Feature Writer 
If you are researching your family tree or would like to look at an old map or documents visit the County Record Office.
We have a Personal Names Index (on card), which records all the entries in these registers for the period 1539-1900.
Explore the County Record office
We are looking forward to your visit at the Classic Boat Museum Gallery when we are sure you will enjoy, learn and come to understand the quintessential Cowes story told through its maritime heritage.
The Boat Shed
The new location for The Boat Shed in West Cowes will complement the existing museum located in East Cowes.
The Boat Shed is now open for visitors on Tuesdays and Fridays (10-4pm). Find out how to get there.
Explore the Classic Boat Museum Gallery
Explore the Classic Boat Museum Boat Shed
Dinosaur Isle is Britain’s first purpose-built dinosaur museum and visitor attraction, displaying over 1,000 of the best fossils from its collections.
An introductory exhibition gallery covers the geology and fossils of the Isle of Wight in a walk back through time, taking the visitor from the Ice Age of the recent past, back to the Cretaceous period when dinosaurs lived. This leads to the large dinosaur gallery, which has exciting displays including real fossils, skeletal re-constructions, life-sized fleshed re-constructions and animatronic dinosaurs.
Dinosaur Isle is an all-year-round facility, combining entertainment, education and enjoyment. Displays use clever lighting, artwork, sound, smells and animatronic technology to create an exciting experience. As well as the displays, there is a working laboratory on view, and a room set aside for learning sessions.
We are located next to the sandy beach at Sandown, within a short distance of the excellent geological exposures at Yaverland.
Dimbola was the home of the celebrated Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron.
It is now a Museum and Gallery dedicated to her life and work, which also showcases contemporary exhibitions from photographers around the globe.
Dimbola Museum and Galleries is also home to Julia’s Tearoom renowned for its high-quality locally-sourced food, tempting homemade cakes, and delicious cream teas. You can enjoy these in our cosy tearoom, once the salon of Julia Margaret Cameron and where she entertained guests, or in our pretty, sunny garden with views to Freshwater Bay and the sea.
Don’t forget to visit our Gift Shop. It is open 10am-4pm Tuesday-Sunday, we sell a range of gifts, books, card and items relating to Julia Margaret Cameron.
Andy Stanford-Clark, or Andy SC to his friends and colleagues, works at the dizzy heights of Chief Technology Officer at an already very technical company, IBM UK.
Amazingly he manages to carry out this high-powered role while living in a 16th Century cottage on the south side of the Isle of Wight – thanks in no small part to the power that ubiquitous broadband brings to every corner of the Island.
Mind blowing
Before we get into the details of Andy’s many achievements, let us just drop this mind-blowing fact on you – he co-created something called MQTT.
While you probably don’t know what the jumble of letters is (not many do), it’s highly likely that you, or your relatives or friends, are using it on a daily basis without even knowing, of its Isle of Wight connection.
MQTT has many uses – but just one of those is at Facebook. It’s the messaging protocol that underlies every message sent on Facebook Messenger – currently that’s 1.3 BILLION people across the globe using it! Yup – that’s Billion.
Why a Hero?
We picked Andy SC as a Hidden Hero because we felt he’s a modern example of one of the consistent threads that weaves through the Isle of Wight Hidden Heroes – achieving remarkable things by taking a unique, pioneering approach to solve a problem. In short, Thinking Differently.
MQTT is just one thing that Andy has done, help him earn his IBM title of Master Inventor. Unsurprisingly with that on his business card, he’s quite an inventor, with more than 40 Patents to his name.
Internet of Things (IoT)
These days he specialises in the Internet of Things (IoT) – putting sensors and tiny computers in pretty much everything, and having them chat away to the wider world about what they’re up to. This might be a mousetrap to announce that it’s caught a mouse so needs to be reset, as he has in his house on the Isle of Wight, or sensors in a car that send information about wear-and-tear back to the manufacturer, so they can help make sure it doesn’t break down. The potential is huge.
