Newsletter for the Friends of the East Sussex Record Office2009 Spring

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Chairman Pam CombesVice-Chairman Lady Teviot(Hon. Secretary/Treasurer) John BarkshireNewsletter Editor Gail VinesNewsletter Production Sue RowlandCounty Archivist Elizabeth HughesMembership Secretary Sue Tompsett

Committee MembersHeather ColemanJudy Brent  Roger DaveyPam FieldingLord TeviotCarol White

PresidentPeter Field,Lord Lieutenant of East Sussex

Registered Charity No. 296062

Please direct any correspondence or membershipenquiries to the appropriate officer c/o

The East Sussex County Record OfficeThe Maltings, Castle Precincts,Lewes, East Sussex, BN7 1YT

Tel: 01273 482349e-mail: archives@eastsussex.gov.uk

Opening TimesMonday and Tuesday - 8.45-4.45Wednesday - 9.30-4.45Thursday - 8.45-4.45Friday - 8.45-4.15and the second Saturday each month - 9.00-1.00and 2.00-4.45

To book please phone the Search Room on:01273 482359 (booking is always advisable andessential on Saturdays)

Contents

Cover photo, newsletterand logo design: Andy Gammon

www.eastsussex.gov.uk/leisureandtourism/localandfamilyhistory/esro/

Visit East Sussex Record Office website at:

www.fesro.org

Visit the Friends of East Sussex Record Officewebsite at:

Dates for your diary back page

A Champion archive 6-7Anna Manthorpe

Charles Dawson’s draft of his history ofHastings Castle 8-9John Farrant

Forthcoming visits 4Judy Brent

News from the Record Office 2-3Elizabeth Hughes

News from the chairman 1Pam Combes

SAS Conferences 2009 5Sue Berry

The Julian Fane ArchiveDiana Crook

Seminars and day schools 2009 4Pam Combes

New ESRO acquisition: map of Penns Rocksat Holleyman Sale 10-11Christopher Whittick

A great-grandmother at sea 12-13David Calvert

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News from the chairman

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We were delighted to welcome to our AGM ournew president the Lord Lieutenant of East Sussex,Peter Field and his wife Margaret, who accompaniedhim. The Lord Lieutenant has taken on the mantleof his predecessor Mrs Phyllida Stewart-Robertsand is taking a keen interest in the development ofthe Keep. We were also delighted to welcome tothe meeting Councillor Bob Tidey who holds theESCC Community Services Portfolio, which includesresponsibility for the archives.

John Barkshire was elected to serve as hon.secretary/treasurer to the group and Pamela Combeswas re-elected as Chairman. Carol White and LordTeviot were elected to fill the two vacancies on thecommittee. Gail Vines and Sue Rowland have beenco-opted to continue their excellent contribution asnewsletter editors and website co-ordinator. Sub-sequently Mrs Phyllida Stewart-Roberts has alsoagreed to be co-opted to the committee and wewelcome her continued support and interest.

Following the meeting we enjoyed a thoughtprovoking recital of early church music, given byThe West Gallery Singers and King Henry’s Consort,from the psalm-book of Thomas Sanders of Waldron(ESRO AMS 6749). Their entertaining performancehighlighted the fact that this form of early musicwas preserved by the dissenting congregation,while the familiar music of the Church of Englandwas largely introduced during the Victorian era ofchurch reform and does not clearly reflect the earliertradition.

As many of you will know by now we are risingfrom the ashes of disappointment on hearing thenews that ESRO have not been granted the HLFfunding for which they had worked so hard. Whenput into a wider context the decision can perhapsbe understood. The knowledge that £50 millionworth of applications were chasing a mere £10millions grant fund made for despondency evenbefore the decision was made. Many organisationsbased in East Sussex have recently received sub-stantial grants from HLF – SAS and Lewes Priory

among them so our hopes were not high. But it isextraordinary that our excellent application whichwould have served such a substantial and diversecommunity has been rejected and the rejectionmust come as a particular blow to Wendy andElizabeth and all the team who worked so hard toput the proposals together. I think we would all liketo see their imaginative approach come to fruitionand I feel sure that, despite this set back, all ourmembers will wish to do everything possible to ensurethat it happens. Following the sad outcome of thisdecision the committee have set up an administrativesub-committee, chaired by John Barkshire, to considerhow FESRO, working in co-operation with ESCC andtheir partners, can best support any further fundraising initiative for The Keep.

