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Thomas Gerard of Trent

Jul 17th, 2011
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Thomas Gerard was born at Trent in 1593. Educated at Gloucester Hall, Oxford, he was an historian, friend of Leicestershire historian, William Burton and an admirer of William Camden. It is only recently, since 1896, that Trent transferred from Somerset to Dorset. Thomas Gerard developed a liking for Dorset, following his marriage in 1618 to (Mrs) Ann Coker of Mappowder.

Their daughter, Ann, married Francis Wyndham of Trent in 1646 and in 1651 Francis and Ann provided a refuge for King Charles II, hiding him from the pursuing Parliamentarian soldiers as he travelled through Somerset on his way to Bridport and safety in France.

Thomas Gerard wrote the first book in English about Dorset but today it is still known as Coker’s Survey of Dorset, having been wrongly credited to his brother-in-law, John Coker, when the manuscript, missing its title page, was discovered and published a century after Thomas Gerard had written it. ‘Coker’s Survey of Dorestshire – containing the Antiquities and Natural History of that County’ is the book’s full title.
 
It is Gerard’s unfinished work about Somerset: ‘Particular Description of Somerset’ of which there is no doubt he is the author, which provides the proof that he, rather than his brother-in-law, John Coker, was the author of the Survey of Dorset. Both books use the same organised plan of work and start with a map of the county showing the names of the hundreds, followed by a general description of the County using headings such as: rivers, commodities and forests. He follows the rivers each in turn from their source, describing the towns along their route to the sea noting any important families living along the way. If further proof is needed on page 76 of the book the author refers to “…my predecessor John Gerard.”

 The History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset, by John Hutchins is the major reference work for anyone studying the history of the county and Hutchins used ‘Coker’s,’ as he referred to it, as a reference source.

Thomas Gerard died aged 40 years.

John White – Minister of the Great Migration

May 20th, 2011
by Dorset Ancestors.
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For England the first half of the 17th century was a time of economic slump and religious dissension culminating in seven years of internecine warfare. Dorchester was one of the larger towns and situated at one of the busiest intersections in Dorset. Conversion from arable to pasture by enclosure was commonplace, forcing displaced agricultural workers to seek new employment in the towns. It was this bulge in the population of Dorchester that prompted some civic leaders of the day to call for overseas colonisation.

Against this background enter John White – The Reverend John White in fact, appointed Rector of the parish of Holy Trinity, Dorchester in 1606. He was mostly a moderate Puritan who conformed closely to the Anglican ceremonial and seems to all accounts to have been a charitable and civic-minded minister, attentive to the social conditions of his parishioners. But John White would earn for himself another claim to fame: as the cleric who led the organisation that would play a seminal role in the pilgrim settlement of New England during the first three decades of the 17th century.

John White was born in 1575 at Stanton St. John near Oxford, in the manor house opposite its 13th century church, nephew of Thomas White, Warden of New College, Oxford. Thomas also owned the manor, and it is believed he used his influence to lease the Manor Farm to his brother, John’s father. At first John White was educated at Winchester, he entered New College Oxford, where he resided for the next eleven years as a fellow.

At 31 White became Rector of Holy Trinity and was soon preoccupied in philanthropic activities aimed at improving the lot of the people of Dorchester. For example he persuaded civic officials to establish a free primary school. And following the serious fire that consumed much of the town in August 1613 merchants and councillors rallied around White in his campaign to raise subscriptions for its reconstruction. The fire had levelled his church, along with most public buildings, warehouses and about 170 homes. White’s fund received a £1,000 advance from King James towards the rebuilding work and job re-creation for the homeless and poor. Another free school, almshouses and workhouses were added in the following years.

Wrote Thomas Fuller: “All able poor were set to work and the important maintained by the profit of the public brew house, thus knowledge causes piety, piety breeding industry, procuring plenty into it. A beggar was not to be seen in the town.”

At that time there had been for a number of years a loosely organised band of fishermen carrying out fishing expeditions to the offshore waters of the New England seaboard. In 1623 however, a band of about 120 Dorset men founded Dorset Adventures (or Dorchester Company,) a joint-stock commercial angling organisation with John White as its pioneering leader. Many of the members were relatives of White; yet others were friends or ministerial associates.

Under White, members conceived a plan to set up year-round preparation and salting stations to process cod for English and overseas markets. In 1623 a group of Dorchester Company men sailed in The Fellowship to settle Cape Ann in Massachusetts, being supplemented by more men and supplies in 1624/25, after which the Dorchester Company was disbanded. Its property was then transferred to a new company, later to be known as the Massachusetts Bay Company, set up by John White in the former company’s place. The Dorchester Company had left White personally insolvent.

