The Blandford Express

  With five substantial courses and twelve alcoholic toasts, Blandford Corporation’s 1910 Dinner was not a weight-watcher’s affair. The evening opened at Blandford’s Crown Hotel with a choice of either mock turtle or julienne soup accompanied with a glass of sherry. This was followed by fish which could be turbot, shrimp sauce, or fried fillets of sole. With this there was a German hock. After the fish, there were lamb cutlets and peas. Next was a meat course offering boned turkey, pheasant, York ham, roast chicken, game pie, spiced beef, tongue, sirloin of beef and finally galantine of beef. With this course there was both claret and champagne. As an ‘ entremets’ or desert, there was a choice of plum pudding, trifle, white jellies, compote of pears, apple tart or vanilla creams. As a ‘ digestif ’, one could partake of a glass of port. Then, twelve toasts followed responded to by twenty five diners interspersed by eight songs and two violin solos. First toast of the evening was to...

When 149 Dorset adults and children joined the vessel, the Emigrant at Plymouth on the 5 th March 1849 they were joining a vessel that was to become known as the ‘ Ship of Death’ . More than half were from the villages of Stourpaine & Durweston, about 30 were from Child Okeford and the remainder came from different villages around Blandford.  Durweston clergyman, Sydney Godolphin Osborne saw them all embark on board the 754 ton three-mast barque, whose master was William Henry Kemp. Also on board were the captain’s wife, Sarah and three-year old daughter, Fanny. The voyage had been organised by the Blandford Colonisation Society who had held its first meeting in January earlier that year. It could be said, however, that the real purpose of the Society was to export the problem of the district’s poor to the Antipodes. Living conditions at the time for ordinary folk were poor and often insanitary with the situation in the village of Stourpaine being particularly bad. For those ...

  James Bartlett was a staunch advocate of the Conservative political cause, was strongly opposed to vaccinations and was strictly teetotal. He was owner of local newspaper, the Blandford Express in whose columns he had argued that the number of public houses in the town should be drastically reduced. Born in Durweston, he spent his early years working on a farm before moving to Blandford to set up a printing business without any training in this trade. George Vince was a fishmonger with different political views and certainly was not teetotal. In fact he had two convictions for being drunk and disorderly. The two clashed at lunchtime on Monday 15 th June 1885 when Bartlett refused to buy any fish. The altercation took place outside the newspaper offices, known as 'Printer's Corner' at the corner of Salisbury Street and White Cliff Mill Street. Bartlett’s refusal angered Vince such that he described the former as ‘a --------- turnip hacker, shepherd boy and that’s what h...