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What the Papers Said

Jan 26th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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In January 1901, the captain of a Spanish steamer died after his ship was swept against a breakwater in Portland Roads. The lifeboat was manned and launched but could not get near the breakwater on account of the sea which was being swept by a violent gale.

The steamer named the Encourt, was from Bilbao and was bound there in ballast from Rotterdam. The crew of 26 were taken to the breakwater fort, and later on board another Spanish vessel. Their ship was badly holed and lay with a list, and sank in nine fathoms of water with the skipper on board.

Along the coast, the seas were high in West Bay, where a boat sank in the harbour. The gale blew down trees, took the roofs off houses, and made the streets dangerous.

Watchnight services had been held in the churches, reported the ‘Bridport News’ of January 1901. There the last moment of the dying year and the opening of the new, were spent in worship and in the parish church the hymn ‘O God our help in ages past’ was sung. Services were also held in the Wesleyan, Baptist and Unitarian chapels.

Meanwhile, far away in South Africa the Boers were making determined attacks and British officers were being killed and wounded. During a fog the Boers were repulsed with a loss of 24 killed including four officers.

In New York, influenza was raging, and a typical headline was: ‘Grip’ reigns in New York.’ Grip was the popular name for ‘flu. It was estimated that nearly 200,000 people in and around the city were suffering from it and it was now in an epidemic state all over the country. Even President McKinley was a sufferer but was recovering.

A great century of progress had closed, with momentous events concerning the British Empire. It was hoped that the enemy would lay down their arms. Dorset had provided horsemen and foot soldiers, meanwhile the Ashanti campaign had been brought to a close in West Africa, and an international force had defeated the aims of the Boxers in China.

Many Bridport bluejackets were in the thick of the fighting in the attempt to relieve Peking. While down under, Lord Hopetoun had been appointed the first Viceroy of Federated Australia. The Indian famine called for public subscription, and Paris had held its great exhibition, though at this point in history Great Britain had more friends in Germany than France. Away East, the Spanish had lost the Philippines to the United States.

Here in this country, the Conservatives had been returned to power and Lord Salisbury was Premier. Dorset again returned a quartet of Conservative members. Mrs. Gladstone, widow of the famous Prime Minister, was buried beside her husband, and the death of Sir Arthur Sullivan, called the greatest of British composers and a marvellous musician, had occurred. He was buried in St. Paul’s. The Bridport paper reflected on all this news.

On that south Dorset coast and going back a century, on August 19, 1800, three women and an infant were struck by lightning, and the infant, who turned out to be the fossilist Mary Anning, was resuscitated by being put into a warm bath. What would have been lost to archaeology if she had not been put in that bath?

Early in the 19th century fossils began to attract local geologists, especially John Crookshanks (alias Lock,) who committed suicide in 1802 because his yearly stipend for collecting fossils was discontinued! And Richard Anning (father of Mary) fell over the Charmouth cliffs by night, did not kill himself, but died soon after, in 1810, of consumption.

It was in the following year, 1811, that Miss Anning found her famous ‘crocodile’ fossil, and sold it to Mr H. Henley, lord of the manor, for £23. It was later presented to the British Museum.

The population of Lyme in 1800 was 1,535; in 1810 it was 1,925. In 1803, three seats were set up a yard from the precipice above the sea beyond the churchyard. The Church Cliffs in those days formed “the great place of resort, the Mall of Lyme, where the belles of the place and the sons of the aristocracy enjoyed the sea breeze.” There was no marine walk then.

People in the early 1800’s were still talking about  “a very singular fish” 14 feet long with a tail three feet wide, a circumference of six feet, and with long jaws, which came into the Cobb and was taken. In 1803 a great fire destroyed 42 houses near the Independent Chapel. It started at a baker’s.

In 1817, a breach of 192 feet was made in the southwest part of the Cobb, and several vessels were driven ashore or sank. The Cobb had to be repaired, and work costing well over £30,000 was carried out in the next nine years. Between 1810 and 1816 the annual average of vessels entering the Cobb harbour was 318.

We should be making a mistake if we thought that indecency offences were new: that Bridport paper at the beginning of the 20th century reported that at Weymouth County Police Court in early 1901 a sub-postmaster was summoned “in several instances for such offences of a serious character against young men.”

And a Royal Commission had been appointed to make investigations regarding the “beer poisoning epidemic.” Sickness and death had been caused in England and Wales through poisoning by arsenic.

The Fifth of November and Christmas in the Workhouse 1860

Jan 19th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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A report in the Dorset County Chronicle of 8th November 1860 comments “Just as the legislature appears determined to suppress the commemoration of ‘The Gunpowder Plot’ the custom has revived in spirit so far as Dorchester is concerned.”

Under the dateline “The Fifth of November” readers were told that “not for some time have the streets of Dorchester witnessed such scenes” squibs and crackers flying about in all directions, and several large tar-barrels and fireballs being rolled along amidst crowds of small boys and “children of larger growth.”

The main event, however, was a torchlight procession, in the midst of which a large effigy of the Pope was borne along, suspended from a gallows. The scene reminded the Chronicle’s reporter of Carnival: people dressed in a variety of “outlandish” costumes including representations of Victor Emmanuel and Garibaldi escorting a youth in women’s attire as “Young Italy,” at the head of the procession.

The large crowd paraded along High West Street and South Street during which the liberator of Italy was loudly cheered. Then onto the Maumbury Rings where the effigy was burnt surrounded by the revellers whose faces were eerily lit by the light of the torches and all the while squibs were being thrown about.

“Young Italy” was borne triumphantly back into the town “the streets of which resumed their ordinary quiet aspect after the assemblage had exhausted their store of fireworks.”

Around the 19th December 1860 the weather turned: promising Dorset a white Christmas, heralded by a severe frost. ‘The Chronicle’ reported that a gentleman had written to ‘The Times’ telling that the temperature in his garden had reached 8 degrees below freezing.

The cold spell ended over the New Year. “There was a heavy fall of rain and the snow, which had covered the ground to a depth of several inches, disappeared on Sunday with a rapidity that was truly astonishing and must have caused considerable inconvenience by flooding the land in various localities.”

At Wool the pressure of water was so great it damaged a culvert near the railway station making the line dangerous to trains. A telegraph message was sent to Dorchester and a “body of men were set to work so as to temporarily make the line good.” The newspaper’s report continued “W.Meare, Esq., the able superintendent, made arrangements for engines to meet at the spot, so that the traffic was conducted with only a short delay, and the trains were able to run as usual on Monday.”

At Bridport a building that was being erected was blown down. The building some 400-feet in length had been constructed to a height of two storeys and roofed, but the “ends were open and thus the wind found play and the place was rendered a complete wreck.”

