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July, 2010:

Simon Garrett – Master Thatcher

Jul 27th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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He was probably the last in a long line of rural craftsmen in roofing, following a family trade that extended back for eight generations. Simon Garrett, the master Thatcher of Thornford in Dorset, certainly saw many changes during the course of his long life: new housing estates, modern machinery and the complete disappearance of many country crafts that he knew as a young man. Modernity transformed the scenes around his home beyond recognition. In fact some used to say that the one constant thing in an ever-changing world was old Simon himself. He was often to be seen perched precariously on rooftops, skilfully dressing down the finished sections of thatch with his side rake.

He was baptised Archibald Simon Garrett on Christmas Day 1904. It was of course his father who trained Simon to thatch in the 1920’s, just as his father before him had taught him the craft. Together the two men would travel from job to job by horse and cart. As cars made ever more frequent incursions into the Dorset lanes, Simon came very close to following a totally different occupation as a mechanic. Fortunately, for succeeding dwellers under thatch, he changed his mind and chose instead to continue the family tradition.

Although people who saw Simon at work on a warm summer day and heard him chatting good-naturedly to passers-by might have envied him his outdoor life, he did – like most traditional craftsmen – know what hard times meant. The introduction of the combined harvester deprived him of the straw, which was his raw material, and the development of modern roofing methods produced particular difficulties. But by his own hard work and skill he weathered the storm and preserved his craft.

In his later years, while continuing to make a living from his ancient occupation, Simon Garrett also helped to kindle an interest in thatching among the general public. This frequently led him to demonstrate his craft at fetes, fairs and charity events, and he made a point of encouraging the young to ask questions about his work. Importantly for the future of thatching in England, he was happy to pass on his knowledge to young thatchers and lend a hand whenever he could. He also encouraged a lady in his village with her hobby of corn-dolly making, supplying her with suitable reed and so encouraging the revival of another ancient craft.

Busily occupied with his lonely work and magically creating something that is both picturesque and functional, the solitary figure of Simon – possibly England’s oldest working master thatcher during his lifetime – was a familiar sight in Thornford and the surrounding villages. The neat picturesque cottages of this village near Bere Hackett (between Yetminster and Bradford Abbas) in particular bear witness to his dedication – a dedication which comes from being the eighth generation of his family to thatch in this lovely corner of England.

When he marked his 82nd birthday in 1986 Simon had been thatching for 66 years but showed no signs then of retiring. That year Mrs Judy Nash, who lived at Yetminster, wrote to the country periodical ‘This England,’ to nominate Simon Garrett for the Silver Cross of St. George Award. In a letter telling the magazines editor about him, she wrote: “He is a true man of Dorset, who’s efforts I feel deserve rewarding. Without him, part of our heritage would have disappeared.”

Garrett was a man of modesty who would probably have replied that seeing those neat Dorset thatches each day, and knowing that there were a growing number of craftsmen able to carry on the work of looking after them, was reward enough. But people like Simon Garrett, self-effacing and hard-working, are the very individuals who’s achievements should be recognised. They are always too busy and well mannered to sing their own praises. Perhaps his good citizen award let Simon know that his labours were much appreciated by his fellow villagers. ‘This England’ saluted his efforts to preserve the craft of thatching for future generation, while enhancing the English countryside we all enjoy.

But underlying the roofing method of which Simon Garrett was such an excellent master there is a salutary lesson for today’s unsustainable lifestyle. By its very nature, coupled with the thick cob walls and small windows of the traditional vernacular cottages, thatch was a retainer of heat far superior to today’s tiles and slates, and so makes a contribution to energy efficiency in the home that would surely not have been lost on Thornford’s Master Thatcher had someone remarked on it to him. But then the world and era Simon Garrett knew probably had no inkling of what was to come. It is as well that his legacy was to ensure that his time-honoured craft did not die out altogether.

Well done, Simon, son of Dorset!

Hardy’s Church

Jul 19th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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St. Michael’s at Stinsford is often spoken of as “Hardy’s church,” a reference to Dorset’s most famous son; the novelist, poet and architect Thomas Hardy, who said, “I shall sleep quite calmly at Stinsford, whatever happens.”

