Warrior War Horse
Warrior War Horse Horses returning from WW1 were sold off. In 1919 Hilda Moore contacted the Mayor, Sidney Kimber, offering to buy a horse for the town. A chosen horse, a large white gelding, was handed over to the local Police. It had been in France since 1914, took part in many actions, and had a battle scar. It was named Warrior War Horse and was popular in the town till its death in 1935. Kimber stepped in to prevent it being taken to the knacker’s yard and found a grave site for it at the newly opened Municipal Golf Course where it remains with a memorial stone telling Warrior’s story.
Watergate
Watergate The Watergate was built by 1377, after the French Raid of 1338, to strengthen Southampton’s southern defences. It was equivalent to the Bargate. In 1403 it was leased to William Revanstone, an ex Mayor, on condition he repaired the tower and gate. His rent was nominal – one red rose payable on 24th June, St.John the Baptist day. William Soper, Clerk of the King’s Ships, leased it on the same conditions. In the part of the tower that still remains there is a four tier garderobe (toilet). In 1609 the Royal Coat of Arms was put above the gate. It was at an angle across the road with two towers. For many years the Sun Inn was on the site of the east tower. In 1804 the Burgesses ordered the gate to be pulled down and the stone was sold for 10 shillings.
Water Supply
Water Supply A group of Franciscan Friars arrived in Southampton in 1229. They believed in working with the poor and those in need and set up a Friary near where the Gloucester Square car park, off the lower end of the High Street, now stands. They needed a fresh water supply and were given a spring on land owned by Nicholas, Lord of the Manor of Shirley. The water was piped to a Waterhouse (opposite the Mayflower Theatre) then via lead pipes to the Friary. The Franciscans allowed the town people to share the water from a tap outside the Friary wall. Responsibility for the water supply was taken over by the town around 1420 making Southampton one of the first towns to have a municipal water supply.
Isaac Watts
Isaac Watts Isaac Watts was born in Southampton to a non-conformist family in 1674. His mother was Sarah Taunton the daughter of a Huguenot family and Isaac was the cousin of Richard Taunton who founded a school in Southampton. The site of the house is remembered in a plaque at the rear of the Primark store. The family moved to 41, French Street and his father ran a boarding school. As a non-conformist the elder Watts had been imprisoned. Isaac was seen as such a talented young man that some locals included Dr John Speed offered to pay his University fees but non conformists were not allowed to attend. He was therefore educated at a non-conformist college in Stoke Newington, North London. He had poor health but embarked on a preaching career in 1698. Apart from preaching, writing books on logic and poetry he is best remembered today as a prolific hymn writer. He wrote over 500 hymns and many will be found in Hymns Ancient and Modern and the Methodist Hymn Book. ‘Oh God our Help in Ages Past’ is still played from the Civic Centre clock tower three times each day. One of his favourite hymns was “There is a place of Pure Delight” the inspiration for which came from the view that he would enjoy looking across the river Test to the new Forest from the town walls. His school was King Edward VI and a house is still named after him. The statue to him in Watts (West) Park was unveiled on his birthday 17th July by the Earl of Shaftesbury in 1861
The Weigh House
The Weigh House The Weigh House was built in French Street in the middle of the 1200s. The Weigh House once housed a valuable piece of equipment, which was the town’s weigh beam, also known as the Tron. It had a very important function when trading in Southampton was at its peak. It was used to weigh wool and other goods before sale, so that the taxes on these could be accurately calculated – apparently, however, not always exactly accurate! The taxes were due to the Earl of Warwick. During the French Raid in 1338 it is said the Weigh Beam and the weights were stolen. It certainly went missing and it took many years before it could be replaced. The building was also looted then and had to be rebuilt. After 1927 it was acquired, along with adjoining slum dwellings, for the extension of St. John’s school and in 1936 was restored to be used as the school hall. During WW2 it was bombed and burned out. Only the outer shell remains today. However, this has survived to become a key element of the story of Southampton and the Wool Trade.
The Duke of Wellington
The Duke of Wellington The Duke of Wellington pub in Bugle Street is built on 12th century vaults. Benedict Ace, one of Southampton’s first recorded Mayors in 1237, was an early owner. It was damaged in the French Raid of 1338. A timber frame building was erected in the late 1400s when it probably became an inn. It was once known as the Bere House, then the Shipwright’s Arms and later renamed in honour of Wellington’s victory over Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815. It was badly damaged by WW2 bombing and the rebuild was not completed until 1963. It is noted today for its summer hanging basket display.