The unusually severe weather brought plenty of wild fowl into the extensive waters between Wareham and Poole and many fell to the guns of the locals living along the shore.

The weather did not stop those more fortunate from providing some Christmas cheer for their poorer neighbours. On Christmas Day all the inmates of the Dorchester Union workhouse had roast beef, plum pudding, with beer and tobacco for the men. A round of festivities continued ’till New Years day.

Mrs. Herbert Williams of Stinsford who was of the habit of having the children from the Dorchester Union house visit her residence at Stinsford for a feast had instead to take liberal amounts of plum pudding, sweet cakes and tea to the workhouse.

The old folk of the union house were entertained to dinner by the Rev. T. R. Maskew where they “thoroughly enjoyed themselves over plenty of roast beef and plum pudding with plenty of other delicacies.” The following day it was the turn of Captain and Mrs. Kindersley, of Syward Lodge who treated all the inmates with cakes, the women with tea and sugar, the men with tobacco and a variety of toys for the children. On the Monday after Christmas the Misses Campbell gave the children cakes and toys and the women tea and cake.

On New Years day Dorchester’s mayor J. F. Hodges Esq., provided a substantial dinner and tea for the workhouse inmates. He granted the women a store of tea and the men a quantity of tobacco. He also gave to the residents of the Almshouses tea, sugar and a quantity of beef, “with which to enjoy themselves at this festive season.” The Chronicle commented “The care shown by Mr Hodges for the poor, and his solicitude for their comfort and welfare, are most praiseworthy…”

Elsewhere around the county there were similar acts of kindness. At Gussage All Saints the better off parishioners, at their own expense, provided for the carriage from Poole of coal for the poor. The coal paid for by The Earl of Shaftesbury and The Provost and Fellows of Queen’s College, Oxford.

On Christmas Eve, Colonel Lutterell, “the proprietor of the valuable and much admired Wootton Manor” gave to the deserving poor of the parish of Wootton Fitzpaine, a large quantity of good beef.

At Wimborne Minster a Special Offertory was given on Christmas Day for distribution amongst the poor. At Charmouth after Christmas a large quantity of bread was given to the poor families of the parish and this was made possible by means of a bequest by the late John Bullen Esq. Good warm clothing was distributed to the poor by the charity of the late Mrs Marker.

A “notorious” poacher named Dicker who lived at Milborne St. Andrew was arrested and taken before magistrates at Blandford charged with shooting at one of the county police while in the execution of his duty.

The Sea Fencibles

Jan 17th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Sea Fencibles? If you have never before heard of them, you are not alone. I was in the same position until recently when the subject cropped up during investigations into other matters, but once it is realised that the Fencibles were a short-lived kind of coastguard force of the Napoleonic period, this general ignorance is perhaps not surprising.

The “fencible” is an elision of “defensible” and the Sea Fencibles could be regarded in their day as the maritime equivalent of the Home Guard of the world wars, though formed in response to a threat of invasion by Napoleon some one-and-a-half centuries earlier than the formation of Dads Army. The Sea Fencibles were mostly volunteers living close to the coast who, we may imagine, were only too glad to accept a pay of a shilling a day in return for immunity from service in the militia or else being press-ganged into the navy. However the relative usefulness of the Fencible force has divided opinion among naval personnel and historians.

The Sea Fencibles were formed on May 14th, 1798 at the instigation of King George III. By 1801 Sea Fencible units had been established all along the coast from Whitby right into Cornwall, so Dorset would have had its own units by then. Across the county there were three units, the most easterly covering the length of coast from Calshot in Hampshire to St. Aldhelm’s Head in Purbeck, with one captain, four lieutenants and 482 men. The central unit extended from St. Aldhelm’s Head to Puncknowle, with seven officers and 284 men; the most westerly unit then extended from Puncknowle to Teignmouth in Devon, having eight officers and 331men.

There was no problem in obtaining volunteers, and Sea Fencibles could be recruited from fishermen, bargemen, farm labourers etc; many naval officers were also involved, since the navy had a surplus with no concept of retirement. These included Nelson himself, who briefly took command of a unit when in charge of the coastal defences. The recruits were trained in the use of cannon and pike.

A prior responsibility for these units was to signal the arrival of an enemy force approaching from the Channel, and to this end the most complicated and painstaking arrangements were worked out. If the alarm was raised the coast would have to be evacuated, with people, cattle, valuable goods and anything else of value to the enemy being moved inland. To ensure that this operation was carried out smoothly and that everyone knew where to go and by which route, very elaborate and detailed plans were drawn up. Interestingly Thomas Hardy describes just such an operation in his novel “The Trumpet Major.”

During the thaw in Anglo-French hostilities leading to the treaty of Amiens in 1802, a feeling among the high command that perhaps the Fencibles had outlived their purpose led to units being disbanded, though the annulment was destined to be short lived. The following year war broke out again, and a resumption of an invasion threat from Napoleon promptly brought the Fencible units back into service again once the press gangs had “re-stocked” the Navy with new personnel. The move was also to satisfy popular feeling, though many placed no confidence in the units. From 1803 the Fencibles were also given a more important offshore duty as enforcers of blockades on the English side of the Channel, using gunboats.

However, the resumption of the coastguard watch was not without its crop of bogus alerts. In May 1804 at the height of the invasion scare, the signal station on the Verne at Portland raised a false alarm during a blanket of thick fog that caused a wave of serious panic throughout the county. Serious, because none other than the king happened to be staying at Weymouth at the time! There was consequently serious concern for his safety, though of course this was unfounded.

About this time there was a return to the use of fire beacons, and it is noted that these warnings were set up on Ballard Down, Round Down, St. Aldhelm’s Head, Hamborough Hill, and the Verne. Nothe Fort, a circular brick-built redoubt at Weymouth, housed two traversing guns with platforms on either flank carrying two guns each (this artillery was removed in 1821.) Bridport possessed two batteries of two guns each, for which the emplacements had been built by the county. A magazine was constructed at Dorchester in 1809.

Other than this, information on the Dorset units during the second operational period is woefully lacking. There is also some discrepancy across various sources as to the actual year the Sea Fencibles were disbanded for the second and last time. One source states they were disbanded as early as 1810 which, exactly half-way between the time of Trafalgar and Waterloo, may be considered rather premature, even though the former victory put paid to any possibility of an invasion of England. The next date given is 1812 (the year of Napoleon’s rout at the Battle of Borodino in the Russian campaign,) which perhaps is more tenable, though the 1815 of a third reference, when Napoleon was forced into exile, would have to be the very latest date that a coast watch force would likely have been needed. Alternatively these differences could be explained if the disbanding was not a single event, but an incremental process in which individual units were simply disbanded at local level between the earliest and latest dates.

