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Authority record

Tithe Commission

  • GB-1859-SJCA-CI248
  • Corporate body
  • 1836-1960

The Tithe Commission was established in 1836 under the Tithe Commutation Act. It was set up in order to establish exactly what tithes were due in each area of the country and to whom, and to formalise the commutation of tithes from payment in kind to cash payments.
Tithes were payments made from early times for the support of the parish church and its clergy. Originally these payments were made in kind (crops, wool, milk, young stock, etc.) and usually represented a tenth (tithe) of the yearly production of cultivation or stock rearing. The tithes were often stored in a tithe barn attached to the parish.
The ownership of the tithe was a property right that could be bought and sold, leased or mortgaged, or assigned to others. This resulted in many of the rectorial tithes passing into lay hands - particularly after the dissolution of the monasteries. These tithes then became the personal property of the new owners.
From early times money payments had begun to be substituted for payments in kind. Fixed sums (moduses) were substituted for some categories of production, particularly for livestock and perishable produce; while adjustable payments known as compositions, which were sometimes assessed annually, were increasingly being substituted in local arrangements in latter years.
Tithe commutation was the process by which the payment in kind was substituted for a cash payment. By the time of the Tithe Commutation Act there was considerable discontent over payment of tithes. The Tithe Commutation Act of 1836 was designed to ensure that commutation was achieved smoothly and quickly throughout the country. It required tithes in kind to be converted to more convenient monetary payments called tithe rentcharge. There had been an increasing demand for the Commutation of Tithe during the 18th century (some reformers campaigned for the abolition of tithe) and in 1836 the government of the day successfully steered the Tithe Commutation Bill through Parliament. The Act received the Royal Assent on 13 August 1836.
The Act substituted a variable monetary payment (referred to as the "corn rent") for any existing tithe in kind. This payment was originally calculated on the basis of seven-year average prices of wheat, barley, and oats, with each type of grain contributing an equal part to the total. Prices were determined nationally. Some land was free of tithe obligation, due to barrenness, custom, or prior arrangement.
The 1836 Act set up the Tithe Commission which was established to identify all affected properties and to resolve boundary issues arising from their survey. It was headed by three commissioners sitting in London who were William Balmire (chairman), Thomas Wentworth Buller and the Rev. Richard Jones. Valuation of current tithes could be negotiated by the parties; in the absence of an agreement, they were determined by the commission.
The first tasks of the Commissioners were to find out where commutation had already taken place, and also to establish the boundaries of every unit in which tithes were paid separately. This unit was mapped and named as a tithe district to distinguish it from a parish or township. Enquiries were directed to every parish or township listed in the census returns. The results of these enquiries are found in the Tithe Files at The National Archives. Tithe districts are usually parishes, but a minority are townships, and some are chapelries, hamlets, or extra-parochial places, many of which enjoyed separate status solely for tithe commutation purposes. Areas in which tithes had already been commuted were not mapped, so that coverage varied widely from county to county. The maps indicated parcels of land and buildings, assigning each a number. The initial intent was to produce maps of the highest possible quality, but the expense (incurred by the landowners) led to the provision that the accuracy of the maps would be testified by the seal of the commissioners, and only maps of suitable quality would be so sealed. In the end, about one-sixth of the maps had seals.
There were two distinct stages to the commutation process, first, the fixing of a global assessment for the tithe district and second, the apportioning of the tithe rent-charge on the individual properties.
The apportionment was recorded on a map and in a written schedule. These maps and schedules together constitute what is usually termed by historians ‘the parish tithe survey’. The essential purpose of a survey was to provide an accurate measurement of the acreage of each parcel of land, or tithe area, and record its observed state of cultivation. Associated with each map was an apportionment schedule, which listed each map item by number. For each entry the owner, tenant, area, name or description, state of cultivation, rent charge payable, and the tithe owner was listed. A preamble gave the name of the tithe owner, the circumstances under which tithes were owed, and whether the apportionment was agreed by the parties or was being imposed by the Crown. Assistant tithe commissioners travelled to all the non-commuted tithe districts to hold meetings with parishioners about valuations, and to settle the terms of the commutation of their tithes.
The surveying was carried out expeditiously, with the majority of the work performed by 1841, and largely completed by 1851. In some cases, amendments had to be filed when properties were divided or other circumstances intervened. The work was also complicated by numerous inconsistencies in how tithes were assessed. For example, timber might or might not include standing trees, branches, acorns, mast, and even charcoal. Variations as to the circumstances of tithe-paying were also considerable. The terms of the commutation were formalized in a document called a tithe agreement, if all parties concurred, or a tithe award, if the assistant commissioner had to arbitrate in a dispute. The agreement or award formed the basis of the tithe apportionment, which was the legal document setting out landowners’ individual liabilities. Each apportionment was accompanied by a map; both were signed by the Tithe Commissioners. Tithe rentcharge then became payable.
The Tithe Act provided for the making of an original and 2 copies of every confirmed instrument of apportionment; all were sealed and signed by the Commissioners. The originals were retained in the custody of the Commissioners and are now in a complete set in The National Archives. The other two copies were deposited one with the Diocesan Registrar and the other with the incumbent and churchwardens of the parish. Some of these copies remain in the parish churches but many are now deposited in the local record offices. Most record offices also have photocopies of the maps and schedules for their district.
This commutation process reduced problems by effectively folding tithes in with rents. Rent charges in lieu of abolished English tithes paid by landowners were converted by a public outlay of money under the Tithe Act 1936 into annuities paid to the state through the Tithe Redemption Commission. The Commission ceased to exist when such payments were transferred in 1960 to the Board of Inland Revenue, and those remaining were terminated by the Finance Act in 1977.

