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March, 2011:

George Somers – Seaman Extraordinary

Mar 28th, 2011
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Having regard to Dorset’s geographical situation as a coastal county we should not be surprised that numbered among its famous sons should be several master mariners. Sir George Somers was one of these mariners, but he occupied a key position among the county’s seafarers, rising from an obscure background to earn a reputation as a swashbuckling buccaneer of the ocean waves. And it was Somers who was to lay the foundations of what was to become the colonies of Virginia and Bermuda.

Somers was born in 1554, though it is not known for certain whether this was at Lyme or Whitchurch Canonicorum. Equally deficient is what is known of his earliest years, but he proved to be a worthy man of the sea, a bold adventurer in an age when England’s navy was effectively brought to birth under Tudor patronage. Somers therefore was there at the start of the great enterprise.

Ever since 1584 various abortive attempts have been made to colonise the North American territory which ultimately became Virginia. Somers too focussed his enormous energies in this direction, establishing in association with the Earl of Southampton and others, the London Virginia Company in 1606. He went on to command many naval expeditions to the Spanish Main, West Indies, and the Americas, and in 1597 joined Raleigh in a notable expedition to the Azores. On his return, however, he settled for some years back in Lyme Regis, where his notoriety seems to have helped in his election to Parliament when he stood to represent the town. He was elected Lyme’s Mayor two years later.

Somers did not remain at his home-base for long, for in 1609 he took command of an expedition to establish further settlers in the fledgling colony of Virginia (the name Virginia originally applied to all the colonial land along North America’s eastern seaboard until the designation of the 12 other states.) The colony of Roanoke had been founded only two years before. Jamestown and the voyage of the Mayflower to Cape Cod were to follow in 1620.

For this voyage Somers set sail in his Flagship Sea Venture. But after being at sea for two months the small fleet was struck by a hurricane, which dispersed the ships. Sea Venture thus became separated from the others and was damaged, causing it to spring a leak. Water then rose rapidly in the hold, but Somers’ exhausted crew were unable to cope with the flooding. For some time there was every likelihood the ship would sink.

Then Somers realised he was in reach of a group of islands not far away, encircled by a treacherous reef – a great danger in a rough sea. The coral shoals were much feared by Elizabethan sailors, who called them the “Isles of Devils”. Located 100 years earlier by a Spanish navigator, Juan Bermudeth, the islands were named in his honour. Somers and his crewmen would be stranded on Bermuda for 10 months.

Somers had to come to a decision whether to risk a landfall or perish on the reef. Spotting what appeared to be a sandy bay the captain drove the ship straight towards it, but the Sea Venture struck a pair of submerged rocks before becoming wedged between two further rocks. From this point the ship’s crew was able to disembark, without difficulty, as by then the storm had abated. The cargo was landed without loss, but Somers’ ship could not be saved. The shipwrecked crew also had a wholesome food supply and local fresh fish, birds and wild pigs. Clear, fresh water lay a few inches below ground. In fact, Somers and his men soon came to realise that the island was a virtual paradise, and set about constructing rudimentary dwellings using palmeto leaves.

The marooned mariners stayed on the island for almost a year, by which time some of them didn’t want to leave. But conscious of duty Somers and his officers set about repairing one of the Sea Venture’s boats in preparation for leaving. Fourteen men volunteered to make the 600-mile crossing to the mainland, but were lost on route and never heard from again. The rest of the crew with their captain managed to leave the island by constructing two pinnaces from cedars growing on the island. In May 1610 the party reached Virginia.

Before leaving, Somers took possession of the island for England, to be known as Somers Islands (they were re-named in honour of Bermudeth only later.) The captain was then made Admiral of Virginia, and with the colony suffering a severe food shortage, he sailed back to Britain to procure fresh supplies at the behest of Lord de la Warr. On the grocer’s errand however, Somers’ ship was again caught in a severe storm. Soon after returning to Bermuda, the great seaman sickened and died from eating, it has been said, an excessive amount of pig meat. The local coinage had a pig engraved on one side and a ship on the other.

After his death Somers’ heart was removed and buried in Bermuda. His body was brought back to England in a cedar chest because of a maritime superstition stored on board without the crew’s knowledge. The Admiral’s home at that time had been Berne Farm near Whitchurch Canonicorum. It is therefore fitting that this story should end where it began, with his burial beneath the old chantry in St. Andrews Church in Canonicorum.

In this part of Dorset Somers had long been regarded as Lyme’s most distinguished and respected citizen. It has been said that Shakespeare’s inspiration for the Tempest owes something to Somers’ adventures, in the likeness of Prospero and his island to Somers and Bermuda.

