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Celebrating Hampshire Historians

Historian of the Month: January-December 2024

As a part of our Celebrating Hampshire’s Historians project, we feature a Historian of the Month. They are chosen to illustrate the breadth of topics and approaches that we have discovered in building the profiles. The aim is to be as representative as possible and the list includes professional and amateur historians and archaeologists, antiquarians and others, with a cut-off date of 2000. The first profile was posted in April 2022. For any queries, please contact: celebrating@hantsfieldclub.org.uk.

December 2024 - Winifred Grace Beddington

Winifred Beddington was the author of It Happened in Hampshire: doings, sayings and interests, past and present (Hampshire Federation of Women’s Institutes, 1937) which stimulated an interest in the county's past.

November 2024 - Francis Joseph Baigent

Francis Joseph Baigent - his name is best known as the co-author with the Rev J.E. Millard (1823-1894) of the monumental History of the Ancient Town and Manor of Basingstoke, published in 1889.

October 2024 - Roger Charles Anderson

Roger Anderson was: "Described as ‘independently wealthy’ he was able to devote all his time and energy to his interests in naval history."

September 2024 - John Summers Drew

John Summers Drew used Latin from his schooldays to work on the monastic and manorial records of the Priory of St Swithun. It was the start of a project that was to last for the rest of his life.

August 2024 - Warren, William Thorn

William Thorn Warren was a keen antiquarian, who was well placed to produce many books, maps, directories and articles about Winchester and the county...

July 2024 - Crawford, Osbert Guy Stanhope (OGS)

OGS Crawford was a towering figure in archaeology in the first half of the twentieth century. In 1927 he founded Antiquity: A Quarterly Review of Archaeology, which became the most influential archaeological journal.

June 2024 - Rose (DH) Moutray Read

Rose Moutray Read compiled the Hampshire volume in the popular Highways and Byways series, with illustrations by the portrait painter Arthur Bentley Connor. (The sketch above shows the 'George and Dragon' at Hurstborne Tarrant.)

May 2024 - Sir William Cope

Sir William Cope: He was undoubtedly an ardent collector of material relating to Hampshire and its history... As recorded in a letter from George Minns published in the Hampshire Advertiser (23 April 1892, p.8) the ‘library at Bramshill contained many priceless treasures of great local interest.’

April 2024 - William Curtis

William Curtis: Like many educated men of his time, he was interested in natural history and geology and he was instrumental in forming The Alton Mechanics and Apprentices’ Library in September 1837...

March 2024 - Florence Horatia Nelson Suckling

Florence Horatia Nelson Suckling's house held many portraits which encouraged Florence's research into local history and genealogy of family trees...Florence continued historical research from a variety of sources, including : Heywood Sumner's maps, wills, Dr Latham's manuscripts, The Hampshire Field Club and Southampton Rambling Club.

February 2024 - Thomas Frederick Kirby

Thomas Frederick Kirby came to Winchester College as bursar in 1877 and stayed until 1910, ...Fellow of the Royal Society of Antiquaries (and secretary for Hampshire) and frequent contributor to its journal, Archaeologia, about historical matters relating to Winchester College.

January 2024 - Augustus Henry Lane-Fox Pitt Rivers

Augustus Henry Lane-Fox Pitt Rivers - an inheritance was ‘an event that transformed his life’, as the estate contained a wealth of archaeological material from the Bronze Age to the Saxon period. He set about exploring this in systematic fashion and his focus on the everyday objects found in his excavations, rather than ‘treasure’, plus his meticulous recording methods, established his reputation as one of the founding fathers of British archaeology.