Herald - Issue 418

Page 28 • The HERALD • 27th January 2022 v WE’VE BEEN YOUR LOCAL SINCE 1994 v G S D ecorating S ervices n Local Friendly Service n Fully Insured n Reasonable Rates n All Jobs, large or small For a Free Quote please phone Glenn 023 8089 9820 07930 279306 • Re-Skimming • Rendering • Coving • Dry Lining • Tacking • Artex Covered • Floor Screeding www.tbrownplastering.co.uk Call: 07919 183989 Friendly • Reliable • Professional • Free Estimates There has been a church at Fawley since 971 A.D. and the graveyard contains over 3,500 known souls within it. In this edition I tell the ‘Tale’ of Charles Payne. On the 5th March 1848 the mortal remains of Charles Payne, aged 23 years, was laid to rest in a grave long since lost, in the graveyard of All Saints Church, Fawley. Charles was a local man and had lived with his family in the hamlet of Hardley. His father was a carpenter, and Charles worked on the Cadland estate in the employ of Andrew Robert Drummond Esquire, Duke of Rutland, in the role of Assistant Gamekeeper. At this time the Cadland estate extended over many more hectares than it currently does, and the old Cadland House was still in existence, overlooking the Southampton estuary. At the time of the tragedy, Charles was actually lodging with the head gamekeeper, John Cull. e incident that put Charles into an early grave occurred on the night of 26th April 1848, when 3 men, Stephen Morris, William Smith and Charles Bratcher who had all been drinking in the Falcon Public House in Fawley, went to the Cadland Estate intent on poaching. John Cull, Head Gamekeeper, and Charles Payne and James Cull (John’s son) who were 2 Assistant Gamekeepers on the estate, were on duty patrolling the grounds. Around midnight, the gamekeepers heard two shots red from the direction of Fernhill Coppice. Suspecting that the shots had been red by poachers, the 3 keepers went into a turnip eld of Mr. Drummond called Hoarstone and hid themselves behind a barley rick. A er a couple of minutes 5 men appeared in the eld coming from the direction of Fernhill Coppice. e head gamekeeper, John Cull, challenged them and swi ly ran to two of the poachers, one who he thought was called Smith, and the other one called Bratcher. Two of the 5 men escaped immediately but the remaining 3 were involved in a tussle. During the ensuing fracas John Cull saw that Charles Payne was slightly to his le , and he noticed that a man, who he thought was called Morris, go towards Charles Payne. During John Cull’s ensuing struggle with his 2 poachers he heard a blow and immediately a erwards a gun shot. Poachers Charles Bratcher and Stephen Morris ed the scene but John Cull managed to subdue William Smith and keep him in custody. Eventually John Cull managed to go to Charles Payne who was laying on the ground, dying. Charles was unconscious and taken from Hoarstone Field by cart back to John Cull’s residence, where Charles Payne had been lodging. A surgeon called Mr. Budd was called to attend the injured man. Mr Budd ascertained that the skull had been badly fractured and that the top of Charles’s head had been ‘laid open’ to expose the top of the brain. e surgeon attended Charles until 6 days later on March 1st when Charles eventually died. Returning back to the scene of the tragedy, two recently killed pheasants were found on the poacher called Smith. A further search established that pheasant feathers and other evidence of the poacher’s presence were found in Fernhill Coppice, which proved the poachers were illegally on the land of Mr Andrew Drummond. Customers who were drinking at the Falcon public house, in Fawley that night, con rmed that Bratcher had been drinking with Stephen Morris and William Smith in the public house. It had been identi ed that Stephen Morris, shortly a er the attack in Hoarstone Field, had escaped and returned home seriously wounded. He told his wife Maria (nee Nicolas) that he had not long to live because he had had a malfunction of his gun while climbing over a hedge. e gun had red, badly the surgeon who came and managed to clean the wound, and he saved Stephen’s life. Stephen was subsequently arrested along with William Smith and Charles Bratcher and held in custody until their trial at the Winchester Assizes, on 13th July 1848. e prisoners were initially charged with murder and manslaughter, but due to a lack of evidence and the prevailing law these charges could not be proven. At the trial it was stated several artefacts belonging to the 3 accused were produced and identi ed as being the possessions of the prisoners on the night in question. At that time, according to the law, the council for the poachers stated that the charge of murder or manslaughter could not be proven. at arrest can only be authorised when the prisoners were found on the actual ground that they had killed the game. eir evidence showed that they had intended to kill the game on nearby Shoblands Coppice, when in reality they had been poaching on Fernhill Coppice, and not on the Hoarstone eld where they were apprehended. is loophole saved the poachers from the death sentence and they were acquitted. e prisoners were then indited for ‘night poaching’ and were subsequently convicted and sentenced to 7 years transportation each. e prisoners had to endure a 2 year wait in either an English prison, or a prison hulk moored o of Southampton, before they were transported. ey were taken to Van Diemans Land (Tasmania) in August 1850, on the prison ship William Jardine which sailed from Southampton, carrying 264 convicts. At the time of his arrest, Stephen Morris, one of the prisoners, aged 22, was already married to Maria (at Fawley All Saint’s Church on the 4th of November 1844) and they had one son named William. Stephen survived the prison ship journey, served his penal sentence and on his release somehow managed to travel from Tasmania to Sale in the state of Victoria, Australia. On 13thMay 1858 Stephenmarried Isabella Yarrow. In total, Stephen fathered 9 children, 5 girls and 4 boys in Australia, 3 of which died before him. Stephen Morris died in Sale, Victoria, Australia in July 1914 aged 90 years. Whether he was ever o cially divorced from his English wife was never recorded, but as the chance of a transported convict returning to England was highly unlikely, his rst wife would probably have accepted that she would never see him again. I have been unable to nd any further information for Charles Bratcher or William Smith. Records show that they did not die on the prison ship. Between 1788 and 1886, 158,830 convicts from England and Ireland were transported to the Australian colonies. 134,262 were males, 24,568 were female, and the deaths en route amounted to 2911. ey were transported in 477 ships, many of which made the journey more than once. My thanks to my husband David for his assistance and research into the finer detail of this article. The prison ship transported thousands of convicts to Australia TALES FROM THE GRAVEYARD OF ALL SAINTS CHURCH, FAWLEY Written by Patricia Hedley-Goddard, Churchyard Archivist for the ancient parish church of All Saints’, Fawley grazing his hand and entering the pit of his stomach. Maria called