Two small ships bearing cargoes of provisions were dispatched to the new colony. The patent for the new company was obtained from the Council for New England on March 19th, 1628. On the 20th ships berthed at Weymouth were loaded with provisions ready to set sail for Salem, fulfilling White’s promise to Roger Contant, leader of the Salem settlers, that he would send more supplies.

By the end of 1630 White had become concerned about developments in the colony. The governor of the patent, a former Devon soldier called John Endicott, had sequestrated planter-settler’s gardens and homes for his own use and in the name of the Massachusetts Patentees. The earlier Dorchester planters were not happy with this; their rights as the first settlers had been assured through the influence and help of John White and special grants had been made to them. In 1629 White, with the help of John Humfry, had secured his title with the granting of a royal charter. By this time too, news of the plantation’s success had spread beyond the West Country to attract new settlers from among the London merchant class, clerics, and north and east countrymen.

Although his moderate Puritanism differed from that of the new company members, White was still a respected and intensely engaged member of the reformed company. In August 1629 he attended a meeting at which the company patent and government were transferred from London to New England. But the spiritual winds in New England were changing. White’s hope for a moderate Puritan plantation in Salem was denied by more radical elements in the company, chiefly represented by Endicott and separatist ministers. About this time John White composed “The Planters Plea.”

Then in March 1630 what would become known as the Winthrop Fleet, after the future Governor of Massachusetts John Winthrop, set sail for the colony. Meanwhile, White prepared his own ship, the Mary & Jane to sail with more planter-settlers from the West Country, many of whom were known or personally recruited by him. But frustration over the colony’s growing separatism compelled White to compose a tract called (by its shortened name) “The Humble Request.” The leaders of the Winthrop Fleet were asked to sign this tract in the hope – unrealised as it happened – that it would discourage them from adopting separatist policies once in the New World.

For some reason John White himself never joined the Great Migration. He maintained a watch over the colony’s affairs and lent assistance when needed, energetically mustering provisions for Massachusetts. This led, in 1631, to some people in Dorchester suspecting White of misappropriating parish funds towards the cause. In 1636 and 1637 he was moved to write to Governor Winthrop, taking him to task for not being more tolerant towards those with differing religious dispositions, and for allowing the merchants to over-profiteer. Then in 1633 White refused to comply with an edict from the Archbishop of England to have The Book of Sports read from the pulpit; instead he delivered an outspoken sermon that brought upon him suspicion of non-conformity. White even had his study searched for incriminating evidence. (Note: Book of Sports formally Declaration of Sports an order issued by King James I of England to resolve a conflict about Sunday amusements, between the Puritans and the gentry, many of whom were Roman Catholics.)

John White became a prominent member of the Westminster Assembly of Divines where, according to Anthony Wood, he was “one of the most learned and moderate among them … a person of great gravity and presence, and had always influence in the Puritanical Party near to and remote from him, who bore him more respect than they did to their diocesan.” Callendar, in his historical discourse about Rhode Island, called White “the father of the Massachusetts colony.”

When the Civil War broke out White sided with the Parliamentary cause, during which time his home and study were sacked by a detachment of Prince Rupert’s cavalry under the command of Prince Maurice.

The war over, he went into retirement at his rectory in Dorchester, where he wrote a tract called “The Way to the Tree of Life.” He died on 21st July 1648 aged 63 and was buried beneath the south porch of St. Peters Church in Dorchester.

Thomas Weld – A Cardinal at Lulworth and Rome

Apr 21st, 2011
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Visitors to Dorset’s historic Lulworth Castle should look out for one painting in particular hanging on a wall. The work of Cornelius Jansen, the picture is especially significant, for it is a portrait of the man who saw the building of the castle to its completion: the second Sir Humphrey Weld, Governor of Portland. Two generations later Lulworth was in the possession of Humphrey’s grandson, Thomas Weld the elder, who in 1786 was responsible for the first freestanding post-Reformation Catholic chapel to be built in England, within the grounds of the castle. However, it was his son, also called Thomas, who was to leave his own outstanding mark upon the estate – and upon the Catholic cause. This Thomas is the subject of this summary biography.

