Winifred was born in south-west Surrey. Her father, David, was described in the 1881 census return as an ‘Australian merchant’. He was a native of Tasmania and by the late 19th century had amassed a sufficient fortune to be ‘living on his own means.’ In 1914 he purchased Longstock House, to the north of Stockbridge, but died before he had time to move in. However, the house was substantially modernised in 1915 with the installation of electricity and a telephone and Mrs Beddington and her children, including Winifred, lived there until her death in 1945, when it was bought by John Spedan Lewis, a businessman and founder of the John Lewis Partnership.

Of the huge number of guidebooks for walkers published over the years, An Historical Account of Winchester, with Descriptive Walks published in 1817 by Charles Ball set a standard rarely bettered. His firm objective was to improve on previous attempts to recount the history and antiquities of Winchester, which he regarded as ‘little better than dry unconnected catalogues of historical fact, intermingled with a series of doubtful occurrences, or filled with tedious details of obsolete charters …’.  The Salisbury and Winchester Journal, 20 April 2018, published a glowing review, saying that it was ‘written in a style at once pleasing and perspicuous [sic]’ and pointing out that he ‘has not only availed himself of [works by] Trussell, Gale, Warton, Wavel[l],1 and Milner, and other writers of celebrity, but has also been favoured by several gentlemen friendly to his undertaking…’.

Today, the name of F.J. Baigent is best known as the co-author with the Rev J.E. Millard (1823-1894) of the monumental History of the Ancient Town and Manor of Basingstoke, published in 1889. Baigent was already a distinguished antiquarian, whilst Millard had only written minor works on the area when, in 1882, he became a minor canon of Winchester Cathedral. where almost certainly he engaged the talents and experience of Baigent. Apart from this and works on heraldry and a history of the Church of Our Lady (now St Mathew’s) Weeke, near Winchester (a source used in the VCH), most of his work involved a detailed technical approach to the minutiae of history.

Frances Awdry was the eighth child of Sir John Wither Awdry Kt, who served as Chief Justice in Bombay before returning home to live at Notton House, Lacock, in Wiltshire. Her brother Vere Awdry (1854 –1928) one-time vicar of Ampfield, was the father of Wilbert Vere Awdry (1911-1997) author of the Thomas the Tank Engine books for children.

This is not the place to repeat the well-documented life of one of England’s most celebrated novelists, but the huge amount of writing about her incidentally provides an intimate picture of her period. Not only does it vividly illuminate life in the north of the county in and around Basingstoke, but also elsewhere, in Bath, Southampton and Winchester.

Elinor Aubrey was born in Southampton and until her retirement she spent her whole life in the town. Census records indicate that her father was an ‘elementary school master’ and in the 1901 census return her occupation is shown as that of ‘teacher’ (with the enumerator incorrectly adding the word ‘school’). The 1911 census shows her employer as University College. When she retired in 1931 it was noted that she had been a lecturer in the English Department for 35 years. Following her retirement she moved to Ryde on the Isle of Wight, where she died aged 85.

The son of a clergyman, he was educated at Rossall School, Lancashire, and University College, London, and studied architecture under Sir Arthur Blomfield. He spent much of his early working life as an architect in partnership with C.W. Long in an office in Trumpington Street, Cambridge. He gained a reputation for medieval architecture through his work at Ely. The Hon. Archivist, Elizabeth Stazicker, comments. ‘TD Atkinson, who was Surveyor to the Dean and Chapter of Ely Cathedral from 1906 to 1920, is very important to us here both for his An Architectural History of the Benedictine Monastery of St Ethelreda at Ely, which of course deals largely with the College (precinct) buildings and for his account of the cathedral itself published in Volume iv of the Victoria History of Cambridgeshire. I gather that he had been articled to Blomfield in 1882, and from 1882-87 worked as his assistant and clerk of works on a number of church restoration projects.  He qualified in 1889 and by 1892 had his own practice in Cambridge (Kelly’s Directory). [The Ely Chapter minutes] show that he had hoped at first to continue as surveyor here after his appointment to Winchester, reported to the Chapter in January 1919 but it seems that it did not work out from the Dean and Chapter’s point of view, and in November 1920 they decided that he should be given 3 months’ notice.’

