papers Said

Jan 26th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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In January 1901, the captain of a Spanish steamer died after his ship was swept against a breakwater in Portland Roads. The lifeboat was manned and launched but could not get near the breakwater on account of the sea which was being swept by a violent gale.

The steamer named the Encourt, was from Bilbao and was bound there in ballast from Rotterdam. The crew of 26 were taken to the breakwater fort, and later on board another Spanish vessel. Their ship was badly holed and lay with a list, and sank in nine fathoms of water with the skipper on board.

Along the coast, the seas were high in West Bay, where a boat sank in the harbour. The gale blew down trees, took the roofs off houses, and made the streets dangerous.

Watchnight services had been held in the churches, reported the ‘Bridport News’ of January 1901. There the last moment of the dying year and the opening of the new, were spent in worship and in the parish church the hymn ‘O God our help in ages past’ was sung. Services were also held in the Wesleyan, Baptist and Unitarian chapels.

Meanwhile, far away in South Africa the Boers were making determined attacks and British officers were being killed and wounded. During a fog the Boers were repulsed with a loss of 24 killed including four officers.

In New York, influenza was raging, and a typical headline was: ‘Grip’ reigns in New York.’ Grip was the popular name for ‘flu. It was estimated that nearly 200,000 people in and around the city were suffering from it and it was now in an epidemic state all over the country. Even President McKinley was a sufferer but was recovering.

A great century of progress had closed, with momentous events concerning the British Empire. It was hoped that the enemy would lay down their arms. Dorset had provided horsemen and foot soldiers, meanwhile the Ashanti campaign had been brought to a close in West Africa, and an international force had defeated the aims of the Boxers in China.

Many Bridport bluejackets were in the thick of the fighting in the attempt to relieve Peking. While down under, Lord Hopetoun had been appointed the first Viceroy of Federated Australia. The Indian famine called for public subscription, and Paris had held its great exhibition, though at this point in history Great Britain had more friends in Germany than France. Away East, the Spanish had lost the Philippines to the United States.

Here in this country, the Conservatives had been returned to power and Lord Salisbury was Premier. Dorset again returned a quartet of Conservative members. Mrs. Gladstone, widow of the famous Prime Minister, was buried beside her husband, and the death of Sir Arthur Sullivan, called the greatest of British composers and a marvellous musician, had occurred. He was buried in St. Paul’s. The Bridport paper reflected on all this news.

On that south Dorset coast and going back a century, on August 19, 1800, three women and an infant were struck by lightning, and the infant, who turned out to be the fossilist Mary Anning, was resuscitated by being put into a warm bath. What would have been lost to archaeology if she had not been put in that bath?

Early in the 19th century fossils began to attract local geologists, especially John Crookshanks (alias Lock,) who committed suicide in 1802 because his yearly stipend for collecting fossils was discontinued! And Richard Anning (father of Mary) fell over the Charmouth cliffs by night, did not kill himself, but died soon after, in 1810, of consumption.

It was in the following year, 1811, that Miss Anning found her famous ‘crocodile’ fossil, and sold it to Mr H. Henley, lord of the manor, for £23. It was later presented to the British Museum.

The population of Lyme in 1800 was 1,535; in 1810 it was 1,925. In 1803, three seats were set up a yard from the precipice above the sea beyond the churchyard. The Church Cliffs in those days formed “the great place of resort, the Mall of Lyme, where the belles of the place and the sons of the aristocracy enjoyed the sea breeze.” There was no marine walk then.

People in the early 1800’s were still talking about  “a very singular fish” 14 feet long with a tail three feet wide, a circumference of six feet, and with long jaws, which came into the Cobb and was taken. In 1803 a great fire destroyed 42 houses near the Independent Chapel. It started at a baker’s.

In 1817, a breach of 192 feet was made in the southwest part of the Cobb, and several vessels were driven ashore or sank. The Cobb had to be repaired, and work costing well over £30,000 was carried out in the next nine years. Between 1810 and 1816 the annual average of vessels entering the Cobb harbour was 318.

We should be making a mistake if we thought that indecency offences were new: that Bridport paper at the beginning of the 20th century reported that at Weymouth County Police Court in early 1901 a sub-postmaster was summoned “in several instances for such offences of a serious character against young men.”

And a Royal Commission had been appointed to make investigations regarding the “beer poisoning epidemic.” Sickness and death had been caused in England and Wales through poisoning by arsenic.

Newman Flower – Publisher of Distinction

Jan 26th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Within the great cradle-roll of Dorset’s famous sons the name of Newman Flower is one not likely to be immediately recognisable as are, say Thomas Hardy and William Barnes. Yet in his chosen career he achieved outstanding success, and without him and the other practitioners of his profession the works of the great literary giants like Hardy may never have reached the printed page.

