In Memoriam. Sir William St John Hope

( 149 ) Kit JWmovfam. SIB, WILLIAM ST. JOHN HOPE. William Henry St. John Hope, son of the Rev. William Hope, Vicar of St. Peter's Church, Derby, was born in 1854. He was educated at Derby Grammar School and at Peterhouse, Cambridge, graduating in 1880. Three years later he took his M.A. degree, and that of Litt.D. in 1912. He was honorary D.C.L. of Durham University. His connection with Kent began when, on leaving Cambridge, he joined the teaching staff of the Grammar School at Rochester. To this early association was due the masterly study of Rochester Cathedral Church and monastic buildings, which he contributed to Archteologia Cantiana. Hope occupied the post of master at Rochester School until his appointment in 1885 as Assistant Secretary of the Society of Antiquaries. In this office he continued to serve with great distinction for five and twenty years, at the close of which he resigned on a pension. His receipt of the latter unfortunately precluded him, according to the rules, from being formally elected a Fellow (he had had to resign his Fellowship of the Society at the outset on accepting the office of Assistant Secretary), but he kept up the closest connection with the Society to the last, frequently reading papers to crowded audiences at the Society's evening meetings. Years before he became Assistant Secretary of the Antiquaries Hope had already become a recognized authority on a variety of antiquarian subjects. His interest in archaeology, indeed, dated from his boyhood, his earliest essays therein being connected with heraldry, more particularly as applied to engraved memorial slabs of latten, or, as they are commonly called, "brasses." His most important heraldic work, published in 1901, depicted the " Stall-Plates of the Knights of the Garter" from 1348 to 1485 in a series of magnificent coloured illustrations in facsimile. Later he wrote "Heraldry for Craftsmen and Designers " and " A Grammar of Heraldry." His largest and most important work was the 150 itt MEMOKt-Uh " Architectural History of Windsor Castle," 1913, a task carried out under three Sovereigns, having been commenced during the reign of Queen Victoria but not completed until that of George V* Of this monumental work, for which his knighthood was an all too inadequate recognition, it is difficult to speak highly enough. It represented years of untiring labour and scholarly research, such as none but a man of Hope's attainments could have achieved. Only recently he completed an important work on the architectural history of Cowdray in Sussex. It was Hope who, from documentary evidence, established the identity of the famous alabasters, executed in material quarried at Chellaston in Derbyshire mainly by the hands of Nottingham craftsmen. It would require a long catalogue to enumerate the many articles and notices which the world of archa3ology owes to Sir William Hope. Among the subjects to which he devoted considerable time and study was that of corporation plate and insignia. But he chiefly excelled in ecclesiology—and that, one may say it without exaggeration, in all its manifold ramifications. The many inventories of church goods which he transcribed and edited (including those of Canterbury Cathedral) form a most valuable contribution to the study of the subject and incidentally to the question of liturgical colour-sequence in mediaeval England. In collaboration with Canon J. T. Fowler he re-edited for the Surtees Society, 1902, "The Rites of Durham," and with Lord Dillon "The Warwick Pageant." He was an expert excavator, as witness the remains of Silchester and of Old Sarum Castle, both uncovered under the auspices of the * Although the name ot Willis Clavk had originally been suggested by Canon Dalton for this undertaking, and had been approved by Queen Victoria, it so happened thufc Willis Clark was hindered by illness and by other circumstances at this juncture from working i'or the space of two or three years. He was to have leotured on Windsor to the ltoyal Archtoological Institute, but his place had to be taken by Hope, who meanwhile, in 1893, bad received Queen Victoria's sanction and the promise of access to materials with every facility for writing the book. Naturally, therefore, Willis Clark was superseded. King Edward, so soon as lie learned that Hope had already given ten years' study to the subject, approved his (Hope's) going forward with the book. King George V. endorsing the approval of his father and grandmother, Hope was entitled to claim that he wrote by command of three successive Sovereigns, SHI WILLIAM ST. JOHN HOPE. 151 Society of Antiquaries. But his speciality was the excavation of ecclesiastical foundations. He recovered the plan of the ancient cathedral church of Old Sarum, and, by himself or in conjunction with other antiquaries, those of a number of monastic ruins, including Fountains, Kirkstall, Mount Grace, Furness, Castleacre, Dale, Repton and St. Austin's, Canterbury. In respect of the last-named, it is a matter of profound regret that Hope did not live to see the complete uncovering of the Abbey Church ruins ; though Kentish antiquaries may congratulate themselves that, through the munificence of our President and in the able hands of the sub-warden of the College, the Rev. R. U. Potts, the work will be carried on as efficiently as though the great archasologist were yet alive to direct it in person. Hope's was the genuine scientific spirit of investigation. Although he was better qualified to dogmatize than most men, he was always eager to learn, and willing, if need should be, to revise a former opinion, however deeply he might have been committed to it. In a paper on the Premonstratensian Abbey of St. Radegund, Braclsole, near Dover, published in Vol. XIV. of Archceologia Cantiana, Hope stated that the gallery of the pulpitum was the place from which "the gospel was sung" on certain occasions. Such, indeed, was the belief which, in common with the most eminent English ecclesiologists, Sir William Hope long entertained, having accepted it among the obiter dicta, of his friend the late J. T. Micklethwaite. But in later years, when Hope came to re-examine the evidence independently, he convinced himself that he had previously been mistaken on the point, and that the view hitherto held was, erroneous, inasmuch as the usage in monastic churches was to sing the gospel not 022 the pulpitum at all, but in the presbytery at a desk or lectern to north of the altar. Accordingly, in a paper on " The Quire Screen in English Churches," read before the Society of Antiquaries on the 1st February 1917,- Hope formally recanted, not pleading, as he might have done, that he had been misled by Mr. Micklethwaite, but generously and frankly acknowledging full responsibility for the error. It must have required no little 152 IX MEMOUIAM. courage in a man of Hope's eminence to own himself to have been in the wrong, but he did it unreservedly and openly; and his reasons were so cogent that the question may now be regarded as settled once for all, thanks to Hope's indefatigable research, as also to his candid avowal. I t was this thoroughness on Hope's part, and his openness to conviction, that gave one absolute confidence in the fairness of his judgment. His encyclopaedic store of information was always at the disposal of those who consulted him, provided he knew them to be honest seekers after truth. At the same time he had little patience with superficial antiquaries or with such as he felt to be taking advantage of his brains in order to claim credit for knowledge which was not really their own. He was himself a methodical and most indefatigable worker—and that even sometimes to the detriment of his health. By his death archaeology suffers a most serious loss; but only those who knew him personally, and what stores of knowledge he possessed, can fully appreciate the priceless possession that has been removed from them. The place he occupied will never be filled for them again. He was an active member of many arch geological societies, including the Royal Archaeological Institute, the St. Paul's Ecclesiological Society and the Alcuin Club. He was a Knight of Grace of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. He was twice married. His first wife, Myrrha Fullerton, whom he married in 1885, died in 1903, leaving him one son, who survives his father. His second wife was Mary Jefferies, whom he married in 1910. For some years past he had been subject to heart attacks, to which he eventually succumbed at his residence, Galewood, Great Shelford, near Cambridge, on 18th August 1919. A. V.