Arthur Maunder, the wicket-keeper with pads on, was part of a Guernsey gentlemen’s team that is thought to have played at Lord’s cricket ground. (0737632)

RICHARD Samuel West Rowland, the Bailiff Geoffrey Rowland’s grandfather, was born in 1855 in Littleham, a parish forming part of Exmouth in south Devon.

Known to everyone as Sam, he was the child of another Richard Samuel West Rowland and his wife, Sarah Long. Although he was the third child, his two elder sisters had died within a week of their birth and he was brought up as the eldest.

The boundary between Withycombe and Littleham parishes runs roughly through the middle of Exmouth and many members of the Rowland family and their relatives were born in and around the town.

The Rowlands in the 19th century and certainly as early as 1841 lived and farmed at Prospect Farm in Littleham parish, which in those days was on the edge of Exmouth village. The farm and its several dwellings were in the area known as the Mear, near to the coastguard station.

In the late 1800s, the Rowlands also ran a shop at the foot of Tower Street in Exmouth, retailing their dairy produce.

Eric Delderfield’s small booklet entitled Exmouth Milestones – A History, refers to their shop: ‘a feature of the shop was the quaint old box-window. The cows were milked in the yard’.

The same booklet mentions that in those days ‘the key of the lifeboat station was kept at the Rowlands’ dairy shop. In the event of trouble at sea and necessity for using the lifeboat, the best athlete had to be sent to them before operations could commence’.

Nowadays, Prospect Farm is no more. Dwellings and outbuildings have long since been demolished. The area is now a bowling green, cricket and football grounds and adjoining golf links course.

Monty Python once mocked Aussies for all being called Bruce.

In the Rowland family’s case, for generations boys were christened Richard Samuel West.

Geoffrey’s grandfather’s use simply of Sam was sensible to distinguish him easily from not only his own father (1855-1886), who was named Richard Samuel West, but also his grandfather (1796-1842), who was similarly named.

His great-grandfather, born in 1755, was simply named Richard, as was his great-great-grandfather. His birth date is unknown, but he would have been born in the early 1700s as he died in 1755.

Records show that there was an Edmund Rowland who married Joanne Eboon at Littleham Parish, Exmouth, on 10 October 1681, but as yet it cannot be proved that Edmund forms part of Geoffrey’s family tree, though there is some likelihood.

Beach boys: Brian Green, Rick Rowland and Geoff Rowland (front). (0738563)

Interestingly, Geoffrey’s great-great-grandfather, Richard Rowland, married to Tryphena West, was described in 1824 as a printer at the time of his son’s christening, but he is also at other times recorded as a dairyman living at Prospect Farm.

Unfortunately for young Sam, his father died in 1886, when he was seven, and his mother Sarah in September 1892, when he was barely 13. He was therefore orphaned as a teenager but the family was a close-knit one and Sarah’s parents (the Longs) looked after him through his formative teenage years.

He underwent an apprenticeship to be a printer. It is not known if there was some connection with his own great-grandfather having been one.

Coincidentally, our Timelines subject, when in private practice, became a director in the 1980s and then chairman of the Guernsey Press Company Ltd.

‘Perhaps there is some genetic predisposition intermittently to printing in one form or another?’ he pondered.

Gregory Stevens-Cox states in his authoritative work, St Peter Port 1680-1830 – The History of an International Entrepot, that Devon was the county by far and away providing most immigrants to Guernsey in the 1820s.

There were some 300 male migrants in St Peter Port in 1830 who recorded their place of origin as having been Devon or Cornwall, the former predominating with 200 of them.

It appears that Sam Rowland came to Guernsey when he was about 21 and certainly sometime between 1887 and 1889.

On his arrival in Guernsey, he had a strong Devonshire accent and retained it until his death. It is not known whether he knew any of the many Devon families in the island.

By then he had completed his apprenticeship as a printer and it was on the recommendation of his master that he took up employment with F. W. Clarke, whose offices at Market Place overlooked Market Square.