Newman Flower was born in the village of Fontmell Magna in July 1879, the eldest son of the village brewer. Being the elder son it was his father’s wish that he should succeed him in the business, but young Newman was a cerebral lad with far loftier leanings towards the literary world. These aims were further fostered at public school, especially when the boy was required by his father to help him out with the gruelling brewery work during his holidays. Then came the fateful day when he would at last confront his father and tell him that he did not wish to make his living as a brewer, but as a writer and publisher. So when his schooldays were over Flower took the “long white road” out of Fontmell shook the Dorset chalk from his feet and went to London.

As a consequence of following up a job lead he had spotted advertised on a board in an alley one hot summer day, Flower landed his first position as an editorial junior on a military paper called ‘The Regiment.’ Over the time he worked on this paper he acquired a yearning to break into Fleet Street to edit a magazine. To supplement his income in the meantime, he wrote articles for various publications as a freelance, though at first most of these were rejected by the editors he sent them to. However a feature he wrote about train drivers, as well as a few other articles were eventually accepted.

Then came his first big break when W.T. Madge, the proprietor of ‘The People,’ had Flower recommended to him as being the ideal man to write a weekly military column for his daily paper. Ideal, because during his years on ‘The Regiment’ Flower had acquired a considerable wealth of military knowledge. Having passed the test of a specimen article, the ambitious young sub-editor then left ‘The Regiment’ to join the staff of ‘The People’ for the next sixteen years under the alias of “Tommy Atkins.” Flower had realised his ambition: he had arrived in Fleet Street.

But then a more draconian initiation into journalism awaited him; Flower received an invitation from a Harmsworth press editor called Charles Sisley to join the company, which would eventually become Northcliffe Press. Sisley needed a new sub-editor for one of his magazines. Newman then agreed to join Harmsworth’s on the condition that his salary should be supplemented at reduced rates for what he wrote. But Flower had entered a hard school, and Sisley was a hard and humourless taskmaster. He invariably had some criticism about Flower’s weekly paste-ups for the magazine he was working on. Then in 1905, three years after Flower joined Harmsworth’s Sisley had a major disagreement with Alfred Harmsworth (later Lord Northcliffe) and resigned. The “apprentice” was then left to run the magazine as best he could.

Largely out of desperation about the uncertainty of his position, the acting editor wrote to his friend Max Pemberton, asking if he could arrange for him to meet Sir Arthur Spurgeon, then General Manager of the Cassell publishing company. Its founder John Cassell, a Manchester temperance preacher, had built up the business from printing the labels for the tea he was buying up and re-selling in shilling packets as a weapon to fight alcoholism, among the northern industrial masses. But at the time of Newman Flower’s application Cassells was in the red and making heavy losses through incompetent management at board level. After telling Spurgeon that he had decided to accept an offer he had made to join Cassells, Flower learnt that the publishing house had made a £16,000 loss the previous year and the following year’s figures would be worse still.

Yet gradually the paper on which young Newman was employed began to see a revival in its sales. Encouraged by this turn-around Spurgeon invited Flower to design a new fiction magazine. During a holiday in Normandy the latter sketched out the format for the periodical the two men would name ‘The Storyteller.’ This magazine had to be brought out on a shoestring budget of just £1,600, yet it took newsagents by storm. When Flower resigned its editorship 21 years later he found that his creation had netted for Cassells £262,000. Flower had succeeded where the “greybeards” of the board had failed; he had put Cassells back in the black.

Flower then gave up the editorship of all his magazines and bought Cassells from Lords Camrose and Kemsley so that he could devote himself to his growing interest in developing Cassells as a book-house. It was then 1928 and he was 49. He had been publishing magazines for a quarter of a century, and would be publishing books for a quarter of a century more. Through ‘The Storyteller’ he had already published part works of Rudyard Kipling (whom he had met on a train;) G.K. Chesterton, Somerset Maughan and Phillip Oppenheim. But the 25 years or so he would be publishing authors inevitably brought him into intimate contact with many great literary figures.

Under Flower’s management Cassells published Churchill’s ‘Second World War.’ He saw into print Earl Jellicoe’s ‘The Grand Fleet,’ Frederick Treves’ ‘The Elephant Man,’ and H.H. Asquith’s ‘Fifty Years of Parliament.’ He further published or befriended among others R.C. Hutchinson, Lords Curzon and Birkenhead, H.G. Wells, Stefan Zweig, Sir Evelyn Wood, and edited the journals of Arnold Bennett.

