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Celebrating Hampshire Historians

Drewitt, Arthur

23 April 1873 – 25 May 1945

It would be easy to believe that the history of Eastleigh began in 1890, when the Carriage and Wagon Works was transferred by the London and South Western Railway from Nine Elms in London, thereby creating a rich tapestry of industry and town.

Arthur Drewitt’s Eastleigh’s Yesterdays, tells a different story, starting with his supposition about the earliest settlements, which may have been pre-Roman. The book also covers in great detail the early years of the Manors of Bishopstoke, Barton, Stoneham, and Estlei, as well as the emergence and development of the town of Eastleigh. It benefits greatly from being written by a person with a passion for the history of the community in which he lived, who therefore experienced first-hand the changes which were taking place. His obituary, published in The Eastleigh Weekly News in 1945 was headlined ‘Eastleigh’s First Historian’.

He was born in Gillingham, Dorset, where his father worked at Eccliffe Mill, just outside the town. He had five brothers and sisters, the eldest being killed when a sack of flour fell on him at the mill. Arthur was persuaded to stay on at Gillingham Board School, where he became a Pupil Teacher. He went on to teacher training at the Winchester Diocesan College (later King Alfred’s College and now the University of Winchester) and then went back to teach in his school at Gillingham.

In 1899 he came to Eastleigh: an entry in the Chamberlayne Road School logbook for 28 August 1899, reads: ‘Mr A. Drewitt, Certificated Assistant, commenced duty here today’. It was only six days after his marriage to Ada Mary Painter at the Independent Chapel, Shaftesbury, after which the couple came to live at 17, Farrington Terrace (which later became 46, Newtown Road), where their son, Ernest Arthur, was born on 26 August 1900.

According to local journalist Gordon Cox, writing his Occasional Note column in the Eastleigh Weekly News of 14 September 1994, there were many former pupils of Chamberlayne Road School who still had vivid memories of Arthur Drewitt, whom they nicknamed ‘Ju-Ju’. They recalled his keen inter­est in history, fed by years of research which ultimately led to Eastleigh’s Yesterdays, the first history of the town.

Arthur's father, Jacob, was a ‘fire and brimstone’ preacher in the Gillingham and Shaftesbury area, and Arthur followed him as a Methodist preacher. He is recorded in the Eastleigh Circuit as preaching at Eastleigh, Bishopstoke, and West End, and seems to have walked to all these places, often accompanied by someone called John Twite – perhaps a fellow preacher – who says that he monopolised the con­versation, ‘talking local histo­ry all the time’.

Strangely, apart from his teaching and preaching, very little else is known about Arthur Drewitt's life in Eastleigh. He had an undignified end: taken ill on a train from Portsmouth to Eastleigh, he died on Fareham Railway Station on 25 May 1945.

Sources

Gordon Cox, Eastleigh Weekly News,14 September 1994

Portrait

Arthur Drewitt

Photo of Arthur with a class of schoolchildren at Chamberlayne Road School

Contribution to county’s history

Eastleigh’s first historian.  

Relevant published works

  • Eastleigh’s Yesterdays, The Eastleigh Printing Works, 1935

Critical Comments

Other Comments

The success of Eastleigh's Yesterdays encouraged him to write another book, Many Englands: A book of history treating of Hampshire and surrounding counties with a background of national history, 1935, Eastleigh, H. Ivill & C. Mill. It was apparently not well received. Intended to be read by children, the chapters seem to have been based on his school lessons, with notes added for adults. In 1938 he published a booklet, The Bible and Religious Instruction.

Contributor

Chris Humby, 30 April 2024

Keywords

Eastleigh, Chamberlayne Road School, Methodism

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