The Blandford Express

  From Dorset Gallows to Van Diemen’s Land is the unlikely but true story of political corruption, hangings and transportation in the small market town of Blandford in Southern England.  It is available as a paperback from  Amazon in the United Kingdom, Australia and the USA. The book uncovers the extraordinary tale of two ordinary men, George Long a shoemaker and Richard Bleathman a butcher. Driven by belief and dissatisfaction they are swept along by events. Sentenced to be hanged in Dorchester Gaol for their protests against political corruption they are instead, following clemency appeals,  transported to Van Diemen’s Land -  on the other side of the world. ‘A fascinatingly  good read.  This book entirely complements the story of the Tolpuddle Martyrs - also transported to Australia.’ (Richard Holledge, newspaper editor, freelance journalist - London. As read in the Independent, New York Times & Financial Times. Author of   Voices of the M...

‘Ring of Spies’ is a British spy film, released in 1964, which is much based on the true story of the Portland Spy Ring. Filmed in Dorset, it featured Bernard Lee, who later played ‘M’ in the Bond movies, Margaret Tyzack, William Sylvester and David Kossof. Harry Houghton and his girl friend, Elizabeth ‘Bunty’ Gee were civil servants who worked at the Admiralty’s Underwater Weapons Establishment at Portland. Development work for Britain’s first nuclear submarine was taking place there. Both the heavy drinking Houghton and Gee developed a taste for the finer things in life that their modest Civil Service salaries were unable to finance. Houghton bought a car for which he paid cash and would spend more than his weekly salary on alcohol alone. Bunty was a middle aged spinster, with few friends, who lived with her mother. Until she met Houghton she had lived a sheltered life. Bunty had a reputation for being a particularly bad cook. Bunty had access to highly top secret files so in league ...

  Not many Dorset villages can claim they have had a Royal Navy vessel named after them. Yet despite the ship’s incredibly short Royal Navy commission, the village of Durweston can make that claim. While despite the county not being renown for building warships, HMS Durweston was Dorset built. She was launched by the Dorset Yacht Company from its Hamworthy Yard in August 1955. HMS Durweston was designed to combat the threat of mines laid in coastal waters. The Dorset Yacht Company had been founded in 1938 and in 2013 celebrated its 75 th anniversary. HMS Durweston was a Ton Class minesweeper. All Royal Navy ships of this class were given the names of towns and villages with names that ended –ton. Unfortunately however, HMS Durweston had one of the shortest ever commissions in the Royal Navy. The vessel was  sold to the Indian Navy in 1956 and renamed the Kakinda. She remained in the service of the Indian Navy until 1981. (Illustrations: Minesweeper HMS Durweston & cre...

Leonard Burt was a Dorset Constabulary policeman whose groundwork led to the arrest of five members of the Portland Spy Ring in 1961. During the autumn of 1959 the Detective Officer became aware of Harry Houghton, a Portland Naval Base clerk whose lifestyle and excessive drinking were incompatible with his clerk’s salary. Burt found it quite incredible that this man, who had been sent back from Poland because of his excessive drinking and black market activities, had been posted to the Portland Underwater Establishment. Here, some of Britain’s most secret submarine defence activities were carried out. Houghton had been involved in selling penicillin, a drug which was in short supply in Poland. He also frequently boasted about his invitations to attend parties at the Polish Embassy where he met up with old Polish friends. Burt’s discreet observations led to him finding that Houghton spent many evenings drinking heavily in the Elm Tree public house, Langton Herring. He would then make hi...

  Twenty-year-old Scottish seaman, Robert Banks (right) from Greenock arrived at Blandford Station in December 1914. The young recruit slowly made his way up the muddy unmade track connecting the town with the newly opened Blandford Naval Camp. Upon the outbreak of World War I, he had volunteered with thousands of others to join the Royal Navy. This meant leaving his marine engineering job in Glasgow’s River Clyde shipyards. Robert Banks was joining the Anson Battalion of the newly formed Royal Naval Division. Another recruit was his long standing pal, Henry Short (left) who was a trumpeter.  As a break from training, the Mayor of Lyme Regis, Alban Woodruffe invited the Battalion to spend time at the seaside in early February 1915. Local resident, Mrs Emmett invited Robert to stay with her. Before leaving Lyme Regis, the Mayor gave the Battalion this message: ‘We hope you will take away pleasant memories of your short visit here and we wish you God-speed and all good luck.’ ...