But Flower was no mean writer himself, and through Cassells he published several books including some about the two great loves of his life: classical music and gardening. These were ‘G.F. Handel’ (1923;) and ‘Through My Garden Gate’ (1945.) From 1914 to 1920 he was honorary editor of ‘The Dorset Yearbook;’ in 1938 he was knighted.

During the Second World War, La Belle Sauvage, the ancient building off Ludgate Hill which Cassells, occupied was struck and burnt down by a German bomb. In 1947, the horror over, Flower decided to retire from active directorship of the company to make a new home with his wife and son Desmond at Tarrant Keyneston near Wimborne. Here he wrote what is probably his best-known book ‘Just as it Happened’ (1950) which virtually serves as his autobiography-cum-memoirs.

In his business dealings the reputation of Newman Flower is of one considered to be a stern critic but enthusiastic promoter. He was shrewd yet kindly, always willing to give new writers constructive advice. Flower also was actively involved in animal welfare and indeed made several bequests to animal organisations in his will. His propensity for readily seeking out, and befriending authors, even those who did not publish with him, is legendary. One memorable instance of this came during the First World War when he called on Thomas Hardy at Maxgate, the house the author had designed and built for himself, to commission from him a poem for ‘The Dorset Yearbook’ which, as has already been mentioned he was then editing. Hardy gave him the poem “…and something that was far richer: his friendship to the end of his days” as Flower later wrote. Some years later – towards the end of Hardy’s life – Flower, his wife and son, took Hardy and his wife Florence on a memorable picnic by car one blazing summer day, during which they covered many miles of rural Dorset.

The Cassell chief’s general good fortune was well demonstrated on another occasion, this time in 1912 when beneficent fate intervened with an illness and operation. By the time he had recovered, the Titantic – on which he was to have booked a passage – lay broken in two on the bed of the Atlantic. Flower’s operation paradoxically had, of course, saved his life.

After fifty years in publishing (40 with Cassells) and 17 years of fruitful retirement Newman Flower died at his home in Tarrant Keyneston on the 12th of March 1964, aged 85. Such was his fame by that time that on April 1st a memorial service was held for him at St. Pauls, in the presence of noted authors, editors and publishers, as well as of course the then Chairman, Directors and staff of Cassells. The author Ernest Raymond, who’s first book ‘Tell England’ had been published by the company after 11 rejections from other publishers, and whose later works were accepted by Flower personally, gave the address at the service. The music of Handel, which Flower had loved so much, was played on the organ.

William Hall – Gamekeeper

Jan 24th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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William Hall was the son of Leah Hall; he was baptised at East Burton, a chapelry of Wool, on the 13th of September 1867. In 1861 Leah, a laundress was working at Melbury House, in Melbury Sampford, the home of the Earl and Countess of Ilchester. She was one of twenty-four servants: the Earl’s bailiff and gamekeeper had cottages on the estate. Later in his life William Hall would be employed by Ilchester.

Leah Hall later married Josiah Pople but it seems William did not live with his mother. The 1881 census for East Burton by then in the parish of Winfrith Newburgh, has him living with his grandfather Joseph Hall and aunt Isabella Hall. There is nothing to suggest he was ever adopted by Josiah Pople.

William married Sarah Anne Longman in 1889. Usually the column on a marriage certificate referring to the father is left blank in the case of an illegitimate child marrying. However, in this case William declares his father was William Hall (deceased) – was this for appearances sake? We are left to wonder. A strict interpretation of the baptism entry at East Burton suggests he was baptised William Hall Hall and his civil birth certificate leaves no doubt about his illegitimacy. The practice of using a surname as a middle name was often used by single women to name and perhaps shame the child’s father.

The Overseer’s records for Wool and Winfrith have not survived and it is impossible to say if a bastardy order was ever issued against anyone in respect of William. Interestingly, if we could say for certain that no bastardy order was issued that might tell us something, but it seems we will never know.

In a conversation with William’s son Frank and daughter Elsie on 25th of August 1970 at Lympstone in Devon, I learnt “He was a gamekeeper and worked for Lord Ilchester in Dorset. Then, he worked for the Honourable Mark Rolle in 1899. The family lived in Torrington (Devon) for 8 years. Then, he worked for Lord Clinton who inherited from the Rolle estate. He was working for him in 1911 when the picture of him standing with his gun and dog was taken.” (Photo in the gallery.)

William Hall, gamekeeper, lived in Evershot and Gershot, Dorset, until at least January of 1892 when his son, Fred, was born at Gershot. Sometime thereafter the family moved to Somerset where a daughter, Mabel, was born at Queen Camel. Then before the birth of son Frank, in April 1899, the family moved to Torrington in Devon where daughter Elsie was born in April 1907. The family lived in Merton, Devon at some point.