Dorchester – The Maumbury Rings

Jan 10th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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“The largest prehistoric monument of its kind in Britain” is how one early antiquarian observer described Maumbury Rings; just ten minutes walk from Dorchester town centre. It is said to have been able to accommodate ten thousand spectators and enclose an area equal to fifty football pitches, although these claims seem a little exaggerated. Certainly the class of monument to which the Rings belong is one found nowhere else in the world outside England, but many other examples of its kind have since been largely ploughed away, including others in Dorset.

Not so Maumbury Rings. This monument is the largest and most important structure of its kind in Britain and has survived intact simply because of its proximity to Durnovaria (Roman Dorchester) and because it has proved so useful for a range of different functions over the centuries. But Maumbury was originally constructed as a henge, one of those still somewhat enigmatic earthworks of England’s Neolithic people, and its origin can be traced back to about 2,500 BC.

It was Sir Christopher Wren who is said to have been responsible for first applying any archaeologically minded scrutiny to Maumbury Rings, though the great eighteenth century antiquarian William Stukeley also wrote about it at some length. Variously described as a “sun temple” or “a Neolithic dewpond,” others fancied the rays of the sun rising in the east passed through the north-east entrance to strike the rising ground at the opposite end, though this has since been shown to be a fallacy.

A large stone is said to have once stood near or across the south-west entrance, and which was long thought to have been the sighting-stone for solar and lunar observations. It is noted that in 1879 a minor excavation was made in the hope of locating this stone, but none was ever found.

Whatever Maumbury’s original purpose as a Neolithic enclosure was, it may well have suffered the same fate as other henges in the area had not the emperor Claudius resolved to bring Britain into the Roman Empire in 43 AD. When the town of Durovaria was founded it was soon appreciated by some engineers or planners that the Maumbury henge conveniently defined in its own outline an earthwork thought to be easily adaptable to serve as a small amphitheatre for gladiatorial or other entertainment without the extra labour and expense of having to start from scratch. Instead of what had probably been existing insubstantial embankments being levelled into oblivion by ploughing, they were re-inforced with rammed chalk and raised to their present day height.

It is believed that by the first millennium BC Maumbury Rings was in use as a Celtic earthwork, possibly some temple on the lines of Stonehenge. Following the departure of the Roman Legions in about 410 AD, the Rings probably continued in use as a meeting place, but no record exists from the Saxon period. During the Middle Ages the arena became the scene of jousts and other revels.

But it is not until the 17th century that we have a clear record of any major event connected with the monument. During the Civil War the Parliamentarians quickly saw the earthwork’s potential as a defensive site, and turned it into a gunnery emplacement to command the then exposed flank of the town from the direction of the Weymouth Road, up which the Roundheads expected the Royalists to advance. After the Civil War, the macabre rise in popularity of public executions by hanging led to the rings being used for this grizzly purpose. However executions at this locality ceased in 1705.

Rather through hearsay, a story has been handed down about the execution, probably in the late 17th century, notable for its particularly tragic circumstances. The details have apparently never been properly recorded, but a young unnamed woman was sentenced to death for some minor crime by hanging at Maumbury. However, at the time she was condemned she was expecting a child. Not wanting to condemn an unborn child to death as well, the magistrates deferred the mother’s execution until the child could be born in prison.

Following the birth the woman was duly hung, but has ever since left behind the unanswered question of who she was, who the child’s father was, and above all what became of the child. Was the child adopted? Did it die in infancy? Did it grow into adulthood and perhaps emigrate? The tragedy of this case is that it occurred a century too soon for the possible commutation of the sentence to transportation to be enacted. But clearly, this is a mystery, which can never be solved without intensive genealogical investigation.

In 1908 the archaeologist George Cary began the first systematic excavation of the earthwork to be conducted in modern times. Probably Cary hoped that the various romantic imaginings and speculations about the henge’s use in pre-Roman times could be laid to rest once the site’s history was set on a firm footing based upon the evidence of the stratigraphy and finds uncovered. Cary’s first excavation revealed that, as might be expected, sherds of recent pottery, ceramics, and other objects were abundant in the first foot or so of soil removed, and included a Victorian half-penny. But these and some older mediaeval pottery underlying them soon ceased.

By the end of the third season in 1910, two Romano-British graves had been discovered and opened, together with seven shafts approximately of the same age as the henge itself re-exposed in the arena floor. These shafts, which may have served a similar function to that of the comparable pits (Aubrey Holes) at Stonehenge, were found to contain a considerable number of tools made from deer antler, together with Neolithic pottery sherds and flint flakes. Interestingly, the existence of these shafts has led to the conclusion that the Romans experienced considerable difficulties in constructing parts of the arena floor and boundary walling of the amphitheatre.

During a much more recent excavation in the early 1970’s a deep cutting made into the chalk walling on the north east side showed that the Romans had to overlay the prehistoric shafts with rammed chalk in the arena’s western curve in order to stabilise the floor surface. It was therefore evident that the Legionary engineers found it harder than expected to adapt the earthwork to their requirements.

During this excavation another four shafts were exposed, bringing the total known to eleven. During an exploration of the outer part of the north entrance a third grave was discovered in the chalk, this time containing a skeleton of a well-built Romano-British man accompanied by a pottery vessel. But the work of this excavation was mainly concerned with determining the real purpose of the shafts. This was not proved, though it is thought likely that they were flint mines.

Today Maumbury is a tourist landmark and attraction, equally attractive to children and picnickers alike, with its own information board at the northern entrance.

“…Transported to Such Places Beyond the Seas.”

Jan 7th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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A sign on the bridge over the River Frome at Lower Bockhampton serves notice that “anyone wilfully injuring the bridge will be guilty of felony and upon conviction liable to be Transported for Life.” People were transported for a lot less serious offences than that and many people sentenced to death for more serious crimes had their sentences commuted and were transported instead.

The idea of being rid of troublesome citizens by transporting them beyond the seas was around long before Britain commenced despatching its felons to Australia. In 1597 during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I an Act (39 Eliz C.4) was passed entitled “An Acte for Punyshment of Rogues, Vagabonds and Stray Beggars.” It allowed for people to “be banished out of this realm” and went on to say “shall be conveyed to such parts beyond the seas as shall be assigned by the Privy Council.” And for good measure declared if a “rogue so banished” returned to England without permission he would be hanged.

Law enforcement during the 17th and 18th centuries was an uncertain business. Anyone who thinks the present British government’s efforts to privatise the prison service are a new idea is mistaken: half the prisons in England were privately owned then. There was no police force. Employing Watchmen was, on the whole, a futile enterprise as most were open to accepting the offer of a small bribe to turn the other way and those given the job were often elderly and stood little chance of apprehending a fit young criminal.