In 1996 Lyme was twinned with St.George in Bermuda. On the 23rd of July 1999 there was a commemorative parade in memory of Somers, leading onto the Cobb. Those attending the non-civic lunch were treated to the national drink of the Caribbean island: a blend of dark rum and ginger beer known locally as Dark ‘n’ Stormy.

Unsolved Mysteries of Dorset’s Skies

Mar 25th, 2011
by Dorset Ancestors.
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For over fifty years people have been seeing things in the skies over Britain, many of them in southern England. Popularly known as UFO’s these sightings seem to be outside the realm of our familiar terrestrial aircraft of whatever kind.

Dorset’s Moigns Down is one such area, an ideal spot for a fine Sunday afternoon’s stroll in the country. Certainly Mr J.B. Brooks, a local of this area between Dorchester and Wareham considered it so. He regularly walked his two dogs over the Down on fine days, probably with no thought in his head regarding ancient legends concerning the area, or of its history.

And nothing seemed out of the ordinary when, on the morning of the 26th of October 1987, Brooks left home as usual to exercise his dogs on the chalk hill. By about 11.25 however, high winds which were prevailing that morning had accelerated into a force 8 gale, forcing the walker to shelter up in a timely and conveniently placed ditch or hollow in the ground. Here Mr Brooks rested up, gazing skyward and waiting for the wind to abate so he could resume his walk.

Suddenly into his view intruded an airborne object the like of which Brooks had never before seen or could have imagined. The thing took the form of a small disc or hub, from which a fuselage-like girder or antenna extended forwards, while another three identical projections aligned parallel to each other extended backwards on the other side. But the observer barely had time to comprehend what he was seeing before the next thing happened. In an instant the four girder-arms extending from the disc were seen to separate from one another, forming an equi-dimensional cross, which then began rotating around the central axis.

In his later report of the incident Brooks estimates that the revolving, but stationery object remained in view for about 22 minutes before the extended arms closed up again and the strange, unearthly device left the area of the hill at phenomenal speed.

At this point it is temping to think that the walker out exercising his dogs genuinely bore witness to some sophisticated surveying or reconnaissance devise possibly under the control of an advanced alien intelligence. Certainly from the description of its appearance and modus operandi, the UFO (if that’s what it was) displayed a technological level at least a few decades ahead of our own, for the hub around which the arms rotated appears to have been no more than a few feet across. Yet it was large enough to incorporate a drive mechanism capable of hovering, revolving and accelerating away at very high speed.

While UFOlogists may well favour the alien/space theory, other sceptical experts had an altogether more anthropocentric explanation for the sighting. For instance, it emerged that Mr Brooks had recently undergone a cornea transplant. Debunkers of the space/alien hypothesis ruefully considered the possibility that what Brooks actually saw was a ‘floater’ just a detached piece of skin on his eyeball! It is not known whether the proponents of this medical solution to the mystery were ever asked to explain how a floater was apparently able to unfurl itself and stay revolving for over twenty minutes.

This rather fanciful line of reasoning however is far removed from other technocratic considerations, which could shed some light on the enigma. Moigns Down occupies an area not far to the west of one of the most intensively used military ranges in the country, as well as lying not far west of the Atomic Research Establishment on Winfrith Heath. And it may be significant that in its extended form the Moigns UFO would have been comparable to a helicopter’s main rotor without the helicopter. Could Brooks then, have seen just the rotor of an army helicopter otherwise obscured by a cloudbank, its sound equally drowned out by the gale?

The Moigns incident, however, is not the only recorded sighting in Dorset of an object that does not fit the conventional UFO stereotypes of fiery or glowing – or pulsating – discs, cones spheres or triangles. Thirty-two years later on August 12th 1999 Brian Jones was looking seaward while attending an open-air event near Weymouth when he saw what he likened to a very odd microlite. The object was described as being oblong but with rounded ends and of a dense, dark colour. From the underside Mr James could see that something was suspended. As he was fortuitously carrying a camcorder at the time, he was able to video the object moving slowly on a course north-west towards Bridport, following the line of Chesil Bank while framed against the setting sun. The object did not descend, maintaining a height of approximately a kilometre before disappearing from view after about five minutes.

However, the resolution of the image on Brian James’ video was less than sharp, owing to the lack of available light, although the lens was at maximum zoom. The video footage therefore, was too indistinct for any positive identification to be made, even when shown on local TV news. It was thought the object may have been a parachutist, yet there was no aircraft in the area at the time from which a parachutist could have jumped. Also the fuselage and motor of a normal microlite could not be identified. Neither was any sound heard to come from the object, though the PA system of the nearby function James was attending could have drowned this out. The canopy was the wrong shape for a normal paraglider and furthermore there was no high ground in the vicinity to launch one from other than the risky outcrops of Portland.

