The Hampshire Family Historian | Vol.48 No.4 | March 2022

Local Group Programmes

just four. Though records were limited and often confusing she nevertheless managed to make some sense of them and one in particular, Joseph Bonnefoux, seemed to have been involved in several escape attempts. Despite being the enemy, some locals were prepared to help them (often for a financial reward), while others made money reporting any transgressions of their parole, so it seems the prisoners could be a useful source of income for the locals! By 1812 the French prisoners had been relocated, however, not all of them left the town and the gravestones of two of them can still be seen in the churchyard today. Mary found one book particularly helpful: ‘Prisoners of War in Britain 1756-1815’ by Francis Abell (1914) along with the TNA records available on FindmyPast. The second was A Workingman’s Home with a Touch of Temperance by Margaret about her home at 5-7 Chertsey Road, Guildford where she lived in her teenage years from 1965 until her marriage in 1974. But this was no ordinary house history and the clue was in the title, because this was the Church Army Hostel known as Vaughan House and her father was the manager here. At the time it was home to about 65 men, some of them ex-prisoners, but though she lived here for nine years she only recently discovered its history. Previous to the Church Army it had been the ‘Guildford Workingman’s Home & Coffee Palace’ set up in 1896 by Miss Frances Olivia Vaughan in what is now a Grade II listed building, the original part of which dates from the 18th century. However, the biggest surprise was its previous incarnation, because before it became a Temperance Hostel it had actually been a brewery! She managed to trace Thomas Bowyer and his son Michael who owned it before it changed its ‘allegiance’, and found Michael’s wife had been admitted to an asylum suffering from alcoholic insanity – a hazard of their lifestyle? It may have been an unusual transformation but 125 years on from its conversion the building is still supporting homeless people today. (November) – A British Raj Christmas – Jenny Mallin – Our first hybrid meeting had half the group in the hall and half attending via Zoom for Jenny’s talk on her maternal family in India at Christmas based on her book ‘A Grandmother’s Legacy’. It was Wilhelmina born in India in 1829 that was the progenitor of the book after she married and took over the running of her own household. Using a ledger, she wrote down not only her accounts but also recipes that later generations would add to. This culinary repertoire absorbed many cultures and after taking us through the variations of classic English dishes alongside some Indian ones, Jenny finished with the way Christmas is celebrated across India today, Father Christmas being popular from the snowy areas of the northern hill stations, to the heat of Kerala in the south. ‘A Grandmother’s Legacy’ won ‘Best World Cookbook’ in 2017 from the Gourmand World Cookbook Society. Thanks go to Graham and Denise for organising the technical aspects. (December) Cancelled Forthcoming Meetings:

To be advised

March 10th April 11th

AGM and Members' Talks

Winchester: Bishops, Buildings & Bones Part 2 Andrew Negus

May 12th June 9th

The Real Downton Abbey

Ian Porter

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