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William Cox – Australian Pioneer

Oct 18th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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William Cox was born in Wimborne in 1764 and was educated at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School. He joined the army and quickly rose to Paymaster and at Cork he served against Irish rebels, many of whom were captured and ordered to be transported to Australia. He joined the New South Wales Corp and sailed on a convict ship to Botany Bay.
 
In Australia he acquired farming land and later became active in the construction of a major highway and several building projects. A natural leader of men he appears to have been well liked and a master at managing human resources, getting the best out of people whether they be his superiors, his workforce or convicts. Like a lot of successful people throughout history his financial affairs drifted into muddy waters but with these issues behind him he went on to become one of Australia’s pioneers.
 
After leaving school William’s father, Robert Cox, moved his family to Devises in Wiltshire and William married Rebecca UpJohn, the daughter of a Bristol merchant, with whom he had six sons and a daughter. The daughter does not seem to have survived.  He was a member of the Wiltshire Militia and joined the army in July 1795 receiving a commission as ensign in 117th Foot. In February of 1797 he became a lieutenant 68th Foot and in September the following year he was appointed Paymaster and ordered to Cork where he served against Irish rebels.

At Cork, Cox joined The New South Wales Corp and was given the same rank of Paymaster. The Corp left from Cork on the 24th of August 1799 for Port Jackson (Sydney) on board the Minerva which, after twice escaping raids from Spanish pirates and Spanish galleons, arrived in Sydney on 11th January 1800. On board the ‘Minerva’ were some 160 convicts including General Holt and the Revd. H. Fulton and Cox, recognising that the majority were political prisoners rather than criminals, made sure all were treated well and often allowed up on deck to get fresh air. It was this generosity of spirit that earned him the respect of all those under his rule.

On his arrival in Australia he immediately saw the opportunities and bought a farm of 100 acres and had General Holt, who was still officially a prisoner, manage it for him. Over time more acreage was added.

With William were his wife, Rebecca, and their four younger sons. The older boys remained in England to finish their education and didn’t join the family in Australia until 1804. James stayed in Australia but William returned to England with his father in 1807 when his father was facing financial ruin and disgrace.

In 1803 his estate was placed in the hands of trustees even though he had substantial sums of money owing to him and he believed the value of his assets far exceeded his liabilities.  He was suspended from office. In 1807 he was ordered to return to England to account for financial irregularities in his accounts while he was Paymaster. There are differing accounts of the outcome of these enquiries: on the one hand we are given to believe he was discharged the service and another account says he cleared himself; as a result was promoted to Captain in 1808. The later account seems more likely because back in Australia in 1811 he was the principal magistrate at Hawkesbury, New South Wales.

On July 14th 1814 Cox received a letter from the Governor accepting his offer to superintend the building of a road from a ford on the river Nepean on the Emu Plains across the Blue Mountains to a point on the Bathhurst Plains, a distance of about 100 miles.

He was given 30 labourers and a guard of 8 soldiers. The task took six-months to complete from starting work in July 1814 to completion in January 1815: this was an amazing achievement and in April the Governor drove his carriage down it from Sydney to Bathurst.The road opened up the opportunity to settle the land beyond the mountains and this began almost at once.

Cox, now a prosperous man, established a farm near the junction of the Cugegong and Macquarie rivers. Following the death in 1819 of his first wife Rebecca, William Cox married Anna Blackford with whom he had a further three sons: Edgar, Thomas and Alfred and a daughter, between 1822 and 1825.

William junior did not return to Australia with his father but stayed in Europe, served in the Peninsular War and did not return to stay permanently in Australia until 1814 when he was 24 and married. The other four sons born in England were significantly younger:  the third son, Charles, died, unmarried, on missionary work in Fiji when he was only eighteen.  And the sixth son, Frederick, died young.  That left George and Henry, who were only about three or four when they left England and their Australian-born brother Edward, born at Hawkesbury in 1805.

William Cox died at Windsor, New South Wales on 15th of March 1837. In St. Andrew’s Cathedral in Sydney there is a window in his memory. “This window is the gift of George Cox of Wimborne and Edward Cox of Fernhill, Mulgoa, in memory of their father William Cox, of Clarendon, Richmond, N.S.W. Arrived in Port Jackson in the Minerva 10th January 1800 in command of a detachment of the New South Wales Corp, of which he was an officer.”  These days the house at Clarendon is in the care of the National Trust of Australia.

General Holt, who had worked for Cox, described him as “a man of great kindliness and fine character.” Only a man of real ability and a genius for managing men could have built a road across the mountains in so short a time, and it would be difficult to find an equal feat during the early history of Australia.

Lady Mary Bankes – The Mistress of Corfe Castle

Oct 12th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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When talking about womenfolk asserting themselves, and in particular the lady heroines of Dorset, the mind immediately switches to Lady Mary Bankes, who held besieged Corfe Castle, one of the impregnable fortresses of the kingdom for hundreds of years, for several months during the Civil Wars.

It was a remarkable achievement, and one showing great valour. The Bankes family were Royalists and Sir John Bankes, Chief Justice of England, was with King Charles II at his Oxford headquarters during the conflict.

Lady Mary, who came of Norman stock, had with her her six children when the fortress, the only one in the county not taken by the Parliamentarians, was surrounded. With a few retainers, never more than 40, she kept it secure. Hot coals were dropped on the heads of Cromwell’s men as they tried to scale the walls.

Sir John returned, but in a second attempt in 1644 the postern gate was traitorously opened from within the castle complex and it fell to its attackers.

