Celebrating Hampshire Historians

Saunders, William Henry

02.01.1832 - 21.04.1913

He was a druggist and chemist with a shop at 113 High Street in Old Portsmouth. After retirement he became curator of the Borough Museum, then in the Town Hall, next to the Dolphin Hotel.  According to the journalist historian, William Gates, who acknowledged his influence, he was: ‘A man of genial presence and kindly disposition, he was ever at the service of inquirers, and no trouble was too great in his search for the information required’ (Extracts from Records of the Corporation, 1835-1927). A tablet in Portsmouth Cathedral erected by ‘fellow townsmen’ calls him ’an ardent archaeologist [surely ‘an antiquarian’] and reliable and painstaking historian of his native town, closely identified with this church for over 60 years.’  He was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 0000. [0207 479 7080, for SOA].

He is best known for his 300-page Annals of Portsmouth, published in 1880 (and now available online) and dedicated to J. Bonham Carter, local grandee and one-time Liberal MP for Winchester. His aim was ‘to furnish a complete record of historical and other interesting details appertaining to the old Town, arranged in a chronological order, so as to form a book for reading as well as reference’.    He quotes works by Lake Allen and Henry Slight and at the back provides a chronology. It opens with the arrival of the French fleet in 1545, and the sinking of the Mary Rose, and ends in 1865 with a friendly visit of the French ironclad Solferino and other vessels to mark an International Naval Festival.  Amongst the many stand-along stories it tells is one of a catastrophic explosion on Southsea beach on 24 June 1759 (also quoted in the Slights’ Chronicles, but in error, in January). An elderly lady sat down on a barrel to enjoy a pipe, which she knocked out, not knowing that the barrel contained gunpowder. In what followed as many as 30 or 40 people were killed, but the lady herself survived.

Saunders’ other publications, listed below, were on a minor scale. The Portsmouth History Centre Archives hold a number of items. including a manuscript notebook, ‘Portsmouth Queries’, and miscellaneous cuttingson the Camber, Portsmouth, and other materials mainly relating the Portsmouth to Arundel canal and the struggle to get a direct line from London to Portsmouth, including consideration of an ‘atmospheric railway’, first demonstrated at Wormwood Scrubs in London and later put into practice in Ireland.

Sources

• https://memorialsinportsmouth.co.uk/churches/cathedral/saunders.htm

• Portsmouth Encyclopedia Online

• British Library Catalogue


• https://historyinportsmouth.co.uk/people/electors/index.htm

Contribution to county’s history

Annals of Portsmouth set the model of stand-along stories in chronological order, with little or no commentary, followed in later histories of the town by W.G. Gates.  

Relevant published works

• Annals of Portsmouth, historical, biographical, statistical etc, published in 1880.

• In 1885 a paper on the silver plate of the corporation, in 1886 A History of the Parish Church of Portsmouth and in 1888 one on the churchwardens’ account of St Thomas Church, Portsmouth, (now the cathedral) of 1564 published in the British Archaeological Society Transactions
  

Critical Comments

At a time when much was happening elsewhere in the emergence of local history, he fulfilled hopes that local curators would record the locality’s history in a form that others could follow.

Other Comments

Contributor

Barry Shurlock, 14 October 2025

Key Words

Portsmouth, Portsmouth Museum,

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