Battlefield Phantoms

Visions are often seen in times of war. The Phantom Sentry of Ypres is a typical case and is one of many such stories related by men who faced death on an appalling scale during World War One.

The incident happened one particularly dark night when an ambulance was taking it badly wounded soldier to a hospital in Poperinghe. Suddenly, on a deserted stretch of the road the driver saw his path was blocked by the glowing, ghost-like figure of a British sentry. The driver braked hard bringing the ambulance to a halt only inches short of the man in the road. But when the driver got out he found the sentry had vanished into thin air. What the driver saw next was even more alarming for there, only a few feet in front of his vehicle, was a deep shell crater; to have plunged into it would have meant certain death. Without doubt the Phan­tom Sentry had saved two lives but there were other ghost soldiers whose appear­ance gave hundreds of men on the battlefield courage and hope.

I n September 1914, the London Evening News reported that ancient bowmen led by St George had appeared in no-man's-land at Mons in France. The warriors, all dressed in shining armour and mounted on magnificent white horses, had charged the enemy lines and driven the Germans back with arrows and swords.

Even before the published story reached the front-line, troops on both sides swore they had seen the ghostly horsemen. Others said they had seen a single angel moving among the wounded and the dying and so the legend of the Angels of Mons was born. During the First World War not all ghosts appeared on the battlefield. According to some reports a British soldier called Harry Kirkup had a strange encounter which was to haunt him for years.

Kirkup, then a sergeant in a northern regiment was a complete sceptic, not to say cynic when it came to believing in ghosts but on this particular night he was to change his mind. Evidently there was a thick fog in Newcastle and Kirkup had got lost trying to get to Central Station. Just when he had given up all hope of catching his train he saw another soldier appear out of the gloom. The stranger told Kirkup he was on his way to the station and would guide him there. As they walked Harry noticed the stranger's uniform was of the kind worn in the South African War, now some 16 years past, and he became slightly alarmed when the stranger said he was returning to his unit. Still, there was nothing really sinister about the man so when they arrived at the station and he suggested they share a compartment for the journey to London, Kirkup agreed. The train moved off and the stranger became very talkative.

He explained to Harry that this particu­lar night was similar to the one 18 years ago, in 1899, when he was travelling back to his unit in London. The only other person travelling in the compartment on that particular occasion was a thin, bony-faced man dressed in an ill-fitting black suit who for all the world looked like an undertaker.

Although Kirkup was amazed the stran­ger could recollect the events of a night 18 years ago in such detail he did not interrupt the story. The stranger con­tinued by telling Harry he felt ill at ease with the man in black and as he reached into his pocket for a cigarette hoping that a smoke would keep him awake, he inadvertently pulled out his wallet con­taining a month's pay which spilled onto the floor.

As the stranger gathered up the money he was aware of the man opposite watching his every move. Not long afterwards the stranger felt himself dropping off to sleep but a sixth sense made him wake up. The man in black had drawn a knife and was lunging it at him. The two men fought savagely the stranger said, however the man in black was too strong for him and raised the knife for the lethal blow.

Kirkup said the stranger was lucky the knife had missed a vital spot, to which the stranger replied it had not, the knife was driven through his heart and it killed him. Before the startled, disbelieving Harry could reply, the South African War soldier disappeared. Harry Kirkup continued his journey to London alone and never saw the stranger again.

Phantom soldier stories like the Kirkup one are open to conjecture simply because there is only a single witness to the event whereas others such as the Lost Battalion of Hill 60 and the Maginot Ghost Army defy explanation, especially as so many other men actually saw both events close to hand. Hill 60 was a key landmark in the Gallipoli campaign in the Dar­danelles in 1915. A year earlier the Turks had entered the war on Germany's side and twelve months later a force of Commonwealth and French troops landed at the Gallipoli Peninsula as part of a bold plan of attack. The idea was to seize the Dardanelles, a narrow straight joining the Aegean Sea with the Sea of Marmara, knock Turkey out of the war and open a supply route to Russia.

