I first came across Amyatt as Chief Constable when researching the history of South Lodge, South Walks, an historic house in the centre of Dorchester, and was intrigued by his Christian name, which I had never seen before.
Dorset had appointed it’s first Chief Constable on 14th October 1856. He was a retired Army officer Colonel Samuel Symes COX, who was aged 39. He had served in the Crimean war ( 1854/55 ) in the 56th Regiment of Foot as a Lt. Colonel, having been born at Chedington, Dorset in 1817, but in 1859 was living at Somerset Place, Melcombe Regis, Weymouth.
Amyatt BROWN did not come from a long established Dorset family. He was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1831, and his father had a distinguished military career. Major General Peter BROWN was born in London about 1775, and served in various foot regiments from 1797. His final posting was in December 1843 when he was appointed as Commandant of the Royal Military Asylum for the Children of Soldiers of the Regular Army at Chelsea, London. There he worked with considerable success to improve the lives, health and education of the Army’s children. He retired from there in 1852, and died at Gosport, Hampshire in 1853.
The Amyatt name had come from Peter BROWN’s wife Margaretta Taylor AMYATT whom he had married at Walcot, Bath, Somerset on 5th October 1815 when serving in the 23rd Regiment of Foot. They had three children Caroline born 1819 in Llandaff, Glamorgan, Margaretta born Teignmouth, Devon in 1822 and Amyatt born 1831 in Dublin as their father moved about with the Army.
Margaretta AMYATT had been born in Totnes, Devon in 1787, her father was the Reverend John AMYATT, born at Totnes in 1758, who had married Margaret Wise at Totnes in October 1783. The Amyatt surname can be traced in Totnes records further back to an Edward son of Richard AMYATT baptised in 1623 .
In the census of 1841, Amyatt is listed aged 10 living with his parents and two sisters at Belmont Place, Bath, Somerset. I do not know when he joined the Army, but he was an Ensign in 44th Regiment of Foot in March 1847, is missing from the 1851 census, no doubt away serving abroad, and appears as a Captain in the 31st Regt. of Foot in the Crimean War 1854/55, so he seems to have done well.
On 21st August 1857 at St Swithin’s church Walcot Bath, Amyatt married Frances Elizabeth CHARLTON. Her father Edward CHARLTON was born at Hexham, Northumberland in 1783. He had married Elizabeth Trosse SPICER at St Andrew’s church, Plymouth, Devon on 18th October 1825. Edward was then a Major in the 61st Regiment, whilst she had been born in Ceylon ( now Sri Lanka ) in April 1836.
Edward was a Lt. Colonel and Deputy Adjutant General for Ceylon when he died at Bath, Somerset in April 1852, before daughter Frances was married.
At the time of the 1861 census Amyatt and Frances were living at the Charlton family home Granville Lodge, Weston in Bath, Somerset with Frances’ s widowed mother Elizabeth and their first daughter Edith, aged 2, who had been born at Southampton, Hampshire. Sadly, Edith died in 1866 but, by then, they had two more daughters born at Purse Caundle, North Dorset, namely Beatrice born in 1861 and Florence born in 1864.
Amyatt’s sister Caroline, born 1819 at Llandaff, Glamorgan, started another branch of the Amyatt family when she married Rev’d Edward BURNEY at Holy Trinity church, Chelsea, London in June 1846. Edward came from a well known BURNEY family in Alverstoke and Gosport, Hampshire. They went on to have five children, four of whom reached adulthood.
Extract from Dorset Quarter Sessions - Michaelmas 1867
At the Dorset Quarter Sessions for Michaelmas 1867, Amyatt E. BROWN was appointed as the new Chief Constable of Dorset to take over from Colonel COX as from 1st November 1867. Obviously the appointing committee took a lot of notice of past military careers. To prepare, Amyatt had spent some time with the Metropolitan Police in London, whilst his starting salary was £300 per annum; note that was less than the £350 p.a. Col. COX started on in 1857. By 1873, Amyatt’s salary had increased to £600 p.a.
In the 1871 census, Amyatt BROWN, his wife Frances and their two daughters were then living at South Field, Radipole Weymouth.
Captain BROWN obviously had a social conscience, following on from his father, and was concerned at the social conditions of vagrants and beggars along with the workings of the Poor Laws and Vagrancy Act. In 1872, he had written and published a booklet entitled “ Repression of Vagrancy and Indiscriminate Almsgiving. “
At some point Amyatt about then decided to change his surname, as Kelly’s Trade Directory of Dorsetshire for 1880 (page 939) lists him as Capt. Amyatt E. AMYATT - a form of surname he then used until he died.
In the 1881 census the family were living at Stinsford House, Stinsford, near Dorchester, which was owned by the Earl of Ilchester, but by 1891 they had moved into South Lodge - an historic property built in about 1750 in the centre of Dorchester.
Capt. AMYATT retired as Chief Constable of Dorset on 12th February 1898 after serving for 31 years with the force he had done so much to shape for the future. His successor, Dennis GRANVILLE, was selected as the 3rd Chief Constable of Dorset on 5th March 1898.
Capt. AMYATT, Frances and unmarried daughter Florence, along with three servants, were still at South Lodge in the 1901 census, before Capt. AMYATT died there on 26th August 1901. His probate in October 1901 described Amyatt as retired Captain in the 5th Lancers, and retired Chief Constable of Dorset.
The Western Gazette on 27th September 1901 reported the attempt to sell South Lodge, Dorchester, the freehold property of the late Capt. AMYATT.
It obviously did not sell as a further Western Gazette item on 25th March 1904 advertised to let “ unfurnished South Lodge, being the property of Mrs Amyatt. "
By the 1911 census, the widowed Frances and her daughter Florence had moved away from South Lodge to Windsor, Berkshire, then in 1921 on to Wokingham, Berkshire, where Frances Amyatt died in June 1923.
The Amyatts other daughter Beatrice had married another Army officer George Gregory SIMPSON at Stinsford in April 1885. He was a Colonel in the Royal Artillery when he died serving away in India in October 1904. Beatrice died at Wokingham in 1944.
Florence AMYATT died in St. Andrews Hospital, Northampton in May 1938, so neither she, nor her mother Frances, returned to live in Dorset after 1901, the County where her father had served as Chief Constable for some 30 years.
Richard Smith - orchidgrower@btinternet.com
19. 7. 2024