Hardy’s Wessex Landscapes – From Casterbridge to Shaston

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The largest ever multi-venue show of objects from the life and times of Thomas Hardy opened on 28 May and runs until 30 October 2022. Apart from four distinct exhibitions at the Wessex Partnership Museums in Dorchester, Poole, Salisbury and Devizes, there are satellite displays in nine community museums and visitor centres, including Gold Hill.

Curator Harriet Still selects as her two main themes at the Dorset Museum, Social Tensions and Animal Welfare. Both of these are strongly represented in Hardy’s last, and possibly most controversial, novel Jude the Obscure (1895) which is set partly in Shaftesbury. Click here to explore Thomas Hardy’s connections with Shaftesbury (renamed Shaston) and to find a walking tour of the locations borrowed by Hardy for Jude.

National School Bell Mentioned in Hardy’s Jude the Obscure

Hardy was well acquainted with the realities of Dorset rural life. It was bad enough for the working class humans, afflicted by poverty, disease, and a repressive social order and moral code. Hardy creates a number of feisty individuals, often women, who try to kick over the traces, but tend to meet with tragedy. It was worse for the animals, who could not speak for themselves. Jude as a boy is paid sixpence (2.5p) a day to frighten the rooks off Farmer Troutham’s corn. He does this with a rattle like those formerly used by football fans. (And is beaten with it by the farmer.)

He sounded the clacker until his arm ached, and at length his heart grew sympathetic with the birds’ thwarted desires. They seemed, like himself, to be living in a world which did not want them. Why should he frighten them away? … They stayed and ate, inky spots on the nut-brown soil, and Jude enjoyed their appetite. A magic thread of fellow-feeling united his own life with theirs. Puny and sorry as those lives were, they much resembled his own.

Arabella and Jude have to slaughter a pig. The process is described with considerable sympathy for the pig: “The dying animal’s glazing eyes riveting themselves on Arabella with the eloquently keen reproach of a creature recognizing at last the treachery of those who had seemed his only friends.”

Florence Dugdale on the beach at Aldeburgh. 39 years younger than Hardy, she married him two years after Emma Hardy’s death in 1912.

Unsurprisingly Hardy became a strong supporter of the RSPCA, and wrote official verses in 1924 to mark the centenary of the foundation of the SPCA. Florence Dugdale, his second wife, introduced Wessex the wire-haired fox terrier to the Hardy household at Max Gate. Hardy at first disliked the dog, but became devoted to “Wessie”, and indulged him. Wessex was notorious for biting visitors, who were often rich and famous. Lady Cynthia Asquith described Wessex as “the most despotic dog guests have ever suffered under.” J.M. Barrie said that Hardy showed him a letter from a radio company which had sent the author a complimentary wireless. They would have been mortified to know that Hardy only turned it on for the benefit of the dog, who liked music but not speech. Wessex also appeared to like T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) and refrained from biting him when he rode over from Bovington on his motorbike.

At Weydon Priors Fair (Weyhill near Andover) Michael Henchard drunkenly “sells” his wife and child to a sailor

At the Dorset Museum show you can step inside a fairground tent at Weydon Priors (Weyhill, Hants) where Michael Henchard, future Mayor of Casterbridge, drunkenly sells his wife and child to a sailor. This tableau, created by BA (Hons) Costume and Performance Design students from Arts University Bournemouth, provides Victorian hats and a tripod camera with a fisheye lens, so that you can capture your image as a Victorian fair-goer on your mobile phone. The writer has tried it and it works.

An Edwardian Plate Camera of the type used by A. E. Tyler in creating the Tyler Collection of photographs of pre-World War I Shaftesbury

Back in Gold Hill Museum we have a splendid example of the real thing plus an impressive legacy of images of Edwardian Shaftesbury. Some of the best will feature in The S&DHS December 2022 lecture.

Beckford’s Fonthill Abbey Treasures – Where Can They Be Seen?

