M E ORS The Greenwood Tree E T Y T The Somerset … v40.4.pdf · The Somerset & Dorset Family History Society * T S O M E ... Regular meetings and activities are Irun by Area Groups

The Greenwood TreeThe Somerset & Dorset Family History Society

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November 2015 Vol.40 No.4 Price when sold separately £4.00

40th anniversary year

President: Sir MERVYN MEDLYCOTT Bt.F.S. Registered Charity No. 1010351Vice Presidents:

David Hawkings, F.S.G., Terry Farmer, Colin Dean, M.B.E. and John Howick

SOCIETY ADDRESSPO Box 4502, Sherborne, Dorset DT9 6YL

Tel/Fax: (01935) 389611E-mail: [email protected]: www.sdfhs.org

The day-to-day running of the Society is managed by the officers and the Executive Committee,

all of whom are volunteers.

Chairman: Ann-Marie Wilkinson

Vice-Chairmen:

(Dorset) Barbara Elsmore (Somerset) Vacant

Secretary: Ted Udall

Treasurer: Rose Figgins

Executive Committee:The Society’s Executive Committee comprises the electedofficers (chairman, two vice-chairmen, secretary,treasurer); a representative of each of the 10 groups; arepresentative of the centre management, the healthand safety officer, editor and webmaster.

Paddy Thompson - Mid Somerset

David Brown - Taunton

Chris Lawrence - Yeovil

Lin Hoddinott - Sedgemoor

James Pitman - Blackmore Vale

John Damon - East Dorset

Jane Sharp - West Somerset

Jennie McGowan - South Dorset

Sylvia Creed Castle - West Dorset

Gerry Burdall - Frome

Website Manager: Patricia Spencer

Family History Centre Manager: Barry Brock

Regular meetings and activities are run by Area Groupsbased at Street, Yeovil, Highbridge, Taunton, SturminsterNewton, Loders, Wimborne, Weymouth, Minehead andFrome. For details see Group Programmes towards theend of this journal.

FAMILYHISTORYCENTRE

The SDFHS FamilyHistory Centre, The Parade, Cheap Street,Sherborne.

Satnav code: DT9 3BJ

Opening hours: Monday 10am–1pm, Thursday 10am–4pm,

Friday 10am–1pm, Saturday 10am–1pm (closed Bank Holiday weekends)

Other times by appointment.

For more details see inside back page

The Somerset & Dorset Family History Society**

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CONTACTING THE SOCIETYPlease quote your membership number in allcorrespondence and when requesting services.Members get first priority. They also get priority forinsertion in The Greenwood Tree. No membershipnumber attached means non-member priority.

When e-mailing, please also give your postaladdress, especially for The Greenwood Tree items. Wemay need to pass on your message to a non e-mailer.

If asking for the help of another member, pleasesend a s.a.e.

Please be patient if we are not always as prompt asyou – and we – would like.

MEMBERSHIP AND SUBSCRIPTIONS*** 2016 SUBSCRIPTIONS NOW DUE ***

Membership runs from January to December each year.Your membership number is on the envelope – we no longer issue membership cards.

Subscription Rates for 2016Annual: UK Individual £18. Overseas Individual £22Additional family member at the same address, add £2.

Three-years: UK Individual £50. Overseas Individual £62Additional family member at the same address, add £6

Those joining mid-term receive earlier editions of The Greenwood Tree for that year.

Please send all correspondence to:Patricia Spencer, Membership Secretary, SDFHS, PO Box 4502, Sherborne, Dorset, DT9 6YL

The Greenwood Tree Vol. 40 No.4 November 2015 105

EditorPO BOX 4502SHERBORNE, Dorset DT9 6YLEmail: [email protected]

Please include a full postal address and quoteyour membership number in all correspondence.

The Editor welcomes articles, no longer than 1500 words. They canbe handwritten, typed or sent on disk, but material sent by emailattachment makes the Editor’s life easier. Photographs and otherillustrations are particularly welcome. Digital images should bescanned at a minimum of 300dpi. The Editor may need to reducethe length of an article if space is limited, and there is noguarantee that an article will be accepted, or in which edition itwill appear.


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Features The first ‘Boss’ of Bridport Grammar School Peter Meech ............................................................ 107Gussie - a remarkable lady R A K Taylor ............................................................ 108Captain Joseph Charles Perrett - part 2 John Sparkes ............................................................ 110 Ridout Symposium and the Ridout Archive Barry Brock and Karen Francis ................................ 111The rise and fall of Walter Rydeowte of Sherborne Karen Francis ............................................................ 112 Hunting a smuggler Roger Guttridge ...................................................... 114John Cleal: my Waterloo ancestor - part 1 Anne Brady .............................................................. 116Caddys in and out of Dorset Jeremy Wilkes .......................................................... 117Monte Video Camp, Weymouth Paddy Thompson .................................................... 118Weymouth honours its WW1 ANZAC heroes Jennie McGowan and Phil Sherwood .................... 119What’s in a name: Ainslie and Stanfield Rachel Mayers .......................................................... 120Listening to The Greenwood Tree Robin Ansell ..............................................................120A brief history of The Greenwood Tree Bob Barber .............................................................. 121Monumental Inscriptions Projects Sir Mervyn Medlycott .............................................. 128The Shothole mystery Ginny Goodall .......................................................... 129Pedigrees and family tree collection Dorothy Bower ........................................................ 138

Volume 40 No.4 November 2015 ISSN: 0307 9872

RegularsBook reviews ........................................................ 133Chairman’s musings .............................................. 106Computer corner .................................................. 125Dorset Spotlight on Puddletown ........................ 132Editorial ................................................................ 106People, Places and Problems .............................. 130Somerset Spotlight on East Harptree - part 2 .... 135What the papers said .......................................... 131

News and what’s onChristmas is coming ............................................ 127Family History Centre events .................................... iGroup news .......................................................... 136Group programme ................................................ 140John Marshall - obituary ...................................... 138Membership subscriptions .................................. 134Other events .............................................................. iResearch and Society news .................................. 139SDFHS Open Day and AGM ................................ 127SDFHS website update ........................................ 126

DEADLINES:Edition Deadline

February 1 December

May 1 March

August 1 June

November 1 September

COPYRIGHT©2015. This journal is theofficial publication of the Somersetand Dorset Family History Society. Allarticles in this journal are copyright tothe Society and its contributors, unlessotherwise stated, and may not bereproduced, stored in a retrievalsystem or transmitted by any meanswithout the prior permission inwriting of the Society. The Societydoes not accept any responsibility forthe views expressed in the articles.

Digital design, layout and printing by:

Aurora Print and Design LtdBennetts Mead Southgate RoadWINCANTONSomerset BA9 9EB p110 p114

p131 p107

p108

Front Cover:Pictures

EditorialChairman’s MusingsFamily History Season is upon us. Years ago I would neverhave believed that there was a season for family history -after all it is a hobby that you can pursue all year, isn’t it?However, once the new series of Who Do You Think You Are?starts on TV there seems to be a surge of interest. Ourmembers notice it at the sessions they run to help the public.All summer I was in Wells Library on the second Saturday ofthe month. We struggled to get one or two people; inSeptember we had six. The session at Burnham-On-Sea libraryon the first and third Thursdays of the month, at which I alsohelp, did not attract the usual 16 people during July andAugust, but now we are fully booked again.

I suppose the summer is a time to get out and visit thesites associated with our ancestors rather than sitting at thecomputer looking at websites, or is it that the grass isgrowing and so are the weeds and we ought to do somegardening?

So now is the time to look over what we have alreadyfound and, hopefully, plan our research for the coming fewmonths. It is unfortunate, but sometimes the list of items wewant to cross off just gets longer. Top of mine is to find themarriage of my great-grandparents. I have been looking for30 years so I’m beginning to think that they did not bother.After all, they moved around a bit (in 1881 they were on theIsle of Wight, in 1893 their first child was born inPeterborough, they then had two more children in Axminster,one in Bath and two in Gillingham). If someone arrives nextdoor and says they are ‘Mr and Mrs Smith’, you do not ask tosee their marriage certificate. With no old-age pension therewas no need to produce a certificate for benefits purposes.

I have recently come across a family member who gave hisoccupation in 1901 as ‘Private Investigator of Criminal Mattersand Matters concerning Private People Merchants etc’.Unfortunately I’ve lost track of him after 1901. I found hisfamily in Sussex in 1911, with his wife in the workhouseinfirmary where she had just given birth to a child, and thechildren in the local Children’s Home. I have visions of himlying dead in a ditch somewhere. Perhaps he is one of the 513‘Unknown Males’ listed in the GRO index between 1901 and1911. Investigating the life of Daniel PARDO is definitely on mylist.

What else is there? Well, I would like to find out what myfamily did during WW1. My paternal grandfather, who was acabinet maker, became a mechanic in the Royal Flying Corpsand his four brothers joined the army. I have a copy of mygrandfather’s service record, but those of my great-unclesseem to be amongst the ‘burnt’ records. My maternalgrandfather had a very unusual forename, so I would notexpect difficulty in finding him, but I cannot. Still, with morerecords coming on-line since I last looked perhaps it is time totry again.

I’m sure that you all have your own lists. Perhaps this yearone of your mysteries will be solved by examining one of thenew records that have come on-line. Remember, if a record isnot there it does not necessarily mean that record does notexist; it could mean that it has been lost or is not yet on-line -keep looking!

Ann-Marie Wilkinson

They say time seems to speed up as youget older, but it’s hard to believe thatwith this edition of The Greenwood TreeI shall have been editor for three years.Not as long as some of our formereditors: Chris Storrar completed sevenyears, and Colin Dean eleven. If you lookback through old issues of TheGreenwood Tree you are aware of theenormous dedication of some of theearlier members of our Society, theofficers, post-holders and volunteers. Weare greatly in their debt.

I was pleased to be able to announcethe release of the CD of the first 40years of The Greenwood Tree at therecent Open Day in Yeovil. It is alwayssatisfying to bring a project tocompletion, and again the Societyshould acknowledge those whose timeand efforts made it possible, inparticular volunteer Wendy Lugg,Stephen Hibberd at Aurora, and mydaughter Jen Murfitt-Barber. The CDseems to have been well received, andover 70 have now been sold, a usefuladdition to the Society’s income.Members can now look back and readany edition, and possibly release somespace by disposing of old paper copies.Its value to me as editor is considerable.I can search through all 159 issues ofThe Greenwood Tree in less than aminute. So, for example, if I need toknow whether a particular subject hasbeen written about before, or to checkthe reference to an article, it’s mucheasier than looking through old paperindexes. The CD should also be useful tovolunteers at the Family History Centrein Sherborne when dealing withenquiries, or to local groups who holdsurgeries and help-sessions locally. Mostof all it’s a record of the Society’sactivities, a major resource whensomeone comes to write a definitivehistory of the Society.

As we come to the end of theSociety’s 40th year we can onlyspeculate what the next 40 years willbring. But if the journal is to survive tothe end of its 41st year it will needmore contributions from you, themembers. Get writing!

Bob BarberEditor, The Greenwood Tree

106 The Greenwood Tree Vol. 40 No.4 November 2015


I cannot definitively prove the claim that my maternalgrandfather, Walter Ferris HILL, was the youngestheadmaster in England when appointed to BridportSecondary School in 1906. But the fact that he was putin charge of a secondary school before his 30th birthdayis evidence of a man with special qualities.

Born in Hackney, then Middlesex, now London, on16 June 1876, Walter was the youngest of fivechildren, four of whom survived into adulthood. Hisparents, Henry and Phoebe (née FERRIS), originallyfrom Exeter, were both teaching in Bishops Tawton,also in Devon, in 1871 but had moved to Hackney inthe mid-1870s.

In due course all of Walter’s siblings, one brotherand two sisters, also became teachers. It is thereforeno surprise that the youngest member of the familyattended St John’s Training College, Battersea, the firsttraining college for schoolteachers in England, foundedin 1839-40. Here, as a first-year student, he wasawarded worthy book prizes in the summer of 1896:A Smaller Classical Dictionary for 1st Division, London

Matriculation, and A Dictionary of Roman and GreekAntiquities, a 2nd prize for School Management. Helater gained an external BA from London University.

In 1901 Walter was still living at home, togetherwith his parents and unmarried school master/schoolmistress siblings. By now all these were in their mid-20s to early 30s. But on 23 July 1903 at St James’sChurch, Clapton, he married Gertrude Mary PECK(b1878), whose father, like Walter’s, had moved toHackney from a small country town, in his caseRedenhall, Norfolk.

Within three years the couple moved from Londonto Bridport, Dorset, reversing the direction theirparents had taken. Since the late 19th century thetown had been in economic decline, having lost itshemp growing and shipbuilding industries.

Nonetheless it was described in 1906 by FrederickTreves as ‘a wholesome, homely, county town, with anair about it of substantial simplicity’.

What attracted Walter to the town was theprospect of becoming headmaster of BridportSecondary School/Pupil Teachers’ Centre in 1906. Theschool, originally located in the Unitarian SchoolRooms in Rax Lane, had 67 pupils and two femaleassistant teachers.

Walter clearly had ambitions for the co-educationalschool, working hard to persuade the local communityof the need for better provision. After a considerablestruggle, approval was given to build on land donatedby the COLFOX family on St Andrew’s Road. The newschool building finally opened on 30 September 1909and, as Bridport Primary, is still in use today. But itwas not until 1928 that it metamorphosed into aGrammar School following the appointment, it is said,of a teacher of Latin. It acquired new premises in 1999and eventually became the Sir John Colfox Academy in2015.

Walter and ‘Gertie’ (as he called her) had threechildren: Ronald Walter (1908-71), my mother KathleenMary (1912-1987) and Margaret Ann (1919-). It was aspupils at the school that Kathleen and Fred MEECH(1911-67) met and became sweethearts. They had bothqualified as teachers by the time of their wedding in1936 and moved, like her grandparents, to London.Kathleen, as a married woman, was initially barredfrom teaching and Fred went on to become a deputyhead.

For much of Walter’s time as headmaster he livedat 77 East Street with his family and a succession ofboarders, girls from neighbouring villages and towns,who returned home at weekends.

Walter’s professional competence was recognisedby the school’s governors regularly approving increases

The First ‘Boss’ of Bridport Grammar SchoolPeter Meech records one man’s contribution to education in a Dorset town.

Staff of Bridport Secondary School 1910Top row: Unidentified student teachers

Bottom row: L to R: Mr A.E. CHAMP, Miss E. WITHAM, WFH, Miss M. FIELD and Mr F. STORER


in his salary. In the period 1916-24, for example, it wasraised from £300 to £684 p.a. (£27,500 to £37,000 intoday’s prices).

As headmaster he was knownto be strict but fair, attracting thenickname ‘Boss’ Hill. But in 1930he demonstrated a very differentside to his character in donningdrag to play Mrs Mustapha,Aladdin’s widowed mother inAladdin and Out. A Coming ofAge Frolic. The show had beenWalter’s own idea, part of afund-raising initiative to celebratethe school’s 21st birthday. Thethree performances alsosucceeded in raising almost £100(roughly £5,500 today) for schoolfunds.

When he retired in 1937, theschool’s Old Grammarians’Magazine wrote in tribute of‘Mr Hill’s inspired teaching,thoughtfully prepared lessons,high standards of work andconduct, his intense dislike of any“moral twilight”, of his ideals of personal service. Inthese and many other ways his influence has beenprofound’.

In retirement, the Hills moved to a new house, StPetrock, on the Burton Bradstock Road. After Gertie

died in 1940 he married Janet ROBERTS and died athome on 20 March 1951, aged 74.

In its front page obituary theBridport News (23 March 1951)referred to Walter having also beena churchwarden and honorary laypreacher at St Mary’s Church for over35 years and having conductedupwards of 1700 services in 46 WestDorset churches. In addition he hadbeen a member of the local StMary’s Masonic Lodge, serving aterm as Worshipful Master in 1933.

Both my brother Tony and Imoved away from London to pursueacademic careers (yet anothermigration from the capital). And asone of Tony’s daughters is now acollege lecturer, the Hill/Meechtradition of education continues intoa fifth successive generation.

Peter Meech12 Tinneys Lane, Sherborne,

Dorset DT9 [email protected]

In 1926 St John’s College merged with St Mark’sCollege, Chelsea, to become the College of St Mark &St John (aka Marjon). It moved to Plymouth in 1973,becoming the University of St Mark & St John in 2013.

WFH with Kathleen, Peter and Terry the dog, Bridport, c.1945

Gussie - a remarkable ladyGussie, my maternal grandmother, was a remarkablelady. She was born on 28 October 1888 in Torquay,Devon, of parents Daniel MASTERS, landscapegardener for the Duke of Bedford, Torquay, and JessieAnn ARSCOTT. She was supposed to be called Olive,but Dan registered grandma’s name as Gussie Lavinia.The famous author Agatha Christie was also born atTorquay, in 1890, but it seems Gussie never met her, asAgatha was privately tutored while Gussie went to aprimary school - which she hated. However, she lovedmusic and, in her teens, she met Yeovil Town BandLeader Alfred William EWENS when the band visitedTorquay for a concert. Alfred played Eb trombone; healso had absolute pitch and could play seveninstruments perfectly. Gussie was smitten! She andAlfred (who was just one day younger) married on 4July 1908 in Yeovil. Alfred was a glove manufacturer,owning factories at Star’s Lane, Goldcroft, and atanning works on St Michael’s Road. He also owned aleather-embossing works at Beer Street, managed byGeorge HEARD. Bill SIMS managed the tanning works.I might also mention that William ‘Bill’ SIMS was acornet player in Alfred’s band and had married Gussie’ssister, Winifred Ann.

Alfred was the only child of parents William PardyEwens (born 19 October 1864 in Yeovil) and MinnieAugusta MOON (born 14 December 1867 in SheptonMallet). These details were found in the Ewens’ familyBible and backed up by the 1871 census for Shepton

Mallet when Minnie Augusta was a ‘scholar’ aged 3,with parents Frederick H. Moon (25) and Emma (26).By the 1881 census the Moons were in Yeovil. Lettersfrom my aunt, Coral CHAINEY, told me that she andher elder siblings used to spend summer holidays ‘atour relatives, the Moons, on their farm at HardingtonMandeville’, leaving me to wonder if this ‘good oldfarmer’s family in Somerset’ bears any relation toFrederick Augustus Moon, featured in The GreenwoodTree of November 2014 (pp 110-111).

Alfred and Gussie had five children: Myra Winifred (born 18 March 1912 in Torquay) was

a music teacher (piano and violin) and married afarmer, my father, Vaughan Robert ‘Jack’ TAYLOR(born 28 October 1913 in Hamilton, Victoria, Australia).

Beryl Elsie (born 26 April 1913 in Yeovil) was ahome glover. In September 1939 in Yeovil she marriedFrancis ‘Frank’ Thiepval STEER, a dairyman ofMisterton, Crewkerne.

Ralph William (born 6 March 1916 in Yeovil) was apainter and decorator who was married in December1939 to Violet GUPPY.

Coral Lavinia, born 21 September 1920 in Yeovil,was also a home glover. She married Hugh OliverCHAINEY, an accountant, on 1 July 1962 in Yeovil.

Graham Cory (born 23 May 1930) was a policepatrolman. He married Gloria Christina FLAGG ofMudford on 21 June 1953 in Yeovil.

This brings me onto your issue of May 2014

regarding May Pole Dancing (p35). Following Alfred’suntimely death from cancer, at the age of 49 (died 17July 1938 in Yeovil), Gussie married the band’seuphonium player, Reginald SPILLER, at the Houndstonvillage church on 1 May 1947.

The reception was held at the Odcombe pub. I wassix and not allowed in the pub but played with otherchildren on the village green while watching theyoung lasses dance with coloured ribbons around themaypole. After six years of marriage Reg died, andbecause her sister Winifred had also passed on, Gussiemarried the widower, Bill Sims, and lived with him at92 Glenthorne Avenue for many years. He had asudden heart attack and dropped dead in the garden.Having outlived three husbands, in July 1979, at theage of 91, Gussie flew out to Perth, Western Australia,for a month’s holiday with me, my wife and family.She was delighted with the climate, the many touristspots and the granny flat I had built for my motherMyra. As a widow she followed us out to Australia.

Not only was Alfred the leader of the YeovilTown Silver Band, he also led the YeovilSalvation Army Brass Band and I rememberGussie showing me a group photo saying, “Allmy husbands are in it! There’s Alfred, there’sReg and over there is Billy.” None of our familyknows what happened to the photo. Its formerplace in the photo album is empty. For Gussie’s93rd birthday her elder son Ralph and familygave her a cassette recorder and tapes. Sheused five tapes to record her life history, with aremarkable memory for names, places anddates. I possess these tapes and am convertingthem onto CDs for posterity. How lucky can youget?! Dear old Gussie died at the age of 98 on10 December 1986 in Yeovil and was buried atYeovil Cemetery next to Alfred, her soul mate. Aremarkable lady.

R.A.K. Taylor31 Thatcher Street, Waroona

Western Australia 6215

Wedding Reception of Gussie Ewens and Reg Spiller at Odcombe, 1 May 1947.

Top row, L to R: Myra Winifred Taylor (née Ewens); Vaughan Robert‘Jack’ Taylor; Ralph William Ewens; Violet Ewens (née Guppy);

Reg Spiller; Gussie Lavinia Ewens; Gussie’s mother, Jessie Ann Masters (née Arscot); Graham Cory Ewens;

Beryl Elsie Steer (née Ewens); Francis ‘Frank’ Thiepval Steer; Percy Ransom, of Sherborne, friend to Coral Lavinia Ewens. Bottom row, L to R: Roderick Graham and Robin Andrew

Keith Taylor; Colin Ralph and Heather Maureen Ewens; Anthony John Alfred Steer.

Yeovil Review, August 1938, p14


Captain Joseph Charles Perrett - part 2

After spending a pleasant winter, Icommenced the season of 1853 on theschooner Liberty…, but she was toosmall for my ideas, so I left. I made onetrip on the schooner Venus thenceto the Hayden for one trip toMuskegon, from her to the brigConstellation, where I stopped until thelast trip to Buffalo.

My first promotion to second matewas on the Constellation. I then cameto Chicago on the barquentine MaryStockton, which closed the season of1853. I then left Chicago for NewOrleans via the Chicago and AltonRailroad to Alton, which was theroughest ride I ever had. From Altonwe took the steamboat to St. Louis andthen took a deck passage on a deckboat for New Orleans, which wereached in twelve days. I then shippedon the Cynosure from Mobile toLiverpool with a cargo of cotton, [and]got acquainted with John ELSEY, withwhom, in after years, I sailed andowned vessels. During the passagefrom Mobile to Liverpool weexperienced very rough weather butfinally reached there in thirty fivedays. From Liverpool I went to myhome in Somersetshire for about twoweeks.

John HAWKINS, my cousin JosephPERRETT, Samuel SAWYER and myselfthen left home for Liverpool, where weexpected to take a steamer for NewYork. We fell in with a party of threeor four on the train that were going toGrand Rapids, whilst we were eatingdinner at the hotel. They came inand told us they had bought tickets forNew York via the Inman Line or, as it

was then called, the Liverpool, NewYork and Philadelphia Steam Ship Co’ssteamer City of Glasgow. We hurriedoff to the ticket office but found wewere too late, berths were alltaken. We in our ignorance … felt likekicking ourselves for not havingattended to things sharper. The nextsteamer left in two weeks so weengaged our passage on the ship JohnC. Calhoun. We experienced a veryrough passage of (I think) seven weeksfrom Liverpool to New York. When theN.Y. pilot came on board the firstquestion he asked was if we had seenanything of the City of Glasgow, [as]she was never seen after she leftLiverpool…

After arriving at New York, Hawkinsand Sawyer went to Troy, New York,whilst Joseph Perrett and myself wentto Buffalo and shipped and sailed ondifferent vessels until the close ofnavigation in 1854, when we metbrother Tom at Chicago and started outfor Iowa. We went by rail to Galenaand by stage to Dubugree and thenceon to Dyersville, where we worked forMr. DYER the most part of the winterfor one dollar a day. We were first sentto what is now Manchester with asurveyor to lay out the town. Weafterwards built a bridge across theriver and returned to Dyersville, wherewe cut up hogs, salted pork, cut iceand did anything and everything wewere told to do.