The only possible man-made explanation tendered is that Brian James probably saw a powered paraglider, but one with the pilot wearing the motor and propeller as a backpack. But aside from these two unusual cases, there are significantly more which fall more easily into the conventional UFO mould. Six interesting sightings to occur in Dorset can be noted here.

One witness, Jim Horbury, was in Bournemouth on the 2nd of March 2001, when at 2 p.m. he sighted a large slow-moving triangular craft bearing bright lights but making no sound as it crossed the sky at approximately 100 feet. The object was afterwards described as “very frightening.” Then on the 2nd of May 2003, “two orange orbs” were seen to descend rapidly in a double helix formation “as if intelligently interacting with each other” over Bournemouth University. Two sauce-shaped gold-coloured craft were seen to swiftly and silently cross the sky over Parkestone, Poole at 10.15 p.m. on August 9th, 2001.

A flying triangle approximately 100 feet long with blue lights down its left side, red lights down is right. And a pulsating circular light changing colour in the centre was logged at Lyme Regis (10.55 p.m.) Portland (11 p.m.) and at Hengistbury Head (11.05 p.m.) on February 28th, 2002, after having first been sighted in Cornwall. At Winterborne Stickland a 9-year-old boy playing football around 8.20 p.m. one day in August 1991 saw “a large silver disc with a raised centre and red and yellow lights around it” tilt 45 degrees and then head earthwards. A man driving his girlfriend home through Broadmayne at midnight on July 28th, 2002 saw a phosphorescent cone-shaped green light silently and rapidly shoot across the sky.

Pioneering Work of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury

Mar 21st, 2011
by Dorset Ancestors.
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What does Eros the archer on his plinth in Piccadilly Circus have to do with what one guide book calls “the Bible-thumping social reformer who campaigned against child labour?”  The world-renowned figure high above the London crowds is not in fact the God of Love, but the Angel of Christian Charity, and it commemorates the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, whose family is closely linked with Dorset. Children were still climbing into chimneys to sweep them when philanthropist Lord Shaftesbury began his quest.  Today, as a result of his work, Community Regeneration Projects are improving some of Britain’s most deprived areas.

In his day, Anthony Ashley Cooper, the seventh earl (1801-85), an MP from 1826 to 1851, was the leading spirit in the reform of factory working conditions. He was chairman of the Ragged Schools Union for over 40 years. As late as 1863, young children were still working 16 hours a day.

Shaftesbury’s zeal was directed to the children on his Dorset estate as well as those all over the country. The Wimborne St. Giles School was a model of its kind; it was light and airy with windows small children could see out of and by 1870 it had central heating. He regularly visited the school and Lady Victoria Ashley took a weekly sewing class. The school Log Book records numerous visits by other members of the family. In 1882 there were 120 pupils on the school roll and The Rector of St. Giles came in to help the mistress and her assistant by taking twice weekly scripture classes and pupil teachers also helped. The school had a well-stocked library and pupils were allowed to take books home. The Seventh Earl’s school at Wimborne St. Giles supplied a long-felt need. A Parliamentary Inquiry (1818) revealed that St. Giles children attended a school at Cranborne, necessitating a two-mile walk each way.

There is a story that serves to illustrate Shaftesbury’s concern for the needs of destitute children. He was visiting a Ragged school in London and noticing the distress of a little girl who he asked how she felt, she told him “Ise hungry – Ise cold”. He was moved to tears and had two urns of soup sent to the school from his home in Grosvenor Square. That winter 10,000 bowls of soup and bread from his own kitchens were distributed to hungry children.

The Shaftesbury family had much earlier encouraged the education of local children.  The third earl, who lived from 1671 to 1713, was a philosopher and moral reformer who taught that man is guided by a “moral sense”. His housekeeper was instructed to find out which children on the estate needed encouragement and help with their education and she was to report “of their schooling (which my Lord allows them)” and also to say which of them ought to receive further education.

In 1885 the seventh earl came home to Wimborne St. Giles and attended the church where he read the lessons. During July he became ill and sought relief by the sea at Folkestone. His health deteriorated and he died there.

In memory of the man who changed the lives of the poor, Shaftesbury Sunday is celebrated every year near the anniversary of his birth in April, when people recall how he was inspired by his deep Christian faith to pioneer education of the young, to make illegal the use of women and children underground, and to limit factory working hours. 