On 12th August 1915, the First-Fifth Battalion of the Royal Norfolk Regiment were ordered to advance on Hill 60 in Sulva Bay. As the men moved up the hill they had to pass through some thick, low clouds and it was at this point that the whole regiment disappeared. Months later the decomposing bodies of less than half of the men were found but the fate of their comrades was not known. These men were posted as missing in action and after the war came to an end the British authorities, thinking the Turks may have taken them prisoner, asked for whatever remained of the Regiment to be returned. The Turks denied all knowledge of the events on Hill 60 saying they had made no contact whatsoever with First-Fifth Norfolks. The incident seemed closed, then 50 years later three witnesses, F Reichardt, R Newnes and J L Newan made a startling statement about the missing men.

The witnesses were veterans of the New Zealand field company involved in the campaign. From their vantage point overlooking Hill 60 the three men had seen a strange formation of six or eight big clouds hovering 500ft above the ground. Each cloud they said was shaped like a loaf of bread. Below these was another cloud about 245m long, 60m wide and 65m high. It was similar in shape and was resting on the ground where it straddled a dry creek-bed. According to the New Zealanders, the First-Fifth Battalion marched up the hill and into the lower cloud without hesitation. When the last trooper had entered it the cloud slowly lifted into the air where it joined the other formation and drifted off to the north. Hill 60 was deserted, no living soul could be seen.

The New Zealanders' statement came in for much controversy especially as the Allies had attacked Hill 60 in force nine days later (on 21 August 1915) in heavy mist and were virtually wiped out in the battle. Reichardt and his comrades were accused of confusing the dates and sequence of events and were also ridiculed for waiting until 1965 before telling their strange story. It is unlikely the riddle of the missing battalion will ever be solved.

Stories relating to the Maginot Ghost Army are a complete contrast to the incident on Hill 60 for two main reasons. First, they concern an army which was never reported to be missing in action and secondly, tales of French ghost soldiers did not begin until 1973. The Maginot Line was a massive fortification system built by the French to check an invasion by Nazi Germany. Basically the system contained machine gun emplace­ments, underground barracks, hospitals and its own railway to transport the troops from one point to another. Built at the staggering cost of 230 million this concrete structure ran along the whole of the eastern frontier of France, from Belgium to Switzerland.

After the war the fortifications were abandoned and lay silent for years then, in 1973, for no apparent reason they became active again. It all started when two spinsters, Marie and Brigitte Larousse who lived near the derelict emplacements, heard heavy lorries and the sound of marching troops. When the sisters could find no sign of military activity in the area they became distres­sed and reported the matter to the commander of the local garrison who said there had been no recent troop move­ments in that region. The mystery deepened when a farm worker, Pierre Chalmain, insisted he had observed a battalion of French soldiers in World War Two uniforms digging trenches near one of the blockhouses. Chalmain went back a week later but there was no sign of the soldiers and the ground around the blockhouse appeared to be untouched.

Perhaps the most chilling story about the French ghost soldiers came from an  insurance salesman named Charles Bonet. He claimed he was driving from Metz to Luxembourg when his car broke down and while waiting for a repair truck he decided to listen to the radio. Suddenly the programme he was tuned in to was interrupted by the voices of army officers discussing an underground ammunition store. Moments later Bonet heard the voice of General Maxine Weygand who was a member of the Vichy Government in 1940 and also Chief of the General Staff. Weygand was announcing that the Maginot Line was to be aban­doned as part of the French withdrawal from the advancing German Army. Bonet was stunned to say the least for Weygand had died in 1965 and on checking, the

Japanese infantry and all but six of the Americans were killed. Evidently the remaining men were captured then brutally tortured to death. Soon after the incident, natives and Allied troops reported seeing six American soldiers patrolling the jungle in the area of the massacre. The men, who all appeared gaunt, pale and battle weary, would vanish into thin air when approached. Rumours of the ghost patrol soon spread. Stories began to filter through to the Allies that the ghost Marauders had killed many of the Japanese responsible for the ambush and that the other Nippon troops had committed harakiri sooner than face being hunted down.

Christiansen knew little about the Marauders. They were far from his mind when he sat down to rest in the jungle near Maingkwan in May 1957. Therefore, he was paralysed with fear when six ragged, armed men came out of the undergrowth towards him. They didn't speak to the missionary but motioned him to lay down and tied his hands behind his back. Shortly after he passed out. When he awoke hours later his hands had been cut free and the Marauders had gone. Christiansen truly believed he had been dreaming but when he arrived at Maing- kwan the villagers said the ghost patrol had been seen twice that day.