Something should be mentioned at this point of the condition of church and state in the realm at the time. The England of the 18th century, into which the younger Thomas was born, had not long begun to emerge from a Protestant supremacy in which Catholics could not hold or inherit property, vote at elections, or take an oath of Allegiance to the Crown. The Test Acts, which enforced these privations upon dissenters, were repealed by an Act in 1729, and in 1791 the Catholic Relief Act was passed, though it would be another 38 years before full emancipation was achieved. The Welds appear to have been an influential part of 17th and 18th century aristocracy with family or property associations in other counties, particularly Berkshire and Staffordshire, before acquiring their entail in Dorset.

The younger Thomas Weld was born in January 1773, not in Dorset but London, where his parents were staying, apparently for the occasion of the birth. His paternal grandparents were Sir Edward Weld and Mary Theresia Vaughan, while his mother was Mary Massey, a daughter of the Massey-Stanley family of Hooton Hall at Puddington, Cheshire. Young Thomas was one of six children but as he was the eldest son the estate would revert to him upon his father’s death.

When Thomas was only three years old in 1776 his father inherited the Lulworth estate upon the death of his elder brother Edward, eventually taking up his residence at the castle in July of that year. Within two weeks Thomas senior had employed contractors to transform the castle into a grand 18th century country house.

Together with his younger brothers Thomas was educated by a Jesuit tutor employed at Lulworth. However, he would remain at home for longer than either his father or uncle, but is thought likely to have rounded off his education studying for a year at the Jesuit Academy in Liege. But France was then convulsed by the Revolution, and so because of the danger Thomas was not able to travel freely around Europe.

When Thomas came of age at 21 his proud father was prompted to write, in a letter to Bishop Walmsley, that his heir”…was all that one could wish for in a son…”. Generous, creative, and kind, Thomas developed keen interests in art and music, learning the cello, French horn and flageolet and filling sketchbooks with pencil drawings of scenes from life and nature. Indeed, in one early portrait he is portrayed with sketchbook and pencil in hand.

That same year, 1794, a company of Trappist monks, having already fled the French Revolution were invited to Lulworth and resettled in a small house near the castle. Them move was part of an ambitious plan by the elder Thomas Weld to build a small cob-walled monastery on the estate for the monks, though this was intended to be just an interim measure towards a plan to restore and re-consecrate the ‘dissolved’ Cistercian Abbey at nearby Bindon. The Order was originally designated the Monastery of the Holy Trinity, though for a reason not clear this was later altered to St. Susan. This event, possibly more than any other, may have winged young Thomas’s faith. And determined that he should study for the priesthood.

But within the next two years, another development arose in Thomas’s life that would normally have been irreconcilable for one in hold orders. He had fallen in love with Lucy Clifford of Tixall and in 1796 they married. The time would come when Thomas’s infringement of the Church’s vow of celibacy would earn him the title “Cardinal of the Seven Sacraments,” though by the time he reached that exalted position he was a widower. For the next 14 years the Weld’s had a home – Westbrook House – at Upwey, where their daughter Mary Lucy was born in 1799. Here, Thomas and Lucy could pursue their interests of music and regular visits to London and Paris, though Thomas, in the company of Bishop Milner, also attended the consecration of the new cathedral in Cork in 1808.

In 1810 Thomas senior died from a stroke following a year of declining health. This event brought a greater burden of responsibility on his eldest son. Thomas the elder was a wealthy man who had left his affairs in good order, but his younger sons were not so financially responsible. Thomas found himself having to pay off his younger brother’s debts and provide a jointure for his mother. This came at a time when rising bread prices and depreciating land values due to the recession in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars affected the Weld fortune as it affected everyone else’s. The Welds moved to a more modest residence in the resort of Clifton, and Thomas closed Lulworth Castle for about three years. With his three younger brothers Thomas became a subscribing member of the Catholic Board in 1812.

But in the Waterloo year of 1815 Lucy Weld fell ill and died. To support her grief-stricken brother-in-law Lucy’s Sister Constatia Clifford took her place as a surrogate mother to care for Mary Lucy until she came of age or married. Thomas then came under pressure from the Church authorities to close the provisional monastery at Lulworth, and eventually the St. Susan’s monks were repatriated in 1817. Mary Lucy, Thomas’s daughter, married Hugh, son of the 6th Lord Clifford in 1818. Soon after Thomas sold the Clifton home, finally leaving to study for ordination under the Abbe Carron at a seminary in Paris.

From then on, Thomas Weld’s rise through the Catholic hierarchy was steady and sure. After three years he was bestowed with minor orders from the Archbishop of Chartres, being ordained Priest and returning to England in 1821. Back home his first appointments were at the Chelsea Chapel and as assistant Priest at St Mary’s in Cadogan Street. During this time Lulworth was being managed through his agent, Thomas Billet who sub-let the castle three times: to a Mr Baring in 1817, to Robert Peel in 1820 and the Duke of Gloucester in 1824.

