William Cantelo
William Cantelo Back to A-Z index A real Victorian mystery! William Cantelo (born 1839) was from a family of Isle of Wight gunsmiths. He had a Northam engineering yard of 40 people. He also had a French Street shop, the Old Tower Inn pub by Arundel Tower and was a good musician, holding band practices in the Tower. The pub had an underground passage and behind locked doors Cantelo worked on his inventions. Locals would hear the noise of guns he was making in secrecy. One day he said he was off for a three month holiday, he left his wife and three children and disappeared – saying he was off to Europe! They later found he had taken a large amount of money. Then news broke that an American man had developed a machine gun in London. This inventor was Hiram Maxim and when the Cantelo family saw a picture they were convinced this person was in fact their lost father. Two sons went to London and they thought they had sighted him (Maxim) at Waterloo station and even spoke to the man. The sons visited Maxim’s home in Bexley, Kent only to see him leave by a rear entrance. The real Maxim (1840-1916) came to England in 1881, naturalised in 1900 and became a Knight in 1901. The Maxim gun was the world’s first fully automatic machine gun and made him a fortune. He also invented the humble mousetrap! Maxim’s son wrote a biography of his father, ‘A Genius in the Family’, which was made into a 1946 Hollywood biopic film. Was it mistaken identity? Or were Cantelo and Maxim one and the same? In a strange twist the real Cantelo was fond of quoting witty maxims and carried a book of them around with him!
Southampton Castle
Southampton Castle Back to A-Z index Only very little remains visible of the once splendid Southampton Castle today. It was first constructed in the late 11th century after the Norman conquest of England on rising ground in the north-west corner of the town, overlooking the mouth of the River Test. It was constructed as a Norman style motte and bailey castle, which consisted of a wooden keep situated on a raised earthwork called a motte, accompanied by an enclosed courtyard, or bailey, surrounded by a protective ditch and palisade. The palisade was replaced by a stone curtain wall around the first half of the 12th century. Following the threat of French invasion in the 1170s, King Henry II took steps to improve the condition of the castle and in 1187 the wooden keep was converted into a stone shell-keep. The castle played quite an important role in the wine trade, and castle vault was built to store the king’s wine, just beneath the keep right at the quayside. From there it was distributed to the other royal residences. Many of Southampton’s citizens were wealthy merchants and one of them, Gervase le Riche, paid a lot of King Richard I’s ransom after his Crusades. In 1194 Richard the Lionheart spent his only Christmas in England as king at Southampton Castle. During the early 1200s King John increased spending on the castle and the castle was by then completely built in stone. Also during the 13th century, the former castle hall was turned into a subterranean vault. After the French raid in 1338 the strengthening of the town’s defences and completion of the town walls was ordered by Edward III but little work appears to have been done to improve the castle itself. In 1370 the French made a successful attack on Portsmouth, commencing a new sequence of raids along the English coast. First Edward III and then Richard II responded with a new building programme of castles including repairs at Southampton, as the castle was in a poor condition, partly due to the theft of building materials, including stone and lead, by the citizens of the town. Southampton Castle was equipped with its first cannon in 1382, making it one of the first in England to be equipped with such a new weapon. The castle declined again in the 16th century and Queen Elizabeth I was the last monarch to visit it. Apparently she stated it was the worst castle she had ever stayed in. The castle was sold off to property speculators by James I in 1618. In 1804, the ruin was bought by the Marquis of Lansdowne, who used the stone to build a gothic mansion on the site. This was demolished around 1818 and by 1902 the site was flattened by commercial developers. A block of flats now stands on the area. Today only part of the outer bailey wall survives and along the outer wall by the sea there is CastleVault, Castle Watergate as well as the remains of Castle Hall and the Garderobe (latrine tower).
