Registered Charity number 243773

Celebrating Hampshire Historians

Möens, William John Charles

12 August 1833 – 6 January 1904

The son of a Dutch merchant who had settled in London, Möens went into the Stock Exchange at a young age, but soon ‘retired’ as a man of means to Boldre, attracted by the yachting at Lymington. He became an antiquarian with a special interest in Flemish genealogy and Huguenot history, but also involved himself in the history of the New Forest commoners and fought in the courts for their rights. At the start of the HFC in 1886 he became a local secretary and in 1896 published volumes on marriage allegations in Hampshire for the Harleian Society. This had been founded in 1869 to publish texts for ratifying matters concerning genealogy, family history and heraldry. He also wrote on excavations at Romsey Abbey. He was a founding councillor on the Hampshire County Council and published pamphlets on the Allotments Act 1890 and the Local Government Act 1894.

Although he therefore made some contribution to the history of the county, he is best known for an adventure in 1865, when in his early 30s he with a companion and their wives they all went in January on holiday to Sicily. The men were taken hostage by a band of 30 brigands, who soon released Möens’ companion to negotiate a demand for an £8,000 ransom. This was not settled until August, when £5,100 was paid over and Möens was released from what had been a terrible ordeal. In the following January he published English Travellers and Italian Brigands, a ‘lively book’ that became a bestseller and must have helped to recoup the ransom and more. With some of the proceeds he built an infants’ school near Boldre and bought the Tweed Hill estate nearby. In 1869 he further boosted his reputation as an adventurer, when he sailed up the Rhine and through the French canals to Paris and Le Havre in his steam yacht Cicada, which led to another bestselling book.

In 1886 he became a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. He left part of his library to the HCC and the rest to the French Protestant Hospital in London.

Sources

Fell-Smith, Charlotte, rev. Elizabeth Baigent, ODNB, 2004, Möens, William John Charles (1833–1904), antiquary.
Turley, R, Hampshire & Isle of Wight Bibliographies, Winchester, 1975, 259.
HRO: 10M58/PW130, 20M76/Z85, 46M70/22, Misc. fiche 234-236 etc.