Haskells of Old England Cranbourne, Dorset
by Iris GreenFollowing the loss of the last English possession in France in 1558, Queen Mary Tudor is said to have declared that, when she died, the word 'Calais' would be found written on her heart. One is tempted to suspect that, during his life-time, the name 'Cranborne' may be engraved on the heart of our historian/genealogist, Win Haskell! From the 17th century onwards there was a movement eastwards of Haskell families, and many settled in and around this Dorset village in the 18th and 19th centuries. Their number increased rapidly and Christian names seemed in short supply, so that there was a proliferation of Josephs, Johns, Jobs, Lucys and James'. Land and propery tenancies, sufficent to support large families, became difficult to find as large landowners consolidated their estates. In the first half of the 19th century, two brothers William and George, whose father had been born in Cranborne, were to be found in the 81st Foot regiment and many Haskells took advantage of improved transport tp move away, often overseas. The present desire of their descendents to find their roots frequently leads them back to Cranborne where the sorting out of the many lines has been frustrating in the extreme.
Seventh great-granfather Richard of Horton Woodlands, Dorset yeoman farmer and elder brother of Matthew, groom to the 3rd and 4th Earls of Shaftesbury, had a family of four sons and five daughters, though one son and one daughter died in infancy. His tenancy was in Woodlands March, between the villages of Horton and Cranborne, leased from Mr Seymour of Woodlands Manor, a descendant of the uncle and Protector of the young Edward VI.
Formerly this manor was the home of a colourful local gamekeeper, Henry Hastings. Records show that Richard's third son, John, became the inheritor of the Woodlands tenancy and from his line came the ancestor of Association's Chairman of the Board, Norman Haskell of Natal, South Africa. Later, in 1775, Sir Harry Munro Bart was landlord but by the late 18th century the property formed part of the estate of the Earl of Shaftesbury. It is through the generousity of the present Earl in making available the estate archives that much of the early history of the Haskell family has been discovered.
Horton Woodlands, a village 4 miles north of Wimborne Minster earned a place in English history in the 17th century. During the reign of James II, the Duke of Monmputh, nephew to the king and suppoter of the Protestant cause, landed in Dorset. He persuaded the country people of that county and of Somerset, to join him in large numbers. He tried a night attack upon king's forces at Sedgemoor, which might have been successful but for the fact that an unsuspected and impassable ditch stopped his advance. At is was, the attack failed, and Monmouth was subsequently captured in Woodlands. In 1685 he was executed. What excitement this must have caused in the lives of young Richard and Matthew.
Richard's eldest son, another Richard and third son George, moved to Cranborne, though estate records show that after 1725 the former was living in London. Cranborne is a large parish adjoining Woodlands. The village stands amid the chalk uplands boardering Cranborne Chase, a royal hunting forset from the time of King John to that of JamesI, and an area of country well-known to generations of Haskells. In the Manor House was held the Chase courts and the Court Roll of 22 April 1606 records the examination of Mark Haskell, uncle of the Haskell emigrants to New England, then living in Matcombe, concerning 'one female third year buck that was slain'. The lagal records of the Chase contain several references to evidence given by Mark, under-keeper from before 1600. On 9 January 1611, his brother William Hascoll, a keeper of Rushmoore Walke and father of Roger, William and Mark, later of Massachusetts, told the Court that 'he caught a greyhound attacking a female deer. Rushmoore Walke was an area of wooded land running through the centre of the Chase. Many years later, on 24 May 1786, Joseph Haskell of Fontmell Magna appeared in the court roll list of offenders. The offence committed in West Walk is not stated but most probably was that of deer stealing.
Cranborne was once a place of considerable importance, holding a market every week on Thursday, and two fairs, one on St Barthilomew's day and one on St Nicholas' day; it also had a Grammer School and a pair of stocks.
'We present to have a new pair of stocks to be put in the tything of Holwell (part of Cranborne) in the place where the old ones formerly was, the Lord of the Manor, the Eal of Salisbury, to set them up'.
There were formerly seven inns but most have disappeared without trace. One of the survivors is the Fleur de Lys. It is here that Tess of the d'Urbevilles was supposed to have vested on her journey to Trantridge (Pentridge) for Cranborne was the Chasebourough of the Hardy novels. Many members of the real Haskell family must have visited the impressive church dedicated now to St Mary and St Bartholomew. No part of the original Saxon church remains but there is a norman doorway in the porch dating from 1120 and the whole of the naive is of Early English construction of about 1240. Mural paintings and the font of Purbeck marble are of the same date. Parish Registers begin in 1602 but the earliest Haskell reference is not until 1644. It was from about 1720 the regular Haskell ebtries begin. Even today, in the churchyard, is a small corner of Haskell graves.
Sixth great-granfather George and his wife Ann had three children, Brigit, George and James baptised in Cranborne church, but when his baby son was only a year old, George senior died in 1733 at the age of 36 years. In due course, fifth great-grandfather James became a yeoman farmer of Worth in the southeast of the parish. He first married Elizabeth Hennan on 6 December 1756 and by her had two children Mary and James. Elizabeth died 10 months after the birth of her son. Just over a year later the widower James married a widow Mary Hayward nee Harris, former wife of a land-owning farmer, Charles Hayward.
James and Mary lived at Eastworth Farm close to Verwood and there had three sons, William, Joseph and Henry and two daughters Sarah and Elizabeth. James died in 1813 at the age of 80 and of his sons, only James of the first mrriage and Joseph, child of James and Mary, were still living. It is, perhaps, indicative of the source of the Eastworth property that it was Joseph who inherited the leasehold estate after Mary's death at the age of 93.
According to Hutchins in his History of Dorset, Eastworth is probably a mediaeval settlement, part of Horsith mentioned in documents from 1249 onwards. The present farmhouse has been described in Historical Monuments of the County of Dorset, as haviong 'a late 18th century nucleus of 2 storeys, with brick walls and a tiled roof. The south front is symmetrical and of three bays' It still stands, occupied by an elderly lady Miss Sims, a family name appearing in the Haskell lines on several occasions.