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To settle enormous debts, slaveowner William Beckford put the money pit that was Fonthill Abbey up for sale in 1822. Where did his treasures go? In the first instance, to a single purchaser – John Farquhar, a Scottish gunpowder manufacturer. This was not the outcome of the much-hyped public auction, but a private sale negotiated behind Christie’s back via a rival auctioneer, Harry Phillips. Farquhar paid £300,000 (at least £30 million today) for the building, its contents, and 5000 acres of land.


If the art-buying public felt cheated, they were soon granted another opportunity to succumb to Fonthill Fever. (The title of our new exhibition.) Quite possibly the new owner was not much interested in the artworks he had just bought. Phillips arranged a 37-day auction sale beginning on 09 September 1823, which included items additional to those collected by Beckford.

Blue and white transfer pottery plagiarising John Rutter’s 1822 drawing of Fonthill Abbey

Shaftesbury printer John Rutter, who had already sold 6 editions of his Description of Fonthill Abbey and Demesne, at the relatively modest price of 3s 6d, was now able to publish the much grander Delineations of Fonthill and its Abbey with hand-coloured plates and folding map. His rival John Britton had to concede that his own volume “shrinks by its side in quality of paper, quality of engravings and printing.” In the absence of effective copyright laws, ceramics manufacturers cheerfully ripped off Rutter’s engravings for their own blue and white transfer pottery.

One of the most determined buyers at the auction was George Hammond Lucy, newly married and with a recently inherited house to remodel and furnish. Charlecote Park, now a National Trust property near Stratford upon Avon, still contains prize pieces of Beckfordiana. Centrepiece of the Great Hall is the 16th century Borghese Table made of pietra dura (“hard stone”), inlaid with coloured marble and semi-precious stones.

The Borghese Table, made of pietra dura, probably looted from Rome in 1796 and bought by Beckford in Paris

Napoleon is thought to have “liberated” this tabletop from Rome in 1796, which Beckford bought in Paris and installed in a Fonthill-friendly, Gothic-style oak frame. Lucy paid 1,800 guineas, outbidding King George IV and the Marquis of Westminster in the process. Two cabinets in the Drawing Room sport pietra dura panels, while upstairs is the Lancaster State Bed (price £140 5s 6d), made from a 17th century Indian settee, bought later in 1837 as Beckford had taken it to Bath. In all, Lucy invested £3431 10s 6d in 64 lots.

Beckford took the Lancaster State Bed to Bath, where it was bought in 1837 by George Lucy for £140 5s 6d

Since the auction sale realised more than the purchase price of Fonthill Abbey, Farquhar may not have been inconsolable when on 21 December 1825 the central tower collapsed, taking much of the Abbey with it. Theories as to the primary cause are discussed on pp72-76 of Sir John Stuttard’s biography of John Rutter The Turbulent Quaker of Shaftesbury, available in the Museum shop.

Fonthill Abbey after final collapse of the central tower in December 1825

In Bath, Beckford acquired four properties, connecting 20 Lansdown Crescent and 01 Lansdown Place West with an archway. By 1827 he had built a Tower further up Lansdown Hill, to which he could take a morning ride with his dogs and then walk back down for breakfast. After Beckford’s death in 1844, his younger daughter, Susan, wife of the tenth Duke of Hamilton, sold the Tower and removed much of her father’s remaining effects to the Hamilton estates in Scotland, where many may be seen at Brodick Castle (now Scottish NT) on the Isle of Arran. After two centuries artworks once owned by Beckford have found their way into international collections and British institutions such as the National Gallery, the British Museum, the V&A, and the Royal and Wallace Collections.

Beckford Archway between 20 Lansdown Crescent and 01 Lansdown Place West, Bath. Photo by Rwendland

Beckford’s Tower was bought back by the Duchess of Hamilton and the gift of land adjacent to the Tower for use as a cemetery enabled her father’s mausoleum to be moved there. In 2019 the Tower was identified as being at risk from water ingress and the Bath Preservation Trust is currently raising funds for a £3 million restoration project. The Shaftesbury & District Historical Society proposes to visit Beckford’s Tower on Tuesday 07 June for its first summer outing in three years.