A bronze figure of Lady Mary stands by the marble staircase at Kingston Lacy at Wimborne Minster, one of the great houses of Dorset, which was built on the site of another which had once belonged to the Crown and had come by marriage to a son of John Lacy, Earl of Lincoln.

The keys of the castle were kept and were hung up in the library, and many old pictures were saved too by Lady Mary. As for the castle, it was looted and partially destroyed. King Charles II was to restore the ruins to Sir Ralph Bankes, the heir, and today they make up one of the most striking landmarks in the south of England.

The Princess of Wales planted a rare Liquidambar tree when she visited the castle and had lobster tea at the Bankes Arms in 1908.

Corfe Castle saw the suppression of the Anglo-Saxon dynasty, murder, assassination, and attacks of the Danes in its long life. Standing on a steep mound within the Purbeck Hills, it was the scene of a murder as early as 978 AD by Elfrida of Devon, who had inherited it from King Edgar, her husband.

She had a son who was not hers stabbed in the back. And 22 French knights were starved to death in the dungeons during the reign of bad King John, who today lies in Worcester Cathedral. Edward II was a prisoner in the castle before being taken to Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire to die in brutal fashion before being buried in Gloucester Cathedral, in an ornate tomb.

George Duke of Clarence, who was drowned in a barrel of malmsey wine in the Tower of London, as Shakespeare tells, was an owner of the castle. A resident at one time was Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII. Another was Sir Christopher Hatton, who was granted Corfe Castle by Queen Elizabeth I.

In the same period the town of Corfe Castle at the foot of the mount was granted the right of returning two members of Parliament, and cannon were mounted on the walls as a defence against the Spanish Armada in 1588.

From the time of the Norman Conquest the building was held as a royal castle, a castle of such strength and in such a superb defensive position that only the invention of gunpowder was to undermine its prestige. It was in this part of the southwest that the Lancastrian lords assembled an army.

Much later, Parliament captured Dorchester, Lyme Regis, Melcombe, Weymouth, Wareham and Poole. On May Day 1643,the rebels from Dorchester attempted to take the castle during the annual stag-hunt. Later, guns were brought into it from all over the island, to defend it. Threatening letters were delivered to Lady Mary.

At that time the castle had become almost the only place of strength between Exeter and London, holding out for the royal cause.

When Lord Chief Justice Bankes died in 1644 all his property was forfeited because of his loyalty to the King. After nearly three years of residence his brave lady had been dispossessed of her previously redoubtable fortress, which was left to the plunderers.

Many mansions in Dorset have been constructed out of its stone and timber. And it may be that the whole of the family plate lies at the bottom of a deep well within the castle boundary.

Henry Lock – From Winfrith to South Australia

Oct 3rd, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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We can only surmise why Henry Lock uprooted his family from the familiar surroundings of the Clay Pitts area of Winfrith Newburgh to embark on a one way, once in a life-time journey to Australia. It was a courageous decision probably driven by the grinding poverty endured by agricultural workers in Dorset in the mid 19th century and aggravated by a measure of religious intolerance. Henry was a follower of Wesley although he married Hannah Riggs and their children were baptised at the parish church, so he may have been a recent convert.

Henry (40); his wife Hannah (nee Riggs) (41) and their six children: William (18); Harriet (16); Mary (14); John (11); Elizabeth (8) and Edith (3) embarked on board the emigrant ship Marion at Plymouth, which weighed anchor at about 7 pm on the 24th of March 1851. On board there were 350 emigrants from all over the United Kingdom; the Lock family were the only passengers from Dorset.

The Marion was a 3-masted wooden emigrant ship of 919 tons built in Quebec in 1850 and under the command of Captain Kissock. The 350 emigrants had endured 128 days at sea and were within hours of reaching Adelaide when the ship struck the outer edge of Troubridge Shoal at about 10 pm on Tuesday 29th of July 1851. This area of the South Australian coast was known to be treacherous but when the Marion hit the reef only a slight fog and a calm sea prevailed. The ship was wrecked but miraculously all of the passengers and crew made land safely.

The shore was only a few miles away but the Captain ordered the long boats to be launched believing they could carry passengers ashore and return for the crew. Even though the long boats had compasses, some of the boats rowed east instead of west so rowing far more than necessary to make landfall.

Some 18 months later Henry wrote to his old friends and neighbours back in Dorset and he was able to tell them that his family “want for nothing” and that they were making a good life for themselves.

William Goodchild wrote to Henry in 1854. That letter has survived and brings sharply into focus how difficult life was for a labouring man living in rural Dorset in the middle of the 19th century. On a personal level William tells his distant friend that he has been in hospital following an accident and reports the birth of an addition to his family: a daughter, and delivers news of new births and the passing of some old friends and how the fledging church is growing. Henry learns of other friends who have departed for the New World and that still more are preparing to follow him to Australia. William reports on the weather and forecasts a better wheat harvest that year.

Below we publish a full transcript of William Goodchild’s letter, which includes mention of many Winfrith families: it is a gold mine of snippets of information for the family historian. References to “Mr Dear Brother” and people being “on trial” should be read in a religious context.

The number of people of European descent living in South Australia in 1836 was virtually zero and by 1851 when Henry Lock and his family arrived, that figure had grown to 65,000 but in that year there was a major exodus of people heading for the goldfields in the neighbouring state of Victoria. We believe Henry and Hannah’s eldest son, William, was amongst them.

A descendant of William Lock has told us that during the following 30 years as many as 75 people connected with the Lock and Riggs families and to Winfrith Newburgh emigrated to the Gawler area of South Australia.