Belief in ghosts does not apply only to the common soldier or the civilian. During World War Two, Air Chief Marshall Dowding had the responsibility of sending young RAF pilots to face the onslaught of the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain. Many of them were to perish but Dowding refused to believe that death was final. During the war he said of his missing pilots ‘Don’t think of them as dead…..they are very much alive and active…I look forward to giving the evidence on which I base my belief.’

If you are looking at this you must be interested in ghosts, so why not read my three ghost stories available on Amazon as e-books or paperbacks.

Why Weeps the Willow - The north Norfolk coast in the autumn of 1917. A restless ghost searches for a means of experiencing physical love again. A teenage girl tries to find her way through the pitfalls of a first emotional encounter. A ruthless woman determines to hold on to her family's estates in the face of all adversity.  A soldier is invalided home from the battlefields of France, suffering from amnesia. Add incest, espionage and murder, then look for the answer to the question posed on a suicide's grave. Why Weeps the Willow?

Let Sleeping Evils Lie – a midnight vigil in a churchyard by students trying to contact a ghost said to haunt it, and some impromptu dabbling with an Ouija board in a youth club a few days later, awaken a sleeping evil it would have been better to leave undisturbed. 

Murder out of Memory - A compelling tale of love and murder, told by the ghosts of the two people involved. Or were they ghosts?  Even after battling to put right the grave miscarriage of justice he’d discovered had followed the murder, Peter was still not completely sure about that.

 

Uses for Hazel in the garden

     A cold day in Shropshire, and I’ve come indoors away from the sleet and snow falling steadily outside.

   I’d been using the thinner, more pliable, stems I’d cut from the old coppice hazel in the corner of the garden, pushing them into the ground around the herbaceous plants in the borders, to support them when they come through. Something I do every three years or so. Some of the stems will also be holding up my broad beans later in the year.

   Staking herbaceous borders in that way used to be one of the more labour intensive jobs in a park in those long ago days when local authorities had direct labour to use intensively, and parks to use them in. Hazel was always the best shrub for the purpose, because it’s strong, but pliable. Sometimes we’d use lime tree stems instead. But they were never as sturdy.

   There had been a lot of lime trees planted along the pavements of the streets in the town where I grew up. Every year, on a rotation, a number of them would have had their crowns reduced by the council’s forestry section and the resulting prunings taken to local allotments to be used as pea and bean sticks by the plot holders. These days I expect the cuttings are shredded in a machine towed behind the lorry and turned into sawdust instead.

   The fibrous outer bark of lime trees used to be used by gardeners for tying bundles and was known as bass or bast. The thicker stems of hazel, below the bits used to support plants, were used as a source of small poles; wattling for hurdles, fences and huts; hoops for casks; for making walking sticks; and as rods for driving cattle. Most of which uses have no place in the modern world.

   In the garden, not needing to be supported by anything, look out for Exochorda x macrantha ‘The Bride’. For about six weeks during April and May its arching branches are wreathed in a cloud of open, white flowers, whilst in autumn, its soft, green leaves turn delicate shades of yellow and orange.

                                       

The Baughs of Virginia

The first Baugh to arrive in Virginia was Thomas Baugh, son of John Baugh of Twyning in Gloucestershire, who arrived on the Berkeley Plantation ship the Supply, out of Bristol, some time before 23rd January 1624, the date on which he appeared on the Muster of Inhabitants of the College Land in Henrico, Virginia. Thomas hadn’t appeared on the List of Living and Dead in Virginia made on February 16th 1623, but that isn’t to say he wasn’t there. He does appear in another Muster of Inhabitants in 1625, however, living at West and Shirley Hundred. After that he may well have gone on to found the dynasty from which most of the Baughs in America are descended, or he may have died of plague or been killed by Indians the day after the Muster. There is simply no further trace of Thomas anywhere in the colony.

That isn’t to say he wasn’t in Henrico, of course. Local records there weren’t kept until around 1632, so even if Thomas was there living a full and happy life there is no way for anyone now to know. All we do know is that the next Baugh to make an appearance in the records of Henrico County was John Baugh, whose name appears on a grant of land made in 1638. He could, at a pinch, have been the son of Thomas, tradition, however, tells us John was his cousin, and the brother of William Baugh, who also made an appearance around this time.

