Catalogue description The Iveagh (Phillipps) Suffolk Manuscripts
This record is held by Suffolk Archives - Ipswich
Reference: | HD 1538 |
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Title: | The Iveagh (Phillipps) Suffolk Manuscripts |
Description: |
SECTION ONE HD 1538/1-107: the compilations of antiquaries and topographers (notes, manuscripts and collected original records) relating to Suffolk in general) HD 1538/1-24 (Phillipps MS No. 3821) Collections for a History of Suffolk compiled and arranged by Craven Ord. Nos. 1-19 of the 24 folio volumes comprising the series are arranged alphabetically by Hundred (for the most part, one Hundred to a volume). Within each Hundred the arrangement is alphabetical by parish. Each parish entry normally commences with a cutting of the relevant extract from John Kirby's The Suffolk Traveller (2nd edition, London, 1764), with occasional manuscript annotations. There follow Ord's autograph notes, interspersed with tipped-in slips in the hands of Thomas Martin, Peter Le Neve and other Suffolk antiquaries. The notes consist for the most part of summaries or transcripts of final concords, grants of real property, inquisitions post mortem and the like. Various original documents, including private charters, inquisitions, membranes from court rolls, rentals, wills and hearth tax returns are also mounted in the volumes under the parishes to which they relate; these are listed in detail in the catalogue entries for the individual volumes below. Vol.20-24 consist of indexes to these and other collections by Ord. Summary HD 1538/1 Vol.1: Babergh Hundred HD 1538/2 Vol.2: Blackbourn Hundred HD 1538/3 Vol.3: Blything Hundred HD 1538/4 Vol.4: Bosmere and Claydon Hundred HD 1538/5 Vol.5: Carlford and Colneis Hundred HD 1538/6 Vol.6: Cosford Hundred HD 1538/7 Vol.7: Hartismere Hundred HD 1538/8 Vol.8: Hoxne Hundred HD 1538/9 Vol.9: Lackford Hundred HD 1538/10 Vol.10: Loes Hundred HD 1538/11 Vol.11: Mutford and Lothingland Hundred HD 1538/12 Vol.12: Plomesgate Hundred HD 1538/13 Vol.13: Risbridge Hundred HD 1538/14 Vol.14: Samford Hundred HD 1538/15 Vol.15: Stow and Thredling Hundreds HD 1538/16 Vol.16: Thedwestry Hundred HD 1538/17 Vol.17: Thingoe Hundred HD 1538/18 Vol.18: Wangford Hundred HD 1538/19 Vol.19: Wilford Hundred HD 1538/20-24 Vols.20-24: Indexes HD 1538/25-31 Miscellaneous documents HD 1538/32 Collections for the history of Suffolk and Norfolk, by Peter Le Neve HD 1538/33-41 Miscellaneous documents HD 1538/42 A Compleat History of Suffolk, by Revd Thomas Cox HD 1538/43-44 Miscellaneous documents HD 1538/45 Catalogue of the collection of William Stevenson Fitch HD 1538/46-51 Miscellaneous documents HD 1538/52 Catalogue of the collection of William Stevenson Fitch HD 1538/53-54 Heraldic visitations of Norfolk and Suffolk HD 1538/55 Notes on the arms of Suffolk families, by Henry Chitting, Chester Herald HD 1538/56-62 Miscellaneous documents HD 1538/63-65 Collections relating to Suffolk, by Revd George Ashby HD 1538/66 Kirby's Suffolk Traveller (1st edn.) HD 1538/67-68 Collections for the history of Suffolk, by Thomas Martin and Craven Ord HD 1538/69-74 Suffolk church notes, by Craven Ord HD 1538/75 Suffolk church notes, by Sir John Cullum HD 1538/76 Drawings of arms of Suffolk families HD 1538/77-78 Miscellanea HD 1538/79 Suffolk church notes, by Francis Blomefield HD 1538/80-81 Registers of Suffolk livings, by Craven Ord HD 1538/82 Notes on Suffolk religious houses, by Thomas Martin HD 1538/83-84 Collections for a history of Suffolk (anon.) HD 1538/85 Extracts from cartularies, etc., by Peter Le Neve HD 1538/86 Extracts from medieval documents, by Francis Blomefield HD 1538/87-93 Miscellaneous documents HD 1538/94 Suffolk church notes, by John Borret HD 1538/95 Collections for the county of Suffolk, by Thomas Tanner HD 1538/96-100 Miscellaneous documents HD 1538/101 Catalogue of the collection of William Stevenson Fitch HD 1538/102-105 Miscellaneous documents HD 1538/106 Heraldic visitation of Suffolk, by William Hervy, Clarenceux King of Arms HD 1538/107 Register of knights' fees, held of the Crown in chief SECTION TWO HD 1538/108-441: documents arranged in alphabetical order of the parishes and places to which they principally refer HD 1538/108 Acton HD 1538/109 Akenham HD 1538/110 Aldeburgh HD 1538/111 Alderton HD 1538/112 Aldham HD 1538/113 Alnesbourn Priory HD 1538/114 Ampton HD 1538/115 Ashbocking (see also Witnesham) HD 1538/116 Ashfield HD 1538/117 Aspall HD 1538/118 Athelington HD 1538/119 Bacton HD 1538/120 Badingham HD 1538/121 Badley HD 1538/122 Bardwell HD 1538/123 Barham HD 1538/124 Barking HD 1538/125 Barnham HD 1538/126 Barningham Barrow: see Saxham HD 1538/127 Great Barton HD 1538/128 Barton Mills HD 1538/129 Battisford HD 1538/130 Great Bealings HD 1538/131 Beccles HD 1538/132 Bedingfield HD 1538/133 Beyton HD 1538/134 Bentley (see also Dodnash and Ixworth) HD 1538/135 Bing (Byng) HD 1538/136 Blaxhall HD 1538/137 Blythburgh HD 1538/138 Blyford HD 1538/139 Boulge HD 1538/140 Boxford HD 1538/141 Bradfield HD 1538/142 Bradfield Combust HD 1538/143 Bradfield St Clare HD 1538/144 