The writer had discussed his funeral with Stinsford’s vicar the Rev. H.G.B. Cowley but when the time came the literati and establishment of the day had other plans for him. Hardy’s cousin, Theresa, told the press “I am grieved that they are going to take poor Tom away to London. He wanted, I know, to lie with his own folk in the churchyard yonder.”  At the insistence of the great and good his ashes were buried at Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey, something Kate Hardy found “another staggering blow.” It was Cowley who proposed what someone at the time described as “a gruesome though historic compromise:” Thomas Hardy’s heart was removed to Stinsford and laid to rest with his first wife at exactly the same moment as his ashes were being interred at Westminster.

Hardy knew this place well. His parent’s worshipped here, he was baptised here, he was a Sunday school teacher here, and he buried his first wife here. Later after his death his second wife was buried here. As you enter the churchyard through the lych gate to your left there is a row of graves and memorials to Hardy and members of his family. Standing sentry at the end of this line is a modern slate marking the burial place of the Poet Laureate, Cecil Day Lewis, who passed away in 1972 and wished to be buried close to his mentor.

The map of the parish of Stinsford is a square plan representing some 3,300 acres. The parish is a union of the settlements of Bhompston, Bockhampton, Kingston, Stinsford and Coker’s Frome and it is likely they were in existence in 1086, but Frome Whitfield, which transferred to Stinsford parish from Dorchester Holy Trinity in 1894, is the only one to retain any trace of a mediaeval village.

St. Michael’s comprises a nave with north and south aisles, chancel with a north vestry off and a west tower. Built with roughly squared and coursed rubble, with ashlar dressings; the roofs are covered with slates, stone-slates and lead. The chancel and north and south arcades of the nave are of the early 13th century. The west tower was added in the 14th century and the west wall of the south aisle looks to have been rebuilt at this time. The south aisle is mainly 15th century and the north aisle was rebuilt in 1630 and again altered in the 19th century. The north vestry was added in 1868.

The font in which Hardy was baptised was moved to St. Luke, Stanmore, Winchester in 1948. Thomas Hardy discovered pieces of the original Norman Font in the churchyard, it was restored in 1920 and remains at St. Michael’s.

Restoration of churches was something the Victorians did, and on a vast scale. St. Michael’s received more than its deserved share of attention being restored in 1868, 1883 and later in 1910. During one of these restorations the musician’s gallery was removed against the wishes of the Hardy family, who had provided over the years many of the musicians who made up the church band; the family voiced its collective displeasure but to no avail.

 In 1996 a new gallery and organ were installed, the result of the generosity of a Yale University professor Richard Purdy. The endowment was in commemoration of Florence Hardy, the novelist’s second wife.

The nave’s 16th century barrel roof was lost to the Victorian restorers but the chancel arch and the 17th century barrel vault roof, hagioscope and recess, which used to access a stairway to the rood screen survived.

The tower is home to three bells the first dated 1616; the second by Thomas Purdue is dated 1663 and a treble, originally of the 15th century but recast in 1927.

“Hardy’s Church” is the resting place for many others and there are memorials for William Obrien 1815: Susannah Sarah Louisa (Strangeways) Obrien 1827; Rev. William Floyer 1819; William Floyer R.N., 1822; and other members of that family; Marcia (Pitt) Cholmondeley 1808; George, Charles and John son of John and Marcia Pitt of Encombe; Audeley and Margaret (Trevelyan) Grey 1723; William Harding 1834, and Hannah his wife, 1841; Benjamin Bowring 1837; John 1693; and Mell Cox 1716 and William Cox 1704.

In the chancel there is a plaque to Wadham Strangeways 1685, killed at Bridport in the King’s service against Monmouth; also Elizabeth his wife 1683, and Rachel Radford her sister 1682.

Inside the church seems a lot smaller than it looks from the outside: it has a warm, comfortable, almost cosy feel. Hardy would have been pleased to see the gallery replaced though viewed from the chancel arch it looks jarringly modern and would have fitted in better had it been made from a darker or distressed timber.

Hardy had called God “that vast imbecility” so it must have been his sense of history and family rather than his faith that made St. Michael’s church so important to him.
There are photographs of the church and the Hardy memorials in the photo section.

Milton Abbey Mystery – or the riddle of the body-less coffin.

