March 2025 issue of SDNQ

The latest issue of SDNQ (vol. 40, part 401) contains the following articles, book reviews, notes and queries:

Articles:

  • ‘The making of a gentleman: a Weymouth student at Oxford, 1753-1756’: Joseph Bettey uncovers in the Tucker family papers held at the Bodleian Library the story of Edward Tucker (1738-1761), the heir to a Weymouth and Melcombe Regis shipping and mercantile business, who was sent to Christ Church, Oxford, in the hope of making him a gentleman. Needless to say, the outcome was not quite as his family had intended.
  • ‘Court House, Long Sutton’: in a record for SDNQ Adrian Webb replies to a Query posted 90 years ago by Roger Clark asking for information about the history of the Court House. Using Chancery documents held at the TNA, Adrian reveals a connection between the Court House (formerly known as Long Sutton Farm) and the Bourne family.
  • ‘The siege at Huntingford, Gillingham, Dorset’: Susan Moore highlights the wealth of information that can be found in the thousands of cases heard in the Court of Star Chamber, with an account of a dispute in 1553 between Edward Browne and Christopher White over the ownership of a house in the king’s forest at Huntingford near Gillingham, Dorset.
  • ‘French émigré clergy in Somerset 3: Jean Louis Guilbert, Joseph Martin Leveaux and Jean Francois Elloi’: Dominic Aidan Bellenger looks into the lives of Dr William Henry Coombes (1767-1850), a priest who settled at Shepton Mallet where he was chaplain to the sister of the Visitation Order, and Joseph Martin Leveaux (1746-1828) and Jean Francois Elloy/Elloi de Malancourt (1752-1824) who both taught at Downside.
  • ‘The royal forest, chase and warren of Purbeck and Treswell’s survey of 1585-6’: Andy Poore uses Treswell’s Survey of Purbeck 1585-6 (Dorset Record Society, vol. 19, 2017) to highlight forestal rights in the royal forest, chase and warren of Purbeck, with an analysis of the historical use of the place names ‘Forest’, ‘Chase’ and ‘Warren’ in relation to Purbeck and the relevance of Treswell’s use of deer symbols on his maps.
  • ‘A pipeclay image of the Virgin and Child from Glastonbury Abbey’: T.F. Hopkinson-Ball reveals the background to a Flemish-made statuette of the Virgin and Child and how it may have ended up at Glastonbury Abbey.
  • ‘Spiriting maidens for Virginia’: David Victor uncovers a case in 1618 of Owen Evans ‘pressing’ or kidnapping young girls from Somerset and Dorset for transporting to the recently established colonies of Bermuda and Virginia.

Book Reviews

Queries

  • Garry Dawson asks for information about a mine shaft sunk in 1820-25 by Richard Wescombe in the Quantocks between Kingston St Mary and Cothelstone.
  • Adrian Webb asks for information about the fate of the rebels who were banished for their involvement in the Penruddock Rebellion of 1654/5, four of whom were associated with Dorset: Thomas FitzJames of Handley, gent.; Robert Harris of Blandford, cordwainer; William Wake of Blandford, clothier; and Christopher Haviland of Landkey, yeoman.

Notices

  • The Index to Vol.39 (March 2020-September 2024) of SDNQ is now available for download.
  • Steve Hobbs, chair of SDNQ, would be pleased to hear from anyone who would be interested in filling the posts of Treasurer and Dorset Editor for SDNQ.
  • Barnes for All! The William Barnes Society has launched a fundraising campaign to preserve and catalogue the archive of the Dorset dialect poet William Barnes. For further information visit the William Barnes Society appeal page

Details of how to purchase issues of SDNQ are available on the Contact and Subscription Form page.

For all other enquiries please contact the Hon. Secretary