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Hardy’s Wessex – 170 Years On

Jun 24th, 2011
by Dorset Ancestors.
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The 2nd of June 1990 dawned as a day of great moment for the people of Dorchester. The county town was festooned with bunting, and there was a carnival atmosphere, for that week Dorchester and its county were observing and celebrating the 150th anniversary of the birth of Dorset’s greatest son in the world of words: Thomas Hardy.

It is not the intention here to present yet another potted chronological discourse on Hardy’s life and works. For that one can refer to any one of about a dozen exhaustive biographies currently in print. Instead, this is a speculative account of how the great man would find his patch of native soil today, and to contrast his Dorset with today’s Dorset. Were Hardy to come back today, would he soon need counselling for culture shock? This is perhaps more than just idle speculation, because as elsewhere so much has changed in society, economics, the environment and infrastructure since the innocent carefree days of the 1920’s when a bed-ridden Hardy took his last breath during a stormy January night.

Hardy’s birth-cottage at Bockhampton has of course been pickled in aspic for posterity, but Max Gate, the home he later built for himself near Dorchester, had a virgin beginning. When the author first moved into the rather oppressive redbrick house in the latter 19th century it stood almost in the middle of nowhere, a new dwelling place on a blank field. The fringe of Dorchester then maintained a respectable distance, but the march of time has put paid to Max Gate’s isolation. Today the house, now in the care of the National Trust, became hemmed in some 30 years ago by an estate of modern housing. Not far to the north the green belt country which once separated the author from his county town has since been torn asunder by the course of the town’s southern bypass.

Max Gate was soon besieged by admirers collecting souvenirs from the garden or hoping to catch a glimpse of the author at work. To ensure his privacy, one of the first things Hardy did at his self-styled home was to plant saplings out in the front, one of which he had tenderly reared in a pot on his windowsill while he was living at Wimborne. By the night he died they were noble in-closing trees darkening the rooms, but which waved their branches in farewell in the January gale when the old man died.

The author of ‘Under the Greenwood Tree’ would at least be pleased to see that the Max Gate trees have of course been protected and preserved, but over the years many other trees and hedgerows countywide would have succumbed to disease, neglect, vandalism or development. The manageable farm holdings of Hardy’s day have fallen prey to the post-war industrialisation of arable agriculture, with its powered machinery such as combine harvesters and suction milking machines, laying off milkmaids from milking sheds and the many who once harvested the crops with scythes and slaked their thirst with cider swigged from stoneware flagons brought onto the field. They were the agrarians who needed no pesticides, herbicides or artificial fertilisers; they would never know the meaning of BSE, CJD, Scarpie, Wine Lakes, Butter Mountains or paperwork from Brussels.

From Max Gate, Hardy could look towards his ancestral parish of Stinsford. It was here in St. Michael’s Church that his parents met and fell in love while playing together in the Church band. Thomas Hardy Sr. was a fine violinist, an instrument his famous son also took up when he too joined the family band. At that time St. Michael’s had high-backed pews and a minstrel’s gallery where the band played during the services. The gallery has long since been removed to accommodate the organ and the pews too, have been replaced by single seats. (Note: New gallery and organ installed in 1996 – see Parish Church article.)

At the time of Hardy’s death there were still some communities in the remoter parts of the county without electricity. Electrification did not come to Whitchurch Canonicorum in the Marshwood Vale, for instance, until the 1920’s. Today every village, if not every home can tap into the national grid, so releasing its share of CO2 to the global warming debate. In the days of Hardy’s youth such energy profligacy would not have been possible, and the highly efficient insulating effect of thatching would have made the typical Dorset cottage of the early 19th century a very low emission home!

Furthermore, it would have been (almost) zero-emission in waste. Those were the days when dustbins were for dust – or the cinders raked from the previous night’s fire. Vegetable peelings from the kitchen would likely have paled into insignificance the number of food containers left over from the simple purchases at the village corner shop. And if Hardy were alive today he would surely look back with nostalgia on the days when so much more food was produced and consumed locally.

But even living in his own time the author could never have imagined or even dreamed that within 60 years of his death people would be forced to travel several miles by bus or car to shop at an out-of-town multi-national hypermarket taking up the space of two football pitches. Similarly that he would witness a rash of takeaways blighting the green urban fringes to dish out fast meals of convenience, or a countryside blighted by power pylons, phone masts, vulgar advertising hoardings or distracting road signs. Besides the visual pollution the author would have been shocked by the elevated decibels of noise as well.

