History

Stalbridge: The home of the Friendly Society

By Hilary Townsend

In 1945, when the first General Election after the last war was being canvassed, students from Oxford University arrived in a van with a loudspeaker. They parked in Stalbridge High Street and explained the advantages of the proposed Welfare State. It was raining hard so a lady prudently opened her window and called: “What will happen now to the Friendly Societies?” The students had no idea. They did not know that Stalbridge had a long and vital tradition of supporting Friendly Societies. On 4 September the History Society organised a talk about Stalbridge’s Friendly Societies given by Mr Philip Hoyland from Burnham on Sea, who had researched the topic for many years. Before the Welfare State sickness and unemployment were a severe hardship to working people so by paying a small subscription regularly to Friendly Societies they could get basic payments when needed. On the annual Club Walking Day all the local Friendly Societies celebrated. A brass band led a procession through the town, everyone seemed to be in their best clothes and every head was covered by a large hat or a cap. The stewards of the Friendly Society carried individual poles topped with the Society’s emblem – a highly polished flame-like brass spearhead – and there was a celebratory meal at the Swan. In the early 19th century eleven of these pole heads had been mounted on a semi-circular wooden holder resembling a large shining Sunburst. The speaker Mr Hoyland had brought the Sunburst with him. He was now dispersing his large collection of Friendly Society memorabilia and offered to sell the Stalbridge Sunburst to the History Society. Much thought is now being given to fundraising to buy it and return it to its home town.

Stalbridge Club Walking Day, when a brass band led a procession through the town

Geoff’s been a resident in St Johns’ Almshouse for two years; he considers himself lucky to live here and wishes he’d moved in sooner. With a very varied background including working for Rolls Royce and Bentley, in electronics, aircraft and helicopters, Geoff then followed a lifelong interest in antiques to run two shops in Sherborne until he was finally persuaded to retire at 80. He came to St Johns’ a few years later when the house and garden became too much to manage and has made a happy home in the almshouse which he describes as ‘beautifully run with brilliant home-made food’! Friendships amongst residents are strong, and the relaxed atmosphere makes life very pleasant at St Johns’, Geoff says. Its position in the centre of the historic town of Sherborne means that shops, cafes and other amenities are easily reachable on foot, enabling residents to live independently, coming and going as they please. LIVE A LIFE OF INDEPENDENCE & COMFORT IN THE HEART OF HISTORIC SHERBORNE

St Johns’ House o昀ers a warm welcome to residents with its en-suite rooms, outstanding location and friendly, supportive community.

By Robert Wellen

After Queen Victoria, William Ewart Gladstone was probably the most famous person in late Victorian England. In a career lasting more than 60 years, the British statesman and Liberal politician served 12 years as Prime Minister spread over four terms beginning in 1868 and ending in 1894. In 1889, Gladstone made a 12 day West Country Whitsun tour including a visit to Gillingham on Monday, June 17 1889. A collection of ‘ephemera concerning WE Gladstone’s visit to Gillingham’ is held in the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre. Gillingham had been ‘rendered gay with bunting, arches and expressions of welcome’ and Gladstone was met with the ‘liveliest satisfaction’. Gladstone said: “I am very glad to think that I am in a district where wholesale and useful domestic manufacture does something towards assisting the maintenance agricultural families. (Hear, hear) “Unhappily, there is a tendency in the rate of wages in agricultural districts to fall below the level which is customary established in the more populous districts, although such wages have been applied and economised by the rural population with wonderful thrift and a great deal of skill. “As to his being subjected, I will not say to the cruel and horrible processes which some thirty or forty years ago were applied in Ireland to force the population to leave their native country. (Cheers) “The agricultural labourer, he commonly called, has a strong desire to attach himself more closely to the land, and to facilitate his attaching himself more closely to the land is a great object of public policy, a great and worthy object of the cares and thoughts of statesmen and of Parliaments. (Hear, hear) “I am not particularly sanguine about the present Parliament. (Hear, hear, and laughter). I look to the early creation of one that will be great deal better and one that will do more justice both to you and your fellow-subjects in Ireland, for whose interests I rejoice to observe everywhere the most lively and spontaneous feeling, which indicates on the part the people of this country a strong and deep conviction that the cause of the Irish people, and the cause of the English, Scotch, and Welsh people, is really one cause. “Freedom, justice, truth, equity, reasonable regard to all relative rights. They are that one and sufficient foundation upon which the welfare of the entire community from one end of these islands to the other will, by the blessing of God, be perfectly and happily preserved.” (Cheers)

William Ewart Gladstone, right, arrives in Gillingham, above, in 1889. Below, the invitation to Liberals to attend

The day that Mr Gladstone visited Gillingham and Mere