Detection was also in the hands of the private sector. Thief takers – an early incarnation of the private detective – would seek out thieves and other criminals and bring them before a magistrate for a reward. Getting caught was not all bad news for the criminal: in many cases a criminal would come to an arrangement with his victim to repay him or do some work for him rather than face prosecution. This was not an unattractive option for the victim who, if he proceeded to prosecute, would have to pay all the costs involved. Nevertheless, large numbers of people were incarcerated in the country’s jails.

Using the 1597 Act, transportation of groups of criminals got under way in the early 17th century: Sir Thomas Dale, Marshal of Virginia, took 300 “disorderly persons” with him in 1611 and it was not long before he was asking for more convict labour, claiming 2000 were needed.

A new Act (4 Geo 1, C.11) was passed early in the 18th century which provided that minor offenders could be transported for 7 years to America while men on commuted capital sentences, that is having enjoyed the King’s mercy, might be sent for 14 years. The courts did not have a wide selection of punishments to hand down and were often faced with the choice of letting a criminal off or passing the death sentence.

The merits of transportation from the Government’s point of view were that it preserved the Royal Prerogative of Mercy – the felon was left alive; the felon was removed from the realm as effectively as if he had been hanged; It got rid of the prison as well as the prisoner and it provided a labour force to be used in the colonies.

From the middle of the 18th century Britain’s population increased dramatically. The population of London doubled between 1750 and 1770. Young men turned to thieving to make a living. For 60 years during the 18th century 30,000 people were sent to America; convicts were shipped off to face a life of slavery at the rate of about 500-600 a year and few if any returned. The King frequently used his royal prerogative and it was not at all unusual for a death sentence to be commuted. A cynic might think a corpse hanging from the gallows was a deterrent to others but the reprieved man was a long-term asset to be used to build the American colonies. This shameful traffic in humankind kept England’s jails from overflowing.

On August 25th 1768 Capt. Cook set sail from Plymouth and a little over a year later was off the coast of New Zealand where he proceeded to sail his ship Endeavour round both islands. On March 31st 1770 Capt. Cook and his crew were ready for the homeward voyage. On April 19th 1770 a new coastline was discovered and on August 21st 1770 Cook formally claimed Australia for King George III.
In London the new colony was not uppermost in the minds of the politicians who had their hands full trying to head off armed rebellion in America. It was this more taxing matter that was concentrating the mind of the British Prime Minister, the recently ennobled Frederick, Lord North. Matters in America came to a head with the Declaration of Independence on the 4th of July 1776. At a stroke the transportation of convicts to North America was brought to a full stop and very shortly Britain’s jails were at breaking point.

That year Lord North drew up legislation that was to become known as ‘The Hulks Act’ (16 Geo.111, C. 43.) Hulks, old troop transports, their rigging gone, were dotted along the Thames and some southern ports, and were to become home to convicts sentenced to be transported, until the government could find somewhere to send them. The number of convicts being held in this way was increasing by about a thousand annually.

As the situation worsened and the government realised that the door to North America was firmly closed to them a House of Commons Committee was set up in 1779 to decide what was to be done. Hope lingered in some of the more optimistic corners of government that something would turn up to resolve the American problem, but this was not to be. Lord North resigned in 1782 and briefly trod London’s corridors of power again as the Home and Colonial Secretary between March and December 1783.

His successor in that office, Lord Sydney, on appointment faced a clamour for action to be taken to deal with the problem of the terrible overcrowding in the prisons and on board the hulks; the situation was becoming more pressing with each passing day. A new Act (24 Geo.III.C.56) was drafted to allow transportation to places other than America and this entered into law in August 1784.

It was someone from outside of the administration, ironically American born, who in 1783 presented a commercial proposition to the government concerning Australia. At the time Lord North was in charge of Home and Colonial Affairs and he dismissed it.  James Matra, later hearing the government was urgently looking for somewhere to send the convicts, altered the slant of his proposal and re-submitted it to Lord Sydney. Serious consideration was given to transporting the convicts to a settlement on the south west coast of Africa and for a while Australia wasn’t a contender.

William Pitt the younger was now Prime Minister and he was under increasing political pressure especially from some independent members of parliament representing constituencies where some of the hulks were berthed. 

After further consideration the Botany Bay or Australian option was formally approved by the cabinet. The Admiralty was told of the decision on the 31st of August 1786 and instructed to commission the fleet: Captain Arthur Phillip was appointed “Governor of our territories called New South Wales” and received his commission from King George III on 12th October 1786.

The first fleet sailed from Portsmouth early on the 13th May 1787 and arrived at Botany Bay on 18th January 1788. Convicts continued to be transported to Australia for a further 70 years.

Those who survived the voyage were to face a harsh disciplinary regime, near starvation, and we know not what other horrors. There were men, women and children all enduring the same fate irrespective of whether they were guilty of a petty or serious crime. Their guards did not fare any better. The experience was a little easier for later arrivals. It is incredible that out of this hell has grown the great nation we know and respect today.

Did Napoleon Visit Lulworth Cove?

Jan 1st, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Early in the 19th century an invasion of England by Napoleon seemed a distinct and imminent possibility. Along the south east coast, Martello tower defences were constructed as a response to the threat, but although Bonaparte’s grand design fortunately never came to fruition, a legend does abound that the Emperor did not entirely leave John Bull’s hallowed domain untouched.

There is a tradition that during the period of the invasion scares; Napoleon was briefly sighted on the Dorset coast near Lulworth, though Charmouth and Weymouth have also been implicated as possible locations. In modern times the legend was revived again in the 1930’s, when West Lulworth Women’s Institute collaborated on a publication called ‘Dorset Up Along & Down Along.’ In it there is a testimonial related to a member of the branch by a woman who in her youth was a French-speaking farmer’s wife living near the coast, and who claimed to have seen Napoleon walk ashore near Lulworth, roll up a map he had been studying and overheard in conversation the man utter the word “impossible.”

The woman in question, it was later determined, was born in 1784, but because she lived to the age of 104, she was able to tell the Lulworth WI contributor her story. The story goes that at the time of the encounter the witness was assisting her father, a china merchant, in his business and it was through this involvement that the young woman had learnt French. The most likely year of the encounter would have been 1804 when Napoleon was overseeing the assembling of his invasion fleet at embarkation points along the eastern end of the Channel. This period is intensely documented, yet there are a few days when the Emperor’s movements are unknown.

Napoleon was then based at the Chateau of Pont-de-Briques near Boulogne, and so it was thought most likely that the Grand Armee’s objective would have been south east England. Also if the Emperor’s intended landfall was the Dorset coast, it might have been expected that the fleet would have sailed from the Cherbourg peninsula, as this is the point on the French coast facing Dorset.

