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Bradford Peverell

Dunn Family

George and Amelia (nee Sherry) Dunn were both born at Cerne Abbas during the 1850’s, this is where they grew-up, married and had their three children. Born in Victoria’s reign they lived through the times of Edward VII and George V and the Great War. They would have followed with interest the events which led to the abdication of Edward VIII. Their long lives stretched into the early years of the reign of George VI and they witnessed some of the darkest days of the Second World War before their deaths in 1942 and 1943.

In 1891 George and Amelia moved from their home in Mill Lane, Cerne Abbas, to the nearby parish of Bradford Peverell, where they spent the rest of their lives. It is not clear what prompted the move that occurred shortly after the death of George’s father. As he neared the end of his life George had the distinction of being the oldest inhabitant of the parish and a few weeks before his death in 1943 George was interviewed by a journalist who found him receiving the attentions of a visiting barber (his nephew.)
 
A year earlier George lost his wife of 64 years, they had married on 27th of December 1877. For the times theirs was not a large family, just three children: William James born towards the end of 1878 (George’s father was James Dunn,) Rebecca Mary was born early in 1882 (Amelia’s mother was Rebecca Sherry,) and Charles George was born during the summer of 1885.

Mr Dunn told the journalist that he started work at the age of nine for one shilling and sixpence a week and remembered his father received seven shillings a week – there were seven in the family. George remembered his father being ‘sacked’ by his employer, a lime burner, for refusing an overtime task (without pay.) For this ‘grave’ offence his father was punished with six days confinement in Dorchester prison. George could remember his father walking the eight miles from Cerne Abbas to the prison attired in a white smock and on the completion of his sentence he walked back in the same white smock.

On the 27th December 1937 George and Amelia celebrated their Diamond Wedding Day Anniversary and received a Royal Greetings telegram from the King and Queen. For over forty years George was captain of the Bradford Peverell bell ringers. He last rang to celebrate the Coronation of King George VI.

At different times George was an Agricultural and General Labourer, a Carter and a Domestic Groom. The 1911 census reveals that Amelia was working as a Midwife.

The tight bond between George and Amelia was broken when Amelia passed away early in 1942 soon after their 64th Wedding Anniversary: George passed away in the second quarter of 1943.

 

Bradford Peverell

On the weekday afternoon we visited this pleasant village we saw no one: it had the feel of a commuter dormitory for Dorchester, being just three and a half miles from the county town and about half a mile from the main road to Yeovil it is ideally positioned for the role. Some of the dwellings here appear to be recent developments and others are tasteful restorations of older properties. Appearances can be deceptive; peel away the patina of modernity and there is much of interest to be found here.

In the closing years of the 17th century Robert Hutchins was curate at St. Mary’s, Bradford Peverell, and rector of Dorchester All Saints; his son John was born in the village on the 21st of September 1698. Like his father, John was a man of the church and held positions at Swyre, Melcombe Horsey and Holy Trinity Wareham, all the while collecting information for what was to become the most important reference work on the history of the county: The History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset.  (See our article in the Biography Category: ‘John Hutchins’ published January 13th 2010.)

William Howley became Rector of Bradford Peverell on the 23rd of May 1811 and held the position until 1813; in 1828 he was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. With Lord Conyngham, the Lord Chamberlain, he went to Kensington Palace at 6am on the 20th of June 1837 and announced to Victoria her accession to the throne. A year later he crowned Queen Victoria at her Coronation. The ceremony did not go smoothly and Howley is reported to have said afterwards: “we should have had a full rehearsal.”  He later conducted the marriage of Queen Victoria to Prince Albert and earlier he had presided over the Coronation of King William IV.

Ownership of the manor of Bradford can be traced back to the reign of Edward the Confessor (1042-1066) but the suffix Peverell was added when Richard I granted the manor to Robert Peverel and his grant was confirmed by King John. The Peverel family owned the manor for over three hundred years to the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.

Domesday Book (1086) records that Bradford was held by Tol or Thurli a Dane who owned several Dorset estates. These passed to a Norman Chieftain William de Ow (or d’eu) the Count of Picardy, who came to England with the Conqueror. In 1096 he was executed at Salisbury for treason against William II of England, the third son of William the Conqueror. The estates then passed to the Earl of Hereford and later became part of the Duchy of Lancaster.

