HOMES OF WRITERS, COMPOSERS AND PAINTERS IN DORCHESTER

HOMES OF WRITERS, COMPOSERS AND PAINTERS IN DORCHESTER

Ian Gosling
Chair of Dorchester Civic Society

I have tried to locate the buildings in Dorchester and adjoining villages where significant writers, composers and artists were born, worked or died. It is likely that the following is not exhaustive, and I would be interested to know whether readers have other names to suggest.
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A. WRITERS.
WILLIAM BARNES (1801-1886).
William Barnes was a truly renaissance man, but born in the 19th century! His main claim to fame is as a linguist and poet, composing more than 800 poems, mostly in Dorset dialect. Amongst his other more academic writings was a comprehensive English grammar. He was also a mathematician, engraver and inventor. To finance all these multiple activities, he worked as a schoolmaster and, in middle age, also as a clergyman.
In 1835 William and his wife Julia moved from Mere in Wilshire to Dorchester, the town in which they had first met, to open a fee-paying school probably in Durngate Street (then also known as Wood and Stone Street), probably at no 6 (Photo 1). They lived over the school rooms.

It proved successful and in 1839 they rented bigger premises, Humfrey’s House, on the east side of South Street close to Nappers Mite (now a contemporary building occupied by Superdrug) where they could accommodate 50 boys.
In 1847 he was ordained as a priest in the Church of England, and that same year he purchased a bigger house opposite at No 40 (Photo 2).

This had a large garden running all the way back to Trinity Street in which he built a supplementary schoolhouse of two storeys. The extra accommodation enabled him to increase the number of boarders.
The main building in South Street was badly damaged by fire in December of last year and the annex disappeared many years ago.
In 1852 Julia died after a short illness.
By the end of the 1850s demand for his school declined because of increased competition, and perhaps also because of the increasing amount of time he spent on academic studies and writing poetry. In 1862 he closed the school, sold the premises in South Street and moved to Came Rectory, just outside Dorchester (Photo 3 of a late 19th c print), to take up the living of Winterborne Came which had been offered to him by Colonel Damer of Winterborne Came House. He remained the Rector of St Peter’s Winterborne Came until his death in 1886.

THOMAS HARDY (1840-1928).
Thomas was born at his father’s cottage in Higher Bockhampton in 1840.
He trained as an Architect in James Hicks architect’s office in 39 South Street (Photo 4) during the period 1856-62, before leaving Dorchester to practice in London.

Whilst training at No 39 he met and formed a lifelong friendship with William Barnes who lived and taught at the school next door.
Number 39 was entirely destroyed in the fire of December last year.
Thomas left London for Yeovil in 1867 and then to Weymouth before returning definitively to Dorchester. Using the revenue generated by his successful early novels he designed his own house at Max Gate (Photo 5).

It was built in 1885 by his brother, extended in 1895, and named after the nearby tollgate known as Mack’s Gate. He later discovered that he had built on part of the site of a large neolithic ditch enclosure (now known as “Flagstones”) and a Romano-British cemetery. He died in that house in 1928.
JOHN COWPER POWYS (1872-1963).
John was an important, although little known, English novelist who was raised in Montacute in Somerset, where his father was the vicar, and then in Dorchester between 1880 and 1885, but I have not been able to locate the address.
As an adult he moved to the United States for some thirty years, where he worked as a lecturer.
On returning to the United Kingdom, he lived for a short time in 1936 in a flat above a shop at No 38 High East Street (Photo 6).

There he commenced writing his novel ‘Maiden Castle’, one of the several novels making up his ‘Wessex Novels’, including ‘Weymouth Sands’, before moving on to Wales where he lived to the end of his life.
SIR FREDERICK TREVES (1853-1923).
Frederick was born in the house of his parents at No 8 Cornhill (now a coffee shop – Photo 7), from which his father ran an upholstery business.

