By Martin Brisland.
In the latest in our series of fun facts about Southampton we look at some of the city’s most quirky stories.
The woman who ‘gave birth to rabbits.’
In March 1776, disgraced royal physician to George 1, Nathaniel St. Andre, was buried in St. Mary’s churchyard. He had lived in the High Street next door to the Dolphin Hotel. In 1726, he examined servant girl Mary Toft in Godalming, Surrey. She claimed to have given birth to rabbit parts. St. Andre took Mary on tour and published a book. Mary later confessed to the hoax.
In 1768, St. Andre built Bellevue House near London Road.
The man with two gravestones
Charles Smith lies in the graveyard of St. John the Baptist church in North Baddesley. It was not often a poor man had a gravestone, let alone two side by side.
The 1816 Game Laws protected landowners. If caught trespassing there were severe penalties, including transportation, for even possessing a net.
On November 22 1820, Charles Smith – with John Pointer – went poaching. The land was part of the Broadlands Estate, Romsey, owned by Lord Palmerston (1784 -1865). Smith was caught by Robert Snellgrove, the gamekeeper’s assistant. Smith shot into Snelgrove’s thigh but did not kill him.
On March 4,1822 Charles Smith appeared at Hampshire Assizes in Winchester, where he was convicted and executed. His body was buried on March 23 1822.
The first stone was organised by Botley resident, William Cobbett – whose writings, in particular Rural Rides (1830), championed the poor. The second stone was erected by the Honourable Evelyn Ashley, grandson of Lord Palmerston in 1907.
Spending a penny
Eling born George Jennings (1810-1882) invented the first public flush toilets.
They were first displayed at the 1851 Great Exhibition, where 827,280 visitors paid a penny to use them. For that they got a clean seat, a towel, comb, and a shoe shine. To spend a penny became a euphemism for going to the toilet.
How a Southampton man gained a US Navy medal
Frederick Clarke from Shirley worked as a Steward on the American Lines, SS St Paul between Southampton and New York.
Their office was at Canute Chambers in Canute Road. This building became famous in 1912 as the White Star office at the time of the Titanic disaster.
On April 13th, 1898, 12 days before the United States declared war with Spain, the US Navy requisitioned the St Paul, the first liner to be converted to wartime use. The command of the St. Paul was given to Captain Charles Sigbee.
Most of the St. Paul’s crew were from Southampton. Any that wished to stay on board were drafted into the US Navy, including Fredrick who became Captain Sigbee’s personal steward.
By October, the St. Paul returned to passenger use. The English crew who had served on her were given US Navy war medals. In 1926, Fredrick Clarke used his US Navy credentials to become an American citizen.
Plot to kill PM David Lloyd George
Anti-war protestor Alice Wheeldon’s married daughter was a teacher at Foundry Lane school, Shirley. Alice and other family members were arrested in January 1917 and charged with conspiracy to murder the Prime Minister by poisoning. All were found guilty and received prison sentences. However, in 1918 Lloyd George instructed that all were released.
The defrocked Rector of Stiffkey
The first Vicar of St. Mary’s in Sholing was the Rev. Francis Davidson, who remained in place for 48 years. His son Harold became the Rector of Stiffkey, in Norfolk. He was defrocked in 1932 owing to his alleged assignations with ‘ladies of the night’ – who he claimed he was trying to reform. He protested his innocence by starving to death in a barrel and exhibited himself on the Golden Mile at Blackpool. He was eventually mauled to death by a lion at Skegness.
The Man who died twice
Southampton born John Stonehouse MP was once seen as a potential Prime Minister. His mother had been Mayor of Southampton in 1959 and John attended Taunton’s School.
He faked his own death on 20 November 1974 leaving his clothes on a beach in Miami. The former postmaster general was facing financial ruin, was a known Communist spy, and was having an affair with Sheila Buckley, his 28-year-old secretary.
Stonehouse fled to Australia. At first, Melbourne police suspected he was Lord Lucan who had disappeared just days before Stonehouse and was rumoured to be in Australia.
In 1976 John was jailed for seven years for theft, fraud and deception offences and was released in 1979. After a divorce, he married Buckley in 1981, living in West Totton, near Southampton, until his death in 1988.
Crop circles
Doug Bower (1924–2018) was one of the pioneers of the crop circles phenomenon. Together with his partner Dave Chorley (1929–1997), Bower was inspired by an alleged UFO sighting in Melbourne, Australia in 1966, where a flying saucer was said to have left a circular imprint in swamp reeds.
Bower thought that a tangible mark in a wheat field could evoke, in the public imagination, the idea of an alien landing. Armed with wooden planks and ropes, a playful experiment quickly turned into a global media sensation.
In 1991, after producing more than two hundred crop circles, the two came forward, publicly demonstrating how such circles could be made with rudimentary tools.
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