Bradwell HD 1538/145 Bramford HD 1538/146 Brampton HD 1538/147 Brandeston HD 1538/148 Brandon HD 1538/149 Brantham HD 1538/150 Great Bricett HD 1538/151 Brockford HD 1538/152 Bromeswell HD 1538/153 Brome (Broome) HD 1538/154 Brundish HD 1538/155 Bucklesham HD 1538/156 Bungay HD 1538/157 Bures HD 1538/158 Burgate HD 1538/159 Burgh Castle HD 1538/160 Burstall HD 1538/161-170 Bury St Edmunds HD 1538/171-172 Butley HD 1538/173 Buxlow (in Knodishall) HD 1538/174 Campsea Ashe (see also Alnesbourn Priory) HD 1538/175 Capel HD 1538/176 Cavendish HD 1538/177 Cavenham HD 1538/178 Charsfield HD 1538/179 Chattisham HD 1538/180 Chediston HD 1538/181 Chelmondiston HD 1538/182 Chickering (in Wingfield) HD 1538/183 Chillesford HD 1538/184 Claydon HD 1538/185 Coddenham HD 1538/186 Coney Weston HD 1538/187 Cookley HD 1538/188 Cowlinge HD 1538/189 Copdock HD 1538/190 Great Cornard HD 1538/191 Cotton HD 1538/192 Cove HD 1538/193 Cransford HD 1538/194 Cratfield (see also Dunningworth) HD 1538/195 Creeting HD 1538/196 Cretingham HD 1538/197 Crowfield (see also Ashbocking) HD 1538/198 Dalham HD 1538/199 Debenham HD 1538/200/1-4 Denham (in Hoxne Hundred) HD 1538/200/5-21 Denham (in Risbridge Hundred) HD 1538/201 Dennington HD 1538/202-204 Dodnash (in Bentley) (see also Bentley and Ixworth) HD 1538/205 Drinkstone HD 1538/206-207 Dunningworth (in Tunstall) HD 1538/208 Dunwich (see also Dunningworth) HD 1538/209 Edwardstone HD 1538/210 South Elmham and Homersfield (see also Sancroft) HD 1538/211 Elmswell HD 1538/212 Elveden HD 1538/213 Eriswell HD 1538/214 Euston HD 1538/215 Exning HD 1538/216 Eye HD 1538/217 Eyke (see also Staverton) HD 1538/218 Fakenham HD 1538/218A Falkenham HD 1538/219 Farnham HD 1538/220 Finborough HD 1538/221 Finningham HD 1538/222 Flixton HD 1538/223 Fornham All Saints HD 1538/224 Fornham St Martin HD 1538/225-227 Framlingham HD 1538/228 Framsden HD 1538/229 Freckenham HD 1538/230 Fressingfield HD 1538/231 Freston HD 1538/231A Friston HD 1538/232 Fritton HD 1538/233 Frostenden HD 1538/234 Gazeley (see also Herringswell) HD 1538/235 Gedding HD 1538/236 Gipping and Old Newton HD 1538/237 Gislingham HD 1538/238 Glemham HD 1538/239 Glemsford HD 1538/240 Gorleston HD 1538/241 Groton HD 1538/242 Gunton HD 1538/243 Hacheston HD 1538/244 Hadleigh HD 1538/245 Halesworth HD 1538/246 Harkstead HD 1538/247 Harleston HD 1538/248 Hartest HD 1538/249 Hasketon HD 1538/250 Haughley HD 1538/251 Haverhill HD 1538/252 Higham HD 1538/253 Helmingham HD 1538/254 Hemingstone HD 1538/255 Hepworth HD 1538/256 Herringswell and Gazeley (see also Gazeley) HD 1538/257 Hessett HD 1538/258 Hintlesham HD 1538/259 Holton HD 1538/260 Honington HD 1538/261 Hoo HD 1538/262 Hopton HD 1538/263 Horham HD 1538/264, 266 Hundon HD 1538/265 Hoxne HD 1538/267 Huntingfield HD 1538/268 Icklingham HD 1538/269 Ilketshall HD 1538/270-277 Ipswich HD 1538/278 Ixworth HD 1538/279 Kelsale HD 1538/280 Kessingland HD 1538/281 Ketton (Kedington) HD 1538/282 Kirton HD 1538/283 Knettishall HD 1538/284 Lackford HD 1538/285 Langham HD 1538/286 Lavenham HD 1538/287 Lawshall HD 1538/288 Laxfield HD 1538/289 Layham HD 1538/290 Letheringham HD 1538/291 Levington HD 1538/292 Lidgate HD 1538/293 Great Livermere HD 1538/294 Long Melford HD 1538/295-297 Loudham (in Pettistree; see also Pettistree) HD 1538/298 Lowestoft HD 1538/299 Mellis HD 1538/300 Melton HD 1538/301 Mendham HD 1538/302 Mendlesham HD 1538/303-304 Mettingham HD 1538/305 Mickfield HD 1538/306 Monewden HD 1538/307 Monks Eleigh HD 1538/308 Moulton HD 1538/309 Nacton HD 1538/310 Needham Market HD 1538/311 North Hales (alias Covehithe) HD 1538/312 Oakley HD 1538/313 Orford HD 1538/314 Otley HD 1538/315 Oulton HD 1538/316 Pakenham HD 1538/317 Palgrave HD 1538/318 Parham HD 1538/319 Peasenhall HD 1538/320 Pettaugh HD 1538/321 Pettistree (see also Bing and Loudham) HD 1538/322 Polstead HD 1538/323 Ramsholt HD 1538/324 Rattlesden HD 1538/325 Redgrave HD 1538/326 Redisham HD 1538/327 Redlingfield HD 1538/328 Rendham HD 1538/329 Rendlesham HD 1538/330 Reydon / Raydon HD 1538/331 Rickinghall HD 1538/332 Ringshall HD 1538/333 Risby HD 1538/334 Rougham HD 1538/335 Rumburgh HD 1538/336 Rushmere HD 1538/337 Sancroft (Southelmham St Cross; see also Southelmham and Homersfield) HD 1538/338 Sapiston HD 1538/339 Saxham HD 1538/340 Saxmundham HD 1538/341 Shadingfield HD 1538/342 Shimpling HD 1538/343 Shipmeadow HD 1538/344 Shotley HD 1538/345 Sibton and Bungay HD 1538/346 Snape HD 1538/347 Earl Soham HD 1538/348 Monk Soham HD 1538/349 Somerleyton HD 1538/350 Somersham HD 1538/351 Sotterley HD 1538/352 Southwold HD 1538/353 Spexhall HD 1538/354 Sproughton HD 1538/355 Stanton HD 1538/356-358 Staverton (in Eyke) HD 1538/359 Sternfield HD 1538/360 Stoke Ash HD 1538/361 Stoke by Clare HD 1538/362 Stoke (by Ipswich) HD 1538/363 Stoke-by-Nayland HD 1538/364 Stonham HD 1538/365 Stonham Aspal HD 1538/366 Earl Stonham HD 1538/367 Stow HD 1538/368 Stowmarket HD 1538/369 Stowupland HD 1538/370 Stradishall HD 1538/371 Stutton HD 1538/372 Sudbourne HD 1538/373 Sudbury HD 1538/374 Sutton HD 1538/375 Swilland HD 1538/376-377 Syleham HD 1538/378 Tattingstone HD 1538/379 