While researching the Stainer line of my family history, I was interested to discover a connection with Poole, where I live. The information below is mainly from my grandmother’s cousin, John Ranald Stainer, but I’ve added some detail on the Poole connection from my own research. (With thanks also to various contributors on the Facebook Group Memories of Old Poole and Bournemouth.)

My early Stainer ancestors lived at Lydlinch, near Sturminster Newton in the Blackmore Vale in north Dorset. Lydlinch is a small village today, but the church has five bells which were the theme of William Barnes’ poem Lydlinch Bells:

“Vor Lydlinch bells be good vor sound,
  An’ liked by all the naïghbours round.”

The Stainer family lived in Lydlinch from at least 1600 (and probably earlier), sometimes spelled Stayner, and sometimes Stainer.  There are 105 Stainer entries recorded in the Lydlinch parish register between 1559 and 1809. Four generations of my earliest known direct ancestors were born, and died, and probably lived their whole lives in and around Lydlinch:

• John Stayner (?-1672) – my 8x-great-grandfather
• William Stayner (1631-?)
• William Stainer (c1680-?)
• John Stainer (1715-?)

John Stainer was my 5x-great-grandfather. He and his wife Mary (nee Lovel) had 9 children, and during his lifetime at least some of the family moved from Lydlinch to Wimborne. One son, Joseph became an innkeeper at the ‘Old Bell’ in Wimborne and married Ann Clench in 1782. Then after she died in 1786, Joseph married Jane Clench, who was presumably Ann’s sister. One of John Stainer’s daughters, Ruth was also in Wimborne when she married in 1788. Another son, Charles was living in Blandford when he married in 1779.

But what is the connection with Poole? Joseph Stainer, even though he lived in Wimborne, bought a house in Poole High Street, sometime in the 1780s. This house was occupied by Joseph’s brother Charles, who was a shoemaker.

Charles Stainer lived in Poole with his wife Mary, who sadly died at a relatively young age in 1790. At this point, Charles was 40 years old, and they’d been married for 11 years. Charles and Mary attended the Congregational Church at Skinner Street, which at that time was newly built. (It is still standing today, and is the oldest church building in Poole.) After she died, Mary was buried in the ‘Dissenters Burial Ground’ on Leg Lane. Since that time, the name of Leg Lane has changed- first to Laglane Street, and then to present-day Lagland Street.

Charles remarried the following year (1791) to another Mary (nee Rogers), and they continued to live in Poole High Street until Charles himself died in 1817 (or 1819) at the age of 69. He too was buried in the same burial ground as his first wife.

The burial ground plot was bounded by Leg Lane (Lagland Street) on the east and by a bowling green formerly a garden of the Bull Head Inn on the south (now named Prosperous Street). Today, this plot is the site of Poole Old Town Community Centre, opposite the Cockleshell pub, and behind the pub is Skinner Street Church. When the burial ground site was redeveloped some 60 years ago, the remains of the bodies were removed and reinterred in Poole Cemetery.

Charles’s youngest brother Robert also lived in the house in Poole High Street from 1790-1795, when he was a single man in his mid-twenties. But then Robert moved away from Dorset to Buckinghamshire, where he married in 1796 and worked as an innkeeper. Robert Stainer was my 4x-great-grandfather.

But what happened to the house in Poole High Street after Charles died? His brother Joseph, who actually owned the property, died in 1824, a few years after Charles. And then the ownership of the house in Poole passed to Joseph’s eldest daughter Mary Stainer. (Joseph had three daughters and no sons, as far as I know.) I don’t know whether Mary herself lived in Poole or Wimborne, but she never married, and when she died in 1854, she left most of her family effects – including the Poole house  – to her cousin Rev. William Stainer (1802-1867), who was Robert’s son.

William didn’t live in Poole though – he was born in Buckinghamshire, and lived most of his adult life in Southwark, London, where he was a schoolmaster. He must however have retained links with his cousins in Dorset, because at the age of 64 or 65 he retired to Wimborne, where he died a year or so later in 1867.

William Stainer was my great-great-great grandfather. He had nine children, of whom the eighth was named John, who became Sir John Stainer (1840-1901), the organist and composer, my great-great-grandfather. My uncle David Pennant has compiled a wealth of good information about Sir John.

I believe that the Poole house was sold after William’s death, which was the last connection of my branch of the Stainer family with Poole. It’s been fascinating to discover that my ancestors owned a house in my own home town for about 100 years, and to research their history. But I don’t know exactly where on the High Street they lived, so if anyone can help me identify the house itself, I’d be very pleased (especially if it’s still standing today!).

And though my own Stainer ancestors no longer lived in Poole after this, other branches of the Stainer family have continued in Poole to this day. In particular Stainers’ shoe shop on Ringwood Road is well remembered by many. This business was founded in 1912 by Tom Stainer – I wonder if he was a descendent of Charles Stainer, who had a shoemaking business one hundred years earlier?

Tom Stainer ran his shoe repair / cobbler business at Sea View Road for many years, until about 1960. The Ringwood Road property was originally a cobbler’s workshop, but a shop was added later. The shop closed in about 2020. Incidentally, the Ringwood road shop is also locally famous as the site where a German bomber crashed in November 1940 after being shot down. All four crew members on board died in the incident.

As well as Tom Stainer, there are other Stainers mentioned in the Kelly’s directories:

• 1875 John Stainer, Egg Dealer, New Orchard, Poole
• 1889 John Stainer, Greengrocer, High Street, Poole
• 1911 Maurice Stainer, Wimborne Rd, Longfleet
• 1915 Henry Thomas Stainer, Boot Repairer, Sea View Road, Parkstone

And commenters on the ‘Memories of Old Poole’ Facebook group mentioned other Stainers still in the area today. I guess many of them may be my distant cousins.

If you have any more information about the Stainer family heritage (in Poole or elsewhere), please get in touch. Thanks.