The Hampshire Family Historian | Volume 51 No.1 | June 2024

Local Group Programmes

Contact: Jane Painter Email: fareham@hgs-online.org.uk

Fareham Evening Group Meetings are normally held from 7.15 p.m. to 9.30 p.m. on the fourth Thursday of each month at the Wallington Village Hall, Broadcut, Fareham.

No reports received Forthcoming Meetings:

June 27th Jeremy Prescott This presentation commemorates the 80th Anniversary in 2024 of Op Overlord; the context and time line leading to the invasion, senior commanders of all nations involved, the plan, deception of the invasion, rehearsals, logistics (Mulberry Harbour, Pluto pipe), the invasion and its aftermath. Op Overload - D Day Landings

Contact: Email: fleetandfarnborough @hgs-online.org.uk

The group normally meets at the United Reform Church Hall, Kings Rd, Fleet GU51 3AF second Thursday of every month except August at 7.30pm. Fleet & Farnborough

Reports by Carol Gomm (Oct) The Spike Projects – Carol Gomm

This contingency talk (after the speaker was unable to attend), was about the Guildford Workhouse Spike Lives project that I have been involved with which follows the lives of inmates, though I only did the juicy bits! These included a lad sent to Canada as a British Home Child, his half-sister who seems to become a prostitute in London, a boy apprenticed as a fisher lad (a trade that put the grim in Grimsby!), and a widowed mother and her two daughters, both girls dying in the workhouse in 1881, one from congenital syphilis (aged 2) and the other with symptoms that would suggest it (aged 7). (Nov) Dunmow Hill Part 2, The Higgins Family – Graham & Rosemary Mist Their second foray into the history of the street, this time on the life of Samuel Higgins, owner of several plots in Dunmow Hill and the surrounding area. Described as a ‘gentleman’ they set out to establish where he may have got the money and this led them to investigate the wider family. Samuel’s brothers also had property in the area, as did his sisters and in-laws. Using the Inland Revenue Survey c1910 they were able to calculate the wealth and value tied up in the properties, many of which were rented out. Samuel’s father is also an intriguing character, moving around the world and appearing to change his identity. He did send back diamonds from South Africa, but was he also involved in the Australian gold rush? We await Part 3!

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