West Bay is known for ice creams, fish & chips and holidays. Yet at one time Bridport Harbour, as it was then called, was famous for building ships. It was one of the busiest shipyards in the country. Bridport Harbour Shipyard was initially established by Nicholas Bools who had learnt his trade in a naval dockyard. He had moved from building vessels on the beach at Burton Bradstock to the west side of Bridport Harbour where slipways were built. First ship to be constructed in Bridport was the Northern Star in 1769 - a sloop of 52 tons. Timber was supplied locally and came from Marshwood Vale. During the Napoleonic War it is reckoned that 16 vessels were launched in the Harbour. It would have been a noisy, busy but hazardous place to work. In 1849 master shipwright, John Cox acquired the lease of the shipyard for £1,200 and he was joined by his son, Elias. They began building larger and larger vessels including the prestigious Speedy that was bigger than the Cutty Sark which is now ...

Village of Pimperne is not a place normally associated with whaling off Antarctica. Yet, Commander Buckle GC OBE, a Pimperne resident between 1948 and 1975, provides such a link. Henry Buckle was born in Middlesbrough in 1889 and joined the Royal Navy in 1905. On the 27th August 1919, he was Officer on Watch on HMS Tiger undergoing repairs at the Invergordon naval base in Scotland. This was a giant battle cruiser which had seen action against the German Navy at the Battle of Jutland. During the repairs two dockyard fitters and an able seaman, working in the ship’s hold, became overcome by noxious fumes. Despite great personal risk, Henry Buckle played a key role in bringing the three men to safety. As a result on 22nd March 1922, he was presented the Albert Medal by King George V at Buckingham Palace. In 1934, he retired as an Acting Commander in the Royal Navy and took on a new role as a Whaling Inspector off Antarctica. With the outbreak of World War II, he was recalled and spent mos...

  A feature of some old Dorset bridges is a cast iron plate dating back to the late 1820s. In the name of the then County Clerk of the Peace, T Fooks, it warned anyone convicted of damaging the bridge would be liable to be transported for life. Under the Malicious Injuries to Properties Act of 1827, individuals could also be flogged while other offences carried the death sentence. Those found guilty, if male, could be flogged ‘once, twice or thrice.’ Transportation would mean being sent most likely to an Australian penal colony with little prospect of a return home. Alternatively, the individual could be sent to Bermuda. This was less appealing than it seems as the convict was put to work in terrible conditions building the Navy’s Bermuda Dockyard. As diseases were rife, the prospects for survival were not good. While waiting for a transport vessel, convicted individuals would be kept in convict hulks berthed opposite either Plymouth or Portsmouth Dockyard. There they would be pu...

Ten were killed and 23 were injured according to newspaper reports at the time. This made it one of Dorset’s worst ever industrial accidents. Holton Heath employees were blown into unrecognisable fragments necessitating a roll call of the factory’s entire staff before the identities of those killed were identified. Eleven men were originally believed to have been killed but when a roll call was held one turned up. A crimson red plume of acid vapour had towered into the sky resembling the shuddering eruption of a volcano. It was caused by the bursting of a sulphuric acid tank. Close by low buildings vanished and the shock affected houses for 20 miles with roof slates dislodged, ornaments knocked down and windows broken. The sound of the explosion could be heard at Shillingstone some 18 miles away. Closer to the factory, a hoe was wrenched from the hands of a gardener who was flung against a tree. One fortunate employee, Charles Rogers owed his life to having to leave, just before the ...

Dorset named vessels to have served in the Royal Navy: HMS Bridport was a Sandown class minehunter built in Vosper Thornycroft’s Southampton shipyard in 1992. Fourteen years later, she was sold to the Estonian Navy. HMS Dorsetshire was a heavy cruiser launched in Portsmouth Dockyard in 1929. She was involved in the sinking of the German battleship, Bismarck and the search for the German heavy cruiser, the Graf Spee. HMS Dorsetshire was sunk by the Japanese in the Indian Ocean in 1942 with the loss of 400 of her 1,500 crew. HMS Weymouth was a light cruiser launched back in 1910. She was one of seven vessels named Weymouth to serve in the Royal Navy. HMS Weymouth served in the Mediterranean, Atlantic & Home Fleets and in the Adriatic. HMS Sherborne was a cutter which operated against smugglers in the English Channel between 1763 & 1784. HMS Cattistock is a mine countermeasures vessel launched by Vosper Thornycroft in 1982. HMS Blandford was launched back in 1720. After ser...