Certainly the ebb out of Boulogne would have taken the fleet westwards, but then the flood tide along the English coast and the prevailing south-west winds would have tended to drive the fleet back up-Channel. Furthermore, sailing due west from Boulogne would set a fleet on a course for the Isle of Wight, just missing Eastbourne! There was therefore no hope of making landfall at Lulworth with embarkations from Boulogne and other coastal stages in the east. The sandy beaches of Poole Bay would have been easier, but the Grand Armee was no more in a position to beach there either. French intelligence was well acquainted with the defences and conditions of the Dorset coast, since Napoleon regularly dispatched corsairs and spies to capture English fishermen and peasants for interrogation!

But Dorset may have been considered much less risky than the south east coast, which was the target for the two thousand vessels and ten thousand men of Napoleon’s fleet. There is the possibility that a minor diversionary attack was planned for the Purbeck coast, designed to draw the eastern fleet westwards towards Dorset, so leaving the south east coast vulnerable. Indeed, Napoleon was keeping up pressure from Brest for this purpose – a strategy that was not without some success, for in June 1804 King George III told the Duke of York:

“I cannot deny I am rather hurt there is any objection made to forming so large an army of reserves in Dorset where, or in Cornwall, I think an attack more likely than in Essex, Kent or Sussex.”

And later, when approving Dorset’s invasion garrisons and precautions the King asked for more troops to bolster the defence of the county. Certainly the alarm bells were jangling in Dorset as much as elsewhere once the threat from Bonaparte was made manifest.

But the French-speaking farmer’s wife was adamant that Napoleon did go ashore at Lulworth that day in 1804, when she would have been 20 years old. For, like many literate people, she had seen caricatures and cartoons of the Emperor and identified him, she said, by his facial profile and by his cocked hat, though this headwear was by no means unique. Perhaps then, we can see the merchantman’s daughter as unwittingly stumbling upon Bonaparte probably making a brief visit to assess the coastal conditions in preparation for his invasion plans.

Shipwreck!

Dec 27th, 2009
by Dorset Ancestors.
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On July 21st 1588 an explosion occurred on board a Spanish galleon, The ‘San Salvador,’ as she was sailing across Lyme Bay at the height of the Armada. Whether the explosion was an accident or, as has been surmised, an act of sabotage is not clear, but the smouldering hulk of the ‘San Salvador’ was abandoned and towed to Weymouth where rudimentary repairs were carried out, her crew presumably taken prisoner.

The ship had been carrying the Spanish Paymaster-General and most of his gold; a chest salvaged from the wreck was put on display in Weymouth Museum. Once reasonably seaworthy, the ship was thought to have sailed for Portsmouth with a British crew but actually foundered and sank before Old Harry Rocks near Studland. The crew then either abandoned the galleon or were drowned. There the ‘San Salvador’ lay rotting for nearly 300 years until marine archaeologists recovered some of her timbers in 1984.

The wreck of the ‘San Salvador’ is just one of the earliest recorded instances of shipwrecks around the coast of Purbeck. Most notably, St. Aldhelm’s Head, the Kimmeridge Ledges and Durlston Head have all been treacherous graveyards of many a vessel and its crew. News of a wreck once spread rapidly between villages and farms. As if to a honeypot the people were irresistibly drawn towards the spectacle of these tragedies, though principally not from any humanitarian motivation. They came to plunder and salvage whatever booty they could from a hapless wreck to enrich the lowly economy of their communities or the mundane poverty of their daily lives.

Thomas Bond, addressing a meeting of antiquarians at Corfe in March 1867 told those present “the Purbeck peasants appear to have been not less addicted to the lawless practise of wrecking (robbing?) than were the inhabitants of other sea coasts.” Almost five hundred years earlier in 1371 Edward III even called a commission to try no fewer than a hundred people for their part in robbing the ‘Welfare.’ The ‘Welfare’ was a Dartmouth sailing ship on route to London from Devon when it got into difficulties off Portland and was driven aground on the rocks before Kimmeridge. On board the vessel were 32 pieces of gold cloth, richly embroidered silks and other merchandise.

At the trial in Sherborne held much later the master of the ‘Welfare,’ Robert Knolles, testified he had been molested by the robbers, who had even been cajoled by Abbot Thomas of Cerne into storing the cargo away in a building at Kimmeridge. As owner of the Manor of Kimmeridge the Abbot had “Right of Wreck” to the shore there, but because the ‘Welfare’ had run aground and was held by her crew, pillaging of the ship was not lawful. (The Abbot was himself eventually convicted along with the other accused in 1377!)

Nearly two hundred years after the ‘San Salvador’ became a casualty of the Armada it was the turn of the East Indiaman, the ‘Halsewell,’ to suffer a similar fate. This vessel foundered before the cliff between Winspit and Seacombe in January 1786 and was then splintered almost to matchwood by heavy breakers. Some of the Haswell’s fittings however, were salvaged and found their way into Purbeck homes as second hand furnishings. For example, the cupboard from Captain Richard Pierce’s quarters was built into one of the bedroom walls of a new house near the New Inn, Swanage; a mirror now hangs in Worth Matravers Church, while a delicate hourglass was put on display in the County Museum, Dorchester. But underpinning these pickings for all is the tragedy of 168 dead and many injured, the later having to be hauled to safety up the cliff by quarrymen using ropes. The wreck represented a loss to the East India Company of £60,000.

One high profile wreck soon after the turn of the 18th century was that of the ‘Earl of Abergavenny,’ a sailing ship which struck the Shambles Bank in Weymouth Bay and sank early in February 1805. Personally affected by this tragedy was the poet William Wordsworth, who’s brother John lost his life while in command of the ship at the time. He was buried in the churchyard at Wyke Regis. Next year the 200th anniversary of the sinking will be commemorated.

The winter of 1866 was one of particular savagery along the south coast. A ferocious gale in January wrecked three schooners in Studland Bay, but that July the French barque ‘Georgiana’ was driven ashore at Chapman’s Pool. The Georgiana’s passengers and crew were saved by a line fired to the ship by coastguards. During a gale on December 8th 1872 the lifeboat ‘Mary Heape’ under the captaincy of William Stickland was called out to rescue the crew of the ‘Stralsund’ a German ship which had been blown onto the Kimmeridge Ledges.