After starting his working life as a groom, William became estate gamekeeper to Lord Rolle and Lord Clinton on their Devon estates. William is listed in the 1901 census at Greater Torrington, Devon, aged 33, his occupation given as gamekeeper and that record confirms he was born at Winfrith, Dorset. He is described as a gamekeeper on the marriage certificate of his son William, in 1916.

His grandson, Norman Hall, told me during a conversation in July (2006) that William “used to train wild dogs – domesticated them…he had a special way with animals.” After his retirement, he used to visit his eldest son, William, and his family every Saturday, coming from Colaton Raleigh with chickens, eggs and butter for them.

He was 75 when he died and his occupation is listed as Estate Gamekeeper. His eldest son registered his death. William Hall is buried in the churchyard at Colaton Raleigh with a holly tree nearby.

Note: There is a photograph in the gallery of William Hall with his wife and children.

Charlie Brown

Jan 24th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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“Speak up boy.” The sound of Mr Justice Burrough’s bellowing voice travelled round the Dorchester court room at the Summer Assize court of 1818.  The instruction was addressed to the eight year-old boy standing in the witness box. The boy was Charles Brown, a witness for the prosecution at the trial of 28 year-old John Gallop accused of “feloniously, wilfully, and maliciously, and with malice aforethought, assaulting a woman with both his hands at the parish of Bere Regis and by squeezing her throat, mouth and nose, caused a suffocation, whereof she almost instantly expired.” The murdered woman was Priscilla Brown, the boy’s mother; she was killed on the 14th of May 1818. It seems days earlier Priscilla had told John Gallop that she was pregnant with his child.

Charlie, his head, just visible over the witness box, was examined by Mr Banks, counsel for the prosecution. Charlie told the court that he knew the prisoner and had often seen him at his mother’s house. On the Wool Fair Day, Charlie went on, “The prisoner called him out – I was pretty sure it was he by his voice; it sounded from the back door, which leads to the garden.” His mother was at work in the house and there were stones flung three times against the door. Charlie said “my mother went first to the front door then to the back door. Then the prisoner spoke to her; she went out at the back door and went up the garden.”

John Gallop called Thomas Clinch to contradict Charlie’s evidence even though the Judge advised him to consider what he was doing before he called the witness. After Clinch had given evidence Mr Justice Burrough observed that instead of contradicting the evidence of the boy he had confirmed it. Gallop had sealed his own fate.

Several people from Bere Regis were called to give evidence for the prosecution including Thomas Homer, a farmer; John Sexey, Ann Loveridge, Elizabeth Rose and Benjamin Romain with whom John Gallop lodged. Page Ross, a servant, Elizabeth Harris who lived at Affpiddle and Sarah Welch of Bere Regis also testified against Gallop.

Charlie had concluded his evidence saying “She had no bonnet on; she never came back any more. Some time afterwards she was brought home dead.” Gallop was found guilty of murder and hanged.

Eight years earlier his arrival into the world was announced with these words; “16th of December 1810 Charles, bastard son of Priscilla Brown,” They appear in the register of baptisms at the church of St. John Baptist, Bere Regis. Here he spent his life, a life that spanned the allotted three score years and ten and three more, all spent working as an agricultural labourer and bringing up a family.

There was little doubt Priscilla’s boy would be a charge on the parish chest and the Churchwardens and the Overseers to the Poor would have examined Priscilla Brown to establish who Charlie’s father was. On the 15th of June 1811 six months after Charlie’s baptism the Justices made an order against Thomas Welch who they were satisfied was the boy’s father.

Welch was ordered to pay the sum of forty shillings “towards the costs of the lying-in of Priscilla Brown and the maintenance of Charlie to the date of their order.” Additionally, the father was to pay two shillings a week for Charlie’s maintenance.

After the death of his mother he would have had little option but to get on with his life. Any counselling amounting to little more than sympathetic whispering behind his back and this would have quickly evaporated. We don’t know who looked after Charles in the years to adulthood and the events of 1818 were, it seems, quickly forgotten, overtaken by the instinct to survive.

The next milestone in Charlie’s life was his marriage. The church registers inform us that on the 3rd of March 1834 Charles Brown and Elizabeth White were married. According to censuses Elizabeth was born at Bloxworth or Kingston, both places near to Bere Regis. Their marriage was witnessed by George Phillips and Isabella Stickland and sealed a partnership that was to last half a century.

Charles named his first child after his mother. The 1841 census has Charles (30); Priscilla (25); with Elizabeth (7); William (4), and Charles (2). (We have to accept the enumerator switched Priscilla and Elizabeth when listing the family.)