During the reign of Henry I (1100-1135) and Stephen (1135-1154) the manors of Bradford and Muckleford came into the possession of the De Port family as tenants of the Duchy of Lancaster. Adam de Port was outlawed and his land forfeited to King Richard I who, as we tell above, granted the manors to Robert Peverel but during the reign of Elizabeth I the male Peveril line became extinct: William Peverel leaving an only daughter, Jane.

Jane married Nicholas Meggs of Cambridgeshire. The Meggs’ suffered heavy losses during the Civil War and in 1683 Thomas Meggs sold the manor of Muckleford, a small hamlet within the parish, to make good the family finances. The rest of the parish remained in the hands of the Meggs family until 1770, when Harry Meggs sold it to John Purling. (See our story ‘The Muckleford Treasure’ in the Bradford Peverell category).

John Purling was a director of the East India Company and from 1774 to 1784 the Member of Parliament for Melcombe Regis. He built a house about a mile from the church that burnt down in 1822.

In 1848 the manor passed by will to Hastings Nathaniel Middleton and he built a new house in 1866. He was a nephew of John Purling and grandson of Nathaniel Middleton, the agent to Warren Hastings at Lucknow in 1774: Warren Hastings was Governor General of India from 1774 to 1785.  In 1898 his son, Hastings Burton Middleton, became lord of the manor; he lost two sons: Hastings Charles Middleton to a chill caught at Oxford while rowing and Captain Frank Middleton during the Persian Gulf Expedition of 1914 during the First World War and so it was Hastings Burton Middleton’s grandson, Lieutenant Hastings Frank Middleton R.A., who became lord of the manor. It was Hastings Nathaniel Middleton who rebuilt the church in 1850.

John Hutchins has left us a description of the old church: “The church is a small and ancient fabric, dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. It stands on the south side of the parish, near the seat of the Meggs’, and consists of a chancel tiled, a body, and a small south aisle, the burial place of the Meggs’ between both, covered with lead. In a wooden turret, covered also with lead, are three bells. It has a porch, to build which Robert Roberts, rector, by will 1852, left 60s.”

The present church was designed in the early English style by Decimus Burton and consists of a chancel, nave, south porch and a west tower with a steeple of Portland stone; this can be seen from some distance.  There were originally three bells: one dated A.D.1616, another dated 1674 and a third cast by William Knight of Blandford is inscribed: Harry Meggs Esq C.W 1747. These bells were recast in 1896 when a new tenor and treble were added with inscriptions to the Middleton family.

Some of the stained glass from the old church has found a home in the new church and tells the story of the Virgin Mary. Another window which contains glass from the old Church illustrates the arms of William of Wykeham, who purchased the advowson of the living in 1391. The east window of the chancel also survives from the old Church.

Thomas Gerard in his book Coker’s Survey of Dorestshire (1732) wrote: “Bradford Peverll. The Seate for a longe time of the antient Familie of Peverells whose estate about Henry the Eighth’s time fell by a Female Heire to Nicholas Meggs and his Posteritie enjoy it. Neare Bradford the River dividing itself, making an Island of manie faire and fruitful Maedowes, and there joineth againe a little belowe Dorchester, the more northern branch, being the lesser, amongst these Maedoes runneth by Wolton, more trulie Wolvehampton, a fine and rich Seate which (by the daughter and Heire of John Jordan the antient owner of it) came to John Mohune. His only daughter and Heire Alice brought a faire Estate unto her husband Henry Trinchard of Hampshire whose Grandchilde Sir Thomas Trinchard, gracious with King Henry the Eighth was called chief Builder of the Habitation of Sir George Trinchard, a Man of Great Courage.” (See our article: ‘Thomas Gerard of Trent’ Published 17th July 2011, in the Trent category.)

The parish is a little less than 3,000 acres and has been home to a population of between 300 and 400 since 1851, the 2001 census records 344 inhabitants. In the 1880’s the village supported two grocers, a butcher, a blacksmith, a builder, a dairyman, a miller and three farmers. A National School for sixty children was established in the village in 1836 and for many years the village benefited from having a railway station – Bradford Peverell and Stratton Halt.

The village stands on the south bank of the River Frome. Bradford is a reference to the ‘broad ford’ over the river on the site of a Roman bridge. The village is approached by crossing over the river on an iron bridge which replaced an earlier wooden structure. A Roman aqueduct in the form of a clay-lined channel that was used to get water from the River Frome at Frampton to Durnovaria (Dorchester) can still be seen.  Evidence of ancient occupation can be found in the parish: there are four Neolithic Long Barrows and, from the Bronze Age, twenty-eight round barrows.