Another great change, this time in the landscape of the county, which would likely have appalled the writer was the commercial afforrestation of the heaths. Hardy had long been captivated by the mystic, enchanted atmosphere of his Egdon Heath at dawn and dusk. So much so that he once invited the Cheltenham-born composer Gustav Holst to visit and get a feel for the heath with the intention of capturing its essence in a composition. Back at work in Gloucestershire Holst’s score became his popular orchestral tone-poem ‘Egdon Heath.’ This heath retains something of its primordial atmosphere today; sadly though, the economic imperative of needing to replace timber stocks after the First World War became paramount, and other heath land was to disappear under conifer plantation managed by the Forestry Commission within the last decade of Hardy’s life.

Compared with Hardy’s day it might be thought that today’s Dorset is a place more selfish, uncaring and destitute of moral rectitude. Certainly during the late 19th century a remarkable evangelical revival was underway, turning people’s thoughts back to the wise council of the scriptures as a guide in their daily lives. The reward for this observance was a prosperity that grew and blossomed in a climate of public order and deference to authority. Yet  Hardy’s later friend and fellow county-man, Newman Flower, could write in ‘Just as it Happened’ that as late as the 1890’s people were being thrown into Poole Harbour at election time, gamekeepers were being shot at in woods, and horsemen were being ambushed by robbers “of Dick Turpin order” on the highways.

It would however, not entirely be correct to think that the comparison between the Dorset Hardy knew and the Dorset as we know it concerns two distinct sets of conditions with no margin for overlap. From what has gone before, a definite conclusion emerges. It is that the socio-economic changes which have culminated in the “shock of the new” making the England of the 1990’s and now the 21st century what it is had already begun in Hardy’s lifetime. This is because he could bear witness to the negative effects of the aftermath of the Great War, which began to appear incrementally in society in the decade following the armistice. And it did not stop at the decline of morals and the advance of electrification, petrol-driven vehicles and telecommunications. Hardy still lived to see the first five years of radio broadcasting and even the first lowly beginning of television transmission.

But overall technology was still at a comparatively primitive level in Victorian England, and hi-tech was virtually unknown. Bearing this in mind it may come as no surprise to some that it was only gradually that Hardy overcame an inherent predisposition to technophobia. He balked at the new technology and revolution in travel brought about by motor cars when they arrived, declaring that legs were in our gift for walking on, not to wrap up in a fur to operate pedals! Even the telephone became an object of suspicion. Years went by before he used the telephone installed at Max Gate, and only then was his resistance broken when a lifelong friend rang “Dorchester 43” one day and insisted on speaking to him personally. Once this rubicon was crossed, however, he was ever after faithful to the invention.

In conclusion it is perhaps best to say that, on balance, the changes in Dorset over the past 170 years have been an inevitable double-edged sword of the bad and the good, of both progressive and retrograde steps.

The Great Fire of Dorchester

May 28th, 2011
by Dorset Ancestors.
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On the 6th of August 1613 townsfolk gathering in the harvest from fields at Fordington near Dorchester were amazed and shocked to see flames and smoke rising to a great height above their county town. Church bells were also being tolled, but it seems these were barely audible above the roar of the fire and the population’s general panic.

Only a short while before, a candle-maker named Baker had accidentally spilt some boiling tallow at his workshop-home in the town, causing the hot liquid to set light to the timbers of his house. The summer of 1613 had been an exceptionally hot and dry one in England, and as most of the town houses and shops in Dorchester were constructed of wood and thatch the tinder-dry materials readily combusted. It therefore took no time at all for the conflagration at Chandler Baker’s to spread along and across the street. The rapid spread of the fire was further fanned by a strong easterly wind.

These two events or vignettes of town and country life were to presage what has been called the Great Fire of Dorchester, which preceded that of London by 53 years but which, when taking account of the relative sizes of the two population centres, was proportionately the more devastating. But the earlier of the two fires was not just a local catastrophe, estimated by the Dorset cleric and historian John Hutchins to have wiped out two-thirds of Dorchester, razing three hundred homes to the ground at a cost of £200,000. It was also to have repercussions for the political and spiritual state of the realm, for religious persecution, emigration, even for setting the course of subsequent trans-Atlantic history in the three decades up to the Civil War.