In 1960 he became the City Archivist for Winchester after 32 years lecturing at Winchester Training College, later named King Alfred’s College, and then transformed into the University of Winchester, where he is remembered by the Tom Atkinson Building.

Ashley-Cooper was born at Bermondsey, in metropolitan Surrey, and lived for most of his life in rural Surrey. When he died his home was at Milford, near Godalming. Throughout his life Cooper’s passion was cricket, in particular the history of the game and the statistics it generated. Ironically, as recorded in his Wikipedia entry, ‘Frail and short-sighted, he never played cricket, and seldom watched, but his “total involvement in the game almost precluded every other interest”’.

Born in Derbyshire, son of a family prominent in civic affairs, Walter Andrew attended Rugby School and qualified as a  solicitor in 1882. 

Born in Southampton, Anderson’s father was John Ridgerson Anderson a partner in a ship brokerage firm involved with the Australian trade and sufficiently wealthy to be able to send his son to Winchester College. From there Roger went to Clare College Cambridge. Married in 1916, he and his wife Romola had no children. Described as ‘independently wealthy’ he was able to devote all his time and energy to his interests in naval history. Thus, he played a leading role in the early years and subsequent development of the Society of Nautical Research. In 1927 Anderson became a member of the National Naval Museum’s first board of directors and in due course chairman of the board of trustees. He was living in Lymington when he died in 1976 aged 93. 

H.S. Altham was a Winchester College housemaster (1913-1946), who had a distinguished WW1 record. After the war, he wrote the first history of cricket, which went to at least four editions with E.W. Swanton a later co-author. In 1945, he became joint editor ofWinchester Cathedral Record, becoming sole editor in 1948 and contributing a wide range of historical articles until his death in 1965. 

His father, Herbert Allen, was a hatter, who married Mary Taswell, the daughter of a surgeon and apothecary of Huguenot extraction. Her father refused to receive her after the marriage, but was, however, willing to see her son, Lake, who benefitted from his grandfather’s library and love of learning. His grandfather was also a role model, as in 1775 he had published anonymously The Portsmouth Guide, and 15 years later A New Portsmouth Guide. Similar works published at the turn of the century included in 1799 The Ancient and Modern History of Portesmouth [sic] by J. Watts (though Webb, in Hampshire Studies,1981, and Oldfield in Hampshire Paper 3, 1993, attribute it to Rev. R.H. Cumyns) and in 1801 The History of Portsmouth attributed to James Charles Mottley, bookseller and stationer.

Oswald Guy Stanhope Crawford, often known as Ogs, was a towering figure in archaeology in the first half of the twentieth century. He was also an author, editor, photographer, Marxist social critic and a cat mimic.

Oswald Guy Stanhope Crawford, often known as Ogs, was a towering figure in archaeology in the first half of the twentieth century. He was also an author, editor, photographer, Marxist social critic and a cat mimic.

Frank Cottrill was born in in Walthamstow but grew up in Torquay. His father was a keen amateur photographer and artist and his parents spent much of their leisure time looking at churches and archaeological sites, firing their son’s interest in the subject.

Eleanor Swift was a Founder’s Scholar at Royal Holloway College, University of London, going on to take an MA degree in 1929, with a thesis on medieval manorial administration based on the Winchester Pipe Rolls.  Awarded a Commonwealth Fund Fellowship, she worked at the Huntington Library, California from 1931 to 1933 and, on her return, as an archivist at the BBC.In 1937, she was appointed Keeper of Archives at Leicester Museum where she was able to hone the principles to be followed by a modern record office and where, in 1940, she married Frank Cottrill, who was Keeper of Archaeology at the museum.

Mary Aylwin Marshall was born on the Isle of Man to Robert Marshall, a Doctor of Medicine and his wife Anna.  She was one of the first students to train at the London School of Medicine for Women, qualifying as a doctor.  In 1928 however, having met and married Thomas Cotton, a Canadian cardiologist, she retired from medicine and turned her energies to archaeology.