What the records, family stories and DNA tells us about the families from Dorset & Hampshire.
The map of the area is below.
My mother's family, the Galtons have been around in the Poole area for a long time. Recorded occupations for the Galtons have been both seamen and carpenters; in some cases carpenters on ships.
My grandfather Tom Galton was a carpenter all hs life and passed on his tools to his son-in-law, Frank Jefferies, and we still have some. Tom was apprenticed in 1891, perhaps to his father, Edward Thomas Galton. By 1911 Tom worked as a carpenter in his own business. It is recorded that he was a keen sportsman, especially soccer, and Trade Unionist. This may have come from working at the Poole Aviation Company as a quality checker. I have not found what the Company actually made. After WW1 he was involved in the building boom as Bournemouth grew but in the 1921 he is listed as unemployed. At some stage he was afflicted with severe sciatica, put down to his work as a carpenter doing roof joists!
Another interesting fact is that the family got a loan of UKP500 from the Poole Council to build a house in Sepentine Road which was called Edhaphil (from the childrens first names) and photos exist of the house and garden, the first house the family had owned rather than rented. However when he became more disabled and my Grandmother Elizabeth Ann Smith became seriously ill the house was sold, the loan repaid and also a loan from his sister's husband repaid and the remaining money went to buy the house I grew up in in Swindon. More of that later; my grandmother's story is with the families on the Lincolnshire pages.
Another link to the Linconshire families is from my mother's brother Hattie. In the 1920's he was working as a Solicitor's Clerk in Poole and found it deadly dull. He took up an invitation to go to Winnipeg to work for his Uncle Stephen Smith, in 1925 where he worked on the farm. However he found this too demanding and got a job as a carpenter for the Canadian Pacific Railroad, married, for a short while before coming back to England and working for a while. On return he worked during WW2 at St John's, Newfoundland as a ship's carpenter.
My mother's youngest brother Phillip was trained as a compositor and then worked as a typesetter in Poole and Devizes. On call-up for ww2 he was a Military policeman and was in the Armies advancing through the Netherlands when he was killed in action in February 1945.
Edward has records of being crew on coastal boats, probably carrying coal from Hartlepool for example, and a note on a family book say he was also a crewman going from Poole to Newfoundland and back collecting dried fish. This is very interesting as there are a number of other family lines with DNA match members in Newfoundland from the early 1700's. His grandmother and his wife came from families with relatives in Newfoundland, namely the Ansteys and Standleys. His grandfather Thomas is a bit of a mystery as I am not sure where he is from but there are several villages around Dorset with Galton families.
Revised March 2025