Dorset is a county with strong seafaring connections. Over the ages it has produced more than its share of sea going families. In the Parish church of St. Mary at Netherbury there is a plaque in memory of one such family on which is inscribed
The Seafaring Hoods of Netherbury
December 21, 2007 at 4:00 am (Biography, Genealogy, Location)
Tags: Hood, Netherbury
Maiden Newton Churchyard Cross
December 20, 2007 at 4:00 am (Genealogy, Location)
Tags: Maiden Newton
In 1906 Alfred Pope wrote ‘The Old Stone Crosses of Dorset’. I have already published an extract about the old market cross at Maiden Newton. He also covered the less well known Churchyard Cross and it is that article which follows.
The Chideock Martyrs
December 19, 2007 at 6:47 am (Biography, Genealogy, Location)
Tags: Bosgrave, Carey, Chideock, Cornelius, Salmon
Following the Reformation of the church by Henry VIII, England in the 16th century was a country of religious persecution. One of the many stories from this period concerns John Cornelius and his companions, Thomas Bosgrave, John Carey and Patrick Salmon who on the 4th of July, 1594 were executed at Dorchester for their religious beliefs. Who were these men who became known as the Chideock Martyrs?
The last public hanging in Dorset
December 18, 2007 at 4:00 am (Biography, Genealogy)
Tags: Brown, Dorchester, Guppy, Hutchings, Searle
Public executions were for centuries one of the most popular forms of entertainment in England and Dorchester as an assize town certainly witnessed its fair share. Lurid descriptions of these spectacles abound in the literature, with immense crowds of rich and poor alike jostling to obtain the best view-point, their mood varying according to their sympathies with the criminal.
William George Hawtry Bankes V.C. (1835-1858)
December 17, 2007 at 4:00 am (Biography, Genealogy)
Tags: Bankes, Kingston Lacey, Studland, Victoria Cross, Wimborne Minster
William George Hawtry Bankes was was born on the 11 September 1836, the fifth child of George Bankes M.P. and Georgina Charlotte Nugent. Educated at Temple Grove and Westminster School. William chose a life in the Military. George Bankes died in 1856 and in the spring of 1857 William enlisted at Aldershot as Cornet Bankes of the 7th Queen’s Own Hussars.
Small and Special
December 16, 2007 at 4:00 am (Genealogy, Location)
Tags: Great Ormond Street, Hospital for Sick Children
Small and Special is a collection of resources relating to the early years of The Hospital for Sick Children at Great Ormond Street, England’s first in-patient children’s hospital. Here you can trace a patient, learn about childhood diseases, or investigate a member of the medical staff.
Too lazy to do anything
December 15, 2007 at 4:00 am (Biography, Genealogy)
Tags: Brothers, Nihart, Richeson, Schwambach, Smith, Stalker, Stockland, Sutherland, Trulon, Woods
In a recent issue of Rootsweb Review, Susan Goerke Ball reported on the 1880 Census entry for a George Sutherland of Saco, York County, Maine. George’s occupation was listed as “Too lazy to do anything.” This set me to wondering how many others were similarly listed.
Thomas William Roberts (1856-1931)
December 14, 2007 at 4:00 am (Biography, Genealogy)
Tags: Dorchester, Roberts
He was born into the hurly-burly of early Victorian Dorchester but laid to rest in the colonial soil of Tasmania. He showed small promise of any artistic talent as a child, yet at the end of his days his works were better known throughout the largest island outpost of the British Empire than in the land of his birth.
Read a short biography of artist Tom Roberts by J. Graham-Wilson. at Dorset Ancestors.
Philip Salkeld V.C. (1830-1857)
December 13, 2007 at 4:00 am (Biography, Genealogy)
Tags: Fontmell Magna, Salkeld, Victoria Cross
The Reverend Robert and Elizabeth Henrietta Salkeld brought a son into the world at the Rectory in Fontmell Magna during the later half of 1830. Philip Salkeld was the seventh child in a family of ten.
The King of the Smugglers
December 12, 2007 at 4:00 am (Biography, Genealogy)
Tags: Askerswell, Burton Bradstock, Gulliver, Kinson, Sixpenny Handley, Smugglers
Most Dorset families can point to a smuggler in there past, my own, (although as yet unproved), being no exception. Many of these stories have been documented by Rodney Legg in his fascinating book Dorset Smuggling, and there is an excellent collection of artifacts in the the Portland Museum. However in all the tales of smuggling in Dorset, one man appears more often than any other, and has been give the approbation of The King of the Smugglers and whose operations ranged from Poole in the east to Lyme Regis in the west.