Priscilla earned a living as a button maker and in 1851 she was living in Bere Regis but not with her parents and siblings. By 1861 she was working as a cotton Glover and is back with her family at No.1, Tower Hill, Bere Regis. A search of the records at Bere Regis revealed nothing further about her only that she witnessed the marriage of her brother George Brown in 1865.

Priscilla had three sisters and five brothers. The sisters were Maria born in 1849; Sarah born in 1855 and Charlotte born in 1857. We know that Maria and Sarah died and were laid to rest at Bere Regis on the 7th of October 1855 and the 24th of August 1862. Charlotte moved away. The brothers were William born in 1837; Charles 1840; James 1843; George 1846, and Thomas born in1852.

Elizabeth Brown who survived her husband by 17-years, lived to see the dawning of the 20th century and could look back with some satisfaction over the half century she spent with Charles. Two of their children died in their single years and she out-lived at least one of her grown-up children but for the times this was not unusual. She was blessed with seeing grandchildren married and the arrival of several great grandchildren and it is worth looking back over some of their lives.

Of the boys, William was the first to marry in 1862. Next was Charles in 1863, his bride being Mary Hawkins of Winterbourne Kingston. Charles and Mary had two sons and four daughters. Then on the 15th of March 1865 George married Agnes Cheesman of Winterbourne Kingston. We know from the 1881 census that William married Mary a girl from Wool and in 1881 they were living in Battersea where William was working as an Engine Driver at a factory. Records show they had taken in two lodgers.

In 1871 Charles and Elizabeth were living at 7 West Street, Bere Regis; their daughter Charlotte who was working as a cotton Glover, was with them. Ten years later Charlotte was in Holdenhurst, Hampshire, where she was employed as a domestic servant to a wholesale grocer. Next door at 8 West Street was their son George, his wife Agnes, and their three children: Henry James, Amelia Mary and George – in 1882 another son, Tom, was born.

Of Charles’ grandchildren we know that Sarah Ann, the eldest child of his son Charles, had a child, Alfred Charles, in 1881; he died in 1882. On the 3rd of February 1887 Sarah Ann married John Bright, a widower. Sarah’s grandmother, Elizabeth, signed the register as a witness.  John was 12 years-older than Sarah and brought a son and two daughters, all under 10, to the marriage, so Sarah had to adjust in short order to being a wife and a mother. She would have had some experience with children as her siblings were between 10 and 18 years younger than she was. In 1891 John and Sarah Ann had a child they named Edwin John. Over the next decade they had another son Charles and two daughters; Louisa and Florence.

Neither her father nor her grandfather was alive to witness the marriage of Mary Jane Brown, a dressmaker, the daughter of Charles Jnr (he passed away in 1892) to grocer’s assistant Walter Langdown. The ceremony took place at Bere Regis on the 15th of August 1898 and a year later they had a son, Frederick, and early in 1901 a daughter, Mabel.

There can be little doubt Charlie knew who his father was but he chose to be known throughout his life by his mother’s name. He passed away on the 1st of August 1884 aged 73, just five months after celebrating with Elizabeth 50 years of marriage. He died of a diseased heart and his death was registered three days later by his daughter-in-law, Agnes, wife of his son George. Elizabeth, who was known as Betsy, lived for another seventeen years passing away early in 1901 aged 92 years; she spent the last few years of her life living with her son George and his wife Agnes.

His mother’s death is recorded in the registers of the church of St. John Baptist at Bere Regis without mention of how she met her death and whether or not she was with child. The entry reads “Priscilla Brown was buried May 17th 1818, aged 32 years.”

Elizabeth Muntz

Jan 20th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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People out walking along a path near the Purbeck coast for a time during the late 1940’s may have been surprised by the regular appearance of a woman in a duffel coat and boots, riding a pony with a spaniel keeping pace beside them. The woman was Elizabeth Muntz, then almost 40, and her rides along the coast path in those years were not simply for pleasure, but to undertake more work on an ambitious piece of craftsmanship: one of many which she would become famous throughout her adopted county and far beyond.

Certainly to many, Elizabeth Muntz would have been regarded as a Dorsetian. For most of her life her home and her base of operations were in Dorset. Several of the splendid sculptures of her life were made for, and reside in Dorset. Muntz lived with her sister, and both women died and were buried in Dorset. Yet this renowned sculptor was born and raised in Toronto, Canada – over three thousand miles from the county in which she made her home so early in her life.

She studied at the Acadamie Grand Chaumier and Boudelle in Paris, as well as in London under Frank Dobson RA. Her work was first shown publicly in 1928, a piece in yellow Mansfield stone, though Muntz also worked in bronze and some other metals. One of her bronze sculptures – a double figurine of a woman and a baby – prompted the famous sculptor Jacob Epstein to remark that it was “decidedly the work of a woman”. But she was an all-rounder of great skill, a polymath of the arts. Small wonder that many architects found in Elizabeth’s work the inspiration for works of their own.

