Who was Benjamin Fayle and why did he come to Purbeck and build Dorsets first railway?
Up until 2007 no one had really tackled the above question. We know that the Purbeck born and bred Pike Brothers ancestors came from Devon where Ball clay extraction was well known, but why would someone in the great city of London come to Purbeck to extract clay? Surely they had better things to do. With these questions unanswered we set about a search using several resources including the Dorset History Centre and the Internet. We have been kindly contacted by others who have supplied some missing links. We found a great deal of information and we now know far more about the “Who was he?” We still can’t answer “Why did he come to Purbeck?” but we can now make educated guesses. We leave you to make your own guess from the information below. Benjamin Fayle was one of twelve children of Richard Fayle and was born on 10th July 1751 in Ireland. We do know his father (Richard) lived in Co. Kildare, but as yet we do not know exactly where Benjamin Fayle was born. Benjamin Fayle’s great gran