In 1826 Thomas Weld was consecrated as Bishop of Lower Canada, although he remained based in London as Co-adjutor to Bishop MacDonell of Upper Canada. Two years later he signed over Lulworth Castle to his younger brother Joseph, who was noted for his standing in the yachting world. By this time, however, through his daughter the Bishop had six grandchildren.

The Duke of Wellington managed to pass the Catholic Emancipation Bill in 1829, and proposed that Thomas should be appointed Bishop of Waterford. But the Duke was over-ruled by the Vatican, which instead conferred upon him the first Cardinal’s Hat any Englishman had worn since the Reformation and summoned Bishop Weld to Rome, for which he departed with his family. Once there, Thomas was made Priest-Cardinal of San Marcello in 1830.

But in 1831 Hugh Clifford’s father and Mary Lucy died within a few weeks of each other. Hugh then succeeded to the title but returned to England only briefly before re-joining his father-in-law in Rome. The Cardinal had been much attached to his only child, as he would now be to his grandchildren, and is said to have taken one with him whenever he left Rome.

Little is known about Cardinal Weld’s affairs in Rome after 1831. He would have presided over commissions, and his great friend Cardinal Wiseman considered him a business-like chairman. Thomas made his will in 1828. The winter of 1837 was a severe one and led to the Cardinal contracting bronchitis, and after twenty years as a senior cleric in the Roman Church, he died.

There is however, a touching little addendum to this story. One of the Cardinal’s present living descendants, Sally, was clearing out an attic in the castle house in 2003, when she discovered a Harrods hatbox bearing a label reading: “Cardinal’s Robes.” The robes have been placed on display in St. Mary Chapel in the Castle grounds – the church the Cardinal’s father built.

Sir James Thornhill

Apr 17th, 2011
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Artistic talent in 18th century England has been said to have-lagged some way behind the standard of painters in the rest of Europe, where talent appears to have been thicker on the ground. It was considered that landscape painting was an unworthy subject for an artist to indulge. So Dorset can proudly claim to number among its sons a luminary in the art world who applied his talent to great commissions, and who would become the first English artist to be knighted.

This son of Dorset was James Thornhill. The family name derived from the then hamlet of that name in the northern parish of Stalbridge, today a part of that town. His earliest traceable ancestor was Lord of the Manor at the time of Richard II, and the Thornhills held the manor until the late 17th century. Some uncertainty exists as to whether James was born in 1675 or 1676, but his birthplace was Melcombe Regis, Weymouth. His father was Walter Thornhill of Wareham, a grocer who was the eighth of sixteen children; his mother Mary was the daughter of the Governor of Wareham, Col William Sydenham. While James was still young, his father abandoned his children, leaving James in the care of his uncle, Dr Sydenham.

James’ rare talent showed itself early and in 1689 when he was 14 he was apprenticed to Thomas Highmore, to whom he was distantly related. Highmore was then Sergeant-Painter to William III, and specialised in non-figurative work. Thornhill soon found himself assisting his master with the interior décor at Chatsworth House, and during his work there was introduced to the work of the French and Italian masters such as Laguere, Cheron and Verrio, who greatly inspired the novice.

In March 1704, eight years after completing his apprenticeship, Thornhill was made a Freeman of the Painter-Stainers Company of London. In 1707 he began work at the Royal Navy Hospital (now Greenwich College,) a commission which would preoccupy him on and off for almost two decades. Justifiably considered his masterpiece, this involved two lofty ceilings and five murals depicting the protestant succession from William and Mary to George I. The Painted Hall alone was 108 feet by 50 feet, and took four years to complete.

Following a visit to the continent in the early 1700’s Thornhill was appointed Sergeant-Painter to Queen Anne. In 1711 the painter was appointed a director of Sir Godfret Kneller’s Academy, succeeding him as governor there from 1716 to 1720. He was also active in promoting other early art academies. In 1721, when the Naval Hospital commission was half-finished, George I knighted Sir James Thornhill.

Running concurrently with this mammoth undertaking was another commission (1714-1717) to embellish the dome and Whispering Gallery of St. Paul’s with scenes from the life of that patron apostle in eight guilded chiaroscuro designs. To gain this contract however, Thornhill had to ward off competition from the Italian masters Pellegrini and Ricci. It is noted that during this task he almost lost his life when he stepped too far back on the platform suspended from the dome, but was saved by his assistant’s intervention in pulling him back from certain death.