We will do everything in our power to raisefunds and support ESRO as it tackles the revisionof plans which result from the failure of the lotteryapplication, but we will need all the help we canmuster. If you have any expertise in fund raising,copy editing for newspaper press releases orpublicity please make yourself known by writing tous at The Maltings.

All the news has not been gloomy. ESRO weredelighted to accept the archive of a distinguishedlocal author Julian Fane. Mr Fane has made asubstantial donation to FESRO in order to ensurethat funds continue to be available to conserve hisarchive in the future. That is an unprecedented stepwhich we welcome. It is to be hoped that manymore depositors will follow his example so that wecan build up a substantial fund to support the careand conservation of the archives. It gives me greatpleasure to take this opportunity to publicly recordour sincere thanks to Mr Fane for his most generousand forward thinking gesture.

Despite set backs we are looking forward toanother year of active support for the record officeenjoyed through social and educational activitiesand - as time will tell - maybe some serious fundraising. Pam Combes

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News from the Record Office

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New Record Office: The KeepYou will all be aware by now that we wereunsuccessful in our application to the HeritageLottery Fund for £5 million towards The Keep.Although the HLF acknowledged that the applicationhad been a strong one, which it would have likedto have supported, the competition for the availablefunds had been fierce. Sixteen projects worth £50million had been submitted for a total fundingallocation of just over £10 million. Only four projectswere given a stage one pass. We received very littlefeedback from HLF on our application and whenwe enquired further they confirmed that the Boardof Trustees had no points to raise in terms of thingsthey would like to have seen us do differently orimprove upon. We are naturally very disappointedindeed but all the partners are still keen to seewhether an alternative solution can be found toachieve the original vision for The Keep within theavailable partnership funding. Since January,therefore, we have been carrying out an optionsappraisal to consider affordable ways forwardthrough such means as speeding up the programmeto take advantage of savings to be made from thecurrent state of the construction industry andreduced inflation; reducing the size and/orspecification of different elements of the building;an alternative energy strategy for the building; andfundraising. We hope that final decision on the wayforward can be made in the summer.

StaffingThere have been some more staff changes. At TheMaltings, Drew Boulton started as ArchivesAssistant in September, replacing Dennis Steer inthe strong room, and Isilda Almeida began asOutreach and Learning Officer in November. Sheis building up an outreach programme for nextyear and has applied for funding for projects towork with people in care homes, school childrenand children in care and we are keeping our fingerscrossed. At the Record Centre, Chris Hankin retired

as Record Centre supervisor at the end of February.Chris worked at The Maltings before he moved tothe Record Centre. He hasn’t entirely left us – hewill be helping to fill in staffing gaps by workingfor us on a casual basis. Chris’s replacement isalready in post. She is Julie Williams (known asJools) and is settling in well.

The Document Services Team (ChristopherWhittick, Anna Manthorpe, Andrew Bennett andJohn Farrant) were Highly Commended in the Teamof the Year category of the County Council’sExcellence Awards for their work in transferringlists of 85 per cent of East Sussex Record Office'sholdings to a national website, where we are secondof 418 organisations measured by number of hits.This award was no mean achievement as we wereup against the big guns of the larger services socongratulations are very much in order.

Other newsIn 2006 a self-assessment process for local authorityarchives, was introduced by The National Archives.This has now become an annual assessment, whichlooks at governance and management,documentation of collections, access, buildings,and preservation and conservation. In the first yearEast Sussex Record Office scored no stars out ofthree in the overall rating because it did not reachthe threshold for a one star rating for buildings. In2007 we improved considerably and were assessedat two stars out of three and this year we weredetermined to maintain and, if possible, improveon this rating.

The result of this year’s assessment for EastSussex were announced in December. The starrating system has been changed, with the originalrange of 0-3 stars now corresponding to 1-4 stars,so for us to maintain the same level we would needto have achieved a three star rating overall. I ampleased to say that we have done this, achieving2 stars for access and for buildings, 3 stars fordocumentation and for preservation, and 4 stars

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By the time this newsletter reaches you, the SAS library catalogue will be online. As many of you will beaware, this interesting library contains not only an extensive collection of archaeological and historicalbooks and journals but also many other rare, and indeed unique, items including, for example, early guidebooks and directories for Brighton.