Workhouse
Workhouse Southampton’s first workhouse was “a house of twelve rooms for the habitation of poor people” built following a bequest in 1629 from a man by the name of John Major. This poor house was eventually transferred to a site in French Street which later became the location of St John’s Hospital. It is marked as 19 on P. Mazell’s map of Southampton from 1771. Today this is the site of a block of flats, having also been the site of a Georgian Theatre. In 1753 a common workhouse was set up at Bull or Bugle Hall which had at one time been the home of the Earl of Southampton, which is shown as 18 on Mazell’s map. In 1771 a proposal united all of the town’s parishes to form a poor law incorporation and in 1776 it was decided to build a new workhouse to the north of St Mary’s Churchyard. This new workhouse, despite having the capacity for 220 inmates, soon became over crowded. It was reported that inmates slept four to a bed and that there was no segregation of the sexes. In 1845 it was suggested that a new workhouse was to be built on the common and in 1863 it was suggested that Archer’s Lodge be purchased for this purpose, see illustration and Tallis’s map of 1851.Neither proposal was carried through and in 1865 it was decided to build a new workhouse on the land next to the existing poorhouse by St Mary’s Church. A competition for a suitable design was held and the foundation of the new workhouse was laid in 1866. Just over two years later the workhouse was opened to a mixed reception from the town’s ratepayers. Opposite the workhouse located in two converted houses were school’s for the boys and girls from the workhouse. The size and location of the workhouse can be clearly seen from Bacon’s map of 1890. By 1940 the workhouse was taken over for use as an emergency food centre and following the 1944 Education Act it became the home of Southampton Technical College. Today it houses part of Southampton City College.
Wool House
The Wool House In the Middle Ages Southampton was already a busy international trading port. The Wool House was probably built in the late 13th century. According to some sources, the Wool House was built by the orders of the monks at Beaulieu for use as a secure wool store. It is also said the building and financing of the Wool House was enabled by Thomas Middleton, a prominent and wealthy merchant and mayor of Southampton. He also built a large crane next to it to lift heavy cargo. The Wool House was ideally located right on the quayside so the wool could be easily loaded onto the ships. Wool from all over England was transported to Southampton for shipment t to Flanders and Italy. During the 16th century the export of wool and hides declined and finished cloth made by Huguenot weavers became more popular. Eventually the Wool House became a store for Alum, an anti-bacterial agent that was used as a fixative in dying fabric. It was also used in the process of tanning hides. The Wool House was also used as prison for captives from the War of the Spanish Succession in the early 18th century. The names Francois Dries and Thomas Lasis and the date 1711 are engraved into a stone window surround on the upper floor. There are also other names carved into the wooden beams. Later in the 18th century and early 19th century French prisoners from the Napoleonic Wars were held captive in the Wool House. Some of them carved their names into the beams of the roof. Some also spent their time carving model ships out of bleached meat bone and making the rigging out of their own hair. These magnificent works of art are also known as scrimshaws. During the 1850s the building was used as a warehouse by John Bennett, a corn and seed merchant, who was a commission agent for the Hanoverian and Hanseatic Consul. Around 1904 it was occupied by the Carron Company who were manufacturers for warship cannons but also produced household equipment by then. From around 1908 to the mid1920s, the Wool House was turned into a workshop for a Marine Engineering Company owned by Edwin Moon senior. His son Edwin Rowland Moon, an aviation pioneer who served in the Royal Naval Air Service and Royal Air Force during the First World War, built his famous monoplane, the Moonbeam in the Wool House. From 1925 the Wool House was used as a warehouse by several hauling companies and the Itchen Transport Company. In the early 1960s the building was restored by Southampton City Corporation and adapted to house the Southampton Maritime Museum, which opened in June 1966 and moved to the new SeaCity Museum in 2012. The Wool House is a Grade I listed building. After extensive renovation and refurbishment it is now the home of the “Dancing Man Brewery”, which opened as a brew house and pub in February 2015.