Theberton HD 1538/380 Thelnetham HD 1538/381 Thetford HD 1538/382 Thorington HD 1538/383 Thorndon HD 1538/384 Thornham HD 1538/385 Thorpe Morieux HD 1538/386 Thrandeston HD 1538/387 Thurleston HD 1538/388 Thurston HD 1538/389 Tostock HD 1538/390 Trimley St Martin and St Mary HD 1538/391 Troston HD 1538/392A Tuddenham St Martin HD 1538/392B East Tuddenham (Norfolk) HD 1538/393 Tunstall (see also Dunningworth) HD 1538/394-402 Ufford HD 1538/403 Walberswick HD 1538/404 Walpole HD 1538/405 Wangford (in Blything Hundred) HD 1538/406 Wantisden HD 1538/407 Weybread HD 1538/408 Whelnetham HD 1538/409 Wenhaston (see also Blythburgh) HD 1538/410 Westerfield HD 1538/411 Westhorpe HD 1538/412 Westleton HD 1538/413 Westley HD 1538/414-415 Market Weston HD 1538/415/7 Weston (in Wangford Hundred) HD 1538/416 Wetheringsett (see also Brockford) HD 1538/417 Withersfield HD 1538/418 Whatfield HD 1538/419 Whepstead HD 1538/420 Wherstead (see also Redlingfield) HD 1538/421 Whitton HD 1538/422 Wixoe (Whixoe) HD 1538/423 Wickhambrook HD 1538/424/1-18 Wickham Market HD 1538/424/19-47; 425 Wickham Skeith HD 1538/426 Wilby HD 1538/427 Willingham HD 1538/428 Wingfield (see also Chickering) HD 1538/429-430 Winston HD 1538/431 Wissett HD 1538/432 Witnesham HD 1538/433 Wiverstone / Wyverstone HD 1538/434 Wolverstone / Woolverstone HD 1538/435 Woodbridge HD 1538/436 Worlingworth HD 1538/437 Wortham (see also Wrentham) HD 1538/438 Wratting HD 1538/439 Wrentham (recte Wortham) HD 1538/440 Yarmouth HD 1538/441 Yoxford |
Date: | 12c-19c |
Arrangement: |
Scholars have long been familiar with the check-list compiled while the collection was still at Elveden. Both because it was considered important to preserve existing reference numbers which have been cited in published works, and also because in a purely artificial collection such as this, it was neither necessary nor appropriate to adopt an archival scheme of classification based on record function, it was decided to retain the existing arrangement and basic numbering of the documents. The collection and catalogue therefore remain in two main sections. The first, comprising Iveagh MS Nos. 1-107 (now HD 1538/1-107), is a general section consisting of manuscripts relating either to the whole county or to a number of parishes - for example, the twenty-four volumes of Craven Ord's Suffolk Collections, arranged by Hundreds. All original documents bound into such collected volumes have now been listed individually, and the level of description of other items has been amplified. The second section, comprising Iveagh MS Nos.108-441 (HD 1538/108-441), consists of manuscripts arranged in alphabetical order of parish from Acton to Yoxford, generally with one main number (the former Iveagh MS No.) per parish. Again, each original document has now been given a separate listing; in particular every medieval charter has been fully calendared. This has meant that Section Two of the list has been sub-numbered throughout. In each case the Phillipps MS No. of each document or group of documents has also been preserved in brackets in the text. Occasionally, examples have been found in the check-list of medieval documents assigned in error to the wrong parish. The definitive list leaves them in their original positions, but makes cross-references to the correct parish. |
Related material: |
The Ipswich Branch of the Suffolk Record Office is in possession of a considerable quantity of material cognate to this collection, particularly a number of items from the Fitch sales of 1859 which were not acquired by Phillipps. They include the following: HD 480/1-31: the Fitch collection of Suffolk Illustrations (27 volumes of prints and drawings for the county, arranged by Hundreds, and four volumes for Ipswich. These were purchased by the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology. qS 9: thirty volumes of Fitch's 'Collections of Manuscripts Relating to the History of Suffolk' (MS notes, documents and ephemera). qS 271: 'Monasticon Suffolciensis', four volumes of Fitch's notes on the history of Suffolk monasteries. S Ipswich 9: Fitch's 'Notitia Towards a History of Ipswich'. (All the above were transferred to the Record Office from Ipswich Central Library in 1976.) HD 1047/1-2: two volumes assembled by Fitch, containing together 152 13th- and 14th- century charters, mostly relating to property in Bentley, Tattingstone and neighbouring parishes, and apparently associated with the 'Dodnash Cartulary', HD 1538/202/1. They were purchased by Sir Thomas Phillipps at the Fitch sale of 29th November 1859, becoming Phillipps MS 16734. For some reason they were not included in the sale to Lord Iveagh in 1914. They were purchased by the Record Office from a London bookseller in 1982. HD 1408/1: a business and personal account book of Thomas Martin, covering the years 1726-1731 (purchased and presented by the Friends of Suffolk Record Office, 1988). qS 929.2: three volumes of pedigrees and notes on Suffolk families, by Craven Ord (HD 1538/22 is in part an index to these). S 929.1: two MS volumes collected by Ord, on the arms and pedigrees of Suffolk families, including material by Le Neve, Martin, Ives and Cullum. |
