Obituaries

OBITUARIES JIM BRADSHAW Archaeology in the Ashford area has suffered a great Joss with the death of Jim Bradshaw in July 2001, aged 82. Jim had only recently retired, due to failing health, as President of the Ashford Archaeological and Historical Society. His knowledge of the local area was vast, and yet he had been born, in 1919, in the back streets of Manchester, the eldest of six children. Although he passed for Manchester Grammar School his parents could not afford to send him and he left the local state school at 14 with no qualifications. Fortunately, he had been allowed to spend part of his last school year helping in the Egyptology Department of Manchester University, run by Dr Margaret Murray the famous Egyptologist. He saw active service in North Africa, Italy, Greece and Northern Europe during the Second World War. In 1947 he started working for the Forestry Commission in the Lake District where he lived with his wife Marian and where his daughters, Angela and Susan, and his son, Edmund, were born. His interests then were politics, trade unionism and, in a general way, archaeology. On moving to Challock, in 1959, his interest in archaeology became more serious and he spent the rest of his life involved in digs all over the South-East. He soon became an active member of the Ashford Society and served on the Council of the KAS for some years. Jim retired from work, due to eye problems, in the mid 1970s shortly after the death of his wife. Since then he filled his life with archaeology together with a keen interest in the history of the two World Wars. He collected and researched medals and was involved in the investigation of underground workings of all descriptions, including rescue caving when nearly 80! MARION PONT WYN BERGESS We were sad to hear of the passing ofWyn Bergess who died in March 2001 at Chatham, aged 80. She was an Honorary Member of the KAS 441 OBITUARIES and in that capacity she made a valuable and lasting contribution to our work. Wyn was an author and genealogist, but foremost she was a professional Librarian. In these days of high-speed information technology there is sometimes a tendency to dismiss such skills but with Wyn there was never any doubt where her duties lay and of what she could achieve by the generous outlay of her professional abilities. Born in Manchester, the daughter of a grammar school headmaster and nurse, Wyn grew up to begin a varied career in librarianship in due course becoming the County Reference Librarian in the then Kent County Library. She did pioneering work in bringing the highest standards of reference and information provision to Kent libraries after the upheavals of the 1974 local government reorganisation. Local studies were always well to the fore in Wyn' s planning and she did much to establish a generous provision in libraries and an interest throughout the County. Her work on the Kent Bibliography has been an invaluable tool for researchers. She continually extended her interests as a local historian and wrote numerous articles and several books. Her scholarship went hand in hand with a lively interest in community affairs. Fortunately for the KAS, Wyn volunteered her expertise to the organisation and development of the Society's Library being encouraged by the then Honorary Librarian to begin an ambitious programme of cataloguing and accessioning which she tackled in her usual meticulous style. It was from this base that recent progress in the Library has proceeded. Thus her work for the Society will provide a lasting memorial and as such will continue to assist members, scholars and other library users for many years to come. JOHN WALTERS WALLACE HARVEY, M.A. Wallace Harvey died in November 2000, aged 94. He was one of the best known figures in Whitstable, and a local historian with an unrivalled knowledge of the town's past which he freely shared. Born in Whitstable in 1906, Wallace lived there for the whole of his adult life. He made up for his lack of formal education by evening study and intensive reading. He was apprenticed as a carpenter and entered his grandfather's building and undertaking firm. During the Second World War he prepared for burial not only those killed in air raids but also German airmen shot down in the Battle of Britain. Local government was only one of his many interests (he was Chair- 442 OBITUARIES man of Whitstable UDC from 1954-57 and from 1971-74) and in the course of his long life he was active in the St John's Ambulance Brigade and in many other societies. Notable amongst these was the Whitstable Historical Society which he helped found in 1947, becoming Life President in 1982. The provision of a museum for Whitstable was a cherished objective, at length realised in 