An early start
Andy’s passion for ingenious solutions to everyday, real-world problems started at an early age. Way back when he was only eight years old he built some electronic circuitry for his Mum, to detect when it was raining and then sound an alarm, so she could get the washing in off the line.
Guinness World record
From that early start Andy has gone on to achieve remarkable things in technology – too many to mention, so here are a couple more highlights:
More on MQTT
A few years later came MQTT, originally designed to be used in the oil and gas industries for monitoring their pipelines.
A simple summary of how it works – you tell MQTT something, it then tells everyone who is interested about that thing. Using Facebook Messenger as an example, you might write “Look at this cat video. LOL!”, MQTT would then, near instantly, pass this out to everyone in your group chat – be that two or two million people.
We asked Andy what he thought were the secrets of MQTT’s remarkable success?
It’s now an international ISO standard. Understandably Andy is “Hugely proud of it”.
MQTT underlies the work that he and many others now do with the Internet of Things.
Vision for the Island
Andy’s vision for the Isle of Wight is a concerted effort to encourage lots of start-up companies to be formed on the Island – requiring a diverse range of skills. He hopes this will really help the young people of the Island to grow their ideas here, rather than feel they have to move to the Mainland.
Did you know that one Isle of Wight resident was involved with each of these remarkable, world-leading achievements?
If you had been involved with any one of these pioneering projects, you’d be pleased as punch, but Ryde resident John Ackroyd – Ackers to many – is brilliantly talented and importantly, open to any opportunity that he came across.
Humble beginnings
John started his working life at Saunders Roe, an apprentice who lived on that small picking that life brought with it, supplementing his meagre wages where he could, but all the time eagerly gobbling up all the skills the renowned engineering company had to offer.
The Isle of Wight has been a place of amazing innovation over the years and the Island’s proud engineering history reaches back a long way, across many companies. Saunders-Roe was a powerhouse of engineering in England, starting off as S.E Saunders in water-borne craft, particularly high speed racing craft, they later took the opportunity to move into wider engineering.
A man of strong talents
John was quickly noticed as a man of strong talents, becoming involved in the 1950’s ground-breaking projects such as the earliest of mixed jet and rocket propulsion fighter jets – the experimental SR.53 and SR.177.
He later also worked on an early Hovercraft competitor, the Cushioncraft (subsidiary of Britten Norman) but on the St Helens Duver.
This pioneering/early work with jets led John on the path of his bold idea – using a jet engine to propel a vehicle faster than had ever been achieved – to break the land speed record. We’ll come to that soon.
1973: Electric cars built on the Isle of Wight
John’s next major achievement was his involvement with the Enfield 8000 – the first production electric car.
Of course, these days electric cars seem to be the obvious future for vehicles, but back in 1973, when John joined a little company on the Isle of Wight called Enfield Automotive, it seemed like science fiction.
Tesla Motors’ Elon Musk was a mere two years old when John’s design was being used to build this first electric car in a factory in Somerton, near Cowes, here on the Isle of Wight.
The company, Enfield Automotive, backed by a wealthy Greek shipping tycoon John Goulandris, had beaten major companies including Ford to win a competition run by the United Kingdom Electricity Council in 1966, to build an electric car.
Initially built in Cowes
The Enfield 8000, as it was named, was designed as an electric-powered city car with a 55 miles range and a top speed to 40mph. John designed its tubular space frame chassis. They were initially built at Somerton Works, Cowes, with many people employed on the Island.
With the global oil crisis of 1973, its timing was spot on, but a combination of the Enfield being too far ahead of its time, and its cost ~£2,600 – the equivalent price of two Minis – by 1976 productions had stopped.
That does take away from what an amazing, creative, forward-looking, engineering achievement it was – all created on the Isle of Wight.