Within a week of each other in January 1879 two ships ran aground near Old Harry Rocks very near where the ‘San Salvador’ sank in 1588. The ‘Constitution’, a triple-masted US frigate, was returning from France with a load of exhibits from the Paris Exhibition when she was driven onto the rocks by high seas. After removal of the frigate’s heavy fittings so as to lighten her, a Government tug arrived from Southampton to help five other steamers spend several hours winching the vessel clear. The ‘Contistution’ was towed into Portsmouth, though had suffered only minor damage. The following week it was the of a 500-ton Norwegian timber schooner called ‘Annie Margaretta’ to crash into the headland at almost the same spot as the ‘Constitution’, but this ship was not so fortunate. By afternoon it was clear the Margaretta was a total wreck, the easterly gale having been so fierce that lifeboats could not reach the location sooner and carry out a proper rescue.

Early in 1880 the newly completed lighthouse at Swanage became operational. On April 29th, 1882 a hurricane drove the 1,250-ton Liverpool sailing ship ‘Alexandrovna’ towards the lighthouse with her topsail in ribbons. No crew were seen and the ship eventually struck Ragged Rocks to the west of Round Down. Such was the force of the storm that it took only the ten minutes needed for the rescuers to reach the spot, for the ship to be reduced to loose driftwood. All of the 77-man crew perished many of the bodies being later found wedged among rocks or drifting in the Channel. One naked body recovered from the sea was still attached to a lifebuoy.

Probably the worst shipwreck off the Purbeck coast in the first half of the 20th century occurred at 9 p.m. on Friday January 9th 1920 when the ‘Treveal’, a 3,226 ton freighter, foundered on the Kimmeridge Ledges with the loss of the captain and 35 crewmen. At the time, the ship was making for Dundee on the return leg of its maiden voyage to Calcutta with a cargo of jute and manganese. The freighter went aground when approaching St. Aldhelm’s Head and although the crew radioed distress calls and fired flares the weather was too severe for any hope of salvation. A dockyard tug put to sea from Portland in response, only to get into difficulties itself and be beaten back by darkness and the gale. The following morning another two tugs were sent – one with the Weymouth lifeboat in tow – but by this time the storm had intensified. Yet just when it was thought the lifeboat might be overwhelmed, it was swept away to safety, eventually finding shelter in Poole Harbour.

Meanwhile the Traveal’s captain ordered the ship to be abandoned, but only 7 of the 43 crew reached the shore alive. The seven survivors were pulled from the waves by the Vicar of Worth Matravers, Revd. M. Piercy, with the assistance of Frank Lander, a local villager. But for the intervention of these two men, the seven would almost certainly have been dragged to their deaths by backwash. The men were put up at Swanage’s Anchor Hotel; the bodies of their captain and 35 crewmates were taken to Worth’s Reading Room to be laid out. To this day the sunken Traveal’s cargo has not been salvaged from its grave at eight fathoms down.

For some Purbeck people walking near the coast in the earlier 20th century, one of the most memorable occasions was witnessing a ship on fire in the Channel. In January 1933 observers on the cliffs near St.Aldhelm’s Head watched in amazement as the French liner ‘L’Atlantique’ blazed from bow to stern out in the Channel at about 50 degrees 34 minutes north and 2 degrees 3 minutes west. The £3 million L’Atlantique’s Commander, Captain Schoofs, later recovered the gutted liner, its upper decks by then fallen in. He hoisted the French tricolour and towed the hulk back to Cherbourg.

But until the last quarter of the century no part of the Channel coast had ever been threatened by the spilt cargo of any ship actually wrecked many miles away. That is until April 1967 when the oil tanker ‘Torrey Canyon’ foundered and broke up on the Cornish rocks, releasing most of her oil into the sea. The resulting slick then drifted up the Channel with the then prevailing west wind, fouling many beaches in Cornwall and Devon as it went. Purbeck then braced itself for the impact of a share of the Canyon’s spillage. Miraculously, it never came; a sudden eleventh-hour change of wind direction to northerly took the slick away from Dorset and towards the French coast instead. But not befoe a £15,000 boom was thrown across the mouth of Poole Harbour as a contingency measure, though dismantled with relief that the threat had passed. Still, the Torrey Canyon’s slick killed many thousands of seabirds and had a long term effect on the ecology of the south coast.

Twelve years later in 1979 a 6,540 ton freighter called ‘Aeolean Sky’ was sailing up the Channel carrying drums of insecticide and other toxic chemicals when it was in collision with the German coaster ‘Anna Knuppel off Purbeck on November 3rd. Taking in water the crippled freight was towed towards Portland harbour but sank in 100 feet of water about five-and-a-half miles off St. Aldhelm’s Head early the following morning.

This Bounteous Breed

Dec 23rd, 2009
by Dorset Ancestors.
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One amazing fact about sheep is that there are more breeds of this domesticated animal in Britain than anywhere else in the world. But one breed above almost any other, through the human intervention of cross-breeding, has acquired the distinction of being especially adaptable to variable climates: the Dorset Horn.

The history of this handsome and hardy breed reaches back many centuries. South West Horn sheep already widespread on the downland of Wessex during the Roman occupation and by 1086 and beyond these sheep continued to have an important role in the local agrarian economy. The Dorset Horn, together with the Wiltshire Horn sheep, is believed to be progeny of the South-West Horn type. It is thought that the Dorset Horn had its origin many years before, some experts believing that the modern Dorsets carry genes of prehistoric flocks.

Then during the reign of Elizabeth I certain ships bearing cargoes of live sheep were shipwrecked off Portland during storms. Live sheep were then taken ashore, where they were cross-bred with native Dorset horns producing an offspring with a strain of Merino. The cross-breeding explains one of the Dorset’s most endearing and commercially valuable traits: its thick, short-wool coat, but also the characteristic pinkish face and the ewe’s ability to come into season throughout the year, enabling a farmer to benefit from the most profitable time of the year.

Ewes impregnated by rams in April would be walked to the sheep fairs in September where buyers from as far away as Edinburgh would buy the in-lamb ewes to satisfy the demands of the Christmas dinner table. In the early 1800’s a farmer at Plush called Michael Miller held the last pure Dorset Horn flock. The Dorset Horn was created by crossing the Somerset Horn with the Dorset Horned sheep, and Richard Seymour, a breeder at Bradpole in the 1830’s is widely acknowledged as the earliest improver of the breed. The number of Dorset Horns in the county appears to have reached its limit in the mid 19th century, but declined thereafter, so that by 1900 the number was down by fifty per cent. Another noted breeder/improver of Dorset Horns was Alfred Johnson, a former resident of Symondsbury House, who was also the first to export some of the rams to Australia and the first to make a hundred guineas from the sale of a ram.

In 1956 Mr J. Martin Lenthall of manor Farm, Burton Bradstock, worked a passage to Australia with a consignment of sheep, but also with the intention of carrying out a bit of sleuthing. For two years he went around investigating cattle and sheep stations to see whether hornless sheep were being developed. On arriving in Tasmania he was intrigued to discover a flock very similar to Dorset Horns but without horns. Lenthall returned with a stud ram and a ram lamb – the ancestors of the first Poll (hornless) Dorset Sheep. In 1966 Lenthall left the farm that had been in is family for several generations to begin a new life on a farm called Bradstock Downs near Albany in Western Australia. One of his married daughters (Mrs Beverley Hole) carried on the Lenthall tradition in Dorset.

