News for July 2026 - Who was J.B. Dashwood and what was his connection?

He was the Author of “The Thames to the Solent” published in 1868, documenting his journey the year before in his small yacht, horse towed. along the London to Portsmouth waterway route .His was the last recorded trip by water before the closure of the Wey & Arun Canal in 1871 severed this link.

Dashwood’s account has inspired many other attempts to complete the journey and has surely kept interest alive in the waterway. Various recent adventurers have completed the route as part of longer expeditions by canoe or kayak, some of which have been reported in the Wey & Arun newsletters or elsewhere. These involved long portages to join the surviving sections still navigable to such craft.

In 2002 the Canal Trust commissioned a video documentary “The Lost Wey to the Sea” following Dashwood’s route and using much of his text in the commentary, in which I was the presenter, assisted by our Rough Collie “Rowan”. Copies of this in DVD form are available from the canal website, and an excerpt is included in Part 1 of the “Tales from the River” in the “Presentations” section of this website.

Little was known of J.B. Dashwood when the documentary was made other than a comment in the book by Paul Vine “London’s Lost Route to the Sea” (1968) which is probably the definitive history of the route. Vine included much of the earlier book in his and suggested the “B” in the name was “Bacon” as a J.Bacon Dashwood had published some scholar’s tables around that time. Following the making of the video and the interest in the author that was created more research revealed a possible candidate “Jarrett Bacon Dashwood” and more details of his life were revealed whihch seemed to give some support. Misgivings about this included the lack of a Naval link or other evidence of yachting. For some 20 years no obvious alternative has appeared, until now!

Within the last couple of months Jonathan Copeland, a Trust member, came up with a possible alternative - “James Edward Bateman Dashwood” who had such connections in the form of an Admiral as father, and owned a Una Rigged yacht called “Caprice” based in Christchurch. Exactly as described in the original book. So a new version of JB has now emerged! (note: the original identity is still described in the presentation - this will be corrected in due course).