Thanks to a generous donor the new catalogue is due to be completed and on the web by the end ofMarch 2009. It will be accessible via the Sussex Archaeological Society website.

for governance. Our overall score increased by 2.5per cent and our direction of travel is “likely toimprove further”. This is a fantastic tribute to whatthe staff have achieved for the service despite theproblems presented by the buildings.

We will be participating in the latest nationalsurvey of record office users, which is being run inJune. We will be giving out questionnaires to peoplewho use the Record Office during the survey period,so if that happens to be you, we would reallyappreciate you spending a little time to answer it– we want to know you views.

The Record Centre at Newhaven is just comingto the end of what we call a Scrutiny Review. Asmall Board of Councillors is looking at how theservice operates and how it could improve. The

review has included a tour of the record centre, aquestionnaire issued to other local authority recordsmanagement services to see how they do things,a focus group of users, who were verycomplimentary about the service (though theybemoaned the lack of space) and a visit to theequivalent service in Kent to see what we couldlearn from them. Records management is animportant aspect of our work that isn’t always fullyunderstood or appreciated because it is dealingwith business efficiency rather than providing publicaccess. However, without it we wouldn’t have oneof the best local authority archives in the countryAND it saves the county council, and therefore thecouncil tax payer, money.

Elizabeth Hughes

Sussex Record Society - sale of back volumesWe were going to include a flyer in this newsletter listing the books for sale. However, the response fromSRS members was so great that many of the issues are already sold out. If you wish to see which volumesare still available at bargain prices visit the website where the list and instructions for ordering are posted.

You may also be interested that some of their most popular volumes and some useful unpublishedtranscripts are now freely available to consult online. The site includes The Book of John Rowe, TheBuckhurst Terrier, Lay Subsidy Rolls 1524-25 and East Sussex Window Tax 1747 (unpublished) and much,much, more. Pam Combes

New on-line resource for researchers

Pam Combes

The Maltings is due to be closed for structural repair and decoration later this year. The contractor hasnot yet fixed the dates although they are intending to work from late May into early June. The projectwill take about a month and the office will be closed while the work is done. The closure dates will beposted in the search room and on the ESRO website as soon as they have been confirmed. Watch thewebsite www.eastsussex.gov.uk/leisureandtourism/localandfamilyhistory/esro/ or ring 01273 482349to check the office is open.

The Maltings – warning of forthcoming closure

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Forthcoming events

Members will meet in the stately Early Englishchurch for a short talk by Colin Brent on the historyof Pevensey as a feudal stronghold and ancientport. There will be a visit to the history displays inthe borough court house with its council chamberon the first floor and cells and exercise yard below.Using public footpaths, members will alsoperambulate the Roman and Norman defences ofthe castle.

Tea will be served in the Castle Cottage tearooms.Judy Brent

FESRO visit to PevenseySaturday 26 September 2009, 2pmCost £8 (to include cream tea and admission to the museum)Numbers are limited to 20

Seminars, evening classes and day schools

As you will see we have no classesof any type arranged for this autumn.We have been reassessing what wecan undertake and gathering somenew ideas ready to begin anew nextyear. We welcome requests andideas from members asking us toprovide classes that would be usefulto them. However we have to makea proviso - we will always do ourbest to supply the need, but wecannot guarantee that we can alwaysfind a suitable person to leadspecialized sessions.If you have a request either send anote addressed to Pam Combes atthe Maltings or email a message to:bandhpast@btinternet.com

Pam Combes

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We have constantly altered how we use rural land for farming, settlement and other uses. We can’t exploreevery theme relevant to change in the rural landscape and community in a day but we hope we have chosensome which will be of interest and reflect how diverse the influences on a rural Sussex have been fromthe middle ages onwards. All of the speakers are experts on the subjects they are talking about and areusing their recent research.The topics:The medieval Landscapes of rural settlement in Sussex - Mark GardinerChanges in rural house design; from medieval to early modern - David MartinEnclosure 1700-1900. How different was Sussex? John ChapmanContinuity and change: landownership and farming on the Western Downs 1850-1950 John GodfreyThe impact of suburban development on rural communities c1750-1914 Sue BerryFarming and the rural community of Sussex during the Second World War Brian ShortTwentieth Century Rural England – Death and Rebirth? Alun Howkins.

