Dorset Editor of SDNQ 1953-1968.
Born 16 May 1910.
Died 2005.
Resigns Dorset Editorship (SDNQ, vol. 29, pt. 287, p.1, March 1968)
The Committee of Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries announce with much regret that Mr P.N. Dawe, who has been Dorset Editor for the last fifteen years, has decided to retire owing to pressure of other work. The Committee would like to express their warmest thanks to Mr Dawe for all that he had done for the successful running of S&DN&Q, including providing the index for vol. xxviii, which will be published shortly.
The Committee are pleased to be able to inform subscribers that Mr T.A. Brocklebank, M.A., CANTAB., of Clyffe Cottage, Tincleton, near Dorchester, has kindly undertaken to act as Dorset Editor beginning with the first number of this new volume. Mr Brocklebank, who knows Dorset well, was for many years a master at Eton and a housemaster there from 1946-59. Since his retirement he has settled in Dorset.
Obituary (SDNQ, vol. 36, pt. 363, p.52, March 2006)
Philip Neale Dawe (1910-2005) was born in Wimbledon, the son of a consulting engineer, his mother an artist who exhibited at the Royal Academy. Educated at Clapham College, he emigrated with his parents and two sisters to Toronto. He dreamt of returning to England, and in 1938 he returned home to become a schoolmaster. For a time he taught naval cadets, but with the coming of the war he joined the Royal Marines. While at Tenby he met and married Elizabeth who was serving in the W.R.N.S. She was indeed a special person, a partner of charm and character, voice and humour, and of subtle beauty. In 1945 they settled in Winchester.
Neale returned to school-mastering, in a school near Brockenhurst until 1959.
He subscribed to SDNQ from 1932, at the suggestion of George Squibb, friend, mentor and Norfolk Herald Extraordinary, and in 1953 became Dorset Editor. He opened a small antique shop in Beaminster, assisted by his charming wife with her specialised knowledge, and provided long-case clocks, country furniture and prints for neighbouring houses.
The Dawe surname appears as early as the 14th century in the Subsidy Rolls, and his forebears farmed at Cattistock and Evershot in the 17th and 18th centuries. He contributed considerably to our journal, and lectured extensively on heraldry, Dorset maps, the history of English furniture, European paintings, and English porcelain. He retained a fiendish memory for facts and dates, with instant and accurate recall even in his mid-90s.
He resigned the Dorset editorship in 1968 and moved his business to Montacute, and from thence to Bridport; golden days with much laughter and merriment, and a lot of hard work.
After retiring from the antique shop Neale published, in 1989, Girls Names in Dorset c.1300-1800. Of this publication he said ‘apart from general interest I hoped that it would help people working on parish registers and other documents when confronted with a strange name written in a difficult script.’
His ashes have been placed in the tiny churchyard of St Edwold at Stockwood, near Melbury, where one of his forebears had been a churchwarden.
Publications
P.N. Dawe, Dorset Lay Subsidy. Dorchester Division, 1525 (DNHAS, 1951)
P.N. Dawe, Girls’ Names in Dorset c.1300-1850 (Netherbury, 1989)
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