Jul 15th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Joseph Damer, Lord Milton of Milton Abbey, could hardly be numbered among Dorset’s more kindly, considerate or philanthropic squires. The Damers were a gentry family of considerable wealth, but Joseph was a man of ambition and ruthlessness. In 1752, only ten years after his marriage to Caroline Sackville, daughter of the first Duke of Dorset, he acquired Milton Abbey. He immediately set about re-configuring the estate’s landscape to his own egocentric tastes, even evicting the inhabitants of the old village upon expiry of their leases and re-settling them in a purpose-built village (today’s Milton Abbas,) so that time-honoured cottages of old Milton could be flooded by an enormous ornamental lake.

John Damer was the first of Joseph and Caroline’s four children and like his father he married well by 18th century standards. His bride was Anne Seymour Conway, 18-year-old daughter of the Rt Hon Henry Seymour Conway, a prominent soldier, statesman, MP and one-time Governor of Jersey. Anne’s fortune was around £10,000, and the couple received an annuity of £5,000 from Lord Milton. At first the younger Damers made the most of their riches, but it soon became apparent that their marriage was faltering. Anne was increasingly spending more time away from home socialising at parties and entertainment than at home with John. But according to Anne’s biographer Percy Noble, her husband took some share of the responsibility for the marital difficulties himself, caused by addictions to the gaming table and turf, which he had to fund by means of loans from Jewish financiers. This made Damer difficult to live with, yet his shortcomings did not restrain him from complaining that his wife was constantly away from home!

Although heir to a fortune of about £30,000 a year, Damer’s debts were mounting. Falling in with a wild, spendthrift set of gad-abouts frequenting London, he seemed to find some curious satisfaction in annoying Anne. In 1775 she duly returned from a visit to Paris and publicly announced her separation from John – no easy commitment for a woman of her “refined and delicate temperament.” By summer 1776 Damer was in the red by £70,000, a fortune that his despotic father refused to bail him out for, since the latter was already saddled with paying off gambling debts incurred by John’s two younger brothers, a burden that was eating into the Milton estate balances.

On the night of August 15th that year Damer happened to be lodging at the Bedford Arms tavern, Covent Garden. By 3 a.m. in the morning, receiving no answer from Damer’s room a blind fiddler called Burnet alerted Bedford Arms landlord John Robinson, saying he had been disturbed by a peculiar smell in Damer’s chamber. Robinson was soon to discover that the odour was not, as supposed, due to burning by a spilt candle, but cordite from a fired pistol. The heir to Milton Abbey House was slumped in a chair, blood pouring from a wound to his right temple. On the floor between his feet lay a gun with the cocking hammer closed.

An inquest was convened in the inn at 6 p.m. the same day. Coroner Thomas Prickard and a 22-man jury heard evidence from Robinson, Burnet, and John Armitage, Damer’s house steward. Robinson testified that Damer had been a regular customer at the Bedford for a number of years and that he had received an order for supper from him between 7 and 8 o’clock the previous evening, together with a request for Burnet and four women to entertain him. The landlord further stated that, although the note was not the first he had received from Damer, this one differed from the rest in that it was written in a “confused manner” out of character with his usual style. Soon after 11 p.m. Damer, Burnet and the ladies retired to an upstairs room where the fiddler played and the four women sung, though it was noted that Damer ate little of his supper. The group broke up shortly before 3 a.m. when Damer told his steward to dismiss the women.

Burnet then gave an account of his movements from the time he arrived at the inn to when he went to call Damer in his room, received no reply from within, and noticed the smell he took to be a spilt candle. He then informed Mr Robinson who upon reaching the room exclaimed, “Oh my God – he has shot himself!” Armitage made only a brief statement about his service with Damer and that he (Damer) had lent him £26. 5s just two days before. The jury had little difficulty in reaching a verdict of instant death due to suicide while “not being of sound mind…but lunatic and distracted.”

Did John Damer really die by his own hand in the Bedford Arms that August night? Certainly the inquest made some glaring omissions. For example there is no record of a pistol shot ever being heard, and it was found that the shot had not entered Damer’s head. Nor was there any mention of an apparent suicide note left on a table nearby. No witnesses who could testify to Damer’s monetary predicament were called. In fact, only Robinson and Armitage were in a position to identify the body (since Burnet could not see.) It would not have been impossible therefore, for these two witnesses to collaborate in a conspiracy hatched by Damer to fake his own death. This is not as far-fetched as it first appears, for in the London of the time it would have been relatively easy to “borrow” a corpse to be returned later.

