Obituaries

OBITUARIES RAYMOND HERBERT D'ELBOUX, M.C, M.A., F.S.A. BY the death of Mr. R. H. D'Elboux, on 5th January, 1961, the Society lost a most prominent and learned member, whose great services had been recognized in 1959 by his election as an Honorary Member. Raymond Herbert D'Elboux, who was born on 6th January, 1894, at 37 Haldon Road, Wandsworth, was the younger son of Herbert Clare D'Elboux, by Lydia Alice, daughter of Thomas Kent of Stratford Green, Essex. From 1905 he was educated at the County School, Beckenham, going thence in 1912 to the Strand School, which moved during his year there from King's College to Elm Park, Brixton Hill. Having been a short time at King's College itself, early in the War he joined the Army and was commissioned in the East Kent Regiment, although later he was attached to the North Lancashire Regiment ; he served in France and was awarded the M.C In 1919 he was admitted to St. John's College, Cambridge, where he read for Part 1 of the Historical Tripos and took his B.A. degree in 1921, proceeding M.A. in 1945. On going down, he became an Assistant Keeper of Archaeology at the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff, where he remained for two and a half years, during which time he contributed twice to Archceologia Cambrensis. In 1931 he joined the staff at Bexhill Grammar School, and taught there until 1957. He joined the Kent Archaeological Society in 1917, but his membership lapsed in 1935, and in 1931 he became a member of the Sussex Archseological Society, of which he was Honorary Secretary, 1951-57. He was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1942 and in 1943 rejoined the Kent Archaeological Society, serving on the Council from 1946 to 1956, and being Honorary General Secretary, 1950-51. From 1947 until his death he was Honorary Secretary of the Harleian Society. His pubhshed works were mainly papers in learned periodicals, such as The Antiquaries Journal (on " The Dering Brasses," 1947); he wrote several times in Archceologia Cantiana and the Transactions of the Monumental Brass Society, of which society he was a Vice-President at the time of his death. In 1946, Some Illustrations of Monumental Brasses and Indents in Kent was edited by him in memory of Ralph Griffin, whose principal antiquarian interests (brasses, heraldry and generalogy) he shared. He edited a volume for the Sussex Record Societj', and also had some verses pubhshed in 1921. 218 OBITUARIES Gradually he built up a fine collection of books on brasses and on Kent and Sussex topography and family history. Special mention may be made of his MS. of Zachary Cozen's church notes on Kent, and also of the copy of Weever's Ancient Funeral Monuments with annotations by Sir Edward Dering (d. 1644) ; others of his books had added interest through their having belonged to Kentish antiquaries. The extreme accuracy of his work, the neatness of his transcripts and the beauty of his heraldic sketches—a skill perhaps inherited from his grandfather, Louis D'Elboux, sometime a draughtsman and superintendent of the Ordnance Survey—will be familiar to those who knew him. His detailed knowledge of the genealogies of Kent and Sussex was always at the disposal of serious students, and the trouble that he would take in answering inquiries, which often, through the Harleian Society, came from overseas, was truly immense. With all this, however, he was no arid scholar and his learning lay lightly upon him, for his interests were wide. Many friends can testify to his great kindness as a man and to his quiet and pleasant humour. In 1922 he married Eleanor Mary Ehzabeth, daughter of Humphrey de Trafford of Littlebourne, by Magdalen, daughter of George Arnold of Milton Hall near Gravesend. The death of his wife in 1955 was a grievous blow from which he never fully recovered ; he retired in 1957 and went to live in Wales. His health, which for some years had not been good, was steadily deteriorating and he died after a few days in hospital. He leaves two daughters. N.H.M. NICHOLAS EYARE TOKE, M.B.E., B.A. WE regret to record the death, on the 23rd April, 1960, of Mr. N. E. Toke, at the advanced age of 94 years. Nicholas Eyare Toke was born on March 18th, 1866, the eldest son of the Reverend Nicholas Roundell Toke of an old Kentish family. After obtaining his degree at London University he married and settled in Folkestone as an Army and University tutor. His leisure was devoted almost entirely to Archaeology in its various branches, beginning, as so many others at that time, with the collecting of flint implements which collection he later presented to the local Museum. He then became interested in brass rubbings which method he adapted to the rubbing of heraldic ledger-stones which were in danger of becoming completely obliterated with the passage of time, and he wrote a monograph on the subject. He became a member of our Society in 1903 and thereafter contributed several Papers and Notes to Archcsologia Cantiana including " The 219 OBITUARIES Ancient Stained Glass in Bishopsbourne Church," " The Medieval stained glass windows in Upper Hardres," " The Hatchments in the churches at Canterbury ", and " Swiss stained glass at Temple Ewell". He also wrote an interesting monograph on the probable origin of the opus Alexandrinum, the pavement surrounding the site of Becket's Tomb in Canterbury Cathedral. At the outbreak of the First World War, owing to his knowledge of modern languages, he was made a Representative of the Local Government Board with the task of meeting and dealing with the thousands of refugees who landed at Folkestone. In recognition of these services he was appointed M.B.E., and also received the Medaille de la Reconnaissance Frangaise and the Ordre de la Couronm of Belgium. Mr. Toke maintained his interests in Archaeology and History until shortly before his death. I. DE O.T. DR. IRENE J. CHURCHILL, O.B.E., F.S.A. DR. IRENE J. CHURCHILL, a Vice-President of