Like the Dorset Horn, the Poll is unique in being able to breed at any time of the year and produces one of the highest quality wools completely free from grey fibres. The fleece is also very white, even before scouring. Since the 1900’s the breed has spread throughout Britain and more recently into Europe, since like its Dorset Horn ancestor it is able to cope with the varied climates of the continental region.

Physically the Dorset Horn breed has many stirling qualities. Overall, individuals are long in the body and have a very square chunky appearance. The horns are borne by ewes as well as rams and are especially massive, growing upward and then coiling forward close to the muzzle. The head is broad, full and open, the nostrils well covered and the nose pink. The neck is of short to medium length, strong, muscular and well-sprung from the shoulders; the chest is well forward, full and deep. A Dorset Horn’s hind quarters are full, with deeply muscled thighs and the legs are of medium length. There is a find, downy type of fleece free of kemp (course hair in wool) and colour, having firm handling.

Dorset Horn rams have a bold, muscular appearance, with a good length and a strong robust character. The head is one of great beauty with long, strong horns curving downwards and then forwards in graceful curves. Ewes are bright sheep with a feminine appearance and smaller, more delicate horns.

Temperamentally the breed is a docile one. In Britain Dorset Horns and Dorset Polls are naturally found mainly in the south-west region, though cross-breeds are more widely distributed. Because of their ability to cope with various climatic conditions and their other outstanding qualities the Dorset Horn (and particularly the Dorset Polls) are now widely distributed throughout the world, being especially popular in Australia, New Zealand and the USA. Poll meat is tasty and succulent with a high meat-to-fat and bone ratio suiting the needs of the post-millennium market.

Hiring Fairday

Dec 23rd, 2009
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Imagine a bright rather cold morning in February with the promise of a fine day ahead. We are in Dorchester during the 1870’s on Candlemas or Hiring Fairday; shops are open early and full of goods and novelties including all the latest fashions displayed to best advantage.

Farmers, craftsmen, and men seeking employment, are in town along with the recruiting Sergeants for Her Majesty’s Army. Women and girls are here from villages for many miles round and with them are the prospects of shop sales reaching levels not seen since Christmas. Shopkeepers will be looking to serve the ladies with full purses and good credit, while the young girls with little to spend will stretch out the day enjoyably window shopping.

As dawn breaks, booths are set up outside of The Corn Exchange and St. Peter’s Church; from these souvenirs are sold including cakes made to represent Kings, Queens and Horses, all lavishly decorated with gold or silver tinsel.

The town is alive to the sound of men and horses as farmers’ dog-carts and farm wagons laden with produce roll into Dorchester from towns and villages all over the County. Barking sheep dogs, bleating sheep, and squealing pigs are accompanied in the lower registers by the lowing of cattle and percussion, provided by the rattling and ringing of the brasses and bells on the horses, which completes the cacophony ensuring the residents wake early.

Horses with manes and tails plaited are lined up on the north side of High East Street and sold in the street, occasionally they are raced up and down the street to show off their paces accompanied by much whip cracking and shouting. Some of the pigs are in pens outside The Phoenix Tavern and sold from the pavement. Cattle and sheep are on the fairground (nowadays the town gardens.) Farmers inspect the latest agricultural implements on display by the Town Pump.

North Square hosts a huge display of dairy produce including mountains of cheese including Blue Vinny and lots of real Dorset butter, which is slightly salted and sold in large earthen-ware pots. A quack doctor or two are about the town offering miracle cures and there are itinerant Ballard singers selling songs. In the Corn Exchange farmers and corn merchants haggle over deals for wheat, barley and oats.

Men seeking employment wear a wisp of straw in their hats; a signal to farmers that they are for hire but the Army Enlisting Sergeants will seek out the fittest and will be quick to tell them “nothing could be better than to serve Queen and Country, and at the same time see the world.”

As for the young men seeking employment it goes well enough and they are quickly offered contracts to start with their new masters on Lady Day – April 6th; they can enjoy the rest of the day. Not all of the older men will find employment even though they will tell you there is plenty of work left in them.  They trudge back to their villages in despair and for some the workhouse beckons.

As the day wears on farmers and visitors from the outlying towns and villages hurry to complete their business in time to call at The King’s Arms Hotel or The Antelope for refreshments before setting-off home.

By early evening all the shops are closed up and the traders are busy making up their books and counting the takings before putting on a warm overcoat and retiring to their favourite inn to discuss the day’s business with friends. As for those several young men who took the Queen’s shilling and exchanged a wisp of straw for a red, white and blue ribbon, they will be wondering what adventures lay in store for them.

James Hamilton – Architect of Regency Weymouth

Dec 22nd, 2009
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Along the esplanade at Weymouth, where stands an ornamental clock tower, is a multi-storey Regency terrace now considered as one of the finest developments of the period anywhere in England. This Georgian terrace is the Royal Crescent; but what could this development possibly have in common with the White Horse chalk down monument at Osmington? The answer is that these two disparate landmarks were both the conception of James Hamilton, a somewhat obscure figure among 18th century architects, but one who evidently enriched the Weymouth townscape as perhaps no other draughtsman has.

The Osmington White Horse had its origin on Hamilton’s drawing board in 1808 as a commission from the citizens of Weymouth for an equestrian memorial to King George III once he was no longer able to “take the waters” at the resort after 1805 due to his worsening mental illness. But these two undertakings are not the only marks this architect has left upon the soil of Dorset.

Hamilton was born in 1748, but to this day little is known about his origins, family background or education, so it is not certain whether he was born in Dorset or elsewhere. It has been suggested he may have been a descendant of the “Johannes Hamiltonius Britannicus” who sculpted a fine monument to the memory of Robert Napier that can be seen at Puncknowle.

Although nothing is known as to his education or whether he studied architecture Hamilton almost certainly would have been trained in building crafts before setting himself up as an architect. But the profession under that name did not become recognised until the 1750’s and it was commonplace for practitioners to come from a wide variety of backgrounds. For Hamilton, that background seems to have been working as a mason or stonecutter, since there is a record of a James Hamilton of Melcombe Regis being employed as a mason in the Portland Quarry under William Tyler RA, the architect who designed Bridport Town Hall. Since this building dates from 1786, Hamilton may not have established his architectural practise before this time.

