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England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Hampshire & Isle of Wight => Topic started by: hookleg on Wednesday 14 January 15 09:58 GMT (UK)
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Gerald Debenham was a distant relative. In 1902 he became vicar at St Stephen, Buckland. He was engaged in trying to reduce the parish debt of some £900 when he became ill with rheumatic fever. He died a few months after taking up the appointment on 23 May 1902. I know about his funeral and have various cuttings with his obituary. Can anyone tell me where the church is/was and if any photos of it are on the internet. I don't seem to be able to track it down. Thanks
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Well, he lived in Portsmouth -
Probate index entry :
Reverend Gerald Dalton Debenham of 34 Chichester Road Portsmouth clerk died 23 May 1902 Probate 13 th Aug 1902 to Amy Cobbold Debenham widow and Alfred Edward Debenham solicitor
Effects £13493 -3s
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Thanks for that useful piece of information. You don't happen to know where the church was?
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Like you, I am struggling to find anything about St Stephens.
Googling produces the odd reference to it, so it did exist!
But nothing more than just a name in a list.
The main Church seems to be St Marys, which has incorporated St Faiths and St Wilfreds.
If I were you Id contact that Church and ask if they know what happened to St Stephens!
http://www.portseaparish.co.uk/cmsms/index.php
Or getting a copy of his Will may prove interesting, he was a very wealthy man. Maybe he left something to the Church and the Will may give details? Lots of maybes, but just an idea.
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Many thanks for the suggestions. I will try getting in touch.
In another article I have got it says "He gladly accepted from the Bishop of Winchester the charge of the parish of St Stephen's, Portsea, a huge town Parish with a population of 120,000 souls and a debt of £900"............ He named his residence in Portsmouth 'Northwood', in affection for the parish on the IOW where he had been curate. This had been the happiest time of his life. (1894-99) His funeral service was conducted by the Bishop of Winchester. Others present were the Bishop of Southampton, Canon Blake of St Jude's, Southsea, Rev Bernard Wilson of Portsea, S G Scott, Rector of Havant, W C Hawkseley, vicar of All Saints, Portsea, Rev C B Lloyd vicar of Hook with Warsash. Dr Emmett and Mr Blackadar, churchwardens etc etc. He must have been highly thought of.
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I wonder if he stipulates in his Will where he wants to be buried - which may help with the enquiry on your other thread.
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=710089.msg5535277#msg5535277
Or more to the point -why Theydon Bois!
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St Stephen closed about 1961. Buckland is an area of Portsmouth, to the north of the city centre, north of Landport & Kingston.
If you look at an OS map on Streetmap, you should be able to see the areas.
http://www.rootschat.com/links/01ej7/
Nell
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Thanks for the map link and date of closing. I have looked at St Stephens Road on Google Earth but could find no sign of a church. I presume it was pulled down. Do you know if any pictures or photos survive?
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There are two pictures of St Stephens on this web page
http://www.northendteamchurches.org.uk/stmarkshistory.htm
Wendy
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St Stephens in Buckland area of Portsmouth was built 1900-1902 at a cost of approx. £10,000 and was a ‘chapel of ease’ to the Parish Church of St Mary’s. It was an Anglican Low Church with 650 seats. It was consecrated in January 1903 and The Reverend Debenham would have been St Stephens’ first incumbent.
It was St Mary’s, an Anglican High Church and the mother church of St Stephens which had the population of 120,000 - more than half the 188,000 population of Portsmouth at the time. It was and still is a huge church and was unsuccessfully considered as the cathedral-to-be when Portsmouth became a city in 1926.
St Stephens as a 'chapel of ease' was intended for those who lived too far from the Parish Church to attend the latter. In practice although St Stephen’s was only one mile north of St Mary’s it was in a working class area unsuited to St Mary’s congregation. The latter did have its own mission hall for the ‘lower classes’ but this was a further one mile north again from St Stephens hence the need for a 'chapel of ease' in the Buckland area of Portsmouth.
Ray
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Just to correct my last sentence which was:
The latter did have its own mission hall for the ‘lower classes’ but this was a further one mile north again from St Stephens hence the need for a 'chapel of ease' in the Buckland area of Portsmouth.
This should have read:
The latter did have its own mission church for the ‘lower classes’ but this was a further one mile south from St Mary's i.e. two mile walk from St Stephen's area, hence the need for a 'chapel of ease' in the Buckland area of Portsmouth.
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Thanks Wendy for the link to the photos. Just great.
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Raymond, I really must thank you for such a comprehensive account. After his curacy at Northwood IOW Gerald had been curate in a very small parish in the Midlands. He spent much of his time evangelising around the country and encouraging people to become missionaries. Sadly his daughter died aged 3 while he was at Flintham. He resigned but soon took up the appointment in Portsmouth. Again, sadly he contracted influenza and then whilst recovering, rheumatic fever caused his death.
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Thank you for your kind reply.
When I am next in Portsmouth Library I'll dig out the details of the WW2 bombing of St Stephens and also its eventual demolition. St Stephens Road still exists and as it's a narrow road a photographic angle of the church was always going to be difficult. Those that Wendy pointed you to are about the best you would get.
You may have seen in the 1911 Portsmouth census there is a Dorothy Hilda Debenham age 14 at the Girls School situated at 10 Merton Road, Southsea and who was born in Northwood IoW. Perhaps another daughter?
Ray
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I went into the Portsmouth Library today and although they hold very little on St Stephen's here's what I found.