The Letter

Winfrith April 18th 1854
Dear Friend and Brother,
   After a long absence of time I take the pleasure of answering your kind and most welcome letter which I received in the month of August and should have answered your letter before but about that time I met with an accident and cut off my ear with an axe and was in Dorchester Hospital for a month, but thank God I am quite restored and I hope you are all well, as it leaves us all at present.

I should very much like to see you once more and ………(unreadable)…….what I think upon you ….(unreadable)…. if we never meet again on earth my prayer is that we may meet in heaven.
I’m very glad to hear that you were getting on so well in this life for the times are much worse here now than when you left. Bread now is 10 (?pence) per loaf, Butter (?1 shilling ) per pound, Potatoes 16 s to 1£ per sack. Beef and Mutton is 8d per pound but we can hardly remember the taste of it and I sometimes wished that I lived along with you, for you said you do not want of anything and a sovereign is thought no more of than a shilling but thank God our table has been spread in the wilderness and we have had sufficient while others have been destitute. We have had an increase in our family, a daughter now few months old; Grandmother Hibbs is still alive and living with us.

Dear Brother I suppose you will like to hear some of the news of your native village. The state of our society is much the same as when you left. George Ellis, Stephen Simmonds, Fredk. and John Selby and Sally Chaffey are on trial and I hope they will hold fast to the end. Charles Selby has lost 2 children out of 3. Dairyman Andrews is dead killed by his horse with cart – coming home from Lulworth. Mary Brine, Margaret Bishop, John Farr, Mr John Talbot of Burton, Thomas Hooper and Mrs Scott likewise, young John Baker (killed on the railway) and his aunt Rebecca Simmonds is dead. Mrs Kerley and family are all well and has had an invitation from Daniel Wallis to come to America but I do not think he has decided to go. John Pearce is gone there and is doing very well and several more is going from Oraer (Unreadable) now and John Riggs and his family from here. I am very happy to inform you that our Sunday School is re-established and has got from 50 to 60 children and our congregation is much the same as usual, our members are all well and desire to be remembered to you and family. I am also glad to inform you that they have a nice little Chapel at South Down and it was opened last August when there was 300 to tea there. Old Esquire Greg (Cree?)is dead and John Hibbs has got liberty to hold a class meeting at his house.

Dear Brother, I saw your sister Kitty and family this evening and with tears she desired to be kindly remembered to you and said she should like to see you once more but if not she hopes to meet you in heaven, her son Robert’s wife has got a daughter and her daughter Ann, a son and they are all well. You said that Robert Davis would inform us of how you were getting on but he has never returned and his mother has desired me to ask you where you could give any information concerning him and send home when you write next. Thomas Angel has received the ‘plan’ that you sent him and likewise John Allen ‘the letter’ and Henry Burt and John Allen has been trying to emigrate but I cannot tell whether they will succeed or not. Mrs Reader is much the same as usual and has had 2 or 3 newspapers from Australia and I have had 2, and we suppose they came from you. There is much agitation at present concerning the war with Russia, about 10 or 12 has gone from this parish on board a man-of-war. Please to give my kind respects to John Riggs and family and Thomas Allen and tell them that William Toms has sent 4 letters and received 3 and was very glad to hear of their welfare. They are living now at Clay Pits near me, their son Thomas is dead and Henry gone on board a man-of-war. Sarah is at home and very good to her mother and father and Mrs Toms hopes that Elizabeth is a good girl and takes care of herself the last letter they received was on the 6th of April, they intend to write soon, they received what she sent them and very much obliged it was very acceptable, their kind love to all.

Dear Brother, I do not know but what I have told you all the news, we have not had but a few drops of rain these seven weeks, we had a very wet summer last year but I hope we shall have a very prosperous one this year. The wheat is looking very well at the present.  Betsy Allen has had another child and since that it is burnt to death. Joseph Ellis, wife and family are quite well. I never pass by the house which you used to live without thinking of you. I have to inform you that Mrs Atherton is dead and Mr Atherton married again. Miss Caster (Carter?)is dead where my son was stopping.

Now I must conclude wishing you every blessing in this life and in that which is to come and I desire to be kindly remembered to your dear wife and family and hope that they are all decided for the Lord for that will be better than all the gold of Australia and I hope we shall never grow weary in well doing. I should like to hear from you often and please to answer this as soon as you can make it convenient.
So no more at present
From your Friend and Brother
William Marks Goodchild.

June no 11 1854.

 

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…..

John Beard – Educator of Bridport

Aug 17th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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For the townsfolk of Bridport January 4th, 1911 was an occasion of dreary solemnity and from something more than just the depressing effect of wintry weather. People at home drew the blinds of their windows down; businesses put up their shutters. A cortege bearing a plain oak coffin passed through the town en route to the cemetery. Clearly someone special, someone almost everyone in Bridport had taken to their hearts, was no more.

This special citizen who had prompted such an outpouring of reverence and mourning on his last journey was John Beard. Beard was born in Bristol on March 20th 1833 and died in Bridport on December 30th 1910, his allotted 77 years being ones of making outstanding strides in the education and rectitude of generations of Victorian boys growing up in a Dorset market town. Indeed, many prosperous men had John Beard to thank for the special training they received.

As a child growing up in Bristol, Beard became a pupil-teacher at that city’s Red Cross School, where the more advanced boys taught those in the lower forms. On leaving this school he attended Borough Road Training College from 1852 to 1853, from there going on to teach at Chatham for a few months.