Held by: | Suffolk Archives - Ipswich, not available at The National Archives |
Language: | English |
Creator: |
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Restrictions on use: |
In the interests of the long-term preservation of the Iveagh Manuscripts, no photocopying from bound volumes in the collection can be permitted. Photographic copies may be supplied in accordance with the current scale of charges, copies of which are obtainable from the searchrooms at all three Branches of the Record office. |
Immediate source of acquisition: |
Documents purchased on 15 May 1987 (Acc. No. 10,437) |
Custodial history: |
Until their purchase for the county for £250,000 in 1987 the Iveagh Manuscripts comprised without exception the richest source of archival and documentary evidence for Suffolk's history - particularly its medieval history - still remaining in private hands. The Manuscripts fall into two distinct groups: the Phillipps Manuscripts, a wholly artificial collection, purchased by the first Earl of Iveagh from Sir Thomas Phillipps's grandson in 1914, and concerning which considerably more detail is given below; and the Cornwallis Papers. The latter consist of the estate archive of the Cornwallis family (descended from Thomas Cornwallis, Sheriff of London 1378-84), who were prominent landowners in Suffolk, centred around Brome and Oakley in the north of the county, from the early fifteenth to the early nineteenth century. The greater part of the Cornwallis material comprises manorial records, although there are also domestic accounts and estate records from the late sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth century. All were purchased by the second Earl of Iveagh from a London book-dealer in 1931. Evidence suggests that they were previously inherited from the Cornwallis family by Richard Griffin Neville (1783-1858), third Baron Braybrooke, of Audley End, Essex, who in 1819 married Jane, daughter of Charles, second Marquess Cornwallis. From the dates of their acquisition by the Earls of Iveagh, both collections remained at Elveden Hall. On their acquisition by the Suffolk Record Office the decision was taken to preserve them at the Ipswich Branch, as two distinct collections. The Cornwallis archive, which complements previously deposited material (HA 68) relating to the family estates in Brome and Oakley, has been classified as HA 411. The Phillipps Manuscripts have been classified as HD 1538; it is this group only which forms the subject of the present catalogue. Sir Thomas Phillipps, baronet (1792-1872), antiquary and bibliophile, and by his own description 'a perfect vello-maniac', was the pre-eminent manuscript collector of his age. The son of a Worcestershire landowner, he was already collecting books while still a schoolboy at Rugby. As a student at University College, Oxford his taste for old books and manuscripts increased, and on succeeding to his father's estates in 1818 he embarked on the main business of his life, the collection of rare manuscripts of all ages, countries, languages and subjects. Looking back on his career in later years, Phillipps wrote: In amassing my collection of manuscripts I commenced with purchasing everything that lay within my reach, to which I was instigated by reading various accounts of the destruction of valuable manuscripts ... My principal search has been for historical, and particularly unpublished, manuscripts, whether good or bad, and more particularly those on vellum. My chief desire for preserving vellum manuscripts arose from witnessing the unceasing destruction of them by goldbeaters; my search for charters and deeds by the destruction in the shops of glue-makers and tailors. As I advanced the adour of the pursuit increased, until at last I became a perfect vello-maniac (if I may coin a word), and I gave any price that was asked. Nor do I regret it, for my object was not only to secure good manuscripts for myself, but also to raise the public estimation of them, so that their value might be more generally known, and consequently, more manuscripts preserved. For nothing tends to the preservation of anything so much as making it bear a high price. The examples I always kept in view were Sir Robert Cotton and Sir Robert Harley. The Phillipps Collection eventually included between four and five hundred volumes of Oriental manuscripts alone; and it was also very rich in early Welsh poetry. We are concerned here, however, solely with Phillipps's massive purchases of Suffolk material. Even before it came into Phillipps's hands, much of this material already had a distinguished history of ownership by successive Suffolk antiquaries of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The collection includes manuscripts owned, worked over, annotated or written by the herald and genealogist Peter Le Neve; by 'Honest' Tom Martin of Palgrave; and by John Ives, who in turn had access to the Le Neve-Martin manuscripts before his own early death in 1776 at the age of twenty-four. Dominating the collection in