RMS Carpathia
RMS Carpathia Back to A-Z index The RMS Carpathia was a steamship built in Newcastle upon Tyne by Swan Hunter and Wigham Richardson. She made her maiden voyage from Liverpool in 1903 and ran the Cunard service from New York to a number of the Mediterranean ports. The Carpathia was sailing from New York on the night of 14 April 1912 under Captain Arthur Rostron when he was woken by his telegraph operator Harold Cottam. Cottam had earlier been on the bridge but on returning to the wireless room had received a message from Newfoundland to say that there were private messages for the Titanic. He helpfully contacted the Titanic at 12.11 am and received in reply a distress signal. Captain Rostron closed down all services that used steam from the boilers and under maximum speed and at some considerable risk set out to assist the Titanic at her last known location some 58 miles away. The Carpathia reached the Titanic four hours later. Rostron ensured that the journey time was not wasted by putting in readiness every possible arrangement to assist the Titanic’s passengers and crew the moment they came aboard. After working her way through hazardous ice fields the Carpathia reached the location of the Titanic’s sinking at 4 am and took aboard from lifeboats 706 people of whom one was to die shortly afterwards. The last person to come aboard the Carpathia was the Titanic’s 2nd Officer Charles Lightholler. For their valiant effort the crew of the Carpathia were awarded silver medals by the thankful survivors who presented Rostron with a cup and gold medal. King George V gave him a knighthood and USA President Taft presented him with the Congressional Gold Medal. Rostron retired from sea life in 1931 and recalled his life story in “Home From The Sea” which was published by Macmillan the same year and is a rare and highly collectable book. Rostron’s home was at Chalk Hill, West End, Southampton, a house built on land owned by Herbert Collins and built in the Collin’s familiar style. It is said that the rear of the house was designed to remind Rostron of a ship’s bridge. Whilst visiting his daughter in November 1940 Rostron developed pneumonia and died. His funeral took place at West End Parish Church where his body is interred in the churchyard.
Quaker Cemetery
Quaker Cemetery Back to A-Z index The Society of Friends was formed by George Fox circa 1647. At meetings participants were often said to quake with emotion before the Lord. They came to Southampton by 1655 and in 1662 Fox visited the town to support 22 imprisoned Quakers. He came again in 1668 and 1680 when a Quaker was still being held in the Bargate prison. The Quaker Burial ground, at that time well outside of the town, dates from 1662 and is at the corner of Brighton Road and the Avenue. Interestingly, all the headstones are of the same height (very low) since in the Quaker religion no individual is seen to be greater than another in life or death.
Cannibalism (Richard Parker)
Cannibalism (Richard Parker) Back to A-Z index In 1884 the ship Mignonette was fitted out in Southampton for a journey to Australia. There were 4 crew members including 17 year old orphan Richard Parker from Peartree. On July 4th the Mignonette was hit by a terrible storm south east of Trinidad. The four crew members took to a lifeboat with only two tins of turnips for supplies. After 16 days the Captain, suggested drawing lots to see who would be sacrificed. After 19 days Dudley killed Parker with a pen knife. The corpse kept the others in food for the next five days until they were picked up by a German ship the Montezuma and taken to Falmouth. Dudley and one other crew member were tried and sentenced to death for the murder of Parker. This was later commuted to just six months in jail. A memorial stone to Parker is on his mother’s grave at Jesus Chapel, Peartree Green in the Woolston area of Southampton. It is believed to be the last recorded episode of cannibalism on the high seas. Dudley had taken a book by Edgar Allen Poe with him. It tells of a shipwreck where the survivors kill another to survive – called Richard Parker. The book and film ‘The Life of Pi’ uses the name Richard Parker for the Bengal tiger in the boat.
Old Cemetery
Old Cemetery Back to A-Z index In 1843 an Act of Parliament was passed enabling a cemetery to be opened on Southampton Common. It was consecrated in 1846. Amongst its graves is that of Lt. Col. Hewwitt, the last surviving officer to have fought at the battle of Waterloo in 1815. He died in 1891 aged 96. Many Belgians fled to England in the 1914-1918 Great War and there are a number buried in Southampton cemetery. There are over 60 graves of people connected to the Titanic disaster.
Clock Tower
Clock Tower Back to A-Z index This originally stood at the junction of Above Bar and New Road, having been bequeathed to the town by Henrietta Sayers. It also acted as a drinking fountain for humans and horses. In 1934 it was moved to Bitterne Triangle where it remains to this day.