But in 1854 Benjamin Templar, then Headmaster of Bridport General Boys School left to take up another head position in Manchester. The position of headmaster at the Bridport school, which had only opened in 1849, was then filled by Beard, an appointment that was to last for the next forty years. Under its new Head, the school would soon make its presence felt in the community – and in the fortunes of a rising generation of its acolytes.

Beard’s own dedication and attendance record were legendary. In his two score years at the school he was known to have been absent no more than about four days from incapacity. He was also possessed of a stoical sense of duty, being so devoted to his job that he often kept working when he should have rested. A colleague once told him: “I’m afraid you are too young (he was only 22 at the time) in fact some of the pupil-teachers are nearly as old as yourself.”

But from the first it was evident that the new Headmaster was an exceptionally gifted man. On the founding of the General School just five years before, it was intended that technical instruction should be in the curriculum. To this end the school even bought up adjoining allotment land for use as an open-air gymnasium. However, at the time no rigid code or syllabus had been drawn up. Beard was therefore not limited by curriculum; he taught mensuration, land surveying and any other subject fitting boys for science and technology-orientated careers.

When he had been in post at Bridport for only four years, Beard met and married Ellen Swain, the youngest daughter of a local captain, at the Congregational Chapel in Bridport’s Barrack Street on June 20th 1858. It was for both parties a marriage as successful as the groom’s academic career. The Beards raised three sons and two daughters, two of the sons themselves becoming teachers, while the third, Ernest, having apparently inherited his maternal grandfather’s love of the sea, became a sailor and emigrant. The grandfather – Captain Swain – was a harbour master at West Bay, a job which Ernest was to take up in a new life in Calcutta. Sadly, Ellen pre-deceased John by twelve years in 1898.

After some time the state began to interfere more in the running of schools. School Commissions had to march in a rigid step according to new rules. Beard was given – and heeded – the advice that he should obtain certificates in sciences, so qualifying him to teach these as a supplement to the ordinary school course. In fact, John Beard was the first teacher in Bridport to qualify as a science master, and was one of only three in the whole county. Besides giving special class instruction, he extended his expertise to private schools and seminaries. Evening schools were begun, though these were dropped after a time. In about 1874 however, John Beard revived evening schools in Bridport, these being attended by 150 to 200 pupils.

Beard also took an active interest in the Working Men’s Institute in South Street, appreciating its worth as another means of combining education with recreational activities. Here his lectures were highly instructive, appreciated and well attended. He always gave of his best when coaching dozens of young men privately for examinations towards lucrative positions or occupations. By the 1800’s Beard’s name was a household word in Bridport.

At the time, the Headmaster was getting through a prodigious amount of work, despite having no assistant master to share the burden, and only two or three pupil-teachers. His institution was almost a secondary school without rates to support it, though many of his former pupils who had become wealthy men regularly sent subscriptions to support the General School. Alas, the grants ultimately dried up, and the sciences had to be discontinued.

Needless to say John Beard was no less industrious during school holiday time. Much of this time was spent touring the continent with his family, collecting any material he thought would be of interest to his pupils. He also visited many places of historic interest and was in Paris at the time the Franco-Prussian War ended. His lessons based on this foreign material were always of exceptional interest during the new term.

In his latter years Beard also found time to write two books, on English History, and another entitled ‘Outlines of the English Language.’ The key to John Beard’s great success lay in the practical and attractive way he imparted knowledge while leaving his students to think for themselves. He further managed to temper a firm, disciplinary approach with an amiable, smiley demeanour and kindly greetings.

In politics Beard was a life-long Liberal, and indeed served for some years as Vice President of the Bridport Liberal Association. Though he resigned when Gladstone presented his Irish Home Rule Bill.

Sadly though, John Beard’s retirement in the company of his wife of forty years proved to be all too brief. Ellen died only four years later, leaving John a widower for the remaining twelve years of his life. At his own funeral in 1911, the Revd. J. Menzies, for so long a friend and colleague of the former Headmaster delivered a last moving address at the graveside in Bridport Cemetery that bleak winter afternoon.

Simon Garrett – Master Thatcher

Jul 27th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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He was probably the last in a long line of rural craftsmen in roofing, following a family trade that extended back for eight generations. Simon Garrett, the master Thatcher of Thornford in Dorset, certainly saw many changes during the course of his long life: new housing estates, modern machinery and the complete disappearance of many country crafts that he knew as a young man. Modernity transformed the scenes around his home beyond recognition. In fact some used to say that the one constant thing in an ever-changing world was old Simon himself. He was often to be seen perched precariously on rooftops, skilfully dressing down the finished sections of thatch with his side rake.

He was baptised Archibald Simon Garrett on Christmas Day 1904. It was of course his father who trained Simon to thatch in the 1920’s, just as his father before him had taught him the craft. Together the two men would travel from job to job by horse and cart. As cars made ever more frequent incursions into the Dorset lanes, Simon came very close to following a totally different occupation as a mechanic. Fortunately, for succeeding dwellers under thatch, he changed his mind and chose instead to continue the family tradition.

Although people who saw Simon at work on a warm summer day and heard him chatting good-naturedly to passers-by might have envied him his outdoor life, he did – like most traditional craftsmen – know what hard times meant. The introduction of the combined harvester deprived him of the straw, which was his raw material, and the development of modern roofing methods produced particular difficulties. But by his own hard work and skill he weathered the storm and preserved his craft.