The Shaftesbury Society is the means by which the present generation continues the work. Some of the world’s social reformers have been poor men eager to advance the prospects of their own class but the seventh earl is today remembered in the popular mind more than his antecedents, because although one of the gentry, he could see the need. He went to boarding school, Harrow and Cambridge. Many of the residents of homes for the elderly and those who grew up in orphanages have reason to be thankful for him.

The Parish Church of St.Mary at Iwerne Minster

Mar 16th, 2011
by Dorset Ancestors.
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In an earlier article we discussed the village and parish of Iwerne Minster; now it is time to look at the parish church. Pevsner claims it to be “…The most important and interesting church in the neighbourhood…”, and Simon Jenkins includes it in his book ‘England’s Thousand Best Churches’ and he recommends we take our Pevsner with us. So here we are with our well thumbed copy in hand.

This Norman church dedicated to St. Mary was built on a slight rise towards the eastern part of the village and possibly over an earlier structure. Work started in about 1100 AD when the quarrymen and masons were drafted-in. The workmen would have lived in the village for some years during the build. Much of their original work survives, bearing witness to their skills. Take special note of the pillars of the nave arcades with scalloped capitals, the depressed church arch, the north chapel with its pair of narrow deeply splayed windows, the round arches of the north aisle and its west window, all the work of these early craftsmen. The transitional pointed arches of the south aisle may be of the same date. Conveniently, at the time the church was being built there was a quarry directly opposite the site, but it has long since been filled-in.

The walls of St. Mary’s are of flint and rubble with ashlar dressings; the roofs are stone-slated and tiled. The nave, north aisle and north transept are of the mid 12th century and, says the RCHM, “they appear to be parts of an important church”. It is thought the original church was cruciform in plan and probably had a south tower. Late in the 12th century the south aisle was added on the west of the presumed south tower. Early in the 13th century the north transept was rebuilt. The chancel, west tower, south and west walls of the south aisle and the south porch are all of the 14th century. The tower is 60 feet in height, buttressed on three sides and crowned by a battlemented parapet. William of Wykeham was a great builder of churches and in 1361 was prebend for Iwerne in Shaftesbury Abbey. It is thought he may have promoted the building of the tower.

In the 15th century the chancel arch was widened and a steeple was added to the west tower – a rarity for Dorset. The nave was heightened during the 16th century and clerestory windows were installed.

In 1807 Thomas Harvey and Christopher Senior made extensive alterations to the church, which were not universally appreciated and in some quarters referred to as “mutilation rather than restoration”. We know that Thomas Harvey was a churchwarden. The steeple was cut down in size: originally it rose 40 feet above the tower but was reduced to about half that. The steeple is octagonal, with ribbed angles and has two traceried bands around it; a finial and a weather vane complete it. The rood loft, said to have been the most perfect in the county, was removed along with the steps leading to it and a deep gallery was put up across the tower arch at the bottom of the nave.

Then in 1871 T.H. Wyatt, a well known church architect who had built and restored many churches, was brought in to restore the church. He removed the gallery and replaced the old high pews with pitchpine seating, at the time considered fashionable. A squint was opened up in the north chapel and a north vestry was added. The south chapel was added in 1890. It is a memorial to Lord Wolveton by his widow.

There are six bells, the oldest, early 14th century, bears a fine Lombardic inscription “HVIC ECCLESIE DEDIT TERCIA SIT BONA SUB JESV SUB NOMINA SONA”. Three bells were added early in the 17th century, suggesting wealth as well as piety in the village; they are dated 1609,1613 and 1618. A further bell was added in 1768 and is inscribed: Mr Thomas Harvey & Mr John Applin, wardens. Another bell was raised into the tower on the coronation of King Edward VII.

There are many monuments and floor slabs in the church including: Robert Fry, his wife Mary (Cox) and other family members 1684; John Ridout 1764 and his wife Henrietta 1730; Katherine wife of Francis Melmouth 1718;  Mrs Bower 1721; Thomas Bower 1728; John Bower 1711. The Bower family held Iwerne Minster House and estate for about 250 years before selling it in 1876 to George Glyn, 2nd Baron Wolveton.

‘Tapper’ Toms (1854 – 1924)

Mar 12th, 2011
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Henry Thomas Toms grew up to be one of life’s characters. He was known as Harry Toms and later in life acquired the nickname of “Tapper”. Some thought he was a little eccentric; certainly he was one of those old-time independently minded individuals with curious ways we rarely see in our villages today.

He was the son of William Toms, a thatcher from West Lulworth who went to Winfrith Newburgh, a neighbouring village to find a wife. He married Mary Roberts at St. Christopher’s church, Winfrith, on the 8th of October 1833.