The Enfield 8000 today
Examples of the Enfield are still running on the Isle of Wight, with Barry Price of Price’s Accident Repair Centre owning a number of the 8000 models, as well as some of the specialist versions.
Bringing the Enfield up to date, in 2016 a motoring journalist, Jonny Smith, converted an Enfield, installing new batteries and a roll cage to transform it into Flux Capacitor, the World’s fastest street-legal Electric Vehicle. He succeeded, on a quarter mile it was faster than a Lamborghini Aventador, a McLaren 650S, a Porsche 911 Turbo S and even Tesla’s Ludicrous-Mode-equipped P90D.
Thrust 2: World Land-speed record
We mentioned John’s experience with early jet fighters at Saunders Roe and the designs he created in his own time, to use a jet engine to power a vehicle.
In the next chapter in John’s life, those plans were to be combined with Richard Noble, a man who had the ambition to become the fastest human on earth. Not only did they succeed, but the Land Speed record that Thrust 2 gained would stand for nearly 14 years.
It all started while John was working as a deckchair attendant on the beach in Ryde in 1977, he responded to a newspaper advert: “Wanted – 650 mph Car Designer.” This brought him together with an ex-RAF pilot, later the project’s public face, Richard Noble. Happily Richard was able to get his hands on a disused 35,000 HP Rolls Royce Avon jet engine from an English Electric Lightning Fighter – the first British plane to fly faster than twice the speed of sound, MACH 2.
Driven by the challenge
To say the budget on this was small would be somewhat stretching it. Happily, for John, none of his world-leading projects were ever about the money. They were about the challenge: To use creativity, engineering and flashes of genius (not that he’d describe it that way) to achieve something no-one else had been able to do. This was amply demonstrated by the initial budget for Thrust 2 – £175!
Needs must, so John’s first designs and drawing plans for the future world-beater were in a derelict kitchen, in a condemned house at Ranelagh Works, for the manageable sum of £5 rent a week. If he wanted to speak to anyone he had to hop on his ever-present bike and ride a quarter of a mile to the nearest local phone box with a pocket full of change. Photocopying was six miles away. It just shows so much determination.
More Island talent
After this Ackers was joined by other skilled engineers from the Island (Eddie Elsom, Ron Benton, Brian Ball and Norman Willis). Renting a shed from some boat building friends nearby in Fishbourne, John set about turning his designs into reality by building the framework of Thrust 2.
In John’s words, “Richard Noble was based in London – where the money was. I was based on the Isle of Wight where the skills were.” This was proven as John and his team used the engineering prowess of many small companies around the Island – remember, every item that made up the world-beating car was specifically created, with every nut specified and engineered to aircraft standards.
Richard later raised more money, but the whole project was always done on a shoestring. As John put it in his book, Jet Blast and the Hand of Fate, “Our World Land speed contender was being built by a collective cottage industry and contagious enthusiasm£.
World record
As a further testament to John’s skills, there was no room for error. As he said, “A record car must be right first time – it is both prototype and final product.” The frame of the car was built in a small workshop on the Isle of Wight that needed the front wall to be demolished, so they could get it out.
Thrust 2 went on to capture the Land Speed World record reaching 633.468 mph (1,019.468 km/h) in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, US, on 4 October 1983. It stood for 14 years.
Record breaking balloons
Never one to rest on his laurels, John went on to do further extraordinary things, like designing a toilet that could be used in the zero-gravity of space. His next great shift was to get involved in the world of hot air ballooning. Being John, it was further record breaking stuff.
John worked with the team on a balloon, Stratoquest, that in 1987 reached the then-highest altitude, nearly 12 miles high. Further projects included Virgin Atlantic flyer – the first hot air balloon to cross the Atlantic and Pacific Flyer, a balloon that would contain 80 Tonnes of air when inflated, that ended up being the longest, fastest (nearly 200mph) manned balloon flight.