Anglia TV

  • GB-1859-SJCA-CI257
  • Corporate body
  • 1959-2004

Anglia TV was a broadcasting franchise which served the East of England. It was owned by ITV.
In Britain, at the beginning of 1958 ITV was still expanding throughout the country. Following the Television Act of 1954 which had empowered the ITA to set up television services additional to those provided by the BBC, ITV had begun broadcasting in September 1955. When applications were invited for the franchise to serve the East of England, which was to be ITV's first truly rural region, Lord Townshend, a leading Norfolk farmer, brought together a group including The Guardian newspaper and Romulus Films, a company founded by Sir John Woolf and James Woolf at the start of the 1950s. Other members of the board of Anglia Television included people who were strongly rooted in the area but also had diverse interests. Sir Robert Bignold was an eminent Norfolk industrialist, chairman of Norwich Union and a former Lord Mayor of Norwich. Aubrey Buxton was a conservationist who had served with the Army with distinction during the Second World War and was awarded the Military Cross in 1944. Sir Peter Greenwell was a Suffolk farmer who raised prize cattle. William Copeman headed the Eastern Daily Press and other East Anglian publications. Laurence Scott was chairman of The Guardian as well as chairman of the Press Association. The other board members were Sir John Woolf, Sir Donald Albery, head of a London theatre group and two Cambridge academics: Professor Glyn Daniel (archaeologist) and Dr Audrey Richards (anthropologist).
They formed the ‘Anglia’ company and the ITA franchise for the East of England was granted to them. Anglia’s headquarters was in the centre of Norwich in a building that had been known for three-quarters of a century as the Agricultural Hall. Anglia acquired The Hall on a 75-year lease and adapted it for their use. An assembly hall at the front of the building was divided into offices while the main exhibition hall, formerly used for cattle shows, was converted into studios. In order to make these studios sound proof it was necessary to erect a new building within the old one with a reinforced concrete frame. The building was renamed Anglia House. At the same time a 1,000 foot transmitter mast was built at Mendlesham, Suffolk.
The first day of transmission for Anglia Television was on Tuesday October 27, 1959. Broadcasting began at 4.15pm with a picture of the Mendlesham mast and a voiceover announcing "Anglia Television is on the air." The first programme, Introducing Anglia, took viewers on a tour of the region with aerial views of the countryside. The station closed for the evening at 11.10pm.
Anglia's distinctive symbol, the Anglia Knight, soon became widely known across the country. Originally, the directors had thought of using Britannia as the company logo. But whilst walking along Bond Street in London, Lord Townshend saw the figure in Asprey. It had originally been modelled on a statue of Richard the Lionheart that stands outside the Houses of Parliament and was commissioned from a London firm of silversmiths by the King of the Netherlands in 1850 as a sporting trophy. It was later won by an Englishman who brought it home where it had remained in the possession of his family. After Anglia acquired it they got Asprey to make some modifications including the 'Anglia' pennon on the lance.