terms of provenance, however, are the manuscripts of Craven Ord and William Stevenson Fitch, because these were from libraries dispersed in Phillipps's own day. Many of the original documents among the Iveagh (Phillipps) Manuscripts were first assembled by Peter Le Neve (1661-1729), who was successively Richmond Herald and Norroy King of Arms; and his collections also include the notes of his own antiquarian researches, many in his own hand, others in that of his amanuensis Thomas Allen. Born in London, he was the son of Francis Neve, an upholsterer of St Michael, Cornhill (the 'Le' prefix had been dropped from the family name for several generations when Peter's antiquarian leanings induced him to re-adopt it), and the grandson of Firmian Neve of Ringland, Norfolk. He early won a high reputation in antiquarian circles, and in 1687, when aged only twenty-six, he was elected President of the Society of Antiquaries, an office he was to hold for thirty-seven years. Le Neve succeeded to property in Norfolk on the death of his brother Oliver, who had married twice, successively into the Norfolk gentry families of Gawdy and Knyvett. Not surprisingly, therefore, the greater part of this antiquarian activity related to Norfolk - the materials which he collected ultimately formed the backbone of Francis Blomefield's eleven-volume history of the county. Even so, he managed to amass and compile a significant quantity of material relating to Suffolk. Though Le Neve was twice married, he had no children. His first wife Prudence, daughter of a Bristol merchant, had the reputation of a shrew, and his second wife Frances re-married, 1732, her husband's executor Thomas Martin, who thereby succeeded to the bulk of Le Neve's collections. Indeed, it was widely believed in antiquarian circles that he married her in order to acquire them. 'Honest Tom' Martin was born in 1697 at Thetford, in the school-house of St Mary's parish. He was the son of William Martin, rector of Great Livermere and St Mary, Thetford. After attending school at Thetford he became a clerk in the office of his brother Robert, who was in practice as an attorney in the town. According to some of Martin's notes, dated 1715, when he was eighteen years old, he disliked his job, and regretted that lack of money had prevented him from going as a student to Cambridge, where his mother's nephew, Sir James Burrough, was Master of Gonville and Caius. By 1723, at the age of twenty-six, he was settled at Palgrave, where he spent the remainder of his life. He was a tireless student of topography and antiquities, and by the age of twenty-three was already a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. A fellow antiquary, who often met him at the Master's Lodge at Gonville and Caius, described him as a blunt, rough, honest, downright man, of no behaviour or guile; often drunk in a morning with strong beer; and for breakfast, when others had tea or coffee, he had beefsteak or other strong meat. His thirst after antiquities was as great as his thirst after liquors. Martin is said to have been a good lawyer, but his self-confessed dislike of the practical side of his profession increased as he grew older, and he gradually lost many of his clients. He was ultimately reduced to such financial hardship that he was obliged to sell many of his books and portions of his manuscript collections. His remaining library was sold after his death in 1771 and purchased by John Worth, a chemist of Diss, with his other remaining collections, for £600. The printed books he immediately sold to the firm of Booth and Berry of Norwich, who disposed of them in a catalogue in 1773. Part of the manuscript collection was sold in London in 1773 by Samuel Baker, and in a second London sale in May 1774 many more manuscripts, charters, pedigrees, prints and drawings were disposed of. The remainder, consisting of Martin's papers relating to Thetford, Bury St Edmunds and the county of Suffolk, were sold following Worth's sudden death, also in 1774. The effects of this dispersal, certainly as regards the Suffolk collections, were mitigated by the fact that a principal purchaser at all the sales was Martin's young friend John Ives - who in turn annotated many of the manuscripts, thus adding to their historical value. Ives, who was one of East Anglia's most promising young antiquaries, was born in Yarmouth into a wealthy merchant family and, by his own account, was aged sixteen when he first began to apply himself to the study of antiquities. In 1772 he was admitted a Fellow of the Royal Society, while in 1774 the office of Suffolk Herald Extraordinary was revived for him for only the second time since the reign of Henry VIII; no-one has held it since. With his tragically early death in 1776 the Suffolk manuscripts were again threatened with dispersal. Much loss was prevented by the collecting activities of another antiquary, Craven Ord (1756-1832), a man of independent means whose lifelong research into churches and monumental brasses extended to the whole of southern England. He was for several years Vice-President of the Society