The Visitation of Worcestershire 1682-3 says of Thomas Baugh, son of John of Twyning, that he was absent in Virginia in 1634. It makes no similar claim for John and William, but then it does give them the wrong parents so may not be too trustworthy in that respect.

When John Baugh of Twyning died in 1640 he left bequests to his daughters Elizabeth and Margaret and his son Rowland, as well as his nephew Edward and his brother Richard. There was no mention of Thomas.

When William Baugh of Twyning died in 1632 he left his son William a lump sum £120 and son John an annuity for life, so we assume they were living in Twyning at the time. His wife Mary he bequeathed an annuity of £20 a year. Everything else went to William’s other son, Edward.

Richard Baugh of Twyning died in 1642. He had no children of his own so he left bequests to all his nephews and to the children of his nephew, Rowland. All his goods and chattels he left to his nephew, Edward, son of his brother William. The only nephews of Richard who he didn’t mention in his will were Thomas, John and William. Not proof in itself that the latter two had gone to Virginia, but certainly coincidental that John and William, who had inherited money from their father in 1630, seemed to have left Twyning by 1642, around the time two brothers of the same name had begun to appear in the records of Henrico County.

Or one of them had, anyway, if we are to be strictly accurate. John Baugh appeared on a list of Virginia Land Grants for Henrico County in 1638, 1645, 1650 and 1672. If you are to believe some of the web sites concerned with the family he was a plantation owner who was elected a burgess in 1641 and 1644. Whether or not he had any children isn’t known, but there was a James Baugh who was granted land in Bristol Parish, Henrico County in 1683, and who was on the Henrico County Rent Roll of April 1705 working 458 acres of land. A John Baugh, who was on the same rent roll working 448 acres and who was granted land in the county in 1739, was more than likely another connection.

William Baugh, the probable brother of the first John, was a Justice in Henrico and Charles City County in 1656 and 1669. His only mention amongst people receiving grants of land in the county was in 1668, and that was a tract of land he gave first to his grandson, also William, and then deeded to his granddaughter, Priscilla, in 1674. In 1679 Mr William Baugh, of the Curles, appeared on the list of Henrico County Tythes with a rating of five. John Baugh of Turkey Island had a rating of three. William died in Henrico County on 1st April 1687. His son, another William, had already died in 1676, leaving four children: William, Thomas, Mary and Priscilla, who married William Farrar in 1682.

My book about these and other members of the Baugh family, The Baugh Family of England, Scotland, East Indies and the USA, from their earliest origins until modern times, is an invaluable aid for anyone interested in researching the Baugh Family history.
Starting by outlining the various spellings of the name and where they originated, the book goes on to show how, since there were so few people who went by the name of Baugh and its variations in early times, most of these people were related both to each other, and to the branch of the family who first bore the coat of arms during the fifteenth century.
Several possible alternative origins of that branch of the family, in Normandy and in the Welsh Marches, are examined. Each one being weighed up against the evidence in official documents of the time, as well as information provided by the College of Arms, to see which, in the author’s opinion, have the most credence. 

I first became interested in the Baugh family when I was researching the history of the house where I live, and their name kept cropping up.

They weren't the only family who had lived in the house before me nor even, as it turned out, the ones who had first built it, but they did seem to pop up in my researches more than any other family, and they did seem to have been very important in south Shropshire, so I began to jot down anything I read about them, whether it was related to my house or not.

There had been another branch of the family bearing the same coat of arms living some miles away in Gloucestershire at the same time as those who had lived in my house had been living there, but without any obvious connection between them other than the shared coat of arms, and I began collecting facts about them as well, intent on finding out what the connection between the two families was.

It took me sixteen years of spare moments spent poring over documents in local record offices, reading wills, parish registers, lay subsidies and other official documents, and surfing the internet for other records kept further afield in Britain, as well as in countries such as Argentina, Canada and the USA, to settle in my mind what that connection was, by which time I had accrued so many facts about both branches of the family, about other people of the same name with no connection at all, and still others who hadn't seemed to have any connection with the Baughs who had lived in my house until my researches showed that they did, that I decided to share my knowledge with other people, by turning it into a book.