the Society, died at her home at Tonbridge on the 21st March, 1961. Only three days earlier she had attended a meeting at Tunbridge Wells, organized by our Local Secretary, and had obviously enjoyed both Professor Atkinson's lecture and the chance to talk with old friends again. Irene Josephine Churchill was born at Shortlands in 1887, the daughter of the late John Churchill, who was for many years a member of the Society and of Council, and who played an important part in the founding of the Records Branch in 1913. From school at Shortlands Miss Churchill went up to Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford in 1907 to read Modern History. She was placed in Class I I of the Honours School of Modern History in 1910, and 20 years later was awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy for her work on the medieval administration of the archbishopric of Canterbury. She retained her affection for her college, whose library she enriched with several generous donations of books—and with characteristic and librarian-like common-sense she told the college that it might sell any of the books that were redundant, using the money to buy others that were needed. The affection was reciprocal, and for some years in the 1950's she was an honorary temporary member of the Senior Common Room. After leaving Oxford, Miss Churchill studied at the London School of Economics, and worked on material for A Select Bibliography of English Medieval Economic History and the Repertory of British Archives. During the 1914-18 war she acted as the Honorary Organizing Secretary of Bromley House War Hospital Supply Depot. It was during the last 220 OBITUARIES year of the war, in 1918, that she became Assistant to the Librarian (and afterwards Assistant Librarian) at Lambeth Palace Library, an office which she held for 34 years. The Librarian was the Rev. Claude Jenkins, and this was by no means the only office that he held. Consequently a good deal of work fell to the lot of the Assistant Librarian, and although Miss Churchill was always punctihous in respecting the position of " the Professor ", there was little doubt that in more recent years much of the responsibihty for the organization of the Library devolved upon her. It could have been a difficult relationship, but never became so, for each had the highest regard for the other, and Miss Churchill herself seemed never to be in the least conscious of the standing which her achievement as a scholar entitled her. In his everyday affairs Canon Jenkins was not always entirely methodical and business-like, and the wise, who wanted a reply to a letter or a subscription paid, often found themselves seeking the aid of Miss Churchill, who constantly proved an effective intermediary. The war of 1939-45 brought ruin to Lambeth Palace, and the Library was not spared. Heroic is not too strong a word to describe Miss Churchill's efforts over several years, in cold and damp buildings, to rescue and preserve the contents of the Library, and the award in 1952 of the O.B.E. for her work there was richly deserved. Her duties at Lambeth gave her unparalleled opportunity for working on Canterbury archbishopric material, which bore fruit in the Table of Canterbury Archbishopric Charters, in the Camden Miscellany XV, for 1929, and above all in her Canterbury Administration, pubhshed in 1933. Writing in The Times after her death, Professor E. F. Jacob said of it : " The work . . . was quickly claimed as a pioneer authority on the archbishop's jurisdiction, legatine, metropohtical and diocesan . . . Though of smaller compass, it may even be ranked with Madox's History of the Exchequer, and Tout's Chapters in Medieval Administrative History." With the late Sir Hilary Jenkinson (who predeceased her by two or three weeks, and whose death and that of Lady Jenkinson she felt keenly) Miss Churchill acted for 15 years as joint Honorary Secretary of the British Records Association, and she was one of the original directors of the National Register of Archives. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1915, afterwards serving as a member of the Council, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1934. She was also a member of the Council of the Friends of Rochester Cathedral. With all these important duties and commitments, Miss Churchill still found time for the affairs of our Society. Her interests and those of her father coincided, and it was natural that she should follow his example in joining the Society ; natural, too, that with her learning 221 OBITUARIES and common-sense she should be elected to Council in 1923. Thirty years later Miss Churchill was elected a Vice-President of the Society, the first woman to hold that office, and a year or two later, in the unavoidable absence of the President, she presided at the Annual General Meeting, an occasion which many will remember with pleasure for the urbanity and wit with which she conducted the proceedings. But, above all, the Society is indebted to Miss Churchill for acting as Honorary Editor of the Records Branch from its establishment in 1913 until its demise—or better, perhaps, transmogrification—in 1959. John Churchill was the first Honorary Treasurer of the Records Branch, and in an address which she gave at Canterbury in 1934, at a meeting to celebrate the twenty-first anniversary of the foundation of the Branch, Miss Churchill said how much her father had helped her in matters editorial. In that period, before printing costs became crippling and in spite of the disruptions of the First World War, the Records Branch had been able to pubhsh a dozen volumes of Kent Records, of all of which Miss Churchill was the General Editor, and herself the author of volume II, A Handbook to Kent Records, and of volume VII, East Kent Records. She also contributed to Mr. Woodruff's Calendar of Institutions by the Chapter of Canterbury Sede Vacante, and to the Calendar of Kent Feet of Fines. To all her work Miss Churchill brought rigorous scholarship and meticulous accuracy. It was far better, she firmly believed, not to publish at all, than to allow any inaccuracy, any unchecked statement, to appear in print : by doing so, you might lead some scholar astray, and silence was far less serious than error. She set herself the highest standards, and tried to make her contributors live up to them. In the Society's earlier days we had one or two members, clerical as well as lay, whose learning was distinguished for its breadth rather that its precision ; in later years Miss Churchill would sometimes mention, sotto voce and with a dehghtful confidential smile, the little troubles that she had occasionally had with them : " I don't think Mr. 