Beckford’s Tower and Mausoleum, Lansdown, Bath. Photograph by Ray Beer

400 Years of Dorset Buttons

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Shaftesbury can lay claim to being the cradle of the Dorset Button industry. Early buttons were hand-made using sheep’s horn and wool, readily available in North Dorset. In 1622 Abraham Case moved to Shaftesbury and set up the first commercial button making enterprise. Originally from Gloucestershire, he had been a professional soldier in Europe where he had observed French and Flemish button makers at work. On his return he married a local girl from Wardour before settling in Shaftesbury and setting up a workshop. His first buttons (Hightops) were a conical shape made from sheep’s horn, cloth and linen thread.

As demand grew, buttons were made by home-based outworkers who might combine labour on the land with piecework buttony. A skilled buttoner could make up to six dozen (72) buttons a day and earn up to three shillings (15p). This compared very favourably to wages of, perhaps, nine old pence (4p) a day for much more strenuous farm work. A flattened version of the Hightop was preferred for more flexible garments and called the Dorset Knob – possibly the biscuit of the same name resembled it in shape.

By the end of the 17th century, buttony had grown to be an important cottage industry, still controlled by the Case family, while Shaftesbury was noted for its high proportion of pedlars and hawkers. A second depot was opened in Bere Regis, with agencies at Milborne St. Andrew, Sherborne, Poole, Langton Matravers and Tarrant Keyneston. After a disastrous fire at Bere in 1731, a Yorkshireman, John Clayton, was engaged to reorganise the firm. Clayton had an interest in a Birmingham wire manufacturers, which sent wire by horse and cart to Dorset where children were employed as winders, dippers and stringers to produce metal rings by the gross (144). These replaced horn as the base for the many variations of the Singleton and Crosswheel designs. Where smaller and softer buttons were required, as for children’s clothes, the Bird’s Eye was stitched over a thread or fabric base.

Buttons were graded by quality. The finest export grade were mounted on pink cards, domestic quality on dark blue (as held by Sheena above) and the lowest quality on yellow cards. Buttons retailed for between 8d (3p) and three shillings a dozen. The business prospered until the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, with 4000 employed as outworkers. The mechanisation of button-making in the Victorian Age sounded the death knell of handcrafted Dorset Buttons as a source of reliable employment. The factories of Birmingham became the dominant centres of costume jewellery production. Many hundreds of rural Dorset families, impoverished by the collapse of buttony and agricultural depression in the late 19th century, became economic migrants to Australia, Canada and the USA.

Hat with Dorset Button Rosette by Anna McDowell

To mark the 400th anniversary of the foundation of the Dorset Button industry, Gold Hill Museum has supplemented its permanent display in Room 5 with temporary exhibits (some on the landing opposite the lift) showcasing modern Dorset Buttons and their various uses. These range from buttons on clothes to earrings, Christmas tree ornaments, brooches and the decoration of bookmarks and lavender bags. There are enormous examples of Dorset Cartwheels and Dreamcatchers. We are grateful for the assistance of Anna McDowell of Henry’s Buttons in staging this Exhibition.

Kits for making your own Dorset Buttons are available in the Museum Shop.

And Basil, Lavender, Poppy, Rocket, Rosemary, and Snowdrop are our Dorset Button Mice. They are hiding in six different display cases throughout the Museum, waiting to be discovered by visitors of all ages.

Dorset Button Mice
Dorset Button Mice

Fonthill Fever Breaking Out At Gold Hill Museum

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Two hundred years ago the reclusive owner and creator of Fonthill Abbey, William Beckford, decided that he had no option but to sell the Gothic-style Abbey and its near-priceless contents. The Fonthill estate was surrounded by six miles of forbidding stone walls and few outsiders had seen even the exterior of the Abbey, let alone the artistic treasures it was reputed to contain. The sale by auction, conducted by James Christie of Pall Mall, was scheduled for 17 September 1822. The days set aside for viewings from July attracted huge crowds of the well-heeled. Over 7000 copies of Christie’s illustrated catalogue, including an admission ticket, were sold at a guinea apiece – about £110 in today’s values. Overnight accommodation in the area was at an absolute premium. The great and the good of Georgian Britain flocked to this and a second sale a year later; hence the coining of the expression “Fonthill Fever”. Yet in other circumstances few of these people would have welcomed the prospect of being the guest of William Beckford, nor indeed would he have been much disposed to invite them. Beckford may at one time have been the richest commoner in Britain as a result of slave labour on the family’s sugar plantations in Jamaica, but he was a social pariah for other reasons.

