ONCE again thanks to Neil Mattingly and his freshford.com website for shedding some light on local history.

Readers may remember a few weeks ago we carried a story from Barbara Davies who’d seen a Looking Back story of ours in the South Wales Argos.

She had been trying to find if there were any Gordge families left in the UK.

She had found two men left in Swansea with the Gordge name.

Mrs Davies is a descendent of Digory Gordge who she thinks is her great, great, great grandfather, - if he was the Gordge who fled Dorset with his son as Chartists in 1848. It appears he was a widower, and he married a very much younger woman in Swansea who bore a son – my grandmother’s father. There was a very big age gap between the son who fled with him. They settled in Swansea, South Wales, and their details were removed from the local records office to protect their identity. “

Though the move to Wales may not have been for political reasons.

According to Mr Mattingly a William Henry Gordge was born in Charmouth and christened 6 January 1789, married 7 June 1808 in Bridport and died 26 May 1865 in Swansea.

His occupation was cordwainer, store keeper, general labourer and he was convicted for stealing yarn from a Charmouth merchant at the Devon Assizes Exeter summer 1818 and 1818 transported for seven years 20 August 1818 and there is a matching gap in his children’s births. They were sent to Portsmouth from the County Gaol.

14 Aug 1818 Records from Ancestry show Wm Gordge on prison hulk York & Laurel(?). He looks as if he was freed on 22 March 1822.

By the census of 1841 he is down as being in the House of Correction, Prisoner, Swansea but by the census of 1851 was at 26 Garden Place, Swansea and ten years later at 13 Garden Street.

Mr Mattingly added: “How exciting to read that The South Wales Argos picked up on the story. Digory Gordge is such an unusual name and often appears in old documents and records for the village.

“If you can give me Barbara Davies address, I will send her a copy of my book “Charmouth - its Church and people”.

“Page 59 is devoted to the Digory who was parish clerk for 56 years and whose gravestone can still be seen in St Andrew’s churchyard.

“He saw the village increasing in size year by year until the church was not large enough to hold the congregation. “He was clerk during the building of the church and he died on 27 April 1861 at the age of 76 only just before the churchyard was enlarged.

“He lived for many years at the corner of Barrs Lane and the Street in a cottage called “Streets”, which is now the village post office.

“The original building was part of a group with thatched roofs which were all burnt to the ground in a fire in 1894. “Before this it was famous for a ghost, which was investigated by Conan Doyle, writer of Sherlock Holmes.”

“As clerk he started with a salary of three guineas a year. His other duties besides being clerk were constant ‘attendants’ at the church and cleaning the church.

“His name appears as witness at most marriages and there are dozens of papers in the Vestry signed by him, including a bill for tolling the bell for the death of the King and Duke of Kent in 1820, and in 1832 for the death and funeral of George IV.

“After 26 years he wrote to the church-wardens asking for an increase in his salary as the number of inhabitants had increased, this was raised to eight guineas a year.

“He lived in a cottage at the top of Lyme Hill, on a plot of ground shared by his brothers William, Samuel and Urath.

“William and Digory sold their plots to Tobit Gear, which passed eventually to Jimmy, father of Billy Gear, garage owner, who sold it to E.A.Washer in 1944 and in 1960 it was purchased by Misses M.C.H.Crosbie and D.M. Beckhouse they called their house “Digory”.

“Digory died in 186l aged 79.

“I have received in recent years interesting visits from members of the family who have left Charmouth and wish to trace their ancestors. The most interesting one was trying to connect with the Gordges of ‘Shipton Gordge’ but was unable to bridge the gap of about a hundred years in the seventeenth century. I have mention of more than 40 of the family who were either born or lived in the village.*