Obituaries

OBITUARIES SIR THOMAS COLYER-FERGUSSON 1865-1951 THE death, on 7th AprU, 1951, of Sir Thomas Colyer Colyer-Fergusson, Bart., F.S.A., of Ightham Mote, has closed a long and valued association with the Kent Archseological Society. He became a life member on election, in 1889, and was Honorary Treasurer in 1903-4. After resigning that office, he served as an elected member of the Council till 1946, when he was appointed a Vice-President of the Society, which office he retained tUl the end of his life. He was also a member of several other learned Societies, antiquarian and genealogical. Sir Thomas was most widely known as the owner of the charming moated house in which he dwelt for over sixty years from 1889, when he purchased the Mote estate from the representatives of the ancient famUy of Selby. He was High Sheriff of Kent in 1905-6, a Warden of Rochester Bridge, and in addition to other activities he held many other voluntary offices. He had an unusually wide circle of friends and acquaintances, was an ideal host and whUst playing his full part in the normal hfe of a country gentleman, he was perhaps happiest, at least during his later years, when working quietly in his fine old library at the Mote, well-stocked with Kent books, or when discussing an archseological subject with a kindred spirit. And be it noted to his honour that the years that he devoted so assiduously to genealogical work and his sustained industry have provided him with a lasting memorial in his transcripts of parish registers. The problems that he met with in his genealogical researches, entailing as they did the exhaustive examination of ancient registers, often written in script difficult to decipher and seldom, if ever, indexed, suggested to him the preparation of typed, indexed copies in which surnames could be traced in a moment. He carried this idea into such effect that during the last forty years of his life he made and indexed copies in triplicate of the registers of nearly sixty parishes in the Diocese of Rochester, presenting one copy to the incumbent, another to the Society of Genealogists, and retaining the third copy himself. By this persistent work he has earned the gratitude of many people of Kentish descent who come, year by year, from aU over the world to trace their ancestry. Sir Thomas pubhshed in Archaeologia Cantiana (XXVII, p. 31) a pedigree of " Selby of Ightham Mote," and in collaboration with 186 OBITUARIES Everard Green, Somerset Herald, he attempted a fuU and informative pedigree of "James and Grevis-James of Ightham Court " (Miscellanea Genealogica, V, 4th series, p. 105). Sir Thomas lost two of his three sons, the eldest and the youngest, by enemy action. The youngest son won a posthumous award of the Victoria Cross. The baronetcy descends to a grandson, Captain J. H. H. Colyer-Fergusson. E.R.H. CANON S. W. WHEATLEY, M.A., F.S.A. BY the death of the Rev. Canon Sydney WiUiam Wheatley, which occurred on the 11th of March, 1951, in his 82nd year, the Society loses an old and valued Member, for he joined in 1912, served on the Council from 1922 to 1948 and contributed to Archaeologia Cantiana. Canon Wheatley took his M.A. at Jesus College, Oxford, was ordained in 1894 and came into the Rochester diocese in 1899. Six years later he was appointed Vicar of St. Paul's, Four Elms, Edenbridge, but he wUl be best remembered by hosts of Rochester friends through his long service as Vicar of St. Margaret's, Rochester, a service which extended from 1915 until his retirement in 1947. During this long period he held many appointments in the diocesan organization and was editor of the Rochester Diocesan Chronicle for twenty years. He had a great love for the antiquities of his Diocese and City, and was always delighted to share his knowledge with others and lectured extensively to that end ; he rendered many years of quiet service to archseology as a member of the Museums Committee of the Rochester City CouncU. In 1922 he was elected to the Society of Antiquaries. His quiet and courteous presence wiU be greatly missed in Rochester. Canon Wheatley leaves a widow, one son and two daughters. J.H.E. MRS. ELIZABETH SELBY, M.B.E. MRS. ELIZABETH SELBY, of BeaugiU, Lynsted, who died in August, 1950, had been a member of the Society since 1907, and was Local Secretary for the Sittingbourne District from 1935 until 1947. She was the author of Teynham Manor and Hundred, an exceUent example of a local history. In addition to writing the history of Teynham, she took a number of first-rate photographs of interesting houses in the neighbourhood, and they are now in the Kent County Records Office. Mrs. Selby had hved in the district for sixty years. F.W.J. 187 OBITUARIES THE REV. CANON GREVILE M. LIVETT, F.S.A. THE REV. R. W. HARRISON ACWORTH IT is with deep regret that we must record the death, during the same week of August, 1951, of two of our oldest members, Canon Livett, a Vice-President, and Mr. Acworth. Both became members of the Society as long ago as 1889. For many years Canon Livett was active in the affairs of the Society, and Mr. Acworth also was for a time a member of the CouncU. A fuller obituary notice of Canon Livett wiU appear in the next volume of Archaeologia Cantiana. F.W.J. 188