William took his bride home to Lulworth and on the 25th of May 1834 their first child Henry was baptised at Holy Trinity Church at West Lulworth. A further ten children would follow: John in 1836, Martha in 1837, Mary in 1838, Joseph in 1841, George in 1843, Sarah in 1846, Jane in 1848, Fanny in 1851.  We have not carried out a forensic examination of the family history but it appears the first child Henry and the second child Martha died in infancy and we believe Fanny died aged about 6 years.

Then in 1854 William and Mary had another child they named Henry Thomas. Mary probably thought her days of nursing children were over but she would have been mistaken, because six years later at the age of 45 she again found herself pregnant and in due time a further son, Walter George, arrived. In 1871 Mary Toms then 56 years of age and a widow for these past six years was living in West Lulworth with her sons 16 years-old Henry Thomas and 11 year-old Walter George. Mary passed away in 1880.

Harry Toms worked as a general and sometimes agricultural labourer. It was the custom in those days to lay a neat hedge, but not Harry, who excused his work by saying “I don’t hold wi’ trimming hedge sticks, a good rough hedge ‘ull kip out cows”. Not surprising then, that he was not always fully employed and his work was said to be “average”, perhaps the result of losing his father at a young age before he could learn his father’s trade.

When trimming hedges he always found a walking stick to add to his collection, each stick had a ‘frost’ nail driven into the end of it to prevent slipping. He always used a stick and the noise of the nail on the hard road earned him his nickname – “Tapper”.

He was a man of regular habits and idiosyncrasies. Nightly he would “tap” his way to the Red Lion Inn at Winfrith where he would enjoy some ale and a smoke before setting-off home again, always leaving at 9 p.m. “Tapper”, we are told, never bathed and was often “itchy” and people got used to seeing him rubbing his back against a post. When summer came he would “tap” his way to the sea to wash his shirt, which he would wring out as dry as he could and then put it back on, it was dry by the time he got home. He believed sea water would not give anyone a cold and surprisingly he was always healthy. He told the time by the trains (try doing that today!). People described him as an interesting talker often using words that had long passed out of fashion.

In his later years he was employed on the farm of Mr. George Atwil at Winfrith and he made his home in an empty cow stall. It seems “Tapper” never slept in a bed or ate his meals from a table and he refused both when offered by Mr. Atwil. He would collect his meals from the farmhouse and ate in his cow stall and when he turned-in for the night he would remove his boots and sleep fully clothed covered with old coats in the feeding trough. It seems there was not a woman in Lulworth, Winfrith or Owermoigne who would entertain the prospect of taking  “Tapper” for a husband.

We know “Tapper” was working at Atwil’s farm until at least 1916. When he became too old to work he was taken to the Workhouse at Wareham where he died in 1924. He was described as a “queer looking man, short, wiry, rather humped-backed, with busy eyebrows that overhung his sharp little eyes, and a ginger beard, and he wore a trilby hat with its crown always pushed up”.

Horton – A Folly for a Man with a View

Mar 8th, 2011
by Dorset Ancestors.
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To some it is an interesting folly; to others it is a blot on the landscape and to a telecommunications company it is a very convenient perch for their mobile phone aerials. To its builder it was a seat from which he could watch the hunt when he was too old to ride to hounds himself or gaze up at the heavens. We are talking about Horton Tower or, as its builder liked to refer to it, Horton Observatory.

Pevsner  describes the builder as a “megalomaniac” and before you  accuse the old man of going over the top just remember the same builder was responsible for submerging the village of Moor Crichel just so he could have a lake in his front garden.

The man who wanted a room with a view was Sir Humphrey Sturt. He was born in 1725 and doesn’t seem to have wasted a moment of his six decades; he died on the 20th October 1786. He was the son of Humphrey Sturt of Horton and Diana Napier. On the 27th of April 1756 at St. James, Westminster, he married Mary Pitfield the daughter of Charles Pitfield and Dorothy Ashley; it is through his wife he inherited Moor Crichel. The family wealth came from his grandfather, Sir Anthony Sturt, a businessman, City of London Alderman, and a victualler to the Navy. 

Elsewhere he has been described as “energetic, ambitious and wealthy”  – and to this we would add visionary. He had many ideas for improving agriculture that were ahead of the times and he introduced them in the Crichels and on Brownsea Island, which he bought in 1765. He used steam power for threshing and records suggest he spent £50,000 improving the castle and gardens on Brownsea and bringing enormous quantities of manure to the island where he planted several new crops. He was an architect and the MP for Dorset between 1745 and his death in 1786.