It is possible however, that Hutchins was over-zealous in his estimate of the number of buildings burnt down, but when the fire was finally extinguished only one of Dorchester’s three churches remained useable. What we do know about this disaster comes mainly from a Hampshire clergyman, John Hilliard, who left an account in a book entitled: “Fire From Heaven (or a Trumpet Sounding to Judgement”) In his first few lines Hilliard describes how “…on the 6th of August this town flourished in its greatest state, but before three o’clock in the afternoon it was covered in a garment of red flaming fire and all jollities were turned to lamentation”. Hilliard’s use of the phrase ‘Fire from Heaven’ and the apocryphal overtones of the language in which his account is couched is picturesque speech, though very typical for the time. In 17th century England the people were much more God-fearing and scripture-observant than they are today, and disasters involving loss of life, whether natural or man-made, were commonly put down to instances of divine retribution or Acts of God as a matter of course.

By the time most of the homes had been set alight each family was pitched into a dangerous bid to salvage its own possessions. Margaret Toomes, a tenant of the George Inn publican William Smith, is on record as saving her own possessions but without helping to save the inn, though she did loose some linen and other goods. Far nobler was the quick-thinking and courageous act of Nicholas Vawter and John Spicer, the Town Bailiffs who together rolled 40 barrels of gunpowder stored in the Shire Hall to safety away from the flames after wrapping them first in wet sacking. When it was the turn of the county jail to catch alight, all of the prisoners were issued with buckets of water and ordered to help in dowsing the flames. After the jail was saved, five of the inmates were duly pardoned as a reward for their efforts.

Alerted by the flames the harvesters at Fordington, together with the other townsfolk and villagers were soon bringing water from the Frome to quench the fire, forming human chains to carry the bucketfuls. Despite their best efforts most of the county town was in ruins by nightfall. Most of the damage occurred in the eastern part of Dorchester, the parish of All Saints being the worst affected. There was of course no organised fire-fighting service or equipment in the 17th century and another 30 years would elapse before the town council was able to provide a ‘brazen engine’ paid for by the imposition of a corporation tax. But the allocation of compensation to professional people was wildly unfair and disproportionate. For instance, the town’s famous Puritan Rector John White received only £4 in compensation for the minimal damage to Holy Trinity, yet a wealthy town merchant was awarded £350 to re-build his gutted home – nevertheless complaining that this was insufficient to cover his ‘great loss’.

Yet despite the extent of the destruction there was only one loss of life: Cecily Bingham, who was trying to save her shoemaker husband’s stock. But in the aftermath of the tragedy everyone realised that what was needed was a total reformation of the town. In this regard John White’s sermons were to have an evangelically galvanising effect on the governors of Dorchester in their crackdown on ‘drunkards, fornicators and Sabbath breakers’. Ever after, the town fathers would consider it their duty to promote sobriety and godliness in the population. There was to be poor relief, hospitals, and institutions for education. The underlying conviction that the Great Fire was an enactment of God’s judgement led to successive Sundays for several years after being marked by church sermons dominated by the theme of divine admonition and repentance. The physical and financial repercussions of the fire were of lesser significance than the emotional and spiritual effects.

But the Great Fire of Dorchester was to have one other effect, and one reaching far beyond its borders. By the early 17th century the town had become the most Puritanical in England, and was a bastion of the most fervent support for Parliament when in 1641 it raised up arms against the Crown – and the curtain on the Civil War.

Through its influence on John White the blaze was the critical fulcrum for the Puritan Revolution, putting the county town at the forefront of the religious and political schism that was to divide England and much of Europe. For some years there had been a trading settlement in New England, but White’s ambition was to establish a permanent colony in the New World, to be populated by a new stock of the religiously oppressed in his own country. And it was White, in association with Sir Walter Erle and a consortium of Dorchester merchants, who founded the Dorchester Company (later absorbed by the Massachusetts Company) to oversee the re-settlement of new emigrants across the Atlantic in Massachusetts’ twin settlement of Dorchester. Indeed, a high proportion of the emigrants who were to sail from the Dorset coast in the decades before the Civil War broke out were those Dorchester citizens homeless and dispossessed by the fire. Of 130 emigrants to Massachusetts between 1620 and 1650, about 33% went to live in Dorchester. Today the original new Dorchester only survives in the name of a naval base and bay on the Boston waterfront.

A further aim of the Dorchester Company was the propagation of the gospel to native redskin Americans in the New World. In 1620 the colony of Jamestown was founded to the south, leading eventually to the 13 colonies of the embryonic United States of America. Still, one legacy of the fire, and the colonisation of New England by many Dorsetian settlers has been that in the suburbs and outskirts of Boston other transposed Dorset place-names such as Wareham, Milton and Weymouth can be found. Thus the mishap of a lowly candle-maker in an English county town set in train the sequence of events making the USA what it is today.

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.

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.