Sussex Past Conferences

Speakers are Jane Kirk on Parham (her book on the houseis due out shortly); Compton Place (Eastbourne, awonderful 1720s revamp by Campbell of an olderhouse) by Richard Hewlings of English Heritage; SheffieldPark Gardens by Richard Wheeler, the National Trust' sown curator of gardens; Lost Country Houses of Sussexby Sue Berry the editor of the VCH City of Brighton andHove.

Recent research on country houses in Sussex

Eridge Castle is one of our lost country houses. 

Please post with cheque to Membership SecretarySussex Archaeological SocietyBarbican House, High Street,Lewes BN7 1YEEnquiries: membership@sussexpast.co.uk (01273 405737)

Saturday 13 June 2009 from 1.30pm to 5.15pmSt Thomas's Hall in Cliffe High Street, Lewes£15 cheque to Sussex Archaeological Society, £12 student - with proof.

Saturday 19th September 2009 from 10am to 5pmChichester Lecture Theatre University of Sussex£30 cheque to Sussex Archaeological Society, £25 student - with proof.

Change and the Sussex Landscape from Medieval to ModernThe Sussex Archaeological Society with The Society for Landscape Studies

Sue Berry

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A Champion archive – ACC 8859

In 1983 a group of papers relating to the Ashbyfamily of East Dean was deposited at The Maltings,and it was subsequently discovered that they hadformed part of a much larger archive, that of a firmof solicitors called Champion and Company, whichhad been found above Dorothy Perkins’ premisesin Terminus Road, Eastbourne in the 1970s. Therecords were rescued by Lawrence and Pat Stevens,and later sorted and listed briefly in manuscript bymembers of the Eastbourne Local History Society.In 2003 those papers were in turn deposited atESRO as ACC 8859.

The archive is so extensive, consisting mainlyof numerous client papers ranging from a singlesheet to a large bundle, that it was necessary touse the last two stocktaking periods as anopportunity to process it. It is unusual for such alarge quantity of such papers to survive, and theyprovide a unique glimpse of the Eastbourne areaaround the end of the nineteenth century.

Champion and Co started as Champion,Robinson and Poole in London in 1870; CharlesChampion (1817-1913) was an established Londonsolicitor who had been born in Seaford and wasthe son of William Champion, a saddler, and hiswife Elizabeth. The firm opened a branch at 86Terminus Road in Eastbourne around 1879, bywhich time Champion's son, Charles GobleChampion (1854-1919), had joined the firm.

The partnership with Robinson and Poole wasdissolved in 1885, and Charles Champion the elderthen continued in partnership with Charles Gobleand his other son Ernest under the style Championand Sons. There was also an office in Hailsham bythe time that he retired in 1889. Charles Goble andErnest continued in partnership, but this ended in1895 and Charles Goble then practised alone asChampion and Co in London and Eastbourne, wherethe firm was based at 10 Gildredge Road.

In 1884 Charles Goble Champion marriedJessie Earp, the daughter of William Earp (died1882), a former manager of The Grand Hotel in

Eastbourne. Jessie died in 1893, and in the followingyear he acquired his second wife, Edith MaudeStringer, purchasing Deans Place in Alfriston aroundthe same time. With the house came extensive landin the village, which Champion laid out in buildingplots.

Despite his status as a local landowner, CharlesGoble Champion never really seems to have hitthe big-time as a solicitor. Much of his work wasconcerned with the pursuit of small debts and errantfathers, serving summonses on the local low-life,and arranging loans and mortgages. This of courseis what makes the archive of particular interest. Wehold records of a good number of up-marketpractices, but Champions is our first (and almostcertainly last) acquisition of the records of a firmdealing with the legal problems of an entirelydifferent clientele. As such, it shines a welcomeand rather unexpected light on the raffish underclassof Eastbourne, ‘the Empress of Watering Places’,and its hinterland.