About the latter end of April,brother Tom and myself started out onfoot to find Government land to makea home. [On] our first day we reachedManchester, on the second Strawberry

Point, third day West Union, the fourthday the Log Tavern about two milesfrom the present town and county seatof New Hampton, where we weredetained for several days on account ofthe high water. At the time theGovernment owned land at and aroundNew Hampton, just on the east side ofthe town, [where] for the first time inmy life I fired a rifle and killed adeer. From there we went on toChickasaw and thence to Bulor’s Grove,[where] we stopped several days with‘Uncle’ BULOR, a genuine frontiersman.There we had a terrible snowstorm andwhen we got up one morning we hadhalf an inch of snow on the bed andthe same all over the room… The aboveplace is now known as Marble Rock,Floy, Iowa.

After reaching Marble Rock andbefore the snowstorm, we went toCharles City Land Office for plots - noroads or even tracks, nothing butsection and quarter stakes and the sunfor a guide… We had to cross the riverfrom the Tavern to the Land Office,leaving a third party in the skiff. Wecrossed over alright but coming back Itook the oar with no-one in thebow. Brother Tom stepped in and tookthe stern seat so as to swamp theboat. We held on to the boat andwaded across, went to the Tavern andwent to bed while the landlord driedour clothes. The next day we returnedto Bulor’s Grove and that night theblizzard came on, which blew the snowthrough the house. I waited a few daysand with no prospect of the snowmelting, we consulted and finallyconcluded that brother Tom should

wait until the snow passed offand fine weather set in, he toselect land etc. and I to start fromChicago to sail again. Tom was toget half of whatever I earned andI get half of his.

I started out on Sundaymorning - no track of any kindand I made as near as I could aS.E. course for Clarkesville. Manyof the snowdrifts were so deepand soft that I had to crawl overthem. I stopped overnight a littleWest of Clarkesville and the nextnight at Jamesville. I was verynear snowblind and could not seeover half a block. The next day Istarted out and broke tracksthrough seven inches of snowand reached Independence aboutan hour after dark, a distance ofthirty seven miles. At the hotel

In our last issue Captain Perrett recalled his seafaring activities up to the end of 1852. We left him in Racine aftera trip to Port Washington on the schooner Cleopatra. Here he continues his account…

SS City of Glasgow of 1850 was a UK single-screw passenger steamship of the Inman Line, which disappeared en route from

Liverpool to Philadelphia in January 1854


The Society organised a RID(E)OUT Symposium inAugust this year to publicise the Bill Ridout Archive.This contains the research bequeathed to the Societyby the late Bill Ridout and has been made availablewith the aid of a memorial fund established by Bill’sold friend, Orlando Ridout IV. The Symposium was agreat success, with contributions from Barry Rideout,Roger Guttridge and Karen Francis. Barry Rideout is aretired lawyer living in West London; Roger Guttridgewas, of course, once the editor of The GreenwoodTree and is now a journalist and author of 18 books,including Dorset Smugglers and My Smugglers andother Ridouts; and Dr Karen Francis runs a yDNA one-name project and is author of The Ridouts of

Sherborne. Roger Guttridge was confident that he hadresolved the long-standing argument of how topronounce the family name - it was Ride-out -whereas Karen Francis found that she couldn’t stoppronouncing it as Rid-out. No doubt members of thefamily will continue to be divided on this question.

We are very pleased that Karen Francis has agreedto become the Ridout Archivist and take charge of theBill Ridout Archive and the other Ridout/Rideoutmaterial held by the Society.

Overleaf, Karen explains her long-standingassociation with the Ridout name and her plans forthe Ridout archive.

Barry Brock


the people would scarcely believe me;one man with a team said he was twodays driving the same distance. The lasthour of my walk was somewhatexciting for the howl of the wolves wasterrible. Judging by their noise youwould think there were hundreds ofthem.

Nothing unusual happened fromthere to Chicago, where I shipped withCaptain McCOMBER to go to Clevelandand join the brig Racine. This was in thespring of 1855 and, when we arrived atChicago, cousin Joe Perrett shippedwith us…, during which time… the crewhad overloaded her with a deck load oftimber and she, having no ballast,capsized, [losing] the foremast [and]her entire deck load, and the crewwere picked up by our old friendCaptain Tom HUTCHINSON. The hullwas afterward picked up by a propellorand towed to Chicago and left in mycare to unload, strip and lay up for thewinter. Joe and myself started for RockFalls. This wound up (for us) the seasonof navigation for 1855.

We took cars for Dubuque andfrom there to Charles City by stage. Wethen hired a rig to take us to RockFalls, where we arrived alright andfound brother Tom at the HotelJohnson. Rock Falls was a new townbeing laid out, but a few monthsprevious it contained four log houses,one frame hotel, one logstore and onesawmill. A few days after we arrivedbrother Tom and Mr. JOHNSON startedout for Dyersville, Dubuque County(about one hundred and thirty miles),with a yoke of cattle and a wagon toget furniture and provisions to keep usover the winter. After experiencing oneof the roughest trips ever made in thewest, they returned more or lessfrostbitten and tired. I can assure youthat there was great rejoicing at RockFalls when they returned. Whilebrother Tom and Mr. Johnson wasaway I helped with ‘Uncle’ Joe and

others to dig a grave to bury an oldman and his wife that were foundfroze to death on the prairie.

This winter we, brother Tom,Joseph Perrett and myself lived in a logcabin and did our own cooking,washing etc. I killed seven deer so thatwe lived on pork and venison. Weworked every day getting out rails tofence in our land. In the spring webegan breaking up more land, plantingcorn, potatoes etc. but by the 4th ofJuly I was convinced I would nevermake a good farmer, so Joe and myselfset out for Chicago where I shippedbefore the mast on the brig Andes forBay City. On our return to Chicago, Ishipped as first mate on theTuscola. We made our trip to GrandHaven and, on our return, the captainwent to his home at Racine and leftme in charge as master. On my secondtrip as master we were caught in a veryheavy gale and the owner felt anxiousfor the safety of his vessel and she inthe charge of one so young as I was.But we got to Chicago all right andsailed up to the ferry without anyassistance. Meanwhile three vesselswere wrecked on the Illinois CentralBreakwater, one entire crew lost. Theowner, Captain S. JOHNSON, was highlypleased with my management, as heclaimed we came in in better shapethan any vessel during the day. Hepromised to give me a vessel to sail,which he did, and he proved to be thebest friend I ever had. We made a fewtrips and then laid up for the winter of1856/7.

We took the railroad to Dubuqueand Jamesville, which we reached allright, [which] was the end of the stageroute. We had quite a little baggageand sundries to take out to our newhome in the west but not much hopeof getting it there. Finally we bought aload of pork and flour off a man thathad a good team on condition that hewould deliver that and our baggage to

Rock Falls, which he did. After threehard days’ work, we had to unload anumber of times and carry our wholecargo over the snowdrifts. We foundthat dead hogs was a very difficultthing to carry through three or fourfeet of snow.

I believe Sarah visited herbrother Joseph in America on atleast one occasion when he and hiscousins were laying out new towns(cities?). Joseph went on tobecome one of the most respectedand powerful businessmen in NorthAmerica, almost controlling thelumber trade on the Great Lakesand laying out and paving thestreets after the Great Fire. I havemet several of his descendants andI am attempting to continue hisstory. He did not live to a greatage, dying at the age of 61.

C. S. John SparkesCossington, Bridgwater

[email protected]

Ridout Symposium and the Ridout Archive

Captain Joseph Charles Perrett

William RYDEOWTE was a moderately wealthy tenant-in-chief with land and property in the Dorset towns ofChettle and Sherborne. When William died in 1603 heleft his estate to nephew Walter Rydeowte in trust forWalter’s two-year-old son William.

Walter Rydeowte appears in the Sherborne SchoolRegister 1823-19001: ‘Circ 1575. RIDEOUT, Walter, ofSherborne. BNC Oxon 1580 Governor 1605, Warden1611’. The Alumni Oxoniensis 1500-18862 confirms hisyear of matriculation: ‘RIDOUT, Walter, of Dorset, pleb.Brasenose College., matric entry under date 18 July1580 aged 16’ suggesting Walter was born about 1564.The term ‘pleb’, meaning plebeian, meant that Walterwas regarded as a commoner rather than as a son ofan aristocrat or gentleman.

Several records of Sherborne Almshouse andSherborne School, kept at Dorset History Centre (DHC),bear testament to Walter’s involvement in thegovernance of both institutions, dual roles usuallyassumed by the town’s leading citizens. Walter’searliest mention at the School was dated 27 August16053; Almshouse accounts were signed by Walter in1608 and 1609, when he was Master4.

These responsibilities probably fell on Walter’sshoulders when he inherited his uncle’s estate, thuselevating his wealth and social position in the town.The Sherborne Manor Survey of 1614 shows that Walterwas granted ‘diverse houses and lands’ as a freeholderin ‘Sherborne Manor’ (rent 14s 8d), ‘Castleton’ (£5 0s4d) and a dovecote at Barton Farm; in return he had toswear fealty to the Lord of the Manor.

Anecdotal evidence of Walter’s colourful characteris illustrated in a Chancery Case in 16235. Walter hadattempted to collect unpaid rental money from atenant called STANDEN:

Johan ye wife of ye said Standen tooke a long riseout of ye hedge and sette upon your Orator and threwestones at him. Wherewith her boye sett a greateMastiffe dogge att your Orator in so much yet if yourOrator having then but a Cudgell in his hand not welldefended himselfe from ye said Mastiffe he had torneout his throate.

It is telling that Walter thought it wise to armhimself with a cudgel before trying to collect the rent!At the end of the plea Walter’s profession is revealed:‘Your Orator being an Attorney-at-law….’. Several casesin Chancery, instigated by Walter, were surprisinglyhelpful in revealing the identity of his wife, the datesof his children’s weddings and the names of otherfamily members; they also suggest that he was contentto use his position as attorney to his own advantage!

Walter seems not to have been shy in speaking hismind; the guidebook of the Almshouse of SS John,

Sherborne outlines an unfortunate incident withBrother Ridout:

In 1637 Walter Ridout, when ordered to pay a certainsum of money, spake many undecent and high words…amongst other words hee sayd Mr HELE of CliftonMaybank had never a hound of a bigger mouth thanthe Steward Mr WRIGHT had!’


I remember well, with great affection, my maternalgrandparents who lived all their days in Bath. Adecade or so ago I decided to find out more aboutReg and Elsie Ridout (née BEATON) - mild curiositysoon became a time-consuming passion for Ridoutfamily history!

I met the late Bill Ridout in 2006, although we’dbeen emailing for quite a while. He’d spent manyyears transcribing the research notes of another Ridoutwhose work was kept at the Society of Genealogistsin London. The ‘other Ridout’ was Arthur George(1852-1939), a bank manager from Kent. Arthur hadcorresponded with other Ridouts of his era, visitedplaces to which we no longer have access and seenrecords that no longer exist; his data are irreplaceable.

Over the years, the SDFHS has become a magnetfor Rid(e)out material. As well as having been

bequeathed Bill’s entire genealogical work, the Centrein Sherborne also houses many Rid(e)out family treesand other assorted papers; this is very fitting as mostRid(e)out roots are very deeply planted in this lovelyrural town. I am honoured and, I’ll admit it, excited atbeing appointed the Archivist for this great collection.My task will be to oversee the cataloguing anddigitisation of the material in hand, and of any futureacquisitions, and to make data more accessible forRid(e)out researchers both at the Centre and remotely.I shall aim to share the discoveries we make along theway by means of occasional articles in The GreenwoodTree and perhaps presentations in Sherborne. As wellas my Rid(e)out yDNA study I have an online blog(www.the-ridouts.com) through which I can becontacted.

Karen Francis

The Rise and Fall of Walter Rydeowte of Sherborne (1564-1643)

Sherborne Almshouse accounts 1609

The Sherborne Almshouse Register6 shows thatWalter RIDOWTE, gentleman, was ‘chosen as brother’on the 7 December 1605 and the Almshouse records(erroneously filed under Sherborne School) show hewas asked to leave 37 years later, on suspicion ofhaving Roundhead sympathies. Walter did not intendto give up his position without a fight; he made astatement to the House in his defence, thus providingme with possibly the most intriguing insight into theman that I could have hoped to find7. In hismeticulous legal hand, Walter crammed nearly fourthousand words onto two sides of foolscapparchment; it took several weeks to decipher thewords and meaning of a document, written sixty daysbefore the beginning of the English Civil War. Theoriginal statement, a genealogical gold mine ofinformation, may be seen at the DHC. Here are just afew extracts:

• Mr LYFORD and some others of the company mayremember how Mistress COOTH at the Account taxedme at the table for being quarrelsome with herhusband; not so quarrelsome as he was with me whenhe laid violent hands upon me. His wife, you see, beginsto talk, but women must talk at home and not in thechurch nor in the Almshouse.

• Can you find any such precedent in the [Alms]housethat a young upstart, as young CHETMILL is, being thenMaster should such person to make an order and to set afine upon his ancient head for speaking indecentwords…And what was this order for? For saying a spadeis a spade, for saying old Wright would out-row anyhound [Sir John] Hele [of Clifton Maybank] had, which Ido not deny. Do not all know that he did row me outfrom the upper end of the room even to the door withindecent cries “send for Mr Lyford, send for Mr Lyford”[William Lyford was Vicar of Sherborne]. “Mr Ridout, youdid none so disgrace yourself in your life” which manyother disgraceful words which I did hear. But old brotherCooth did slanderously charge me that I did call oldWright ‘dog’ which I deny, for I make a great differencebetween a hound and Mr Cooth’s mastiff dog for ahound is more genteel and contented compared to ahound for his scent. And therefore he may be morefittingly compared to a hound for his scent, for he tooksuch a scent of my Lord Bristol’s good diet that theycould not tell how to be rid of him for he would eat asmuch as two men!

• …I challenge Richard SPEED, that Hotspur [rash andimpetuous person], for he has been, if he is not now, agreat usurer [lender of money at inflated interest] andhas not made restitution to Nathaniel DANIELL, whosechildren cry out against him for a mortgage he took oftheir father’s mill for £60 for half a year; and would notlend his money longer unless Daniell would pull out oneof his children [remove him as a life on a tenancy] andput one of Speed’s into the lease. Therefore let himstand by for his voice is worth nothing.

• …young Master Chetmill gave me disgraceful wordsthat I was a thatcher... That when this young gent wasMaster, I coming into the room, he sitting above all inthe window, I saluted all but did not stoop low enoughit seems for this young master, for he reprimanded methat I came in very irreverently. Whereupon, at anothermeeting there I taxed him for it and told him I had beenbred at the University and at the Inns of Court and wasnot now to learn manners from a weaver’s loom … I wasnot bred a thatcher, nor my father neither; he lived at

Shillingtone, nine miles off, where his living was wellknown to be worth a hundred pounds a year and costhim to my uncle £110 or more in my bredd. Sir ThomasFREKE [1563-1633, MP] was no butcher, though hisgrandfather was one, [Sir] Nathaniel NAPPER [1588-1635,MP] was no fishmonger, though his grandfather was one.

• He that has five plough lands of inheritance mayby the Ancient Law write ‘gentleman’, which I had andmore before I passed it to my sons. And the heraldcame down in the country many years ago andcompelled myself and Thomas SWETNAM to take arms[the right to bear a coat of arms]. Heretofore I assumeno more than is lawful for we were both bred at theuniversity and at the Inns of Court.

I pursued Walter’s claim to Arms; there is noformal record (not uncommon for early grants) at theCollege of Arms, but months of research haveconfirmed that some of his descendants did indeedbear Arms, the blazon of which is: ‘Azure a TrefoilArgent between three Mullets Or.’ I call this line the‘Blandford Rideouts’; they are quite a welldocumented family whose way of life reflected theirancestor’s status and wealth.

Although Walter’s statement is subscribed to theeffect that the appeal was rejected, the SherborneAlmshouse Register shows that his replacement in theHouse was admitted on 2 July 1644, seven monthsafter Walter’s death. Maybe he wasn’t expelled; Ihope not after giving so many long years of service.According to his epitaph, Walter died on 22 October1643 and was buried in the churchyard of St Lawrencein Folke. A wall plaque includes a verse which hecomposed himself:

Here lyeth a true christian now at quiet rest, whowhilst he lived was by ye world oprest, but praysed beGod he overcame this evill and vanquished hath yeworld, ye flesh and devil.

I have no doubt that Walter was an argumentative,curmudgeonly chap but I’m glad I found him.

Karen Francis3 Durlston Close, Llandaff North

Cardiff CF14 [email protected]

1 Thomas Cooper Rogerson, 19002 Joseph Foster, 1888-18923 DHC: S235/D1/1/34 DHC: D/SHA/A177 and 1785 TNA: 19 James I, 7th February 1623 Ridout vs Standen6 Ann Clark (ed), 20137 DHC: S235/A2/5/2


Almshouse of SS John, Sherborne

Hunting a smuggler

We all enjoy having a skeleton ortwo in our family history cupboard,but I wonder how many can saythat an ancestor’s notoriety hasshaped their entire career. When Ifirst began investigating thesmuggler Roger RIDOUT, little did Iknow that he was destined to leadme into a career in journalism, asideline as an author and columniston Dorset history and a place onthe local public speaking circuit.

It all began in 1967, when I wasa pupil at Blandford GrammarSchool and was required toproduce a 5,000-word project on alocal history subject of my choice.Short on ideas, I asked my mother,who suggested that I ask mymaternal grandfather, Jim Ridout,of Fiddleford, near SturminsterNewton, to tell me the familylegends about our smugglingancestors. He had heard these fromhis grandfather, William Ridout, inthe 1890s, and they all centred onRoger Ridout, the leader of a gangthat ferried cargoes of brandy, teaand other goods from the coast toFiddleford Mill, where they werehidden to await removal to otherdestinations.

One legend told how Rogerwas carrying a jar of barm of fast-acting yeast from Fiddlefordbrewery (where the Fiddleford Innis today) to his home at OkefordFitzpaine when he was challengedby an exciseman. “Would ’ee like t’smell un?” asked the smuggler,handing over the jar and giving ita shake. As the officer pulled outthe stopper and put his nose tothe jar, the contents spurted intohis eyes and nose and Ridout wasable to push him into a ditch andhead off across the fields.

At other times Roger wouldleave a tub of brandy on thedoorstep of a Sturminster NewtonJP, Mr DASHWOOD, to buy hissilence.

In those days of intense villagerivalry, Roger could expect a hostilereception from other citizens ofSturminster. When a mob tried topull him from his horse in BridgeStreet, he said to the animal “Whatwould ’ee do ver thy king?” - at

which the horse reared up andkicked in someone’s front door. Mygrandfather told me the horse wascalled Ridout’s Ratted Tail.

When excisemen banged onRoger Ridout’s own door onenight, intent on arresting him, thesmuggler climbed down knottedsheets from his bedroom windowat the rear and made his escape.

But the law eventually did catchup with him and he was jailed atthe County Prison in Dorchester.According to my grandfather, whenRoger’s wife Mary made the 40-mileround trip on foot to visit him, shewould have a pig’s bladder of aleand a tube hidden in her clothingso her husband could enjoy a secretdrink through the bars.

Most of these stories areobviously impossible to prove, but Iwas able to confirm that Rogerserved time at Dorchester. TheCalendar of Prisoners, which Ifound at the county archives, listshis arrival on 6 April 1787,describing his trade as ‘miller’ andhis parish as Okeford Fitzpaine. Hehad been fined the considerablesum of £40 for ‘smuggling’ but,impressively, paid the fine in full toThomas PRICE, Officer of Excise,within two weeks, and was released.

As well as confirming one ofthe family legends, the prisonrecords also solved a fundamentalgenealogical problem. Soon afterstarting my research, I discoveredthat there had been generationafter generation of Roger Ridoutsfrom the 17th century to the

present day. I could not be certainwhich one was the smuggler until Ifound his prison listing. This Rogerwas my great-great-great-great-

great grandfather.The prison records

unexpectedly addedto my growingcollection of familyhistory skeletons. Oneof Roger’s sons, alsocalled Roger, servedthree months atDorchester in 1915 forpoaching, while thesmuggler’s grandson,Joseph Ridout (mygreat-great-greatgrandfather), followedin their footsteps in1825, after being fined

£100 for smuggling. He never paidthe fine and served 12 months indefault.

From the Okeford Fitzpaineparish registers, I learned thatRoger and Mary were married in1756, when both were aged about20, and that they had seven sons(no daughters) and manygrandchildren. They were buried inthe churchyard in 1811 and 1809respectively aged 75 and 73. Theirlives coincided with the heyday ofsmuggling in the 18th and early19th centuries.

Mary was one of the two MaryHANCOCKs baptised at SturminsterNewton in 1736, but tracingRoger’s origins proved a greaterchallenge. I searched the registersof 31 Dorset parishes beforefinding his baptism, in February1736/7, at the chapelry ofFarrington in the parish of Shrotonor Iwerne Courtney. He appears tohave been the only child of Williamand Susannah Ridout of Farrington,a grandson of Roger Ridout ofFarrington and a great-grandson ofRichard Ridout of Shillingstone.

The baptism breakthroughprovided several bonuses. As well asextending the Ridout family tree byseveral generations, it also gave memy first Tudor ancestors, Roberte(died 1591) and Edith KEYNELL (orKENNELL). They were the great-great grandparents of Mary


Roger Guttridge was editor of The Greenwood Tree from 1980-81 and first published about his smuggling ancestorsin 1980 (GT v5.2, pp13-14). Here he updates his lifelong relationship with a notorious ancestor.

Mill Farm, Okeford Fitzpaine - former home of Roger Ridout

Kennell, wife of the smuggler’sgrandfather Roger Ridout (born1680). Here I was reaping thebenefit of having ancestors inIwerne Courtney parish, where theregisters survive unbroken from1562. Two more bonuses camethrough the smuggler’s mother,Susannah. She was the daughter ofThomas APPOWELL (or APPOYLE),yeoman, of Fiddleford, who died in1746 leaving in his will his leaseholddwelling house, orchard andappurtenances at Fiddleford to the10-year-old Roger, on conditionthat he allowed Susannah to livethere for the rest of her days.Roger and his cousin ElizabethCLARKE jointly inherited Thomas’leasehold estate ‘together withseveral closes and premises’ atSturminster Newton.

The Fiddleford connectionperhaps gives a clue as to whyRoger Ridout chose to store hiscontraband at the nearby mill inlater years: he would obviouslyhave known the miller and farmerwell. It also extends my family’sconnection with Fiddleford back tothe 17th century, when theAppowells first appear in therecords there. This connection wasbroken in the 19th century butrenewed in 1895, when my great-grandparents opened Fiddleford’svillage shop (and later post office),which my grandparents kept onuntil 1965. I lived there in my teens.

An article on Fiddleford,published in the 1895 volume ofDorset Proceedings, included acolourful, page-long description ofthe Ridout gang at work, namingRoger as the ‘leader for manyyears’ and his horse as Ridout’sStumped Tail - a slight variation onmy grandfather’s version, but thenRoger would have had more thanone horse during his long career!

The writer was H C Dashwood,grandson of Dashwood the JP, andhe offers what may be a clue as towhy Roger found it necessary tobribe the old man with brandy - orperhaps to thank him for turning ablind eye. He reports that about1794 his father (then a boy) andgrandfather were riding late atnight when they witnessed ‘thestring of horses in the narrow roadbetween Okeford Fitzpaine andFiddleford with the kegs and othercontraband goods on the horses’.