Sturt’s Tower sits in open country a little outside of Horton village. Its six storeys with brick walls rise 140 feet above the ground and originally there was a fireplace half way up it. Above the fourth storey the straight sides have classical pediments and the round turrets have ogee domes, with ball finials; all openings have two-centred heads. The woodwork has gone but there are beam-holes for six floors which Pevsner thought would allow for up to eighteen rooms.

This folly was used as the location for the cock-fighting scene in John Schlesinger’s film version of Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd . Love it or hate it you cannot miss Horton Tower – it can be seen from miles around.

We have posted a photo of the tower in the photo section.

Dorset Home to the Development of Radar

Mar 5th, 2011
by Dorset Ancestors.
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It would not be an exaggeration to say that Dorset played an irreplaceable part in overcoming the Nazi threat in the 1940’s, and in the preservation of freedom for the world. Not far from Corfe Castle, where for centuries events were played out which are part of our history, on the seaward side of the Isle of Purbeck is where for two years the sciences behind electronic defence, attack and navigation were worked out.

Today, through radio technology we can watch events on the other side of the world as they happen, and view missions to the moon or Mars, and it can all be traced back to Worth Matravers and St.Aldhelm’s Head, on the Dorset coast, not forgetting earlier as well as later research locations elsewhere. Four miles from Swanage, in the early days of the Second World War, a vast radar experimental complex was set up, which was to draw Service and scientific personnel and leading electronic engineers from all parts of Britain. The inventors moved in, academics mixed with mechanics – and it was all hushed up.

From their researches came, perhaps most notably, blind bombing by an amazing new system code-named ‘H2S.’ Later, the Aircraft to Surface Vessel technique was developed to pinpoint U-boats as they hunted in packs for shipping from North America carrying the vital supplies which kept Britain going – one of the greatest threats to our survival – as well as armaments for D-Day and the conquest of continental Europe.

Even the microwave oven owes much to the Isle of Purbeck, although the idea of the cavity magnetron, which was to be used in wartime as a transmitting valve creating echoes, came from two research workers at Birmingham University – John Randall and Harry Boot. Fundamentally, they were the ones who made Worth Matravers famous. Some would say the magnetron won the war.

Microwave links for telecommunications and television have much to thank Dorset for. So have weather forecasting by radar, and navigational aids. Computers came later. Long before the war, though, with Hitler seeking world domination, defence strategies involving radar began to be developed from the mid-1930’s and a chain of early warning stations with tall masts was built all down the east coast and as far west as the Isle of Wight.

With the research station established, the small airfield at Christchurch further along the coast towards Southampton was in use for 18 months by aircraft testing the devices. The aim was to create equipment that would show echoes from the ground or from the sea aboard Allied ‘planes. Sometimes a target aircraft would fly above Swanage Bay, towards or in line with the coast so that its image could be picked up on a screen on the shore.

Reg Batt, in his book ‘The Radar Army,’ relates how echoes were first received at Worth Matravers from a coastguard hut and the chapel of St.Aldhelm, on the headland. The old chapel is now the only vestige of the research station that still exists.

But a moving target was required, so one day he set out along the headland on his bicycle, apparently on his own initiative, with a sheet of metal wired to his machine. This was to lead to exciting results on the screen. They were getting somewhere. But their big task was to reduce the wavelength they used to a few centimetres for clarity, which had never been done before, and to site the equipment they invented aboard an aircraft.

The best brains from the universities, including (Sir) Bernard Lovell, later the inventor of the Jodrell Bank radio telescope, were brought in to get the best results. All this led to the perfection of radio beams and blind bombing with the use of the magnetron valve, so that darkness or poor visibility presented no problem at all in marking the target.
 
Not only ‘H2S.’ but other techniques such as OBOE and GEE were developed in Dorset too. All were vital to defence, navigation and attack. Secret experiments were made with crystal and klystron, where Britain co-operated with the United States, and which was a pulse transmitter of less power than the magnetron. High-powered parties from London and abroad visited the site.

Eventually 17th century Leeson House in Swanage was to be taken over by the research station, which was an easy target with its high masts that could be sighted far out to sea. The position was very advantageous, however, and there was great excitement when distant points such as the Needles and St.Catherine’s Head, 32 miles away, were picked up.

Meanwhile, manufacturers across the country were ready to put the new creations into large-scale production for installation. Giant aerial systems involving dishes looked out on Swanage Bay, a factory production unit sprouted in north Bournemouth, and then came the day when Telecommunications Flying Unit at Christchurch was promoted and moved to a new airfield at Hurn, which was one day to become Bournemouth Airport.