For the dispossessed cottagers of Milton Abbas however, it was a virtual certainty that word of the Milton heir’s demise would set the rumour mill turning in favour of the fake-death theory. News of the death sent shock waves through England’s high society, but for villagers embittered by the fragmentation of their centuries-old community, a presumption of faking death to avoid remunerating creditors was bound to arise. It was likely they considered the son to be the same as his despised father and so entirely capable of such a devious plot, although there was never strong evidence to substantiate it.

The fake suicide rumour may have stayed just that indefinitely: a rumour, were it not for an astonishing discovery made 97 years later on the villagers own doorstep. About 1837 some repairs to the north transept of Milton Abbey were in progress, which necessitated opening the Damer family crypt. At the time a man called Frederick Fane of Moyles Court, Fordingbridge was staying at the Abbey when one morning he decided to visit the ancient building to look in on the repair work. While there the foreman, with whom Fane had entered into conversation, alluded to a “fake funeral” having taken place nearly a century before when the Abbey was Milton Parish Church. An extravagant son of Lord Milton, he said, was being sought by the bailiffs when a message arrived stating that the man had died on the continent and was to be brought back for burial here at the Abbey. The foreman then invited the visitor to “see something that would convince him of the truth of the Damer legend.”

Down in the vault the two men stopped beside a coffin with a plate bearing Damer’s name. Fane was then bizarrely invited to attempt to lift the coffin, but on doing so found it was too heavy. When asked to try to lift the coffin beside it, however, he was surprised to find that one could be lifted easily without any exertion. What was the explanation for the difference?

As the foreman explained, the second coffin was much lighter because its body had decomposed, but the first coffin could not be lifted because it had been filled with stones. Here there was hint of a strong vindication of the villager’s suspicions if the opportunity for access to the vault and inspection of remains ever arose. More than 20 years later Fane related his extraordinary experience to a meeting of the Dorset Natural History and Field Club.

If Damer, then, had not faked his suicide, why go to the trouble of staging a fake funeral? Moreover, how do we explain the claims of villagers, who mostly never believed Damer to be dead and buried, that they had seen him alive and well in the grounds on several later occasions?

If the supposed conspiracy was intended to satisfy Damer’s creditors, then it succeeded, but Joseph Damer’s malign attitude to his son’s death provoked almost as much public shock and indignation as the news of the supposed death itself. Lord Milton even vented his spleen on poor Mrs Damer, who deserved only sympathy.

This has been a strange, though true story. But unless or until any real, rather than circumstantial evidence materialises the truth about John Damer’s fate is unlikely ever to be revealed.

As for Anne Damer, following her husband’s departure she went on to live a long and productive life, becoming a noted sculptor, continental traveller and actress on the London stage, acquainted with many royal, political, literary and artistic figures of the period. She died at the ripe old age of 80 in May 1828 and was buried near to other members of the Conway family at the parish church of Sundridge, Kent.

Sydney Smith – Musician and Composer

Jul 8th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Sydney Smith was born on 14th of July 1839 in South Street, Dorchester, the second of three sons born to Frederick and Helen Smith. He was destined for a career and fame in the world of music. Like his older brother, Frederick, he followed in the steps of his father who was a professor of music and dance. Their younger brother, Walter, trained as an assistant bookseller; he died aged just 25 years.

The parents of these three boys, Frederick Smith and Helen Boyton came to Dorset shortly after their marriage at Clifton, Bristol. Frederick Smith was originally from Deal in Kent and Helen Boyton from Clifton. Their father died in 1870 and is buried in Dorchester Cemetery. Sydney’s brothers Frederick and Walter are buried next to their father.

Sydney and his brother received their early musical tuition from their parents. Notices in the Dorset Chronicle in the late 1840’s refer to a series of concerts given by Frederick Smith (on violin) with his sons Boyton (on piano) and Master Sydney (on ‘cello.) [Frederick also had his mother’s maiden name and was known as Boyton Smith.]