In his later years, while continuing to make a living from his ancient occupation, Simon Garrett also helped to kindle an interest in thatching among the general public. This frequently led him to demonstrate his craft at fetes, fairs and charity events, and he made a point of encouraging the young to ask questions about his work. Importantly for the future of thatching in England, he was happy to pass on his knowledge to young thatchers and lend a hand whenever he could. He also encouraged a lady in his village with her hobby of corn-dolly making, supplying her with suitable reed and so encouraging the revival of another ancient craft.

Busily occupied with his lonely work and magically creating something that is both picturesque and functional, the solitary figure of Simon – possibly England’s oldest working master thatcher during his lifetime – was a familiar sight in Thornford and the surrounding villages. The neat picturesque cottages of this village near Bere Hackett (between Yetminster and Bradford Abbas) in particular bear witness to his dedication – a dedication which comes from being the eighth generation of his family to thatch in this lovely corner of England.

When he marked his 82nd birthday in 1986 Simon had been thatching for 66 years but showed no signs then of retiring. That year Mrs Judy Nash, who lived at Yetminster, wrote to the country periodical ‘This England,’ to nominate Simon Garrett for the Silver Cross of St. George Award. In a letter telling the magazines editor about him, she wrote: “He is a true man of Dorset, who’s efforts I feel deserve rewarding. Without him, part of our heritage would have disappeared.”

Garrett was a man of modesty who would probably have replied that seeing those neat Dorset thatches each day, and knowing that there were a growing number of craftsmen able to carry on the work of looking after them, was reward enough. But people like Simon Garrett, self-effacing and hard-working, are the very individuals who’s achievements should be recognised. They are always too busy and well mannered to sing their own praises. Perhaps his good citizen award let Simon know that his labours were much appreciated by his fellow villagers. ‘This England’ saluted his efforts to preserve the craft of thatching for future generation, while enhancing the English countryside we all enjoy.

But underlying the roofing method of which Simon Garrett was such an excellent master there is a salutary lesson for today’s unsustainable lifestyle. By its very nature, coupled with the thick cob walls and small windows of the traditional vernacular cottages, thatch was a retainer of heat far superior to today’s tiles and slates, and so makes a contribution to energy efficiency in the home that would surely not have been lost on Thornford’s Master Thatcher had someone remarked on it to him. But then the world and era Simon Garrett knew probably had no inkling of what was to come. It is as well that his legacy was to ensure that his time-honoured craft did not die out altogether.

Well done, Simon, son of Dorset!

Milton Abbey Mystery – or the riddle of the body-less coffin.

Jul 15th, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Joseph Damer, Lord Milton of Milton Abbey, could hardly be numbered among Dorset’s more kindly, considerate or philanthropic squires. The Damers were a gentry family of considerable wealth, but Joseph was a man of ambition and ruthlessness. In 1752, only ten years after his marriage to Caroline Sackville, daughter of the first Duke of Dorset, he acquired Milton Abbey. He immediately set about re-configuring the estate’s landscape to his own egocentric tastes, even evicting the inhabitants of the old village upon expiry of their leases and re-settling them in a purpose-built village (today’s Milton Abbas,) so that time-honoured cottages of old Milton could be flooded by an enormous ornamental lake.

John Damer was the first of Joseph and Caroline’s four children and like his father he married well by 18th century standards. His bride was Anne Seymour Conway, 18-year-old daughter of the Rt Hon Henry Seymour Conway, a prominent soldier, statesman, MP and one-time Governor of Jersey. Anne’s fortune was around £10,000, and the couple received an annuity of £5,000 from Lord Milton. At first the younger Damers made the most of their riches, but it soon became apparent that their marriage was faltering. Anne was increasingly spending more time away from home socialising at parties and entertainment than at home with John. But according to Anne’s biographer Percy Noble, her husband took some share of the responsibility for the marital difficulties himself, caused by addictions to the gaming table and turf, which he had to fund by means of loans from Jewish financiers. This made Damer difficult to live with, yet his shortcomings did not restrain him from complaining that his wife was constantly away from home!

Although heir to a fortune of about £30,000 a year, Damer’s debts were mounting. Falling in with a wild, spendthrift set of gad-abouts frequenting London, he seemed to find some curious satisfaction in annoying Anne. In 1775 she duly returned from a visit to Paris and publicly announced her separation from John – no easy commitment for a woman of her “refined and delicate temperament.” By summer 1776 Damer was in the red by £70,000, a fortune that his despotic father refused to bail him out for, since the latter was already saddled with paying off gambling debts incurred by John’s two younger brothers, a burden that was eating into the Milton estate balances.

On the night of August 15th that year Damer happened to be lodging at the Bedford Arms tavern, Covent Garden. By 3 a.m. in the morning, receiving no answer from Damer’s room a blind fiddler called Burnet alerted Bedford Arms landlord John Robinson, saying he had been disturbed by a peculiar smell in Damer’s chamber. Robinson was soon to discover that the odour was not, as supposed, due to burning by a spilt candle, but cordite from a fired pistol. The heir to Milton Abbey House was slumped in a chair, blood pouring from a wound to his right temple. On the floor between his feet lay a gun with the cocking hammer closed.

An inquest was convened in the inn at 6 p.m. the same day. Coroner Thomas Prickard and a 22-man jury heard evidence from Robinson, Burnet, and John Armitage, Damer’s house steward. Robinson testified that Damer had been a regular customer at the Bedford for a number of years and that he had received an order for supper from him between 7 and 8 o’clock the previous evening, together with a request for Burnet and four women to entertain him. The landlord further stated that, although the note was not the first he had received from Damer, this one differed from the rest in that it was written in a “confused manner” out of character with his usual style. Soon after 11 p.m. Damer, Burnet and the ladies retired to an upstairs room where the fiddler played and the four women sung, though it was noted that Damer ate little of his supper. The group broke up shortly before 3 a.m. when Damer told his steward to dismiss the women.