By 1961, Anglia's 'local' audience of 213,000 homes, mainly in Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Essex grew to 423,000 as it reached Bedfordshire and Lincolnshire. The opening of a new transmitter in 1965 also made the station accessible to viewers in Hertfordshire, Northamptonshire and much further afield. By December of that year about a million homes could receive Anglia television.
Of all Anglia's television programmes the most celebrated is Survival, which travelled the world producing six half-hour programmes a year. The basic theme of each production was the conflict between man and nature with the programme coming down firmly on the side of conservation. As he was launching Survival, Aubrey Buxton also helped to found the World Wildlife Fund along with Peter Scott and others, including David Attenborough. Prince Phillip became chairman of the British appeal of the WWF introducing an hour-long special about conservation in Africa, The New Ark, which won Survival's first international award, the Golden Nymph of the Monte Carlo Film Festival in 1963. The original series ran for 40 years during which nearly 1000 shows were produced. It was also one of the UK's most lucrative television exports, with sales to 112 countries. In its prime, it achieved the highest overseas sales of any British documentary programme and, in 1974, gained a Queen's Award for export success. It became the first British programme sold to China (1979), the first to be broadcast simultaneously across the continent of North America (1987) and its camera teams were the first to shoot a major wildlife series in the former Soviet Union (1989-91). Survival films and film-makers won more than 250 awards worldwide, including four Emmy Awards and a BAFTA. Buxton, producer of Survival for most of its life, also received a Royal Television Society silver medal in 1968 for outstanding artistic achievement, and a gold medal in 1977.
In 1974 the IBA (formerly the ITA) redefined the region for Anglia Television. Where Anglia and Yorkshire overlapped around Humberside both services were available. The IBA decided that the Belmont transmitter in Lincolnshire would be given over to the Yorkshire area, bringing the northern boundary of Anglia back to its 1965 position. In 1988 the knight ident was replaced by a quasi-heraldic stylised 'A' made of triangles, which faded in and out on a fluttering flag. In the early 1990s, this was replaced with a black background and the flag fading in slowly. This was used until 1999.
During the broadcasting franchise reviews and applications of the 1980s Anglia managed to hold off opposition from only one other applicant, but in 1992 they faced stronger opposition from two consortia: Three East and CPV-TV. Anglia bid nearly £3 million more than Three East, which had crossed the quality threshold (CPV-TV had not), and they retained their broadcasting licence. In 1993, the station took over the cartoon studio Cosgrove Hall, when it was sold off by its original owners, Thames Television. Then in early 1994, Anglia was bought by MAI (owners of Meridian Broadcasting), who merged with United Newspapers to form United News and Media. They were joined by HTV in 1996. In 2000, following United's aborted merger attempt with Carlton, Granada bought the TV assets of United. In 2004, Granada finally merged with Carlton to form ITV plc, which ended Anglia's existence as a separate brand.
Much of Anglia TV's back catalogue is now held and preserved at the East Anglian Film Archive. A number of Anglia's Television productions have been released on DVD.

T&R Annan & Sons Ltd.

