Registered Charity number 243773

Celebrating Hampshire Historians

Historian of the Month

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 2025 - Tom Atkinson

Tom Atkinson - ...Winchester’s City Archivist from 1959...In 1962 he made the first catalogue of the city’s archives...

November 2025 - Leonard Frederick William White

Leonard White - he played a leading role in the establishment of the Gosport Historical Records and Museum Society (later the Gosport Society)

October 2025 - Roger Nathaniel Quirk

Roger Quirk - Brilliant scholar who explored the early documentary history of Winchester Cathedral and who instigated the programme of excavations 1961-71 directed by Martin Biddle...

September 2025 - Rev Thomas Hervey

Thomas Hervey - his main contribution to local history came after he had been at Colemore for nearly 30 years. In 1880 A History of the United Parishes of Colmer and Priors Dean followed, with a second edition slightly differenty titled in 1891 (pp. 331-350 cover his personal and family history).

August 2025 - Edgar Austin Mitchell

Edgar Austen moved to Southampton in 1913 to take up a post with the Southern Daily Echo,...his popular column ‘Occasional Notes’...reflected his thoughts on, and researches into, the history of Southampton.

July 2025 - Frederick Bussby

Frederick Bussby - He wrote extensively on Winchester Cathedral people, ... but is most notable for the impressive volume to mark the nine hundredth anniversary of the Cathedral’s foundation.

June 2025 - Arthur Goodman and Florence Goodman

This is the second occasion that a husband and wife have been chose as HOM; the first was in June 2023. Unfortunately no image of either has been found.

Arthur Goodman - His work was, of course, mainly aimed at the history of the cathedral. He was one of the few people of his day capable of translating and interpreting medieval Latin.

Florence Goodman - ...she was probably best known for her edition of the diary of John Young, Dean of Winchester from 1616 to the Commonwealth, which demonstrated a deep understanding of the seventeenth century.

May 2025 - Edward King

Edward King - was born in Lymington ... and spent his early life in the town. (He) returned to Lymington in 1858 where he established his well known bookselling business. In 1876 he published Old Times Revisited in the borough and parish of Lymington.

April 2025 - Arthur C Bennett

Arthur Charles Bennett - was gifted musically...In 1901, inspired by the Andover incumbent, Revd Christopher Collier, Arthur Bennett contributed an article ‘The History of Music at Andover’ to a local newspaper: the Andover Advertiser, following it with ‘The Story of St Mary’s Church, Andover’, which was later expanded into a guidebook.

March 2025 - Alfred Oscroft

Alfred Oscroft was a place-names authority and polymath. Within a short period of retirement (in 1922), he began publishing articles about Hampshire place names in the Southampton Times and Hampshire Express.

February 2025 - Eleanor Cottrill

Eleanor Cottrill - took "...up the post of Hampshire County Archivist (1947–1970) and established a County Record Office. Her success in attracting collections was such that, within a year, the Record Office was moved to more ample premises..."

January 2025 - John Bullar

John Bullar was a "schoolmaster for nearly four decades, he taught many of those who were to become the town’s civic leaders. As it was put in an obituary published in the Southampton Times "The life of Mr Bullar is in fact the life of Southampton during the past fifty years".