Not every branch of the family as it is today is represented, that would be impossible, but most of them get a mention, and where there are links to be shown between seemingly unconnected branches of the family they are shown. The Baugh Family of England, Scotland, East Indies and the USA, from their earliest origins until modern times, is available from Amazon Kindle, at the give away price of $3.99, or £2.55.

Ashen Faggots Fall Victim to Die-back Disease

The pond-rous ashen faggot from the yard
The jolly farmer to his crowded hall
Conveys with speed; where, on the rising flames
(Already fed with store of massy brands).
It blazes soon; nine bandages it bears,
And as they each disjoin (so custom wills),
A mighty jug of sparkling cyder's brought,
With brandy mixt to elevate the guests.
1795, author unknown.

                                    

                                       

                                          

       A damping day in Shropshire, and I've been out walking along the Roman Road at the far end of the village, and thinking about Christmas. Or, in particular, thinking about the threat to one particular tradition, still carried on in some parts of the country, of burning an Ashen Faggot at Christmas. Because, now we have the Ash Dieback Disease, caused by Chalara Fraxinea fungus, in the country, we’re not allowed to remove any ash wood from any areas where the infection is present, and only allowed to remove it from uninfected areas if we’ve removed all leaves and shoots first, and the shoots are what an ash faggot consists of.

    The tradition is a very old one indeed, though possibly not one the Romans ever indulged in, because it originated with the Norsemen, who held anything to do with Ash trees to be sacred.

    The custom was that a bundle of ash sticks, known as a faggot, was bound with nine green lengths of ash bands, or 'beams', preferably all from the same tree. On Christmas Eve the faggot was put on a fire that had been lit with the remnants of the previous year’s faggot. Everybody would then gather around the hearth watching the faggot burn. The men servants would sit around drinking cider whilst they watched the faggot burning, and as each withy was burned through a new jug of cider was brought out to them to replenish their mugs with. The women who were present, the unmarried ones amongst them anyway, would each choose one of the green bands to be theirs, and the woman who selected the first band to ignite and break would be the next one to get married, they believed. In some places, every time a binding band broke, a quart of cider would be passed around and a toast would be made.

   The Christianised version of the use of ash to celebrate Christmas, was that it was the wood that Mary used to light a fire in order to warm Jesus. In Romany lore it was thought that Jesus was born in a field and that he was kept warm by the heat of an ash fire. The holly, ivy and pine trees hid the infant and were allowed to keep their foliage all year. The oak and the ash, on the other hand, showed where he was hiding and they were condemned to die every winter.

   In the garden, look out for the fragrant, short-tubed, creamy-white flowers, carried above oval dark green leaves, of the spreading semi-evergreen shrub, Lonicera fragrantissima, which flowers during the winter and has red berries in May.

Uses for ladies tights

 

 

 

     A showery day in Shropshire, after a week of weather which included a frost the other morning. Not a prelude to a much colder winter than last year’s very mild one, I hope.

     The hurricane which didn’t quite happen a few weeks ago did produce strong enough winds to swing my heavily-laden dwarf apple trees about and break all the ties securing one of them to its stake.

     Discovering this had happened, I did a quick running repair by tying it up with electric cable, then set off to buy some replacement tree ties to do the job properly.

     A forlorn hope that. Though I scouted all the likely sources of tree ties in our local market towns, I was told at each store I visited that it was the wrong time of the year for tree ties which, apparently, they only stock in winter when people are planting trees, not in summer, when they are trying to rescue trees blown over by hurricanes.

     Everyone I spoke to sympathised with my problem and all, without fail, said I could tie my trees up just as well with ladies tights, but as ladies tights are not something I keep in my wardrobe, and ladies who do are not always understanding if they’re dressing up for a big occasion of some sort and find the tights they had intended wearing are holding up a tree in the garden, I didn’t consider that as an option. Especially as the electric cable was doing just as good a job of holding the tree up temporarily  until the ties I came back home and ordered on the internet arrived a day or two later. I’m afraid there are times when you can’t do without Amazon, no matter how hard you try.