The years of the Greenwich and St. Paul’s commissions were productive for James Thornhill in other ways too. In the 1720’s he established his own drawing school at Covent Garden, where his pupils would include William Hogarth. By then Sir James had married and had a daughter, Jane, to whom Hogarth eventually became engaged and married, though the father -in-law of the future painter of ‘The Rake’s Progress’ thought his pupil had betrayed his trust, and for a time he cold shouldered the union.

In 1722 Thornhill was contracted to work at Kensington Palace, but over-charged for the job, leaving him open to being under-cut by the ascendant William Kent. Other works of Sir James were painted scenes for the Drury Lane Theatre, the Great Hall at Blenheim, Princesses apartments at Hampton Court, the South Sea Company’s hall and staircase, the staircase at Easton Newton (Northants) and the chapel at Whimpole.

Another plank of Thornhill’s work was to illustrate books and carry out some architectural work, though Moor Park in Hertfordshire is believed to be the only building wholly attributable to him. At one time in this capacity he even drew up plans for the new town hall at Blandford. He further undertook some portrait painting, Sir Isaac Newton and the play-write Sir Richard Steele being two of his most illustrious subjects. His smaller works from the easel include the altar pieces for Queens College and All Souls Chapels in Oxford, and even an altar piece portraying the Last Supper for St. Mary’s Church in his home territory of Melcombe Regis.

St. Mary’s however, was not the only work of Thornhill’s hand to grace some of the stately homes in his native county. In total he pained four murals for Dorset Houses, but only two of these – at Sherborne and Charborough – survive. That at Sherborne is on the theme of the Caledonian Hunt, and shows the goddess Diana gazing down from the ceiling. This painting however, is in urgent need of restoration, but requires £55,000 to be raised in order for the work to be carried out.

James Thornhill’s life work earned him honours, wide acclaim and – for the time – a great fortune. For example the Greenwich naval hospital commission alone netted him over £6,000 – three times the earnings of an 18th century Dorset farm labourer over his entire working life. At Greenwich he commanded the fee rate of £1 per square yard for the walls and £3 per square yard for the ceiling.

As well as his knighthood, Thornhill became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1723 and in 1722 was elected MP for Melcombe Regis and Weymouth. This had recently been the constituency of Sir Christopher Wren and Thornhill held it for the next 12 years, though it is not thought that he ever made a speech in the Commons throughout all this time. He did however, paint the houses of Parliament (as they then were) in 1730, a work in which he was assisted by his son-in-law William Hogarth, and which has been in the possession of the Earl of Hardwicke.

But following his work at Moor Park Thornhill undertook no further major commissions. He hardly needed to. With the great wealth he had accrued, Sir James was able in 1725 to re-purchase his ancestral seat at Stalbridge. Here he built Thornhill House in the Palladian style, setting up in the grounds a lofty obelisk to commemorate the accession of George II. And after several years of genteel retirement in broken health marked by attacks of gout, Sir James Thornhill died here on May 4th 1734 aged about 60.

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.

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.

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.

The First Earl of Shaftesbury

Feb 21st, 2011
by Dorset Ancestors.
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The first Earl of Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, was a quite amazing man who in a frenzied, tumultuous and almost feverish life changed from the Royalist to the Parliament side in the Civil War, later serving under Charles II.  He lived from 1621 to 1683, and was only 10 when he succeeded to huge estates at Wimbourne St.Giles in Dorset and elsewhere, his mother having died in 1628. He entered Exeter College, Oxford and Lincoln’s Inn, and was elected MP for Tewkesbury in 1640.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pamela Digby

Dec 30th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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It is interesting to note how widely those of Dorset origin destined to be famous will eventually travel in the course of their lives. But who would have thought that a girl from a Dorset family, born 90 years ago, would have risen to such a high position in society as to become our most famous prime minister’s daughter-in-law and, ultimately, nearly the most influential non-American ever in US politics? But this indeed was the remarkable destiny of Pamela Digby.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dr. Thomas Sydenham MA, MB – the English Hippocrates

Dec 20th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Thomas Sydenham was one of the three foremost Dorset men of medicine (the others were Francis Glisson and Frederick Treves,) but of the 17th century, when scientific and medical knowledge was in its infancy and riddled with superstition. Of his earliest years next to nothing is known, other than that he was born at Wynford Eagle in 1624, the eighth in a family of ten children.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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