[Ann from Sussex]

Did anyone see Countryfile last night where Matt Baker was talking to an army cook about the army cooking stove invented by Alexis Soyer? Soyer was a French chef working in London who was asked to invent a portable gas stove to enable meals to be cooked by troops in the field during the Crimean War. The person he asked to make the stoves was my 1st cousin 4 times removed, Thomas Henry Phillips born in Brighton, Sussex in about 1830. Thomas was a gas engineer with his own business in London at the time of the Crimean War and he spent time in the Crimea servicing the stoves he had built. I had never heard of Alexis Soyer until I came across one of Thomas's sons during my research who had the odd (to me at the time) name of Alexis Soyer Phillips. I then made contact with Thomas's gt gt grandson who told me the story of Thomas's business connection with Soyer and the friendship between the two which made Thomas name a son born during the war after Soyer. It was interesting to me to actually see one of the stoves in action on Countryfile last night.