With her sister Isabelle Hope Muntz, a noted historical novelist, Elizabeth settled in East Chaldon (Herring), acquiring two adjoining Elizabethan cottages she knocked into one to accommodate her studio using, it is said, timbers from a Spanish Galleon wrecked during the Armada. She named this cosy retreat Apple Tree Cottage, because at the time of the purchase an apple tree was the only thing to be seen growing in the garden. But possibly her choice of this home was a strategic one, for it was conveniently close to the Portland and Purbeck quarries from which she would obtain the stone for her remarkable sculptures.

Though she never married or had any of her own, Elizabeth Muntz had a lasting affection for children, who were so often the inspiration for her drawings, paintings and sculptures. Once, a seven-year-old local boy sat for her as she produced a series of sketches of him. For a time during her long years at Apple Tree Cottage her studio doubled as a successful summer school for enthusiastic young people to come and learn painting, pottery and sculpture. Flowers, fruits and cheeses also particularly inspired her. Elizabeth even co-authored a story for children called ‘The Dolphin Bottle,’ which she also illustrated.

Other subjects for her sculptures were decidedly more unconventional, yet they nevertheless demonstrated her versatility. One of these was a replica of Margaret Alice, a cutter that used to be seen sailing in Lulworth Cove and Ringstead Bay. She expended four years in producing a replica of a Cotswold Manor called ‘Child Court,’ was then presented to the Heritage Craft Schools and Hospitals for crippled children in Chaley, Sussex.

1936 also saw Muntz holding winter instructional classes on Sculpting at a school in London. But it was around 1949 that she undertook one of her most demanding commissions. Llewylin Powys, the youngest of three literary Dorset brothers, desired to have a memorial in stone set up to him. He invited Elizabeth to his home to produce an extensive series of drawings which would be used as a blueprint for a sculpture carved from a single one-ton block of Portland limestone. Before his death in 1939, Powys had chosen the location for his memorial: a cliff-top vantage point near White Nothe in Purbeck.

Since the Powys memorial had to be sculpted in situ, Elizabeth Muntz had to journey to the site from Chaldon each day to see the work through to completion. Taking her food and drink for the day, and with Rumple, her beloved spaniel alongside, the sculptor rode the three-and-a-half kilometres on Merrylegs her pony for a four-hour shift of hammering and chiselling at White Nothe.

The Powys commission, if not the most portable of Elizabeth’s pieces, is probably the most southerly located. But she undertook several other noted commissions for works in Dorset. These included mural panels in carved stone for Broadwey School near Weymouth, Griffins for the entrance gates to Lulworth Manor and lead candlesticks for Eric Kennington’s effigy of Lawrence of Arabia, which resides in St. Martin’s Church in Wareham. She also produced the Dodington memorial in Purbeck stone for the churchyard in Chaldon Herring.

But probably the most unusual sculpture Muntz ever produced was in remembrance of the only cat ever to be awarded the animals VC. Simon was on-board mascot with the Royal Naval sloop ‘Amethyst’. In 1949 the ship was deployed on the Yangste River when the first bombs dropped by the Chinese Communists struck the vessel. In the attack Simon was wounded, his courage later being recognised through the special honour bestowed upon him. The Muntz memorial to Simon’s fortitude took the form of a plaque for the PDSA centre in Plymouth.

In 1949, close to the time that the ‘Amethyst’ was being bombed, an exhibition of Elizabeth’s work was held in London’s West End. In the post-war phase of her creative life she produced, apart from the Simon memorial, a plaque commemorating the late Sir Oliver Lodge’s father for a village in northern England, and a stone effigy of King Harold which now stands in Waltham Abbey. Other works went on display at King’s College, Cambridge and Manchester and Bristol Art Galleries. There was a major exhibition of Muntz works in Dorchester during the summer of 1971.

In later years also, her sculptures won her peculiar honours and worldwide recognition. She was nominated as the first woman freeman of The Ancient Order of Purbeck Marblers & Stone Cutters and was a founder member (and first woman member) of the Guild of memorial Craftsmen, a body formed to maintain and further the standard of memorial sculpting.

At the end of her productive life Elizabeth Muntz died in East Chaldon on 30th of March 1977 in her 82nd year. Possession of her enormous collection of sketches, drawings, paintings, notes, photographs, manuscripts and family memorabilia went to her sister, Isabelle Hope, who lived on at the cottage. When Hope herself died in 1981 the Muntz collection was entrusted to Catherine Morton, a friend who had by then moved in with her. In February 1988 Catherine bequeathed the entire collection to the County Museum in Dorchester. In her will Elizabeth had left £65,116.