     In the garden, as long as they haven’t been blown away by more strong winds, look out for the dark green fern-like leaves of Rhus hirta ‘Laciniata’ turning a brilliant orange-red in autumn, followed by clusters of deep red fruit.

The Baughs of Ludlow and of Lincolns Inn

 Edward Baugh junior, son of Edward Baugh of Onibury, was only eight years old when the family moved to Clungunford and first his mother, then his youngest sister and brother, died within a few days of each other. He didn’t appear in the Clungunford parish registers at all, but he did appear in those of St Michael, Bristol, where he worked as a linen draper. He died on 15^th June 1675, six days before his 40^th birthday. George Morris in Shropshire Genealogy tells us that Edward Baugh, son of Edward and Bridgett Baugh, married the former Mary Stone, now widow of George Houghton  (died 1694), on August 29^th 1695. A document held in the Central Record Office at Shrewsbury, dated August 29^th 1695, states of Edward Baugh of Stoke St Milborough (where his cousin was Rector) that there is no lawful impediment to him marrying Mary Haughton of the Parish of St Mary, Shrewsbury, a widow. Though the Edward in question couldn’t have been the one Morris claimed for obvious reasons, he could have been his son, grandson of Edward and Bridgett Baugh. The wedding was Edward’s only entry in the St Mary, Shrewsbury, parish register.

As Edward Baugh Esq of Ludlow, another Edward, this one the son of Richard Baugh of Clungunford, married Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Knight of Wolverley. Co Worcester. A girl twenty five years his junior. They had eleven children, only five of whom survived through infancy and childhood. Richard, their first son died when he was only fourteen, Robert died when he was only one. Edward, Lancelott, Elizabeth and Mary each lived for only a few days. A plaque in the High Chancel of St Andrews, Ludlow says ‘Here lyeth the body of Edward Baugh gent. obit 26^th July 1742 aged 72. Also the body of Elizabeth Baugh, relict of Edward Baugh gent. Died 25^th June 1778, aged 84.’

Benjamin Baugh, eldest surviving son of Edward and Elizabeth, married Ann, daughter of Francis, the second son of Anthoney Biddulph of Ledbury on 11^th March 1749 in Ludlow. Their first child, a son, Benjamin, died in February 1751, when only eleven months old, their second child, Edward, was baptised on 7^th November 1751. As Edward Baugh of Ludlow, Esq., died 14^th May 1836, he was buried at St Andrews, Ludlow. Francis, born in 1754, and named for Ann’s father, was thirty one when he died in 1785. A second Benjamin was baptised on 25^th February 1756, and Richard on 4^th September 1762. Benjamin senior died on 13^th April 1765, aged 42. His widow, Ann, survived him by thirty six years, dying on 13^th September 1801, aged 75. Like Benjamin’s parents, they are commemorated in Ludlow Church.

The second of Edward and Elizabeth’s sons to survive into adulthood was Thomas, who had been baptised on 27^th March 1727. In general, the Baugh men seemed to choose either the church or the army when seeking a career, and Thomas chose the latter. He rose to the rank of Major in the 55^th Regiment of Foot and fought in the American War of Independence. In his later years he lived at Broad Street in Ludlow. He died on April 20^th 1793, aged 66. He, too, has a plaque to commemorate him in Ludlow Church and his death was reported in the Gentleman’s Magazine of April 1793.

Edward, the third son of Edward and Elizabeth, was their second attempt at a child of that name. He became Rector of Neen Sollars, Milson and Ribblesford in Worcestershire. He and his wife, Margaret, had two sons, both of whom entered the church. Richard was at Oxford, Edward followed in his father’s footsteps at Neen Sollars and Milson. He and his wife, Sarah, had two sons they named Richard and Edward, both of whom became church ministers.

Richard, the fourth son of Edward and Elizabeth, was born the year after their first son of that name died. Like his brother, Thomas, he chose the army as a career, was a Captain in the 39^th Regiment in 1765, and a Major when he died on 2^nd October 1787, aged 54. His possessions passed to his nephew Edward (son of Benjamin presumably), the Reverend Edward, Thomas Esq. and Elizabeth, spinster, the natural and lawful brothers and sister, and only next of kin of the deceased, having renounced their rights.