of Antiquaries. In association with Sir John Cullum he prompted and assisted Gough in his great work on the 'Sepulchral Monuments of Great Britain', and Gough himself testified that 'the impressions of some of the finest brasses' were owed to Ord's efforts. The dispersal of Ord's antiquarian collections began in 1829, when he left England for the sake of his health. Twenty folio volumes of his Suffolk Collections were purchased by the dealer Thorpe for £210 - a considerable sum for that time - and are now in the British Library. A second sale of Ord's manuscripts took place in January 1830, when a very large quantity of small medieval charters was sold in bags, which fetched from £2 to £3 each. Many of these had previously belonged to Thomas Martin, and had been acquired by Ord for a few shillings. It was these two sales that gave Sir Thomas Phillipps his first and finest opportunities to acquire large quantities of Suffolk manuscripts of the first importance. Apart from cartularies and a magnificent set of twenty-four volumes of Ord's collected notes and original documents (HD 1538/1-24), he acquired six volumes of Ord's Suffolk Church Notes (HD 1538/69-74), many fine series of early manorial account rolls, court rolls and charters (many of them relating to the estates of the dissolved monasteries), and the autograph of William Harvey's 1561 heraldic visitation of Suffolk (HD 1538/106). The last major contributor to the Phillipps Suffolk Collection was William Stevenson Fitch (1792-1859), the Ipswich druggist, and postmaster for the borough from 1837. He was not, apparently, as obliging or efficient as he might have been; he notoriously disliked giving change, and performed all his postal duties in a small room at the back of his shop in the Buttermarket, measuring only twelve feet square. Following vigorous protests about the condition of his Post Office at meetings of the Borough Council in May 1855, when it was described as 'a disgrace to the town', it was transferred from the Buttermarket to the Town Hall. Fitch's attitude to business bears marked similarities to that of Thomas Martin, referred to above; with both men, their antiquarian interests were obviously an all-consuming passion, and their bread-and-butter occupations merely a tiresome nuisance. Fitch was well-known as an antiquarian and collector of local books, manuscripts and antiquities. He had many friends in the literary and historical circles of his day, by whom he was held in high regard. Perhaps the most impressive accession to his collection in terms of sheer quantity was his purchase in 1850 of three quarters of a hundredweight of the manuscripts of the Revd James Ford, for twenty-two years perpetual curate of St Lawrence, Ipswich, which Fitch secured for forty-nine shillings at a house sale in Essex. Dr Theodosius Purland, a friend of Thomas Baldock Ross, Mayor of Ipswich in 1850, who visited the town that year and was entertained by Mr and Mrs Fitch, has left a description of the Fitch Collection in a curious manuscript entitled 'Ye Yppswyche Deazle' (now in the Local Studies Library at the Ipswich Branch of the Record Office, ref. qS Ipswich 9). He goes on to comment that how the collection was assembled, no-one but Fitch knew; and continues: The Mayor told us in confidence, and we communicate it in the same manner, 'that he would not trust Fitch alone with the Corporation deeds on any account'; the Mayor is much to be commended for his prudence; such men as Master Fitch are not found every day, but when found they require a deal of looking after! For all the regard in which he was held by his antiquarian friends, Fitch's activities were thus clearly suspect even in his own day. In his article on Fitch (Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology, vol.XXVIII (1959), pp.109-35) the Revd A.H. Denney reminds us (p. 119) that as a mere local druggist he was far from wealthy; and it seems unlikely that the whole of his collection could have been honestly come by. Moreover, the Fitch Collection contained much material that could never have come on the open market at all, including many items undoubtedly purloined from the archives of Ipswich Corporation. Dr Geoffrey Martin, who says of Fitch that 'the designation of collector might be modified by a more forthright term', accuses him of wholesale pillage ('The Records of the Borough of Ipswich, to 1422', Journal of the Society of Archivists, vol.I, no.4, Oct.1956, pp.87-93), but it appears that the greatest blame must be laid at the door of Fitch's friend William Batley, who on his retirement after many years as Town Clerk illicitly retained many of the Corporation records with whose custody he had been entrusted while in office. The most important item in the whole of Fitch's vast collection (the catalogue of which alone ran to four volumes) was the so-called Cartulary of Dodnash Priory (now HD 1538/202/1); when the collection was sold on Fitch's death in 1859 this item fetched £100, by far the highest price realised in the whole sale. It consists of 156 original charters, dating from the twelfth