Elizabeth was buried in the churchyard of St. Nicholas, East Chaldon, where today the graves of her sister and a life-long colleague-companion, Andre Bonnamy, lie nearby. As already mentioned this churchyard is the home of Muntz’s Dodington memorial, though some may consider it could just as well double as a memorial to Elizabeth herself. It is of course not the sole monument to represent Dorset’s legacy of the works of her hand.

Sir Frederick Treves

Jan 20th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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SURGEON BY ROYAL APPOINTMENT

With heavy hearts a small band of elderly men stood around a small grave in Dorchester cemetery on a bleak afternoon of wintry drizzle. It was January 1924 and the mourners were paying their last respects to a figure of great philanthropy and achievement, born 70 years before in Dorchester. They watched as a small box of ashes was lowered into the deceased chalky native soil. The man they were saying farewell to was Sir Frederick Treves, one of the most remarkable of men from an age of giants and one of the greatest luminaries in the progress of medicine and surgery.

Treves was born in Dorset’s county town in February 1853; the son of a cabinet maker and furniture dealer who had a business on the premises now occupied by No 8, Cornhill. A housemaid fondly recalled that in his earliest days at school Treves’ shyness led him to hide behind the coats in the cloakroom after lessons. In 1860 however, he began attending a school run by the poet and Rector of Winterbourne Came, William Barnes, in South Street.

His famous pupil remembered Barnes as: “…an old clergyman of great courtliness, ever gentle and benevolent, who bore with supreme simplicity the burden of a learning, which was almost superhuman.” Thomas Hardy, who’s family lived only a few miles from William Treves’ furniture shop, early became an inevitable acquaintance; it was a friendship which would last for the rest of young Frederick’s life.

Upon the death of his father William, Treves’ mother Jane sold the shop and moved with her children to London. After attending the Merchant Tailors School and University College, Treves with his two elder brothers embarked upon a medical career. In 1871 he became a student at the London Hospital, where his hard work and dedication saw him rise to become Licentiate of the Society of the Royal College of Surgeons.

In 1877 Treves married Elizabeth Mason, a brewers daughter. That year he joined a GP practice in Cheshire, but soon after fell out with the senior partners over their objections to his suitability to attend the confinement of an upper class socialite. For Treves, the social caste of the baby to be delivered matter not at all, but the principle did. He threw up his practice and returned to London in 1879, living first in Sydenham.

From this time he held a succession of posts over the next 20 years. He became an authority on anatomy and surgery, specialising in the abdomen. On one occasion he wrote to The Lancet urging the importance to public health of the registry of disease by hospitals. He was an effective lecturer, able to communicate well with both academics and undergraduates, and encouraged his students to take notes in the wards as well as in lectures. He also founded the Students Union at the hospital.

One of the several curious and unusual cases of his career during these years came when he was summoned to the home of the American millionaire J.P. Morgan. A new-born baby in the Morgan family was evidently dying from an undetermined cause, which baffled all the specialists present. After examining the baby Treves had to admit that he too was baffled by the condition until a second examination revealed the head of a needle which had penetrated the heart. After seeking permission to perform a dangerous operation Treves opened the child’s chest and removed the needle. As he later stated: “..there was only one thing to do: make a grab for it. If I got it there was some hope. If I missed…. but I got that needle!.”

In 1884, Treves encountered Joseph Merrick, a man born with a hideous deformity of the face caused by an abnormal accumulation of spongy tissue, which also included a curious of the nose, so earning him the name of Elephant Man. At that time a travelling showman, an indignity that incensed Treves and led him to rescue the accursed man from his showman master, was exhibiting Merrick for profit as a side-show freak.

He was examined, but Treves was only able to offer minimal treatment. The physician had to rely entirely upon his kindness and humanity in offering Merrick a better life, which he did by taking him to the Dury Lane Theatre and to visit Princess Alexandra.
Treves later wrote, “…I suppose Merrick was imbecile from birth. The fact that his face was incapable of expression, that his speech was a mere spluttering, and his attitude that of one who’s mind was void of all emotions and concerns gave grounds for this belief. It was not until I came to know that Merrick was highly intelligent, that he possessed an acute sensibility and a romantic imagination that I realised the overwhelming tragedy of his life.”

On another occasion he attended Sir Henry Irvine after the great actor had accidentally swallowed the nozzle of a throat spray. Treves examined Irvine and then had x-rays taken, but on his second visit the doctor discovered that his patient had coughed up the nozzle and needed no surgery to remove it.

