Celebrating Hampshire Historians

Goodman, Florence Remington (née Merriott)

12 November 1869 - 27 October, 1939

Florence was born in Sandhurst, Berkshire, to Rev. John Hepburne Merriott, an Oxford graduate and Assistant Master at Eton College, and his wife Caroline. He died in Winchester in 1919, living at Dormy Cottage, 49 St Cross Road, where Florence and her husband later came to live (father’s will: 5M64/40. Microfilm).

In 1903 in her Thirties she married classical scholar Arthur Worthington Goodman, also profiled in CHH. She was recognized in her lifetime as a scholar in her own right and elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Clearly, she was well educated – perhaps beside the pupils at Eton - but nothing is known of her early adult life. Her research papers, with her husband’s, are held by HRO. One of her major works was a transcription ‘done in English’ from the Winchester Custumal of records of the home farm of St Swithun’s, the Manor of Barton, which included Chilcomb, Morestead, Wyke, Compton and Winnall.

However, 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.  It also contained one of the best accounts of the role of cathedral chapter clerk John Chase in saving documents from Cromwellian plunder. She is remembered as a huge asset to the Cathedral Library ‘arranging and indexing old documents’ and much more. The several books she wrote on a range of subjects displayed an easy-read prose style, which concealed her scholarship:  Bussby described it as ‘a gift for haute vulgarization’.

Sources

Barbara Carpenter Turner, Cathedral Historians, Winchester Cathedral Record, 1979, No. 48, 5-

Portrait

Contribution to county’s history

As well as making difficult sources more available to those without her scholarship, she showed that deep learning is not necessarily a barrier to reaching a wide audience.

Relevant published works

• The Diary of John Young, Dean of Winchester 1616 to Commonwealth, 1928, London, SPCK.

• Reverent Landlords and their Tenants: Scenes and characters on Winchester manors after the restoration etc, 1930, Winchester, Warren & Son.

• The Pretenders from the pulpit. Sermons etc from tracts scarce and curious [collected by Edmund Pyle] in Winchester Chapter Library illumined by the tale of the Stewarts, 1933, Cambridge, Heffer & Son.

• Winchester – Valley & Dowland, [1934], Winchester, Warren & Son.

• Barton Compotus Rolls, 1238-1344, ‘done to English’, 1938 (DC/K6/9).

• The Home Farm of St Swithun’s, 1248-1344, Winchester Cathedral Record, 1939, No. 8, 10-13.

Critical Comments

Other Comments

She worked with her husband in a role that was much more inclusive at a time when many other wives of cathedral clergy were probably little involved in their husband’s work .

Contributor

Barry Shurlock, 1 September, 2023.

Key Words

Winchester cathedral, Dean John Young, manor of Barton

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