In July 2017, a Trafalgar Medal (1805) presented to Dorset born, Ordinary Seaman William Selby was sold at auction for £2,200. The medal had been struck by Matthew Boulton of the Soho Mint in Birmingham on his own initiative. Boulton was embarrassed that there had been no official recognition given to the survivors who had fought in and had won the Battle of Trafalgar in October 1805. Sadly, it is said many of these medals were not particularly well received as not being made of silver they were not easily pawned. So, they were just thrown into the sea by some of the ungrateful recipients. The medals were issued in gold to flag officers, in silver to captains and lieutenants but in bronze or white metal to junior officers and men. William Selby is believed to have originated from Durweston and had volunteered to join the British Navy in April 1803. The following month he transferred to HMS Victory where he served as an Ordinary Seaman during the Battle of Trafalgar. Like many of hi...

Greyhound Inn, Blandford was the twelfth stop for Lieutenant John Richards Lapenotiere during his express dash from Falmouth to the Admiralty in London. His purpose was to tell both the King and the Prime Minister of Nelson’s victory over the French & Spanish at the Battle of Trafalgar but also of Horatio Nelson's death. This route is now known as the ‘ Trafalgar Way’ . Lapenotiere  arrived in Blandford around lunchtime on the 5 th November 1805 and paid just two pounds ten shillings & sixpence (£2.52) for a change of horses. This he would do 21 times during the 271 mile journey. A plaque commemorating his arrival in Blandford can be found in the Greyhound Yard.   He was travelling in a ‘ post-chaise’ which was the quickest form of horse travel for a passenger at the time. Before Blandford, he had stopped and changed horses at both Bridport and Dorchester. The next stop would be Woodyates and then Salisbury. That day was the 200 th anniversary of the Gunpowder ...

‘ Bunga Bunga’ is today associated with allegedly colourful sex parties attended by former Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi. Yet more than a century earlier, the phrase originated and was linked with a different type of party in Weymouth Bay. In 1910, author Virginia Woolf, and her small equally colourful party of friends pulled off one of the most famous practical jokes in British military history. At the time, the British Navy was the most powerful and largest in the world and Portland was an important base. The Royal Navy was seen as one of the foundations of the British Empire and as a reflection of the nation’s power and wealth. The formidable HMS Dreadnought was the pride of the Royal Navy and flagship of the Channel Fleet and in February 1910 was berthed in Weymouth Bay. Pretending to be a VIP foreign delegation, Virginia and her friends obtained permission to visit the prestigious battleship. Four of the party, including Virginia herself, dressed up as fake Abyssini...

  Harry Houghton and Gordon Lonsdale were two members of the Portland Spy. Houghton was a Civil Servant who stole military secrets from the then Portland Naval Base and Underwater Research Establishment. He passed these secrets for money onto Gordon Lonsdale who was a Soviet master spy. Both were arrested in January 1961 and found guilty of espionage and imprisoned. In their respective countries they have quite contrasting memorials. Lonsdale’s real name was Konon Molody and he was born in Moscow in January 1922. He spoke impeccable English with an American accent as he had spent time living in the USA. Upon his release from prison and return to the Soviet Union, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. This was the country’s highest award and was designed to recognise extraordinary courage, dedication and heroism. He had operated in Britain from around 1955 until 1961. When he died in October 1970, his body was laid in state at the KGB Officers’ Club and there is an elaborate t...

  Lassie and Bruce were two canine heroes from the First World War. Their touching but sad story concerns one of the greatest of ever local maritime tragedies. Lassie was a rough-haired collie who saved the life of Scottish seaman, John Cowan. The Able Seaman had come ashore with a boatload of survivors at Lyme Regis from the Royal Navy’s HMS Formidable. This 16,000 ton but obsolete battleship had been torpedoed in the English Channel by German submarine U24 during the early hours of New Year’s Day 1915. It had sunk some 30 miles off Portland Bill. As the weather was bad, it was wrongly assumed a submarine attack was unlikely. HMS Formidable had been engaged in gun practice. Given up for dead, John was laid out with six others on the beer cellar floor of the Pilot Boat Inn which publican, Tom Atkins had agreed could become a makeshift mortuary. As all the Scot was wearing were a pair of thin pants and a vest, it was reasonably assumed he had not survived his 22 hour experience. Oth...