John Ackroyd: Hidden Hero
After reading that much-shortened version of John’s achievements there can be little doubt why John is an Isle of Wight Hidden Hero.
John and the many other Islanders that worked with him are the embodiment of the truth that anything can be achieved on the Isle of Wight – and that the Island is bursting with capability and creativity.
Credits: Many thanks to David J. Williams for his knowledgeable guidance on John’s achievements.
Once dubbed ‘the fastest woman on the water’, Marion ‘Joe’ Carstairs was an openly gay, female powerboat racer who lived on the Isle of Wight in the 1920s.
Her love of the water (and of speed) led Joe Carstairs to the Isle of Wight when she commissioned powerboats from the celebrated boatbuilder, Sammy Saunders (find out more about Saunders at the Classic Boat Museum).
The millionaire heiress led an unconventional and eccentric life, but she had an enormous passion and drive to succeed at any challenge she set herself, inspiring and touching the lives of others as she went.
The need for speed
Powerboat racing in the 1920s was not for the faint-hearted. It was a hugely dangerous sport and one that many did not expect to see a woman taking part in.
However, speed was a massive motivation for Joe – she wanted to be fastest and the best, so invested considerable amounts of money (thanks to her inheritance) into building several powerboats which she raced here in the UK, as well as in North America.
The two Joes
Her right-hand-man was a Isle of Wight marine mechanic named Joe Harris. It was said they were devoted to each other – working together for five years – with the mechanic sitting alongside Joe in every race, ready to be flung from the boat when it hit a crashing wave.
So fond of Joe Harris was she, that Joe provided him with an income for his entire life and, when in old age he lost both legs, she travelled to be at his bedside, continuing to support his family when he passed away.
Gwen flips to Newg
The first powerboat – or hydroplane as they were then known as – built for Joe on the Island was designed by a brilliant young designer called Fred Cooper (he later went on to design for H Attrill & Sons).
Built at the Saunders Yard in East Cowes (the same building the Boat Museum is now situated within), Gwen – named after Joe’s Variety star lover, Gwen Farrar – was painted gloss black with a sleek white stripe running along her length.
This was a revolutionary time for boatbuilding and the wood used for Gwen was so thin and pliant that it bulged in the water when it hit every wave. When the boat capsized during early sea trials, Joe renamed her Newg.
Working girl
Although Joe inherited a fortune from her family (her grandfather owned Standard Oil – now Esso), she worked hard for a living prior to powerboat racing.
She’d served in the First World War with the American Red Cross driving ambulances in France and did the same later in Dublin with the Women’s Legion.
In 1920 she set up a car-hire and chauffeuring service with other female service drivers and named the company ‘X Garage’. It was strictly a women-only affair with female drivers and mechanics, who would drive clients all around Europe.
Ooh Betty
Although born Marion Barbara, and using the nickname “Joe” (thought to possibly be a reference to her father, Albert Joseph Carstairs), during her time as a powerboat racer, Joe was often referred to as ‘Betty’.
This was something she apparently hated and accused the press of doing “just to spite her”. Although she received a great deal of attention when she first started powerboat racing, the press did seem to turn against her after a while.
Perhaps her eccentric lifestyle was hard for some to understand. She lived a wild and crazy life, with lovers such as Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo.
‘Boss’ of the Bahamas
After packing up powerboat racing and leaving the Isle of Wight, Joe went on to buy an Island called Whale Cay (pronounced Quay) in the Bahamas (then known as the British West Indies).
She set about creating an empire, bringing the island back from the brink of ruin, building houses, roads and regenerating the economy through food production and more. It was there that she was known as ‘The Boss’.
Joe bought many other West Indian islands over the years, but sold Whale Cay in 1975 and moved to Florida where she lived until aged 93.
Down Memory Lane
Do you have relatives that worked with Joe Carstairs on the Isle of Wight?