In 1855, possibly as the result of winning a Mendelssohn scholarship, Sydney had a place at the famous Leipzig conservatory; he was sixteen. He spent the following three years there studying piano and cello.

Returning to Dorchester in 1858 his talent was recognised by the eminent violinist, Henry Blagrove, who had once been in the employ of Queen Adelaide and was later associated with the Royal Academy of Music. A year later following advice from Blagrove he moved to London and found lodgings in Upper Seymour Street. He quickly established a name for himself as a recitalist and was much in demand in society circles as a teacher of the piano. There followed the best part of three decades when his name was a household word; in today’s world he would have been a much sought after celebrity.

In 1867 Sydney married Hanna Birch. She was originally from Buckinghamshire and the daughter of a druggist in business at George Street, London W.l. She was a singer with the choir of the Philharmonic Society which is probably where the couple met. A year later at 45, Blandford Square, London, their first daughter was delivered and baptised Blanch Edith.

A son, Leonard Sydney, was born to the couple in 1870 and their daughter Linda May was born in 1872. The following year they lost their first child, Blanch, to rheumatic fever and another son, Granville Boyton Sydney was born, followed in 1875 by Eustace and their last child was born in 1878.

In 1886 Hanna died of Bright’s disease after five years of failing health. She was buried at Kensal Green Cemetery on the 16th of July 1886 in the grave of her first daughter. According to her death certificate her passing was notified to the registrar by Blanche Augustine Pinget.  Miss Pinget was 25 and had nursed Hanna through her last days but she had an earlier association with the family when she was nurse to the Smith’s children.

Possibly there was more to this relationship because a little over a year after Hanna’s death  Blanche Augustine Pinget became the second Mrs Smith at a ceremony at St. John’s Parish Church, Hampstead on the 28th of October 1887. After their marriage the couple lived at 28 Birchington Road, Kilburn.

This move from the fashionable heart of London may have been forced on the couple. Sydney was suffering from a “severe malignant tumour of the spine and ribs.” He had to give up his teaching and concert career which would have resulted in a considerable drop in income and there were no royalties to rely on although he had composed nearly 400 works.

Celebrity quickly dims and this was certainly the case for Sydney Smith. The tragic illness and the resulting hardship forced him to apply to The Royal Society of Musicians for assistance and they helped in a small way.

Sydney Smith, in his day a famous composer of popular music, was buried with Hanna, his first wife and his daughter Blanch in a grave marked by an un-inscribed cross. His star diminished by the changes in musical taste at the end he merited a short obituary in The Musical Times. He is remembered today in musical circles; his work, and that of his contemporaries is kept alive by the Sydney Smith Archive.

We have placed a photograph of Sydney Smith in the photo section.

Edgar Lane – Musician of Distinction

Jul 2nd, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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“Dorset has lost a distinguished musician, one who shed lustre on the profession with which throughout his lifetime he had been associated” (Southern Times, February 11th 1938.) So ran this obituary to one of the two most distinguished musical figures to be associated with Dorset in the 19th and 20th centuries. Nor was Edgar Alfred Lane only remembered and honoured by the provincial papers, as the Daily Telegraph, Daily Express, and Yorkshire Post also paid their respects. Yet today, even in his adopted county, this composer is virtually forgotten, sharing the fate of the brilliant organist-composer he succeeded as organist of Holy Trinity Church in Dorchester – the renowned Boyton Smith.

For some twenty-seven years it was Edgar Lane who would take up where Boyton Smith had to leave off when death plucked at is sleeve but Lane was not native to Dorset. He was born into a Norfolk family in Great Yarmouth on a date usually held to be September 3rd 1865, though his birth certificate proves it was September 23rd 1864. Edgar was the eleventh of the thirteen children of Benjamin Lane and Elizabeth Kemp Lane. His grandfather was James Christmas Lane, while his great-grandfather, another Benjamin, was the captain of a schooner taken prisoner by the French during the Napoleonic wars, but later released after the British victory at Waterloo. Edgar’s eldest brother, Benjamin, had emigrated to Australia even before Edgar was born.

