We are sharing a monthly look at the farm diary of John Foss, written from his dairy farm in Kingston Russell in 1851.
October 1851
A trip to London
We last left John as he arrived in London to visit the Great Exhibition. He wakes up the next day “not very well very sick & Poorley” – a bad sign for the rest of the day. After a restful morning, the party travel to Crystal Palace – “a very grand sight” – where they paid a one shilling entry fee. Unfortunately, that’s all John writes of the Exhibition:
“I was not able to be there long such a weakness came over me I do believed I should have dropt if Mr Beart had not helpd me out”
Was it the excitement of the exhibition that affected John? Or perhaps the Crystal Palace was exceptionally warm under the sun?
John sat and recovered for half an hour, before heading back to the Beart’s home. Mrs Beart “kindly got me something which don me a great deal of good”, and that evening John travels to Harrow to meet more friends and family.
The next day, John seems to be back to normal, as he meets up with William & James and heads out into town: “[we] had a little refreshment, went about seeing sights to the Picture Gallery & Bazzar & Pantheon”. They took the 7 o’clock train home and arrived in Dorchester at half past two in the morning.
Back to the farm
Life returns to normal almost immediately, with John up and milking as soon as they get back to Pitcombe Dairy. Throughout the rest of the month, he churns, milks and makes cheese to sell at the Dorchester Fair each Saturday. On the 9th, he sold “7 tubbs of Salt Butter” to Mr Style & Day of Weymouth for £35 and 11s. This equates to approximately £2,850 today!
The dairy received a visit from the local tailor, Mr Palmer, who came to buy some pigs. Whilst he was there, John writes that “Tailor Palmer … measured me for the make me Breaches”. Mr Palmer visits again later in the month to measure William for some new school clothes.
A new railroad?
There is chatter around the village of a new railroad. John first writes of it on the 19th, when Mr Foot overtook the family on the way home from church: “Mr Foot … told us the railroad certenly was coming by us”. At the end of the month, Robert Williams of Bridehead travels down to Axminster with the Reverend Lundy Foot, to take part in “a great meeting about the Rail Road”, and the next day, a Mr Henning from Dorchester visits the dairy to survey the land.
It seems that this railroad was part of a larger scheme to connect Bridport to the larger London to Exeter line. Proposals were made until 1853, but the project was never completed. Instead, the present-day line through Yeovil was built.
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Interested in learning more about John Foss? Explore the other months of his 1851 from the list below:
It has taken me some while to comment on the appearance of Mr. Beart for his name was transcribed in the 1851 Census available to me as ‘Beast’. He took some finding.
He is sgnificant for he was the elder brother of Thirza (Coryates) who was married at St. Mary’s St. Marylebone, London to Samuel the brother of John the diarist. What more natural than that he should stay at Milton Street, Mary;ebone when visiting the Great Exhibition.
These blogs have been wonderful in fleshing out the lives of people who were merely recorded in the Census. I look forward to reading more and eventually, Covid19 permitting, to visiting the DHC.