He attended William Barnes’ school before being sent to the Merchant Taylors’ School in London. He then studied at the London Hospital Medical College and the Royal College of Surgeons and practised as a surgeon, after qualification in 1875.
In 1886 he met Joseph Merrick, known as ‘The Elephant Man’, who was being exhibited as a curiosity, brought him to the London Hospital where he practised and treated him until his death in 1890. Their relationship is told in a play by Bernard Pomerance performed in 1977, which in 1980 was turned into the film ‘The Elephant Man’ by David Lynch, in which he was played by Anthony Hopkins
In 1888 he performed the first appendectomy in England. His reputation grew and, in 1900, he was appointed one of the Surgeons Extraordinary to Queen Victoria and, in the following year, to Edward VII.
During the Second Boer War (1899-1902) he volunteered to serve in the field, operating on the casualties in South Africa.
Just before his coronation in 1902 Edward VII was struck down with appendicitis. Fredrick saved his life by performing an innovative surgical operation on the table of the Music Room in Buckingham Palace, draining the abscess present whilst preserving the appendix.
Shortly afterwards he was awarded a Baronetcy and granted the Freedom of the Borough of Dorchester.
Although Treves achieved fame principally as a surgeon, after his retirement at the age of fifty, he wrote many books both on medical matters including ‘The Elephant Man and other Reminiscences’, and on travel, including ‘Highways and Byways in Dorset’ published in 1906.
His deep love of historic Dorchester is evidenced by the following passage in ‘Highways and Byways of Dorset’ in which he describes the view of the town from the north-east approach:
“It is from this quarter that the approach to Dorchester is the most pleasing and the most reminiscent of past days. Here the water meadows reach to the very garden hedges and to the actual walls of houses. Indeed, cows pasturing by the river might shelter themselves from the sun under the overhanging storey of one of these ancient dwellings on the fringe of the town”. Then on the subject of the late 18th century print in Hutchin’s ‘History of Dorset’ showing Grey’s Bridge he comments that “It is interesting to observe how very little the aspect of the place as seen from this point has altered in these one hundred and three years”.
He warns that the growth of the suburbs round the town “will make the present era famous for architectural ugliness”, foretelling the threat that the proposed North of Dorchester development poses to our town at the present time.
He was an accomplished yachtsman and moored his yacht ‘Vagabond’ Iin Lulworth Cove close to the cottage he rented as a holiday home in West Lulworth.
On 7th December 1923 he died in Switzerland where he had retired but his ashes were buried in the Weymouth Avenue Cemetery after a funeral service in St Peters’ Church on 2nd January 1924.
The commemorative Celtic Cross which marks the spot where his ashes are interred (Photo #8) was restored last year following a fund-raising campaign by residents of Treves Road and the Dorchester Civic Society.