Princess Victoria’s Tour of Dorset

Jan 27th, 2011
by Dorset Ancestors.
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July 1833. Fourteen years before the first railway tracks are to be laid in Dorset, travel is by horsepower or by sea and at Weymouth the population is in festive mood, excited at the prospect of greeting a 14-year-old Princess who will one day be Queen. It was the start of a royal tour to acquaint the people of Dorset and Devon with the woman who one day would rule over the greatest empire the world had ever seen.

Guns were fired as her yacht appeared off St. Alban’s Point and as the ship dropped anchor off the Esplanade buildings and the royal party came ashore in the royal barge, Royal Salutes were fired

Princess Victoria’s home was Kensington Palace, but Norris Castle on the Isle of Wight was her summer base. Accompanied by her mother, the Duchess of Kent, the yacht “Emerald” was towed by a naval steam packet from Portsmouth. With the Princess was her adored King Charles spaniel “Dashy”. The Duchess was “dreadfully” sea-sick on the journey along the south coast, according to Victoria’s diary, which she kept assiduously throughout and which is today preserved at Windsor Castle.

The townspeople of Weymouth turned out and greeted their royal highnesses as illustrious visitors.  It seemed the whole population was proceeding from the King George III statue to the Quay. God Save the King was played as the royal party mounted the King’s Stairs used by King George III on his frequent holidays in the resort; they were then driven in carriages to the Royal Hotel facing the beach.

The following day after an official reception the princess and duchess travelled in a carriage to Melbury House in north Dorset to be entertained there by the Earl of Ilchester.  They were accompanied out of town by many of the inhabitants and a detachment of Lt.Col. Frampton’s Troop of Dorsetshire Yeomanry. Every prominent building in Dorchester was decorated with flowers, and there were flags waving and the sound of bells and cannons as horses were changed en route to Maiden Newton and Melbury, where according to Victoria’s diary they arrived at about 5 p.m.

A visit to Sherborne Castle had been suggested but did not take place. While at Melbury their royal highnesses ascended a tower and had the shapes of their feet cut on the leads. They enjoyed the park, the lake, the great house, and the church.

After a two-night stay the party was on the road again at 9.15 a.m. on August 1 to be “enthusiastically received” at Beaminster, where there were arches of flowers across the road. The carriage passed through the recently opened Russell Tunnel. The Dorset County Chronicle told of “spontaneous outbursts of enthusiasm” being received everywhere the royal party went.  This was at a time when there was pressure for a republic; it was the period of the Reform Act and agricultural disputes, which in a few months would become illuminated as several agricultural labourers from a small Dorset parish would emerge to become those Dorset heroes forever remembered as the Tolpuddle Martyrs.

At Bridport the ‘royals’ were given a hearty reception by the inhabitants but, according to Hine’s History of Beaminster, were angry that they were “not received by the Mayor and Corporation”.  Then onto Charmouth and Lyme Regis, where there were triumphal arches – and where the “Emerald” was waiting. Every boat in port was filled with paying spectators. Here, in 1685, the Duke of Monmouth landed to lead a revolt against King James II. Mayor John Hussey, in his public address, noted that the princess’s visit was taking place on the anniversary of the Protestant Succession to the throne.

Here, as she boarded the yacht, Princes Victoria was reunited with Dashy her dog. Sailing to Torquay, she remarked on the beautiful coastline and cliffs but both she and her mother were sick on approaching Torquay. From there, after an overnight hotel stay it was off by sea to Plymouth for several days in Devon.

On August 7 an informal return trip was made by coach, changing horses at six places including Bridport and Dorchester, with a military escort from Winfrith to Wareham and Swanage. Passing Corfe Castle, the princess noted in her diary some of the climactic events in history that had taken place there. The reception at Swanage was unforgettable for the young princess, and she must have been sorry to leave Dorset as she embarked with her mother on the “Emerald” for “dear Norris.”

It had been close on six weeks of strenuous activity since they left London. The ‘Royal Progress’ was one of a number leading up to the crowning of Queen Victoria. When that happened, exactly five years after her tour of Dorset, the county must have been proud to have been part of the grand design.. In Sturminster Newton, Gillingham, Cerne Abbas, Sydling, and Evershot, there were demonstrations of loyalty on the occasion of the “beloved Queen’s” coronation, but most of all perhaps in those communities the Queen had visited as a girl. Celebratory dinners were held in Ilchester and Lyme Regis, and at Dorchester there was a ball and much merriment at the King’s Arms and a gathering at the Antelope Hotel and a band wound its way around the streets.