There were some interesting clients. From 1889to 1898 the incumbent of Alfriston was the RevFrederick William Beynon, best known for his role

Old Clergy House, Alfriston (ACC 08859/5/2)

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in the National Trust’s first acquisition, the OldClergy House, in 1896. Despite its tranquil exterior,Beynon's home-life was dysfunctional. Maritalrelations were severely strained through hisfriendship with a young woman, and his defencethat staying at her home was respectable becauseit was a boarding house, where he had the samestatus as other paying guests, does not seem tohave placated Mrs Beynon. Their son FrederickStephen was accused of raping a servant girl atAlfriston in 1893. Then in 1896 Frederick Beynonwas adjudicated bankrupt, surely unusual for anAnglican clergyman.

The archive includes papers relating to thesale of the site of The Wingrove, Alfriston, toRichard Porter in 1864, and the Wingrove Stables,to James Gatland in 1891.

Champion was solicitor for The EastbourneMarket Company Ltd, which was established in1885. The market opened on a site in Grove Road,adjoining Eastbourne Town Hall, in 1888, but bythe following year the directors were announcingthat their plans to open a first-class market inEastbourne had not met with the success that hadbeen expected, and they planned to let the entirepremises. By 1893 they were hoping find a buyer.

Poor financial luck or judgement soonextended to Champion's own business. He wasadjudicated bankrupt by order of the County Courton 19 May 1904. Worse followed: The Times of 11November 1905 states that he was struck off theroll of solicitors for embezzling the estate of an oldlady in Eastbourne. Despite his disgrace, Championcontinued to live at The Manor House, Deans Place,and died there in 1919.

Records of the Eastbourne Workmen's ThriftClub, JH Maggs and Co Ltd, printers, of Eastbourne,and two account books containing pupil namesfor St Anthony's Catholic Preparatory School, wereinitially thought to be client papers also. Then thediscovery of a single sheet of paper led to theconclusion that they had been held by the

accountants, Limebeer and Tinling, later Tinlings,which also acted as liquidators for Champion andCo after the bankruptcy. Further searches revealedthat the accountants had been based where therecords were found, thus fitting the final piece ofthe archival jigsaw.

Sale particulars (ACC 08859/3/G/6)

Anna Manthorpe

Charles Dawson’s draft of his History of Hastings Castle

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Were it not for his implication in the forgery ofPiltdown Man, Charles Dawson (1864-1916) wouldlikely be remembered today only as one among adozen or so Sussex antiquaries active at the openingof the 20th century, and the author of a stillserviceable history of Hastings Castle. Other hoaxesmore securely attributable to him by laboratoryanalysis might not have attracted attention, andhoaxes more easily exposed simply noted ascuriosities of their time. Thanks to Piltdown Man,however, no other lifelong resident of Sussex ofhis times has been the subject of so muchposthumous interest.

But the documentary trail that Dawson left isvery slight. Maybe he deliberately did not keeppapers, maybe it is just chance that his widowsurvived him by only a year, during wartime, thathis stepchildren cleared and sold Castle Lodge,Lewes and that his solicitor’s practice in Uckfield,still active today, turned out its old files for salvageduring World War II. So any document from hishand has special interest. What ESRO has recentlyacquired is a manuscript draft of Dawson’s Historyof Hastings Castle. The Castlery, Rape and Battleof Hastings, to which is added a History of theCollegiate Church within the Castle, and itsPrebends, which was published in two volumes in1910.

It has long been suggested that Dawsonextensively plagiarised other people’s work. In the1820s William Herbert was employed to establishthe Earl of Chichester’s claims to land adjoiningHastings Castle and other rights relating to theRape of Hastings (see ESRO, AMS 6113 for someworking notes). In the early 1950s J. ManwaringBaines, Curator of Hastings Museum, boughtWilliam Herbert’s manuscript report to the Earl –which a later Earl gave to Dawson. Dawsonspecifically acknowledged his debt to Herbert onlyin relation to small part of his book, but Bainesjudged the History to be ‘largely an extended versionof Herbert’s work’ (Historic Hastings, rev. edn (1986),

xii). Around 1970 some books were ‘retrieved frombuilders’ waste during renovation of an Uckfieldstore-room with a remote association with Dawson.’Six of the books are translations of medieval textspublished in Bohn’s Antiquarian Library between1853 and 1892. Passages are marked, sometimeswith textual amendments, and correspond toaccounts of events shown in the Bayeux Tapestrywhich Dawson published in his History, but withoutacknowledgement, as if Dawson had consulted theoriginal (medieval Latin and French) sources (PeterMiles in Studies in Bibliography, 46 (1993), 357-70).