  • GB-1859-SJCA-CI258
  • Corporate body
  • 1855-

A family photography firm, founded in Glasgow by Thomas Annan (1829-1887) in 1855.
Originally from Dairsie in Fife and after an apprenticeship as a lithographic writer, Thomas Annan took up employment in 1849 with Joseph Swan, owner of a lithographic printworks in Glasgow. He then set up business with a trainee chemist called Berwich in 1855 as photographers with a colotype studio at 86 Woodlands Road. Berwick soon left to pursue a medical career and in 1857 he set up business on his own at 116 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow.
Originally specialists in architectural photography, a lot of his business at that time came from photographing country houses and mansions around Glasgow, and also from photographing paintings whilst at the houses. He also created carte-de-visite portraits and produced scenic and stereoscopic views, but he became best known for his artistic portraits and landscapes.
By 1859, Thomas Annan was based at 200 Hope Street and had a printworks in the town of Hamilton, east of Glasgow. During the 1860’s he began to specialise in creating photographic reproductions of paintings, the skill for which he would be most celebrated during his lifetime. His first notable commission in this area was in 1862 for the Glasgow Art Union. The next came in 1865, from David Octavius Hill, when Annan photographed his enormous painting of the founding of the Free Church. Annan produced thousands of prints of the painting using the new permanent carbon process developed by his mentor Joseph Swan, for which he purchased the patent rights for Scotland a year later. On Hill's death in 1870, Thomas inherited many early calotype negatives from the studio, from which he made and exhibited carbon prints.
At this time Thomas Annan lived next door to David Livingstone and took a well known portrait of him. He also took a series of images documenting the new Glasgow Water Work Scheme including a view of Queen Victoria at the Official opening. In 1868, Annan undertook what is now his most famous work. He was commissioned by the Glasgow City Improvement Trust to document the slum dwellings of Glasgow's East End prior to demolition. This is claimed to be one of the first times photography was used as documentary evidence. Annan used the most sensitive technique available, the wet collodion process, to cope with the lack of light in the narrow streets. It was an inconvenient process and photographs required immediate development and fixing, necessitating the use of a portable darkroom. Thus, three years were required to take 35 photographs. Two editions of 'The Old Closes and Streets of Glasgow' were published in Annan's lifetime, in 1872 and 1877.
Thomas Annan's brother Robert joined the firm in 1869 to assist with administration, and in 1873, the studio moved to 153 Sauchiehall Street, where it also served as an art gallery. The Gallery side of the firm flourished in the late 1800s when a major new painting would be borrowed from an artist or collector, it then became a great social occasion to view this piece in a dimly lit room then purchase a photogravure print of it. During the 1880s, the firm established an autotype works in Lenzie and also an engraving works in South Lambeth, London. In 1881, the Annan firm employed eight men, seventeen women and four boys.
In 1887, at the age of 57, Thomas took his own life. Upon Thomas Annan’s death his elder son, John (1863-1947), took over the business which became 'Annan and Sons' in 1888. John specialised in architectural photography, and is thought to have been responsible for the firm's engineering photographs. Annan’s younger son James Craig (1864-1946) had set up a photo-engraving business with Donald Swan in London in 1885, but upon his father's death returned to Glasgow to become a partner in the family business.
Like his father, James created new prints from Adamson and Hill's original calotypes, this time employing the new technique of photogravure which he had learned alongside his father from its inventor Karl Klíc in Vienna. He printed etchings and engravings by Scottish artist Muirhead Bone among others, and photographed the leading figures in the Glasgow Style movement. James became friendly with the famous Glasgow Architect, Charles Rennie Mackintosh and took the definitive portrait of him with his distinctive "floppy bow tie" as well as many contemporary images of his works.
The Annans took numerous photographs of Glasgow streets and buildings; were official photographers to the Glasgow International Exhibitions of 1888, 1901, and 1911; and in 1889, were awarded a Royal Warrant from Queen Victoria as 'Photographers and Photographic Engravers to her Majesty in Glasgow'.
James began to do more personal work from around 1890. He was one of the first to use a hand-held camera and he would manipulate the plates before printing, achieving very different prints from the same plate. He travelled in Europe with Scottish artist David Young Cameron, an etcher, and their joint exhibition in 1892, where some works portrayed the same subject, invited comparisons between the two media.
In the early 1890s, James was admitted to Glasgow Art Club as a 'photographic artist' and to the Linked Ring Brotherhood, a society formed to promote photography as fine art.
From the mid-1890s, James became an influential, international figure with exhibitions and one-man shows across Europe and the USA, and his photography and writing was widely reproduced in journals. It was through his correspondence with James from 1895 onwards that the American photographer Alfred Stieglitz became interested in the early Scottish pioneers of photography, introducing them to the American public and photographers worldwide via his journal Camera Work. James convened the photographic committee for the 1901 Glasgow International Exhibition, and two years later, buoyed by the financial success of the Exhibition, the firm commissioned Honeyman, Keppie & Mackintosh to design new premises at 518 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow.
The gallery side of the firm gradually evolved into selling paintings and etchings rather than photographic prints of them. Many famous artists exhibited in Annan's over the years including a show by L.S. Lowry in 1946. In 2006, Douglas Annan, the fifth generation of the family, left the business to concentrate on the photographic archive, and the Annan Gallery in 164 Woodlands Road now bears no family connection.