Edgar’s schooling was nevertheless quite elementary, though he was certainly not lacking in brains – or precocious talent. He became one of the youngest church organists ever at Holy Trinity Church, Caister-on Sea, Norfolk when just 11. At Great Yarmouth Town Hall in 1881 he conducted his first concert when only 16 (the census of that year showed he was also working as a coal merchant’s clerk.) When not yet 20 he was appointed sub-organist at Ripon Cathedral. Two years later in 1886 he took up the post of organist and choirmaster at St. Peter’s Church and Magdalen College School, Brackley, Northants, where it is noted he was a keen cricketer. It was here also that he met his future wife, Sarah Jane Clarke, a talented pianist.

Edgar and Sarah appear to have had a peculiarly long engagement, for they were still engaged in 1892 when Edgar was appointed organist and choirmaster at St. Peters in Dorchester and so subsequently began the long residence in the county where he would remain for the rest of his life. The couple eventually married in April 1893, taking up residence in a house in Cornwall Road with an excellent frontal view of the Borough Gardens, where Edgar would relax and play croquet.

Their first child, Geoffrey Edgar, was born in 1894, but about 1896 when their second son Ronald James, was born the Lanes moved to a much more spacious house at 50 High West Street where orchestras and choirs could practice. In that year too the Dorset County Chronicle reported that Lane had been appointed conductor of the Dorset Vocal Association in place of Boyton Smith. To commemorate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897, Lane composed and conducted a special piece ‘For Sixty Years our Queen’ for a concert with massed choirs held at Maumbury Rings. Respectively in 1899 and 1902 the Lane’s last two children, Margaret and Arthur Noel were born.

Those heady ‘90’s, when the older children were growing up, saw Lane emerge as a kindly child-loving family man who loved to indulge his youngsters with “rubbishy rhymes.” His philanthropy was manifest in his arranging each Sunday for Margaret and Ronald to take a fully cooked meal to a lady in reduced circumstances living in Maumbury Road. This lady, Mrs Harding, was none other than Thomas Hardy’s earliest love and the inspiration for ‘A Pair of Blue Eyes.’

In the 1901 census Lane’s occupation is given as “Professor of Music/Organist/Principal of Dorchester School of Music.” That year he formed a choral society in Weymouth and, soon after, the Madrigal & Orchestral Society, whose concerts at the corn Exchange attracted large audiences. He resigned from St. Peters as organist in 1906 to become Warden of St. Mary’s, a church that formerly stood on the site of the present Dorford Baptist. While still in this position Lane was appointed organist at Holy Trinity in 1909.

By this time Edgar Lane had become well established as a private music teacher of organ, piano, violin, cello and singing, as well as pursuing a career as a composer and conductor. Although Lane’s salary from his organ post amounted to no more than £80 per annum, magnanimously he would not charge for lessons if he considered a pupil was hard up or if his or her parents could not afford the fee.

In 1911 the Dorchester Madrigal Society, then in its eighth season, held two grand concerts on May 30th that year, which included a Coronation March in E flat Lane had written. The combined Dorchester and Weymouth Choral Societies staged a performance of “Merrie England” at the Pavilion Theatre that included Edgar’s patriotic song “For the Empire” on December 11th, 1913. When the Great War was just five months old in December 1914, afternoon and evening performances of the sacred cantata “The Daughter of Jairus” were sung in Holy Trinity Church under Lane’s direction (singing the tenor solos himself because there was a shortage of singers.) By this time the Lanes had moved to a sub-let property out at Charminster called “The Yews” and though this meant Lane having to cycle into town, it was a cheaper home to rent.

In the midst of the appalling carnage of the Somme offensive on July 12th 1916, the Dorchester Madrigal Society, in association with the King’s Own Royal Lancaster Regiment, gave two concerts at the Corn Exchange. On December 7th that year, also at the Corn Exchange, Handel’s Messiah was performed. It was during these dark war years that Lane was appointed Music Master and, when military service led to a shortage of teachers, a form master as well at Dorchester Grammar School.

Following the end of the First World War in 1919 Lane established the Weymouth Operatic Society, which was then merged with the Madrigal Society. The years 1922 to 1931 saw Lane mainly pre-occupied with training his choirs and giving singing tuition to children in various schools in the area, though there were the occasional concerts to conduct. One of these, on August 8th 1930, was a performance of Mendelsshon’s Elijah in Colliton Park. It is interesting to note that one of Edgar Lane’s singing pupils was Gertrude Bugler who, as a strikingly beautiful farmers wife in her twenties, was then an amateur actress playing Tess in the productions of ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’ in Dorchester.

