Milford-on-Sea Historical Record Society: Barry Shurlock feature

Local history societies come and go. They generally depend on a few people, often outsiders. Fitting the bill, and still going strong after more than a hundred years is the oldest society in the county, Milford-on-Sea Historical Record Society.

Issues of its Occasional Magazine, edited by former naval officer and prize-winning local historian Barry Jolly, is full of interesting stories that belie the view of its committee in 1959, which decided “that all possible research on Milford had been completed”.

A fascinating article by Lynton Robins tells of the time when in 1648 “for 19 days Milford’s local history ran in tandem with England’s political history”. This was the period when Charles I was staying at Hurst Castle “on the royal road to death”.

This is a serious piece of research that contrasts with conventional accounts of the county during the Civil War. Whilst battles were being fought in the north – at Cheriton, Alton, Andover, Basing and elsewhere – Milford remained out of the fray. It was an “island of peace” and “apart from its illustrious visitor” stayed clear of any conflict.

Until Milford had been recognised in the nineteenth century as an agreeable place to spend time or retire by the sea, it had little going for it. Life was difficult for ordinary people like Charles and Mary Crowfoot, who in 1814 came from Norfolk to Milford to work in service. Their lives were hardened by the fact that five of their children had hearing impairments (‘deaf and dumb’).

Also, three of the daughters with impairments had illegitimate children. It was only the enlightened attitudes of some people in the village that ensured they were not cast into homes for ‘fallen women’. Largely due to the Crowfoots’ employers, they were therefore able to “experience a fairly normal existence for working-class people”.

Under the rubric ‘a life of silence’, Anne and Bob Braid, together with Barry Jolly, have in this article opened up a subject that is difficult to research and often taboo, yet powerfully illustrates an important facet of life in the past.

Barry has also managed to write a meticulously researched piece on a lamp-post in Lymington! This, however, is no ordinary item of street furniture, but commemorates the coming of gas to the town in 1832 and the donation of lamp standards by Admiral Sir Harry Neale and his nephew George Burrard, who was MP for the family’s ‘pocket borough’.

Anyone wanting to learn more about the coming of gas to localities – and much more – will discover a good deal.

Just published, the 2022 edition of Occasional Magazine demonstrates the importance of biography as a window on the past. The “roving eye” of Captain Thomas Symonds (1817-1887) gives one picture, whilst Samuel Manktelow’s “short but eventful stay in Milford” in the building boom of the 1890s gives another.

Anne and Bob Braid write: “In the short space of a little over two and half years, Samuel Manktelow came, established a building business and steam-powered saw mill, was landlord of the Red Lion, dabbled as a potato merchant, became bankrupt and left.”

In another piece Bob tells the story of another failed cause, a short-lived golf course in Milford that was lost to development (plus ça change!), despite support from a famous golfer of the day, James Braid (no known relative).

Less dramatic, but probably more typical of the comfortable middle classes who came to settle in the village was Mrs Catherina Chetham-Strode. Her father was a wealthy cleric, her first husband an Army officer “later venerated as a national hero”, and her second a wealthy landowner.

She retired to Milford, initially to a substantial house with 22 acres of land, and a few years later benefited from a share of £2,595 (about £260,000 in today’s money) from slaves owned in Jamaica following the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833.

These articles, and many more like them, demonstrate thoroughly researched, carefully written local history that goes beyond the immediate locality. Almost every piece in MOSHRS Occasional Magazine sheds light on issues outside Milford. Eagerly awaited are plans for digitising the entire run – now standing at 39 editions – as part of a wider digitisation project.

The story of MOSHRS has itself become a classic example of local history in action. It started on January 25 1909, as told in the centenary issue of the magazine by current chairman, Chris Hobby and Joanna Close-Brooks. On that day seven people came together and decided to set up a society. Three months later, with retired chest specialist Dr Vincent D. Harris in the chair, a committee of eight was chosen and 13 members elected.

The idea came from Edward Agar, whose father WT Agar had made a fortune selling land for King’s Cross Station and in 1867 bought Milford House and other properties in the village. On his father’s death in 1906 Edward and his wife and nine children took up his inheritance and moved south.

`The committee included architect William Ravenscroft, who later became Vice-President of the Hampshire Field Club and “had a profound effect on the architectural character of the village in the first four decades of the 20th century”. The members included a GP, a retired Army officer, a former teacher at Eton, and a professional geologist.

Another member was the largest landowner in the area, Col. William Cornwallis-West, who in the 1890s tried to develop Milford as a resort (he added the ‘On-Sea’). MOSHRS celebrate his illustrious ancestor Admiral William Cornwallis, who had a lifelong reputation for “less than decorous conduct” and passed his retirement with Mrs Whitby, the widow of his Flag Captain.

Unlike today, membership of MOSHRS in 1909 was not automatic. “One was not lightly a member – the question was carefully considered and one’s attainments and social position were weighed and to be elected was a real distinction”, according to founder member Hylda Bruce, writing in 1960.

For nearly 50 years MOSHRS held meetings and published five volumes of papers, each with six parts. By 1934, a growing membership meant that meetings were no longer held in members’ houses, but in a local hotel. There were visits to places of local interest and the growing archive was stored in a cupboard in the hotel.

In 1944, MOSHRS membership stood at a healthy 73, although curiously it was decided to limit it to 70 (today it stands at 200). This was hardly necessary, as by the late 1950s it had taken a plunge and the committee decided to dissolve the Society and move the ‘archive cupboard’ for safekeeping to the church.

But there was obviously an ongoing appetite for local history and in 1972 MOSHRS was revived, largely due to the local incumbent, Rev. Marling Roberts, and Ursula Danby and Jean Bower, grand-daughters of founder members Edward Agar and Arthur Woodd. It has since published eight volumes of the Occasional Magazine.

Over the years, local historians in Milford have demonstrated just how much can be found out about one small place by those with an interest. Copies of the Occasional Magazine can be obtained from www.milfordhistory.org.uk.

For more on Hampshire visit: www.hampshirearchivestrust.co.uk and www.hantsfieldclub.org.uk.

barryshurlock@gmail.com