Celebrating Hampshire Historians

Drew, John Summers O.B.E.

1879 - 1949

A good example of an amateur local historian who gained the respect of professional historians, John Drew achieved what he did as a result of poor health and private means. Not benefiting from an education at major schools or university, at the age of 17 he joined the family London-based firm Drew and Sons, which dealt in ‘high-grade travel goods and silverware’.

During WWI, despite health problems, he raised the 2nd 7th Middlesex Regiment, rose to the rank of Lt-Colonel, served in Gibraltar, Egypt and France and was honoured with an OBE. In 1923 in his mid-forties he retired with his second wife (his first had died in the Spanish Influenza pandemic) to Chandlers Ford. 

In 1930 he moved to Compton, near Winchester, and here became interested in local history. This may have been sparked by his son, Charles E.S. Drew, who had just joined the Public Record Office (now The National Archives) and his brother Lt-Colonel C.D. Drew, who was curator of Dorchester Museum. The advowson of Compton had always been held by the bishops of Winchester, so Drew was soon drawn to medieval records in Winchester Cathedral Library. Here he met Canon G.W. Goodman and under his tutelage, using Latin from his schooldays, he worked 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, resulting in thousands of typescript pages of translation and interpretation.

Winchester Cathedral Library and HRO (DC/K5) hold unpublished typescripts by Drew on Compton and Silkstead, and the manors of Thurmond (south Winchester, see HRO, 11M59/WDC/E2/8075), Houghton and Michelmersh. Other research materials held by HRO (116A05), include a translation of the Custumal of St Swithun’s Priory and an unpublished manuscript on a subject that he made his own, namely, Medieval Agricultural Terms. He also was the first to transcribe letters between the Rev. Phillip Williams, rector of Compton, 1780-1830, and his wife, Sarah, from originals held by Winchester College (HRO, 116A05; WCA/M/PW; Shurlock, 2014, p.215).

Sources

Turnbull, B., 1993. Proceedings of the Hampshire Field Club Vol 48, 161-179.

Portrait

Contribution to county’s history

He made available translations of a large number of medieval rolls on places near Winchester and elsewhere and, in particular, used these and other works to write a key work on the village of Compton and make major contributions to the understanding of medieval agricultural terms.

Relevant published works

• Compton, Near Winchester, Winchester 1939.

• Manorial Accounts of St Swithun's Priory, Winchester, English Historical Review, vol. 12, 1947, 20-41.

• Essays in Economic History, vol. 2, (ed. E. M. Carus Wilson) 1962.

• Early Account Rolls of Portland, Wyke & Elwell,

• Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History & Archaeological Society, vol. 66, part 1, 1944, 31-44, part 2, 1945, pp 34-54. 2.

Critical Comments

He published only a small part of his work.

Other Comments

He demonstrated that difficult sources can be mastered with suitable supervision by people with basic Latin, but no scholarly experience.

Contributor

Barry Shurlock 18 September, 2022

Keywords

Medieval, St Swithun’s Priory, Compton.

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