In 2008 ESRO with the Friends’ assistanceacquired seven folio notebooks, running to some500 leaves and probably coming from the sameclear-out. These are Dawson’s handwritten draft ofsome 55 per cent of the History, ready for a typist(ACC 10103). Three of the notebooks cover Part IIof the History, nearly half of the whole, describedin the prospectus (SAS Library, ACC 2835b) as‘comprising translations, transcripts and quotationsfrom the Latin and Norman-French of every knownimportant document relating to the subject; mostcomplete from Norman times to Dissolution of the

Charles Dawson

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Monasteries.’ They contain numerous transcriptsof documents, usually in translation, pasted ontoor tipped-in to the left-hand pages, some of whichcarry as many as five or six sheets. These addedsheets are mostly in hands other than Dawson’s,of five or more different writers. With little doubtthe writers were record searchers working in thePublic Record Office. Presumably Dawson arrangedthese transcripts chronologically and then wrote anarrative on the right-hand pages, inserting themon the facing left-hand pages. The only translationswhich appear to be Dawson’s own work are thosefrom the printed editions of the Pipe Rolls, requiringno skill in palaeography and slight command ofmedieval Latin. Yet the innocent reader of the Historywould infer that Dawson had done his own research.

However L. F. Salzman was not such aninnocent, as he was working in the PRO for theVictoria County History of Sussex and must haveknown what had gone on. ‘The author,’ wrote in

Sussex Archaeological Collections, 53 (1910), 282,‘has displayed much industry in collecting materialbut little judgment in its selection and arrangement.Apart from errors of translation the misreadingsare extremely numerous. It is difficult to say howfar these are due to carelessness, inaccuracy andneglect of proof reading, and how far to relianceupon second-hand authorities, as references arefrequently omitted or given in an unintelligibleform. In many cases when matter is taken, mistakesand all, from earlier writers no acknowledgementof the source is made.…’ Dawson retaliated bytrying to block, unsuccessfully, Salzman’s electionas a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, an honourhighly desirable in the latter’s chosen career.Salzman had the last word in noting that Dawson’sname had been ‘given to “Pilt Down Man”(Eoanthropus dawsoni), the lowest known form ofhuman being’ (SAC, 85 (1946), 38).

John Farrant

picture?

Hastings Castle, photographed by Charles Dawson in 1909

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New ESRO acquisition:map of Penns Rocks at Holleyman Sale

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East Sussex Record Office scanned the catalogueof the collection of the archaeologist and booksellerGeorge Holleyman, to be sold at Chichester inMarch 2008. Although we were intrigued by thedescription of Lot 216, which suggested that JohnPattenden had travelled almost 60 miles from hishome in Kent to map an estate in Haslemere, weconcluded that there was nothing for us in the sale.It was only when a sharp-eyed colleague at WestSussex Record Office alerted us to the presence ofthis most interesting map, concealed in Lot 216 bythe omission of a line from the catalogue, that werealised that we had three days to raise what mightbe a substantial sum. With Christopher Whitticksomewhere between Aachen and Helsinki, thecampaign was ably managed by Anna Manthorpe.

In the event, and doubtless assisted by the

typographical error, we purchased Lot 216 for £530- a very reasonable amount, which was covered inits entirety by the Friends of the National Libraries.'A description of certaine land scituate in theparishes of Wythiham and Retherfield in the Countieof Sussex, being the land of the Right WorshipfullAnthony Fowle Esquier', is a workmanlike mapdrawn in 1638 by John Pattenden of Lamberhurst.It comes from the very beginning of his career -his maps, which are exclusively of estates in EastSussex and Kent, range in date from 1637 to 1663.The lot did indeed include another map, of theValebridge Estate in Lurgashall in West Sussex,surveyed by WHH Shorte of Midhurst in 1836. Itwas the road direction ‘to Haslemere’ on the edgeof the map which had induced the auctioneer toattribute it to the Surrey parish.