BBC

  • GB-1859-SJCA-CI259
  • Corporate body

Clayton & Bell

  • GB-1859-SJCA-CI268
  • Corporate body
  • 1856-1993

The London firm of Clayton and Bell were one of the most successful and prestigious stained glass window makers of the Victorian era.
The company was founded in 1856 by John Richard Clayton (1827-1913), and Alfred Bell (1832-95). John Clayton was a London illustrator and friends with several Pre-Raphaelite artists, most notably Dante Gabriel Rosetti. Alfred Bell, by contrast, was born in Devon, the son of a farm worker. The architect Sir George Gilbert Scott (1811-1878) saw some of Bell's drawings in the 1840s and was so impressed that he hired him and trained him in the Gothic Revival style. John Clayton trained as a sculptor under the architect Sir Charles Barry.
Bell initially formed a partnership with Nathaniel Lavers before joining forces with John Clayton and starting a new company in 1855. Sir George Gilbert Scott gave them several commissions and they were very successful very quickly. The mid-Victorian period saw a revitalisation of the Church of England. After centuries of decay, many medieval churches were restored and rebuilt, and there was a growing market for high-quality stained glass windows.
Clayton and Bell initially shared premises with Heaton & Butler. They produced the designs and Heaton & Butler supplied the kiln and the knowledge and expertise to manufacture the glass. Just three years later, in 1861, Clayton and Bell moved into large new premises on Regent Street, where they began to produce their own glass for their own designs. The company's growth was staggering; by the time they moved into their Regent Street premises Clayton and Bell were employing 300 workmen. Clayton and Bell's commercial success was due to the high demand for stained-glass windows at the time, their use of the best-quality glass available, the excellence of their designs and their employment of efficient factory methods of production. Within a few years, the firm had become one of the most prolific and proficient workshops of English stained glass. By the 1860’s and 1870’s night shifts were worked in order to fulfil the large number of commissions. Clayton and Bell then expanded from designing and making stained glass windows and began designing church murals and entire decorative schemes.
Alfred Bell and John Clayton retired from active participation in company affairs by the 1880s. The company was run by a succession of Bell's heirs; John Clement Bell (1860–1944) was succeeded by Reginald Otto Bell (1884–1950) and then by Michael Farrar-Bell (1911–1993). Unfortunately, the records of Clayton & Bell were largely lost after enemy bombing in World War II. However, their windows can be found throughout the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Among their major commissions, and perhaps the first entire cycle of glass produced in the Victorian era, is the cycle of great scholars produced for the Great Hall of the University of Sydney, designed by the colonial architect Edmund Blacket and based upon Westminster Hall in London. Among their other famous windows are the West Window of King's College Chapel, Cambridge, 1878, a very sensitive commission as much ancient glass still existed in the building, and also in Cambridge, a Last Judgement for St. John's College Chapel.
At Truro they were commissioned by John Loughborough Pearson to design windows for the new Cathedral. This work is thought to be amongst the finest Victorian stained glass in England. It tells the story of the Christian Church, starting with the birth of Jesus and finishing with the building of Truro Cathedral. The firm was also commissioned to design mosaics for the new Catholic Cathedral in Westminster, London. The altarpiece for the Chapel of Saints Augustine and Gregory, representing the conversion of England to Christianity is the work of Clayton and Bell, assembled by the Salviati firm from Murano, Italy.
Probably the most significant commission was to design the mosaics for each side and beneath the canopy of the Albert Memorial. This towering monument set on the edge of Hyde Park in London was built to commemorate Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who died in 1861. The firm of Salviati from Murano, Venice, had manufactured the mosaics to Clayton and Bell's designs. The firm of Clayton and Bell was awarded a Royal Warrant by the Queen in 1883.
The company moved from London to Buckinghamshire after WWII and ceased operating after Farrar-Bell's death in 1993.

Foyer & Co.