In early 1942 the whole of the Worth Matravers complex moved in to Malvern College, as it was assumed to be under possible threat from commando attack. Defford Airfield in Worcestershire became the associated flying unit housing a large number of test aircraft.

It meant an upheaval for 800 personnel and in some cases their families. The seaside town of Swanage, where many of them had lived, became a quiet Dorset community once again. Masts had to be dismantled and crates packed and as many as 90 removal vans and flatbed trucks would be on the move out of the Isle of Purbeck in one day. As for the workers, they packed their things and left in fleets of coaches brought from all over the area. The move was accomplished in three weeks.

Some of the aircraft flying out of Defford, which included heavy bombers such as Lancasters, Halifaxes and Super-Fortresses, were quick to pick up echoes from the shores of the Bristol Channel, Chepstow and the River Wye. The nearest large towns of Gloucester and Cheltenham were seen almost as on a map. Meanwhile, down below, as in Dorset, the people went about their business completely ignorant of the experiments being conducted in the skies above them.

A terrible tragedy struck in June 1942, when a Halifax heavy bomber crashed in flames in the Forest of Dean, carrying all 11 RAF and scientific personnel on board to their deaths, including A.D. Blumlein, who has been called the foremost electronic engineer in Britain at that time, and who advised the type of television system adopted by the BBC in 1936 rather than the Baird system.

Prime Minister (Sir) Winston Churchill immediately ordered a redoubling of efforts on ‘H2S’ research, and some three years after the principle was discovered the cavity magnetron was installed in many of the RAF’s aircraft by the following year, as well as in U.S. Air Force aircraft. The national radar memorial window was erected in Goodrich Castle, two miles from the Halifax crash scene, in the 1990’s.

While it functioned in close association with Worth Matravers, the airfield at Christchurch, whose runway was only just long enough for the Boeing airliner shipped over from the United States, and which had been adapted as a flying test bed, was Top Secret and had its own uniformed Air Ministry police force.

What a change, and what an upheaval, came over these sedate Dorset towns (although Christchurch was then in Hampshire,) in the early years of the war; then the busy scene changed and the action moved elsewhere. Working conditions were often primitive and without heating.

Yet everyone pulled together, no secrets appear to have been divulged, and in a few years the war had been won, on the Continent, in the Atlantic, in Africa and the Far East. It is difficult to see how it could have been without radar, in which Britain took the world lead. Without that, and the part that Dorset played, world history would be very different from what we know today.

Collision off Portland – 1877

Mar 3rd, 2011
by Dorset Ancestors.
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This was a night when gale force winds lashed the Jurassic cliffs of Dorset’s coastline, a night when the sea thundered ashore on Dorset’s beaches, and a night when lifeboats saw action but still there were vessels lost and numerous casualties. Furthermore, this was a night when many seafarers sailed their last voyage. And it was a night when the decision to head for shelter or go bare masted into the storm would be critical – and a night when good Captains earned their rank.

Storms ushered in September of 1877 and for seafarers in the waters off the Dorset coast the nights of September 10th and 11th were very difficult.  A French fishing vessel crashed aground on Chesil Beach, all hands lost. Many local Chesil fishing boats were smashed up on the beach. But the biggest loss came as two large vessels both at the start of long deep sea voyages out of London collided off Portland. 

Ploughing down the Channel and in the charge of a pilot was the iron ship Avalanche, her Captain, E. Williams was well thought of by his ship’s owners, Shaw, Savill and Company. He was a seaman of great experience: he and his ship were much favoured by colonists who regularly visited or traded with England. The crew and officers numbered thirty four, to which could be added a steward and twelve foreign seamen along with emigrants and other passengers making a total of about one hundred souls on board the Avalanche, which was headed for New Zealand. Built three years earlier, the ship was rated A1 at Lloyds and was of some 1,000 tons.

The wooden ship Forest of Windsor bound for Sandy Hook near New York in ballast, had departed London at about the same time as the Avalanche. The ship, about 200 ft and nearly 1,500 tons, was built at Windsor, Nova Scotia in 1873; she was owned by Churchill and Sons and was also registered A1 at Lloyds. Her master was Captain Ephraim Lockheart.

On September 10th the wind backed, blowing strongly from the south-west causing huge seas in the Race off Portland. The following evening, with the tide under her, Avalanche sailed close in to Portland Bill in an attempt to steer clear of the tremendous seas churned up by the Race. Rain kept her from the view of the lighthouse-keepers and others watching the sea from the shore.