He continues: ‘One or two men,armed, generally were in front andthen 10 or 12 horses connected byropes or halters followed at a hardtrot, and two or three menbrought up the rear. This cavalcadedid not stop for any person, and itwas very difficult to get out oftheir way, as the roads, until theturnpikes were made in 1824,would only allow for one carriage,except in certain parts. Thecontraband goods were principallybrought from Lulworth and thecoast through Whiteparish andOkeford Fitzpaine, through thepaths in the woods to Fiddleford,and then distributed’.

I duly completed my schoolproject and showed it to the onlypublished author I knew as ateenager, Sturminster Newton’sown local history writer, OliveKnott. She was kind enough toread it and wrote the comment:‘Worthy of publication’.

Almost half-a-century on, I’mnot sure I agree with her, but atthe time it was all theencouragement I needed and itfired my ambition. The projectsubsequently appeared almostverbatim in The Dorset Year Book1968-69, while a spin-off articlecalled ‘My Ancestor was theSmuggler of Fiddleford Mill’ waspublished in issue number four ofDorset: the County Magazine (nowDorset Life) in 1968.

In an earlier version of thepresent article, published in TheGreenwood Tree in Spring 1980, Ispeculated that Roger ‘may havebeen employed by Isaac GULLIVER,the most successful of all Dorsetsmugglers’, whose will when hedied at Wimborne in 1822 wasworth £60,000. Subsequentdiscoveries have confirmed thatthere was a close connection. Atthe National Archives at Kew in theearly 1980s, I read in the Poole

Custom House Letterbooks that‘We find that Isaac Gulliver, WilliamBeale and Roger Ridout run greatquantities of goods on our NorthShore between Poole andChristchurch…’ BEALE would havebeen Gulliver’s father-in-law orbrother-in-law, so it sounds as ifRoger was a business partnerrather than an employee. Otherdocuments confirm the connection,although details of thearrangements are not entirely clear.

My friend Beresford Leavens, adirect descendant of Gulliver,recently wrote a book about hisancestor in which he revealed thatthe FRYER banking family, intowhich one of Isaac’s daughtersmarried, were financing thesmugglers with high-interest loans.This is one possible explanation ofhow a humble miller from OkefordFitzpaine got his hands on £40 atfairly short notice in 1787.

Meanwhile, the articles I wroteon smuggling and Roger Ridout in1968 helped me to land my firstnewspaper job as a traineereporter with The Western Gazetteat Yeovil in 1970 and led to myfirst book, Dorset Smugglers,published in 1983. Other booksfollowed, including Dorset Murders(1986), the research for which ledto yet another surprise RogerRidout revelation. Whileresearching the Dorset Assize Courtrecords at the Public Record Officein Chancery Lane, I came acrossbrief details of a murder trial atDorchester in 1781, when the fourdefendants included Roger andMary Ridout and their eldest sonWilliam. All four were acquittedbut I have never been able todiscover what this was all about.

My career in journalism has sofar spanned 45 years, during whichtime I have also written 17 booksand given more than 2,000 talkson smuggling and other historytopics. And in a sense I owe it allto Roger Ridout the smuggler.When I spoke to a roomful ofretired Customs and Excise officersin Bournemouth a couple of yearsago, I told them I was not the firstmember of my family to makemoney from smuggling but I wasthe first to do it legally. Theyseemed to believe me…

Roger [email protected]


A smuggler’s half-anker brandy tub in the Dorset County Museum.Each cask held about 4.5 gallons

John CLEAL (1791-c1860) is my 3xgreat-grandfather onmy father’s side. He was baptised in Ilminster,Somerset, in February 1791, as John Savidge CLEAL, theson of James and Elizabeth (née SAVIDGE). This is theonly record I have found of his mother’s maiden namebeing used. In 1819 John married Susannah TAYLOR inIlminster and went on to have six children. Briefly,these were as follows: Hannah, baptised in 1819,married George CLARKE at St John’s, Bethnal Green, in1843. Mary Ann was baptised in 1823, and nothingmore has been found for her.

Henry Taylor, born 1825, married Mary Ann HILL atSt George, Hanover Square, in 1846, and emigrated toNew Zealand about 1865. No children have been foundfor this couple, unless some of the infant or childdeaths in London belong to them. Louisa came alongin 1826 and married Thomas HATCHER at Lyme Regis,Dorset, in 1848. In the 1851 census they were livingnext to her parents in Ilminster. There are sevenchildren I know of to this couple. Next in line wasWilliam, baptised in 1829, and again nothing more isknown of him. Last in the family was Charles, born inMarch 1831. He married Sarah REMINGTON in Londonand also emigrated to New Zealand about 1865. Sarahdied in 1871, and Charles married Rosa Elizabeth HILLlater the same year. Although I am not aware of Sarahhaving any children, Charles and Rosa went on to haveeleven, one of whom was my great-grandfather, Alfred.

Checking the family before I left for a trip toEngland last year, I remembered that on two differentcensuses John described himself as a ‘Pensioner’. Sinceold age pensions were not introduced in England untilthe early twentieth century, this had to mean that hehad been in the army and was in fact a ChelseaPensioner. With so many records coming online I waslucky to find two that referred to him: first hisdischarge, as John CLAYHILL, from the 1st Foot (RoyalScots) Brigade, with the reason given as ‘wounded inthe right hand at Waterloo’. This was a very excitingfind! (I think it likely that the way they wrote hissurname is the Somerset accent as interpreted by hisadmitting officer - hopefully someone local will correctme if I am wrong.)

Here is a transcript of what I found on Ancestry:

So he must have joined up about October 1809,when he would have been 19. Agricultural labourerswere much preferred in the army to those with ‘softer’occupations such as weaving, as they were fitter,stronger and more hardened to an outdoor life, aswell as having already learnt to take orders. Althoughthe minimum height requirement was 5ft 4in, menwho were under 20 were expected to still be growing,and if they were ‘good specimens’ were still accepted.

Then his medal entitlement came up on findmypast:

The 3rd Battalion was the onlyone belonging to the 1st Regimentof Foot (aka the Royal Scots) whichsaw action at Waterloo. The 1st and2nd Battalions were overseas, onein India and the other Canada. I do not yet know if hisentire army career was with the 3rd, but if it was, the

following is a list from the Royal Scots website ofwhere they were stationed during his time in the army:

The 3rd became part of Sir Thomas PICTON’s 5thBrigade, the Reserve, when Napoleon escaped fromElba and returned to France. Picton’s Reserve wascomposed of the brigades of Major-General Sir JamesKEMPT and Major-General Sir Denis PACK (whocommanded the 3/1 Battalion), along with Colonelvon VINCKE’s Hanoverian brigade. The 5th lost nearlya third of their men at Quatre-Bras, the battle whichhad taken place 48 hours prior to the 18 June, afterwhich they marched through pouring rain to theMont St Jean ridge at Waterloo. Personal diaries ofthe time talk about using a clay-covered blanket asprotection, and their knapsack for a pillow. Many mendid not even try to lie down once they arrived butspent the night standing. Next morning they werestiff and sore, but around dawn the rain finally startedto ease, and glimpses of the sun could be seen. Themorning was spent cleaning and reloading their riflesand scrounging for food in the surrounding fields -often coming across French soldiers engaged in thesame search.

John Cleal: my Waterloo ancestor - part 1


Inspired by the article on James Buckler, rifleman at Waterloo (GT volume 40, no.2, May 2015, p35), AnneBrady has written about her own Waterloo ancestor. This first part takes us to the battle and John CLEAL’srole in it. The 200th anniversary of the battle was celebrated on 18 June 2015.

Royal Scots Regimental Registers of Pensioners, 1st Foot

Admission - 26 Apr 1816Name - Jno CLAYHILLAge - 26Private - 6 [yrs] 7/12 [mths]. Plus Waterloo 2yrs [they got extra years ‘service’ added on for important battles,so that meant a greater pension rate]Total Service - 8 [yrs] 7/12 [mths]Rate Pd - 9 [pence per day]Complaint - Wounded in the right hand at WaterlooWhere Born - Ilminster, SomersetTrade or Occupation - LabourerRemarks - 5’ 3”, brown [hair], grey [eyes],

brown [complexion]

Waterloo Medal Roll 1815Name: John CLAYHILLRank: PrivateRegt: 3rd Battalion, Royal ScotsSub-unit: Captain Thomas Moss’s

Company No 3

1809: CORUNNA; February - arrived England; to Ireland; 16July - to Walcheren; Siege of Flushing; to England

1810: Portsmouth; March - to Peninsular; July - joinedfield army; BUSACO

1811: FUENTES D’ONORO1812: Badajoz (served as Wellington’s bodyguard);

SALAMANCA1813: Burgos; VITTORIA; SAN SEBASTIAN; Bidassoa (first

British regiment to enter France); Pyrenees; Nivelle1814: NIVE; Bayonne; September - to England1815: May - to Ostend; QUATRE BRAS; WATERLOO; Paris;

Army of Occupation; brought up to strength bydrafts from [?] Battalion

1816: Army of Occupation


The battle did not commence until close on 2 pm,when 17,000 French attacked the ridge, fired in by 80guns and supported by 800 cavalry. As they chargedover the top, they were surprised to find just howmany troops were massed against them and were hitwith the first volley from 3000 rifles of the sevenbattalions of the 5th Brigade. Most of the French frontranks crumpled and fell there and then.

John’s discharge papers revealed that he hadreceived a gunshot wound in his right hand, althoughjust when in the battle he was hit will never be known.Low-velocity gunshot wounds were inflicted by musketballs, which frequently deformed or fragmented onimpact. Wounded men were helped by their comradesinto the middle of the square, close to the colours,waiting for a chance to be removed to wherever theone surgeon and two assistants appointed to eachbattalion had set up their instruments.

‘At four o’clock,’ remembered Ensign Gronow ofthe 1st Foot Guards (part of the 5th Brigade), ‘oursquare was a perfect hospital, being full of dead, dyingand mutilated soldiers’.1

Private Cleal was amazingly lucky to live, as the riskof infection was great, and in fact men had a betterchance of surviving if the affected limbs wereamputated immediately. Primary amputations wereoften 30% fatal, but secondary operations, if infectionset in, cost 45%. A good surgeon could take an armoff in a minute and a leg in two.2 I am not sure if hisdischarge papers would have mentioned if his arm hadin fact been removed. There were between two andthree thousand limbs amputated that day.

After the first volley from his Brigade, GeneralPicton, still suffering from wounds received at Quatre-Bras that he had not reported and dressed in a shabbygreatcoat and dusty top hat (after losing his luggagein Brussels), waved his umbrella to signal a bayonetcharge. Picton himself was killed almost immediatelyafterwards, shot through the right temple as theFrench brigades and Quiot clashed with the EnglishDivision. Major-General Kempt later took charge of theBrigade. ‘After their bayonet charge they obeyedorders to return to their line on the crest of the slopeon the Anglo-Allied centre-left, thereby closing anygaps that Napoleon might have exploited if they had -maddened by blood-lust - followed [the French] corpsto the bottom of the slope and beyond.’3

The final result of the battle is known to everychild. John Cleal did not take his discharge until Aprilthe following year. The 3rd Battalion was part of theArmy of Occupation, but I think it more likely that thewounded were returned to Britain as soon as transportwas arranged. John became an out-patient of theChelsea Hospital and went home to Ilminster to pickup his life as best he could.

The second part of this account will deal with JohnCleal’s life after the battle, and as a Chelsea Pensioner, anddescribe my researches at The National Archives in Kew.

Anne Brady8c Green Rd, Panmure, Auckland 1072, New Zealand

[email protected]

1 The Field of Waterloo by Paul Davies, p2602 Ibid. p3433 Waterloo: Napoleon’s Last Gamble by Andrew Roberts, p71

Anyone who has spent much timesearching in registers and other listsof names in Dorset or, to a lesserextent, Somerset, must have comeacross the name CADDY. Thedensest population of them hasbeen in Cornwall, but they havebeen in Dorset for hundreds ofyears. There are instances of thename in the 17th century inLydlinch, Netherbury, Broadwindsor,Sherborne, East Stour and LittonCheney. Hine’s The History ofBeaminster says the name appearsin court rolls there before 1640,and mentions the baptism ofWilliam Caddy in 1585.

As far as I know, though,relatively few lines have beendrawn from the 18th century tothe present day. My own Caddypedigree (it was my mother’smaiden name) has been tracedback to the marriage of JohnCaddy and his first wife, MaryCRABB, in Burstock in the earlypart of that century. The parishregister before that is missing and Ihave not found the name in theprevious one. As previouslymentioned, there are earlier

instances in Broadwindsor, whichalmost surrounds Burstock. This linewas mentioned by Donald Williams(we are fourth cousins onceremoved) in the November 1996issue of this journal in his articleGrandfather Hodges fromGreenham (GT v21.4, p145). As faras I know all the identifieddescendants beyond a fewgenerations are from John’s sonBenjamin (by his second marriage,to Elizabeth HARDY).

Another line still extantdescends from David Caddy, whosechildren appeared in Holwell from1704. Also flourishing are the issueof another David Caddy, who wasborn about 1744 in Piddlehinton. Ibelieve that there are livingdescendants of John Caddy andBetty ABBOTT, who married inBuckhorn Weston in 1795, but I donot think that I can yet identifythem. I can write with greaterconfidence of the manydescendants of Joseph Caddy, whomarried Maria DARE in Hawkchurchin 1777 while living in Axminster.

Another line, shorter than these,peters out in my data in the late

19th century, but probably througha lack of information rather thanmultiple deaths without issue. It isthat of William CADEY, who wasborn around 1781 in Portland. I amin a similar position with anotherPiddlehinton descent, from ThomasCaddy, who was born there about1795.

I think that appearances of thename in Somerset result frommigration, and I am sure that this istrue of the many instances inGlamorgan and Monmouthshire,where the name can be seen inrecords largely from the late 19thcentury. These present us with theproblem of distinguishing Cornishfrom Dorset-descended Caddys. Ofcourse some travelled further, withCaddys settling in North America andthe Antipodes, living in South Africaand even marrying in Mesopotamia.

I shall be pleased to exchangeinformation on Caddys in and fromDorset and Somerset and theirdescendants. If you are connectedto one, you may find that we arerelated, but perhaps you are willingto risk that.

Jeremy Wilkes52 Mount Road, Dover, Kent CT17 9LF

[email protected]

Caddys in and out of Dorset


Monte Video Camp, WeymouthLieutenant Keith Aubrey TUNKS served in the 1st Field Ambulance, Reinforcement 4, Australian Army Pay Corpsin the First World War. He wrote back home regularly and sent letters, articles and photos to local newspapers,including this piece to The Cumberland Argus.

Australian and N Zealand Base Depot, Monte Video Camp, Weymouth, 21 November 1915An account of his experiences written by Lieutenant Keith Aubrey TUNKS

So much was written, and no doubt is still being written andpublished, of the doings in the various military encampmentsthroughout Australia, that it may perhaps be of unusualinterest to readers to learn a little in regard to the Australianand N Zealand camp here. The camp was established somesix months ago for the purpose of accommodating and thefurther training of soldiers of the Commonwealth MilitaryForces who have been invalided to England from theDardanelles with either sickness or wounds, and are nowalmost fit for return to the front. Weymouth is about 130miles distant from London on the South Coast, and isconsidered one of England’s finest sea-side resorts. The campitself, however, is situated some two miles out from thetownship at a village known as Monte Video or Chickerell.The site is on a large hill overlooking the sea, and rather inan exposed position. The men are not accommodated intents as perhaps would be imagined by the people at home,but wooden huts large enough to hold about forty men areprovided. I fear we Colonials Find It Rather Cold in thiscountry during the present season, and would find it morecomfortable if we considered ourselves hot-house plants andlived in glass houses; but then of course we could not throwstones, and some of us became so careless at Gallipoli thatperhaps at times we may forget to pull down the blinds.Beds are provided for each man, in the form of a mattressfilled with straw upon a wooden framework. Each man isissued three blankets, and a fire is provided in each hut, sothat altogether the men are reasonably comfortable. Anaccount of the procedure of the men from the time theirfurlough after discharge from hospital has expired may beinteresting. On the date of expiry the men have to report atthe London offices in Horseferry-road at about 10 a.m. Therethey undergo a medical examination, and it is decidedwhether they are in a fit state to go into camp or should besent to a convalescent home. In the former case, if a man isfit, he is sent to Weymouth by the midday train fromLondon, arriving at Weymouth about 5.30 p.m., where atthe station he is met by a motor which conveys him to thecamp. Here a hot meal awaits him, after being issued witheating utensils and blankets, and being shown his quarters ina hut which is set apart for the sole use of new arrivals. Onthe following morning he is ordered to parade at 9 a.m. Allparticulars are then taken, and he is added to the strengthof the depot. Again, a medical examination is necessary, asall men in depot are classed either A, B or C, the A’s beingthe fit men who are able to return to the front, B’s thetemporarily unfit men who may in a short time be fit or maybe altogether unfit for further service, and C’s thepermanently unfit; that is, men who are useless for furtheractive service and are to be Either Invalided Home orGiven Home Service either in England, or their respectivecountries. The A’s of course have to undergo further trainingin the form of route marches, etc., and for them the firstparade is at 7 a.m., so that Reveille is sounded at 6.30, ratheran early hour to rise on these cold mornings. Breakfast isserved at 7.45, after which the men are free until 9.30 a.m. -the morning parade, which generally takes the form of aroute march in Weymouth and back, lasting until 11.45 a.m.Dinner is served at 12.45 p.m., and the afternoon parade issounded at 2. Another route march generally follows until 4p.m. From that hour men are granted leave passes until 9

p.m., which enables them to visit Weymouth or goanywhere to please themselves. Tea is at 4.45 p.m. - ratheran early hour - but it is quite dark then, and moreconvenient. I venture to say that the food served to the menin this camp is of better quality and in more variety than anyreceived either in Australia or Egypt. Meals are carried out inan orderly manner, the men lining up outside the variousmess huts, in each one of which permanent mess orderliesare employed to serve the food to the men, wash-up andattend to the meals generally, so that there is no messingabout cleaning mess-tins, dixies, etc. Cooks have beenappointed from among the men and have provedthemselves very efficient. I omitted to say that most of theduties in and around the camp are performed by the “B”men. The “C” men, of course, amongst whom are cripples,do very little in the way of drill, but most of them enjoywalking at their leisure. From time to time men are pickedfrom the A division To Form a Draft to Return to theFront They are then issued with full equipment - not theweb equipment originally issued them at home - but leatherarticles, which are more durable although perhaps a littleuncomfortable at first. Also, from time to time, men areselected from the “C” class unit for return home to eitherAustralia or New Zealand. At present we have a few more inan auxiliary camp at Westham, midway between here andWeymouth. A band has been formed in camp, and now isperforming very efficiently. On Thursday evening last theygave their first public performance before a crowdedaudience in one of the Weymouth halls for charity purposes.A barber’s and tailor’s shop has also been established, ofwhich the men take full advantage. Here, as in every othercamp, the Y.M.C.A. control a hut and are rendering greatservice to the men. They provide refreshments at moderateprices and also arrange concerts and lectures several nightseach week. The Salvation Army people are doing similarwork. Mails are distributed to the men regularly three timesdaily, and up to the present the manner in which lettershave been coming forward is very satisfactory. Theauthorities have even gone so far as to provide a smallPicture Palace within the Camp, where quite a largenumber of men pass away the evenings. No doubt youwonder how we manage with washing arrangements in thisbitterly cold weather. Every effort has been made topromote comfort for the men, and hot water showers areprovided as an absolute necessity. A splendid motor servicebetween the camp and Weymouth has been established, andthere is no difficulty in reaching town comfortably. Week-endleave is granted to men on application, and many takeadvantage of this privilege for visiting London, travelling asthey do, at half rates. I may add that the colonials continue - to uphold the good name they have established forthemselves in this country, and conduct themselves generallyin an orderly manner when dealing with civilians. At presentmost of the men who are able to afford it are dispatchingChristmas gifts to their friends at home, taking advantage ofthe arrangements made for articles to be forwarded free ofduty. Many of the men have also sent articles such as warmclothing to their comrades in Gallipoli, and much morewould be done in this direction if a guarantee could begiven that the men there received the goods. Everythingconsidered, there is nothing to be desired, and were one to

On Monday 1 June 2015 there wasa service and wreath-laying atMelcombe Regis Cemetery,Weymouth, to mark exactly 100years since the first batch of 200injured Anzac troops arrived inWeymouth from Gallipoli; eventuallythere would be 120,000 who passedthrough the town. Phil Sherwoodhad organised most of the servicefor the South Dorset Group of theSDFHS along with Weymouth andPortland Residents’ Association andThe Westham Community Group. Itwas a very moving service, whichwas conducted by the Mayor’schaplain, Father Richard Harper, whoopened with the story of theANZACs in Weymouth:

On this day 100 years ago thefirst batch of Anzac soldiersevacuated from the beaches ofGallipoli arrived at Burdon’s MilitaryHospital (now the Prince RegentHotel on the Esplanade) to recoverfrom their physical and mentalscars, so that they could return toactive service, or if not to berepatriated to their homelands.

They were the first of nearly120,000 Anzacs to pass throughthe hutted camps and hospitals atWeymouth until 1919. The firstcamp was opened at Monte Videoin Chickerell, followed by othercamps set up at Westham,Littlemoor and finally in The VerneCitadel, as the great battles on theSomme and at Passchendaelesucked in ever greater numbers oftroops from the British Empire. Bythe end of the war. eight Anzacsawarded the Victoria Cross hadpassed through the depot, knownaffectionately to the troops as‘Wey Aussie’.

Sadly 90 Anzacs, mostly fromAustralia, died in Weymouth and lieburied in these war graves aroundus. We are here to remember theirsacrifice and that of all the Anzacswho came to Weymouth. Of the 90buried here few died as a directresult of injuries received in combat.Many died of the Spanish ‘flu

epidemic in 1918 to 1919. Othersdied from the effects of gassing inthe trenches, while others died fromdiseases such as tuberculosis,dysentery andmeningitis -some hadacquired thesediseases on thelong voyagefrom Australiaor aftertraining inEgypt, andwereconsideredunfit for activeservice onarrival inEngland. A fewwere founddrowned in Weymouth harbour orhad committed suicide due todepression. Many soldiers carriedthe effects of shell shock for the restof their lives.

Three readings were given bymembers of our group: Pam Yallopand Tomasa and Phil Sherwood,using the words of ANZACs whohad passed through the campstogether with an article from the

local press describing the arrival ofthe first troops.

Following the first reading andprayers, wreaths were laid at theCross of Sacrifice. The Mayor ofWeymouth and Portland, CouncillorChristine James, laid the first wreath

on behalf of The WesthamCommunity Group, followed byJennie McGowan on behalf of TheSomerset and Dorset Family History

Society. Australian Simon Kleinig, thePresident of London Legacy charity,also laid a wreath. Serving AustralianCaptain Jada McKenzie came fromPlymouth to lay a wreath andserving New Zealander Lt. WilliamBrewer also laid a wreath. This wasfollowed by two-minutes’ silenceand the playing of the Last Post bybugler Diane Bartlett.

After the service Captain JadaMcKenzie saidhow moved shewas that peoplein Weymouthwere stillrememberingthese soldiers.

Most of thosepresent thenwent to theEsplanade inWeymouth for an

unveiling of aplaque outside thehotel where the

first soldiers stayed. The plaquewas paid for by Alan Quartermaine,whose Australian grandfather hadbeen at Weymouth as one of theinjured.