1985 with the help of the Fred Goldfinch Trust. He became a member of the KAS in 1948. The study of local history was, indeed, a passion with him and his work as an undertaker enabled him to rescue and acquire many family papers and other memorabilia. Partly from this material (which he has left to the Museum), and partly from oral tradition, he published a number of monographs, mostly centred on the Whitstable locality. These included: Whitstable and the French Prisoners of War ( 1971 ); Thomas Clark of Canterbury, 1775-1859 (1983); The Seasalter Company- a Smuggling Fraternity, 1740-1854 (l 983); and the more speculati. ve Seasalter and the Mystery of Robinson Crusoe ( 1989). But his most considerable work, the fruit of a lifetime's research and a valuable contribution to maritime history, was the lavishly illustrated The Merchant Ships of Whitstable ( 1993), depicting the age of sail and a great period in the town's history. For this the University of Kent conferred upon him an honorary M.A. degree in 1995. A shorter work on the yawls, hoys and smacks, although completed, remains in typescript. Wallace was an accomplished lecturer and preacher and was licensed as a Lay Reader in the Church of England by Archbishop Fisher and his successors. Florence, his wife, died in 1993 and they are survived by two sons and three daughters. BRIAN PORTER RON FOORD Ron Foord joined the Society in 1957, although his interest in archaeology and local history first developed when a pupil at Sir Joseph Williamson's Mathematical School, Rochester. His knowledge of local archaeology in the Medway area was considerable, and he was a valued digger at a time when most site labour was of the voluntary kind. Whilst working on the excavation at Stone Castle Quarry, Green hi the in 1961 (A rchaeolo gia Cantiana, LXXXI, 1966) he met other diggers from the Medway Towns. To them he expressed his regret at the lack of an active field group in such an archaeologically rich locality as Medway. As a result the Lower Medway Research Group was formed ('Archaeological' was added later), with Ron as one of its four founder members. In its early years it was one of Kent's most active groups in local archaeology, encouraging a more systematic evaluation 443 OBITUARIES of the landscape as well as dealing with the inevitable 'rescue digs' in the days before PPG 16. Later he served for a long period as an officer of the Group and was a source of stability during difficult times. Ron believed that landscape archaeology and local history were inseparable. His personal interests ranged from ancient fields and trackways to settlement on the North Kent marshes, but he was unfailing in his support for every project the Group tackled in its early years. Ron was also a keen and most capable photographer, and was responsible for much of the black and white photography at the Eccles Roman villa excavations. He produced a comprehensive photo archive beginning with the very first trial trenching in 1961 by the Lower Medway Research Group and continuing with every season of work by the independent Eccles Excavation Committee until I 972, by which time the full plan of the villa had emerged. His photographs illustrate many of the regular interim reports published in Archaeologia Cantiana. He worked tirelessly to advance local archaeology in the Medway towns until the late 1970s, when he then concentrated exclusively on his other passion, wildflower colour photography. He died in 2000, aged 77. GWENYTH HODGE Gwen died at the end of October 2001. MICHAEL OCOCK After taking a secretarial course she was a personal assistant at the East Malling Research Centre. She joined Tonbridge Library in 1958 and was the Local History Librarian for many years until she retired. She did much to build up the valuable collection of books, maps and microfilms of Kentish historical material. She developed a formidable knowledge of local history and continued to advise the staff after her departure. She was Honorary Secretary and Chairman of the Tonbridge Historical Society in the 1960s and 1970s, representing it on the Kent Local History Council for many years. She wrote a notable paper in Archaeologia Cantiana (CIII) about Tonbridge Free Public Library, an unusual and welcome subject for the journal. She was also an expert on modern local church history, contributing to Mid-Victorian Tonbridge and Late Victorian and Edwardian Tonbridge on this theme. She also wrote in Georgian Tonbridge and Tonbridge in the Twentieth Century. She and her husband, Sydney, were members of the Tonbridge Methodist Church, writing a history of the Church in East Street. Her love of music was displayed in her support of the Tonbridge Philharmonic Society. CHRISTOPHER CHALKLIN 444