Elizabeth, the second of that name, and the only one of Edward and Elizabeth’s daughters to survive into adulthood, died on 30^th November 1799, aged 75 years.

Elizabeth’s uncle, Lancelot, the first of that name in the Baugh family, seems to have been the only one of the family to choose law as a career. He moved to Lincolns Inn, where he married Ann Buggin, with whom he had four sons. Richard, Lancelot, Edward and Benjamin.

    Lancelot Baugh, son of Lancelot Baugh of Lincolns Inn, Middlesex, was apprenticed to Thomas Cox on the 4^th September 1716, according to the Bindings Books of the Merchant Taylor’s Company. One of the second Lancelot’s sons, yet another Lancelot, born 7^th May 1728, appears on the register of Merchant Taylor’s School 1738 – 1740-1. Merchant Taylor’s School, founded by the Merchant Taylor’s Company of London, an incorporated group of craftsmen tailors, was the most famous of all the guild schools. It was in Suffolk Street and was a day school.

Lancelot the second, and his wife Alice, had two other sons. Richard was baptised at St Andrews, Holborn on 29^th December 1730, John was mentioned in Lancelot senior’s will so must have been born before 1731. He was dead before 24^th October

1771, when his widow, Merien (Boddington), of St James, Westminster, left a £20 annuity and a diamond ring to her son, John Boddington Baugh, and a £20 annuity and other rings to her daughter, Ann. Colonel Lancelot Baugh Esq. of St Marylebone and John Boddington Esq. were her executors.

      Theodosia Baugh, spinster, of Hertford Street, Marylebone, who died on 30^th May 1774, left £300 to her sister, Ann Howarth, and £300 to her sister, Mary Maddison. The residue of her estate went to her brother, Colonel Lancelot Baugh, her executor.

      Mary Baugh had moved to Portsmouth, where she married George Maddison on 11^th October 1757. It was one of their descendants, Reverend A R Maddison, who contributed the Baugh Notes to the 1896-7 edition of Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica from which much of this information has been gleaned.

      Lancelot Baugh junior was a Lieutenant in the 1^st Regiment of Foot Guards by 26^th August 1747, Captain and Lieutenant Colonel by 1^st May 1758 and Colonel in 1771. He was a Major General in 1777 and Lieutenant General in 1779. He was Colonel of the 6^th Foot (1^st Warwickshire Regiment) from 1787 until April 1792 when he died and was buried in the new ground at St James, Westminster. His will mentions a number of Maddison nephews and nieces, his nephew John Baugh, and his niece Ann Motz (ne Baugh) wife of a French army officer. John was a Lieutenant in the 58^th Regiment of Foot in 1778 and a Captain at the time of Lancelot’s will.

Lancelot of Lincolns Inn’s third son, Edward, was always a little apart from the others. He and his wife, Blanche, had their first three children christened at St Martins, Ludgate, rather than in Holborn. Lancelot was christened on 15^th May1729, Ann on 16^th July 1730, and another Ann on 13^th November 1734. After that the family moved back to their South Shropshire roots and their next child, Benjamin, was christened at Stanton Lacey on 30^th November 1737. Another son, Richard, followed on 4^th June 1738 and William on 10^th July 1740. William only survived for eight days, but another William was christened on 10th June 1743. Edward Baugh was church warden at Stanton Lacey in 1740 and 1741. Son Richard became Rector of Ludlow and died on 20^th May 1837. Benjamin became Town Clerk of Ludlow, married Elizabeth, heiress of William Holland Esq. of Burwarton, and had a daughter, Harriet, who married Gustavus VI, Viscount Boyne. All are commemorated on plaques in Ludlow Church, along with Edward Holland, Harriet and Gustavus’ second son.

    Benjamin, Lancelot of Lincolns Inn’s youngest son, married Mary, with whom he had Benjamin junior in 1734, Mary junior in 1736 and Lancelot in 1737. After that things seemed to go a little awry. In an attempt to carry on family tradition by naming a child after each of Benjamin’s parents a daughter, Ann, was christened in 1740, followed by another Ann in 1742, another in 1743 and another in 1744, as infant mortality took its toll. Benjamin junior apparently hadn’t survived either because another Benjamin was christened in 1745, and another in 1746, followed by a final Ann on 28^th May 1749. Lancelot probably went on to be the Lancelot who was a Lieutenant in the 71^st Foot on half pay in 1766, and maybe the Lieutenant in the Guernsey Companies of Invalids from 1780 to 1794. There is no record of what became of any of the others.