Jennie McGowan and Phil Sherwood, South Dorset Group


visit the camp he would find us all, Australians, N.Zealanders and Maoris, a very happy family. Of warmclothing we require none, but my experience is that ifAustralians at home desire to forward gifts to their relativesand friends at Gallipoli, not here, send them balaclava caps,writing material and cigarettes, not in separate small parcels,but if possible a number of people combine and send largeparcels consigned to the Officer in Command of anyparticular Regiment. In this way it is almost certain that themen for whom the articles are intended will receive them.Cork or asbestos boot insoles would also be muchappreciated by the men. - Yours faithfully,

KEITH A. TUNKS (No. 1796)

Lieutenant Keith Aubrey Tunks was evacuated fromGallipoli with dysentery. He served in England for therest of the war and returned to Australia onthe Osterley 22 May 1920 to 7 July 1920 NSW

Submitted by Paddy ThompsonRedlands North, The Haye

Cheddar, Somerset BS27 [email protected]

From L to R: Tammy and Phil Sherwood; Mayor of Weymouth andPortland, Councillor Christine James; Australian Simon Kleinig

Front row, from the L: New Zealander Lt. William Brewer,Australian Captain Jada McKenzie and Jennie McGowan

of the SDFHS, with their wreaths

Weymouth honours its WW1 ANZAC heroes

What’s in a name: Ainslie and Stanfield

Four years ago my eyesightdeteriorated so seriously that Icould no longer read. My currentvision can best be described asmisty/cloudy - somewhat similar toconstantly peering through netcurtains! However, the good newsfor me (and fellow-sufferers) is thatthere are now a bewilderingnumber of machines/devices toenable you to “read” again.

My personal favourite, and themost versatile, is the Apple iPad Airtablet. I have owned one now foralmost two years and can saywithout exaggeration, it is worthits weight in gold! In addition toallowing me to conduct emailcorrespondence, as I used to whenfully sighted, and ‘surf’ the Internetin all its vastness, it also allows me

to access again the hallowed pagesof The Greenwood Tree. Our editor,Bob Barber, kindly emails the PDFversion of the GT and my iPadsimply ‘reads’ it back to me.

The standard iPad can easily beswitched to its ‘voice-over’ mode,to allow it to ‘speak’ to you, bysimply triple-pressing the on/offswitch. Once activated, it is thenjust a matter of double-fingertapping the PDF icon to open thefile. When successfully opened, itcan then be ‘read’ by a single,upward triple-finger swipe. Thoughoccasionally it may read across thecolumns rather than down, andobviously it doesn’t describeillustrations (though it does ‘read’captions), I would say that it is95% accurate most of the time. So,

if you have a visual disability, andpossess some computer orkeyboarding skills already, thismight be something you might liketo investigate yourself. The benefitsthat I have accrued fromdiscovering the use of the voice-over facility on an Apple iPad(other brands of tablet areavailable) have been literally life-enhancing!

Note - you don’t have to be acomputer geek to cope with all this- I’m not by any stretch of theimagination. There is plenty ofadvice/information available on theRNIB website:http://www.rnib.org.uk/information-everyday-living-using-technology/computers-and-tablets

Robin Ansell [email protected]

Why is a surname used as a middle Christian name? Inthe Durham and Yorkshire side of my family this wasusually the mother or grandmother’s maiden name.Sometimes the name of a godparent (or rich relative)was used. However I came across these two examplesin my Dorset family which were intriguing:

Ellen TREVETT (b 1868) was the sixth child of HenryTrevett and his wife Matilda (née STANFIELD), born atWinterbourne Steepleton, Dorset. At the age of 23, inApril 1891, she was a cook in the household of ElizabethANDREWS in Wyke Regis. A daughter, Ellen LouiseAinslie Trevett, was born on 6 September 1891 inWinterbourne Abbas, with no father’s name on thebirth certificate. By 1901 Ellen Louise has taken the nameof FORSEY, as she had married Charles Forsey in 1893.

I was intrigued by the additional forename ofAinslie, and a check of the 1891 census for Weymouthrevealed that the only Ainslie in Weymouth at thattime was an Albert AINSLIE, who was a Scottishfootman, employed by J Macpherson LAURIE, aphysician born in Scotland, living at Greenhill Towers,Radipole, Melcombe Regis. Alfred Ainslie returned toGlasgow as a bank messenger and by 1901 wasmarried with a seven year-old son. Was he also thefather of Ellen Trevett’s child? It seems likely, especiallysince in the 1911 census, when Louise was a servantwith the POORE family at Bay View, Augusta Place,Weymouth, her place of birth is given as Edinburgh;presumably she knew her father was Scottish and heremployer got slightly the wrong end of the stick! Ihave not found either a marriage or a death of EllenLouisa Forsey/Trevett/Ainslie in England, but a possiblemarriage in Cook County, Illinois, in 1916.

So perhaps quite a simple explanation of thatunusual name — but how about this one?

One of Ellen Trevett’s older brothers, RobertStanfield Trevett, the third child of Henry and Matilda,emigrated to America and became a farmer inEllisburgh, Jefferson, Massachusetts. A tale told by hisson was that Robert had to leave England in a hurry

after striking his boss and leaving him unconscious orperhaps dead: ‘his brother had a ship and let him sailto America that night’. His granddaughter rememberedhim having a temper and being not the most sociableperson. I offered to look into this to see if anythingcould be corroborated.

Robert Stanfield Trevett (b 1860) married AnnieMaria BAGG (then aged 17) in WinterbourneSteepleton in 1881, and their first child was born acouple of months later. The first four children were allboys: the first three were given names familiar to thefamily (Henry Robert, William Charles, JamesStandfield) but the fourth, baptized in Symondsbury inNovember 1886, when Robert was a shepherd, wasnamed Herbert Cary Batten Trevett. Soon after thisbaptism, in early 1887, Robert left for America on theNevada, his family following a year later (noimmigration records found for them). This ship wasowned by the Guion Line, one much used forimmigrants of steerage class, so not likely to havebeen linked to Robert’s family.

A search of these unusual names revealed thatHerbert Cary George BATTEN (known as Cary Batten)was a local barrister and magistrate and, in 1885 and1886, the Liberal Parliamentary candidate for that areaof Dorset (Dorset West). He was later twice HighSheriff of Bristol. It is hardly likely that Robert andMaria were such staunch supporters of the LiberalParty that they named a child after their candidate(after all they wouldn’t have had a vote). Had CaryBatten got Robert out of a scrape? So far I have notfound any newspaper report of an incident whichcould have led to Robert fleeing the country, but ifanyone can shed any light on this, or has anysuggestions as to the explanation of this choice ofnames, I would be glad to hear them.

Rachel Mayers4 Mount Pleasant

Macclesfield, Cheshire, SK10 [email protected]

Listening to The Greenwood Tree!


A brief history of The Greenwood TreeIntroduction This brief history of TheGreenwood Tree, the journal of TheSomerset and Dorset Family HistorySociety, has been written to markthe 40th anniversary of the Society.Up to and including this November2015 issue there have been 160issues: 40 volumes each of fourparts. While it is not possible tosummarise the whole 40 volumes,this account will highlight the mainchanges in the journal; in doing soit will touch on aspects of thewider history of the Society. Whensomeone comes to write this, thecontents of 40 years of TheGreenwood Tree will be aninvaluable resource.

The Society was launched inSeptember 1975 at a meeting inYeovil Library following an initiativeby Mervyn (later Sir Mervyn)Medlycott, who had soughtexpressions of interest bypublishing letters in theGenealogists’ Magazine, Notes andQueries for Somerset and Dorsetand the local press. Sir Mervyn, firstSecretary and Chairman of theSociety and then President, haswritten a brief account of How itall began (v40.3 p67).

It was clear from the beginningthat as well as organising meetings,starting projects and other activitiesthe Society needed some means ofcommunicating with its members.Thus the first issue of TheGreenwood Tree was produced,towards the end of 1975. It washeaded NEWSLETTER OF THESOMERSET AND DORSET FAMILYHISTORY SOCIETY and labelled Vol.1, No. 1. The Greenwood Tree wasup and running.

The first Newsletter (v1.1, late 1975)The first issue of The GreenwoodTree consisted of 12 A4 pagestyped double-sided, with an outercover. It introduced the mainplayers in the Society with shortbiographies. The first newslettereditor was Donald Gill. In hisEditorial Notes (published withoutattribution) he indicated that thetitle had been borrowed from oneof Thomas Hardy’s Wessex novels.However, no pretentions to literary

excellence were implied; it wasmerely intended to produce aninteresting and readable newsletterof help to readers keen on familyhistory, whatever their level ofexperience or knowledge.

As well as news and informativearticles there would becontributions from the members,who were invited to express theirviews, hopes and criticisms as wellas to send contributions outliningtheir interests: surnames, locationsand dates.

The first cover of TheGreenwood Tree consisted of adrawing of a tree together withthe arms of the two counties.Superimposed on the tree was thetitle and underneath the wording‘Family History Society’, both inGothic script. The cover design wasexecuted by David Chant, a teacherof art, history and drama inEastbourne (v2.1 p14). The coverserved well and was used for thefirst 24 issues (v1.1 to v6.4), eachissue printed with a differentcolour cover.

By the second issue (v1.2) aheading “The Greenwood Tree”

Newsletter of The Somerset and

Dorset Family History Society

was used at the top of the firstinside page and supplemented thelack of information on the cover.

Problems, Problems, Problems…(v1.2-v3.4; Spring 1976-Autumn 1978)Although members seemedreluctant to send original articles,there was no lack of ‘members’interests’ - requests for help with aparticular line of research. A newfeature, People, Places and Problems,was started in the second issue(v1.2), and has continued to thepresent day. Don Gill, the first editor,was clearly struggling with therange of tasks involved in producingthe Newsletter, ‘from the arrival oforiginal material to the day whenthe Newsletter copies disappear overthe post office counter’. Typing wasdone by the editor and a volunteer,George Spiller. In these early daysenvelopes were addressed by hand,by the editor’s wife: 2072 in the first11 Newsletters.

To ease the burden JimmyMartin was recruited as editor ofthe PPP section in Autumn 1978

(v3.4), a role he held until his deathin early 2005. However, all was notwell, and a dispute between theeditor and the treasurer over thecost of producing the Newsletter,and the need to increase thenumber of pages, contributed tothe editor’s decision to resign(v40.3 p72). In his letter as out-going editor he wrote:

It is with great regret and sadnessthat I have felt unable to continuein the capacity of Hon. Editor…Thejob of Editor is very demanding,requiring, as it does, at least someinterest and involvement in all theSociety’s activities, as well as thetechnical preparation of copy forthe printer. It is time-consuming,and carries with it many problemsand many worries, but can also bevery rewarding…

Don Gill handed on to GeraldPitman, a well-known localhistorian from Sherborne.

The first ever issue of The Greenwood Tree, late 1975 The inside header started in v1.2

Jimmy Martin


The Journal begins (v4.1-v6.3; Winter 1978-Summer 1981)Gerald Pitman’s editorship startedwith some changes. The ExecutiveCommittee decided that the title‘Newsletter’should bechanged to‘Journal’,from v4.2.The printingof theJournal wasplaced in thehands of C JCreed ofBroadoak,Bridport; John Creed was a distantrelative of Thomas Hardy (v4.1 p4).However, the Pitman reign did notlast long - seven issues in all up toSummer 1980 (v5.3). In hisvaledictory note he wrote:

As the Society expands and interestin our works increases so also doesthe need arise for an editor whocan make the Journal his or herone and only interest.Correspondence comes in by nearlyevery post from our world-widefamily. A full-time staff would solvethe problem but we are a voluntarySociety run by volunteers.

The crisiswasavertedwhenRogerGuttridge,a localjournalist,reluctantlyagreed totake onthe role

as, he emphasised, ‘actinghonorary editor’. He keptthings going for four issues. He recalled (V40.3, p72):

my newspaper background is veryevident. As well as increasing thetype size for the benefit of olderreaders, I also introduced a double-column format, bold headlines,pictures when available and one ortwo additional regular features, suchas Spotlight on a Parish. Some ofthese changes have been retained,with adaptations, to this day.

At the AGM in Yeovil in May1981 (v6.3 p52) he reported on thechanges he had introduced,including increasing the number of

pages from 20 to 24. Indexing ofthe Journal had also begun. Butthe temporary arrangement of theeditorship was raised again, andRoger advised the election ofBernard Knight as a replacementeditor.

Stability, and another crisis (v6.4 - v14.2; Autumn 1981-April 1989)Bernard Knight took over inAutumn 1981 (v6.4). By the nextissue he had modified the front

cover to include a list of thecontents superimposed on the tree,a move not without controversy.

Since the first issue, published atthe end of 1975, each volume ofThe Greenwood Tree hadoverlapped the calendar year. Thissomewhat illogical numberingsystem was changed at the end of1987. Bernard Knight wrote in theAutumn 1987 issue:

Ever since Vol.1 No.1 TheGreenwood Tree has been “dated”by English seasons: Winter, Spring,Summer and Autumn. But we aretold that this is confusing toreaders in the Antipodes. Well - ofcourse! So with thecommencement of Vol.13 we shallchange our “dating” to January,April, July and October. Sorry,Australia. Sorry, New Zealand. Ittook 12 years for the penny todrop, although January is Winterwith us here. Proof wanted…?

As the Society grew, so did thesize of the Journal. The 96 pagesof volume 6 had grown to 144 byvolume 13, with 160 pages forvolume 10. Even so, there were stilloccasions when there was not

enough space for everything. Theeditor explained (v11.1 p2):

Why should we make apology forsuccess? We noted recently anentry…from member no.2500! Butit does mean that, with such alarge membership, our journalreceives more copy thanheretofore. We are committed toproducing certain regularitems…and space is limited. Hence,by and large, we operate a “firstcome, first served” basis. We weresurprised to hear of onecontributor who was surprised thathis item didn’t appear in the nextedition. We thought that anexplanation would be appropriate.

Bernard Knight carried thingsforward until the April 1989 issue(v14.2). His death in officepresented the Society with a majorproblem.

An interregnum, and an editoremerges (v14.3-v19.3; July 1989-August 1994)The next issue (v14.3) wasproduced somehow by a hurriedlyconstituted editorial working party.Ken Andrewwas listed aseditor fromOctober1989 (v14.4)until MarciaEvans, whohad beendoing mostof the work,formallytook over aseditor fromOctober 1990 (v15.4). At the AGMin September 1990 Marcia Evanswas able to report that theworking party had managed toproduce four issues on time. Sheproposed that from 1991 thetiming of the issues be changed toFebruary, May, August andNovember. This would allow a fullreport of the AGM to appear inNovember and to ascertain whichmembers had renewed before theFebruary issue was sent out. Theworking party had sent out aquestionnaire and the findingswere being implemented. Thelayout had been rationalised, andall the content was relevant tofamily history. Names andaddresses were published somembers could communicate


Gerald Pitman

Marcia Evans

Roger Guttridge

Bernard Knight by his grandchild, aged 4

Family History Centre Events

The Greenwood Tree Vol. 40 No.4 November 2015 i

For more information about forthcoming meetings visit theGENEVA pages, hosted by GENUKI http://geneva.weald.org.uk/

Thurs 19 Nov. The 1939 Register - The Home Front from your own home.2.00pm Myko Clelland, family historian and partnership and

outreach manager for Findmypast will describe theupcoming release of the 1939 register, one of the biggestfamily history record sets to be released in recent years.

Sat 21 Nov. Sherborne’s Industrial Archaeology. Budding local historians,2.00-4.30pm Barry Brock, Graham Bendell and George Tatham will guide

another journey through Sherborne’s commercial andindustrial past. In A Sherborne Engine Maker, Graham willreveal all he knows about William Henry Pasley and hisfamily. Barry will then consider The Dorsetshire Brewery -the Baxter years, before looking at Fives Courts inSherborne. After a refreshment break, Graham will take uson A View From The Slopes In 1860 with an in-depth look atan early photograph of Sherborne, while considering laterphotographs of the features to be seen. Barry will thenbring things to a conclusion with What and Where AreThey? - a quiz for local historians and a chance for someaudience participation. George Tatham will again chairproceedings and will talk about some of his own research.

Sun 6 Dec. Our Family History Centre will be open during 10.00am- Sherborne’s Festive Shopping Day. Our research 4.00pm volunteers will be on hand to help with your enquiries and

we will have new and second-hand books for sale as wellas coffee/tea and mince pies. Please do call in if you wouldlike a break from shopping.

Sat 23 Jan. In the Parish. In the first of two talks Ted Udall will2016 describe records which are (or may be) available 2.00-4.30pm for genealogical research in a typical parish, including Parish

Chest documents, Poor Law records and tithe maps. In thesecond talk he will look at information of a more generalnature, including newspapers and trade directories,finishing off with a look around the Dorset parish ofHalstock.

Sat 20 Feb. From Altar to Archive: The Life and Works of Canon C. H.2.00-4.30pm Mayo (1845-1929). Luke Mouland, local historian and

genealogist, will review the life of The Rev. Charles HerbertMayo who spent all his clerical life in Dorset. When nottending to his congregations, he dedicated his time tolooking into the county’s rich history, leaving behind anextensive collection of books, pedigrees and manuscripts. Atthe time, he was one of the county’s most eminenthistorians, so how is it that his name has now been largelyforgotten? With the aid of his correspondence and privateresearch papers, this talk will examine Canon Mayo’scontribution to Dorset’s heritage, and seek to understandthe man behind the text.

Date Event PriceNo charge but advance

booking is essential

SDFHS Members: £10Non-members: £12

No charge and no need tobook in advance



3 November 2015Friends of Somerset Archives

Sue BerryCrime and Punishment

Somerset Heritage Centre is at Brunel Way, LangfordMead, Norton Fitzwarren, Taunton, TA2 6SF

14 November 201510:30am – 3:30pm

Explore your archivesCelebrating 60 years of Dorset’s archive service

Dorset History Centre

7 - 9 April 2016WDYTYA

NEC Birmingham

THE NUMBER OF PLACESFOR ALL EVENTS IS LIMITED SO EARLY

BOOKING IS ADVISED

Other Events

SDFHS Publications

DORSET ITEMS AVAILABLE ON FICHEU.K. O/Seas

1841 census Vols 1 - 21 .......................................... each 1.50 2.401851 census Master Index................................................ 1.50 2.401851 census Vols 1 - 15 .......................................... each 1.50 2.401891 census Master Index................................................ 1.50 2.401891 census Vols. 1 - 19 .......................................... each 1.50 2.40Swanage census index 1841, 1861 & 1871 ...................... 1.50 2.40Wareham census index 1841, 1861 & 1871...................... 1.50 2.40Corfe Castle census index 1841, 1861 & 1871 .................. 1.50 2.40Purbeck Boundary parishes 1841, 1861 & 1871 .............. 1.50 2.40Lyme Regis Burials 1813 - 1837........................................ 1.50 2.40Dorset Landowners of 1871 ............................................ 1.50 2.40Dorset Wills 1821 - 1858 (set of 3 fiche) ........................ 1.50 2.40S & D “Absconders” 1801 - 1858...................................... 1.50 2.40Dorset Militia Ballot Lists (Vol. 1 East, V2 West) each ... 1.50 2.40

CD-ROMSU.K. O/Seas

1851 Dorset census Index …………………………....................... 11.55 14.001891 Dorset census Index …………………………....................... 11.55 14.001891 Somerset census Index ………………………. .................... 11.55 14.00Portland Historic Sources Version 2 ................................ 16.10 17.75Somerset War Memorials .............................................. 14.05 16.50East Dorset Superfamily .................................................. 11.50 13.95Photos & Information on 300 Dorset Churches ............ 16.55 19.00Histories of some Parishes in Dorset & Somerset .......... 16.55 19.00Bradford Abbas Parish Records etc. .............................. 11.55 14.00East & West Coker Parish Records etc. .......................... 11.10 12.75Methodist Centenary Rolls (Som. & Dor.) ...................... 16.10 17.75Lytchett Matravers Poor Law Records ............................ 8.60 10.25

OTHER SOCIETY PUBLICATIONSU.K. O/Seas

Lyme Regis Burials 1813 - 1837........................................ 3.35 5.80Taunton Burials 1813 - 1837 ............................................ 3.35 5.80Swanage census index 1841, 1861 & 1871 ...................... 4.70 7.15Wareham census index 1841, 1861 & 1871...................... 4.70 7.15Corfe Castle census index 1841, 1861 & 1871 .................. 4.70 7.15Purbeck Boundary Parishes census 1841, 1861 & 1871.... 4.70 7.15Rural Blacksmiths in Parish Life by Marcia Evans............ 14.45 18.00Dorset Volunteer Soldiers 1794 - 1798 ............................ 2.70 5.15Dorset PCC Wills & Admons 1821 - 1858 ........................ 4.70 7.15S. & D. “Absconders 1801 - 1858 .................................... 4.70 7.15Dorset Militia Ballot Lists (Vol. 1 East Vol.2 West), each 4.70 7.15Growers of Hemp & Flax 1782 - 1793 (book & fiche) .... 3.25 4.90The Known History of the Shops in Cheap St., Sherborne 12.45 16.00History of Long Street, Sherborne. ................................ 13.85 17.55“Voices That be Gone”, The Victorian Parish of Castleton 13.85 16.1010,000 Fallen Remembered on Dorset War Memorials .. 9.95 13.55

Now with CD, pictures and extra informationDorset Centenary Methodist Rolls .................................. 6.20 8.65Somerset Centenary Methodist Rolls .............................. 8.70 11.15Bristol Centenary Methodist Rolls .................................. 8.70 11.15Wellington Churchwardens Accounts ................................ 14.90 19.35

For airmail prices please enquire.Cheques, in sterling only, accepted. Please make payable to SDFHS.

Payment by VISA or MASTERCARD accepted - Minimum order £5.00

SOMERSET 1851 CENSUS INDEXESIndex of surnames giving the parishMaster index of Somerset £4.70 UK, £7.15 sea-mail

Indexes of Surname only giving Folio No.each costs £2.20 UK, £4.65 sea-mail

Vol. 1 West SomersetVol. 2 Taunton AreaVol. 3 Bridgwater AreaVol. 4 Yeovil AreaVol. 5 Wincanton & FromeVol. 6 Wells, Shepton Mallet AreaVol. 7 Wedmore, Cheddar & Axbridge

SOMERSET 1841 & 1891 CENSUS INDEXESeach costs £2.20 UK, £4.65 sea-mail

Except 1891 Master Vol. £4.70 UK £7.15 O/SeasVol.29 (1891) & 35 (1841) £3.55 UK, £7.10 O/S1841 Master Index of surnames,2 vols A to I & J to Z. £4.70 U.K, £7.15 O/S eachVol. 1 Wincanton & Milborne PortVol. 2 Evercreech & Nunney Vol. 3 Bruton & Castle CaryVol. 4 Exmoor, Dulverton & MineheadVol. 5 Kilmerdon AreaVol. 6 Somerton & LangportVol. 7 Wellington & DistrictVol. 8 Wedmore & AxbridgeVol. 9 Milverton, Stogumber & WiveliscombeVol. 10 Bishops Lydeard, Stogursey & StoweyVol. 11 Marston Magna Coker & IlchesterVol. 12 YeovilVol. 13 Frome & RoddenVol. 14 WellsVol. 15 Chard & IlminsterVol. 16 Taunton St. Mary & WiltonVol. 17. Taunton St. JamesVol. 18 Chewton Mendip & Stoke LaneVol. 19 Shepton Mallet, Pilton & W.PennardVol. 20 Bishops Hull & Creech St. MichaelVol. 21 Crewkerne & MerriottVol. 22 Glastonbury & StreetVol. 23 Pitminster & Coombe St. NicholasVol. 24 Kingsbury Episcopi & N.CurryVol. 25 Martock & S. PethertonVol. 26 North Petherton & AshcottVol. 27 Huntspill & WembdonVol. 28 St. Decuman’s & Old CleeveVol. 29 Bridgwater (1891 Parts 1 & 2) see aboveVol. 30 Burnham & District

Also available - 1841 onlyVol. 31 Midsomer Norton & Wellow

Vol. 32 CluttonVol. 33 Lyncombe & Widcombe (Bath)Vol. 35 Walcot (Parts 1 & 2)Vol. 37 Weston & TwertonVol. 38 Keynsham & Chew MagnaVol. 39 Wrington, Blackwell & BlagdonVol. 40 Portbury & NailseaVol. 41 Clevedon & YattonVol. 42 Weston-super-Mare & Banwell

SOMERSET MARRIAGE INDEXESeach costs £3.00 UK, £5.40 sea-mail.