to the early sixteenth century, relating to the estates of the small Augustinian priory of Dodnash in Bentley. They were mounted and bound for Fitch, and the contents include a rare papal bull of Honorius III, dated 1218, with the lead bulla still attached. From the Dissolution of the Monasteries Dodnash Priory's possessions were owned by the Tollemaches of Helmingham, who had held estates in Dodnash and Bentley since medieval times. It seems virtually certain that the Dodnash charters must have come from Helmingham hall, but through whose agency Fitch acquired them cannot be established. As already mentioned, the sales of Craven Ord's collections in 1829 and 1830 gave Sir Thomas Phillipps his first and finest opportunities to acquire large quantities of Suffolk manuscripts. He was also to be a major purchaser at the Fitch sales of 1859. While much of the Suffolk material had thus passed down a chain of successive antiquarian owners, a great deal was inevitably dispersed in successive sales following the death, ill-health or financial misfortune of the successive owners. Much went permanently to the British Library, the Bodleian and other national institutions, but much also remained in private hands. But because Ord, and afterwards particularly Phillipps, purchased so very widely, the Suffolk section of the Phillipps Collection ultimately came to include the collections - working notes and manuscripts - of a number of other Suffolk antiquaries of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries - such as John Borret (d.1698) the historian of Framlingham Castle and church; Francis Blomefield (better known as the historian of Norfolk but also the compiler of notes on Suffolk churches); and the Revd George Ashby (1724-1808), President of St John's College, Cambridge and for thirty-three years Rector of Barrow, whose varied learning was said to be the admiration of the best-known antiquaries of the eighteenth century, all of whom he counted among his friends. Also included are the works of the Revd George Burton, Rector of Elveden, the Revd William Cole and Sir John Cullum. Phillipps thus not only prevented the dispersal of much manuscript material relating to Suffolk, but also succeeded in bringing together much that had previously been dispersed. With a view to making some of his manuscripts more generally accessible, Phillipps established a private printing press at Broadway Tower on his estate at Middle Hill, Worcestershire. By 1862 the collection had expanded to such an extent that he decided to remove his library from Middle Hill to a larger building - Thirlestaine House near Cheltenham, which he bought from Lord Northwick. On his death in 1872, Phillipps left Thirlestaine House and his library in the hands of trustees for his daughter Katherine and her son, Thomas FitzRoy Fenwick; but because the main estates at Middle Hill were entailed, they passed to Phillipps's detested son-in-law James Orchard Halliwell, and there was thus no money available to keep up the library. Following changes in the laws of property in the 1880s, permitting trustees to sell chattels settled as heirlooms, with the approval of the Court of Chancery, groups of manuscripts -fortunately not including the Suffolk collections - were disposed of in a series of sales. We come now to the final stage of the story of how the manuscripts came to Elveden. In 1848 a Sikh rebellion in the Punjab gave the British the excuse to remove the boy ruler, the Maharajah Duleep Singh, from his throne. He forfeited all his property, and was obliged to accept a £10,000 annual pension from the East India Company. Settling in England, in the 1860s he purchased Elveden Hall, the eighteenth-century Georgian home of Admiral Lord Keppel, and enlarged and remodelled it, externally in Italianate style and internally into an oriental palace. Duleep Singh died in Paris in 1893, having quarrelled with the British authorities, and was buried in Elveden churchyard. His son, Prince Frederick Duleep Singh, who during his own residence at Elveden had himself become an antiquary, keenly interested in the history of Suffolk, was instrumental in negotiating Lord Iveagh's purchase of the Phillipps Suffolk Collection and bringing it to Elveden. It was a condition of one of the late Maharajah's money-raising expedients with the India Office that the 5,550 acre Elveden estate should be sold after his death, and it was duly purchased by Lord Iveagh in 1894. Edward Cecil Guinness (1847-1927) was the youngest son of Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness, the Dublin brewer. He inherited a share in the Guinness Brewery in 1868, and eventually became Company Chairman in 1886. He was raised to the peerage as Baron Iveagh, of Iveagh, County Down, in 1891, becoming successively Viscount and Earl of Iveagh. He probably owed his elevation to his philanthropic activities, which included gifts of £250,000 for erecting improved workers' housing in London and Dublin; £250,000 for demolishing Dublin slum property; and £250,000 to the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine. He