Did they pass down stories to you about Joe’s time on the Isle of Wight, either from when she commissioned boats from Sammy Saunders, or when she set up her own boatbuilding yard, the Sylvia Yard on the Medina in East Cowes.
Other Islanders who worked with Joe include her chief engineer, Joe Harris; foreman, Arthur ‘Gubby’ Gubbins; boat painter, Jimmy Dexter and Bert Hawker, who designed the boats.
Image: © Classic Boat Centre Trust
Not many people can claim to have owned an island and lived in a castle. But in the 13th Century a feisty, young, single noblewoman suddenly found herself with wealth and power thrust upon her after she inherited the Isle of Wight and moved into her new home at Carisbrooke Castle. Her name was Isabella de Fortibus and she was known as the ‘Lady of the Isle’.
Isabella de Fortibus had always loved the Isle of Wight, visiting many times when she was a child, but she didn’t become Lord of the Isle of Wight, her official title, until after the death of her brother, Baldwin de Redvers, the 7th Earl of Devon, who owned lands in Devon and Hampshire, including the Isle of Wight. You could say it was recompense for losing her wealthy husband, William de Fortibus, only two years before, which left her a widow of six children.
Dragon’s Den
So there she was, a woman of only 26, who suddenly found herself the richest independent lady in England, one of the wealthiest widows who ever lived, and owner of a sunny diamond in the Solent. And she was very rich. In fact, in 1260s her net wealth jumped from £1,500 to £2,500. To understand what those figures mean today, one just has to add another three noughts – some serious cash!
Isabella was the Business Dragon of her day, a strong-minded leader who, together with her team of influential legal and financial advisers, managed the towns, forests and manor houses on the Island, including land and houses from Southampton to Northern England. Money was collected from her portfolio of estates from all over the country and transported, often as gold coins under armed guard, back to Carisbrooke to then be distributed.
Castle Makeover
Although she was a religious woman, having her own chapel, she had several arguments with the monks at Quarr Abbey. One incident involved her demanding a road to be built from Carisbrooke Priory into Parkhurst forest, as the crow flies, just so she could more easily have wood delivered to provide building materials for her numerous Carisbrooke Castle makeovers, which included a new kitchen and a great chamber with a window framing the wonderful Island views.
She is responsible for many alterations and additions to the castle over her reign, many of which remain today such as her window seat, made for her countess’s chamber.
Young and Single
Though she was a powerful widow she was a vulnerable heiress at a time when there were many tales of widows being kidnapped and forced into marriages with unscrupulous men who only wanted their wealth and land.
Isabella must have been aware of this and, although she was courted and promised to various powerful men over the years, she refused to marry any of them, even hiding from one of the men, Simon de Montford, in Hampshire, and then in Wales!
The Seat of Power
The Isle of Wight was a strategically important place at the time, when any invader, such as France, might have easily landed before mounting a full-scale invasion of England. Isabella knew what power she had and was determined to keep the Island independent from royal interference.
This greatly irked the king of the time, Henry III. His son, Edward I was promised to marry Isabella, but she refused his advances, never wanting to relinquish control of her beloved Island. Edward went on to marry her daughter, Aveline, aged only 10, a custom that was normal at the time. However, like all of Isabella’s other five children, Aveline died before she reached adulthood, leaving Isabella without an heir to her fortune.
The Fight for the Island
When Edward I later became king he spent his reign acquiring lands and wealth, but his eye was always on taking control of the Island from Isabella. The Isle of Wight was a strategic position in England due to the risk of invasion from the French and the lands produced much wealth.
Though Isabella commanded an army to defend the Island, Edward still persisted in demanding she sell it to him, but she fought to keep control, even when Edward challenged her in court.
Deathbed Sale
In 1293, fate caught up with Isabella, because while she was on a pilgrimage from Canterbury to London, she fell gravely ill and took refuge in one of her many London manor houses. When Edward I heard word of her imminent death he sent his minions to her bed chamber, with a charter for her to sign that granted him her lands, wealth and the Isle of Wight. But she was too ill to properly sign it, and could only mark a cross on the contract. With all her children deceased, and only a very distant cousin, she had no direct family to leave her wealth and Island too.