Vol. 1 Taunton St. James 1610-1701Vol. 2 Taunton St. James 1702-1723Vol. 3 Taunton St. James 1724-1754Vol. 1 Taunton St. Mary 1558-1673Vol. 2 Taunton St. Mary 1674-1718Vol. 3 Taunton St. Mary 1719-1754

SOMERSET ITEMS ON FICHEU.K. O/Seas

Master Index of 1851 census 1.50 2.401851 census Vols 1 - 7 each 1.50 2.401891 census Vols 1-28 & 30 each 1.50 2.401891 census Vol. 29 (2 parts) 1.50 2.401841 census as available, each 1.50 2.401841 census Vol. 35 (2 Parts) 1.50 2.40Somerset marriages, as above, each 1.50 2.40Taunton burials 1813-1837 1.50 2.40Hatch Beauchamp Parish registers 1.50 2.40

DORSET 1841 CENSUS INDEXESeach costs £2.20 UK, £4.65 sea-mail except MasterVol. Master Index £4.70 UK £7.15 O/SVol. 1 Bridport, Allington & BradpoleVol. 2 Poole, Canford Magna & HamworthyVol. 3 Weymouth, Melcombe & Wyke RegisVol. 4 20 Parishes around BridportVol. 5 Beaminster, Broadwindsor, Netherbury &

Stoke AbbotVol. 6 Dorchester & Neighbouring pariahesVol. 7 Lyme Regis AreaVol. 8 Portland, Abbotsbury, Maiden Newton

& DistrictVol. 9 Puddletown District & Parishes around

WeymouthVol. 10 Parishes around EvershotVol. 11 Gillingham AreaVol. 12 Stalbridge & Sturminster NewtonVol. 13 Wimborne AreaVol. 14 Winfrith Newburgh & Milton Abbas AreaVol. 15 Cranborne & The TarrantsVol. 16 Shaftesbury Area

Vol. 17 Blandford AreaVol. 18 Cerne Abbas AreaVol. 19 Hawkchurch & 5 other W.Dorset ParishesVol. 20 Sherborne AreaVol. 21 Christchurch Area

DORSET 1851 CENSUS INDEXESIndex of Surnames giving the parish

Master Index of Dorset £3.70 UK, £6.15 sea-mail

Indexes of surname & forenames, giving age,birthplace, occupation, folio & page number.

Each costs £2.20 UK, £4.65 sea-mailVol. 1 WeymouthVol. 2 Portland AreaVol. 3 DorchesterVol. 4 Maiden Newton AreaVol. 5 Poole AreaVol. 6 Bridport AreaVol. 7 Corfe Castle & Wareham AreaVol. 8 Sherborne AreaVol. 9 Bere Regis Area Vol. 10 Sturminster Newton AreaVol. 11 Shaftesbury AreaVol. 12 Blandford AreaVol. 13 Wimborne Minster AreaVol. 14 Lyme Regis AreaVol. 15 Beaminster Area

DORSET 1891 CENSUS INDEXES£2.20 UK, £4.65 sea-mail

Master Index of Surnames giving the parishThe following are an almost

complete transcriptionVol. 1 Shaftesbury, Cann & MotcombeVol. 2 Cranborne AreaVol. 3 Wimborne AreaVol. 4 WeymouthVol. 5 Fontmell & GillinghamVol. 6 Stalbridge & Sturminster NewtonVol. 7 Portland & AbbotsburyVol. 8 Lyme Regis AreaVol. 9 Purbeck AreaVol. 10 Parishes around WeymouthVol. 11 Poole & ParkstoneVol. 12. Canford, Kinson & LongfleetVol. 13 Bere Regis & DistrictVol. 14 Beaminster AreaVol. 15 Sherborne AreaVol. 16 Bridport AreaVol. 17 Blandford & DistrictVol. 18 Dorchester AreaVol. 19 Cerne & Milton Abbas

ii The Greenwood Tree Vol. 40 No.4 November 2015

The Greenwood Tree Vol. 40 No.4 November 2015 iii

SDFHS PublicationsPlease note that the prices quoted here include postage and packing,either within the United Kingdom (UK) or by surface mail overseas(OS). All the Society’s stock of books etc may be purchased over thecounter from the Research Centre in Sherborne for the normal retailprice of the publication.

A printed catalogue may be requested from our Sherborne ResearchCentre; please send an A4 self-addressed envelope, stamped for thelarge letter basic rate. The catalogue may also be found on theSociety’s web site - www.sdfhs.org (from the home page select ‘Sales’,‘Society Bookshop’, and then select the particular file of interest).

Price IncreasesPlease note that, last August, the Society increased the postage andpacking element of the price of books etc sent out by mail. All theitems on this page, and the previous page, show these revised prices.A full catalogue is available on our web site, and a printed cataloguecan be obtained for our Sherborne Research Centre as indicated above.

Additional Titles Available40 YEARS OF THE GREENWOOD TREE A complete set of 40 years ofThe Greenwood Tree on either a CD or a memory stick, supplied assearchable PDF files. It is possible to access all editions in a singlesearch.CD...................................................................... UK £ 9.85 / OS £11.70Memory stick .................................................. UK £12.30 / OS £13.70

GWR BOOK OF REFERENCE - YEOVIL BRANCH LINE CD Contains thenames of the owners, lessees and occupiers of the parcels of landrequired by the Bristol and Exeter Railway (later part of the GreatWestern Railway) for the construction of the Yeovil branch line,running from Durston, near Taunton, to Yeovil via Langport whichopened in 1853.CD ...................................................................... UK £ 5.85 / OS £ 7.70

Books etc on SaleThe prices of the following items have been reduced.

Hawkchurch (Banfield & Austin) The story of a West Country villageinspired by the recollections of Jack Banfield. Was £14.95, now £10.00 over the counter. Posted: ............................................................ UK £13.35 / OS £18.60

The Book of Poole - Harbour and Town (Rodney Legg) This booktraces the history of Poole from pre-Roman times to the present day,and includes over 200 photographs. A thoroughly researched work.Was £19.95, now £13.00 over the counter. Posted: ............................................................ UK £16.85 / OS £21.60

Long Sutton as ‘Twere (Redvers Burt) A fond evocation of timespast, the community evolving over two or three generations.Was £7.50, now £4.50 over the counter. Posted: ............................................................ UK £ 6.50 / OS £10.00

A Somerset Airman The story of an RAF armourer, who grew upin Frome on a small family farm. The story begins with an accountof life on the farm, and continues with Eric’s conscription into theservices, and his time in foreign parts away from loved ones in asleepy Somerset town.Was £7.99, now £4.00 over the counter. Posted: ............................................................ UK £ 6.00 / OS £ 9.50

Titles no Longer AvailableThe Book of Portland (Dorset Books)Fordington Remembered (Dorset Books)Map of Dorset by William Kip, 1610 (Maps)

All books on pages (ii) and (iii) can be obtained from: SDFHSBooksales, PO Box 4502, Sherborne, Dorset, DT9 6YL. Cheques madepayable to SDFHS, with orders please. Payment by VISA orMASTERCARD accepted. Minimum card order £5. We are not able toaccept orders placed by email with payment using credit/debit cards.This Society complies with The Consumer Contracts (Information,Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013. Forconfirmation of order by post, please request confirmation andsupply a stamped addressed envelope.

Book Sale NewsU.K. O/Seas

£ £PARISH REGISTERS

Aisholt.................................................................. 8.75 12.30Almer .................................................................. 6.20 8.60Carhampton (2 vols) ............................................ 12.75 16.30Charlinch .............................................................. 8.45 10.85Chedzoy .............................................................. 10.05 13.60Chelborough, East & West .................................. 6.20 8.60Corscombe .......................................................... 7.75 10.15Creech St.Michael ................................................ 8.75 12.30Cutcombe ............................................................ 8.75 12.30Dunster (2 vols) .................................................. 15.30 19.75Enmore ................................................................ 11.05 14.60Exford, Culbone & Oare ...................................... 8.75 12.30Goathurst ............................................................ 11.75 15.30Hatch Beauchamp................................................ 8.45 10.85Huntspill (2 vols).................................................. 12.75 16.30Luccombe & Stoke Pero ...................................... 8.75 12.30Luxborough ........................................................ 8.05 11.60Oake .................................................................... 6.75 9.15Pawlett ................................................................ 8.75 12.30Porlock (2 vols) .................................................... 12.75 16.30Puncknowle ........................................................ 8.15 10.55Rode .................................................................... 6.75 9.15Selworthy (2 vols) ................................................ 13.30 17.75Spaxton (2 vols) .................................................. 16.30 20.75Timberscombe...................................................... 8.45 10.85Treborough & Withycombe ................................ 8.75 12.30Wareham Non-Conformist .................................. 5.75 8.15West Buckland .................................................... 12.05 15.60Winsham (2 vols) ................................................ 16.30 20.75Wootton Courtney .............................................. 8.75 12.30

INDEXES AND BOOKLETSAssessment of the Hundred of N. Petherton 1649 ............................................ 4.65 7.10

Exchequer Special Commission 1560-1864 (Som & Dor) ...................................................... 2.50 4.35

Somerset Surname Index Vol.1 .......................... 4.40 6.85Subsidy Returns for South Somerset 1601 and 1628 4.70 6.35Index of Somerset Estate Duty Office Wills 1805-11 11.55 15.10Index of Somerset Estate DutyOffice Wills 1812-57 (2 parts)............................ 26.00 29.95

Index of Somerset Probate Inventories .............. 12.05 15.60Index to Somerset Settlement & Removals 1607-1700 .......................................... 6.15 8.55

Surnames in Marriage Licences & Allegations 1583-1681 .................... 8.45 10.85

Criminal Register Indexes Vol.1 1805-16 (Som & Dor) ........................................ 19.30 23.00

Wilton Gaol (Taunton) DescriptionRegister 1806-1818 ............................................ 3.00 4.65





17th century Freeholders List .............................. 4.20 5.851733 Freeholders List .......................................... 4.65 7.10Officers List Somerset Local Militia 1808-11........ 4.15 6.55Roll of 1st & 2nd Battalion Somerset Militia 1758.. 4.65 7.10Eastern Battalion Muster Roll 1805 .................... 2.05 3.90Chancellor’s Farm Accounts 1766-67 (Mendip Hills) 4.65 7.10Dorset Contiguous Parishes ................................ 1.55 3.40Chilton Polden Tithe Apportionment 1839 ........ 10.30 13.85Clevedon St.Andrews Churchwardens Accounts 8.45 10.85Somerset Criminals 1805-30, 2 vols. sold as a pair 15.00 18.55

SDFHS Services

ADVERT I S I NG R ATES82 1/2mm x 45 mm box (wording to fit space)

Block Booking £36.00 (same advert to appear four consecutive issues) Single Issue £12.00

Any enquiries to:Barbara Elsmore [email protected] 01935 817588

Or please send wording together with prepayment to(and cheques payable to) Somerset and Dorset Family History Society

Advertisements featured in this publication are relevant to our hobby but do not imply endorsement

DISCLAIMER: This Societydoes not sponsor anyprofessional genealogists,whether members of theSociety or not. The Societycannot be held responsible forthe quality of service given bythose who advertise either inthe Society Journal, on its website or by the circulation ofmembers. The Society does notderive any monetary benefitfrom such research.

FAMILY HISTORY CENTRE CHARGES

We try to keep our charges to a minimum, and believewe have been successful in keeping prices at a lowerlevel than those charged by comparable organisations.Our charges for research undertaken by Volunteers andfor SDFHS Database searches are as follows:

Entry fees: there is free entry for members wishing touse the Family History Centre facilities; non-memberspay a day visitor’s fee of £2.

Use of Ancestry and/or Findmypast: a £1 fee foranybody, whether member or non-member, who usesAncestry and/or Findmypast.

Photocopies and computer printouts: there is a 25pcharge per A4 sheet when items are printed orphotocopied.

Volunteer’s research:SDFHS Members - £5 an hourNon-members - £10 an hour

SDFHS Database search charges: a specific surnamesearch in the Society’s database will also incur theminimum fee of £5 (this includes a print-out of up toone page of data entries i.e. up to 27 baptisms or 39marriages). Each subsequent page of data entries (andincluded print-out) incurs a further charge of £2.50.

If you would like a Society Volunteer to undertake research on your behalf, please email (or write in with) your enquiry to:

email: [email protected]: Research, PO Box 4502, Sherborne, DT9 6YL

To assist our volunteers and to avoid duplication, it is important that you provide

all the information you have obtained already.

MILITARY LOOK UPSWe have a large amount of information and material heldin our Library and are lucky enough to have the help of

Col Iain Swinnerton, who writes widely on militaryresearch, to help with any specific requests.

THE GREENWOOD TREEBACK NUMBERS

We may be able to provide a copy of a back number -email or write in with your request. Each edition costs £5(UK) or £6 (OS), including postage.

We can provide an index from The Greenwood Tree of names being researched:1992-6 - £3.50 (UK) or £4 (OS), including postage;1995-9 - £3.50 (UK) or £4 (OS), including postage.

We can also provide an index of names being researchedand main articles in post 2000 editions:

£1.50 per year (UK) and £2.00 per year (OS), including postage.

PEDIGREE AND FAMILY TREE SERVICE

We will search the Society’s large collection of donatedpedigrees and family trees:

(1) For a list of the principal names in the collection, askfor the ‘Names List 2012’ at a cost of £4 includingpostage.

(2) To search for an individual or family, use the form atthe end of the ‘Names List 2012’ or on the Society’swebsite, at a cost of £4 for up to 5 items (includingpostage), either individuals or families.

(3) To provide photocopies of pedigrees or family treesidentified in the ‘Names List 2012’ costs 25p per A4sheet (plus postage).

You may pay by credit card (minimum payment £5) or cheque.

DORSET MONUMENTAL INSCRIPTIONSLists of parishes transcribed to date - no charge + SAE,

Overseas - request estimate.

A SURNAME search for the whole of DORSET - £1 members, £2 non-members

A SINGLE name search in a SPECIFIC parish - £1 members, £2 non-members

Max. 6 parishes per enquiry

Large SAE with all enquiries: Overseas - request estimate.

Also see Society website. Minimum credit card payment £5.

Also can be found on www.findmypast.com

BURIALS INDEXFor details contact:

David Hearn9 Barton Hey, Bishops Lydeard, TAUNTON,

Somerset, TA4 [email protected]

iv The Greenwood Tree Vol. 40 No.4 November 2015

among themselves. A letters pagehad been introduced and a widevariety of articles published. Morecontributions were sought - anever-recurring theme.

During the interregnum of 1989the Society changed its printerfrom Creed’s to FWB Printing Ltd inWincanton, a company it stayedwith until 2015.

Marcia Evans decided to standdown as editor in 1994 to spendmore time with her family historyand to complete a second degree.Her last editorial appeared inAugust 1994 (v19.3, p76) in whichshe announced the impendingarrival of a new editor, Colin Dean.

The Dean era (v19.4 - v30.4; November 1994-November 2005)Colin Dean, The Greenwood Tree’slongest serving editor, produced his

first soloissue inNovember1994 (v19.4),after a six-monthperiodshadowingMarcia Evans.In all hecompletedeleven yearsand compiled44 issues of

the Journal. Colin’s contribution tocreating the Journal we recognisetoday has been immense. Firstly,out went the old cover with thecontents list superimposed on thetree. A new design in February1995 (v20.1) marked the Society’stwentieth year and lasted throughits twenty-first. From now on thecover changed more frequently; afourth design in 1997 (v22.1-v22.4)was followed by a fifth, whichlasted two years from 1998 (v23.1)to the end of 1999 (v24.4).Subsequently, each issue has had adifferent cover design, usuallyhighlighting features inside.

Whereas previously photographshad been rare, they rapidly becamean important feature, giving theJournal its lively, magazine-styleappearance. The issue for February2000 (v25.1), marking theMillennium, included a photographon the front for the first time.From then on special issues came

thick and fast. August 2000 (v25.3)was the 25th anniversary issue;May 2001 (v26.2) brought the100th issue (by Colin’s calculation -surely v25.4 was the 100th) andAugust 2005 (v30.3) an issuefeaturing articles on Trafalgar tomark the 200th anniversary of thebattle. Of particular note was May2002 (v27.2), a 72-pageextravaganza entirely devoted tothe Channel Islands and its links toSomerset and Dorset ancestry. Oneparticularly controversial issue wasAugust 2004 (v29.3), the infamous‘Football’ issue. Colin, a lifelong fanof Newport County (sad or what?),wrote in his editorial: ‘football andfamily history…the hobbies don’tseem to mix. Yet if you had anyable-bodied young males amongyour ancestors anytime after 1860,the chances are they playedfootball…Newspapers reported thematches and published photos’.Why controversial? Because muchof the journal was printed in’landscape’ mode, to betteraccommodate a typical teamphotograph. Readers got tired ofcontinually twisting the journalround and back.

Colin Dean’s swansong came inNovember 2005 (v30.4), the 30thanniversary issue, which included adigest of all the previous 29 years.

The mature Journal (v31.1-v40.3; February 2006-August 2015)The arrival of a new editorial teamwas announced at the end of the30th anniversary issue (v30.4). Twoeditors were needed to continuethe Dean legacy; Chris Storrar andAnthony (Tony) Darby had both hadeditorial experience and Tony Darbywas a former journalist. Amazingly,two other people had expressed

interest in being editor and threeothers in joining an editorial team.This period is marked by aconsistency of style and layout. Thecover was changed to have auniform green background with thetree in the top left corner next tothe title. A list of the moresignificant articles was included withphotographs. A standard 32-pageissue became the usual format.Unfortunately Tony was unwell andincreasingly unable to contribute tothe editorship. He was the secondeditor to die in post and after twoyears Chris was left to carry onalone. It is a tribute to her expertiseand dedication that the Journalmaintained its excellent reputation,recognised throughout the familyhistory community. When I tookover from Chris she was invariablyhelpful and supportive, and after

one issue shadowingChris, and one issue beingshadowed, things seemedmuch less daunting. I washelped initially by BarbaraElsmore but after twoissues Barbara steppedback to concentrate onimproving links with theregional groups.

Two things I carry inmy mind from talking toChris. Firstly, the Journalbelongs to the members,and it’s the editor’s job toreflect their interests and

concerns, and secondly, that ourSociety covers two counties - eachneeds its fair share. I hope I havebeen able to maintain that tradition.

The regularsAlthough the Journal belongs tothe members, the role of theregular contributors has been vitalin giving structure and character tothe publication. People, Places andProblems had existed from thebeginning, but other featuresemerged, including the Spotlightarticles highlighting particularparishes in Somerset or Dorset. A

The infamous ‘football’ issue

Colin Dean

Anthony (Tony) Darby and Chris Storrar


number of authors havecontributed, most particularlyThelma Monkton and Betty andAlan Nineham. More recently MikeWhitaker has written Spotlight onDorset and Colin Dean a slightlydifferent format with his Snapshoton Somerset. Andrew Plaster hascarried on the Spotlight traditionfor Somerset.

Computer Corner, written byour present Chairman, Ann-MarieWilkinson, was introduced in the25th anniversary issue (v25.3). Thisregular column to help and advisemembers on the use of computershas addressed the growingimportance of computers and theinternet and continues to thepresent.

Teresa William’s What thepapers said (formerly In thenews), with interesting snippetsfrom old newspapers, on a widerange of topics, has been runningsince August 1999 (v24.3).Looking Back, by former editorChris Storrar, similarly featuresitems from past issues of TheGreenwood Tree, and has beenrunning since February 2012(v37.1). Similar pieces had beenwritten by Colin Dean when hewas editor.

Colin Dean’s Secrets from theCentre was introduced inFebruary 2014 (v39.1) to highlightsome of the rare, sometimesunique, material to be found inthe Society’s Centre in Sherborne.

Editorials and Chairman’scomments have been regularfeatures, with occasional gaps, ingeneral reflecting the currentissues of concern to the Society.

Glittering prizesThe excellence of The GreenwoodTree has been recognised by themembers from the beginning, aseach editor added his or herparticular ideas and improvements.The Journal was voted The BestEnglish-Language Family HistorySociety Magazine worldwide in2002, judged on the 2001 issue. Ithad been commended in 1996 and1998 and runner-up in 1997, 1999and 2000. Colin Dean had at lastmade it! The award, organised bythe FFHS, is known as the ElizabethSimpson award. After winning,Colin Dean was elected to thejudging panel and was its chairman

in 2005 - which seemed a goodtime to retire as editor. Chris Storrarcontinued the trend, winning in2009 and 2011. Unfortunately yourcurrent editor has been unable torepeat the triumphs of hispredecessors, and the future of theElizabeth Simpson award iscurrently in some doubt.

How is it done today?Original copy arrives in all forms,from hand-written letters,photocopied items of varyingquality to well produced, digitaltext. All have to be read and giventhe editorial once-over. Obviousspelling and grammatical errors areweeded out, with some pruning ofunnecessary text. The idea is to

maintain the house style whilepreserving the author’s ownidiosyncrasies. A plan for the layout,page by page is drawn up, and theedited copy taken, usually on amemory stick, to the layout artist atthe printers. After discussion, a firstproof is produced, using desk-toppublishing software, and printed.There will be gaps to fill andcontributors to chase, but thegeneral appearance of the finalissue will be emerging. The proofsare corrected, missing items addedand the process repeated. On athird loop the final, detailed proof-reading takes place. Discussionswith the membership secretarydetermine the final numbers for theprint run.

For the technically-minded thepublishing software used is acombination of QuarkXpress 9,Adobe Photoshop CS6 and AdobeIllustrator CS6. The green colourused is Pantone 377 and thetypeface for the majority of theissue is called FreebornSB. TheJournal is printed by offsetlithography.

What next? What will The Greenwood Treelook like 40 years from now? Willit exist in its current form. Will itexist at all? All printednewspapers and journals arefacing major pressures, from risingproduction costs and loss ofadvertising revenue, mainly dueto the impact of the internet. OurSociety has similar problems, withloss of membership, our mainsource of income. The cause is thesame - the internet. In the pastthe Journal was the main meansof communication with theSociety and between members,but this is no longer the case.Family historians identify less withtheir local society and more withwhichever website they subscribeto. A journal produced everythree months can never competewith the immediacy of email andsocial media. The Society isresponding to this with a muchimproved website, Facebookpages and members’ forum. Thechallenge for The Greenwood Treeis to find innovative ways tointegrate with these whilemaintaining the reputation forquality which it has establishedover its first 40 years.

AcknowledgmentsI’d like to thank three formereditors, Roger Guttridge, ColinDean and Chris Storrar, forthoughts, insights and support.Peter Meech and my long-sufferingwife Gail have helped with proof-reading and comments on layout,content and style during myeditorship. Finally, thanks are dueto the excellent service provided byAurora Print and Design (andpreviously FWB Printing Ltd), inparticular Stephen Hibberd theirtypesetter and designer.