  • GB-1859-SJCA-CI276
  • Corporate body

Higham Priory

  • GB-1859-SJCA-CI318
  • Corporate body
  • c 1148-1521

The priory was probably founded c. 1148 - c. 1151, originally as a daughter house of St Sulpice in Brittany. Mary, daughter of King Stephen, was a nun at St Sulpice and moved with some other nuns from St Sulpice to the nunnery of St Leonard, Stratford at Bow. When tensions arose between the nuns of St Sulpice and St Leonard it was agreed that she and the St Sulpice nuns should settle at Lillechurch in the parish of Higham, in a priory founded by her parents. The patent rolls of 1266 state that King John (1189-1199) granted the manor of Lillechurch to the priory, but this may be the confirmation of a grant by a predecessor, i.e. Stephen. In 1227 Henry III granted the manor to the Abbey of St Mary and St Sulpice and the prioress and nuns of Lillechurch in frankalmoign, with an annual fair. In 1346 the nuns were granted a licence by Edward III to acquire land in Higham. However, the names Lillechurch and Higham were used interchangeably to describe the priory from at least the 1230s. The process of dissolution began in 1521, by which time Lillechurch / Higham was decaying and there were only three nuns left. Henry VIII granted the priory to St John's College on 21 October 1522, with all its possessions in Higham, Lillechurch, Shorne, Elmley, Dartford, Yalding, Brenchley, Pympe, Lamberhurst, Cliffe, Hoo, Horndon on the Hill, and 'Hylbrondeslands' in the counties of Kent and Essex. The commissary of the bishop carried out the appropriation on 19 May 1523, and it was confirmed by the bishop and the dean and chapter in March 1524, and by the archdeacon of Rochester on 1 May 1525. Pope Clement VII confirmed it by a bull dated 28 September 1524.

St. Radegund's Priory

  • GB-1859-SJCA-CI357
  • Corporate body
  • Unknown-1496

The origins of St. Radegund's Priory (also known as the Priory of St. Mary and St. Radegund) are unknown, though it is likely it was founded in the earliest years of the reign of King Stephen, during the episcopate of Nigellus, Bishop of Ely. There seem to be no records of its patronage; in 1496, when Bishop Alcock planned to convert the Priory into a college, he stated that it was 'of the foundation and patronage of the Bishop of Ely', though this assertion has been questioned.

During its time, though the Priory was given numerous small benefactions and gifts of land, it was never wealthy, with its poverty said to be notorious by 1277. This contributed to the Priory falling into a bad state of repair as there were not the funds necessary to fix damage caused by storms and fires. These conditions as well as the extravagant and dissolute life of the nuns, attributed to their proximity to the University of Cambridge, led to Henry VI in 1496 granting permission to Bishop Alcock to take the buildings and estates of the Priory for the foundation of what is known today as Jesus College, Cambridge.

Barnwell Priory

  • GB-1859-SJCA-CI358
  • Corporate body
  • 1092-1538

Barnwell Priory was founded in 1092 by Picot of Cambridge and construction was finally completed in 1112. The Priory was extremely wealthy during its time, with the number of monks rising from 6 to over 30. Additionally, it was chosen as the location for a Parliament held in Cambridge during the reign of Richard II.

The Priory became a target during the Peasants' Revolt in 1381 which caused a reported loss of £1000. It was dismantled in 1538 during the Dissolution of the Monasteries and stood as a ruin until 1810 when the land was cleared. Today, a school nearby is named after the Abbey and several streets in the area are named after former Priors.

Denny Abbey

  • GB-1859-SJCA-CI359
  • Corporate body
  • 1159-1536

Denny Abbey was founded in 1159 as a Benedictine monastery and is the only religious site in England to have been occupied by three different monastic orders at various times in its history. It was handed over to the Knights Templar in 1170 as a home for their aged and infirm members. In 1308, when the Templars were arrested for alleged heresy, the Abbey became a convent for a group of Franciscan nuns known as the Poor Clares. Their patron, the Countess of Pembroke, converted the original church into private apartments and built a new church, refectory and other buildings. Following the dissolution of the nunnery in 1539 by Henry VIII, it was converted into a farm and was in use until the late 1960s when it was acquired by Pembroke College and placed in the care of what is now English Heritage.