Residents of an almshouse in South Street were regaled with roast beef, plum pudding and beer. At Weymouth, meanwhile, all the shipping in the Bay and Portland Roads was gaily attired and there was a procession along the Esplanade. Along the coast at Poole no less than 2,000 Sunday school children gathered for a “substantial dinner”, while vessels at Bridport Harbour were dressed overall.

Victoria, who first learned of her destiny at the age of 10, moved into Buckingham Palace. Her marriage to Albert was to come. She served as queen until 1901, becoming Empress of India in 1876, creating a new ceremonial style of monarchy, with social rather than political emphasis, and thus preserving it, and giving her name to a whole new age of modernism and expansion.

Notes: Extract from Dorchester’s Municipal Records relating to this story:

1833: Aug 2nd. Locket, for ringing on occasion of the Duchess of Kent and the Princess Victoria passing thro’ Dorchester (Per order of the Mayor) £1.0s.0d.

Paid Oliver, Churchwarden of The Holy Trinity (Per order of the Mayor) expenses incurred on the above occasion £1.17s.0d.

Nellie Titterington – Maid of Max Gate Pt.2

Sep 12th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Whatever happened at Max Gate now that her master was dead, Nellie knew she would not be working there for much longer; she would have been thinking about how to keep her pregnancy a private matter.

Nellie’s employment at Max Gate was full time and she lived in. Her hours of work being 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. with one half day off during the week and she had either Sunday morning or Sunday afternoon off  leaving little time for romance. Besides her employer the only other male in the household was the gardener Mr. Bert Stephens: he didn’t live in. There was a procession of distinguished men who regularly visited Hardy and later in her life Nellie commented about some of them quite warmly but most likely the father of her child was a lad from Dorchester. Whoever he was Nellie kept his identity to herself.

The widowed Florence Hardy shut up Max Gate and moved to London where in the closing days of August 1928 she took a flat or suite of rooms at the Adelphi Terrace. She wrote to Nellie telling her she needed the companionship of someone she could trust– Nellie later said this was quite a change of heart for, at Max Gate, Florence trusted no one. Mrs Hardy would have been surprised and taken aback not to have received a reply to her offer of a position.

For Nellie this was a dream job, an opportunity to be reacquainted with her mistress’s celebrity friends from the literary and artistic worlds, albeit from below stairs. So what kept the maid from skipping to the post box with a letter of acceptance?

While Florence was moving into her London accommodation her maid was in Dorset County Hospital, Dorchester where, on the 28th of August 1928, she gave birth to a baby girl.

A member of the extended family has told me “…her family wouldn’t let her keep the child and it was given to….” The birth was registered on September 20th and a certificate issued by the Registrar Mr F.J.Kendall.  In the margin of the certificate is a one word declaration signed by the Superintendent Registrar, Mr Henry Osmond Lock: the word is “Adopted.”  The arrangements for the adoption were well advanced before the arrival of the child who filled a gap in the lives of the adopting couple and ensured the child would be out of sight if not out of mind.

Nellie’s dramatically altered circumstances meant that later when she opened her front door and saw the mistress of Max Gate on the step she could accept Florence Hardy’s repeated offer to join her in London. The move from the steady pace of life in the County town to all the excitement and hurly-burly of life in the capital was just the tonic Nellie needed and she would be free of all the knowing glances and gossiping neighbours speculating in whispers about who was the father of her child.

In case you are wondering, Nellie named her daughter Florence Maxina Eunice, which tells us something of how she felt about her time with the Hardy’s, but later in life she said her days at Max Gate were not the happiest of her life. The inclusion of Eunice in the child’s name confirms Nellie knew who was going to bring up her child. We are left to wonder if Nellie followed her daughter’s life from a distance and if she knew the girl married and had four children.

The extent of Hardy’s fortune came as a complete shock to the two women but the gaiety of London life brought about a dramatic change in Florence. She became an altogether happier, less inhibited person, able to spend her miserly husband’s legacy. During this time Florence forged a friendship with Sir James Barrie, for whom Nellie would cook simple dinners at their flat. When a later quarrel ended the friendship with the author of Peter Pan, Florence and Nellie returned to Max Gate and soon after Nellie left Max Gate for good.

In the spring of 1941 Nellie’s mother passed away. Later in her life Nellie recalls that Hardy would often ask her to post letters for him at the General Post Office in South Street, Dorchester. Florence Hardy used to apologise for this cycle journey into the town, but Nellie didn’t mind because it gave her a chance to look in on her Mother for a few minutes.

In one edition of the Dorset Yearbook there is an article, which is the story in effect a biographic testimonial as related to a woman called Hilary Townsend, by Nellie towards the end of her life when in service caring for the author’s invalid mother. Despite becoming more infirm through arthritis she rarely left the old woman’s side, and still carried out all the domestic duties. One day she told her charge’s daughter: “If I stopped coming to you ma’am I shall die – I know I shall.”

