I have not featured a family group before but this c.1895 photograph of the Buckland family seemed too good to ignore. The drapers and outfitters’ shop that Lander Buckland established c.1876 was a mainstay of the upper High Street for 70 years and was to eventually occupy a block of three buildings. The family first lived over the shop, then went to 3 New Street before moving here to what was likely a new house, Tyrells Croft, in London Road, just west of the cricket ground. Sadly, it was demolished a few years ago and a new house built in its place but the old name still remains on the stone gateposts either side of the entrance.

The photograph is evidently posed and positioned just so, even down to the potted plant in the centre, and was sent to me by Richard Alford, a great grandson of Lander Buckland and his wife Ann Elizabeth. Here, they are seated centrally, surrounded by their seven children. From left to right they are Victor Henry, Daisy Hilda, Clara Gertrude, Stanley Horace, Edith Mary, Lander Stafford and Tessie May.

Victor has already been written about in this newspaper by Craig Fisher in his excellent series of articles detailing the names on Andover’s cenotaph. Born in 1880, he married Mabel Arrowsmith in 1907, and the couple had two children, Jack in 1909 and Mollie in 1912. He started a hosiery shop in Winchester Street which was doing well but sadly World War I intervened and in 1916 he was conscripted into the army and sent first to Egypt and then to Damascus where he drove an ambulance. Almost at the end of the war, he contracted malaria and died in November 1918.

Daisy was born in 1882 and acted as book keeper for the shop. By 1930, she was living at 17 Bridge Street in a flat above Mence Smith’s hardware shop, before moving to a council flat in Clarendon Ave in 1960. She never married and died in 1969.

Clara, known as Gertie, became a governess and Richard tells me that he thinks she lived in Reading and that he may have gone there for tea once or twice as a child. She too remained unmarried and died in 1963.

Stanley was the youngest, born in 1890. He became a motor mechanic and married Daisy Julia Bell at Andover in 1913. They emigrated to Canada soon afterwards and were to have four children there.

Edith was the eldest, born in Bristol before her parents came to Andover. She married Horace Beale, son of builder Frank Beale in 1900, and the couple were to have three children, Dorothy, Hilda and Edward, all of whom grew up in Andover.

Lander Stafford, the eldest son and Richard’s grandfather, took over the business after his father’s death, having already worked there most of his life. He married Caroline Whitmarsh in 1902 and had two daughters, Phyllis and Sylvia. The couple were great cyclists and he was a keen singer, taking part in local opera, as well as being a skilled wood carver. Because there was no one interested in carrying on the shop after him, Lander Stafford took the decision to close it c.1947 and the couple moved to Kent, to be with their eldest daughter. They both died in 1966.

The final girl in the photograph is Tessie May. She married Ernest Dawe at Andover in 1911 and they had one daughter Freda in 1915. They lived in Chichester where Ernest was manager of a biscuit factory.

Richard has no knowledge of any Buckland relatives left in Andover. The most likely descendants are through his Beale cousins. Otherwise the family have scattered far and wide and now each are largely unaware of one another or their history in Andover.