Unfortunately, SYLVIA TOWNSEND-WARNER falls outside of our consideration for this blog as she lived in Chaldon Herring and then at Frome Vauchurch, just outside Maiden Newton. Although she travelled to Dorchester for work (during WW2) and services, and included scenes from Dorchester in some of her short stories, she was not born, nor did she die, in the county town.
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B. COMPOSERS.
SYDNEY SMITH (1839-1889).
Sydney Smith, the third of three boys, was born on 14th July 1839 to Frederick and Helen Smith at his father’s home and dance academy at No 16 South Street (it has been replaced by 20th century flats and a shop occupied at present by Peacocks). His father was also a professor of music.
Like his two brothers, he attended William Barnes’ school across the road from his home and in 1855 he won a Mendelssohn Scholarship which enabled him to study the piano and the cello for the following three years at the Leipzig Conservatory.
He returned to Dorchester in 1858 to live with his parents who had moved their home and academy to Cornhill. A year later he moved to London. There his talents were quickly recognised, and he became as a recitalist and much sought-after piano teacher in fashionable circles. He composed a considerable corpus of works for the piano, totalling some 400 pieces, including transcriptions for the piano of popular opera airs of the time.
His works were well crafted, and he avoided the superfluous flourishes of a lot of Victorian music. They appealed to a growing musically literate public who purchased pianos for their parlours. It should be recalled that, before the invention of radio and television, music making at home occupied the leisure hours of many families in all classes of society. As a result, the sheet music of his works sold very well and enabled the composer and his family to enjoy a comfortable lifestyle until he fell ill with a malignant tumour of the spine and ribs.
His income declined rapidly since at that time composers did not receive royalties on their compositions., Consequently he was obliged to obtain financial assistance from the Royal Society of Musicians. He died prematurely in 1889, at the age of fifty. He left some 476 published compositions.
His elder brother, FREDERICK BOYNTON SMITH (1837-1911) was an organist and also a composer of light music for the piano and for the voice.
The 1861 Census reveals that he lived with his wife Penelope and their three children in Alexandra Terrace (number unknown) and that his occupation was organist at Holy Trinity Church. The 1871 census shows that the family had grown with the addition of a fourth child and that they had moved to a house at 39 South Street. Soon afterwards they moved to Melcombe Regis where his occupation was described as a Music Teacher in the Census returns and where he continued to write popular music for the piano and arrangements of operatic songs, a certain number of which were published and sold as sheet music for home music making. From the 1890s he increasingly devoted himself to writing sacred music.
In the 1901 Census he is shown to have moved back to Dorchester and to be living at No 56 High West Street and by 1907 he had moved to a house in Wollaston Road (number unknown). By that stage he was in regular contact with Thomas Hardy and the following year he set several of Hardy’s poems to music, four of which were included in a theatrical adaptation of the ‘Trumpet Major’ which was produced by the Dorchester Debating and Dramatic Society, which later became The Hardy Players. In 1910 he harmonised books of Dorset carols which had belonged to Hardy’s father and grandfather and by then he had also set poems by William Barnes to music.
He died at the age of 74 at his home in Wollaston Road.
EDGAR ALFRED LANE (1864-1938).
Edgard Lane was born in Norfolk, the eleventh in a family of thirteen children. He displayed musical talents early as a child, conducted his first concert at the age of 16 and was appointed sub-organist at Rippon cathedral at the age of 19.
Edgard and his fiancé Sarah Jane Clarke, a talented pianist, moved to Dorset in 1892 when he was appointed organist and choirmaster at St Peters. In 1893 the couple married and moved into a house in Cornwall Road (number unknown) opposite the future Borough Gardens which were inaugurated three years later. In 1896, after the birth of their first two children, they moved to a more spacious house at 50, High West Street (Photo 9) where he could hold orchestral and choir rehearsals.

In the 1901 Census he was described as ‘Professor of Music/Organist/Principal of Dorchester School of Music’. In addition to these activities, he formed a choral society in Weymouth, and the Madrigal and Orchestral Society in Dorchester. In 1909 he became the organist at Holy Trinity, after resigning his post at St Peters. By then he had also become a music teacher for the organ, piano, violin, cello and the voice and was much in demand as a conductor in the Dorset area.
He composed church and ceremonial music, marches and light music for the piano, some of the latter being published as sheet music. Unfortunately, by then the sales of sheet music had declined substantially because the widespread popularity of the gramophone and radio which reduced home music making. He was a close friend of Thomas Hardy for many years and set poems by the author to music, as he did for verses by William Barnes.
After the outbreak of the First World War he moved his family, which by then included four children, to a house in Charminster called ‘The Yews’. During the war years he was appointed as Music Master at Dorchester Grammar School where, because of the shortage of teachers which followed conscription, he also became a form master.
In 1919 he established the Weymouth Operatic Society, which was later merged with the Madrigal Society, and which survives to this day, and in 1931 he formed the South Dorset Festival Choir. From 1931 his health declined, and he died seven years later. Tragically, most of musical manuscripts were accidentally destroyed in two separate bonfires, including one at Max Gate.
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C. PAINTERS.
TOM ROBERTS (1856-1931).
Tom Roberts was born at No 20 Durngate street (Photo 10) on 8th or 9th March 1856.