It was bombed on the evening of 10 January 1941 in the first major raid by the Luftwaffe on Portsmouth. 300 raiders took part that night and some 25,000 incendiaries plus hundreds of high explosive bombs were dropped. In all 6 churches were destroyed. At that time St Stephens had a local population of around 13,000.
Apart from some interior paper prints of St Stephen's interior there was just one print in a local book of the architect's impression of a frontal view, very much like the photo from Wendy.
(I must have had a senior moment when I said previously the view of the church advised by Wendy was from St Stephen's Rd, it was the frontal view from Kingston Rd which is a highway. St Stephen's Road runs to the rear of the church.)
The congregation moved to its Mission Hall about 1/4 mile away after the bombing and there it remained until 1961 when the last baptism and wedding took place. In spite of the loyal congregation's pleadings for the church to be rebuilt they were defeated and the church was demolished and the site, as far as I can measure it, became a new Fine Fare supermarket. Bit of a sad ending really but not unlike that of the other bombed churches.
His house at 34, Chichester Road North End Portsmouth is now a doctor's surgery so that turned out better.
Also about the 'daughter?' Dorothy Hilda Debenham. The girls' school at 10 Merton Road, Southsea is still there and was the right hand half of the nursing home in this photo link:
http://www.approvedcarehomes.co.uk/carehome/586/oakland-grange-learning-disabilitymental-health-
The library also holds the Clergy Directories so I looked at 1901 and found:
Debenham, Gerald Dalton , MA Cambridge
(ordained) priest 1889, vicar at Flintham, Newark (Diocese) in 1901
Ray
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I can't begin to say how grateful I am to you Ray.
What you have done on my behalf is way over what I could ever have hoped for. Please may I have your permission to add your research to Gerald on my family tree. I will of course assign the research to you. Gerald is one of the few people from that era that I have no photo of, just newspaper cuttings.
I have named my tree in honour of Professor Frank Debenham of Cambridge University, who did the lion's share of the research into the family. Frank was co-founder of the Scott Polar Research Institute and was a geologist on Scott's ill fated Terra Nova expedition to the Antarctic (1910-13)
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Hello again hookleg and Raymond M
I have been looking at the 1901 census and I have found St Stephens church between house numbers 150 and 156 Kingston Road.
RG13/982
I have found this particular thread interesting as I drive along St Stephens Road everytime I visit my Father-in-law. :)
Kind regards
Wendy
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Hello Hookleg, thank you again for your reply.
Please feel free to use my replies in your family tree.
It's a shame there is no photo of Gerald; maybe one of his wedding might turn up one day to complete your research.
best wishes
Ray
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Thanks to Wendy and Ray for the added information, and everybody who has contributed.
Dorothy Hilda was indeed Gerald's daughter but I have been unable to find much evidence of her apart from census, birth and death records. I believe she died in St Austell, Cornwall, so I may have a try on that counties forum.
Cheers to all, from a rather cold and damp Suffolk.
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Good morning hookleg,
I have been looking into Dorothy Hilda Debenham and have found in the British phone books on An***** entrys for D H Debenham living at Rookery Newquay between between 1929 and 1931 then 1932 to 1938 at Rookery Nook Trenance Gardens, Newquay (possibly the same place?)
As for the death registration Newquay became part of the St Austell reg district in 1936.
Hope this is useful to you.
Kind regards
Wendy
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Thanks Wendy, I had seen the phone book entry about Trenance Gardens and believe it is the home of a registered child minder. I had followed links to New Zealand where a Dorothy Hilda Debenham had been registered, but have now discounted them. Very interesting about the registration district, I had looked at a map and seen that St Austell was in the south of Cornwall and Newquay was in the north and was puzzled about that. I had thought that the registration would have been in Newquay, but of course it was probably quite a small place back then. Thanks to you, it now makes sense.
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A little late, but some further info about St. Stephen's Church. I'm not clear at present about when it became a separate parish outside the Portsea umbrella, but I have temporary access to copies of the St Stephen's parish magazines from 1908 to 1913. It is clear from these that by 1908 St Stephen's was a full parish in it's own right, with the nearby St Alban's as a mission hall. I am attaching the front page of the January 1908 magazine for interest.
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Hi Keith and may I welcome you to Rootschat. I'm sure you will find it a great site to use for any family research sticking points.
Thanks for the info about the church. Do you know if there is any similar info about the 1903 period?
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Sorry - I'm in the dark on that earlier period. I was the organiser for the research project "20 Streets in Portsmouth" about the men on the St Wilfrid's War Memorials, and while adding material to that in the hope of producing a further DVD in due course, I am currently working on the many Portsea parish clergy who served as Chaplains to the Forces during WW1. As a spin off I am having to learn a lot about the Portsea Parish and am working through some items that have not yet made it to the archives.
Hopefully some will end up in the Portsmouth History Centre, while other material will be added when I get to producing the second DVD.
I'm not sure what is in the Portsmouth History Centre for St Stephen's. I went through their full index for the Portsea Parish last year, but I think St S is catalogues separately so was not in my particular sphere of interest.
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I'm in the Portsmouth History Centre for a short session this morning. They have 4 St Stephen's parish magazines from 1904, a full run of 1905 and 5 of 10 for 1906. and a number of items from the 1930's. That appears to be all.
Keith
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For information, St Stephen was originally a mission church to St Mark, North End, which itself was established in 1874. St Stephen's records begin in 1902. It became a separate parish in 1926 and closed in 1961.
Portsmouth History Centre has the Baptism Register 1902-1961, Marriage Register 1906-1961 and the Banns Register 1941-1958.
Nell
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Thanks Keith and Nell.