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Just Catalogued August 2022

Posted in Behind the Scenes on 09 Aug 2022

In this blog, we round up all the items and collections that have recently been catalogued at the BRO and are now available to view - catalogue references are given in brackets. You can use our online catalogue to find out more about these and other items in our collections.


Yellow fever, shipwreck, war and riot: all in one family 

One recently catalogued collection tells the story, mainly through family letters, of the Baynes family and their connections from 1770 onwards (D/EX879). They ended up in Reading when the Revd Alexander Baynes became curate of Reading St Mary in the early 20th century.

The memoir of Margaret Baynes, nee Macleod (1750-1838), tells of the family’s harrowing experience of the yellow fever epidemic of 1804 in Gibraltar. Margaret’s husband Alexander was the surgeon to the British garrison. He, and the couple’s daughter and son-in-law Jane and John Frome, were just a few of the many who died, leaving Margaret to care for the Fromes’ four children (all under the age of 5) and bring them home to England.

One of Margaret’s sons served with Horatio, Lord Nelson, and was present at the battle in which the latter lost his arm in 1797. The family provided at least four senior army officers who lived through the campaigns of the Peninsular War and the Battle of Waterloo, and others were killed in the Crimean War of the 1850s. Margaret’s grandson, Charles Robert Baynes, was in the East India Company at the time of the Indian Mutiny of 1857, and wrote on the situation.

Letters from Lieutenant General Thomas Dyneley (1782-1860), whose niece married into the Baynes family, relate his experiences during the Napoleonic wars, particularly during the Salamanca campaign in Spain. Her parents (Dyneley’s sister and her husband) Richard and Maria Hill played key roles in the containment of riots in Merthyr Tydfil in 1816, with Maria being called the ‘Glamorganshire Heroine’ for her role. Another interesting item in this collection recounts a shipwreck off Lung-Gung Island in the China Sea in 1901, and the subsequent rescue of the passengers after several days stranded on the island, as recorded in a letter written by one of the survivors, a cousin of the Baynes, after being rescued.

Yellow buns and cigarettes: comforts for soldiers


Records of Pangbourne Second World War Bridging Camp and Methodist Church Canteen, 1939-1945 (D/EX2760) offer an unusual glimpse into wartime experiences in one local village. At the start of the Second World War, sisters Ivy and Billie (Wilhelmina) Perral, 5 Thames Avenue, Pangbourne opened a service canteen in the vestry of Pangbourne Methodist Chapel. Wartime canteens were set up across the county by the War Comforts Department to provide meals and much needed respite to soldiers.

They provided a warm fireside, newspapers to read, and writing materials for soldiers to write letters home. Volunteer staff sold them cups of tea, sandwiches and cakes (‘yellow buns and rock cakes’, hopefully more appetising than they sound!). In 1940, the canteen obtained a license to sell cigarettes to the soldiers. The records include registers and visitors’ books containing messages from the grateful soldiers, and drawings by members of the various army engineer companies based in Pangbourne for training before heading overseas. There are also photographs showing their practice building bridges nearby.

New for family history

We have received several parish registers, some going back to the 19th century:

Kingston Lisle: baptisms, 1894-2021; marriages, 1983-2017; banns, 1824-2021; burials, 1888-2021 (D/P115B).

Letcombe Regis: marriages, 1981-2020; banns, 1933-2021; burials, 1863-2021 (D/P81).

Sparsholt: baptisms, 1944-2020; marriages, 2017-2019; banns, 1876-2021; burials, 1865-2013 (D/P115).

She refused to be baptised 

Recently deposited parish records also include agreements for memorials in the churchyards of the Ridgeway Benefice (comprising East and West Challow, Childrey, Kingston Lisle, Letcombe Basssett, Letcombe Regis, and Sparsholt), 2005-2016 (D/P81). The Kingston Lisle parish records (D/P115B) include proposed distribution rules for Dodd's Charity, noting that 'no one to be eligible who is leading an openly immoral life'.

The Sparsholt parish records include a register of confirmations, 1902-1914 (D/P115/1C/6) which includes an entry for a girl who 'was prepared for confirmation. It was only discovered about 5 days before the Confirmation ... that she was not baptised. She refused at the time to be baptised'. This meant she could not be confirmed! There is also a letter of reference for 18 year old confirmand Elsie Winifred Haines in 1921. This letter is from the vicar of Maidenhead St Luke, and describes Elsie as 'a nice girl' who left her post in service in Maidenhead following 'a tiff with the housekeeper or cook'.

You can find out more about any of the records mentioned here and more, by searching our online catalogue. Simply enter the collection references mentioned above into the Catalogue Reference field.