But 1928 brought personal tragedy. With the death of Thomas Hardy in January, Lane lost a close friend and associate, for it had been through Hardy that the Lanes had acquired their first Dorchester home in Cornwall Road. Lane became involved, as had Boyton Smith before him, in writing incidental music for productions of Hardy’s stories. As the writer’s wealth had grown through publication of his works, he became more of a man of property, including the Cornwall Road house, which he rented out to Edgar Lane. Hardy was then Lane’s landlord as well as his commissioner of works! The second blow for Edgar was distinctly more personal. When grown up Geoffrey, the Lane’s first child and eldest son went to sea, first as a rating in the Royal Navy then later as a purser on a P&O liner. Though said to have never had a day’s illness in his life, Geoffrey Lane contracted pneumonia late in 1928 and died.

For one of Hardy’s last birthdays in the 1920’s, Lane arranged for the choir of Holy Trinity to give the writer a personal recital of anthems and hymns at Max Gate. Later in that decade, when the Prince of Wales (the future Edward VIII, later Duke of Windsor) visited Dorchester and Max Gate, Lane wrote a special piece for the occasion.

In 1931 Edgar formed the South Dorset Festival Choir, but had not been conducting it for long when, soon after his last festival in 1935, failing health forced him from the podium. In 1936, following two serious operations, Lane went to Sussex to convalesce. By 1937 the composer was sufficiently recovered to return to conduct one more concert in the Borough Gardens featuring a march to mark the coronation of George VI he had written while in hospital. But the remission was brief. Soon after this event Edgar Lane again fell ill and on February 10th 1938, following further operations, he died.

Throughout his very busy life Edgar Lane was not in a position to take advantage of the kudos that came from publishing light music and the few years after 1906 found his family in quite dire financial straits. More than did Boyton Smith, Lane suffered from the march of progress in technology as the advent of the home gramophone, its records and radio broadcasting impacted heavily on the popular sheet music market. Furthermore it is not known whether Lane was ever awarded an honorary degree, though he certainly spent many hours of evenings pouring over books in an exhaustive effort to work towards attaining such a qualification.

Edgar Lane’s involvement with Hardy was probably inevitable rather than accidental, since Boyton-Smith proved to be the ‘link-man’ in mutual association with both. But it is also thought that Lane had an even more intimate relationship with the great writer than had Smith, for Margaret Lane has noted that Hardy and her father “had many musical evenings together.” Furthermore, Lane, as we have seen, twice received invitations to take a choir to Max Gate, and two Hardy settings by Lane “Men Who March Away” and “Songs of Joyance” have been located. The latter was written for the Prince of Wales’ visit and the composer also set some of William Barnes’ verse to music. But few recordings and manuscripts of his music have survived: only four of Lane’s own scores have been traced, while four Barnes settings are listed in the 1932 Dorset Year Book. Lane’s daughter accounted for this paucity by noting that much of Lane’s own and commissioned work for Hardy was accidentally included among works of another composer who was destroying them on a bonfire. It is thought that further Lane scores also perished in a fire at Max Gate. However, Lane’s setting of “Fight the Good Fight” which won for the Dorset Choral Association the ‘Prize Tune Award’ of 1925 was included in the inventory taken of the items in Hardy’s study after the writer’s death.

Overall, it appears that Lane’s music was primarily written for public consumption at major ceremonial occasions reflecting the fact that orchestras, bands and choral societies he wrote for were invariably present to mark these important events.

In conclusion it could be said that anyone who, over a career of some 44 years, had held two church organist positions; a church-wardency; a music master/form mastership of a grammar school; founded and coached several choirs; taught voice and four instruments, organised and conducted several concerts and found time to compose his own and commissioned music, play cricket and croquet, keep chickens and turkeys and grow his own vegetables, could wear himself out before his time or ruin his health. Edgar Lane did ultimately ruin his health, possibly as a result of overwork, but he achieved all of the above and a few more.

Lane’s surviving manuscripts, letters, performance billings, etc, together with copies of Margaret Lane’s short biography are now kept in an archive THE EDGAR LANE COLLECTION available for inspection in the general section at the Dorset History Centre, Dorchester.