Captain Lockheart on the Forest of Windsor had been leading his hard stretched crew of just twenty-one men continuously through the turbulent seas encountered during the passage down the Channel. He caught only a glimpse of the cliffs off Portland through the rain. Both vessels hidden from each other by a wall of rain were racing through this turbulent vortex of water, their masters unknowingly heading directly towards each other. 

At half-past nine on the evening of Tuesday, September 11th with no warning, the Forest of Windsor suddenly tore into Avalanche. The ship foundered and all her crew and passengers were lost to the sea within minutes with the exception of the Third Officer, John Sherrington, and two seamen who against all the odds stacked against them managed to get on board the Forest of Windsor. Two emigrant families with ten children between them were amongst those lost.

The Forest of Windsor began to fill with water but remained upright long enough for attempts to be made to launch her boats. Violent squalls of wind and high seas swamped four of the boats but one, manned by Captain Lockheart, his chief mate and John Sherrington from the Avalanche, and nine others was able to get away before the Forest of Windsor capsized.

Peculiar to the Portland area is a fishing boat known as a lerret. Not only is it a good sea boat but has some characteristics of a surf boat which enable it to land through the surf onto Chesil Beach. It was to their lerrets that early on Wednesday morning, several brave Portland fishermen ran. J. Chaddick, John and Tom Way, Tom Pearce, Tom and Lew White and John Flann to one boat and to another went another Flann, another John Way, G. White, Bennett, and J and G Byatt. Later the bravery of all these men was recognised by the Agent General of New Zealand, who sent them all a payment of £5 matching an award made to them by the Board of Trade. A further £130 was collected and handed to the men later in the year.

For several days bodies of the drowned washed ashore on to Chesil Beach and at Portland, Chickerwell and Abbotsbury. The Jury at the Coroner’s Inquest held at Portland on September 15th expressed dismay at the “neglect to provide decently for the interment of the drowned.”

The upturned hull of the Forest of Windsor showed no inclination to sink; it was a hazard to shipping and the Royal Navy ordered H.M.S. Defence under the command of Captain Howard, aided by H.M.S. Black Prince and H.M.S. Galatea to sink the wreck. The Navy attempted to blow the wreck out of the water using torpedoes but these just ran through the wreck. Over the following three weeks it shrugged off gunpowder charges, mines and all sorts of means, stubbornly remaining unmoved. As if to mock its attackers after one assult the lid of a seaman’s chest floated to the surface decorated with a picture of the Forest of Windsor in full sail. The demolition of the wreck was finally accomplished three and a half weeks after the collision at a cost of about £1,000.

There is an illustration of the rescue in the photo gallery.

Lord Denzil Holles

Mar 1st, 2011
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Three hundred and fifty years ago, one of the great men of Dorset championed the Parliamentary cause and was one of its leaders in the Civil Wars during a political career that lasted nearly 60 years.

He was Lord Denzil Holles, second son of a gentleman. He lived from 1598 to 1679. Eighty-one years is a long life in volatile times such as he lived in, one of the climactic periods of Britain’s history.

His oldest brother inherited the family lands and he had to make his own way. But he was still one of the favoured aristocracy, and the family motto was “ Hope favours the bold.” He could hardly lose. However, life was hard even for the landed classes and medical attention was still in its early stages. His mother Anne, wife of the Earl of Clare bore 10 children and he was one of only three survivors.

He was bound for a life in the political arena, and his presence in the House of Commons was first widely noticed in 1629 at the age of 31. Three years earlier he married Dorothy, daughter of Sir Francis Ashley. They had four sons, of whom only one survived. The family was very much bound up with Dorchester and the surrounding county. Most of Holles’ estates were in Dorset. He was made a freeman and burgess of Dorchester. Yet he is somewhat forgotten today.

His time at Westminster did not pass easily. A man of temper when roused, he was in January 1642 one of five MP’s charged with high treason, possibly because of correspondence with the Scots. He was against episcopacy at a time when the Scottish bishops refused to give way to moderate views, and he went along with the Presbyterians.

Involving himself in the military preparations for the Civil Wars, he helped to set up a regiment of foot soldiers which left London with the Earl of Essex’’ army in 1643. But politics had taught him a lot. Within a few months of the outbreak of war, he became a supporter of peace with the King, and by 1648 the Royalists even saw him as ‘one of themselves.’

In 1647 he led the House of Commons but later had to escape to France. Fifteen years later King Charles II was to appoint him as ambassador to that country. It is said that throughout his life he showed concern for matters of honour and justice.

There is a memorial to Lord Holles in St. Peter’s Church, in the centre of Dorchester.