Ethel Elizabeth Gee, known as ‘ Bunty’ , was an unassuming spinster who lived in a Portland red brick terraced house in Hambro Road with her elderly relatives. A blacksmith’s daughter, she worked as a filing clerk in the Admiralty’s top underwater establishment at Portland. Despite this lowly status, she still handled top secret papers on Britain’s submarines and underwater detection capabilities. Indeed, much of the development work for Britain’s first nuclear submarine, HMS Dreadnought had been undertaken at Portland. Born in Portland in May 1914, ‘ Bunty ’ has been described as ‘ plain ’ and an ‘ awful cook’ . Yet for a period in the 1950s, as a member of the Portland Spy Ring, she was one of Russia’s most valuable spies. Around 1955, she met fellow civil servant, Harry Houghton, who lived in Weymouth, a former sailor who was spying for both Poland and Russia. He was a heavy drinking divorcee who enjoyed a lifestyle far beyond his civil service income. He had bought a four bedroom...

Gordon Arnold Lonsdale was an apparently successful London based, Canadian businessman who had made his money by hiring out and selling jukeboxes, bubble gum and gambling machines. Another of his products, an electronic car locking device was awarded a gold award at an International Inventors’ Exhibition in Brussels. He was a stocky built man of medium height with a broad cheerful face and ‘very intelligent eyes. ’ On the 28 th June 1960, he had booked himself into the Crown Hotel in Blandford Forum. Yet, all was not what it seemed as Gordon Lonsdale was not his real name neither was he Canadian. His real name was Konon Trofimovich Molody and he was a 38 year old, Moscow born, Russian intelligence agent and master spy. He spoke excellent English with an American accent as he had lived for several years in the USA. Molody had stolen the identity of a dead man who had died in 1943. Purpose of his Blandford stay was later to meet two associates at a house in Meadow View Road, Weymouth...

It was almost two o’ clock in the morning when civil servant Harry Houghton said he turned his Renault Dauphine into Blandford’s Ham car park. In the car’s back seats were two Soviet intelligence agents. They had been put ashore just before midnight from a submarine or trawler at Church Ope Cove on Portland. Also known as Smugglers Cove, it had been chosen because of its seclusion and was out of the sight of coastguards. Harry had in the early hours parked in Blandford at some distance from the only other parked car. This was driven by a Soviet agent, known just as John. He had met John previously in a lay by between Puddletown and Blandford. The second parked car had a square of white paper in its window, a sign that Harry had been told to look out for. It could have been a spy movie scene set in Blandford Forum but Harry Houghton was no James Bond. He was a middle aged, heavy drinking clerical officer in Portland Naval Base having previously been a Royal Navy Senior NCO. However Harr...

  A military site between Wareham and Poole was so secret it was deliberately left off an Ordnance Survey map published in the 1940s. At its peak it was the largest industrial complex in Dorset employing around 2,000 people. It was the Royal Navy Cordite Factory. Cordite was a smokeless material developed to replace gunpowder as a military propellant. It was used in large weapons such as tank guns, artillery & naval guns. It was so called because of its cord like appearance. The explosives site was built during World War I at Holton Heath with the help of around 500 bricklayers. First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill had decided the Royal Navy needed its own cordite manufacturing facility. During this war, certificates were issued to men working at Holton Heath to prove they were engaged on important war work and were not avoiding joining the armed forces. The factory included a power station, two acid factories, a reservoir, various buildings and a hospital area. A...

Benjamin Danford was just 14 years old when he was serving in the British Navy as a Midshipman in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. He was the son of Nicholas and Mary Danford who lived in the village of Shroton in North Dorset. When he was baptised, in December 1792, it was quite a family event because also christened there at the same time were his brothers Joseph and young Nicholas junior. Benjamin had volunteered to join the Royal Navy and began his maritime career in March 1805 on HMS Ajax. He saw early bloody action just four months later when his vessel was involved in the Third Battle of Finisterre. This conflict cost Ajax two men killed and 16 injured. The vessel had to return to Plymouth for repairs and then sailed for Cadiz with Nelson’s HMS Victory. At the Battle of Trafalgar, Ajax lost a further two men killed and nine wounded. While this bloody naval battle would have been traumatic and stressful for all involved it must have been particularly so for a 14 year old. After T...