This has been my first year as chairman of the Dorset Local History Group. It has been a fairly modest beginning, looking to consolidate the group and its activities. In October my secretary Brenda Innes decided to resign her membership of the Museum and therefore felt she could no longer carry on as secretary. Brenda has been involved with the group's activities for a number of years and I would like to thank her for all her hard work. Ann Smith kindly agreed to stand in as acting secretary until the AGM where she is seeking election to this post.
We are hoping this year to review our outreach programme. The attendance of our April and November lectures has been disappointing over recent years whereas our field trip and particularly Day Schools have been very good. We have started to compile a database of those interested in Dorset Local History and we be circulating a short questionnaire some time this year to see what sort of activities you enjoy and whether our events are arranged at the most convenient time. We will also be able to send details of forthcoming events. Anyone wishing to be put onto a membership database then please contact myself or the Museum.
David Reeve
We have put on a number of events. In November Dr Kenneth Abel gave us a fascinating talk on Medicine in Dorset during the 17th century. He told us about Francis Glisson of Rampisham, whose observations on malnourished children led him into a study of rickets. He published A Treatise on Ricketts in 1650 in which he suggested the cause was dietary. He also drew the anatomy of the liver, and to this day the fibrous sheath round the liver is called Glisson's capsule. Thomas Sydenham came from Wynford Eagle and went to London, where he studied infectious disease from 1661-1686, effectively establishing epidemiology as a science. He was the first to suggest the use of quinine to treat malaria, which is still in use today. Perhaps the most famous Dorset doctor was Nathaniel Highmore, who was born in Purse Caundle. His education at Oxford was interrupted by the Civil War, when the King made Oxford his headquarters. Highmore became friendly with the King's personal physician, William Harvey, and worked with him on research into the circulation of the blood, for which Harvey is famous. Highmore was the first to identify and accurately describe the sinus in the face, which is still known as the antrum of Highmore. Dr Abel was a practising GP in Dorset for many years and his medical knowledge added greatly to this most interesting talk.
On Saturday 22 February the Dorset Local History Day School put on a highly successful Day School on Seafaring, Shipwrecks and Smuggling: Maritime History in the South West. An audience of 78 heard a variety of highly informative and entertaining lectures.
Helen Doe began the day by examining ship building in the late 18th and 19th centures in the port of Fowey and the surrounding yards at Mevagissey and Polruan, Cornwall. She gave a highly entertaining account of Captain Dunn, a Mevagissey shipbuilder, privateer and smuggler! We also learnt about the itinerant shipwrights, of which 275 were recorded as working in Dorset in 1804 at Lyme Regis, Bridport, Weymouth and Poole; and the decline in wooden shipbuilding in the Southwest by the 1870s.
Dr Alan Perry then gave an account of the important trade between Poole/ Southwest and Newfoundland that grew considerably from the late 17th century. Around 350 ships from Poole and a total of 700 from Dorset would journey to Newfoundland in the spring. They would then catch cod and dry salt them (so they could last up to 2 years) and seals (for oil and leather) and timber. Sometimes they would journey down to the West Indies and trade these for sugar and rum, sometime return to England to sell the cargo, or sail to the Mediterranean, where they would trade them for spices, wine and brandy. One of the leading families was the Lester Garlands of Poole and much of their archive survives at the Dorset Record Office and many of their possessions in local Museums (including Dorchester and Poole).
We then had a highly entertaining lecture on Dorset Smugglers from Roger Guttridge, whose Dorset ancestors including the Roger Ridout, either a partner or employee of the notorious Isaac Gulliver. We heard about how gangs of 100 to 300 men would be part of a national network of smuggling goods into the country between the 1720s and 1820s. In Kent these gangs would be as high as 700 men. It was estimated that in the 1800s only 1/3 of imported goods had the excise duty paid on it. During this time a small band of excise men were employed to tackle the problem and often discretion was the best form of valour. Smuggling was a lucrative business. When Gulliver died he left £60,000 in his will plus property and land in coastal and inland locations. Following the end of the Napoleonic Wars the Government established the HM coastguard, a well-armed and well trained organisation. By the 1840s and 1850s the coastguard and changes in excise duties led to smuggling dwindling.
Maureen Attwooll then told the delegates about the dangers at sea, with many shipwrecks occurring off the Dorset coast mainly close to Chesil beach through to Portland Bill. On a number of occasions when a ship struck the rocks or was grounded in a storm the locals of 1000 or more would plunder a stricken ship whilst ignoring the survivors trapped on Chesil Beach unable to reach land. Up until 1795 not all those who drowned would be buried in a churchyard. If the victims had well manicured nails etc then they were deemed to have been officers and buried in local churchyards, if not then victims would be buried in one grave often where they were found.
Gordon Le Pard finished the Day with an account of the Dorset Maritime Record. This is a database of located and unlocated shipwrecks, submarines, aircraft, single finds (including a number of elephant tusks!), structures now below sea level (such as an Iron Age Salt workings in the Fleet) and strandings (ships that have run aground but have been successfully re-floated). Whilst this database contains a fraction of what is likely to be off the Dorset Coast (records early than the 18th century are uncommon) it still provides archaeologists the much needed opportunity to protect sites and plan ways in which to work on them.
My thanks to the lecturers and all those who helped make the Day run smoothly.
For our Field Trip on Sunday 29 June, local historian Cecil Amor will lead a guided walk round Bridport, looking at the historical buildings. This will take approximately an hour, at the end of which a cup of tea will be served in the Local History Centre. Meet behind the Town Hall in South Street at 2.30pm.
Our November meeting will be on Saturday 22 November at 2.30pm when Mrs Ann Smith, the archivist at Sherborne Castle will give a talk on George Wingfield Digby, a Victorian landowner. The speaker will describe how the middle of the 19th century the application of new farming techniques produced increased prosperity on the estate which was reflected in the provision by the owner of new farms, schools and churches. The talk will examine how the estate coped with the agricultural depression at the end of the century. There is no charge for this meeting and all are welcome.
Published in DNHAS Newsletter 70, Spring 2003