Pattenden’s map shows asizeable estate of 173 acres 2 rodsand 4 perches of land, and ispresented in ink and colour on asheet of parchment measuring 22inches by 21 inches. It shows twohouses, three barns, fields andwoods, with their names andacreages indicated in each parcel.The fields in the southern elementof the farm are annotated withdetails of their freehold or copyholdtenure; The Farmers Wood at thenorth of the farm was ‘partly flowedwith the mill water' [of Motts Mill].The map shows roads and theirdirections, including 'the way toBurchden Furnace', a usefulreminder of the survival of theWealden iron industry in whichAnthony Fowle played some part.

It was only when we settleddown to plot the survey on amodern map that the significanceof the document became clear - the

The house and barn at Penns Rocks in 1638: AMS 6810/1

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estate, originally called The Rocks from theprominent formations which surround it, acquiredthe name Penns Rocks in 1672 when it passed bymarriage to William Penn (1644-1718). His wife,Gulielma Maria Springett (1644-1694), was thedaughter of Colonel Sir William Springett (d1644)of Broyle Place in Ringmer. As yet the means ofthe estate’s transmission from the Fowles to theSpringetts has not been established. Penns Rockswas bought in 1928 by Dorothy Wellesley, duchessof Wellington (1889-1956), whose lover HildaMatheson (1888-1940) moved to a house on theestate soon after 1952. Wellesley established aprivate press at Penns Rocks, and from it the first

ten volumes of Britain in Pictures were publishedin 1939.

The survey has evidently been detached fromthe estate which it depicts for at least a century. AsPhillipps Manuscript 26430, it was purchased byCaptain Alfred Walter Francis Fuller (1882-1961) on3 April 1937. Like ESRO, he too got a bargain - hepaid 35 shillings for Pattenden’s work. Both SussexRecord Offices - we presented the Valebridge mapto our neighbours at Chichester as a thank-offeringfor their essential help - are grateful to the Friendsof the National Libraries for their lightningintervention on our behalf.

Christopher Whittick

Penns Rocks

A great-grandmother at sea

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My research into my family history had been almostmoribund for over twelve years, but this year, Ithought I would make a determined effort to tidyup some loose ends. One of these was the ancestryof my father’s maternal grandmother.

Her name was Rose Pannell and in the 1891census for Middlesbrough, her place of birth wasentered as Exmouth. Working back through thecensuses for Exmouth, I found her, aged 7 months,living with her family in Tower Street. The head ofthe household was one Ann Perriam, aged 90 andshe was recorded as being Rose’s great-grandmother. It is uncommon to find such a spanof generations in a census record and so I made atrip to Exeter to study the parish registers.

Not so much, “Who do you think you are?” as “What did she think she was?”

Two days of staring at a microfiche readergave me a headache and a fair bit of information.Some of it did not seem relevant at the time butlater turned out to be significant. It seemed that Icould not trace this Ann Perriam’s line so I packedup one lunchtime and headed off to Exmouth seewhere the family had lived.

Tower Street was easy enough to find andmany of the buildings must have been there in theearly 19th century. I walked down the street takingsome photographs and on a whim, I turned andretraced my steps. At the top of the street, I noticeda blue plaque on a wall and read that the househad been lived in by Ann (also known as Nancy)Perriam, who had served with His Majesty’s Navyat the battles of Cape St. Vincent and the Nile. Thistook me aback, what was my 4 x great-grandmotherdoing in the navy? My research is incomplete buthere is the story so far.

Born Ann Litton in April 1768, she marriedEdward Hopping in 1788 and had two children. Hewent to sea as a gunner, HMS Crescent commandedby Captain (later Admiral) de Saumarez. On theCrescent putting in to Plymouth after an extendedcruise, Ann joined her husband on board, with thepermission of the captain. They later followed him,along with twelve other young men from Exmouth,on to HMS Orion. On board ship, Ann’s usual taskswere as a seamstress, particularly looking after thecaptain’s uniform. When the ship was in action,however, she helped by “preparing flannelcartridges for the great guns”, as the IllustratedLondon News put it in 1865. In addition to this,though, she also assisted the surgeons tending tothe wounded.

A year later, she followed the same pattern atthe Battle of the Nile. A seaman at that battle, whowas assigned to a station below decks, stated later,"I saw little of this action. Any information we gotwas from the boys and women who carried theAnn Perriam, Rose’s great-grandmother

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The distinguished Lewes author, Julian Fane, hasmade arrangements for his literary archive to begiven to the East Sussex Record Office on his death.As his archivist, I can give Friends an idea of itscontents.