Muckleford Treasure Trove

Within the parish of Bradford Peverell is the hamlet and manor of Muckleford, which in 1935 comprised two farms: Higher and Lower Muckleford. The farm-house at Lower Muckleford owned then by Mr Lewis Marsh is interesting being formerly a ‘cell’ dependent on the Cistercian Abbey of Tyrone in Normandy, which was endowed by the De Port family who were lords of the manor during the reigns of Henry I and Stephen (1100-1154.)

In 1935 a very valuable ‘find’ was unearthed when some calves disturbed the soil on Higher Muckleford farm, which was then owned my Mr Chell. The calves’ actions exposed a hoard of gold-coins. Altogether there were over 100 coins consisting mainly of “units” but there were several “half-units” and a few “quarter-units”. These had been minted at various times during the reigns of James I and Charles I (1603-1649). The coins had been packed into a “stocking-purse” that had long since decayed but had been fastened at the neck by silver “four-wire” and a plain purse ring, which we understand Mr Chell later occasionally wore as a finger ring.

At an inquest held at Dorchester on this treasure trove Mr Chell was allowed its full value from the British Museum where most of the coins are but some were presented by Mr Chell to the Dorset County Museum.

It is likely the coins were hidden during the Civil War (1642-1649), probably by a Royalist prevented from returning to recover his treasure through fear of being captured by Parliamentarian soldiers.

The Prisoner a Padre Befriended

In the autumn of 1862 a 21-year-old man went to the rope in Dorchester jail, a final enactment of 19th century justice for the crime of murder. The condemned man was Edwin Preedy, but perhaps it cannot be said that he was entirely in control of the depressive and violent nature that had driven him to vow he would stab a warder at the prison where he was being held for an earlier offence. For it was the fate of Preedy to suffer an unloved and cruelly deprived childhood.

Born in Leamington, Warwickshire around 1841 Edwin Alfred Preedy was the illegitimate son of a man who never knew how to bring up a child with due care and affection. His mother too, seems to have been a rather detached person who had no influence over her son. As a result of the cruelties and abuse inflicted upon him by his stepfather, seeds of anti-social rebellion and resentment were sown in Edwin’s maturing mind. Until he was eleven he attended a national school where, although he was quite clever he was also a proud, passionate and idle boy. When he was thirteen however, his mother and an aunt conspired to have the boy institutionalised in a reformatory but Edwin decamped from the school after just ten months.

There then followed a string of incarcerations for petty offences. Upon release from the last of these sentences Preedy ran away to join the Army’s 85th Regiment, even rising to the rank of corporal, but then in the company of three others deserted after stealing some clothes. When caught, Preedy was sentenced to penal servitude for three years. From his first prison he was moved, first to Millbank then to Portland. It was while serving his sentence here that Preedy, in a fit of murderous ire, vowed to a fellow inmate that he would take a knife to a warder who removed his soiled dinner plate.

So in September 1862 Preedy was transferred to Dorchester jail to await trial for murder. Personally he saw no hope of a pardon, and in his despair he frequently became violent, such that on two occasions he had to be restrained in irons respectively for 14 and 28 days.

Yet fate it seemed had not entirely given up granting Edwin Preedy an opportunity to repent and receive absolution. He told the prison chaplain that he could only foresee his “dread end.” But at this point a remarkable Anglican minister entered his life, as if sent by a redeeming angel of mercy from on high. The cleric was the then vicar of nearby Fordington, The Reverend Henry Moule BA, and his visits to the cell-bound Preedy throughout the last weeks of his life made history as perhaps the most protracted, challenging and tragic case of a priest’s attempt to save a condemned man’s soul ever recorded.

Henry Moule was a luminary among 19th century Anglicans. Early in his priestly career he boldly tackled moral laxity, ecclesiastical rectitude and the injustices of squalor and the powers that be. He was chaplain to Dorset Barracks and Vicar of Fordington and is best known for his invention of the earth-closet. But his dealings with Preedy introduced him to an altogether new dimension in human nature and pastoral experience.