Burnet then gave an account of his movements from the time he arrived at the inn to when he went to call Damer in his room, received no reply from within, and noticed the smell he took to be a spilt candle. He then informed Mr Robinson who upon reaching the room exclaimed, “Oh my God – he has shot himself!” Armitage made only a brief statement about his service with Damer and that he (Damer) had lent him £26. 5s just two days before. The jury had little difficulty in reaching a verdict of instant death due to suicide while “not being of sound mind…but lunatic and distracted.”

Did John Damer really die by his own hand in the Bedford Arms that August night? Certainly the inquest made some glaring omissions. For example there is no record of a pistol shot ever being heard, and it was found that the shot had not entered Damer’s head. Nor was there any mention of an apparent suicide note left on a table nearby. No witnesses who could testify to Damer’s monetary predicament were called. In fact, only Robinson and Armitage were in a position to identify the body (since Burnet could not see.) It would not have been impossible therefore, for these two witnesses to collaborate in a conspiracy hatched by Damer to fake his own death. This is not as far-fetched as it first appears, for in the London of the time it would have been relatively easy to “borrow” a corpse to be returned later.

For the dispossessed cottagers of Milton Abbas however, it was a virtual certainty that word of the Milton heir’s demise would set the rumour mill turning in favour of the fake-death theory. News of the death sent shock waves through England’s high society, but for villagers embittered by the fragmentation of their centuries-old community, a presumption of faking death to avoid remunerating creditors was bound to arise. It was likely they considered the son to be the same as his despised father and so entirely capable of such a devious plot, although there was never strong evidence to substantiate it.

The fake suicide rumour may have stayed just that indefinitely: a rumour, were it not for an astonishing discovery made 97 years later on the villagers own doorstep. About 1837 some repairs to the north transept of Milton Abbey were in progress, which necessitated opening the Damer family crypt. At the time a man called Frederick Fane of Moyles Court, Fordingbridge was staying at the Abbey when one morning he decided to visit the ancient building to look in on the repair work. While there the foreman, with whom Fane had entered into conversation, alluded to a “fake funeral” having taken place nearly a century before when the Abbey was Milton Parish Church. An extravagant son of Lord Milton, he said, was being sought by the bailiffs when a message arrived stating that the man had died on the continent and was to be brought back for burial here at the Abbey. The foreman then invited the visitor to “see something that would convince him of the truth of the Damer legend.”

Down in the vault the two men stopped beside a coffin with a plate bearing Damer’s name. Fane was then bizarrely invited to attempt to lift the coffin, but on doing so found it was too heavy. When asked to try to lift the coffin beside it, however, he was surprised to find that one could be lifted easily without any exertion. What was the explanation for the difference?

As the foreman explained, the second coffin was much lighter because its body had decomposed, but the first coffin could not be lifted because it had been filled with stones. Here there was hint of a strong vindication of the villager’s suspicions if the opportunity for access to the vault and inspection of remains ever arose. More than 20 years later Fane related his extraordinary experience to a meeting of the Dorset Natural History and Field Club.

If Damer, then, had not faked his suicide, why go to the trouble of staging a fake funeral? Moreover, how do we explain the claims of villagers, who mostly never believed Damer to be dead and buried, that they had seen him alive and well in the grounds on several later occasions?

If the supposed conspiracy was intended to satisfy Damer’s creditors, then it succeeded, but Joseph Damer’s malign attitude to his son’s death provoked almost as much public shock and indignation as the news of the supposed death itself. Lord Milton even vented his spleen on poor Mrs Damer, who deserved only sympathy.

This has been a strange, though true story. But unless or until any real, rather than circumstantial evidence materialises the truth about John Damer’s fate is unlikely ever to be revealed.

As for Anne Damer, following her husband’s departure she went on to live a long and productive life, becoming a noted sculptor, continental traveller and actress on the London stage, acquainted with many royal, political, literary and artistic figures of the period. She died at the ripe old age of 80 in May 1828 and was buried near to other members of the Conway family at the parish church of Sundridge, Kent.

Lewis Tregonwell – the soldier who ‘invented’ Bournemouth

May 21st, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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As may be surmised the name of Tregonwell is of Cornish origin, though it is a moniker that has come to have a singularly significant resonance for east Dorset. By the 16th century this noble family was in possession of the Milton Abbey estate after having been granted to Sir John Tregonwell by Henry Vlll in 1539. Nearly a century later a scion or branch of the family arose which came into possession of the Anderson estate near Winterbourne Zelston when that estate passed to Sir John from Sir George Morton of Milbourne St Andrew in 1620. Tregonwell then built Anderson Manor on the site of a former Turberville residence in 1622.

It was at Anderson that Lewis was born in 1758 and given the full baptismal name of Lewis (alternatively spelt Louis) Dymoke Grosvenor Tregonwell, the son of Thomas Tregonwell of Anderson. As a young man Lewis enlisted in the Dorset Yeomanry and soon rose to the rank of Captain. His first wife, Katherine, was the daughter and heiress of St. Barbe Sydenham of the Devon/Somerset Sydenhams. By her Lewis had a grown-up son called St Barbe, who followed his father into the army and became a lieutenant. After the early death of Katherine on February 14th 1794, Lewis married Henrietta Portman, the wealthy daughter of Henry William Portman of Bryanstone House near Blandford.