Julian Fane’s first book, Morning, waspublished in 1956 to great acclaim fromsuch critics as John Betjeman, HaroldNicolson and Lord David Cecil. Now over80, he is still writing novels at such a speedthat his secretary finds it hard to keep up.First editions of all these books, along withartwork, reviews and other records of aproductive literary career are includedtogether with the original handwrittenmanuscripts stored in scarlet linen solander boxeswith gold lettering. But the heart of the archive,and its most fascinating section, is thecorrespondence. Julian Fane is the second son ofthe late Earl of Westmorland and as a young man

one of the Princess Margaret ‘set’. Correspondentsrange from members of the royal family andaristocrats to politicians, artists and well-knownliterary figures. Special friendships with Cynthia

Asquith, David and Rachel Cecil andGeoffrey and Elspeth Howe are recordedat some length.

The card index system that I set up somesixteen years ago might now have an oldfashioned look but it has its own charmsin that Julian often adds comments on hisparticular relationship with that corres-pondent. It has been a pleasure and aprivilege for me to work on these papersover the years and I am delighted that they

will find a good and secure home with ESRO. It isa generous gift and one that will enhance the localcollections and provide rich pickings for futureresearchers.

Diana Crook

The Julian Fane Archive

(continued from previous page)

powder . . . I was much indebted to the gunner'swife, who gave her husband and me a drink ofwine now and then, which lessened our fatiguemuch." Later she especially remembered thebravery of a young midshipman, whose arm wastaken out of its socket. "The boy bore the operationswithout a murmur," she wrote, "and when it wasover turned to me and said, 'Have I not borne itlike a man?' Having said this he immediatelyexpired."

Ann and her husband left the navy in 1799 butin 1803, Edward, who worked as a seaman alongthe Exe estuary, was drowned when his boatcapsized in a sudden storm. Ann re-married a localpilot, John Perriam, in 1805 but by 1812, she wasonce more a widow. She maintained herself byselling fish around the Exmouth area but when shebecame too infirm to do this, a petition was raisedby the local populace and as a result, she was

awarded an annual pension of £10 by the navy.She was one of only four women to receive sucha pension at that time. She survived until 1865when she died at the advanced age of 97.

So what is the moral of this tale as far asarchival research is concerned? One, record asmuch information as you can while you haveaccess to the documents. I found out that I hadnoted both Ann’s baptism and her first marriage,although I did not know at the time - I had justnoted down surnames that had cropped up asmiddle names for descendants. Two, always lookagain. If I had not turned back up Tower Street, Iwould not have seen the blue plaque and maynever have known that I had such a formidableancestor.

David Calvert

David is in charge of reprographics at ESRO

FESRONEWS

Dates for your 2009 diary

- Saturday opening (please phone to book)

- Saturday opening (please phone to book)

- Sunday - Joint visit with WSAS to Visit to Lindfield (fully booked)

- Saturday opening (please phone to book)

- SAS Conference - Recent research on country houses in Sussex (see page 5)

- Saturday opening (please phone to book)

- Saturday opening (please phone to book)

- FESRO Committee meeting

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- SAS Conference - Change and the Sussex Landscape from Medieval to Modern (see page 5)

- Saturday - FESRO visit to Pevensey (see page 4)

- Saturday opening (please phone to book)

- Newsletter deadline

2009

Apr 18

May 9

May 31

Jun 13

Jun 13

Jul 11

Aug 08

Aug 19

Sep 12

Sep 19

Sep 26

Oct 10

Oct 14

To book an event please use the enclosed booking form. Payment within 7 days (cheques to FESRO)must be made to secure bookings of events. Please include an sae with all correspondence and sendto the address indicated on the booking form.

Saturday opening

Please note that the (opening) date for April 2009 has been altered from our usual second Saturdayin the month to avoid Easter weekend. We hope to extend Saturday openings and details of additionaldates will be given as soon as they are available.

For booking Saturday openings please phone the Search Room on: 01273 482359

Buxted court rolls discovered at the Centre for Kentish Studies - more in next issue

STOP PRESS!In order to facilitate the preparation of the accounts the date of the FESRO AGMhas been changed. The next AGM will be held early in 2010. Full details will be inthe next newsletter.