Sidney Blackmore with Michael Bishop’s scale model of Fonthill Abbey

Gold Hill Museum opened for the 2022 season on Friday 01 April. Sidney Blackmore, Secretary of the Beckford Society, has kindly curated a temporary exhibition to mark the bicentenary of “Fonthill Fever”. One of the exhibits is this magnificent 1 inch = 12 feet scale model of Fonthill Abbey, made in 1981 by the late Michael Bishop. The model has crossed the Atlantic to a 2001 Beckford exhibition in New York, and we are very grateful to the Bath Preservation Trust for allowing it to make the journey from Beckford’s Tower and Museum in Bath to Shaftesbury. On Tuesday 05 April at 2.30p.m. Sidney gave an entertaining and authoritative illustrated lecture in the Garden Room at Gold Hill Museum to introduce “Fonthill Fever.”

Fonthill Old Abbey with modern house
Fonthill Old Abbey with modern house

All that remains today of Fonthill Abbey (above) is visible on the lower left-hand side of the model. The current owners of the Fonthill estate, Mr and Mrs Morant, are opening the grounds to visitors for charitable donations on Sunday 01 and Sunday 15 May 10.30 – 17.00, weather permitting.

Our volunteers have been hard at work preparing other new exhibits, notably on Dorset Buttons, and news of these will follow.

Saving Evidence of Shaftesbury Life for Future Reference

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Heather Blake had no previous experience of archives when she joined the Gold Hill Museum volunteer team in June 2021. She has now worked through thirteen boxes of documents, reading, classifying, and wrapping the contents in acid-free paper for storage in museum-standard containers. A training day with Helena Jaeschke from South West Museums equipped her with the conservation skills to deal with issues such as rusty staples! Particularly interesting stories have been copied and cross-referenced, most recently from parish magazines and records of local clubs and societies, many of which no longer exist.

The work of Heather and fellow volunteers is ensuring that Gold Hill Museum now has a much better idea of what records it possesses, and what light they shed on the history of the locality. These documents are being properly conserved in the Museum’s Library and should be available for future generations to consult. Sadly, the same cannot be said of collections in Ukrainian museums. The Museums Association has reported the destruction on 27 February 2022 of the Ivankiv Historical and Cultural Museum about 50 miles north of Kyiv. The town has a population of 10,000 and this was a small museum of archaeology, history and the visual arts, including about 25 works by the noted folk artist Maria Prymachenko (1908-97).

A piece by folk artist Maria Prymachenko, 25 of whose works are reported destroyed by fire. Image from the Museums Association

You can access the Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal of the Disasters Emergency Committee here

How To Build An Elizabethan Theatre – With No Surviving Plans

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Conservation Architect Paul Simons talks on Tuesday 01 March 2.30p.m. at Gold Hill Museum Shaftesbury on “Reconstructing the Theatres of Shakespeare’s Time – the Globe and the Wanamaker Playhouse”.

The original Globe opened on the South Bank of the Thames in 1599. It was owned by six of the troupe of actors known as the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. William Shakespeare, who wrote most of their material as well as performing, held a 12.5% share. The design of the “wooden O” mentioned in “Henry V” reflected the layout of innyards where many early plays were put on by itinerant companies, especially when plague in London led to Elizabethan lockdowns. The timbers of the Globe had been recycled from The Theatre in Shoreditch, north of the Thames, when the lease on the site ran out. These were dismantled overnight and put into store to prevent the owner of the ground from claiming ownership of the building. They were rebuilt into a larger theatre, the Globe – and then consumed by fire in June 1613 when a cannon special effect during a performance of “Henry VIII” went badly wrong.