By 1796 concern over the possibility of an invasion from Napoleon had become a major preoccupation in southern England. The Tregonwells were then living in Cranborne when, accompanied by his son Lieutenant Tregonwell, Captain Tregonwell was assigned the task of leading a detachment – the Dorset Rangers Coastal Division – to patrol and guard the coastline in the area of Poole Bay until 1802. This however was an early warning measure against an invasion that never materialised. In 1807 Henrietta gave birth to a son the couple decided to name Grosvenor, but the baby suffered a sudden tragic death on the very day he was to be baptised.

At this point the story goes that the distraught mother became ill from grief. On retiring from the Army in 1810 Tregonwell took his wife with him on the 14th of July that year for a stay by the sea at Mudeford, partly in the hope that she might regain some measure of health and contentment but also from nostalgia for the area he had come to love when guarding this part of the coast just a few years earlier. While there Lewis took Henrietta for a ride across Bourne Heath for a view of the sea. The couple stayed at the only inn then existing in the area, which may be identified as The Tapps Arms (later The Tregonwell Arms) completed just a year earlier. It was this nostalgia sojourn by the sea that would have far-reaching consequences in the years to come.

In the first decade of the 19th century the future site of Bournemouth was known as Poole Heath, an area of acid sandy soil and gorse criss-crossed by tracks, with a stream called the Bourne draining into the sea and wooded dells (chines) cut by other streams. The only settlement of the area was by cows, gypsies, and a few fishermen living in rickety timber-framed cottages. Much of the land was in the possession of Sir George Iveson Tapps-Gervis, Lord of Christchurch Manor, who acquired 445 acres after the passing of a local Inclosure Act in 1802 and an inclosure Commissioners Award in 1805 transferred the land into private ownership. Tapps-Gervis was responsible for the landscaping of some public gardens, but the only other home of any size recorded nearby by 1762 was Decoy House, a haunt for smugglers.

As it happened Henrietta was so captivated by the area that Tregonwell readily acceded to her suggestion that they should make a second home there. He duly set his sights upon an eight-and-a-half acre parcel of land overlooking the Bourne, situated between Decoy House and the sea, which he purchased from Lord Tapps-Gervis for £179. On this plot Tregonwell built a house which, when completed in 1812 he named The Mansion or Bourne Cliff. This was effectively the earliest building in the future Bournemouth. Although it is known from Henrietta’s diary that they did not occupy the house until 24th April 1812, her sister Charlotte recorded in May 1811 that: “a party of pleasure to Bourne Cliff…dined on cold meat in the house.”

Tregonwell also built a number of smaller homes in the grounds for his staff; one of these, called Portman Lodge, built for his butler, was destroyed by fire in 1912. Inspired by a popular Regency notion that the turpentine scent of pines had health-restoring powers, the captain planted a number of these stately conifers in the area. It was these trees, salt water and a balmy climate that in the 20th century would establish Bournemouth as a fashionable health resort.

The first eight years from 1812 saw Tregonwell inviting several high society figures to Bourne Cliff including the Prince Regent, later George lV, with whom Lewis apparently became acquainted. The Tregonwells would be living alternatively at Bourne Cliff and Cranborne Lodge for some years to come, the former serving as the family’s summer retreat. Later Tregonwell leased the home to the Marchioness of Exeter, whereupon it became known as Exeter House. Further extensions were added over the years so that today it is fully developed as the Royal Exeter Hotel.

In 1820 Prince George became King and from that year on Tregonwell bought up more land from Tapps-Gervis for building a number of cottages and stylish villas set along newly-laid streets for leasing to holiday-makers. These holiday retreats of course would establish the core function of the developing resort. By this time Captain Tregonwell was a JP, Squire of Cranborne Lodge and had been made Deputy Lieutenant of Dorset.

Development of the resort was continuing apace when in 1832 Capt. Lewis D.G. Tregonwell died, leaving his sons to carry the landlord-ship and property development process forward. Yet growth was initially slow. In 1836 George Tapps-Gervis Jr, who by then had successes his father, commenced the building of a row of villas on the east side of the Bourne. By the mid-1840’s most of the land west of the Bourne was in the possession of the Tregonwells, but by the end of the decade Bournemouth was still little more than a community of cottage-homes and villas which had not exceeded the status of a village. At the time of the 1851 census the resident population of the heath was still under 700, yet ten years later it had tripled!

Tregonwell was at first buried at Anderson but his widow later arranged to have him exhumed and re-interred in a vault in St. Peter’s Churchyard in Bournemouth. Evidently this move did not come a moment too soon, for just three weeks later Henrietta herself was dead.

Harry Pouncy – A great publicist for the Dorset scene

May 1st, 2010
by Dorset Ancestors.
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Just two months before he died Harry Pouncy visited Pokesdown Technical School in Bournemouth to do what he had become accomplished at doing as an erudite hobby throughout his life: to present a lecture with slides on the beloved county of his birth. Of that lecture on February 3rd 1925 the Bournemouth Echo reported: “There is no one who can talk and bring visions of the leafy lanes of Dorset, charging the air with the scent of its fields and with the atmosphere of its stately ruins and its humble cottage homes like Mr Harry Pouncy of Dorchester.”

Pouncy’s love affair with all things Dorset and Dorset’s people showed itself early. And it cannot wholly be a coincidence that he shared his name and preoccupation with pictorialising Dorset with his contemporaries John and Walter Pouncy, who ran a notable photographic business in Dorchester. Yet their existed no direct blood-tie between himself and the father and son.

