Introduction
William Edward Pitt’s early adult life was marked by controversy when he fathered a child outside marriage and left Somerset shortly before the birth. The legal consequences of this decision followed him several years later. After service in the First World War, he established himself as a smallholder in Hampshire and later as a dairy farmer in Dorset
Childhood at Haselbury
William Edward Pitt was born at Haselbury on 4 October 1880, the second of eleven children born to Henry Thomas Follett Pitt and his wife Lucy Ann, although one sibling died in infancy.[1]
His father, known as Thomas, ran a bakery business in North Street, while his mother was the daughter of a smallholder.[2] When William was about thirteen, Thomas switched to running a blacksmith’s forge, the trade he had learned from his own father in his youth.[3] He probably identified a gap in the market, as his father was then in his seventies and his uncle, also a blacksmith in the village, was in his sixties.[4] The transition proved beneficial: by 1911, he had begun farming, and in 1917, he became the tenant of Petvin’s Farm.[5] He later purchased the 87-acre holding in the Portman estate sale of 1924.[6]
Family enterprise
Around 1908, Thomas began to organise his business like a family enterprise, bringing in his sons who were still living at home. While Charles and Robert helped run the farm, Tom assisted with the blacksmithing business.[7] At the same time, Thomas took on the tenancy of Cowcroft Farm at Hardington with William and assigned William and Alfred to manage it.[8]
The 1911 census recorded William living in the seven-room farmhouse with Alfred, who worked as an assistant on the farm, together with a housekeeper, her daughter, and a farm labourer.[9]
Around this time, William entered into a relationship with Frances Louisa Andrews of East Chinnock. In 1911, she informed him that she was pregnant. William initially agreed to marry her, but before the child was born, he left Somerset and moved to Hampshire.[10]
Move to Hampshire, marriage and a reckoning
On 14 February 1914, William married Dorothy May Smith in the Lymington registration district.[11] Dorothy was born in Winkfield, Berkshire, the daughter of a beerhouse keeper.[12]
The couple settled at Hordle in the New Forest area. Their children were Evelyn May, born in 1914, William Donald in 1917, and Thomas Reginald in 1919.[13] In 1914, William was working as a traveller earning 17 shillings a week.[14]
In 1915, his earlier life caught up with him. Frances Andrews had given birth to a daughter, Ivy Alice Mary, on 5 March 1912. At Yeovil County Petty Sessions on 4 August 1915, Frances applied for an affiliation order, a common means by which unmarried mothers sought financial support for their children.[15]
The court granted the application and ordered Pitt to pay 3 shillings a week from the date of the child’s birth. By that time, the arrears amounted to £26 14s 5d, a considerable sum for William to find, especially as he claimed to be out of work. During the hearing, William stated that he had left Somerset because his father was displeased about the situation. His remark that he needed to “see his father about the marriage” suggests that family opinion still carried considerable weight in decisions of this kind. The local newspaper reported the story under the heading “farmer who disappeared for three years”, suggesting that they regarded the key issue not as the illegitimate child itself, but as the avoidance of responsibility.
Frances later married Talbot Axe, who subsequently became landlord of the Royal Oak Inn at Stoford.[16] Their daughter Ivy married Frank Henry Aldridge in 1935 and later lived at Barwick.[17]
First World War and farming life
By April 1918, William was serving as a private in the Hampshire Regiment.[18] He survived the war and afterwards returned to civilian life in the New Forest district.
In 1921, he was recorded as a smallholder at Golden Hill, Hordle.[19] When the Golden Hill property was offered for sale in January of that year, it was described as “a well-built, detached six-roomed dwelling house”, which William occupied on a weekly tenancy.[20]
Thomas Pitt died on 6 April 1929, leaving an estate valued at £4,388 14s 6d. He bequeathed £500 and Mount House in Haselbury to his son, Charles, while the remainder of the estate was placed in trust, with the income payable to his widow, Lucy, during her lifetime and the capital to be divided equally among the children after her death.[21] By then, nine children were alive, so, assuming Mount House was worth about £300, the remaining estate would eventually have yielded roughly £400 for each child before costs. William would have received his share in about 1938, following his mother’s death and the sale of Petvin’s Farm.[22]
By September 1939, William was farming at Pleck Hill Farm at Hazelbury Bryan, where he worked as a dairy farmer.[23] Dairy farming formed an important part of agriculture in this part of Dorset, supplying milk and butter to nearby market towns.