Treves left the hospital in 1897 to concentrate on private practise and to develop a career as a writer. Upon the outbreak of the Boer War he was appointed consulting surgeon to a South African field hospital. Here Treves found himself defending the Royal Army Medical Corps against criticism that it was dealing inadequately with sickness. This in turn drew criticism upon himself, though he was active in pressing for improvements. One case in particular during this conflict that would leave a lasting impression in Treves’ mind, and one of many demonstrations of the depth of his human understanding, was his deathbed comforting of Frederick Roberts, son of Lord Roberts of Pretoria, who had been mortally wounded during the battle of Colenso.

In the winter after the soldier’s death Treves upon visiting the grave, found that the heat had drawn Robert’s stark corpse from the ground. The doctor – entirely alone – re-interred the body himself. In 1900, before the end of the war Treves’ services in South Africa were recognised in Dorchester when he was made a Freeman of the Borough. In 1903 he opened an operating theatre in the County Hospital.

But the act of duty he is best remembered by came in 1901, when he was appointed to operate on the as yet uncrowned Edward VII for peritonitis. Treves recalled how, to allay public suspicions that anything was wrong with the King on the eve of his coronation, he was allotted a code number, alias and casual disguise, even disembarking from the train at the previous station and walking the rest of the way to the royal residence.

After the operation Treves joined the King on the royal yacht. In gratitude for literally saving his life Edward made the surgeon a Baronet, Knight Grand Cross of the Victorian Order and gave him a grace and favour house, Thatched House Lodge in Richmond Park. It was here that he was once visited by his great friend and fellow countyman, the Cassells publisher Newman Flower, about a matter of publication. Flower lovingly recalled in his ‘Just as it Happened’ how he found every chair but one in the living room piled high with papers which, upon enquiring, discovered were the pages of an Italian dictionary the doctor was compiling, but which was never published.

In 1904 Treves retired from surgery to concentrate on travel and writing books, medical papers and letters to The Times. That year he also undertook a visit to Japan, where he was presented to the Emperor, an event, which inspired one of his greatest works ‘The Other Side of the Lantern.’ On a later occasion he also met the President of the USA. In the summer of the following year (1905) he made a phenomenal blanket cycle tour of every settlement in Dorset, which became the raw material for his ‘Highways & Byways of Dorset’ (1906.) The retired doctor wrote vividly of his impressions of what he saw in the countries he visited, and in one of his letters to the Times expressed his reservations about the nature of the restoration work being carried out on Puddletown Church.

He held the first presidency of the Society of Dorset Men in London, standing down three years later to make way for Thomas Hardy, though he continued to contribute several articles to its Yearbook thereafter, including ‘William Barnes the Dorset Poet’ and ‘Dorset Seventy Years Ago.’

Treves was a humanitarian, a man intolerant of humbug or deception. He was never slow to temper at any injustice yet had great reserves of kindness and compassion. He did not mince his words over matters, which animated or angered him, such as the standard of medical care in hospitals. During his hospital years in London he could still find time to put in an hour or so of writing each morning before his daily work on the wards began. He was a genius of surgery, yet found time to pursue a wide range of other interests. He was keen on sailing and gained a qualification certificate as a Master Mariner. He is said to have sailed the Channel to France and back every Boxing Day. His coterie of friends included many famous men of books and letters such as Edmund Gosse, Thomas Hardy, William Watkins and William Barnes.

After the First World War failing health led Treves to spend most of his time on the Continent, first at Monte Carlo, then Vevey near Lausanne. Here he was visited by Newman Flower, who encouraged him to write ‘The Elephant Man & Other Reminiscences,’ the book which more than any other documented the extraordinary casebook of his career and his distinguished clientele. Other works were ‘The Lake of Geneva’ and ‘Tale of a Field Hospital.’ On a visit to England in November 1923 he joined Newman Flower for a dinner in London in the company of Edmund Gosse. It was the last time the trio of friends would ever meet up together. In the first week of December that year Treves went up the hill above Montreux to watch a football match. Possibly aggravated by the weather, the great surgeon was taken ill with peritonitis upon his return and after several days in a state of delirium he died in the hotel at Vevey.

William Watkins, who had founded The Society of Dorset Men in London, arranged the funeral in association with Thomas Hardy. But the ceremony had to be postponed twice because of bad weather on the Continent and a delay caused by having to produce the death certificate. After the funeral Newman Flower returned to have tea with the Hardy’s.

Later Lady Treves approached Flower with the suggestion that he should write the official biography of her husband, but the widow later had second thoughts about allowing Treves’ court connection to be publicised and withdrew the request. Since then no biography of Sir Frederick Treves has ever been written.

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