My e-book about these, and other members of the Baugh Family, The Baugh Family of England, Scotland, East Indies and the USA, from their earliest origins until modern times, is an invaluable aid for anyone interested in researching the Baugh Family history.
Starting by outlining the various spellings of the name and where they originated, the book goes on to show how, since there were so few people who went by the name of Baugh and its variations in early times, most of these people were related both to each other, and to the branch of the family who first bore the coat of arms during the fifteenth century.
Several possible alternative origins of that branch of the family, in Normandy and in the Welsh Marches, are examined. Each one being weighed up against the evidence in official documents of the time, as well as information provided by the College of Arms, to see which, in the author’s opinion, have the most credence. 

I first became interested in the Baugh family when I was researching the history of the house where I live, and their name kept cropping up.

They weren't the only family who had lived in the house before me nor even, as it turned out, the ones who had first built it, but they did seem to pop up in my researches more than any other family, and they did seem to have been very important in south Shropshire, so I began to jot down anything I read about them, whether it was related to my house or not.

There had been another branch of the family bearing the same coat of arms living some miles away in Gloucestershire at the same time as those who had lived in my house had been living there, but without any obvious connection between them other than the shared coat of arms, and I began collecting facts about them as well, intent on finding out what the connection between the two families was.

It took me sixteen years of spare moments spent poring over documents in local record offices, reading wills, parish registers, lay subsidies and other official documents, and surfing the internet for other records kept further afield in Britain, as well as in countries such as Argentina, Canada and the USA, to settle in my mind what that connection was, by which time I had accrued so many facts about both branches of the family, about other people of the same name with no connection at all, and still others who hadn't seemed to have any connection with the Baughs who had lived in my house until my researches showed that they did, that I decided to share my knowledge with other people, by turning it into a book.

Not every branch of the family as it is today is represented, that would be impossible, but most of them get a mention, and where there are links to be shown between seemingly unconnected branches of the family they are shown. The Baugh Family of England, Scotland, East Indies and the USA, from their earliest origins until modern times, is available from Amazon Kindle for the give away price of $3.99, or £2.55.

         

The most ill-treated plant of all

   A sunnyish sort of day in Shropshire, and the wind has returned to it being from the north, after just one day of warmer sunshine.

   I've just been finishing off planting the bedding in my garden, which is always a mixture of plants I've grown for that purpose, and a number which have passed the winter in either the greenhouse, or my house itself, awaiting that all too brief summer period when they can be outdoors in the fresh air.

    One of the plants which enjoys that position in my garden is the Spider Plant, Chlorophytum comosum, which must be the one most ill-treated by people who grow it, and I have to include myself amongst their number, I'm afraid, because it will stand almost all degrees of mistreatment. The three specimens in my own garden, which I was looking at when the thought occurred to me, spent the winter in my cellar, where there is very little light at any time, but a lot of damp and cold, yet they emerged from their stay in the depths looking a little anaemic and spindly, but are flourishing now. And that is the way the plant brings ill treatment down on itself, because it will survive anything but frost, the slightest degree of which will kill it.

    Chlorophytum comosum is a native of tropical and southern Africa, though my Flora of South Africa doesn't include it, and naturalized in places such as Western Australia. It was a forest dweller originally, growing in the congo rain forest in the beginning, but has been a favourite house plant for many years. The German philosopher and writer, Johann Goethe wrote about the spider plants he kept in hanging baskets indoors two hundred years ago. The roots and the rhizomes of the plant are fleshy and thickened, and serve as water storage organs for those dry periods when people forget to water them, and the plant has been shown to reduce air pollution when grown indoors, neutralizing formaldehyde production in the atmosphere.

     In the garden, also during the summer months only, look out for a plant which does appear in my Flora of South Africa. Plumbago auriculata, Cape Leadwort, a fast growing, evergreen, woody-stemmed scrambling climber you often see growing outdoors in Spain, where it can reach twenty feet tall. Its trusses of sky-blue flowers are carried from summer to early winter.