He emigrated to Australia with his family in 1869 to live with relatives, perhaps because of the agricultural depression at that time. He studied in Melbourne and then returned to England to pursue his studies at the Royal Academy in London for the three years 1881 to 1884. After visiting Paris and Spain he returned to Australia where he became the leading member of the Heidelberg Group of Australian impressionists.
He specialised in oil paintings of landscapes, in particular of the Australian Bush and of agricultural scenes, although he was also an accomplished portraitist. His works feature in Australia’s principal public art galleries and one of his works hangs in the Louvre in Paris. His best-known painting is probably ‘Shearing the Ram’ (shown in Photo 11).

ANNE LOUISE FALKNER (1863-1933)
Anne Louise Falkner was born at Shirley House, West Walk Terrace (now 5 West Walks Road) in 1863 (see Photo 12) – the daughter of a Dorset vicar and the sister of the novelist and poet John Meade Falkner.

She studied at the Slade School of Fine Art and became part of the first wave of St Ives artists that settled there in Cornwall.
She exhibited at the Royal Academy (1897, 1910, 1911), the Royal Institute of Oil Painters (1908-1912) and the Royal Society of British Artists (1893). She also exhibited in Paris at the Salon D’Automne and through this connection was elected to the Women’s International Art Club where she exhibited from 1913-1922, alongside contemporaries such as Gwen John and Dame Laura Knight. Additionally, she had shows at the Baillie Gallery (a joint exhibition with her lifelong companion Florence Leslie Hervey) and at the Beaux Art Gallery (1926).
She specialised in depicting horses and cattle. Her work is held in several public collections including the British Museum, The V & A, The Southampton City Art Gallery and the Dorset County Museum. She died in Paris in 1933.
THOMAS BEACH (1738-1806)
Thomas Beach was born in the original village of Milton Abbas and was educated at Milford Abbey School. In 1760, thanks to the patronage of Lord Dorchester, he became the first of Joshua Reynold’s pupils and at the same time studied at the St Martin’s Lane Academy in London. His master introduced him to London Society in which he quickly established a reputation as a portrait painter in his own right who “could be depended upon to produce a good likeness”.
In 1769 he opened his own studio in Bath where each winter during the following decade he painted the socialites who flocked there for the season. During the summer he toured the southwest of England where he was received by aristocratic, and wealthy, families and commissioned to paint the portraits of their family members.
He was a member of the Incorporated Society of Artists, exhibited at their exhibitions and became its President in 1783. In addition, he exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy, showing a total of 26 portraits, including in 1797 that of the Prince of Wales, the future George IV. He also contributed to the exhibitions organised by the Free Society of Artists.
Amongst his many subjects was the celebrated actress Sarah Siddons, whom he painted several times, including in a scene from Macbeth on stage with John Kemble, together with other theatrical personalities. Amongst his many society portraits are his depictions of George Pitt, 1st Lord Rivers, John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, Lord Damer and the members of the De La Pole Family of Shute House in Devon.
By the late 1780s he also had a studio in London and for some years lived at Strand-on-the-Green near Kew Bridge just west of London.
His portraits hang in the National Portrait Gallery, the Dulwich Picture Gallery, the Garick Club in London and in numerous country houses owned by the National Trust, including in Montacute House. There is an outstanding group portrait of the Stapleton Family in the Holburne Museum in Bath and a portrait of Rebecca Stewart, who is believed to have owned South Walks House in Dorchester, in Dorset County Museum.
An outstanding portrait of the teenage John Helyar of East Coker in Somerset owned by a local collector is illustrated below (Photo 13).

His self portrait painted in 1802, which hangs in the National Portrait Gallery, is his last recorded work. At about this time he went to live close to his nephew William Beach in Dorchester, or Fordington, and died at the age of 68 on 17th December 1806.
He is buried in the churchyard of All Saints church, but no gravestone survives. A brass plaque to his memory was placed in the church in 1905 but was later moved to St Peters church.
Despite much research I have been unable to identify the address at which he lived out his last few years in our town – can anyone help me to do so?
More generally, does any reader have a candidate to add to my list of artistic celebrities?
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