The modern Globe was the brainchild of American actor and film maker Sam Wanamaker. Unfortunately he did not live to see its opening in 1997. He had selected McCurdy & Co Ltd, a craft company of carpenters, to erect the first thatched building in central London since the Great Fire of 1666, having previously seen their reconstruction of Barley Hall, a 14th century timber framed structure in York. Conservation architect Paul Simons was a director of McCurdy & Co from 1978 to 2016 and intimately involved in the design and construction process. As you will hear, this was not exactly straightforward when the only surviving contemporary drawing of the interior of an Elizabethan theatre was this one of The Swan:

Copy of the only contemporary drawing of the interior of an Elizabethan playhouse, c.1596

Paul has earned an enviable, international reputation as a conservation architect and Tourism, World Heritage and thermal spa specialist and consultant. He has masterminded major projects in Bristol and Bath, and is currently chair of the Bath-based Cleveland Pools Trust, which aims to restore Britain’s oldest open-air lido. He may be persuaded to say something about the progress of this scheme.

Paul Simons, Conservation Architect

Please don’t attend this talk if you have reason to believe that you may have Covid or recently been exposed to the virus. The Garden Room will be well ventilated and the seats will be more spaced out than they used to be, with an inevitable reduction in capacity. S&DHS members will have until 2.20p.m. to claim a seat.

In The Footsteps of Thomas Hardy

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Thomas Hardy fan and expert Alban O’Brien (above) previews his Tuesday 01 February 2.30 talk at Gold Hill Museum in an entertaining interview with ThisisAlfred’s Keri Jones. Alban reveals that one of his reasons for moving to Dorset was his passion for Hardy’s writings. As a leader of literary tours Alban has scouted all the North Dorset locations which feature in Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure. Hardy was so deeply impressed by the view from Castle Hill that he checked the details of properties available to buy in Shaftesbury. Alban plans to reference all 14 of Hardy’s novels in his talk on Thomas Hardy: the Novels, the Novelist and North Dorset.

Please click here for the interview.

Great War Researcher Chris Posts 1300th Life Story

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On 07 January 2022 Shaftesbury & District Historical Society volunteer Chris Stupples passed another milestone when he posted the 1300th life story researched and written by him on the Shaftesbury Remembers website. In August 2020 Chris had just clocked up a thousand mini-biographies, as reported in this News Blog . A year later it was 1200. We are now pleased to receive complimentary messages, not only from descendants of those recorded in Shaftesbury Remembers but also from professional archivists and researchers. As Chris would insist, the story is all about the lives of those involved in, and often tragically curtailed by, the 1914-18 Great War, such as the Bennett Brothers.

On 27 October, 1883 (writes Chris Stupples) a young couple walked down the aisle of St. Peter ad Vincula Church, at Tollard Royal, Wiltshire, now happily married and looking forward to a long life with children and, hopefully, grandchildren to come. Little did they know that some 31 years later on 04 August, 1914 one of the bloodiest of world wars would break out which would shatter their long held dreams.
The newly-weds were Thomas Bennett and Ann (or Annie) Witt. Thomas was a Farm Servant living at Philips Cottage, Five Ways, Donhead St. Mary, Wiltshire. By 1901 he had become a Gamekeeper at the Ashcombe Estate, Tollard Royal, Wiltshire. The first child to arrive was Bertie Harold (b. 1884) followed by Walter Sam (b. 1885); Clara Maud (b. 1888); Frederick Harry (b. 1889); Thomas William (b. 1894); Annie Mary (b. 1895) and, finally, Reginald George (b. 1897).

The eldest of the five brothers, Bertie Harold (known in the family as Harry) married Mabel Mary Gray in 1910 and like his father, worked as a Gamekeeper, on an estate at Amport, Hampshire. They had two children, William L. (b. 1911) and Albert M. (b. 1913). Harry answered the call when war broke out and joined the Hampshire Regiment as a Private (Service No. 32568) and served in France and Flanders with the 14th (Service) Battalion. He was missing, presumed killed in action, in Belgium on 26 September, 1917 and, like many others, his body was never recovered for burial. Subsequently his name was placed on the Tyne Cot Memorial in Belgium on Panels 90 and 162. Over 30,000 soldiers with no known grave are commemorated here. There are 11,965 burials, of whom 8369 are unnamed. His family were sent the usual Bronze Memorial Plaque as well as the Victory and British War Medals as sad reminders of his sacrifice.