Moule’s strategy was to entice Preedy into making a confession or admission of guilt, expressing remorse for what he had done. He implored the prisoner to repent of the murder and all his earlier sins. At times the vicar found the prisoner in a conciliatory and receptive mood, but at other times Moule had to endure a barrage of insolence and even physical assault. When his temper was aroused Preedy no longer wanted to be visited. One day, in Moule’s presence, he broke down: “here I am with one foot in the grave; I cannot break down this temper” he sobbed. On another occasion he alluded to other inmates in his position who said they had found peace. It is recorded that, when free in the prison yard he caught and tamed sparrows, but would then vindictively kill them.

Two weeks before his trial Preedy received a letter from his mother, in which she offered to raise money for his counsel. He told Moule he had decided to plead guilty. Surprisingly, at his trial his mother and aunt appeared as witnesses for the defence, but Preedy became abusive to all except the judge, jury and Sydney Osborne. Moule however, could not induce Preedy to see his mother and aunt after being found guilty and sentenced to death; Fordington’s vicar was even warned that the prisoner was too dangerous and unpredictable to approach! It seemed at first that Moule’s consolation of religion had fallen short of extracting from his client full and lasting contrition for his wrongdoing.

Yet Edwin Purdy went to his death with the most admirable courage and calm resignation. On his last afternoon he even took communion in the presence of three or four other warders who were glad to join him. Out of gratitude he presented five men with five bibles given to him by Sydney Osborne. And then…he felt the noose and blindfold about his head, the drop beneath his feet…

What appears to be the only source for this story is Henry Moule’s own account, written some time after the prison assignment it describes and entitled Hope Against Hope. A rare copy of this book is in the County Museum collection, available for study only by special arrangement and a handling fee of £10.

Footnote added 7th Sept,2012. In the school log book for Bradford Peverell dated 27th March 1863 there is the following entry. “Some of the children went to Dorchester to see Mr Fooks and Mr Preedy hung.” Underneath that entry is a note apparently dated 28th July 1873, which reads: ” They should not have gone had I known it and been able to prevent them. H.B.W.”

John Hutchins

Visitors to Dorset’s History Centre in Dorchester, formerly the Record Office, can see and consult a history of Dorset in four massive volumes. The pages of these gargantuan tomes represent the life work of a remarkable clerical historian who died over 230 years ago, and a challenging project with a chequered history quite as intriguing as the life of its author: the Reverend John Hutchins. His four-volume work is the definitive archive for the county of his day, yet this clergyman’s monumental task suffered setbacks and came close to not reaching the presses at all.

On Sunday, July 25th 1762, 64-year-old John Hutchins, then rector of Holy Trinity Church in Wareham, was away conducting a service at Swyre Church near Bridport when fire broke out in one of Wareham’s many timber buildings. Fanned by wind, the fire rapidly engulfed a large area of the town including the rectory, where Mrs Hutchins was at home. At what must have been great personal risk the rector’s wife left and re-entered the blazing building more than once to salvage whatever she could of her husband’s transcripts and notes – including those for the developing history of Dorset – each time emerging with armfuls of the irreplaceable documents. Not all of the papers could be salvaged but enough were saved to enable Hutchins to continue his work on the project. But for this courageous act of a devoted wife, Hutchins history of Dorset may never have seen completion. Holy Trinity’s Rectory, insured for £300, was the fourth building to catch alight, but the fire left 132 other buildings either badly damaged or reduced to charred embers.

Hutchins attention and interest were first turned to studying the history of Dorset through the unusual channel of a request for a piece of genealogical research. In the mid 1730’s the then Lord of the Manor of Milton Abbas, Jacob Bancks, asked Hutchins if he would conduct enquiries into the history of the Tregonwells – the family of Banck’s mother – on his behalf. This soon led to Hutchins examining collections of earlier documentary material about Dorset. Bancks then encouraged the minister to start collating and writing a comprehensive historical treatise on the county.

In 1736 another noted antiquarian and historian of the day, Brown Willis of Blandford, returned to Dorset and further persuaded Hutchins to undertake the task of writing the county’s history. Three years later Willis devised a six-point questionnaire, together with an appeal for help, which he then distributed throughout the county. Thus John Hutchins came to begin his great undertaking. But what manner of man was this who’s unflagging motivation put his county down on paper for all to consult in the centuries to come?