Chertsey Abbey

  • GB-1859-SJCA-CI360
  • Corporate body
  • 666-1537

Chertsey Abbey was founded in 666 by Erkenwald, a prince from Stallingborough, Lincolnshire, who was said to be related to Offa, King of East Anglia. The Abbey was founded as a Benedictine House, dedicated to St. Peter, and grew to become the fifth largest monastery in the country, with land covering 50,000 acres. Little is recorded of the Abbey before the mid 11th century, however it is known to have been the subject of a Viking raid in 871, after which it was rebuilt and had its land confirmed in a Charter of 889. The Abbey also suffered at least two fires in 1235 and 1381 as part of the Peasants' Revolt.

Throughout its history, Chertsey Abbey was regularly visited by the King, including King John, Henry III who held court there in 1217, Edward III and Henry VIII. The Abbey was dissolved in 1537 during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, with its monks sent to Bisham to create a new order specifically to pray for the soul of Jane Seymour. However, this new House was dissolved in less than a year and within a century, the empty buildings of Chertsey Abbey had been destroyed.

Stearn & Sons

  • GB-1859-SJCA-CI65
  • Corporate body
  • 1865-1966

A family photographic firm based in Cambridge. Thomas and Eliza Louise Stearn advertised their photography studio located in 72 Bridge St., Cambridge in 1867. They had 10 children, one of their sons, Frank became a photographic assistant in his parents' studio. For more information see http://www.fadingimages.uk/photoSte.asp.

Brackenbury, family

  • GB-1859-SJCA-F320
  • Family

Pierce Brackenbury (c. 1632-1692), Fellow of St John's, and descendants. They held lands of St John's in Deeping St James, Lincolnshire, and Marton-cum-Grafton, Yorkshire.

Atlay, James

  • GB-1859-SJCA-PN1
  • Person
  • 1817-1894

Son of Reverend Henry Atlay, James Atlay was educated at Grantham and Oakham schools and matriculated as an undergraduate at St John’s College, Cambridge, on 30th June 1836. He gained a BA in 1840 (9th Classic), and was elected to the Fellowship in 1842. He was ordained deacon the same year, priest the following year, and Bachelor of Divinity and Doctor of Divinity in 1850 and 1859 respectively. From 1843 to 1846 he held the curacy of Warsop in Nottinghamshire, and from 1847-1852 the vicarage of Madingley in Cambridgeshire. He was Whitehall Preacher 1856-58, Lady Margaret Preacher 1859 and 1887, and Select Preacher before the University of Cambridge in 1858, 1862, 1870, 1873, and 1890.

From 1846 to 1859 he was a tutor at St John’s College after which he was elected as successor to Walter Farquhar Hook as vicar in Leeds. He was well respected in the city, and was appointed canon residentiary at Ripon in 1861. Having refused the bishopric of Calcutta in 1867, the following year he succeeded Renn Dickson Hampden as Bishop of Hereford where he remained until his death on 24th December 1894. He is buried in ‘the layde arbour’ in Hereford Cathedral, where his tomb is adorned with a marble effigy.

Atlay married Frances Turner in 1859, resulting in several children.

Obituary in The Eagle: Vol 18, Lent Term 1895, p. 495
Accessible online at: https://documents.joh.cam.ac.uk/public/Eagle/Eagle%20Volumes/1890s/1895/Eagle_1895_Lent.pdf

Gregory, Reginald Phillip

  • GB-1859-SJCA-PN10
  • Person
  • 1879-1918

Born on 7th June 1879 in Wiltshire, the son of Arthur Gregory and Eliza Standerwick Barnes, and schooled at Weston-Super-Mare, Reginald Gregory matriculated at St John’s in 1898. In 1901 he graduated BA in the Natural Sciences Tripos, with a focus on Botany in Part II. Elected to the Fellowship in 1904, and University Lecturer in botany in 1907, he became a Tutor in 1912 and was popular with students and colleagues.
While his mother was known for her work on the genus Viola, Reginald Gregory focussed on the genetics and cytology of plants, having many papers published on the subject in scientific journals.
At outbreak of the First World War Gregory joined the Cambridge University Officers’ Training Corp, teaching cadets at the Cambridge School, and later served in as 2nd Lieutenant in the Gloucester Regiment. In August 1917 he was discharged from the Army after being badly gassed, and in November 1918 died from pneumonia brought on by influenza. He left his wife, Joan Laidlay and three daughters.

Obituary in The Eagle: Vol 40, Lent 1919, p117

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