Charles James Smith and his wife Sophie Sarah Smith (nee Mauger), the Bailiff’s great-grandparents on the maternal side. (0737631)

That firm printed and published the weekly Guernsey News. It also printed books, programmes, cards and such like.

An article in the Guernsey News of 26 December 1902 records an event at the publisher’s premises on Christmas Eve.

It reported that the assembled company had gathered in accordance with time-honoured custom as a printer’s conclave or ‘chapel’. It was presided over by a senior member of staff in order to mark a special event, in this case Sam Rowland’s imminent wedding.

‘The young man’s surname,’ said the speaker, ‘is Rowland, but his Christian names are so numerous that I cannot remember them all; suffice it to say that he is familiarly known as Sam.

‘He is Devonshire born  … and he has gained the increasing respect of his fellow workmen … He has chosen for a helpmeet Amelia Laura, second daughter of Edward Marley, of St Sampson’s. She is a young woman of character as good in every respect as his own, therefore, so far, they will not be unequally yoked.’

Sam’s wedding to Lil took place at St Sampson’s Church on Christmas Day 1902.

Sam was to remain with the firm of F. W. Clarke throughout his working life.

During that time he was engaged in printing and publishing many books, including countless editions of the Guernsey News, and in 1903, Sir Edgar MacCulloch’s Guernsey Folk Lore, one of which – handed down through the family – is in the Bailiff’s library at L’Ancresse.

Sam’s elder son, named Samuel Edward, was born on Christmas Eve 1903 and the younger son, Percy, Geoffrey’s father, on 2 February 1917.

Grandfather Sam was actively involved with the Ancient Order of Foresters, one of the more prominent fraternities in those days providing mutual health insurance.

The Almanach de la Gazette de Guernesey tells us that Sam Rowland was the Chief Ranger in 1922.

He died aged 51. An obituary soon after his death on 7 August 1929 records: ‘Mr Rowland was everybody’s friend. He was of a genial, hearty disposition and his cheery tone and ringing laugh put everyone in good humour. A keen Forester and, until his health broke down, an ardent poultry fancier, he was never idle. He loved his work, and  … put his whole soul into it.’

Percy had lost his father when he was only 12 and grandmother Lil, living at number 1, Kingston Terrace, Les Amballes, was widowed at the age of 50.

Sam, who worked as a clerk in Advocate Ridgway’s practice, married in the following year.

Arthur Maunder, the champion cyclist. (0737723)

Percy, on leaving school earlier than he had hoped, in order to bring in extra income for the household, trained as a plumber and carpenter in an uncle’s business.

He evacuated in 1940, destined initially to find temporary sanctuary with relatives in Exmouth until he could meet up with his girlfriend of a few years, Muriel Maunder, who had evacuated with some members of her family.

Percy and Muriel soon met up in Stockport and were married at Norbury Church, Hazel Grove, on 20 May 1942.

It was in Stockport that Geoffrey’s elder brother Richard (Rick), a familiar name in the family, was born on 2 August 1943.

Percy did wartime primary army training at Fort George Barracks near Inverness with the Seaforth Highlanders. He was then posted to the Royal Army Ordinance Corps and the Pay Corps.

Family and friends always jested with Percy that his eyesight was so poor, as indeed it was, that in battle he would have been a greater danger to his fellow troops than the enemy.

Muriel and their son Richard returned to Guernsey in August 1945. Sergeant Percy Rowland returned after demobilisation and arrived in Guernsey without employment.

He soon found temporary work but was encouraged by his father-in-law to join his brother-in-law, Arthur, in secure employment in the recently nationalised British Rail.

Percy was to remain employed there until he retired.

Geoffrey was born on 5 January 1948 and his younger sister Jacqueline in 1953.

The Rowlands were a close-knit family and much of their life centred around nearby St John’s Church and the old and new Church Halls.