Sadly, Isabella, Lady of the Isle, had no choice but to sell the Island to Edward I for a sum worth £4,000, a paltry amount at the time.
Isabella’s reign was over and her beloved Island was back in royal control. But she will always be remembered as an amazing example of a powerful and passionate woman who truly loved the Isle of Wight and held onto it until the very end.
Today, Isabella’s independent spirit lives on.
Why is she a hero?
Isabella was a powerful woman who was the last independent person to hold the title of ‘Lord of the Isle of Wight’ and who held onto a strategically important place at a time when England was worried about French invasion.
Isabella represents the fierce independent Island spirit, doing things her own way, which still holds true today.
The Isle of Wight is known for being fiercely independent and has developed a strong sense of identity that often sets it apart from mainland thinking.
It’s probably not a surprise to find out that in the Early Middle Ages, while the rest of England’s inhabitants had been converted to Christianity at sword-point, the Wightwarians, as they were known at the time, were still independently pagan and ruled by a king called Arwald.
The Pagan King
England during Arwald’s reign was divided into kingdoms controlled by tribal lords forever fighting each other. While much of England was being converted from paganism to Roman Christianity, the Island was peacefully unaware of the slaughter to come.
The Roman’s had abandoned the Island long ago, and from around 530AD, the Jutes, a people who had migrated from Northern Denmark, lived and ruled on the Isle of Wight. King after king was toppled until a man called Arwald found himself in control around the late 600s.
King Arwald presided over 300 families, which may have been only around 1200 people.
The Quiet Before the Storm
The pagan Jutes on the Island lived in clearings surrounded by forest, in small hamlets of several families in thatched and wooden-tiled homes. They ground corn by hand and wove their own clothing.
They made everyday items from wood, clay and iron, and crafted sophisticated and beautiful jewellery. They were connected to nature and worshipped pagan gods like Woden and Thor.
While the rest of England was brutally being converted to Roman Christianity, King Arwald was determined to preserve the Island’s pagan way of life.
Meanwhile on the mainland, Rome’s evangelising pope was taking advantage of any Anglo-Saxon barbarian with a desire to conquer new land and convert the people ‘ignorant of the name and faith of God’ to the ways of the Lord.
Merciless Slaughter
One such powerful bishop was called Wilfred who befriended a man called Caedwalla, a barbarian king of Wessex, a warmonger with revenge on his mind mainly because, as a youth, he had been exiled from Wessex. Caedwalla had later returned to kill the South Saxons and their king called Aethelwealh in what is now Sussex. It was written that he went through the English counties ‘by merciless slaughter’. And slaughter he did. But as Caedwalla looked across the Solent he set eyes on the last remaining pagan outpost, the Isle of Wight. With blood still dripping from his sword, he amassed his army and set sail.
Arwald must have put up a brave fight because his quarry, Caedwalla, was badly injured in the battle for the Island, but, alas, it wasn’t enough. It has been written that Caedwalla destroyed all the inhabitants of the Island, killing Arwald and forcing the remaining Islanders to renounce their beliefs and convert to Christianity. After the battle, the injured Caedwalla made a pilgrimage to Rome to be baptised – was this to absolve his guilt for all the slaughter? – only to die ten days later.
Fruits of the Massacre
Vestiges of Arwald’s family, his two brothers, their names still unknown, fled the Island across the Solent to the New Forest, but were eventually betrayed and captured by Caedwalla. He forced them at sword-point to convert to Christianity, before being murdered.
They were described as ‘the first fruits’ of the massacre of the population of the Island, and later canonised collectively as St Arwald, in memory of King Arwald. The day is now remembered, although not by many, annually on the 22nd April.
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