Celebrating Hampshire Historians

Baigent, Francis Joseph

14 June 1830 - 5 March 1918

Today, the name of F.J. Baigent 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. Baigent was already a distinguished antiquarian, whilst Millard had only written minor works on the area when, in 1882, he became a minor canon of Winchester Cathedral. where almost certainly he engaged the talents and experience of Baigent. Apart from this and works on heraldry and a history of the Church of Our Lady (now St Mathew’s) Weeke, near Winchester (a source used in the VCH), most of his work involved a detailed technical approach to the minutiae of history.

Francis Joseph Baigent was born in Winchester to Richard (1799-1881) and Louisa Baigent, who were established members of the Winchester Catholic community. Richard, born in Kingston Portsea, had been articled to Richard Livesay (1750-1826), who was a former drawing master to the children of George III and 1796 had been appointed drawing master at the Royal Naval Academy, Portsmouth.  In 1820, Baigent Sr came to Winchester with Livesay and in 1824 obtained the post of drawing-master at Winchester College, the first of its kind at the school, where he taught until about 1874. He had close links with the fellow Catholic family of Cave, which included several established artists. The Catholic priest and celebrated historian John Milner (1752-1826) was also no doubt an influence, though he had left Winchester long before Baigent Sr came to the city. As might be expected, his son Francis Joseph became a competent artist himself, but spent much of his life researching history on a wide front. Without a university education or a professional qualification, he did not have an easy route to an income. Apparently, inspired by the meetings in Winchester in 1845 of both the Archaeological Association and the Archaeological Institute he forged a career ‘of public lecturing, research into family histories, work on historical documents of all kinds, and the recording of architectural and artistic features of many Hampshire churches’. In the 1881 census he declared himself to be an ‘antiquarian, artist and palaeographer’.

His first published article, in the Proceedings of the British Archaeological Association in 1848, was a report on a Roman urn found in the foundations of the new gasworks in Water Lane, Winnall. Further articles followed on artworks found in Silkstead’s Chapel in the Cathedral, St Laurence’s church and in St John’s in the Soke. He later researched the heraldry and family histories of people buried in the Catholic cemetery in Winchester, the seals of Hampshire sheriffs and many other particular subjects (see W. H. Cope A List of Books Relating to Hampshire, 1879, pp. 6-7 and H.M. Gilbert and G.N. Godwin, Bibliotheca Hantoniensis, 1891, p. 91). His History and Antiquities of the Parish Church of Wyke [Weeke] near Winchester, published in 1865, set new standards by being based both on a detailed examination of the fabric of the church and its documentary records. He made many other contributions and has been described as ‘the most notable of all 19th century Hampshire historians’. He contributed two volumes to the Hampshire Record Series (including one on Crondall, liberally quoted in the VCH); transcribed the Black Book of Winchester (Add MS 6036, edited by W.H.B. Bird and published in 1925); in 1884 demolished the myth of Florence de Lunn being the first Mayor of Winchester; in 1909 helped to write the script of the Winchester Pageant, and did much work on the Pipe Rolls. His papers are held by the British Library, the Cathedral Library and Downside Abbey.

Amongst a number of public controversies he got involved in was a campaign in 1865 against the architect Gilbert Scott’s ‘restoration’ of the High Cross in Winchester, and appearances as a legal witness supporting the claims of the Tichborne Claimant in the civil case of 1871-2 (but not in the criminal case of 1873-4). He was close to the Tichborne family: his godmother was an aunt of Richard Tichborne, the son who had ‘disappeared’ and in 1855 he presented a paper to the British Archaeological Association on the origins of the Tichborne Dole.

He never married, but toward the end of his life was helping others to do so as the Registrar of Marriages (census, 1911).

Sources

• https://winchestercollections.co.uk/collection/richard-baigent-1799-1881/

• ODNB (Richard Livesay, Richard Baigent)

• Barbara Carpenter Turner, A Hampshire Historian: Francis Joseph Baigent, 1830-1918, Winchester Cathedral Record, 1989, 58, 43-48 [NB, there are some errors].

Portrait

Sketch in the witness box at the trial of the Tichborne Impostor, c. 1871, on a carte de visite (held by the National Portrait Gallery).

Contribution to county’s history

He was a ‘jobbing’ historian, as required by his need to earn a living, but adhered to very high standards. He therefore made no overarching contributions to ‘the big story’, but did a great deal of important work for others to build upon.

Relevant published works

• [Report of an urn found in Water Lane during works for the new gasworks], Proceedings of the British Archaeological Association, 1848, 3: 317f.


• The Family of De Lymerston, and Its Heiress, the Foundress of the Tichborne Dole, Journal of the British Archaeological Association, December 1855, 277-302. (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00681288.1855.11887189)


• With Charles James Russell, A Practical Manual of Heraldry and Heraldic Illumination: with a glossary of the principal terms used in heraldry, Rowney & Co., 1864


• History and Antiquities of the Parish Church of Wyke [Weeke] near Winchester, 1865, Jacob & Johnson, Winchester
• With James Elwin Millard, A History of the Ancient Town and Manor of Basingstoke…with a brief account of the siege of Basing House, AD 1643-1645,  C.J. Jacob, Basingstoke,1889.


• Ed., A Collection of Records and Documents Relating to the Hundred and Manor of Crondal [sic]in the County of Southampton. Part I: Historical and manorial, Hampshire Record Series, 1891.


• The Registers of John de Sandale and Rigaud de Asserio, Bishops of Winchester, AD 1316-1323, with an appendix of contemporaneous and other illustrative documents, Hampshire Record Series 1897.

Critical Comments

Said to be ‘precise and exact’, his work brought Catholic and Anglican historians closer together, helping to close the breach made by Milner, dubbed by Canon John Sturges in c.1800 as ‘a Popish wolf in the clothing of an antiquarian sheep’.

Other Comments

Apart from those from wealthy families, Baigent must have been one of the very few independent historians in Victorian Hampshire.

Contributor

Barry Shurlock, 23 September, 2023.

Key Words

Basingstoke, Winchester cathedral, Tichborne, Crondall, John de Sandale, Rigaud de Asserio, Weeke near Winchester, artist

Any queries or further suggestions for this part of the list should be addressed to celebrating@hantsfieldclub.org.uk.

Back to Historians A-B from Altham H S to Butterfield R P