Theresa Turnbull's, Dorset County Record Office Notes

Theresa has kindly presented us with these notes that she aquired while persuing the Dorset County Records Office, I will post them here as she sends them along. A debt of gratitude should be shown as these may help many people with their search for ties to Dorset. Continue on this page and see if you can help Theresa with her Newfoundland Interest.

Isaac WRIGHT b. 1812, d. 1885 a wheel wright of Ringwood and his wife, Elizabeth (Betsy) Sophia Wright b. 1812, d. 1887 of Ringwood, Dorset

Theresa's Great great grandparents

POOLE, DORSET. Records in County Record Office.

10/11/1787 - Letter from Overseers of the Poor.

John NEWELL, John CHINETY and George WHITTLE, Justices of the District of Trinity, Newfoundland a letter certifying that Samual (sic) HARDEN is the legitimate son of the late John HARDEN a native of Blandford. (presumably Blandford in Dorset, UK)

APPRENTICE INDENTURES

The following lads/young men were all apprenticed on 23 Mar 1774 to Isaac and Benjamin LESTER merchants in the seafaring business.

(the Lesters were I believe primarily dealing with Newfoundland)
20 Apr 1785 Henry THRESHER to George KEMP, merchant to serve in Newfoundland.

WIMBORNE, Dorset Parish records

POOR LAW EXAMINATION10 Mar 1763 of Thomas LEG baseborn of Hannah LEG, his father who cared for him for his first ten years Charles PARK, Innkeeper of Radstock (Dorset)(My interpretation)He was apprenticed at age 10 to Arthur CULM of Cerne Abbas, Dorset to learn the art of planting in Newfoundland. He went to Nfld. But after six months Arthur CULM died he was then assigned over by Elich (sic) BRIDFORD partner to Arthur CULM to James GILL a planter in Nfld. but belonging to Exeter in the County of Devon with whom he served five years or thereabouts. When his master failed he ran away, but before he ran away without the knowledge of this Thomas LEG he (James GILL) consigned him over to John GALLABOY a Frenchman then residing in Nfld. Thomas served him for about 8 months then he escaped aboard his Majesty's Ship of War the Arundel, in which he returned to England. Thomas appears to have been back in England at least 5 years when he was examined.

The Ringwood Settlement Indexes Settlement Order 1820

Mary GREEN alias FORD aged 73 of Ringwood, she claimed that at age 19 she had been married to Simon FORD a cordwainer who was at that time apprenticed to David STONE. Simon however left her after two years for Newfoundland and never returned she heard that he had died there in 1812.

From the Index of Apprentice Documents in the Dorset records Office in the UK

WIMBORNE MINSTER, Dorset

The original papers are at Dorchester

FORDINGBRIDGE, Hampshire (Fordingbridge is 5 miles north of Ringwood) Parish Records in Hampshire Record Office

Apprentice papers

Taken from the book Comyns New Forest, written from notebooks compiled by the Rev Henry Comyn in 1817

All the entries give the area, the first name is the Head of the Household The name of the person in Nfld is followed by Nfld, I have listed all the other children in these households as they may too have emigrated at a later date. I have given the birth/baptism dates where they are noted in the book.

Beaulieu Rails - area

Brockenhurst Street - area

Their next door neighbours

two doors away


next door to them are distant cousins of mine!

Bull Hill area

nearby an unhappy tale

This entry is followed by this text
This unhappy woman of excellent character was starved to death by her husband and mortally beaten by the sons Robert and William for which they were tried at Winchester in July 1817, but got off on a point of law too much strained in their favour. The property almost 4 acres was made over in prison by the father to the eldest son James.(sic)

Derrants Town (Sway) area

North Sway area

Shirley Holmes area

the Undershore near Lymington area

The Weirs Brockenhurst area

of these children William and Catherine are listed as being at Poole. Perhaps the family had a connection, to the Nfld trade.

Theresas' Newfoundland Interest

If you all can help e-mail Bill Crant and I'll assure your info gets passed along.

Hello all,
Please, if anyone can help me, I would really love to find out if any of my family emigrated to Nfld. and/or North America, as far as I can tell the majority of my ancestors lived in East Dorset and West Hampshire rarely more than 20 miles from the sea. They were not wealthy, some were tradesmen or small tenant farmers and the rest were agricultural or general labourers. Some of them must have left these shores, there are only four that did, that I know about. Two left early this century one for New Zealand and the other for Canada and two young men set off in the middle of the last century one for South Africa, where he died in a river and the other for "foreign parts". There must have been others. My maiden name was WRIGHT, rather too common a name to follow up on really but other rarer ones were SHUTLER/SHITLER/SHETLAR all with one or two "T"s, AYLES/AILES/ALES etc, GULLIVER/GULLIVER/GULLIFORD and SWEETAPPLE.
I am also very interested in any connections with the Hampshire town of Ringwood and the Newfoundland Trade. I know there were at least two companies here who depended solely on it, one (Conways) on curing and tanning sealskins and the other on exporting animal traps. If anyone has any information on any of the above I would be very grateful.
Yours Theresa
Ringwood, Hampshire, England.

The Ayles Family of Ringwood, Hampshire taken outside Charles's Farm, Ringwood in 1869.

In top hat, smoking a long churchwardens clay pipe Harry AYLES (farmer and sometime special constable) born 1800 on his left his wife Love (nee YOUNG) born circa 1828, they had 12 children between 1845 and 1866. She had been his housekeepers daughter. The little girl directly in front of Harry is my GreatGrandmother Alice Annie born Jan 1866. Note Harry was 65 when she was born.
The three girls in the back row from left to right Jane, Mary Jane and Maria (once they hit on a name or two, they seemed reluctant to change!) We think the boys are left to right back row are Frederick and Robert and front row are Stephen, James and George. Parish records are scarce for this family, I have yet to find when, where or if the parents were married, they were however a colourful lot, little James grew up to be an early property developer, with people signing petitions to stop his building houses on unsuitable sites in the early years of this century, Maria who became a beautiful woman, never married but had a gentleman friend for years - I think a polite way of saying she was his mistress and at least two of the brothers, left for adventuring lives in the Colonies.

[SouthCoast Genealogy]

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