Indeed, her words proved to be a self-fulfilling prophesy. One Saturday in 1977 Nellie Titterington missed her regular visit, saying that she was unwell. By Monday she was dead. The following day, the 24th of May, her younger sister Margaret Grace Hocking went to the Registrar’s office to record that Ellen Elizabeth Titterington a domestic servant of 1 Marie Road, Dorchester, had died.

So departed a highly intelligent, ever cheerful, unforgettable domestic servant who would be delighted to know that people are still talking and writing about her.

——————
[We have looked at the Hardy biographies (Seymour-Smith, Millgate & Tomalin,) the Monographs, Dr Marguerite Roberts work ‘Florence Hardy & the Max Gate Circle’ and Hilary Townsend’s article in the Dorset Year Book series as well as civil registration and census records and found nothing to suggest Florence Hardy knew about Nellie’s child.]

[We have placed a photograph of Miss Titterington in the photo section.]

Nellie Titterington – Maid of Max Gate Pt.1

Sep 7th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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She was a domestic in a class apart: a kindly, no-nonsense servant living towards the tail end of the age of domestic service. But Nellie Titterington was not just another woman in service in a household of the gentry or privileged upper class. She was privy to the private life and foibles of Dorset’s – and one of the worlds – most noted literary figures. For Nellie was the last, the longest serving, most understanding and probably the best parlour maid Thomas Hardy employed in his household.

Nellie Tetterington’s story begins with her birth on the 30th of March 1899 at 5 Brownden Terrace, Fordington, Dorchester. She was named Ellen Elizabeth but known as Nellie. Her parents were John Joseph and Mary Ada (nee Masters) Titterington: her father, a house painter was born in Malta in 1871; he was the son of an Irish soldier who was stationed there. Her mother was born in 1874 at Tolpuddle.  Nellie had an older brother, William, and three younger siblings Doris, Henry and Margaret.

Nellie is likely to have been a bright, high-spirited and pretty child, active and interested in everything and everyone around her. Certainly as an adult she had an interesting life, which she talked about almost incessantly. Nellie was said to have been “alert and neat, with a clean, well cared for complexion and white hair set off with hats.”

What is known is that in the last year of the First World War, when she had just turned eighteen, young Miss Titterington had made up her mind to enlist in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. Having filled out her application documents she left them on the mantelpiece, intending to discuss her move beforehand with her mother. Next day however, an interfering aunt had it in mind to post off the forms without any prior consultation or authorisation from her niece. Only a week later Nellie was amazed to find call-up papers in her letterbox; soon after she was to find herself serving as an orderly to a WAAF officer.

Following the Armistice, Nellie remained in the officer’s service as housekeeper after the officer had moved to a new home in Kent. But Dorset-born people living away from their native patch are especially prone to homesickness, and the officer’s servant was no exception. Put simply, in Nellie’s case the pangs of loneliness she felt emanated from the feeling that she was too far and remote from her beloved mother.

Then in 1921 Nellie’s prospects rose dramatically. Through an acquaintance, Alice Riglar, who appears to have been in service at Maxgate, Thomas Hardy’s country home near Dorchester, she learnt that the position of parlour maid at the house had fallen vacant. Alice then initially recommended Nellie for the position to Hardy, and then informed her of her recommendation in a letter. Before Nellie could begin the job however, Alice wrote again, saying she had second thoughts and asked Nellie not to come after all. It seemed that Alice, concerned about the gloomy, oppressive atmosphere at Max Gate (due mainly to the several trees Hardy had planted so close to the house when moving in) warned Nellie that it would not be “the best of places” as it had “an air of silence.” However, by then Nellie had made up her own mind and was in no way dissuaded by her friend’s misgivings. She therefore left the service of her WAAF officer and returned to Dorset.

Miss Titterington was soon to find Hardy an introspective man who, she said, regarded women not as women but as “shadowy figures fitting into a space like a jigsaw.” Nellie studied him intensely and in time came to understand and respect the writer’s intensely introverted nature. But she also discovered that Hardy was mean with money, had no hobbies and never discussed politics with anyone, though he had a deep, almost mystical reverence for nature.

