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Celebrating Hampshire Historians

Escombe, Frances Dorothy

1876 - 1938

Her father, William Escombe, was a shipping and insurance agent with the family firm Escombe, McGrath & Company Ltd in Manchester, which provided the family with a comfortable living. They moved to Bishopstoke in 1874, where Dorothy was born two years later.

Her book, Bygone Bishopstoke, laments the changes brought about by the transformation of a rural community, populated by wealthy and influential families, into a place that housed workers of the London and South Western Railway, which in 1890 relocated its Carriage and Wagon Works at Nine Elms, London, to Eastleigh. 

The book reflects the life of a young girl who lived in the ‘Manor House’, yet the name is a misnomer. Although it had once been held by the Bishop of Winchester as lord of the manor, he had never resided there. A previous resident adopted the name to elevate his social standing, and so it remains.

Bygone Bishopstoke contains many stories and reminiscences that provide interesting glimpses of the world of a young woman with a privileged style of life not known today. There are also contributions by her sisters, and others, reflecting life in what were then the grand houses of the day. This was a time when Bishopstoke was considered a prime location, as Robert Mudie indicated in his book Hampshire (1838), suggesting that ‘it is difficult to find a more delightful place’.

Dorothy Escombe was not strictly an historian, but her memories, and those of her sisters and others provide valuable insights into a time gone by. There are illustrations of some of the grand houses, their occupants and the churches of St Mary. Her position in society is perhaps best illustrated in an appendix listing the individuals mentioned in the book, many of whom were titled or high-ranking military officers living in the village.

William Escombe died in 1882 and a year later the family left the Manor House. In 1919, Dorothy’s mother and family returned to live in Bishopstoke in the Old Rectory, where they stayed until 1928, when her mother died.  Dorothy, died in 1938. A road in Bishopstoke on the Longmead Estate developed for social housing in the 1950s is named after her.

Sources

Simmonds, Joan, 1991, Bishopstoke – A Century of Change, Bishopstoke Women’s Institute

Ancestry.co.uk, for the Census

Portrait

None known.

Contribution to county’s history

A rare memoir of the transition of a Hampshire village from a place of polite society to a dormitory town for a railway industry.

Relevant published works

  • Engleheart G (1920) On Roman Buildings and other antiquities in a District of N W Hants. Proc Hants Field Club & Arch Soc9, 214 - 8

  • See also VCH Vol 1 265-349 Romano-British Hampshire.

Critical Comments

Other Comments

Her sister Edith wrote stories and essays: the British Library Catalogue lists six works by her, including a novel, Stucco and Speculation, published in 1894.

Contributor

Chris Humby, 30 April 2024

Keywords

Bishopstoke, Eastleigh

Any queries or further suggestions for this part of the list should be addressed to celebrating@hantsfieldclub.org.uk.

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