Celebrating Hampshire Historians

Moutray Read, Rose Hamilton (pseudonym ‘D H’)

1870 - 1947

Rose Hamilton Moutray Read was the eldest child of Edith and Lt Col John Moutray Read of the 4th Cheshire Regiment. Her brother, Anketell (b 1885) was killed in France in September 1915, while engaged in a rescue mission for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross. This was a strikingly parallel experience to Dorothy Liddell, whose younger brother Aidan won the same honour, but suffered the same fate, the two men dying within a fortnight of each other.

Using the alias ‘DH’, Rose Moutray Read wrote Highways and Byways in Hampshire, ‘notes and impressions of many happy days motoring, driving, cycling, walking in a county that I love entirely [while compiling]…gossip of bygone days and present ways…’

Moutray Read was also a Fellow of the Royal Horticultural Society and wrote about the creation of her own gardens, firstly in Cottenham Park, Wimbledon and then Wadhurst, Sussex. She edited the ‘Gardener’s Year Book’ for 1930 and was a member of the Folklore Society, frequently contributing to the journal Folklore.

Sources

• Wikipedia

Portrait

No photo of Rose Moutray Read has been found but the above sketch, by Arthur Bentley Connor, comes from 'HIghways and Byways in Hampshire'

Contribution to county’s history

Moutray Read compiled the Hampshire volume in the popular Highways and Byways series, with illustrations by the portrait painter Arthur Bentley Connor. In so doing she consulted many contemporary local historians and ‘most of the standard authorities on the county’s history’.

Relevant published works

• Highways and Byways in Hampshire (1908) Macmillan & Co.

Critical Comments

Far from presenting the ‘gossip’ of the book’s Preface, the author consulted many Hampshire notables, such as Sir William Portal, Rev P W N Gaisford Bourne, William Dale (Hampshire Field Club) in her search for information, as well as the ‘standard authorities’ and compiled a well-rounded account of the locality.

Other Comments

Contributor

Dave Allen - 26.07.21

Key Words

Hampshire, Highways and Byways

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