There is evidence however, that Hamilton was practising architecture more fully by 1790 at the latest. This comes from a certain Joshua Carter of Bridport, who sometime after 1787 “…began to rebuild his father’s house, employing a James Hamilton, architect, of Weymouth, a contractor in Portland stone.” And Hamilton did work on the rebuilding of the south east wall of the Cobb at Lyme Regis in 1795.

In 1797 Hamilton is mentioned in Weymouth Corporation records for the first time. That year Messrs Sumersvall & Hamilton undertook to repair the inner and outer piers of the harbour. This shows that the architect was evidently still working as a contractor when not in his drawing office, and in association with a Mr Welsford he applied to Weymouth Corporation on behalf of the Protestant Dissenters for a lease of land to enable their Chapel to be enlarged in 1802. Hamilton also designed the Dissenter’s Chapel in West Street in 1804 and, in 1805, the Methodist Chapel in Lower Bond Street, though both of these buildings have since been demolished.

Then three years later came Hamilton’s great design for the imposing Royal Crescent. The Osmington White Horse, on the other hand, was designed and executed on a grand scale, being 320 feet high, yet, as the Dorchester & Sherborne Journal of October 7th 1808 noted: “the likeness of the King is well preserved and the symmetry of the horse is so complete as to be a credit to Mr Hamilton of this town, for its execution.” The equestrian figure of George III is portrayed mounted on his favourite grey charger.

In 1802 John Herbert Browne, a town councillor of Weymouth, recorded that the Council had resolved to put up a statue of the King in the town itself, to honour George’s contribution to popularising Weymouth as a fashionable resort. The figure was to be made from stoneware produced by Coade & Sealy of Lambeth. Having sought approval from the king, John Sealy went to the palace in 1803 and spent about three-quarters of an hour with the King to obtain a measure of the likeness upon which the statue is based. On the basis of this material, James Hamilton then drew up a blueprint, which was then sculpted at the Coade & Sealy works before shipment aboard the ‘Lovell’ to its permanent site in Weymouth.

The cost to Sealy of Hamilton’s design turned out to be greater than that for the statue itself. The finished work is mounted on a square pedestal standing on a plinth flanked by a lion and a unicorn. A full-length robed effigy of the King wearing the Order of the Garter and holding a sceptre stands before a smaller pedestal surmounted by an imperial crown. The statue was unveiled by the Prince of Wales in the presence of the Duke of Kent, Princess Mary & Princess Amelia in a ceremony of great splendour in October 1810.

It was likely also that Hamilton was responsible for designing the houses numbered 7 to 14 in Gloucester Row in 1790; and, between 1811 and 1815, those in Johnstone Row. At 3.00 am on Monday, March 27th 1815 a ship called the Alexander was wrecked on the Chesil opposite Wyke, with the loss of 130 passengers and crew. On hearing of the tragedy, James Hamilton designed a plaque to commemorate the dead, which was put up in Wyke Church in 1816.

Hamilton’s work however, was not confined to Weymouth’s town centre or, in one instance, even within the actual borders of the county. The architect turned his attention to buildings that could adorn the outlying villages, such as Hamilton House in Chamberlaine Road, Wyke Regis. Research based on the 1819-25 Grove Diaries carried out by Stan Pickett of Weymouth has revealed that Thomas Grove commissioned Hamilton to design and oversee the building of a “charming mansion” at Berwick St. John in Wiltshire. This work occupied Hamilton for two-and-a-half years from 1809 to 1811, a commission that evidently required the architect, by then in his sixties, to lodge frequently at Berwick so he could be on site to supervise the construction.

During this period the architect was certainly responsible for drafting the plans of the Parish Church of St. Mary at Melcombe, built between 1815 and 1817, replacing an earlier church on the site built in 1605. Hamilton’s church of Portland stone, with triple-arched portico, pilasters, square podium and black-faced clock surmounted by a cupola with ball-finial supported by eight slender Roman Doric columns, clearly manifests either conscious or subconscious modelling upon the façade of Bridport Town Hall. Possibly Hamilton poached Tyler’s basic design for the latter, but adding modifications of his own originality. Rather critically, this design has been described as having: “a monumental west front of some distinction, but the building is of particular interest as an expression of the empiricism of a provincial architect, acquainted with, but possessing little knowledge of the neo-classical style of the period…” However, the pediment projecting from a plain obtusely-gabled parapet wall is typical of a Hamilton design.

Regarding the particulars of Hamilton’s marital status, rather than his family background, we are rather better provided for. Hamilton was twice married, his first wife having apparently died early in the marriage at an unrecorded date, as the register of St. Anne’s Church at Radipole records that in 1814 a James Hamilton, widower, of Melcombe Regis married Ann Croad, a spinster of Melcombe. By his first wife Hamilton had a son, John, who family tradition relates was the sculptor of the monument to Princess Sophia of Gloucester in St. Georges Chapel, Windsor. Ann was the daughter of Caleb and Mary Croad of Preston, having been baptised on February 23rd, 1785, making her just 29 at the time of her marriage to a man 39 years her senior. Despite his age, Hamilton fathered five children by Anne, baptised as follows: Henrietta (1818); Ann Augusta (1819); Edwin John (March 1824); William John (September 1824) and Edwin Charles (1828).

It is generally considered that Hamilton’s career as an architect effectively ended in 1816, his last project possibly being St. Mary’s in Melcombe. Yet as late as 1824 he is still described as such on his children’s baptism certificates.

James Hamilton died in 1829, aged 81. The Dorset County Chronicle announced his death on January 15th with the words: “on the 13th inst. Jas Hamilton, architect, far advanced in years, leaving a wife and family to deplore his loss.” As he had been a member of a Masonic lodge “Brother” Hamilton was granted a Masonic funeral with 39 other brethren in attendance. This took place on the 19th of January with a procession from the Hamilton’s home in Frederick Place to the Masonic Hall, thence to Wyke Parish Church where the service was conducted by the Revd. George Chamberlaine.

This innovative architect’s passing however, left behind him a bitter legacy for his grieving family to endure. Three months later his widow, Ann, was compelled out of some desperation to seek help from the London-based Masonic Board of Benevolence. She was, she declared, “left destitute with five young children to care for.” As Hamilton’s will has never been found, it is not clear why this was so, but the MBB’s records show that the institution awarded Ann £10, a considerable sum in those days. More ignominiously, it would have been possible for John Hamilton, James’ son from his first marriage, to claim his father’s entire estate if he had died intestate.

On December 3rd, 1831, the Hamilton’s youngest child, Edwin Charles, died and was buried in Wyke Churchyard, possibly in the grave of his father as no separate headstone bearing his name was ever set up. Ann lived on at Frederick Place until sometime between 1851 and 1861. The 1841 census is the last to record Ann’s daughter Augusta, then 20, as still living with her mother at home.

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