Later life
During the Second World War, the family suffered a loss when their youngest son, Thomas Reginald, who had joined the Royal Marines, died at sea on 25 November 1941. He was on board HMS Barham when it was struck by German torpedoes off the coast of Alexandria.[24]
William and Dorothy later lived at Yew Tree Cottage, Thorney Hill, near Bransgore in the Christchurch district. Dorothy died on 8 August 1967 at the age of seventy-three.[25] William survived her by nearly three years and died on 8 April 1970 at the age of eighty-nine. His estate was valued at £3,566.[26] Both were buried at Thorney Hill.[27]
Conclusion
William Edward Pitt’s life included an early episode of personal difficulty that had legal and financial consequences. Nevertheless, after the First World War, he established himself as a smallholder and later as a dairy farmer. Over time he built a settled family life and remained connected with farming for many decades, ending his days in the New Forest area where he had first moved as a young man.
References
[1]Civil registration birth index; Haselbury baptism register; RG11, Haselbury, ED7, piece 2389, folio 101 p.9; 1939 Register; family reconstitution.
[2] RG12, Haselbury, ED7, piece 1895, folio 81; RG10, Chiselborough, ED5, piece 2413, folio 20, p.4.
[3] Haselbury baptism register; RG10, Haselbury, ED8, piece 2411, folio 25, p.3
[4] RG12, Haselbury, ED8, piece 1895, folio 92, p.5.RG12, Haselbury, ED8, piece 1895 folio 90, p.2.
[5] RG14, Haselbury, ED6, piece 14383. Thomas Pitt succeeded Richard Wills, who died on 5 December 1916 (National Probate Calendar. In February 1915, he advertised for a farm labourer to work at Petvin’s Farm (Western Gazette, 22 February 1918, p.4)
[6] Western Chronicle, 26 September 1924, p.7.
[7] RG14, Haselbury, ED6, piece 14383. The 1911 census recorded another son, Henry James, living at home, but the space for his occupation was left blank. He later became a motor engineer and ran a repair garage at Haselbury.
[8] Hardington Guardian valuations; RG14, Hardington Mandeville, ED4, piece 14381
[9] RG14, Hardington Mandeviile, ED4, piece 14381.
[10] Western Times, 6 August 1915, p.15.
[11] Western Times, 6 August 1915, p.15.
[12] RG13, Winkfield, ED8, piece 1163, folio 23, p.38.
[13] Civil registration birth index.
[14] Western Times, 6 August 1915, p.15.
[15] Western Times, 6 August 1915, p.15.
[16] Civil registration marriage index; National Probate Calendar.
[17] Civil registration marriage index; 1939 Register.
[18] Hordle baptism register.
[19] RG15, Hordle, ED5, schedule 105.
[20] Western Gazette, 14 January 1921, p.2.
[21] The will of Henry Thomas Follett Pitt, dated 31 May 1928, proved in London on 12 July 1929.
[22] Haselbury memorial inscriptions; civil registration death index; Western Gazette, 6 August 1937, p.1; 1 October 1937, p.1; 15 October 1937, p.15.
[23] 1939 Register.
[24] Commonwealth War Graves, 1914-1921 and 1939-1947; British Army and Navy Birth, Marriage and Death Records, 1730-1960.
[25] Find a Grave® Index, 1300s-current; Civil registration death index.
[26] Civil registration death index; National Probate Calendar.
[27] Find a Grave® Index, 1300s-current