Bob BarberEditor, The Greenwood Tree, 2013-15



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November 2015 Vol.40 No.4 Price when sold separately £4.00

40th anniversary year

Issue 160: 40 years of The Greenwood Tree


This time I am going to look at customising your internetbrowser so that you can find the websites and informationyou use more easily. Firstly what do you have as your‘home’ or ‘startup’ page on your internet browser? Haveyou changed it from the default? You could change theopening page to the SDFHS home page so that you do notmiss any news from the Society. You could also ‘bookmark’the page so that it appears on the toolbar and is easy tofind again. Both these tasks are easy. I use Google Chromeand I can set it up to open a number of pages when itstarts up. It is fairly straightforward to do, but you mayneed to sign in first. In all browsers the best way is to

follow the instructions on the help menu. In Chrome you need to click the in the top right hand corner ofthe page to find the help menu.

You then see a drop down menu:

If you then click on Help and about a further menu will appear andyou should select Help centre. This opens in a new window and thenyou can search for what you want to do. Then just follow theinstructions given. In this case they are:

• In the top-right corner, click the Chrome menu • Click Settings. (If you’re using a Chromebook, click Show

advanced settings at the bottom of the page.)• Under On startup click Open a specific page or set of pages• Click Set pages• Enter the web address of the page you want to see when you open

Chrome.• Click OK

Other internet browsers such as Firefox and Internet Explorer will work in a similar way, just find the help menuand follow the instructions.

In Chrome it is easy to bookmark a page, again the icon is in the top right hand corner, this time it is the staricon. When you are on any page you wish to bookmark just click the star. You may need to tell yourbrowser to display the toolbar - just follow the help instructions. On my screen Chrome can display a

dozen bookmarks and more can be access using the icon on the far right hand side of the screen.,

Another thing that you can do is to monitor when a webpage changes so that you do not miss anything newfrom a website. To do this you have to use a free website which will send you an email whenever a pagechanges. I use www.changedetection.com :

Building on the successful introduction in 2014 of thesecure PayPal facility on our website for payingsubscriptions, we are now extending this to givemembers a fully functional one-stop online shop,where you will be able to pay subscriptions, buypublications, book for events at our Family HistoryCentre or make donations to the Society by addingpurchases to a shopping basket. At the end of theprocess you will be able to pay either with your PayPalaccount, if you have one, or with most credit/debitcards.

As this edition of The GreenwoodTree goes to press, there is still somework to do before the shop will befully operational but we hope that itwill be up and running by the timeyou receive this mailing. It will takeus a while to upload the publicationsso we would ask for your patience ifyou are unable to find immediatelythe particular book or CD that youwould like to order. There will belink to the shop on the mainhorizontal menu bar of the website:www.sdfhs.org

Another innovation on the website is theintroduction of a new menu item ‘Projects’(www.sdfhs.org/sdfhs-projects) where you will findsummaries of the official SDFHS research projectswhich aim to collect, transcribe and make availabledata which will be of assistance to members and otherresearchers engaged in studies of family history inSomerset and Dorset.

Now that so much of the ‘basic’ data forgenealogical research is readily available on-line, theSociety is starting to concentrate on collecting andpublishing information from less well-known sources,such as cast lists, school records, sports team lists, etc.,which can provide a rich source of previouslyuntapped data for both counties. We would welcomesuggestions for new projects, especially if you wouldbe willing, and able, to undertake the researchyourself. Please contact the Family History Centre if

you would like to help with any of the currentProjects, or suggest a new one.

Finally, an easy way to keep up-to-date with all ournews is to make our website: www.sdfhs.org the‘home page’ on your own computer/tablet. This willgive you easy access to live feeds from our blog,Facebook page and Twitter account as well as ourown news items.

Patricia [email protected]

SDFHS website: online Shop and Projects


This is free to use, all you need to do is to sign up giving your emailaddress and create a password for the site. You can then enter the page(or pages) you wish to monitor and the website does the rest. When apage changes you receive an email (see left).

Then all you need to do is to click on the link to the page you aremonitoring. The email even gives you links so you can change what youare monitoring. I only monitor the home or news page of a website, butyou may want to monitor something else. However, a word or warning,do not try to monitor something which changes frequently - you will beoverwhelmed with emails!

I hope that these suggestions will help you get more out of your internetbrowser.

Ann-Marie Wilkinson

SDFHS Open Day and AGM, Yeovil 2015Saturday 19 September 2015dawned foggy, but the forecastwas fair. By 9:30 the main hall atYeovil College had been set upand, in nearby classrooms, thevarious stalls and service providerswere ready to receive members tothe Society’s AGM and Open Day.

After registration and a fewminutes to catch up with oldacquaintances it was time to ushereveryone into the main hall, wherethe Society’s President, Sir MervynMedlycott, gave a briefintroduction, outlining the eventswhich had seen the Societylaunched back in 1975.

The morning’s main speakerwas The Greenwood Tree EditorBob Barber, who used a livelyaccount of the first 40 years of theSociety’s journal to announce theofficial launch of the digital versionon CD and memory stick. Part ofBob’s talk consisted of a double actwith former editor Colin Dean,who entertained the audience inhis own inimitable way. Well doneto both of you - I only wish I’d hadthe foresight to video theperformance!

The 40th AGM of the Somerset& Dorset Family History Societythen took place, starting at mid-day. As is usual on such occasionsthere was little debate about thestandard fare on the agenda, butthe Treasurer’s report of a profit(returned after several years ofdeficit) prompted a vote ofcongratulations from Colin Dean to

all those concerned. One changeagreed was the re-introduction ofthe option of 3-yearly membership.The final item (proposed changesto the Constitution) did cause somelively debate, especially the clauseabout the quorum for ExecutiveCommittee meetings. The amended2015 version of the Constitutionwill be uploaded to the CharityCommission website.

After a short break for thebuffet lunch, the final speaker ofthe day was Dr Ed Lorch from theTintinhull Local History Group

(Tintinhull is a smallvillage about 5miles from Yeovil).Ed spoke aboutreading betweenthe lines ofrecorded history inorder to tease outinformation on ourmedieval ancestors’lives. Anecdotesfrom Medieval

Village Life highlighted how thecommonplace experiences of 15thcentury people can seem totallyalien to us today.

And so, the events of the daysuccessfully completed, it was timeto bid farewell to Yeovil College(thanking the staff for their efforts)and start looking forward to nextyear in Sturminster Newton. Thankyou to members of Yeovil groupwho helped to make the day runsmoothly.

Ted Udall

Ted Udall directs proceedings at the AGM

We all have a friend or relative who seemsto have everything. What can you getthem for Christmas? Well, have theyever shown an interested in familyhistory? Why not buy them a year’ssubscription to their local Society -

even better, a subscription to theSomerset & Dorset Family History Society.

Copy the subscription form in this edition ofThe Greenwood Tree, or download a copy from our website:http://www.sdfhs.org/membership/membership-about/

Or why not buy them one of our new CDs (or a USB memorystick) of the first 40 years of The Greenwood Tree?

Prices(CD): over the counter £9.00; posted £9.85 (UK), £11.70 (OS)(memory stick): over the counter £11.00; posted £12.30 (UK), £13.70 (OS)

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August 2015 Vol.40 No.3 Price when sold separately £4.00

40th anniversary edition

TheFirst 40 Years, 1

975-2015

TheGreenwood Tr

ee


Bob and Sir Mervyn face the audience

Christmas is coming

Barry Brock mentioned in his piece Somerset andDorset Projects (The Greenwood Tree, May 2015, v40.2,p46) the large scale projects on Dorset and SomersetMonumental Inscriptions, managed respectively byJohn Damon and Delia Horsfall. Neither John nor Deliahave reported progress to members in this journal forsome years; I trust they will not object to my doingso, having a unique overview of both projects.

DORSETAll the C of E churches and churchyards throughoutthe county have been surveyed, together with manynon-conformist and the civil cemeteries of Sherborne,Sturminster Newton, Gillingham, Shaftesbury,Fordington, Wimborne Minster, Poole and Bridport(Bridport to 1900 only).

About two-thirds of these surveys were made bymembers of our Society, most notably by Olive andJohn Damon and the East Dorset Group, but also bythe West Dorset Group and the South Dorset Groupand a number of individual members, particularlyBrian Webber. About one-third of the surveys weremade by the Dorset FHS, mainly in east and centralDorset and the Poole area. John Damon and the EastDorset Group have prepared a database of our ‘two-thirds’, which is available for search, together withpaper copies, at our Family History Centre inShefborne. John Damon has tried, but so far failed, toput the database online throughwww.findmypast.com. Our Executive Committee arecurrently making representations to the Federation ofFamily History Societies about our difficulties withwww.findmypast.com to try to get this databaseonline eventually. There are paper and computer filecopies at the Family History Centre of all the ‘one-third’ of compilations made by the Dorset FHS. TheDorset History Centre in Dorchester also holds a goodcollection of paper copies of surveys of all compilers.

Some civil cemeteries have not yet been surveyed,and I have not heard of any plans to embark onthem, namely for Weymouth, Dorchester, Lyme Regis,Swanage and Blandford Forum. Incidentally JohnDamon has recently moved from Wimborne toHermitage, Dorset.

SOMERSETIn Somerset we have made good progress, thoughwith much still to do, both for surveys and databasecompilation. There are two databases, but for a ratherunfortunate reason. These are an original database,now superceded, and a new one being compiled byDelia Horsfall. In the latter stages of Peter Abbott’scompilation of the original database, a lot of faultyinputting of material was occurring, which wascorrupting the value of the database and sendingsearchers ‘off the rails’. Delia sensibly decided to start anew database, incorporating all the good qualitymaterial of the original one and newly inputting allthe faulty ones. This took several years to complete,but we are now forging ahead with new material. The‘old’ database is still on www.findmypast.com forwhat it is worth, but this must be used with caution.The new database is not online and is only availableat our Family History Centre.

Solid coverage of MIs in C of E churches andchurchyards, nonconformist and civil cemeteries are onDelia’s database roughly southwards and eastwards ofan imaginary line between Bridgwater, Taunton andWellington to the Devon, Dorset and Wiltshire bordersand up to the Mendips; also some places beyondWellington as far west as Brompton Regis andBrushford on the south side of the Brendons, withMinehead, Porlock, Selworthy, Hawkridge andSimonsbath in the Exmoor area.

Back in the 1980s and 1990s both the Mid-Somersetand Yeovil Groups were much involved in surveys, ledby Thelma Munckton, Pat Cotton and Pat Jenkins inthe Mid-Somerset Group and myself in the YeovilGroup, whilst the Taunton Group did Pitminster,Langport and Staplegrove, and more recently, theFrome Group did Rodden, Great Elm and BucklandDinham. Sue Simpson copied Vallis Road non-conformist cemetery, Frome, and I understand hassince gone on to copying Holy Trinity, Frome, whilstDelia Horsfall and Diana Ingram did Christchurch,Frome a couple of years ago. I did St John the Baptist,Frome, back in 2009, ‘pour encourager les autres’,which it has succeeded in doing! Thelma Munckton,Pat Cotton and Pat Jenkins have since ‘joined theirancestors’ - an apt term, I think, for family historianswho have died!

I found myself going on to filling in all the parisheswhich other people hadn’t done, but have nowreached a stage, beyond Taunton and Bridgwater,where there is not much else I can do on day tripswithin a reasonable distance of my home nearSherborne. I am currently copying at Wilton, BishopsHull, Cannington, Lydeard St Lawrence and CombeFlorey, with plans to do Bishops Lydeard, Stogurseyand Over Stowey in 2016. I shall then stop and helpDelia with her database.

However, about ten years ago Ann Leigh started tocopy memorials around the Quantocks with herhusband, Chris, from their holiday cottage atBicknoller, and have so far completed 18 parishes asfar west as Dunster and as far east as Otterhampton.


Monumental Inscriptions Projects

Members of the East Dorset group under the instruction of Dr H Leslie White recording in Cranborne churchyard in 1978 GT v3.4 p52

Eleven years ago I was carrying outsome family research at Bryanstonin Dorset where my husband’smaternal great-grandfather hadserved as huntsman to LordPORTMAN for many years. Hisname was Joe MOSS and his wifewas Agnes. They were living atShothole. I was able to compile agreat deal of information andsome photographs of the placeswhere this couple had lived. Then Idiscovered that a great mysterysurrounded the events of 1897-98concerning Agnes.

She was incarceratedsomewhere locally in May 1897having been accused and foundguilty, without any form of trial, ofstealing her husband’s savings. Itseems that Joe Moss had savingsof £150 in a cash box which hekept in a cupboard in a little roomnext to the dining room. This boxwas found empty in a tank nearthe house after a fire had brokenout in a shed behind the Moss’shouse. It had chisel marks wherethe lock had been, so had been

forced open. The Blandford andBryanston fire engines attendedand soon extinguished the flamesin the shed. Eight policemenattended after the theft wasdiscovered and two carpenters whohad been working at the housewere accused and arrested. They‘smarted’ at the accusation andwere cleared. The strangest factwas that on the day that themoney went missing Joe Moss,walking with his son, ‘suddenly’remembered that the cash box wasunlocked. It seems that withoutany delay Agnes was labelled theguilty part, with very littleevidence. This was known locally as‘The Shothole Mystery’

Joe Moss was considered a bitof a rogue by Lord Portman’ssteward, who had already dealtwith him on a number of occasionsabout mismanagement of milk forthe hounds, which seemedexcessive, and the number ofchickens and ducks which he kept.It seems that Joe had a thrivingside-line in selling milk and eggs.

This may explain how he managedto accumulate savings of £150!

On 27 May 1897 Joe Moss tookhis wife to Spetisbury to travel bytrain to …. ? Agnes is recorded assaying she didn’t know whether shewas going to a prison or a lunaticasylum. On 4 September 1898Agnes was present at BryanstonChurch for the Harvest Festival. Shehad spent a year away. Manypeople felt that she had beenunfairly treated and that, in fact, itwas her husband who had stolenhis own money by forcing open thecash box with one of thecarpenter’s chisels. Joe Moss wasgiven £15 by Lord Portman inconsideration of his ‘loss’.

I have been unable to locate anyreferences to Agnes Moss attendingCourt, what her sentence was, orwhere she was placed for a year.

Ginny Goodall“The Firs”, Three Gates, Leigh

Sherborne, Dorset DT9 [email protected]

They have recently retired to Bicknoller from theirformer home in Birmingham, and are continuing withrenewed energy, with plans to do lots of copying inExmoor, although they are currently completing StDecumans, Watchet and West Bagborough.

By agreement with the Bristol and Avon FHS wehave not done surveys north of the Mendips, as thatsociety recorded memorials in all churches andchurchyards in the former county of Avon (now twonorth Somerset unitary authorities) as long ago as the1970s to 1990s. However our database does includesome north Somerset material, such as Victorian andEdwardian copies at the Somerset Heritage Centre,including many memorials in the vicinity of Churchill justeast of Weston-super-Mare, copied by Mr Baker ofMere, Wilts c1898-1904. His survey of 93 memorials inWinscombe churchyard of 1901 appears to be complete.These early copies are useful, as they include manymemorials which have long since disappeared, evenbefore the Bristol and Avon FHS made their surveythere. Some parishioners in recent years, quite unawarethat the Bristol and Avon FHS have already surveyedtheir parishes, have made new surveys, which they havepublished and been most kind and sent us copies. Wehave put these on our database, for Backwell,Congresbury, Nailsea, Saltford and South Stoke. DeliaHorsfall herself has resurveyed Freshford and Wellow,whilst I did the same for Loxton in 2009, mainly toincorporate Mr. Baker’s copies of 1900.

Material for about 300 parishes are on Delia’sdatabase, out of the 487 parishes in the historiccounty of Somerset. A further 20 parishes I havecopied in the past five years have not yet been put

onto the database, for places around Burnham,Bridgwater, Taunton and Milverton. All Ann Leigh’scompilations around the Quantocks also await placingon the database.

Wiveliscombe MIs were copied by Susan MariaFarrington and published in her book Sancti Stones(2001). I think she will eventually be agreeable to usplacing her material on our database, but she has askedus not to do so at the moment, until remaining stocksof her book have been sold, which is not unreasonable.

Carhampton MIs were copied in 1986, but are onlyavailable at the Somerset Heritage Centre, in D/P/car23/11-16. A volunteer is needed there to input theseonto our database forms.

I do not intend to copy memorials in the two civilcemeteries at Taunton, really too large a job for me onmy own some distance from my home. I hope someothers will get on to them eventually. The 1850 to1920 section of the larger Taunton Cemetery hasalready, some years ago, had many of its memorialscleared away, no doubt unrecorded, when it wasturned into a public park. However I did copymemorials at Wellington Cemetery and St John’sCemetery at Bridgwater, whilst Miles Kerr-Peterson and‘The Friends of Wembdon Road Cemetery’ haverecently completed the copying of Wembdon RoadCemetery, Bridgwater, which they have placed on thewebsite www.bridgwatercemeteries.org.uk.

Mervyn MedlycottThe Manor House,

Sandford OrcasSherborne, Dorset DT9 4SB


The Shothole mystery

People, Places and ProblemsMembers’ Research Interests

We encourage mutual help between members by providing opportunities to share research interests. Please send enquiries to the The Editor, SDFHS, PO Box 4502, Sherborne, Dorset DT9 6YL, [email protected]

Golda M. Packer, 8B Avonmore Avenue, TrinityGardens, 5068 South Australia has previously sent aPPP enquiry (GT vol 40.2, p52) about her 2x great-grandmother Mary Rawes BAKER (MRB). Goldawanted to know if MRB had any siblings, and in theabsence of any response or other information hasconcluded that she probably did not. This wasreinforced following a WAKE family reunion in April2015, when Golda met a fellow researcher who hadreached the same conclusion.

Golda has a further query about a John Russ Bakerwho is mentioned in the will of Edward Russ Baker(ERB). ERB was the son of Edmund and Isabella (néeTOTTLE) and married Sophia CRAD(D)OCK on 20 April1786 at Holton in Somerset. ERB died on 18September 1796 at Pitcombe. In his will he lefteverything to his two young sons, John Russ Bakerand James Baker. If they died as minors all was to goto his wife Sophia and at her death to his brotherJohn Russ Baker. Custodians of his two sons werefriends Samuel BURGE of Dimmer and John RUSS ofClanville, Castle Cary. Sophia was executrix. Golda hasthe following information about a John Russ Baker,and wants to know if he is the child mentioned inthe will. Golda’s John Russ Baker was baptised on 15March 1787 at Holton, the son of Edward [Russ] andSophia Baker. This JRB married Mary RAWES on 30October 1806 in Guernsey. He died on 21 May 1858 inClanville and was buried in Castle Cary leaving no will.Their child MRB was born in Castle Cary in 1809 andmarried Cornelius Wake on 30 June 1832 inWinchester, Hampshire. Their eldest child was AnnaMaria Craddock Wake, born c1832 who died ofmeasles aged 13 in 1846 in Barrow, Somerset.

Frances Houghton, 2 Beanhill Crescent, Alveston,Bristol, BS35 3JG [email protected] emailed:

Please can anyone tell me what became of mygrandfather’s sisters, Emily Louisa (born 1891)and Elizabeth (born 1893) NORMAN? They lived withtheir parents, William and Mary Ann and olderbrothers Henry and Willie at Plud Farm, Stringston,Somerset until their mother’s death in 1908. Theirfather died in 1911. Brother Henry went to MountainAsh, Glamorgan and worked in the mines. He marriedthere in 1921 and died there in 1925, just before hisdaughter was born. Brother Willie (my grandfather)moved to London and joined the MetropolitanPolice. He did not keep in touch with his sisters afterhis marriage in 1911. However, on visiting Plud Farm in1959 my parents were told that shortly before theirvisit there had been two other visitors, an elderly ladyand her daughter. That lady said she had lived thereyears ago and wanted to see her childhood home justonce more. My grandfather seemed sure it was hissister Elizabeth. I look forward to exchanginginformation with someone.

Muriel Parkinson, Apple Barn, Great Street, Norton-sub-Hamdon, Somerset, TA14 6SG;[email protected] emailed: I live inNorton-sub-Hamdon. In the vestry of St Mary the

Virgin there is a marble memorial to GeorgeYEATMAN (GY), who died on 7 November 1823 in hiseightieth year. It was erected by the pupils of theboarding school he kept in the Parish. No one in thevillage knows who GY was. He must have been awell-respected person to have such a memorial.Although his death and burial is in our parish recordsI can’t find his grave. The map of the graveyard hasan X where perhaps the burial took place. In late1890 there was a fire in the tower, all the timberswere burnt and the bells fell down. The marblememorial appears undamaged but has been put inthe vestry high up on the wall and now part iscovered by some cupboards.

The Somerset Heritage Centre has no record of GYbeing appointed as a teacher in Norton-sub-Hamdon.In his will, dated 1824, he left £30 to HannahMILFORD of Thorverton, Devon, spinster and theresidue of £450 to Joan BIDDLECOMBE, spinster,presumably housekeepers. Witnesses were Tho[?]White ADAMS, Charles COX and Mary GREENHAM.The latter two names are still known in our village.

I found in the London Apprenticeship Abstracts,1442 - 1850 a record of GY having an apprentice,Robert BIDDLECOMB; the transcription reads:

Biddlecomb Robert son of Joseph ‘Thorncombe’ nearChard, Somerset, ‘linman’ to George Yeatman, 6 Octo1775, Vintners’ Company; Birth County Somerset.

I think GY was baptised in Mosterton, Dorset on30 September 1744. Is there any chance anyone hasheard of him and can add something to the story?How or is he connected to the Vintners’ Company ifhe was a teacher?

Muriel was previously chairman of Norton-sub-Hamdon History Society (now closed)

Andrew Plaster, 11 Stuart Street, Redfield, Bristol,BS5 9QG [email protected];

James COX married Ann CARPENTER in 1755 atKeynsham, Somerset and they first lived in QueenCharlton and later in Keynsham. He was baptised in1729 at an Independent chapel in the hamlet ofWhitley Batts, which is on the A37 road betweenPensford and Chelwood. His siblings were alsobaptised there, but the youngest George atFarmborough in 1739. I would like to haveinformation about the history of the chapel. I do notknow whether it was demolished or converted to adwelling. I noted that Chapel Farm exists in thathamlet and is now a rehabilitation centre for dogs.Their parents were John and Elizabeth Cox (néeCOLLINS) of ‘Houndstreet’ (sic. Hunstrete) in theparish of Marksbury. They were married at Stowey in1725 and she was of Marksbury. John was baptised in1696 at Farmborough. I traced his ancestral lineageback to around 1576 - still of Farmborough. EdmundRack’s Survey of Somerset (1781-87) states, ‘handsometomb is erected to the memory of the Cox family ofthis parish…’. I wonder if that one was the samefamily. I shall find out, when I go to there next.



This year we commemorate thecentenary of the GallipoliPeninsular campaign. The landbattles fought on three fronts byBritish, Australian, New Zealandand French troops, began afternaval action, on 25 April 1915, aday now recognized each year asAnzac Day. The operation wascalled off in November 1915 and bythe middle of January 1916, acomplete evacuation had takenplace, leaving only the numerousgraves of those soldiers who hadmade the supreme sacrifice. Thefollowing newspaper extractshonour the memory of our braveancestors who fought in the brutalactions in the Dardanelles.

BATH CHRONICLE and WESTERN GAZETTE Saturday 19 June 1915Private NETLEY killed in Turkey: MrErnest Netley of the Ram Brewery,Widcombe, Bath, has just receivednews of the death of his brother,Private W H Netley of the NewZealand contingent from woundsreceived in action at Gallipoli onMay 8th. Pte Netley was aBathonian, 31 years of age andhad been in New Zealand forabout eight years. He joined theAuckland Battalion during theautumn and proceeded directly toEgypt with the Expeditionary Force.He was a nephew of Mrs CHOLLOWAY of Cheap Street,Frome, who has at present ninenephews serving at the Front.