However, Pouncy is an unusual name, so it is likely that Harry was descended from a different branch of the family to that of John and Walter, though quite possibly from common ancestors. He was born near St. Peter’s Church in Dorchester and baptised there on December 8th 1870, the son of Thomas Crook Pouncy and his wife Ellen. He had two brothers; Thomas and George Ernest; and two sisters, Mabel Ellen and Michelle Ellen. His paternal grandfather was Thomas Smith Pouncy who married Sarah Crook. Their children, apart from Harry’s father, were Ann, George, Elizabeth and Marianne. Harry was the third (middle) child of Thomas and Ellen.

Growing up within easy reach of the sparsely populated Dorset countryside, Harry grew to love its very soil and acquired an enormous knowledge of the country people’s customs and folklore. He earned a reputation for being a likeable man in every respect. Not surprisingly, his later course as a public speaker and publicist for the delights of his county came to the attention of Thomas Hardy, who became one of Pouncy’s closest friends. The two would meet frequently at Maxgate, Hardy’s home, to exchange information and opinions on the countryside and its customs.

Harry Pouncy began his working life earning his living as a journalist, first as a reporter and then as proprietor of the Dorset County Chronicle and Southern Times, apart from a period serving in the First Volunteer Battalion, the Dorset Regiment during the First World War. In his senior position over more junior reporters he knew the value of a compliment towards them whilst being careful not to flatter insincerely. If a piece of writing from a junior reporter pleased him he would lavish praise unstintingly, and his words of encouragement would have a stimulating effect on his colleagues. On the other hand, slovenliness, bad spelling, wrong initialling and slipshod paragraph writing was anathema to him.

On the 7th of July 1898, when he was 28, Pouncy married Daisy Francis Anwell, a 19-year-old Dorchester spinster, at St. Peter’s Church, near to where he was living. The ceremony was witnessed by the bride’s father, John Alfred Anwell, and Harry’s brother and sister Ernest and Mabel. The Pouncy’s had a son, Harry Anwell Pouncy, born in 1899 and baptised in Dorchester that December. In the 1901 census Harry senior is recorded as a newspaper reporter, aged 31, living with Daisy, young Harry and Lionel Anwell, a relation of Daisy’s, at 41 Culliford Road, Dorchester. As a husband and father Pouncy was a good, kind, patient and conscientious man, and said to be the wisest of counsellors.

Later Pouncy resigned his career in journalism upon being appointed Secretary of the Dorset Farmers Union, his labours for which earned him the respect and friendship of every farmer in the county. Said one leading farmer to a reporter from the Echo: “They thought the world of him. He did excellent work for the organisation and more than that he helped the farmers individually with advice upon questions that perplexed them. He won all our hearts by his zeal and his loyalty and his charming modesty.”

While continuing in the service of the Farmers Union Pouncy acquired a lantern projector and began collecting slides with the intention of sharing his prodigious knowledge of Dorset with the local societies and general public through the medium of public lecturing. Given a lantern picture of a yokel Pouncy had a gift for seeming to make the bumpkin portrayed come alive. He knew the dweller of the open country as no others did.

His lectures included a series called “Old Dorset Rustic Wit & Humour” and it was said that no man was more competent or entertaining in the matter of presenting talks on and about Dorset. Nor was his subject matter limited to customs and folklore, for he could discourse equally knowledgeably on such topics as dialects, archaeology and literature, even singing traditional folk songs. A man of varied interests, Harry was for many years an active member of the Dorset Field Club and Dorchester Debating and Dramatic Society as well as a frequent and much welcomed guest speaker at meetings of the Society of Dorset Men in London.

Sadly, in his last year Pouncy’s health broke down, though even then he would not relinquish his duties with the Farmers Union until that organisation compelled him to. He had been a glutton for work all his life, frequently burning oil far into the night, a regimen that may well have prematurely ruined his health and foreshortened his life. The Farmers Union even raised the money to enable Pouncy to a take a convalescent holiday abroad. But the medical restrictions he was under prevented him from enjoying his holiday to the full as he would have liked.

The summer before he died Pouncy talked with a journalist friend in the Bournemouth pleasure gardens, remarking with some irony that it was “the first time in his life that he had the full freedom to enjoy a sort of unlimited holiday.” Like many cerebral men he wrestled with doubts and difficulties over religious faith, though he was ever open to conviction. Once he saw something to be true he cordially embraced it and acted up to his convictions.

Harry Pouncy died in Weymouth on April 28th 1925 after several weeks of illness and was buried in Dorchester cemetery close to that other great writer and surgeon Sir Frederick Treves, who had himself been baptised at the same font in St. Peters and had been born almost next door to the Cornhill house in which Pouncy was born. His funeral was attended by a huge section of the agricultural community, as well as many literary figures. As that same interviewee farmer in the Echo said: “His death was the biggest blow that could have been dealt us.”

Footnote:

From the Kingston Parish Magazine for January 1914

 Entertainment

On Friday, January 23rd, in the Schoolroom, Mr. Harry Pouncy, the Dorset lecturer and entertainer, will give a popular entertainment in the Dorset dialect, comprising a recital from the poems of William Barnes, sketches from the works of Mr. Thomas Hardy (by the author’s special permission), and old Dorset songs and stories. The time will be as usual, namely, doors open at 7, commence at 7.30. Admission: First three rows 1s. ; rest of room, 6d. ; and children of school age in the Class room, 3d.The general Choir Practice in that week would be held on Thursday evening.

 

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