Obituaries

bUtmvp GEORGE CLARDDGE DRUCE IT was with regret that we learned, in May, 1948, of the death at the age of 88 of George Claridge Druce, who had been a Member of the Society for close on forty years, its Secretary for the decade between 1925 and 1935, and subsequently a Vice-President. He was the second son of Alexander Devas Druce of Bilb'ter Square in the City and of Upper Gatton, Merstham, Surrey, and he married Evelina Hopgood who died in 1943. There are six children, aU of whom survive. Mr. Druce was the Managing Director of a weU-known firm of DistiUers, but rethed many years ago from an active business hfe. His leisure, until 1923 at Wimbledon and afterwards at Cranbrook, was devoted to the study of ecclesiastical art and archaeology, and he was a widely recognized authority on medieval bestiaries and their influence on church decoration. He was besides an active Member of the British Archseological Association and of the Surrey Archseological Society, and in 1912 was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, of which body he served on the Council. There are a number of papers from his pen, chiefly in the Antiquaries Journal and the Journal of the British Archaeological Association, but he is best known by his translation of the early thirteenth century Norman-French Bestiary of Guillaume le.Clerc, to the private publication of which he devoted the proceeds of a Testimonial presented to him by our own Society. Druce was a mine of topographical knowledge. He toured widely on a bicycle with his camera, and in his long career built up a unique collection of photographs and lantern slides which in 1947 he most generously presented to the Courtauld Institute, Many of us can remember with gratitude his instant readiness to lend photographs and slides, and the trouble he would take to provide the most detailed information in reply to an enquiry, especiaUy if it were connected with the technical side of photography. His archseological friends and correspondents, especially in Europe and in America, were numerous. Although we have missed his face at our Meetings in recent years, the memory of the man, his gentle kindness, his store of knowledge, and his wise administration of our affahs over a difficult period, wiU not easily be forgotten. R.F.J. CHARLES STOKES CHARLES STOKES was a very weU-known figure to the members of the Council of the Kent Archaeological Sooiety and also to those who attended the Annual Meetings. There he was, with the most useful and 190 OBITUARY praiseworthy regularity, sitting at the end of the table on the President's righthand, surrounded by large sheets of ruled lines and figures. When the time came he gave no tedious rendering of our accounts but a clear precis readily to be understood. He was much more than an accountant. He was our ChanceUor of the Exchequer, regarding it as his duty to advise upon whether we could afford a little more here, or must cut down somewhat there, or whether some new source of revenue ought to be considered. That was how most of us knew him best, not often smiling, but always entirely competent, and always at the service of the Society. Elsewhere there was another Charles Stokes. One might find him at home at New House, Dymcburch. This New House was built in the time of Queen Elizabeth, and Stokes undoubtedly enjoyed this background and was ever willing to talk about it. Here also he had much to do with figures, for he held the ancient office of Expenditor of the Liberty of Romney Marsh, but it was here, too, that he became the archaeologist. He had a large series of marsh maps of various ages in that office, a big collection of books formed by himseU, and many records of the Marsh going back to the time when the New House was built, and before. It is not surprising that he was a very considerable authority upon the difficult subject of the evolution of Romney Marsh. One could wish that he had written at large upon this subject but this he never seemed willing to do although some of his official reports are most useful. He did, moreover, prepare a very fine map in which he incorporated some at least of his views about the development of the Marsh. This was pubhshed in Archceologia Cantiana. He was a first-class draughtsman and also—which is rare enough these days—a wielder of the goose quill pen in medieval fashion. He delighted to letter the outside of notebooks and so forth in easy unlaboured Indian ink capitals of graceful bygone pattern. The reader must not think that one insists too much upon this, for to fail to see him as an artist would be to miss much that, for him, made hfe worth while. If Stokes did not commit to writing as much as one could have wished he did at least take a dehght in providing the fullest details for others. Many times has the present writer consulted him on various matters connected with the Marsh, and could always be sure of a careful tracing of some relevant map elucidating the point at issue, and it is with great regret that this acknowledgement must now be made for the last time. Many other aspects of archaeology attracted Stokes. Few could compete with his coUection of brass rubbings, which was probably the most comprehensive coUection in private hands. He had a good working knowledge of other aspects of ecclesiology and from time to time described churches to the Members on our excursions. He had also an 191 OBITUARY affection for old dictionaries of which he owned many classical examples, from which he would sometimes quote whimsical definitions. It is 28 years since Charles Stokes became a member of the Council of the Society. Here, in duty bound, we place on record our thanks for his long and ungrudging service, our appreciation of his skill and knowledge, and our great regret that he can help us no longer. G.W. CHARLES EVELEIGH WOODRUFF THE death of Charles Eveleigh Woodruff has removed a figure who seemed to be one of the most stable and enduring features of Kentish antiquarian activities. He had been a Member of our Society for seventy years, most of the term of its existence, and for more than haU that time, in fact for haU a century, he was a member of Council, either as an elected member or ex-officio as a Vice-President. He was Kentish to the core. He was born at Upchurch, bore an ancient Kentish name, and was educated at the King's School, Canterbury. His antiquarian tastes developed early, and he devoted the whole of a long fife to research into the early history of his county. At the age of 22 he joined the Society; he sent his first paper (on Fordwich) to Archceologia Cantiana in 1889, and contributed the record number of over 30 articles to its pages, the last, in 1943, being an essay on fifteenth century wfils. Apart from an extensive coUection of valuable papers, he has left fuU-length books which wfil not be readily superseded. His Town and Port of Fordwich (1895), is a fascinating study ; his chief work, however, is the Memorials of the Cathedral and Priory of Christ in Canterbury (1912), written in collaboration with WiUiam Danks. To this study Mr. Woodruff made perhaps the greater contribution, and he was principaUy responsible for the research upon which it was based. After leaving Oriel CoUege in 1878 he was ordained and held several livings, mostly within Kent. The names of his incumbencies are themselves pregnant with antiquarian significance : Cranbrook, Bredhurst, Otterden, Preston-next-Faversham, Stodmarsh, Godmersham and Tunstall. During the tenure of these livings he exploited to the fuU the opportunities for research which hfe in quiet nineteenth century country parsonages offered. But the office with which he is most identified is that of Honorary Librarian to the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury. He had aheady served for a while as Deputy Librarian before he went to Godmersham, and from 1910 was a member of the Cathedral foundation as a Six Preacher. On his rethement from TunstaU in 1923 he came once more to the Library. Here an extremely useful part of his labours was performed. Apart from Alderman Bunce who catalogued the Cathedral archives, c. 1806, he laboured more than anyone else to make known 192 OBITUARY to students the nature and contents of the muniments deposited in the Chapter Library. Bunce had aheady covered a great deal of the field, but since his day very much unsorted MS. material had come to Ught. Furthermore, the great Catalogue badly required revision, for Bunce, though admirably industrious, and possessed of a clear and orderly legal mind, was no expert in palaeography. Mr. Woodruff found and entered in " Bunce " over 1,200 additional Chartae Antiquae ; he calendared over 650 post-reformation letters ; Usted 500 medieval account roUs ; and catalogued 200 roUs of thhteenth and fourteenth century legal proceedings. Whenever the archives were enriched with gifts of deeds relating to country houses, a frequent occurrence in later years, the Honorary Librarian speedily prepared the Indices without which they would have been useless. In fact he compiled a very considerable proportion of the Indices and calendars included in the extensive Catalogue of Catalogues. Nor were his activities confined to the Cathedral archives ; the most satisfactory hst of any section of the Canterbury City muniments is his work. It would be remarkable U among such industry there were not some slight lapses. He had one shortcoming, and that was a disinclination to check his proofs, which has left unfortunate readings in the texts of his printed works. But he had the real gift of an immense warmth of imagination which enabled him to reconstruct, not only in his own mind, but in the minds of his readers, the details of hfe in a remote age. Mr. Woodruff was a remarkable link with the past. A comment was passed in his presence on the medieval spectacle provided by oxen drawing carts witnessed by the speaker on hohday in France. He straightway rejoined : " I do not think that is particularly medieval. I quite weU remember once seeing oxen drawing carts at Cranbrook when I was a boy." When some years ago the senior King's Scholars at Canterbury reverted to purple gowns in place of the black introduced in 1816, he exclaimed as soon as he saw them : " They are aU the wrong colour ! " " Even you," he was told, " cannot remember aU that far back." " I cannot," he said, " but I can remember what my father told me about them." He had spoken, he told the writer, with many people born in the eighteenth century. He was bedridden many months before his death, but his mind lost none of its clarity. A httle before he passed away he described with great accuracy a manuscript in the Cathedral Library he had not seen for over ten years. He was deUghted when at Christmas, 1947, the Cathedral Choristers came to his house and sang carols to him in bed, a treat for the ninety-second anniversary of his bhth. He died on 16th February, 1948, and was laid to rest in a blinding snowstorm in St. Martin's Churchyard at Canterbury. W G U 193 OBITUARY JOHN HEWITT MOWLL, M.B.E. BY his death on August 9th, 1948, foUowing an operation at the Royal Infirmary, Manchester, the Society has lost one who was not only a student and lover of archseology but one who had the capacity for getting others to love it. Mr. John MowU had crowded into the 57 years of his life activities of wide scope. He served in the two World wars ; in the first in the Cinque Ports Royal Engineers (T.), of which he became Colonel before bis retirement, and in the recent war he was Chief Warden of the Civil Defence of Dover, a position which meant four years of constant danger. For his services, he was awarded the M.B.E. His lectures with lantern slides did much to make local history popular, but he was no one-subject man and could give most interesting talks on diverse subjects. Succeeding his father, the late Mr. H. Martyn MowU, as Local Secretary for the Society for Dover, he was very painstaking in assessing and reporting finds in the town. An authority on Cinque Ports traditions and privileges, his position as Churchwarden of the Parish of St. James enabled him to take special care of that portion of Old St. James' Church which was formerly the Court Hall of the Cinque Ports Court of Admiralty and of Lode-manage, i.e. supervision of the Cinque Ports Pilots. A tablet recording this association of the building with the Ports was placed therein by Mr. MowU. The Court HaU was destroyed in the bombardment of Dover, but the tablet was saved. It was an ambition of Mr. Mowll's that the Hall should become a Cinque Ports Museum. His bodkRoyal Visitors at Dover rescued from sources that may not be again available, records of every Royal visit to the town before the war. The Local History exhibition at Dover in 1935, when both the Connaught HaU and Maison Dieu HaU of Dover's municipal buildings housed treasures coUected from Dover and the Cinque Ports, was enhanced by many pictures from Mr. MowU's collection. A painting of the arrival off Dover in 1660 of Charles I I , was of special interest as it showed a twin to the Pharos at Dover Castle. Of this masonry, known as the Bredenstone, very httle remains since the Drop Redoubt was built on its site. The esteem in which Mr. John MowU was held in Dover was clearly shown at the funeral service at Christ Church Dover, conducted by his brother the Archbishop of Sydney, Primate of Australia. A deeply religious man, Mr. John MowU wiU be greatly missed in the Diocese of Canterbury. His love for the Cathedral foUowed his sohooldays at the King's School, Canterbury. Subsequently he joined his father in practice as a Sohcitor and at the time of his death he was senior partner in the firm of MowU and MowU of Dover and Canterbury. R.F.B.J. 194