In the local studies library at the Dorset History Centre you can find a large collection of journals. These journals are packed with fascinating articles and are often an underused resource. In this new series of blogs we will be highlighting some of the interesting articles within them!
This is the third in our series of blogs looking at the journals held at the Dorset History Centre. In this blog we will be looking at articles from two journals that have been mentioned before in this series, Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries and The Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society.
The article that we have chosen from The Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society was published in Volume 60. The article is called ‘Dorset Inn Signs, Past and Present’ by V.F.M. Oliver and it was the Mansell-Pleydell Prize Essay, 1937.
The article celebrates the diverse inn signs that can be found in Dorset. It contains an ‘approximately complete’ list of all the inns of Dorset and the article is accompanied by photos of 60 pub signs.
The pubs re divided into categories including names with religious origins, such as St Peter’s Finger in Lytchett Matravers, names emblematic of inns and brewing, such as the Travellers Rest in Shipton Gorge and names of celestial bodies, such as The Seven Stars in East Burton.
Not all the signs are hanging boards. The article also includes the statues of the Black Bear in Wareham and the White Harts in Beaminster and Milborne St Andrew.
Our favourite signs are those of The Green Dragon, Piddletrenthide and The Elephant and Castle in Cerne Abbas.
Twenty-four of the pubs that appear in these photos no longer exist, some have changed their name and only 13 of the pubs have signs that are the same or of a similar design today as the one in the photographs. This makes this article a wonderful resource for those interested in the history of Dorset pubs.
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Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries is full of short snippets concerning the lives of people of Dorset. In volume 20 of the journal there is a short entry asking if any of the readers know anything about the marriage of Nathaniel Gauler.
The article quotes a letter from a Charles Wheeler describing a painting he owns of the shoe of Susanna Gauler of Titchfield Hants, who married Thomas Pope. On the back of the painting is a note about Nathaniel Gauler, who had a procession of 24 people on horseback at his wedding and whose wife always wore her wedding ring on her thumb. It also notes Susannah and Thomas Pope had one daughter, Mrs Baldwin.
The query did not get a reply in the magazine, but we decided to see what we could find out about Nathaniel and Susannah.
We discovered a marriage of Susannah Gawler, of Sturminster Newton Castle, to a George Pope of Shilling Okeford in Hammoon on 13th September 1748. Susannah’s father was Nathaniel Gawler, who married Ann Phelps in Lydlinch in 1702, and George and Susannah had a daughter named Jane who married John Baldwin in Sturminster Newton in 1775 so despite the difference in Mr Popes first name this is almost certainly the Susannah who owned the shoe in the painting.
It is possible that George Pope was also known as Thomas, but it seems more likely that the error results from the information being recorded some years after the event, possibly by a friend or descendent of Mrs Baldwin.
The information recorded on this painting seems likely to be a record of family stories that have passed down through generations and, whilst they may have been exaggerated or misremembered, it is stories like these that bring life to the names found within our records.
We wonder whether this painting of Susannah’s shoe still survives or whether the query in this journal is the only record of this little piece of history.
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This is the fourth in our series looking at our academic journals. You can read other blogs by clicking on the link below: