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.

Born at Burgh Next Aylsham in Norfolk, Butterfield was initially employed as a gardener. In 1896, however, he was accepted for the CMS Preparatory Institution and the Church Missionary College in 1897. Three years later, he passed his 2nd Class Preliminary Theological Examination and was accepted as a missionary.

Lieutenant Colonel Cooke had a diverse career, including the military, early aeronautics and the geology of Malta, before settling in Southsea in 1921.  Once there he devoted his considerable energies to studying the early history of the area and communicating it widely, not through the medium of the Field Club and academic publication, but rather…

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.

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.

‘[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.’

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…

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.

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.