Walter Taylor
Walter Taylor Southampton’s Walter Taylor (1734–1803) famously supplied wooden rigging blocks to the Royal Navy, greatly improving their quality via a series of technological innovations. His work has been noted as a significant step forward in the Industrial Revolution, and as a major aid in Nelson’s sea victories during the Napoleonic Wars. Taylor had served as an apprentice to a block maker in Southampton from the age of 19. His father (also named Walter) had previously served at sea and had observed the problems caused by traditional hand-carved blocks, which would often jam during the heat of battle. On acquiring the blockmaking business based close to the Westgate in Southampton (and where a plaque now remembers the site), Taylor and his father developed machinery to mass-produce rigging blocks to an exact standard – he also offered a ‘guarantee’ to replace any that failed. One of Taylor’s inventions important in the block-making process was the circular saw – so much noise was made that locals thought Taylor might be in league with the devil, torturing poor souls. Taylor eventually outgrew the Westgate site, and in 1781 moved to Woodmill, Swaythling, Southampton where there was a better supply of water and room to power some of the equipment by steam engines. Taylor was sole supplier of blocks to the Royal Navy from 1759, supplying some 100,000 blocks a year until his death in 1803, whereupon he was interred at South Stoneham Church. His business was succeeded by the more advanced machinery being developed by competitor Marc Isambard Brunel.
William Soper
William Soper William Soper was born in c 1390 and is most famous for his role in overseeing the build up of the English Navy in Southampton during the Hundred Years War conflict with France. Using Watergate Quay, and the nearby ‘Canute’s Palace’ as a storehouse, Soper first rebuilt a Spanish ship in 1414 – the Santa Clara – and named it the Holy Ghost. He was commissioned to build a number of vessels by Henry V, including the Grace Dieu, begun in 1416 and launched two years later – at 1400 tons, the largest ship to have been built in England at that time. After completion Soper’s ships were moored in the Hamble River, which provided a safe anchorage. It was here that the Grace Dieu was struck by lightning in 1439 and destroyed by fire. Soper had other skills, notably as a diplomat and politician. He visited London for the parliament of 1413 and was elected to the House of Commons eleven times. He was also Mayor of Southampton on two occasions. Following the death of Henry V in France in 1422 Soper was paid to bring back his body, and was later involved with escorting Henry VI’s bride-to-be Margaret of Anjou across the channel prior to their wedding at Titchfield Abbey. The role of Keeper of the Kings Ships was held until 1442, though the fleet itself had declined following the death of Henry V. Soper then took up an appointment as a New Forest Verderer, looking after the Royal Hunting Grounds. William Soper died c 1459.
William Cantelo
William Cantelo Back to A-Z index A real Victorian mystery! William Cantelo (born 1839) was from a family of Isle of Wight gunsmiths. He had a Northam engineering yard of 40 people. He also had a French Street shop, the Old Tower Inn pub by Arundel Tower and was a good musician, holding band practices in the Tower. The pub had an underground passage and behind locked doors Cantelo worked on his inventions. Locals would hear the noise of guns he was making in secrecy. One day he said he was off for a three month holiday, he left his wife and three children and disappeared – saying he was off to Europe! They later found he had taken a large amount of money. Then news broke that an American man had developed a machine gun in London. This inventor was Hiram Maxim and when the Cantelo family saw a picture they were convinced this person was in fact their lost father. Two sons went to London and they thought they had sighted him (Maxim) at Waterloo station and even spoke to the man. The sons visited Maxim’s home in Bexley, Kent only to see him leave by a rear entrance. The real Maxim (1840-1916) came to England in 1881, naturalised in 1900 and became a Knight in 1901. The Maxim gun was the world’s first fully automatic machine gun and made him a fortune. He also invented the humble mousetrap! Maxim’s son wrote a biography of his father, ‘A Genius in the Family’, which was made into a 1946 Hollywood biopic film. Was it mistaken identity? Or were Cantelo and Maxim one and the same? In a strange twist the real Cantelo was fond of quoting witty maxims and carried a book of them around with him!
lucia Foster Welch
lucia Foster Welch Lucia Foster Welch was born in Liverpool in 1864 and moved to Southampton in 1903. She lived at 61 Oxford Street, in a seven bedroom semi-detached residence – now grade II listed. In 1927, Lucia was elected and became Southampton’s mayor. Lucia Foster Welch was, in fact, Southampton’s first Lady Mayor, first woman councillor, first woman alderman and first woman sheriff. As in Southampton the Mayor also holds the title of Admiral of the Port, Lucia was England’s first Lady Admiral. On a national level, Lucia was an extremely active (early) suffragette (a woman seeking the right to vote through organized protest). She was a member of the Women’s Social and Political Union, as well as the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies. A portrait in oils of Lucia Foster Welch by Frank Brooks, 1928, can be seen at Southampton City Council. She passed away in 1940.