WWW.TRAVELWESSEX.COM - Key Persons
Albert Reginald Powys (1881- 1936) was actually born in Dorchester. Married Dorothy Mary Powys in 1905. He was secretary of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. Albert published a number of books on architectural subjects. He died in Surrey.
Catharine Edith Philippa (1886-1963) a novelist, born in Montecute, and later lived in a farmhouse on the Dorset coast with her sister Gertrude. Llewelyn and his wife came to live next door and their brother Theodore lived in the area as well. She died in Buckland Newton. She was not as famous as her brothers, but she had not had their education. Her early works were not published, but she succeeded in publishing "Driftwood" a collection of poems and "The Blackthorn Winter" a novel. Her journal is being edited and should it be published will be a picture of life in Dorset in that era.
Cliff Field, now owned by The National Trust, is thought to be the site of cannon owned by the Roundheads of the Civil War. The cannons were fired from the cliff to prevent supplies and reinforcements getting to Exeter which was a Royalist stronghold. Cannon balls have been found in the area. A footpath that starts behind the Swan Inn leads up to the Field. Wonderful wide views up there.
Emily Marian Powys Actually born in Dorchester in 1882. She studied lace at the Yeovil School of Art and travelled on the Continent. In 1913 Marian moved to New York to join her brother, John. She did office work while she continued to study lace. In 1915 one of the laces she designed won a gold medal at the United States Panama-Pacific International Exhibition in San Francisco. Marian opened a lace shop where her own lace was very popular with leading figures of the day. She became an important authority on lace, lace-making and antique lace. She published a book "Lace and Lace Making", the work on the subject of lace. She died in 1972 in New York. She had a son Peter Powys Grey.
Gertrude Mary (1887-1952) Born in Montecute. She was a talented painter, but her duty to her family came first and she never really had the opportunity to make as much of her art as she could have done. She attended the Slade School of Art to study painting, then went off to Paris to the ‘Academie de La Grande Chaumière' in Montparnasse. Gertrude never married, but lived with her sister Catharine. Her paintings can be found in Dorchester Museum.
James Frampton made a complaint about them to the then Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, and the Loveless brothers, George and James, the former's brother in law, Thomas Standfield, his son John Standfield, James Brine and James Hammett were sent to trial at Dorchester, in 1834, found guilty and transported to Australia on a sentence of seven years.
John Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough, 1650 - 1722, was born in Musbury. He was the son of Sir Winston Churchill, an impoverished cavalier, and Elizabeth who was born a Drake.
Highly successful men's T36 Para Olympian, Paul was born in Dorchester in 1990.
Peter Wilson was born in Dorchester in 1986, so the tradition of famous people of Dorchester continues into the modern day.
He is famous as an English Sports Shooter specialising in Double Trap. He has both the World Record and is an Olympic Gold Medal Winner in this field, London 2012. He has his eye on Rio in 2016. Good Luck, Peter.
His MBE is for services to shooting and was presented in 2013. He still lives in Dorset.
He was born in Stanton St John, Oxfordshire. It was his energy and foresight that brought together the 150 brave souls, men, women and children, who sailed from Plymouth in 1630 to found Dorchester and later Windsor in Massachusetts. Rev White was Rector of the Parish of St Peter and Holy Trinity in Dorchester and is buried in the Church porch. There is a plaque to his memory there which describes a very able and kindly man.
Thomas Hardy was famous both as a novelist and as a poet. His fictional stories are based in Dorset with Dorset type characters. Dorchester is Casterbridge.
It is not well known that Thomas Hardy was a Justice of the Peace in Dorchester and later for the County of Dorset He was also now and again on Grand Juries at the Assizes. They are not what you might immediately think, but are outside of the court proceedings and are a separate body. They investigate criminal conduct to decide whether a person should appear in court. These Grand Juries no longer exist in the United Kingdom
William Barnes was a son of Dorset, a headmaster, a poet, writer, philiogist and a minister. He became well known for his poetry some in the Dorset dialect. His understanding of the ordinary Dorset person comes out strongly in a gentle and kindly way as was the man himself.
He was born in Rushay the son of a farming family and went to school in Sturminster Newton. He received a degree from Cambridge University. Nowadays we would call him a lifelong learner for he studied widely throughout his life.
On 9 July 1827 he married Julia Miles. By then he was already writing and publishing.
He was during his lifetime a Headmaster of a school in Mere, another in Dorchester. He was a Minister until his death.
It is however his writing that was his lifelong passion and the legacy he left to the world.