Christopher Cockerell
Christopher Cockerell Back to A-Z index Sir Christopher Cockerell (1910-1999), the inventor of the Hovercraft, lived in East Cowes and then in Hythe for many years. His house in Prospect Place looking out over the water is still owned by the Cockerell family today. Close by used to be the marine institute, where hovercraft models where tested in a long test-tank. A memorial stone was erected in his honour at Hythe. The inscription reads: “HOVERCRAFT On this site Sir Christopher Cockerell (1910-1999) and his team continued the early development of hovercraft which he had first demonstrated in 1955. They also developed and tested hovercraft skirts in a wave tank built here in 1965. Let this creative work be an inspiration to young engineers of the future”
Cross House
Cross House Back to A-Z index Before the Itchen Bridge opened in June 1977 passengers used the Floating Bridge (a cable ferry that crossed the river Itchen between Woolston and Southampton). The Floating Bridge came into service in November 1836. Before then there was a ferry boat service. The Cross House, to give passengers shelter whilst waiting to be ferried across, survives and the present building dates from 1634.
Herbert Collins
Herbert Collins Back to A-Z index Herbert Collins (1885-1975) designed houses in Southampton from 1922, and co-founded the Swaythling Housing Society in 1925. Collins, along with his co-founders, accountant and civic leader Fred Woolley (the society’s first chairman) and Bursledon brickworks director Claude Ashby, put up £200 worth of shares. Collins lived at 38 Brookvale Road, Highfield from 1930 to 1973, and a commemorative Blue Plaque was installed there in 2004. During his time living there, Collins was responsible for the design of Swaythling Methodist church in Burgess Road, built in 1932. In 1957, his professional partnership with J. Norman Calton was dissolved by mutual consent; the pair had been trading as Collins & Calton. Collins’ housing estates have a distinctive style, typified by rows of terraced houses set around wide areas of greenery. Two of the more notable Collins estates in Southampton (the Oakmount estate in Highfield and the Englemount estate in Bassett Green) have been designated as conservation areas by the city council and the Orchards Way estate in West End was designated a conservation area by Eastleigh Council in 1999. Collins was responsible for the 1928 design of Glebe Court, Highfield. Collins also made plans for a garden city around Marchwood, but these proposals were unrealised.
Castle Vault
Castle Vault Back to A-Z index Southampton owns the largest number of purpose built vaults in the whole of Britain. Most of these vaults started out as wine cellars. Some date back as far as the 12th Century. Castle Vault is the biggest vault in Southampton. It was built during the second half of the 12th century as the King’s private wine cellar. As Southampton’s location made it ideal for the wine trade, it made sense to have a storage place here. The castle was situated directly above the vault and the wine casks could be unloaded right outside at the King’s private quay, as the water came up to the walls. King Henry II was married to Eleanor of Aquitaine and thanks to her he owned huge vineyards in France. Castle vault was built to store the King’s wine, some of which he imported himself but much was obtained through a levy on the wine imported by the merchants. Conveniently, a new tax was invented, called the “King’s Prise”, which meant that one in every ten casks imported by the merchants was given to the King. The vault was ideal for storing wine as it maintained a constant temperature of around 12 degrees centigrade (52 degrees Fahrenheit) throughout the year. Wine from the vault would be drunk when the King was in residence, however, in general the vault was used as an interim storage facility, from where the wine was distributed to the other royal palaces. Castle vault is a typical barrel vault, being 55 feet (17 m) long, 20 feet (around 6 m) wide and 25 feet (around 7.5 m) high. Originally the entrance used to be at the south side of the vault. Colin Platt’s well researched book on Medieval Southampton suggests that there was a round window to the south of the quayside door which was a source of light. During some periods of the year and especially when the new season’s wines had arrived additional vaults in the town would be used to store the King’s wine.The wine was stored in large casks called tuns, which held 250 gallons of wine (about 1,000 litres or 1 ton). The tuns were not easy to handle and great care had to be taken as they were heavy and it would be costly if they were damaged and the wine lost. To carry the tuns, porters would use loops of rope around the barrel and pass a beam through the loop and then carry the tun with the beams resting on the shoulders of the men. During WW2 the vault was used as an air raid shelter. You can still see traces of the blast walls that spanned the vault and the foundations for the entrance and toilets can be seen. The blast walls did not come completely across the chamber but were offset to impede the blast. According to Southampton locals the children and mothers were placed furthest from the entrance as that was the safest position.