TAUNTON COURIER and WESTERN ADVERTISERWednesday 29 September 1915TIDINGS WANTED of SOLDIERSREPORTED ‘MISSING.’The proprietors of this newspaperhave much pleasure in announcingthat they will, during the War,insert, gratuitously, the names ofthose who have gone to the Frontand are ‘Missing’ and inviteinformation or news about them,which must in the first instance beaddressed to the Editor of thispaper.BEDWELL, Pte T C, 5th Dorset Regt,

Missing in Gallipoli, of MoorCottage, Chickerell, Weymouth.BEDWELL, Pte F, No 10196 D Comp.5th Dorsets, Missing 21 August inGallipoli, of Buckland Ripers. HARVEY, Pte F J, 5th Dorsets,Missing in Gallipoli, of Ansty,Dorset.HERRIDGE, Pte C H, No 12574, BComp. 11th Division, 5th Dorsets,Missing 21 August in Gallipoli.PASS, Captain A D, 1st DorsetYeomanry, Wounded 21 August,Hill 70: Sulva Bay: now Missing.

WESTERN GAZETTEFriday 1 October 1915POOLE: War Items: CaptainEdmund C CARVER, formerly incommand at the Naval Base, Poole,is reported as having beenwounded in action in theDardanelles. This report was in theList of Casualties issued by theAdmiralty on Friday last.

The death in action at theDardanelles is announced of MrHarry Love BALSTON, who wasserving with the Australian forces.The deceased who was a son ofthe late Mr Alfred Balston (ownerof the Poole Twine Mills and twiceMayor of the ancient borough),and a brother of Mrs CharlesCARTER and Mrs Owen Carter, wasabout 48 years of age and hademigrated to Australia abouttwenty-five years ago.

Private John James GOULD ofthe 5th Dorsets with the BritishMediterranean Forces, whose deathin action in Gallipoli on August 7this reported, was the son of Mr andMrs W H Gould of Blue Boar Lane,Poole. He was only 19 years of ageand was formerly employed atCarters Pottery. On the outbreak ofwar he joined the 5th Dorsets. Anephew of the well known localfootballer, Charlie Gould, youngGould was a prominent player inthe Carter’s Potteries FC. Hisbrother, Gunner W H Gould isserving with the RFA, in Francewhile another brother is employedin making ammunition.

BATH CHRONICLE and WESTERN GAZETTESaturday 2 October 1915Sapper A C CALVERT: The eldestson of Mr and Mrs C J Calvert of 1Belgrave Villas, Bath, has given hislife for his Country at theDardanelles where so many gallantBritishers have fallen. Sapper AlanCuthbert Calvert was educated at

King Edward’s School, Bath, and onleaving was articled to Mr M AGREEN, architect of Prince’sBuildings. From this office heobtained an appointment atNuneaton and proceeded from theMidland to become an assistant toan architect at Llanelly. He wasthere when War broke out andimmediately enlisted in the 1stWelsh Field Company, RoyalEngineers. The unit went to theDardanelles early in August and hisparents received several interestingand cheerful letters from their sondescribing the fighting on theGallipoli Peninsular. The last letterwas dated 5th of September, threedays before he was killed in action.Mr Calvert received the sad newson Friday in the form of atelegram. Deceased was 24 years ofage. Another of Mr Calvert’s sons,Trooper Maurice J Calvert of theNorth Somerset Yeomanry whomet with a serious accident inBowood Park, is quite recoveredand left that Camp with the 2ndRegiment this week. Muchsympathy is felt with Mr and MrsCalvert in their bereavement.

NOTE: Sapper Calvert’s father,Mr Charles James Calvert, died inNovember 1919 aged 67 after aheart attack. An obituary appearedin The Bath Chronicle for Saturday15 November 1919.

WESTERN GAZETTEFriday 15 October 1915ROLL of HONOUR: THORNE: Diedof Wounds received at Gallipoli,Lance-Corporal W C Thorne, (5thService Battalion, Royal Irish), ofLayton Lane, Shaftesbury, Dorset.

TAUNTON COURIER and WESTERN ADVERTISERWednesday 24 November 1915

ROLL ofHONOUR:Lieutenant JHASLOCK(pictured)KILLED INACTION.

Lt J Haslock,the son of the

late Mr J B Haslock of Crewkerne,has died on a Hospital ship fromwounds received in Gallipoli. LtHaslock, who joined theGloucestershire Regiment as aprivate, rapidly rose and was finallygazetted to a Lieutenancy.

Teresa W illiams

WHAT THE

PAPE

RS SAID


Puddletown is ThomasHARDY’s Weatherbury inFar from the Madding Crowd.If you’ve seen the latest filmversion of that splendidbook, bear in mind that the‘Weatherbury’ scenes wereactually shot in Sherborne.Puddletown is in the land ofPiddles and Puddles, just afew miles from Dorchester. Itis a big village of about 1500people; indeed, once it was

a small market town. It probably grew up around thejunction of two major routes - the road going westtowards Dorchester and the road going north-east toBlandford and Shaftesbury. In recent years the A35 hasbeen considerably improved and now by-passes thevillage.

The village is roughly square in shape, with thechurch at its centre. The church of St Mary the Virginis a delight, having been largely overlooked by theVictorian restorers. When you open the door, thesmell of old wood hits you. It is still furnished withbox pews, each with its own door and peg to hangyour hat and coat on. You were snug and private inthere, and could be seen only by the vicar preachingfrom the three-decker pulpit or by the musicians inthe west gallery. The interior was re-fitted between1634 and 1637 and has been largely untouched since.Look round and reflect that this is what a villagechurch would have looked like nearly 400 years ago.

There are monuments aplenty for the ancestor-seeker to study - but only if you are descended fromthe nobility or gentry. Big Houses abound hereabouts- Athelhampton and Waterston were both seats of theMARTIN (or MARTYN) family and Ilsington House

belonged to the Earls of Orford. In the AthelhamptonChapel there are brasses and effigies of variousMartins. Another name you will see frequently isBRYMER. John Brymer was a significant figure inPuddletown history. He bought the Manor (IlsingtonHouse and most of the village) from the Earl of Orfordin 1861. The 4th Earl of Orford was a member of theWALPOLE family. They were absentee landlords, theirseat being in Norfolk. It was John Brymer who tidiedup the village. Other names I spotted were ALNER,BRUNE, CUNNINGHAM, HELPS and HOOTON. If youseek a trace of more humble ancestors, climb thesteep stair to the west gallery and study the namescarved deeply into the ledge, the work of boredsingers with sharp pen-knives. It is said that membersof Thomas Hardy’s family have recorded their presencehere - his grandfather was a member of the churchband. The War Memorials are in the church. It wouldbe easy to spend the rest of the day exploring thechurch but there is a lot more to see.

Just outside the churchyard, behind a high wall, isthe imposing pile of the The Old Vicarage andDawnay House. The Old Vicarage dates from the mid1500s and Dawnay House, attached to it, was anextension to the vicarage added by the Hon. HenryDAWNAY, vicar from 1722 to 1754. Not for the firsttime, you will be amazed at the lordly style in which18th century vicars lived. Dr Dawnay, however, has leftrecords of his ministry - the people he visited etc. Ithink that these are available in the Dorset HistoryCentre in Dorchester.

At right angles to Dawnay House are gates and adrive leading to what is now described as The OldManor (was there ever such an overworked name).This used to be Ilsington House - it is now, I believe, acare home. The Brymer family, who bought the estatefrom the Walpole family in 1861, have left their markall over Puddletown - literally. Many of the houses, thevillage school and the former Reading Room were builtin a sort of mock-gothic style - you will see shields onthem bearing the initials of the Brymers. Having saidthat, the village school (in the High Street) is aparticularly handsome building; it has been describedas ‘a good, unspoiled example of a Victorian villageschool.’ I noted, with certain sadness, that it’s presentlyup for sale. The terrace of houses opposite the villageshop is another good example of Brymer-gothic.

The most photographed building in Puddletownmust be Stephens’ shop, now called Troy House, inThe Square. With its thatch, its pillars and its Venetianwindow it is unique. Whether the Stephens in the oldname refers to the family of Humphrey STEPHENS, Ido not know. He was a Methodist, who built a chapel

Puddletown

Puddletown village sign

Puddletown - former schoolSt Mary the Virgin, church interiorCopyright Maigheach-gheal and licensed for reuse

under this Creative Commons Licence


just outside Brymer land - Brymer clearly did not likeDissenters. Another interesting house in that part ofthe village is Tudor Cottage, in Mill St. With its flintand stone banding, mullioned windows and thatchedroof, it bears the date 1573. It was the home of thewell-known Dorset writer and broadcaster RalphWIGHTMAN. It appears to be the oldest house in thevillage (bar, maybe, bits of the Old Vicarage) but whoknows what may be lurking under some of thoserebuilt, re-roofed, restored cottages. Puddletown wasalso home to the ANTELL and SPARKS families, bothrelated to Thomas Hardy. Tryphena (there’s a namefew of us have on our family trees) Sparks was Hardy’scousin, a young woman who had a considerableinfluence on him.

Follow MillStreet untilyou reach theminiaturethree-archbridge overthe RiverPiddle. Herethe water issparkling clearand inchesdeep. Turn leftand follow theriver until you

reach Blandford Road. This part of the village is calledThe Moor and in Rev Dawnay’s time it was the site of

the children’s poorhouse - he records it asaccommodating 22 children. In looking at the ruralidyll you see now, you can forget just how hard lifewas - Hardy recalls a shepherd boy who starved todeath; the autopsy revealed just a few scraps of turnipin his stomach.

Once, the village had six pubs. Today The Moor isthe location of Puddletown’s only remaining pub - theBlue Vinny. Though of no great age, it is warm andwelcoming and serves good food and beer. Blue Vinnyis a Dorset cheese, made from unpasteurised milk andI was able to buy a piece at Puddletown’s Post Office

Puddletown hit the headlines in 976, when KingEdward the Martyr held his Council Meeting (a sort ofSaxon Cabinet) here. At Domesday (1086) it was a bigvillage of maybe 200 to 300 people. Then it lapsedinto the long torpor of the Middle Ages, about whichwe know little. By 1595, the Martyns had gone - themale line died out, leaving four daughters, none ofwhom wanted to live in Athelhampton. In allprobability the village changed little in the 200-plusyears from the refurbishing of the church in the 1630sto the one Brymer bought and remodelled in 1861.But now it is tidy and prosperous, with old cottagesrenovated and much new housing filling in the gaps.Ralph Wightman wrote, back in 1965, that ‘only theelderly have any roots in the place’, to which he adds;‘but this is not necessarily a bad thing’. Well, it’s apoint of view.

Mike [email protected].

Troy House

This is an updated version of local-boyStephen Butt’s comparison of pictures ofthis famous seaside town in older times,matched with today’s views. A surprisingnumber of large Victorian houses surviveand other ‘replacements’ have matched

their predecessors well. But this is also amodern seaside family resort; a visitwould be enhanced by taking a copy ofthis book, helping you to spot buildingsyou might otherwise not notice.

Weston-super-Mare Through Time,Stephen Butt, 96 pages, fully illustrated,published by Amberley Publishing, Stroud,Glos. GL5 4EP.

Available from SDFHS Booksales:Over the counter £14.99; posted UK£16.95; OS £20.50

Book Reviews

Weston-Super-Mare Through Time

This is a superb A4 bound presentationof the history of this vital localindustry as it related to the Somersettown, which included factories andhome-workers. The surprise is thelarge number of quality photographs,very well-produced and complimentedby diagrams. Existing former buildingswhich now serve other uses arehighlighted, including Twinfordalongside Chinnock Brook, formerwarehouse Brook Barn now twodwellings, and Richard HAYWARD’sflax workshop adjacent to Old Beams,

where his father lived. There are shortfamily trees of the said Hayward, plusBIRD, MATHEWS AND HASLOCK andArthur HART and like all good familyhistory books, a name index.

Sailcloth, Webbing and Shirts; TheCrewkerne Textile Industry, RichardSims, A4 size, 166 pages, fullyillustrated, published 2015 by Studio 6Publishing, St Michael’s Trading Estate,Bridport DT6 3RR.

Available from SDFHS Booksales:Over the counter £15.00; posted UK£18.35; OS £23.60

Sailcloth, Webbing and Shirts; The Crewkerne Textiles Industry

Few if any researchers will not know of this definitiveseries so we are fortunate to have been presentedwith the latest edition which in some detail covers thehistories (with respective authors) of Catsash Hundred,Queen Camel, North Cadbury, South Cadbury,Compton Pauncefoot, Maperton, Sparkford, SuttonMontis and Weston Bampfylde, all by M C Siraut, whoalso shared authorship of North and South Barrowwith Robert Dunning, while sections on sites, buildingsand the built character included sections by MatthewBristow and Elizabeth Williamson. Within its 232 A4-size pages there are 94 illustrations and 15 maps, thelatter especially drawn by Cath D’Alton.

They are not big on ordinary people’s surnames butthey present enough detail of the environment thatour ancestors experienced. Taking a sketch map ofSouth Cadbury parish in 1842 as an example, the fields,woods and of course the ‘castle’ are shown, as are thelocations of the various buildings at the time. Church,inn, rectory, poorhouse are shown, plus dots to indicateother dwellings. That surely narrows down our search.

A magnificent piece of work, now available forvisitors to our Society Library at Sherborne. Thoseunable to visit may avail themselves of the Society’sresearch service. Details are recorded on the insideback cover of each edition of The Greenwood Tree.


The Victoria History of the Counties of England; Somerset. Vol XI Queen Camel and the Cadburys.

Charminster War MemorialSDFHS member Bob Manning ofCharminster near Dorchester hasproduced a neat, A5 glossy 96-pagebook which gives details of the 22 menfrom the village who died in WW1, thenine from WW2 and, something of abonus, the 10 whose names appear onthe nearby former Herrison Hospitalmemorial. Bob goes to tremendousdetail, an example being Private HerbertCharles CLARKE, who died in Palestineand is buried at Ramleh War Cemetery.There were several Clark(e) families atthe time and entries for this same family

seemed to be both with or without the‘e’. Even tracing a person with the firstname Luke has proved difficult. Aquality production, something of amodel for this type of publication.

They Are Remembered On TheCharminster War Memorial, Dorchester,Dorset, Bob Manning, 96 pages,illustrated, available from Bob Manning,21 Vicarage Lane, Charminster,Dorchester, DT2 9QFEmail: [email protected]

Book reviews by Colin Dean

If your membership of the Society expires at the end of 2015, you will find a subscription renewal letterenclosed with this mailing (printed on the reverse of the address insert).

At the Annual General Meeting on 19 September 2015, members approved the recommendation of theExecutive Committee that a discounted three-year subscription rate should be re-introduced, so you can noweither continue to renew your subscription on an annual basis, or renew for the next three years (expiring atthe end of 2018) at a reduced annual rate. The subscription rates are listed in the renewal letter.

We now have a number of ways you can pay your subscription:

• Sterling cash if you are able to call at our Family History Centre in person. Please do not send cashthrough the post;

• Sterling cheque payable on a UK bank - we regret that we are unable to accept personal cheques inother currencies;

• Credit/Debit card, by completing the form at the bottom of the letter. Your card details will be destroyedas soon as we have taken payment;

• Securely at our new online shop (link on the website: www.sdfhs.org) using PayPal - either with yourown PayPal account, if you have one, or by credit/debit card;

• Direct transfer to our bank account: Barclays Bank plc, Taunton Branch, Sort Code: 20 85 26. Accountname: The Somerset & Dorset Family History Society. Account No: 30817880.

If you pay using PayPal or by direct bank transfer, please ensure that your membershipnumber (next to your address on the mailing insert and letter) is quoted as well as your name.

We very much hope that you will wish to continue your membership of the Society and will look forwardto hearing from you.

Patricia SpencerMembership Secretary

[email protected]

Membership Subscriptions


There are four large houses in the parish. HarptreeCourt was probably built around 1745, although theearliest surviving deed dates from 1811. It was boughtby Earl WALDEGRAVE in 1804, who sold it to theGurneys in 1860. Frank Taylor, their butler, lived thereuntil 1873, when he sold it to W W KETTLEWELL. In1920, his son, Col H W Kettlewell sold it to Charles LHILL.

Mrs W W Kettlewell retired to Harptree Housewhen her husband died. It once belonged to a MrHOOPER, one of whose sons was Dr William Hooper,the father of the Church Missionary Society. There is atablet in the church to his memory. Eastwood Manorwas built by Charles KEMBLE in 1874 of banker stone;it has been owned since then by MARDONs,LAMBERTs, WARDELL-YERBURGHs and ROBINSONs,and was used as a nursing home until 1994.Summerleaze, in Townsend, was a secondary privateschool for boys for 40 years, but was closed justbefore the First World War. It is now a private house.

Right in the centre of the village, with the school,theatre and shops in close proximity, is the villageclock, which was a gift of Mr WW Kettlewell, and waserected in 1897 to commemorate the Diamond Jubileeof Queen Victoria. The Clock Tower has its inscriptionsHeaven’s Light our Guide and Time Flies Don’t Delay.The Theatre (or it may be called village club) was builtby the Kettlewells in 1889, and managed by the Rectorand Church Council who rented it from the owners forvillage activities. In September 1945, Col Kettlewelloffered to sell the Theatre to the village for £1,200.The original Co-operative Stores were started in 1899by the Kettlewells, when they found that people weregetting into debt to the local shopkeepers. Thepremises were afterwards purchased by theKettlewells, and became the property of the members.At one time the Co-op employed eight people, withtwo vans touring the valley doing deliveries. The Co-op was closed in 1972, and it became the ‘Village

Stores’, now closed a few years ago. Its replacement, acommunity shop, is based in the Theatre building.

The village school was founded by John Newton in1653. The school records start in 1893, when 113children were taught in two small rooms. The buildingwas an old converted cottage then, although a newroom had been built on in 1807. A new classroom wasbuilt in 1899 for 40 children and an infant room in 1901,with a cloakroom, to increase the capacity to 140. Fromthe school records the following entries can be found:

June 1894 - Have had all the slates scrubbed and relinedby the boys of the 1st classOctober 1894 - School was closed last week for potato picking.November 1894 - Owing to excessive floods school closed3 half-days this week. March 1897 - Children used paper in upper standards forthe first time. August 1901 - New porch built by W.W. Kettlewell. March 1904 - Slates abolished, and children admitted toschool at 3 years of age. September 1939 - Arrival of evacuees from Bristol with 2masters. September 1948 - The school became an under 11, theseniors going to Bishop Sutton.

The school still receives money from the PlumleyCharity, which was set up in 1615 by William PLUMLEY,Gent, who left all his land in Glastonbury and Catcottfor the use of the poor in East Harptree. In 1911 partof the money was used to set up the Trust for theschool, Plumley’s Educational Foundation, which stillbenefits the children. A plaque was recently erectedon the front wall, and it says ‘350 years of Learningand generations of memories A.D. 2003’.

Around 1870 there were six inns in the parish: theWaldegrave Arms (between the church and theschool), The Castle of Comfort (in the south of theparish on the Mendips), The Lilacs, Live and Let Live,and two more at Proud Cross and in Middle Street.Only the first two remain.

The churchyard is higher than the fields aroundowing to successive burials. The church path is madeof old tombstone slabs laid upside down. Behind thechurch there are four interesting gravestones, theirinscriptions include the following:(1) Charlotte, the wife of Rev DAVIDSON, died in 1841,

the daughter of T G BRAMSTON Esq of Skreens, Essex, (2) John Rogers LAWRENCE, Senior Captain in the

Honourable East India Company’s Naval Service,died at South Widcombe in 1854, aged 84

East Harptree - part 2

Harptree Court

East Harptree village school


(3) William HOOPER Lieut RN died in 1861, aged 62,third son of John Hooper Esq of Hendford House,Yeovil, Somerset, and Elizabeth, the youngestdaughter of Thomas Gardiner Bramston ofSkreens, Essex

(4) Frances Isabella EDWARDS, youngest daughter ofBrigadier General Edwards, died in 1832, aged 24.Her sister Elizabeth Saunderson TATE, wife of CaptW A Tate of HEIC Service, died in 1836, aged 36,also another sister Mary Anne RIDDELL, relict oflate Capt A N Riddell, died in 1839, aged 37. A former Catholic chapel, dedicated to St Michael,

is situated to the north of Townsend, just pastSummerleaze. Services are now held at West HarptreeParish Church. A Methodist chapel, on the roadtowards West Harptree, is now converted to dwellinghouses called ‘Chapel House’ and still bears aninscription ‘United Methodist Church’ on its front wall.

A number of accounts of life in the parish havebeen written in the last 100 years. In 1927, Mrs W.Kettlewell of Harptree Court published a small bookentitled Trinkum Trinkums, which describes life in thevillage through her observations from 1875 to 1927. In1953 the Women’s Institute produced for a villagehistory competition to celebrate the Queen’scoronation a History of East Harptree, which containsmany observations of contemporary village life. JonBudd compiled for the millennium East Harptree, Times

Remembered Times Forgotten. Ian S Bishop recentlypublished Around Harptree, featuring dozens of rarely-seen photos of the bygone area.

The village is now a very pleasant and affluentcommunity, with many of the old cottages and homescomfortably converted. Agriculture and mining forlead and calamine were once the mainstay of EastHarptree: the whole village is honeycombed with oldmine workings.

Holdings at Somerset Heritage Centre in Tauntonfor the parish of East Harptree include the parishregister dating from 1663; Bishop’s Transcripts, from1597 but with gaps; Churchwardens Accounts (1728-1919); Overseers Account Book (1728-1812); and VestryMinute Books (1851-1922).

Andrew [email protected]

Andrew Plaster, the Somerset Spotlight series co-ordinator, would particularly like to receive articles forour series. Such articles can feature a history of theparish including historical connections and events inthe parish, notable residents, your family historysituated in the parish etc. This would be of particularinterest to our out-of-county and overseas members.Articles for this series should be emailed [email protected]

Frome Group ClosingIt is with regret thatwe report that theFrome group will beclosing at the end ofthis year and theCommittee will bedissolving the group inits present form. Anumber of meetingshave been held askingfor people to comeforward to take on therunning of the groupbut without success.Among the reasons forclosing the group wasthe lack of supportfrom Society memberslocally. A small informal group may continueconcentrating on the Frome area, but this dependsentirely on the support from the present group. TheFrome group was formed in 2004.

Gerry Burdall

East Dorset Group NewsRob Curtis returned in June to talk on Turnpikes andCoaching Days. Rob divided his talk into four parts:The history, forms of construction and development ofroads from pre-Roman times to the turnpike era; thedifferent forms of travel and the developments andimprovement of the wagons and coaches; CoachingInns; and the end of the turnpike and stagecoach erawith the coming of the railways in the 19th century.

Rob described drovers tracks, mainly used to moveanimals, Roman Roads and then the turnpike era. Hedealt with the crude forms of road construction andsurfacing and the roles of Telford and Macadam. Theresponsibility for upkeep of roads started with churchesand monasteries, then parishes from 1555, followed bythe turnpikes and finally local authorities from 1888.

The first Turnpike Act was in 1663; the first inDorset was 1753 with a length of the road whichbecame the A30. Duties to provide milestones wereimposed on turnpikes and surviving examples ofmilestones were shown. We learnt of the multitude ofcharging systems and common exemptions such asfoot passengers, funerals and soldiers. Theunpopularity of tolls and the ensuing problems ofdisputes and damage to gates and toll houses wereemphasised as the turnpike movement grew apace inthe 18th century. By 1770 there were over 500Turnpikes, primarily on lengths of road which still formpart of the country’s arterial road system. Many werenot a financial success and mortgaging of future tollswas common. The last turnpike road was created in1857 and the trusts had disappeared by the 1880s,largely as a result of competition from railways. Thewheel has now turned full circle however with theadvent of toll roads on the motorways.