John Hutchins was born in Bradford Peverill on the 21st of September 1698, the son of the Revd. Richard Hutchins, then rector of All Saints in Dorchester. Richard’s wife, John’s mother, died when John was only eight years old. When older, John was sent to be educated at Dorchester Grammar School, from where he went up to Oxford to study towards taking holy orders, graduating with a BA in 1722.

Hutchins first clerical position was as curate at Milton Abbas, and it was likely during this time that Jacob Bancks was responsible for his preferment to his next ministry as rector of Swyre by 1729. Again, through Banck’s influence, Hutchins secured the living at Melcombe Horsey, where by this time his writing of the history of Dorset was already underway, though the move to Melcombe proved to be a setback in his studies. He did however marry Anne Stephens, daughter of the rector of Pimperne, while at Melcombe. John and Anne had just one child, a daughter they baptised Anne Martha.

The Hutchins last and most enduring move was to Wareham, when John was appointed rector of Holy Trinity (with St. Martins and St Mary’s) in 1744. It was said of him that he was “a sound divine, rather than an eminent, preacher.” Little is known of his parochial activities before coming to Wareham but he seems to have been a conscientious parish priest. However, Hutchins was not without his difficulties during the Wareham years. The town was a stronghold of non-conformism, and furthermore one of Hutchins curates had to be committed to an asylum. Then with Hutchins in absentia came the day of the great fire and his wife’s Anne’s heroic act of salvage.

However in 1761, a year before the fire but when the History has been in writing for about 25 years, Hutchins received a generous subscription enabling him to research archives in London and Oxford. With occasional assistance from others, Hutchins would be pre-occupied with collating and writing his history for the rest of his days. Throughout these long years he would have little time from preaching, or energy for other writing.

By early 1773 Hutchins health had broken, being paralysed after suffering a stroke. Thereafter Anne Martha helped her father finish the work, writing his letters and other documents as he probably dictated them to her, but this naturally hampered and delayed the completion of the work. Just three weeks after he had written its dedication on 21st June, the author of The History & Antiquities of the County of Dorset died aged 75. He lies beneath an inscribed floor slab of King Edward’s Chapel in St. Mary’s. Wareham.

The first edition of the history of Dorset was published the following year under the supervision of Dr William Cuming of Dorchester and the antiquarian Richard Gough. Meanwhile, Martha had met (though it is not known how) and fallen in love with John Bellasis, a soldier in the East India Company. While Gough and Cuming were concerned for the welfare of widow and daughter, Bellasis was equally concerned to support his fiancée’s mother financially, as well as promoting his late father-in-law to be’s work and memory. Gough then arranged Martha’s passage to India in March 1775 where, re-united with Bellasis, they were married in Bombay Cathedral in June 1776.

Bellasis joined the EIC in 1769. By the time of his fiancée’s arrival in October 1775 he had been promoted from Ensign of Artillery to Lieutenant; he would ultimately become a Major General and Commander-in-Chief at Bombay.

While on an extended two-year leave in England with Martha from 1791 Bellasis arranged for Gough to supervise the publication of a new edition of the history of Dorset with William Morton Pitt MP and Thomas Bartlett Jr, Town Clerk of Wareham, acting as his chief Dorset representatives and helpers. In 1792 he arranged for a mural monument to his father-in-law’s memory to be set up in St. Mary’s.

Anne Hutchins died in 1793 and John and Martha returned to an India they would never leave again for the rest of their days. They had six children, all of whom survived infancy. Anne Martha Bellasis died on May 14th 1797, and in 1803 her widowed husband sent home a preface for the second edition of the History at his own expense; he died in 1808. After the first two volumes of this edition had come off the press a fire broke out at the print works, destroying Volume 3 and unsold copies of the previous two volumes. Fortuitously the printer held one copy of Volume 3 at his home, and this volume was re-printed. The fourth and final volume, The History & Antiquities of Sherborne in the County of Dorset, published by Nichols, Son & Bentley of London, came out in 1815, and the third edition of the set was issued between 1861 and 1873.

Before John Hutchins time the recorded history of Dorset was random and fragmentary. His legacy was to be the first person to marshal the hotch-potch of miscellaneous documents about the county then in existence into a single exhaustive reference. He was, for instance, the first to put forward a speculative account of the possible origin of the Cerne Giant, but also became involved journalistically in the tradition of the Chesil sea-monster called Veasta, and wrote about such historic features as Kingston Lacy and Badury Rings.

In this respect, perhaps, he was a man ahead of his time.