Herald - Issue 414

Page 18 • The HERALD • 28th October 2021 v PROUD TO BE PART OF THE COMMUNITY SINCE 1994 v • Airport & Seaport Specialists • Highly Competitive Fares • Friendly, Reliable Service • Comfortable 6 Seater MPVs • Any Distance - Minimum Fare £10 Before booking your journey please call us for a free quotation 07770 967198 or 023 8194 8754 www.kazcarz.co.uk SOLO CARS Available 24 hours, 365 days a year 023 8089 0244 023 8084 1951 FRIENDLY AND RELIABLE • Local and Any Distance • Airport & Cruise Transfers H 8 SEATER MINIBUS NOW AVAILABLE H All major credit cards accepted Estate/Saloon Cars Available H ESTABLISHED SINCE 1992 H TAXIS TA XIS TALES FROM THE GRAVEYARD OF Written by Patricia Hedley-Goddard, Churchyard Archivist for the ancient parish church of All Saints’, Fawley There has been a church at Fawley since 971 A.D. and the graveyard contains over 3,500 known souls within it. Over the next few months, I will be writing up the stories of some of the people buried within the churchyard, many with living relatives who have so kindly contributed to these short histories. At rest in All Saints Church Graveyard, Fawley, are the remains of people who came over to the United Kingdom in 1960 and decided to stay rather than return to their Island, Tristan da Cunha, once the volcanic eruption had subsided. ey are Joseph Gordon and Susan Elizabeth Glass, and Arthur Ernest and Edith Sarah Repetto. Tristan da Cunha is a remote group of Volcanic Islands located in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is the most remote inhabited archipelago in the world and lies approximately 1732 miles o the coast of Cape Town, South Africa, and 1514 miles from St. Helena, and 2487 miles o the coast of the Falkland Islands. Tristan da Cunha is only 38 square miles and has a population of around 250 inhabitants who are British Oversees Territory citizens. e islands were rst sighted in 1506 by Portuguese explorer Tristao da Cunha but the rst landings were not made until 1520, by the Portuguese. It was over 100 years later in 1643 that the crew of a Dutch East India Company ship, made a landing and in 1656 the rst rough charts were created. In 1767 the French made a full survey of the island thinking that perhaps it would be suitable as a penal colony, but the idea was rejected. e rst permanent settler was an American called Jonathan Lambert who came from Salem in Massachusetts and arrived in 1810 with three other men. Lambert named the Islands ‘ e Islands of Refreshment’, but within two years three of the four settlers had died leaving a omas Currie the sole survivor who stayed on as a farmer. Six years later in 1816 the U.K annexed the islands making them a dependency of the Cape Colony of South Africa. is prevented the French from trying to make Tristan da Cunha a base from which to free Napoleon from his interment on St. Helena. It also stopped the United States of America using it as a base for its cruisers. A small garrison was established by the British but was abandoned a year later, the conditions being so harsh, although a few members of the garrison stayed on, notably a Mr. William Glass. Corporal William Glass had been born in Kelso, Scotland on 11th May 1786 the son of David and Janet. He enlisted into the British Army and was sent to Capetown, South Africa in 1816, and from there to Tristan da Cunha to defend the island from the French. One can only imagine the long and arduous journey it must have been in those days. He became the Island’s Governor and he married Maria Magdalena Leenders, who bore him 15 children! He died in 1853. e Islands were re-garrisoned by British Marines and in 1824 it was reported that the population consisted of twenty two men and three women. An interesting person who stayed on the Island was Edwin Heron Dodgson (1846-1884). He was a Church Lewis Caroll who wrote Alice in Wonderland. He worked as a missionary on the Island for four years from 1880 to 1884. In 1867 Prince Alfred, son of Queen Victoria, visited the islands and the main settlement was named in his honour. e population was then listed as 15 families and 86 individuals. Initially whaling ships used Tristan da Cunha as a base, but with the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 they were no longer used by the whalers, so the islands once more became isolated. In 1885 the Island su ered one of its worst tragedies when 15 of its men were drowned, and one of those who died was a omas Glass. In 1907, a er years of hardship and a very severe winter the British Government o ered to evacuate the island, but the islanders refused this help. No ships called at the islands from 1909 for ten years, when in 1919 HMS Yarmouth arrived with the news of WW1. e islanders had been completely unaware of what had been happening in the rest of the world. On 10th October 1961 the eruption of the volcano Queen Mary’s Peak forced the entire population of 264 individuals to retreat to the sea in their boats. ey were picked up by ship and rst taken to South Africa and then on to Pendell Army Camp in, Surrey, England. ey were nally resettled at Calshot in Hampshire in a former RAF base. e Street they lived in was named Tristan Close and it remains the same to this day. One can only imagine the huge cultural shock this must have been to these evacuees. On Tristan there were only dirt The Tristan de Cunha Longboat - A memento from the Islanders now sits in St. Nicholas Chapel, the oldest part of All Saints Church, Fawley. of England clergyman, the youngest brother of Continued on page 19