His parsimony became apparent when Nellie learnt that Hardy would only give each of his staff a Christmas bonus of 2s/6d in an envelope – and even then the cook was instructed to leave hers unopened until later in the day. Hardy’s wife Florence later secretly topped up these bonuses to 10/-. Nellie also spoke of one particular winter evening when Florence had accompanied Lawrence to an event at Glastonbury, leaving Hardy alone with his servants. On this occasion Nellie had stoked up a particularly good fire in the dining room but on checking on its progress a little later she found Hardy removing the coals lump by lump with the tongs and arranging them neatly on the hearth!

Nellie also responded positively to the great man’s love of nature. At one time Max Gate had five owls roosting in the trees over winter and the parlour maid would fetch Hardy to see them. Once, when a hare from adjoining Came Wood strayed into the garden Hardy, Nellie and the gardener together caught it in a net; but then the writer lifted his corner of the net to let the animal escape. On the day of her master’s funeral Nellie noticed that some of the mourners were wearing red fox hunting jackets. Had he been able to see them, Hardy, a fervent abolitionist regarding foxhunting, would have been incensed.

There was one animal at Max Gate however that Nellie probably lost no love over but had to suffer not gladly all the same: Hardy’s rough-haired terrier Wessex. The dog was of a disposition that was both peculiar and nasty, being fiercely protective of his master and as jealously suspicious of most other people as he was evidently devoted to Hardy himself.

Nellie’s approach to dealing with her mistress took much the same form as that towards her master. Florence Hardy was a socially insecure woman with a difficult temperament and other clearly discernable faults. Almost madly suspicious, she would trust no one else with the house keys, and would often accuse one or other of the servants of breaking something or even stealing it. Over time Nellie became accustomed to her awkwardness, and came to pity this second-time-around wife, who married Hardy after the death of his first wife Emma. One particular skill Nellie possessed was flower arranging. Yet when, as often happened, a visitor asked Mrs Hardy in Nellie’s presence who was responsible for the floral display the parlour maid would silently dare the mistress of the house to take the credit for the work. Florence, though much younger than her husband, was nevertheless accustomed to reading whole tracts of books aloud to him in the evenings. It was this devotional side of her nature that made Nellie feel sympathetic towards Florence.

Thomas Hardy died on Wednesday, January 11th, 1928. The following morning Nellie cycled over to ‘Talbothays’ at West Stafford to deliver the news of Hardy’s passing to his sister Kate. Away from Max Gate she had time to think about a growing personal problem.

Nellie was pregnant.

To be continued…..

Dorset County Gaol

Aug 9th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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A prison sentence today has been cynically likened by some people to being at Butlins when compared with the austere conditions of penal servitude in the 19th century. Assuredly, conditions were a lot harsher then, and nobody living at the time would likely have doubted that one stretch in prison was an effective deterrent against recidivism. But what would conditions have been like in the county goal at Dorchester during the period from about 1800 to 1950? What follows is an account of those conditions based on documentary research.

Dorchester’s present prison stands behind a high and thick redbrick wall just off the town’s North Square. In 1773 the penal reforms of Thomas Howard were about to change the nature of incarceration here as everywhere else. Prior to 1795 the gaol was a much smaller institution in a ruinous condition elsewhere in the town which, in 1784, prompted William Tyler of Vine Street, St. James, to draw up plans for an entirely new penitentiary for an estimated £4,000. Howard had a strong link with Dorchester, and plans were drawn up for a larger, more secure prison on the present North Square site, the building contract being secured by John Fentiman of Newton Butts for £12,000. By a contractual agreement the work was scheduled for completion in March 1792, but the building was well in arrears by December 1793. It was eventually opened for occupation by inmates in 1795.

When viewed in elevation from the front (beyond the perimeter wall) the main building comprises three elements: a central, five-storey block flanked by three-storey wings to each side. In the central block the floors are accessed via a well of alternating metal staircases. In the north block however, the stairwell is positioned at the end, while in the south block it runs up the middle. In total the prison was constructed in six blocks, the entrance block comprising the keeper’s office, brewhouse and bath-house, all within the retaining perimeter wall. This part fronted by a broad, high archway in austere Portland stone ashlars and with thick, double doors painted black, accesses three courtyards, one each for the keeper, the women felons and the women penitentiaries.

The centre block houses the keeper’s quarters, the prisoner’s visiting rooms, the debtor’s custody area and several single working cells. Above them on the first floor are the chapel, the cells for condemned and refractory prisoners, the debtors sleeping rooms and single sleeping cells. At each corner of this main block are four smaller blocks having single cells for working and sleeping. There are seven inner courtyards for separating each category of prisoner.