was ultimately to bequeath to the nation a valuable collection of pictures, to form the nucleus of an art gallery at Kenwood House which he endowed for this purpose. On purchasing Elveden he proceeded to enlarge the house again, on the grand scale. King Edward VII stayed there over every other New Year, alternating with Chatsworth, and George V was afterwards a regular visitor for the shooting. In 1908, Prince Frederick Duleep Singh had visited FitzRoy Fenwick at Thirlestaine House and seen the manuscripts for the first time. He was greatly struck by the value and size of the collections relating to Suffolk, and brought them to the notice of Lord Iveagh, who asked him to tell Fenwick that he would be disposed to buy the whole Suffolk collection at a fair price. Fenwick replied on 10th June 1908 that 'We should require a good price, but not a fancy one', and promised to prepare a detailed list for Lord Iveagh's consideration. In the event, the list took six years to prepare, partly because more Suffolk material kept turning up as Fenwick worked on other parts of the library. In July 1914, having viewed the collection for Lord Iveagh for a second time (in the company of the Revd Edmund Farrer), Prince Frederick wrote to Fenwick that Lord Iveagh 'was somewhat staggered at the vastness of your Suffolk collections and - incidentally - at the [provisional] price ... [but] I am glad to say that he is not really averse to the idea'. He asked Fenwick to name a definite price. In a long and detailed reply dated 20th July, Fenwick expressed his pleasure that Lord Iveagh was still disposed to consider the purchase: If he does decide to acquire them [he wrote], he will know that he is obtaining valuable works it is impossible to obtain elsewhere, and that no such collection could ever be made again. Acquiring a collection of this kind, the greater part of which has passed through the hands of all the most famous East Anglian antiquaries and collectors, is not like purchasing so-called unique printed books, other copies of which may at any time turn up and reduce their value. These are really unique, in excellent condition, most of them of very early date, and the valuable collection of seals attached to them adds greatly to their importance. This was not mere sales talk; examination of the present catalogue will confirm that Fenwick indulged in little exaggeration. He concluded his letter by stating that he hoped to complete his valuation that night, and would name a final price by telegram the following day. The telegram that followed on 21st July asked £3,725. Prince Frederick conveyed the news to Lord Iveagh on the same day, and he accepted by return of post. A statement made by the Revd E. Farrer to a council meeting of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology held on 7th May 1930, a copy of which is pasted into the minute book, indicates that Farrer helped persuade Lord Iveagh to meet the purchase price, telling him that otherwise the collection would be dispersed, with many items going to America. We may note in passing that, two days after the sale was agreed, Austria-Hungary issued her ultimatum to Serbia, and within a few days more, Great Britain was at war. Had the purchase not taken place when it did, the fate of the Phillipps Collection of Suffolk Manuscripts might have been very different; in the harsh economic climate that followed the Great War, the owners might well have been forced to sell it off in many separate lots, in the absence of any single wealthy purchaser, and the collection might well have been dispersed irretrievably. Thankfully, that did not happen. Lionel Mumby comments on Lord Iveagh's purchase, 'It must have been one of the most important groups of topographical documents ever to have changed hands en bloc'. As material for local history, as a microcosm of the history of Suffolk antiquarianism, and indeed as the last relic of the Phillipps Manuscripts, it is an altogether remarkable collection. Thanks to the efforts of all who contributed to the 1986-87 appeal, it has been saved intact for the community of Suffolk. |
Publication note: |
Researchers are referred to the following works, copies of which are in the Record Office Library: Archive News (the newsletter of the Suffolk Record Office), first series, No.3 (Jan.-Jun.1974) and No.8 (Jul.-Dec.1976), which between them list the antiquarian collections held at the Bury St Edmunds and Ipswich Branches of the Office. John Blatchly, The Topographers of Suffolk (5th edn, S.R.O., 1988), which prints specimens of the handwriting of fifty-two antiquaries who worked in or toured through Suffolk - an indispensible tool for the recognition of their often unsigned work. A.H. Denney, 'William Stevenson Fitch, 1792-1859' (Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology, vol.XXVIII, Part 2 (1959), pp. 109-35). Norman Scarfe, 'John Ives, F.R.S. and F.S.A., Suffolk Herald Extraordinary, 1751-1776' (Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology, vol.XXXIII, Part 3 (1976), pp.299-309). |
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