{"id":5177,"date":"2026-07-03T08:30:29","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T08:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/?p=5177"},"modified":"2026-06-15T10:39:55","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T10:39:55","slug":"the-baker-nature-notebooks-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/2026\/07\/03\/the-baker-nature-notebooks-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Baker Nature Notebooks – part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a previous blog<\/a>, we introduced you to the Baker family, and some of their wonderful nature notebooks, filled with plant and flower cuttings, and observations about the countryside around them. This time we wanted to tell the stories of the creators of these notebooks…<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Mildred Baker<\/h3>\n

Mildred’s notebooks are mostly focussed on the botany, but personal information slips through. She mentioned her eleventh birthday, for which she received several natural science books, and celebrated on a grey and wet beach!<\/p>\n

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She also records holidays the family took, including a trip to London. Unsurprisingly Mildred loved the Botanical Gardens at Kew, and the family also visited London Zoo. She collected some feathers and chose to include them in her notebook.<\/p>\n

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It’s clear that someone was reviewing Mildred’s work and giving her guidance – there are annotations and corrections throughout. Mildred submitted her first notebook to the PNEU, the Parent’s National Education Union who ran a school in Bournemouth, and in her second notebook she writes that she won a prize and her book was sent to London!<\/p>\n

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Family Tragedy<\/h3>\n

Those of you with keen eyes might have spotted the years in the family tree in our last blog, which spell tragedy for the Bakers. Mildred passed away at home in August 1908 at the age of 16. The cause of death was bronchiectasis and gangrene of the lungs.<\/p>\n

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Bronchiectasis is a widening of the channels in the lungs. It can be congenital but can also be caused by repeated or severe lung infections and is often a result of cystic fibrosis. Gangrene of the lung is as awful as it sounds. These are both horrible lung conditions and it is extremely sad to find that Mildred’s life was ended early in this way.<\/p>\n

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In the burial register for Witchampton, we can see that Mildred’s funeral took place three days later. The clerk was her uncle, Frank Vidler Baker. You can imagine that her father may not be able to work at this time, and that his family would have gathered to support each other at this time of need.<\/p>\n

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This is the portrait photograph that came with the collection. We don’t for certain if this photograph is of Mildred or Barbara, but there is a high chance that this is Mildred. Her death as such a young age is extremely sad, but her talent and legacy can live on through these beautiful nature books, which we at DHC will proudly care for.<\/p>\n

Barbara Baker<\/h3>\n

Mildred\u2019s passing was tragic, but her passion for botany was carried on in her younger sister, Barbara. We can find Barbara\u2019s baptism here in Parkstone, where her father was clerk at the church. She was born 10 years after her sister Mildred and would have been six years old at the time of her sister\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

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Barbara wrote the majority of the third notebook between 1912-1919. She travelled to a lot of similar places to her sister, throughout Dorset and the surrounding counties, and up into Sussex. Barbara was clearly very interested in botany, and has a keen interest in watercolours, as you can see here.<\/p>\n

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Barbara kept her notebook throughout the First World War, and we can see the impact it had on her life in this quote here – access to Portland, Lulworth, and the New Forest was prohibited, and the family had to make do with \u201clittle\u201d Witchampton instead.<\/p>\n

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Barbara went to school in Bristol and found pursing botany quite hard in the city, so there are big breaks in her notes. Here we can see the change in her handwriting after a one such break. This lovely page shows the family connection this hobby creates – Barbara, Phyllis, and their father Ernest went cycling in the New Forest and held a friendly competition to find as make varieties as possible.<\/p>\n

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In the 1921 census we can find Barbara pursuing her interests and studying at the Norwich School of Gardening, where she was a garden pupil!<\/p>\n

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In 1926 she married Hetman Jack Parham in Witchampton. By looking at our other records, we can see that her mother and father wrote to the estate manager of the nearby Crichel Estate to request furniture and a tent – they had invited the whole parish to tea to celebrate and didn’t have the space to put them all up!<\/p>\n

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Barbara and her husband moved to Edinburgh, and went on to have two daughters, one of whom is our final author, Belinda.<\/p>\n

Belinda Parham<\/h3>\n

Belinda must have been inspired by the previous pages of her mother’s notebook. She did collect cuttings, but her interest seems to lie more with birds, as she mostly wrote about the nesting and fledgling birds living in the garden!<\/p>\n

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Belinda only contributed a few pages to the notebooks, but it is lovely to see this tradition being passed down, and hopefully it has been carried on by future generations!<\/p>\n

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—<\/p>\n

This has been a closer look at these wonderful nature notebooks, and the personal stories they can uncover.<\/p>\n

We love to encourage access to original records at Dorset History Centre, but we have had to make the difficult decision to close these documents – unfortunately, the cuttings have become brittle with age, making the books difficult to handle. However, that doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re off limits! We have fully digitised the three volumes, and you are welcome to visit our searchroom and view the digital surrogates. We are hoping to make them available to view online at some point in the future!<\/p>\n

If you have any questions, do get in touch on archives@dorsetcouncil.gov.uk<\/a> for more information.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

This information was recently presented as a free talk at Dorset History Centre as part of From the Stacks<\/a>, our free lunchtime talks programme. These occur monthly and let staff showcase one or two interesting documents from our collections. If you are in Dorchester on the last Wednesday of the month, why not pop by at 12.30pm to find out what we\u2019re talking about this month!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a previous blog, we introduced you to the Baker family, and some of their wonderful nature notebooks, filled with plant and flower cuttings, and observations about the countryside around them. This time we wanted to tell the stories of the creators of these notebooks… — Mildred Baker Mildred’s notebooks are mostly focussed on the… Read more The Baker Nature Notebooks – part 2<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1892,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[82,184,323,746,109],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5177"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1892"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5177"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5213,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5177\/revisions\/5213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}