According to the penal system and administration of prisons at the time convicts were distinguished both by sex and as felons (those awaiting trial for either jailing or transportation.) Besides these there were other categories such as those in prison for debt, bigamy, vagrancy, idleness in domestic service or apprenticeship, for breach of contract or under the terms of a bastardy order. As far as was possible all these categories were kept apart from one another and the building had separate sleeping cells each 8’5 x 6.5 x 9 feet in size. The debtors had working cells, a day room 18 x 13.5 x 12 feet in size and slept four to a room though they were not kept in separate confinement.

It is noted that the prisoner’s daily rations of food consisted of one-and-a-half pounds of bread, though this was a day old, despite being baked in the prison itself using flour from which bran had not been extracted. Those prisoners who worked however, were entitled to an extra ration of food and from the Keeper’s account records it appears that 9d worth of meat was permitted, later increased to 2/6d worth a week. However, it is probable that this increase reflects the sharp rise in the price of bread caused by the French wars early in the 19th century rather than any increase in amount of the ration.

By 1813 the special meal that had cost 6d in 1794 had risen to 2/6d. Broth to the value of 10d was also served. Children were fed on a special diet, but prisoners were treated to a special meal at Christmas and Whitsuntide. Prisoners brought to the sessions were permitted to buy meat, fish, fruit and pastry, but following conviction only bread was allowed. Sick convicts were given food and drink of better quality, including jelly, wine and gin. In addition to a special diet when ill, prisoners were given rush-lights or candles; those “affected by itch” were given special nightshirts.

Because of sickness special measures were taken to ensure the prison was kept clean. The gaol appears to have been organised into eight wards, each of which was overseen by a warder responsible for sweeping out the cells and washing them out once a week. Several women cleaners were also paid to carry out this work. Sometimes gunpowder was used for fumigating and, once a year, parts of the building were lime-washed. Prisoners themselves were washed upon admittance and provided with clothes. Prisoners working outside the gaol were issued with “small frocks” bearing the lettering “DORSET GAOL” on the back. Women prisoners were issued with dresses, aprons, petticoats and bed gowns, while men had shoes, shirts, trousers, shifts, hose and clogs bought for them.

The cells were furnished with iron bedsteads fixed four inches from a wall and equipped with straw-filled bedding. Prisoners could be subjected to enforced discipline by means of solitary confinement in a dark cell, though the governor was under an obligation to visit such prisoners at least once a day. The Chaplain would have read prayers three times a day and distributed religious books as thought necessary. He had to visit and counsel the prisoners in private to assess their mental states and keep a log of his findings. To prevent escapes, all prisoners had their clothes confiscated each night.

Of course, until as late as 1965 when the death penalty was abolished in Britain, prison would often be just a temporary custody facility pending a time of execution to be fixed for those sentenced to death. As in other county gaols Dorchester would have had its own facilities for carrying out executions: in this case, gallows set up outside the main building. Consequently, the current “cell-block” or overcrowding crisis now facing the penal system could never have arisen over a century ago. At Dorchester those sentenced to death were kept in cells near the chapel. Early in the 18th century, long before the present prison was built executions were very public affairs in public places. Until 1766, when the gallows there were removed, hangings were routinely carried out at Maumbury Rings on the outskirts of Dorchester, that of Mary Channing in 1706 being a particularly high-profile case of the time.

But notable executions were carried out behind the present prison wall as well. Especially tragic was the highly public hanging of Elizabeth Martha Brown on August 9th, 1856, attended by a crowd of several thousand including a 16-year-old apprentice architect called Thomas Hardy. Martha had been found guilty of bludgeoning her husband to death with the kitchen wood-axe in anger upon discovering his adultery. James Seale was hanged on August 10th, 1858, for the murder of a girl called Sarah Guppy, but the last execution of all in Dorchester took place in 1887.

Today, under the prison’s present governor, Serena Watts, its operational capacity is about 260, with all males except category A being held there. There is no segregation unit. The regime includes provision of workshops, and the prison is currently running a programme of full education including courses on thinking, life and social skills and substance awareness. Strong emphasis is also placed upon physical education.

In conclusion, one interesting feature of the prison’s location is the fact that it was built where a Roman townhouse had once stood, but this was either disregarded or overlooked when the foundations were laid. It was not until the grave of Martha Brown was being dug within the prison precincts 64 years later that a floor mosaic was uncovered, though this was not lifted and removed to the County Museum until the burial of James Searle two years later re-exposed it.

Note: Fuller accounts of the Channing and Brown cases can be found on the site.

Note:  The last execution to be carried out at Dorchester was on the 24th of July 1941, when David Jennings was hanged; our thanks to John Grainger for bringing this to our attention.

Sydney Smith – Musician and Composer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Edgar Lane – Musician of Distinction

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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