Gillingham Museum Montage


Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA)



Dorset Museums Association



Dorset's Newfoundland Connection

by Roger Guttridge

7.30pm Wednesday 16 September 2009

Town Hall, School Road, Gillingham

Free entrance for Gillingham Local History Society Members

Visitors welcome - donations appreciated

Journalist and author Roger Guttridge explains the unusual background to Dorset's extraordinary historical and cultural connections with the Canadian province of Newfoundland. One-third of the ancestors of today's Newfoundlanders came from Dorset and another third from the surrounding areas of Devon, Somerset and the New Forest. The evidence comes in many forms, such as the abundance of West Country surnames and customs and even the Dorset dialect spoken by many inhabitants whose ancestors left England 200 years ago.