Tyne Cot, the largest Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery. Photo by Gary Blakeley.

Walter Sam enlisted with the Queen’s Own (Royal West Kent) Regiment as a Private (Service No. G/10457) and was presumably on leave when he married Ethel F. Bennett (same surname) on 15 April 1916 in Gillingham, Dorset. He was posted to France to join the 6th Battalion in Belgium on 26 April, 1916. He took part in the Battle of the Somme which started on 01 July, 1916 and was reported missing in the field and presumed dead on 3 July 1916 (less than two months after his wedding). The tragedy is that his wife wrote to his Commanding Officer on 08 August, 1916 asking for news of him as she had had no word and had to be advised that due to communication problems the telegram advising of his death was delayed. (See transcript below). Walter was subsequently buried in Ovillers Military Cemetery, (Grave ref: VII. D.). His widow was in receipt of the Bronze Plaque as well as the Victory and British War Medals. Ethel was awarded a pension of ten shillings (50p.) a week and went on to marry George Casbolt in 1918 and they had two children. She died in 1949.

The transcript of Ethel’s letter:

“11/8/16

Dear Sir,

Having been anxious not getting any news from my husband No 10457 Pte W S Bennett of the Royal West Kents since receiving a post card from him dated June 19th, I went and made enquiries (at) York House, Reigate. I asked if they could give me any information there respecting him. I was much surprised to learn that he is posted ‘missing’ from the 3rd July 1916, and I cannot understand why I have not been notified of the fact before now. They were also at a loss at York House to find I had received no news of it?

I was advised to write to you for information to see if you could give me the reason why I have (not heard). If you can give me any further particulars, I shall be very grateful, as the suspense is nearly worse than receiving the worst. So if you will kindly let me know any news of him I shall be glad.

Thanking you in anticipation, I remain, Yrs faithfully, Ethel F Bennett.

PS I forgot to say that it was the 6th Battn C Company 11th Platoon of the R W Kents that my husband was attached to. EB”

Thomas William had by 1911 obtained employment as a Farm Labourer and joined the Hampshire Regiment (as his brother before him) as a Private (Service No. 29510). He was with the 2nd Battalion in Flanders (Belgium) when, having survived the Battle of the Somme in July 1916, he was killed in action on 10 September, 1916 and subsequently buried in the Vlamertinghe Military Cemetery, Ypres, Belgium, (Grave Ref: IV. D. 12.). His mother and father would have received his Bronze Plaque as well as his Victory and British War Medals.

Reginald George joined the Machine Gun Corps (Infantry) initially as a Private but was soon promoted to Lance Corporal and posted to the Asiatic Theatre of War in the 134th Brigade Company where he was killed in action in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) on 24 February, 1917. He was subsequently buried in the Amara War Cemetery, Iraq, (Grave Ref: XVII. H. 13.). The parents were in receipt of his Bronze Plaque as well as his Victory and British War Medals.

Frederick Harry married Agnes Marjorie Ingram in 1910 in Andover, Hampshire and was working as a Gamekeeper in Possingworth Park in Sussex when war broke out and originally enlisted with the Somerset Light Infantry as a Private (Service No. 36457). He served with the 1/4th Regiment but transferred to the Devonshire Regiment at some time with the new Service No. 76119. His great-granddaughter (now living in Canada) advised he possibly became a sniper. It is recorded on the Medal Index that he was awarded the British War Medal only on his discharge. He went on to have a successful career at Possingworth Park as a very well-respected Gamekeeper. He retired to Waldron, East Sussex where he had a few dairy cows and delivered milk locally on his bicycle. He also exhibited Labrador dogs at shows. He died in Eastbourne, Sussex, in 1968. It is understood that there is a Memorial Plaque to him somewhere in Possingworth Park though he is buried in the churchyard at All Saints Church, Waldron, East Sussex alongside his wife.