Rob emphasised the increasing role (and eventuallystaggering numbers) of horses involved. We learned ofthe role and practices of Stage and Mail coaches toreduce journey times and comply with rigoroustimetables. Despite advances in construction, travel bycoach always remained a very uncomfortable,exhausting and dangerous experience, including thepossibility of meeting the odd highwayman.

Rob concluded his talk by referring to the threeturnpike trusts affecting Wimborne. These were

Frome group’s original programme of meetings:

GT v29.4, November 2004, p151

Group News

Puddletown and Wimborne, Blandford and Wimborneand Poole (Poole, Wimborne and Cranborne). Severalmembers had ancestral links with aspects raised in thetalk. The Treasurer for example had links with the mailcoaches in Bath, and the Chairman claimed a toll-collector who occupied the toll house he showed onthe old wooden bridge across the Thames at Putney.

In July Sue Thornton-Grimes presented Anintroduction to one-name studies. Sue is a member ofthe Guild of One-Named Studies (GOONS) and is theGuild’s Regional Representative. She outlined thehistory of the Guild, which was founded in 1979 as anoffshoot of the FFHS. The Guild became a registeredcharity in 1989 with its principal object being toadvance one-name studies. To qualify for registering aone-name study one needs to have a significant bodyof data relating to the surname and its variants. Aone-name study is a project researching all occurrencesof a surname, as opposed to studies of multiplesurnames such as a pedigree or descendancy. Someone-name members restrict their researchgeographically, but to register a surname a membermust commit to researching on a world-wide basis.Researchers also study the etymology and derivationof the surname. Some Guild members combine theirresearch with a DNA project. and make use of onlinenetworking services such as Facebook.

Membership of the Guild is open to anyoneinterested in one-name studies; registration of asurname is not a condition of membership.The Register of One-Name Studies is publishedannually and the Guild’s magazine, the Journal of One-Name Studies, is published quarterly.

Sue emphasised the benefits of joining the Guildwhich include: An annual conference; one-dayseminars held nationally and regionally; projects; anaward-winning website at www.one-name.org ;advice on setting up your own website with publicityon the Guild’s website; an on-line mailing list and theGuild’s Rootsweb; advice on organising a one-namegathering and many other useful handouts.

The Guild also runs a marriage index; a Guild‘marriage challenge’ linking the BMD indexes to theirrelated parish register entries; a probate index searchcontaining references in wills to persons with surnamesnot the subject of any one-name study and aninscription index. There is also an ‘adopt a localnewspaper’ project where an individual member agreesto research a local newspaper and index names found.To meet the concern of members that compilations arelost when researchers die, the Guild has created anelectronic repository for members’ one-name records.

At its foundation, the Guild had about 200members and now has slightly more than 2,600. TheRegister includes 8,400 surnames and variants.Members have come from over 30 countries: some3000 having lived in Britain; 400 in North America andCanada, 200 in Australia and New Zealand. Dorsetboasts some 45 members.

At the members’ evening in August, Every picturetells a story, members showed family photos.

Wendy BARNES’s father had originally been sent toIndia with the 7th Battalion of the HampshireRegiment. His unit was shown in transit on thedockside at Alexandria. He later saw action in

Mesopotamia and had kept a book recording hisexperiences which was now in Wendy’s possession.

Mary DUNFORD showed two photos of herhusband’s grandfather in uniform. On enlistment hehad been assigned to the Royal Sussex Regiment butwas later transferred to the Royal Engineers(Hampshire Division). Part of his war service had takenplace in Italy, something of a forgotten war zone inWW1. He was there assisting the Italian forces whowere then our Allies.

John BOYS’ father’s studies at Cambridge had beeninterrupted by service in WW1. He had spent almostthe entire war in a prisoner of war camp in Germany.John had a photo of his father seated among fellowprisoners, with a German guard.

Pat Hilbert has identified from a photo a medalwhich was awarded to a member of the DorsetRegiment killed on 21 August 1915 in the GallipoliCampaign. Pat‘s research has found civilian andmilitary records, including the War Diaries for the dateof the soldier’s death, and its commemoration on theCape Helles Memorial.

Linda Bunting had a photograph of her paternalgreat-grandmother Elizabeth STROHACKER and 5 ofher younger descendants. Linda described her researchinto the Germanic name: Strohacker had beenchanged to STOCKTON to overcome the anti-Germanfeeling during WW1

Chris DEANE had a photo including 7 people from3 earlier generations of his family, the oldest being his2x great-grandmother born in 1811. His second photoshowed two people in the 1930s, one an unnamedelderly lady standing in front of her house. Chris hadbeen able to confirm his provisional identification ofthe lady as his maternal great-grandmother EmmaWOODLEY by identifying the house on Google StreetScene.

Sheila SIMONS’ photograph was of her great-grandfather, born in 1860 in Malvern. He was shownin 1907 working on the building of the RotherhitheTunnel. Sheila’s research revealed the astonishingnumber of places to which he had had to move forwork, including Bombay.

John DAMON’s photo depicted an early laundryvan displaying the name Damon from Garfield Road,Bishops Waltham. The registration plate commencedAA. Despite extensive investigation the precise identityof the Damons involved in this laundry remains amystery, although John has traced various otherrelatives employed in the laundry business, including afamily who appeared in ships’ crew lists as laundryoperatives on liners travelling the world.

Alan BROWN’s photos were of two very differentsisters, Charlotte and Phyllis ORCHARD, his maternalgreat aunts. Charlotte with her husband hademigrated to Perth in Australia, but had always keptin touch with her family in England. But the familyhad lost all contact with Phyllis. Alan’s researchshowed that Phyllis had also emigrated to the samearea of Australia and was sure that this was known toCharlotte. Phyllis’s ‘disappearance’ was probably due tothe fact that as a widow she had formed a commonlaw marriage with a George Brown, who was alreadymarried.

Pat [email protected]


One of the sources of materialunique to the Society is itscollection of Dorset and Somersetpedigrees and family trees. In May2013 (GT vol 38.2, p35) wereported on recent donations,including Brenda Tunks collectionof documents relating to DorsetHARDY families, and in May 2014(GT v39.2, p48) Colin Dean’s Secretsfrom the Centre piece highlightedsome of the larger pedigrees heldon the open shelves in the FHC inSherborne. Volunteers DorothyBower and Wendy Lugg areresponsible for maintaining thepedigree database and dealingwith requests from members andother researchers. Here Dorothydescribes how the pedigreedatabase works, and illustrates howit is used to help researcherscontact others interested in thesame family lines.

Thanks to the generosity ofmembers and others, the Society isable to continuously add to itspedigree collection, and now has asearchable database containingalmost four thousand individualpedigrees and family trees. All newmembers are sent a form to submitto the Society with their personalpedigrees, some of which maycontain many hundred names and

details. Larger pedigrees, familytrees and personal family historybooks are held in the FHC library atSherborne. Information held in thisresource is used to assist researchersand volunteers, and a search can bemade for a small fee for bothmembers and non members.

For example, recently we wereable to help a member in Americawho is researching his DUCK familyin Somerset. The Society weregifted a pedigree by Ivan Duckwith details which date back to theearly 1600s. The family was at thattime in the Kingsbury Episcopi andEast Lambrook area. We were ableto make a connection to an entryin the early 1800s and have put thetwo members in contact.

Following a request fromAustralia by Donald Grey-Smith weassisted with his research into theBRYANT family from theBridgwater area, who emigrated inthe mid 1800s. Using informationfrom our pedigree databasetogether with additional researchwe were able to update Donald’srecords. He then revised andpublished his family history,entitled Boat People of the Empire,a copy of which we hold inSherborne. Earlier this year wereceived another request for helpconcerning the same Bryant family,

again from Australia. We were ableto put the researcher in touch withDonald via his publisher.

The collection of Somerset andDorset pedigrees is unique to ourSociety and we would greatlyappreciate additional pedigrees andfamily histories relating to the twocounties.

Dorothy Bower

John Royston Marshall was born atSouthmead Hospital in Bristol on21 December 1947 to parentsKatherine (who was known asKitty) and Tom (who was knownas Roy). Sadly John lost his fatherto leukaemia when John was onlynine years old and so he lived withhis mum, a tough lady, and herfather, Grandad Lillycrop. Johnwon a scholarship to attend QueenElizabeth Hospital School in Bristol,a private school for boys, and hismost vivid memory of his timethere was that he had to wearbright yellow socks! John was alsoa member of the Air Cadets as heharboured an ambition to becomea pilot; sadly, they thought hewould make a good navigatorinstead. This wasn’t good enoughfor John, so when he left school

he went to work for the Universityof Bristol as a computer operator,remaining there until the early 70swhen he went to workfor British Aerospaceas a computertechnician. It was whileworking there that hefirst became a tradeunionist joining APEX,the Association ofProfessional, Executive,Clerical and ComputerStaff, and rising tobecome their shopsteward at British Aerospace.

John joined the SDFHS in 2003and was a stalwart of the Society,holding several of the key roles. Hewas Vice-Chairman from 2006 to2008, when he took over asChairman, a post he held until

2012, with a break for ill-health. Hethen acted as Treasurer for a year.He was a regular contributor to

The Greenwood Tree, andspoke widely at regionalgroup meetings and in theCentre in Sherborne. Hisexperience over a widerange of interests wasvast; his knowledge ofaviation, railway, navaland military history, wasalways willingly shared. Hewas particularly interestedin photographic

interpretation. He will be sadlymissed by many members in theSociety.

John passed away peacefully on29 June 2015. He was 67 years old.Our sympathies go to John’s wifeMary, and their family.


John Marshall - an obituary

Pedigree and family tree collection

The larger pedigrees and familyhistories on the open shelves in the FHC


Research and Society NewsFrancis Frith CollectionImages of UK cities, townsand villages from the FrancisFrith Collection are nowavailable on ancestry. Thephotos are primarilytopographical - of towns, landmarks and landscapes.These include thousands of individual streets, churches,castles, landscapes, businesses, bridges, municipalbuildings and locations that have been important inindividuals’ lives.

Founded by Francis Frith in 1860, the companypublished over 300,000 photographs which were soldto tourists as souvenirs, and later as postcards. Frith isrecognised as one of the great pioneers ofphotography. He is best known today for the amazingarchive his company created. Today the Collection isfamous as an outstanding record of British towns andvillages over 110 years and provides a lot ofinformation about everyday life over that period. Thecompany continues to add to the archive and publishin the Frith tradition.

A quick search on Taunton produced 259 hits withdates between c1869-c1960, and Lyme Regis produced421 hits between 1890-1965

FreeREGMembers will be familiar with FreeBMD, the combinedefforts of volunteers to compile the firstcomprehensive index of the civil registration of births,marriages and deaths for England and Wales.FreeBMD is part of FreeUKGenealogy project, whichalso includes FreeCEN (census data) and FreeREG(parish registers). The search engine for FreeREG hasrecently been updated as part of work to overhaul allof the FreeUKGenealogy websites. The updatedwebsite was called FreeREG2, but is now accessed bythe usual FreeREG link: http://www.freereg.org.uk/

At present the database holds about 33 millionrecords and it is important to know which registershave (and have not) been transcribed. Informationabout this and general hints on how to search thedatabase can be found in the help menu. The mainimprovements include the ability to search all threetypes of records (baptisms, marriages and burials) atonce, as well as the ability to search across all counties(within a given date range). It is possible to include (orexclude) other family members mentioned in therecord, and to include nearby places. FreeREG is nowupdated daily, so it is worth returning to the websitefrom time to time. You may find this blog useful:http://essexandsuffolksurnames.co.uk/freeregs-new-look/

Civil Divorce Records, 1858-1914Ancestry has recently updated its records of the papersrelating to UK civil divorce proceedings that followedthe 1857 Matrimonial Causes Act, previously onlyavailable from TNA. Divorce in the UK changed in 1858when the 1857 Act took effect. Among other things,this law removed divorce from the jurisdiction of thechurch. Though divorce still remained primarily aprivilege of the wealthy, it no longer required theintervention of Parliament as it had in days past.Women were also given more access to divorce if theycould prove both adultery and an accompanying causesuch as cruelty, desertion, or bigamy. Later reformswould give women more control over property theybrought into a marriage and more custody rights. TNAdescribes the records in this database as follows:

Files of papers arising from petitions for divorce,judicial separation, declarations of legitimacy, applicationsfor protection of a wife’s earnings, etc, in the Court forDivorce and Matrimonial Causes and Probate, Divorceand Admiralty Division of the High Court of Justice.Some later files also relate to appeals from decisions ofmagistrates’ courts in matrimonial causes….

In most cases the files have been weeded andcontain only minutes, pleadings and decrees, but incertain selected suits, illustrating particular kinds ofproceedings, papers have been preserved in theirentirety. The end date for records in this database isdetermined by privacy laws. These records also includepetitions for separation or to have a marriage nullified.

National Probate Calendar 1858-1959Findmypast has released access to the NationalProbate Calendar for England and Wales, previouslyonly available on ancestry. The whole text in the index

had been scanned by optical character recognitionsoftware, so in principle you can carry out searchespreviously not possible, for example an address or thename of an executor. For more information read PeterCalver’s excellent newsletter:http://lostcousins.com/newsletters2/midaug15news.htm

eBay Expert?Does anyone fancy selling second-hand books oneBay for the Society? We are often given quitevaluable books, with permission to sell these toraise funds for the Society, but seldom find takers atFairs or Open Days. If you think you could do betterby selling the books on eBay, please let me know,

by contacting me at the Centre or by email. Youwould probably need to live within easy reach ofSherborne to be able to collect the books.

Barry Brock01935 389611

[email protected]

Group ProgrammesAll members of SDFHS are welcome at any or all of these Group Meetings. Why not plan your visit toSomerset or Dorset around one or more? Contact the Programme Organiser beforehand and you’ll bewell looked after. It is advisable to check date, time and location before travelling a long distance.

MID-SOMERSETThe Residents Lounge, Bluestone Court, Oxendale, Street, 7.30pm

Meetings: second Thursday of the monthSteve Wilkinson, 4 King Alfred’s Way,

Wedmore, Somerset BS28 4BB 01934 712724 or [email protected]

Nov 12 Arnos Vale Cemetery - Alan Bambury

Dec 10 How did they get there? - Ted Udall

2016Jan 14 TBA

Feb 11 TBA

WEST DORSETLoders Village Hall Saturdays 2pm-4.30pmMeetings: second Saturday in the month

Brian Webber 01935 812347 [email protected]

Nov 14 A to Z of Family History: an alphabetical journeythrough some less well-known sources - Dr Janet Few

Dec Xmas Lunch - TBC2016Jan 9 AGM and Members’ session: ‘Were any of our

ancestors part of, or close to, a major event?’Feb 13 My Family and Other Smugglers - Roger Guttridge

TAUNTONKilkenny Court, side of railway station car park, 7.30pm.

Meetings: first Tuesday each month.Sue Burne, 6 Townsend Lane, Chilton Polden TA7 9EL

01278 722706 or [email protected]

Nov 3 Gunpowder, Treason & Plot - Lynda Hotchkiss

Dec 1 Group social evening and quiz

2016Jan 5 My Family Stories, True or False - Bob Steed

Feb 2 The Boys - John Lowe

SOUTH DORSETSt Aldhelm’s Church Centre, Spa Rd, Weymouth, DT3 5EW

Meetings will commence at 2.00pm with tea/coffee, followed by the talk at 2.30 pm

Meetings: third Friday in the monthJohn Yallop 01305 776008 or [email protected]

Nov 20 How Did They Get There? - Ted UdallDec No Meeting2016Jan 15 A visit to the Dorchester History Centre for a behind

the scenes tour. Numbers limitedFeb 19 Thomas Fowell of Belfield - Joyce Fannon.

EAST DORSETHilda Coles Learning Centre at the Priests House Museum in

Crown Mead, Wimborne (evening access is via the rear doors offCrown Mead and adjacent to the library), 7.30pm for 8.00pm

Meetings: third Monday in the monthPat Hilbert, 32 Lancaster Drive, Verwood, Dorset BH31 6TG

01202 821478 or [email protected] 16 My Clergyman Ancestors - Chris DeaneDec 21 Members’ evening - Quizzes, Brickwalls and Family

History Queries2016Jan 18 Newspaper Research - George HilbertFeb 15 Newfoundland Connection - Roger Guttridge

BLACKMORE VALE The Exchange, Old Market Hill, Sturminster Newton, DT10 1FH.

Commencing 7.30pm Meetings: second Wednesday of the monthJames Pitman, 15 Belmont Close, Shaftesbury SP7 8NF.

[email protected] and Judy [email protected]

Nov 11 WW1 (In House)

Dec 9 Bonny Sartin

2016Jan 13 TBA

Feb 10 TBA

FROMEUpstairs Frome Library (Rear Entrance),

Justice Lane, Frome BA11 1BE. at 7.15pm for 7.30pm. Meetings: last Tuesday of the month, except Aug and Dec Sue Simpson 01373 464118 or [email protected]

Nov 24 World War 1 Medals of Frome Men: A look at medalcollecting and researching the men they belonged to.- Adrian Hockedy

Dec No Meeting

2016January TBA

SEDGEMOORSt. John’s Church Hall, (behind the church) Church St.,

Highbridge, TA9 3HS 7.30pm for 7.45pmLin Hoddinott 51 Church Road, West Huntspill,

Highbridge. TA9 3RZ 01278 789637 or [email protected]

Meetings: first Thursday of the month

Nov 5 Edwardian Music brought to life - David Sutcliffe

Dec 3 Local speaker and group members - Christmas buffet

2016Jan No Meeting

Feb 4 Doctors of Wedmore 1600s - 1900s - Hazel Hudson

YEOVILHoly Trinity Church, Lysander Road,

Yeovil (opp B&Q), 7.30pmMeetings: second Tuesday in the month

Ted Udall [email protected] 10 Live update on what’s new on the Internet

- Jane Ferentzi-ShepherdDec 8 Why there is no statue of Ian Botham in Somerset -

Mike Bolton2016Jan 2 Anecdotes of church, community and civil war in

Somerset - Ed LorchFeb 9 TBA

WEST SOMERSETMemorial Hall (Doll Museum) Main Street, Dunster

(Parking - main street or public car park before entering the village from Minehead)

Meetings: last Wednesday in the month 7pm for 7.15pmMrs Jane Sharp, 8 Liddymore Rd, Watchet TA23 0DQ

01984 639428 [email protected] 25 Group Meeting - Help and AdviceDec No Meeting2016Jan 27 Group meeting - Members’ contributions -

An interesting ancestorFeb 24 Visiting the Somme - Jane Sharp


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Become a VolunteerThe Society always welcomes new volunteers, who can either work at the Society’sFamily History Centre in Sherborne, or remotely, from home. Volunteers, who willneed to be ‘computer literate’, play a huge part in welcoming visitors to the Centreand in caring for and adding to the Society’s records and databases. A wide variety of tasks is covered by our two category headings: Research Assistanceand Projects Assistance.

Research Assistance:Volunteers who offer to provide research assistance will welcome visitors to the Family History Centre, explain and,where necessary, demonstrate the facilities available and provide advice and assistance to individuals when required.At other times, these volunteers will deal with research requests made by Society members and members of the publicwho are not able to visit the Centre in person. From time to time, volunteers may represent the Society at fairs andopen days run by other genealogical and similar organisations.

Projects Assistance:Not everyone wishes to participate in such an active way, so there are numerous opportunities for volunteers to helpthe Society by providing projects assistance. Projects include transcribing information from original documents;maintaining and updating the Society’s databases; collecting and collating information from various sources; andundertaking original research; although this is by no means an exhaustive list.

If you are interested, please contact: Barry Brock, Family History Centre Manager. email: [email protected] - post: PO Box 4502, Sherborne, DT9 6YL

SDFHS Family History Centre, Cheap Street, Sherborne

Family History CentreThe SDFHS Family History Centre, the Society Headquartersin Sherborne, is the first port of call for family historianswith an interest in Somerset or Dorset and is an excellentbase for our many out-of-county and overseas visitors. Ourfriendly volunteers are on hand to get you started or toprovide more specialist advice. The Centre has fastbroadband connection and a network of 6 computers whichvisitors may use. We also subscribe to ancestry andfindmypast websites. So those with interests outsideSomerset and Dorset will still find the Centre a greatresource.

The Society bookstall holds a wide range of books forpurchase.

The Centre has a meeting room holding up to 35 peopleavailable for hire at a modest hourly charge.

Opening times:Mon, Fri & Sat 10am-1pmThurs 10am-4pm

For more details see our website:http://www.sdfhs.org/about-us/headquarters/

Contact us:Somerset & Dorset FHSPO Box 4502SHERBORNEDorset DT9 6YLEmail: [email protected]/fax 01935 389611Satnav postcode DT9 3BJ

LibraryThe SDFHS Library is housed in the FamilyHistory Centre in Sherborne. The mainholdings are for Somerset and Dorset andinclude a comprehensive range of books onthe two counties as well as a large number ofparish register transcriptions.

Our village files contain histories, details ofchurches and other notable buildings, presscuttings, brochures and leaflets of local interest.

The library also holdsreference materialon family, local,social and militaryhistory. Althoughbooks may notbe borrowed our

volunteers can make searches and providephotocopies. A thorough search lasting up toan hour costs £5; photocopies 25p per sheet.

We very much appreciate the support of our advertisers but their appearance in our pages does not constitute a recommendation

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JENNY DUNFORDGENEALOGICAL &

HISTORICAL RESEARCHVisits to archives: Somerset, Bristol, Bath,

Wiltshire, Dorset, HampshireEmail: [email protected] Tel. 01761 233655

2 Greenditch House, Parsonage Lane, Chilcompton BA3 4JU

S U S A N M O O R E R E S E A R C HAuthor of “Family Feuds, an Introduction to Chancery Proceedings”

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Chancery Proceedings and other records at the National ArchivesDeeds and manorial records at

Dorchester, Taunton, Exeter, Winchester, Oxford, Gloucester and Chippenham

Gould’s House, Horsington, Somerset, BA8 0EWWeb: www.susanmooreresearch.co.uk e-mail: [email protected]

John Slade of Sherborne, Maltster and Bankrupt

ResearchingCrewkerne area families?

We havelocal parish registers and censuses 1841-1901

on microfiche at

Crewkerne Heritage Centre

Prior booking essential on01460 77079

Mills on the Yeo and the men whoworked themA new book by Martin BodmanPublished by the author’s Leat Pressin association with the Somerset &Dorset Family History Society.

£12.60 including postage and packing. Available from Book Sales,Somerset & Dorset FHS, PO Box 4502, Sherborne, DT9 6YL.

FAMILYHISTORYCENTRE

The SDFHS FamilyHistory Centre, The Parade, Cheap Street,Sherborne.

Satnav code: DT9 3BJ

Opening hours: Monday 10am–1pm, Thursday 10am–4pm,

Friday 10am–1pm, Saturday 10am–1pm (closed Bank Holiday weekends)

Other times by appointment.

For more details see inside back page

John Slade of Sherborne, Maltsterand Bankrupt - A Case Study ofFinancial Ruin in Early NineteenthCentury Dorset, by Robert Nantes, 28pages, illustrations in colour, publishedby the Somerset & Dorset FamilyHistory Society, and available fromSDFHS Booksales, cover price: £3.50.

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ADVERT I S I NG R ATES82 1/2 mm x 45 mm box (wording to fit space)

Block Booking £36.00 (same advert to appear four consecutive issues)

Single Issue £12.00

Any enquiries to:Barbara Elsmore [email protected] 01935 817588

Or please send wording together with prepayment to(and cheques payable to) Somerset and Dorset Family History Society

Advertisements featured in this publication are relevant to our hobby but do not imply endorsement

Documents

M E ORS The Greenwood Tree E T Y T The Somerset … v40.4.pdf · The Somerset & Dorset Family History Society * T S O M E ... Regular meetings and activities are Irun by Area Groups