Arthur Bennett was born in Bridge Street, Andover, son of music teacher and church organist William Bennett (1822–1901) who founded a music school there in his early twenties.  Arthur, his brother George and sisters, Agatha and Agnes, were all musically gifted and made their living as teachers and performers at various levels.

Bernard was the eldest of seven children born to Harry and Margaret Calkin, of Hampstead, London.  He was educated at Westminster and Jesus College, Cambridge, obtaining a first in theology and winning the University Hebrew Prize and the Keller Prize.  As he was a Westminster King’s Scholar, he attended the Coronation of King George 5th…

Ernest was born in Breslau in eastern Germany. His family, described as ‘professional and academic … with a liberal tradition’, came to England as refugees in 1935. He was educated at the Dragon School in Oxford and the Leys School in Cambridge, where the family initially settled, and soon become proficient in English.

Eleanor Swift was a Founder’s Scholar at Royal Holloway College, University of London, going on to take an MA degree in 1929, with a thesis on medieval manorial administration based on the Winchester Pipe Rolls.  Awarded a Commonwealth Fund Fellowship, she worked at the Huntington Library, California from 1931 to 1933 and, on her return,…

William was the son of Lieutenant- General E.R. Cope. He was born in France, where his parents had been detained from 1803 to 1813. He had Irish connections and undertook part of his higher education at Trinity College, Dublin, from where he graduated with a BA degree in 1831. Initially serving in the Rifle Brigade,…

William Curtis was born in Alton, Hampshire one of ten children of William Curtis and Elizabeth (nee Heath). Privately educated, then apprenticed to his father, an apothecary/surgeon, he spent time in Edinburgh and London before joining his father’s practice.

‘[With] the death of Mr. William Dale’ states the obituary notice in Volume 10 of the Proceedings, ‘the Hampshire Field Club lost one who served it faithfully and enthusiastically nearly from its foundation.’

Max Dacre was a ‘Geordie’ who left school at 13 and was in Jarrow at the time of the ‘Jarrow March’ (1936).  This early experience fostered in him a fighting spirit which was evident throughout his life.

Herbert Druitt was born in Christchurch, then in Hampshire, to James and Matilda Druitt. He trained as a lawyer, but was essentially a man of leisure, putting his energies into brass rubbing and collecting an enormous range of archaeological and historical material which he hoarded in various family-owned properties around the town.

It would be easy to believe that the history of Eastleigh began in 1890, when the Carriage and Wagon Works was transferred by the London and South Western Railway from Nine Elms in London, thereby creating a rich tapestry of industry and town.