Of the sisters, Clara Maud married William Brown in 1919 but no marriage was recorded for Annie Mary.
Thus within the period July 1916 to September 1917 four of the five brothers perished and, having given their lives for the Country, are now remembered for posterity on the Berwick St. John Memorial Plaque as well as the War Memorial in Tollard Royal.

Chris-Stupples-800x500
Chris Stupples, the writer of over 1300 biographical entries on the Shaftesbury Remembers website. Photo courtesy of ThisisAlfred. All the biographical material in this Blog was researched and written by Chris.

Thomas Hardy 01 February Talk is ON

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Thomas Hardy fan and all-round literary expert Alban O’Brien will be at Gold Hill Museum at 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday 01 February to talk about “Thomas Hardy: the Novels, the Novelist and North Dorset.” Alban is a guide at Hardy’s Cottage and a member of the New Hardy Players. He is in demand as a leader of literature-themed tours, and some of his entertaining presentations on a range of literary figures can be found on YouTube.

Old Grove Place the home of Mr Phillotson the schoolmaster and his unhappy wife Sue Bridehead in Jude the Obscure

A number of thinly-disguised Shaftesbury locations feature in “Jude the Obscure”, Hardy’s last novel published in 1895. “Shaston”, says Hardy, “was remarkable for three consolations to man. It was a place where the churchyard lay nearer to heaven than the church steeple, where beer was more plentiful than water, and where there were more wanton women than honest wives and maids.” The two central characters are both trapped in loveless marriages, and Jude, an unenthusiastic stone mason, has been denied academic opportunity at Christminster (Oxford). Eventually they decide to run away together, though not to a life of happiness. The novel’s treatment of sex, marriage and the Church stirred up a hornet’s nest in late-Victorian Britain. The Bishop of Wakefield allegedly burned his copy, and booksellers sold it in discreet brown paper bags. It did sell well – 20,000 copies in England in the first three months. Hardy, however, published no new fiction, only poetry, until his death in 1928.

Ox House Bimport Shaftesbury. Home of Sue Bridehead, unhappily married to schoolmaster Mr Phillotson in Hardy’s Jude the Obscure

Please don’t attend this talk if you have reason to believe that you may have Covid or recently been exposed to the virus. The Garden Room will be well ventilated and the seats will be more spaced out than they used to be, with an inevitable reduction in capacity. S&DHS members will have until 2.20p.m. to claim a seat.

Details of our remaining monthly lectures can be found by clicking here

Making Our Local History Library More Accessible

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Gold Hill Museum volunteer Jeanette Hardiman in the process of accessioning a copy of The Art of a Salesman, kindly donated by its author, Paul Whittaker in October 2021. Jeanette has been through the entire stock of the Museum’s Reference Library – over 1300 volumes – entering basic information such as Title, Author, Date of Publication, Publisher, and ISBN into a searchable database. She is now identifying up to 30 Keywords for each book so that future enquirers may find books, via our website, which they may not even have realised were relevant to their research interests. She anticipates completing this massive task by April 2022. It is then our intention to make the Reference Library Catalogue available online.

The Art of a Salesman is a 2019 biography of the hotelier and philanthropist Sir Merton Russell-Cotes who helped to drive the development of Bournemouth as a fashionable tourist resort in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He and his wife gifted the clifftop Russell-Cotes Museum, together with a substantial art collection, to the town in 1907. Prior to Paul Whittaker’s self-published work, there was no accurate account of Merton’s life.

Archives Team volunteer Janet Swiss with leather-bound volume of copperplate notes

Member of the Archives Team Janet Swiss has been fascinated by this handwritten leather-bound volume in immaculate copperplate. The contents are notes and transcriptions from the monthly Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society, mostly from the period 1815 to 1818, but with references to journals from the early days of this august scientific institution, founded in Charles II’s reign. The anonymous writer is interested in such subjects as the weather, grain, America, black walnut tree imports, and hops. It’s not clear why we have this book so if anyone can help explain its provenance, please get in touch.

Tel: 01747 852157 email: library@goldhillmuseum.org.uk

This News Blog samples the invaluable work being done behind the scenes by many volunteers. If you think that you would be interested in joining this happy and motivated group, expertly led by Librarian Ann Symons, please contact us.