A good example of an amateur local historian who gained the respect of professional historians, John Drew achieved what he did as a result of poor health and private means. Not benefiting from an education at major schools or university, at the age of 17 he joined the family London-based firm Drew and Sons, which…

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.

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.

Stephen Dewar was born at Andover, the third child of Albemarle O’Beirne Willoughby Dewar and Florence Wilhelmina Rose, née Matthews.  Dewar was the great grandson of David Dewar, who is listed as an awardee in the 1830s, for compensation for manumitted property for the Dewar’s estate* on St Kitts, in the West Indies.

Daniel Defoe was a prolific writer, producing more than 300 works on a range of subjects. He is famed for his novel Robinson Crusoe (1719) but, often at odds with authority, he also spent time in prison and the stocks! His life involved spells as a merchant, landowner, traveller, bankrupt and secret agent.  His finest…

Born at the family mansion Englefield House, situated near Reading, Sir Henry was the eldest son of the Sixth Baronet, Sir Henry Englefield and his second wife Catherine (nee Buck). In 1778, aged 26, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and in the following year a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.

Finch is an example of a clergyman writing local history at a time when there was much encouragement do so, especially by other churchmen. A review of his Story of the Parish Church at Clere published in the Hants & Berks Gazette on 31 March 1906 praised him for having a ‘capable and careful pen’…

The author of what has been described as the most important travel journal of the 17th century, Celia Fiennes, was born at Newton Toney in Wiltshire, to Nathaniel Fiennes, a Parliamentarian colonel in the English Civil War, and his second wife, Frances.

The Rev George Engleheart achieved national prominence as one of the greatest ever breeders of daffodils, but as a ‘highly cultured man, well read and appreciative of everything that is beautiful’ he also found time to indulge in the classical archaeology of his local Hampshire parishes.

George Godwin was born in Winchester to Edwin Godwin, a draper, who later became a farmer at Melksham, and his wife Mary (nee Tugwell).  By the age of 22 he had passed through the London College of Divinity at Highbury, being ordained deacon in 1869. The following year he entered the priesthood, the same year…