's sight was very good at that time—or perhaps it was his Latin\ " It was this sense of fun, almost of mischief, that was one of Miss Churchill's most endearing quahties. She took her work seriously ; she inherited from her father, who had himself studied under Mommsen, an intense respect for scholarship, and she never doubted for a moment the importance of intellectual activity. But she also had a nice sense of the ridiculous which safely protected her against any touch of bluestocking solemnity. The Society, through her death, has lost one of its wisest and most learned members ; many of us are conscious also of having lost a friend whose gaiety and kindliness matched her wisdom and learning. F.W.J. 222 OBITUARIES WILLIAM PINCKARD DELANE STEBBING b. 10th May, 1873 ; d. 12th August, 1961. THE passing of William Stebbing has left a gap which is unlikely ever again to be filled by one individual—so complete was his equipment to criticize and advise on almost any subject. After Marlborough he was trained as an engineer and architect, becoming in due course L.R.I.B.A. He was elected a fellow of the Geological Association in 1895 and was its president from 1940 to 1942. He was also a fellow of the Geological Society. Having come to hve in Deal in 1920, he joined the Kent Archaeological Society in 1925 and was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London the following year. Until he was summarily relegated to Deal a year or two ago, he was for many years local secretary at Sandwich for the Society and was to be found day in and day out exploring and excavating at Stonar—barely managing to keep ahead of the operations of the Wingham Engineering Company. His work there was quite invaluable and was afterwards followed by work, equally valuable, on the site of the Carmelite Friary lying at the back of The Whitefriars in New Street. It is rumoured that his finds on this site have been bequeathed to the Cinque Port of Sandwich. Stebbing was a constant contributor to Archceologia Cantiana and wrote on such varied subjects as Church-briefs ; the nature of Deneholes ; Jenltin's Well, Old Deal ; Iron Age hearth at Finglesham ; Hille's Court, Ash ; Bribery in an election for Dover in 1728 ; Stonar and the Wantsum Channel (in collaboration with Dr. F. W. Hardman, LL.D., F.S.A.). He was editor of Archmologia Cantiana volumes 46 to 60. He took a lively interest in all discoveries in East Kent and visited any excavations in progress ; but all this, it must be remembered, was only the background to the many civil and municipal activities in which he was involved in Deal. He was on the Deal Council from 1941 until he retired, an alderman, in 1955, having been Mayor of Deal in 1947. Treasurer of the Deal Men's Society ; Chairman Deal Branch U.N. A.; President Deal Branch Men of Kent and Kentish Men, of the Boy Scouts' Association and of the Football Supporters' Association, he was a member of the Conservative Association and for many years a sidesman of Deal Parish Church. He was a discriminating collector of local and Kentish prints and had an extensive hbrary. He was a dehghtful and interesting companion and was never too busy to visit, or help and advise. F.W.T. 223 OBITUARIES MR. F. H. CRIPPS-DAY MR. Francis Henry Cripps-Day, who died in July last in his 98th year, had been a member of the Kent Archaeological Society since 1911. He lived at Harvel, near Meopham, in what had been part of the Holyhill estate which had been acquired by his grandfather a century ago. All his life he had been interested in antiquarian subjects, but it was not until his 'forties' that the study of armour became the paramount interest of his hfe. He was responsible for a long series of publications both large and small on various aspects of his chosen subject. He paid special attention to the armour preserved in English parish churches by the ancient funeral custom of heralds carrying " achievements " of the deceased, which were later hung up over the monument. He described two of the helms which have survived in this way in the churches of Birling and Goudhurst in Archozologia Cantiana 1916 and 1937, and in 1922 pubhshed a survey of the armour surviving in English churches for the whole of the country in the last volume of the late Sir Guy Laking's Record of European Armour and Arms. This work he saw through the press as his friend's hterary executor. It was a very big undertaking, for which all students of the subject will be eternally grateful. He printed privately a series of monographs under the general title of Fragmenta Armamentaria, which came out between the years 1934 and 1956. The first volume contained a most important study of the only English school of armourers, which was established by Henry VIII in his manor at Greenwich. Mr. Cripps-Day collected armour himself and was a generous benefactor and friend of the Armouries of the Tower of London, the Fitzwilham Museum at Cambridge, and other institutions. In 1940 he gave up his comfortable house in York Terrace, Regent's Park, and thereafter hved exclusively at Harvel. His affection for his Kentish home inspired a book of an agricultural nature, The Manor Farm, 1931, in which he reprinted two early treatises on the subject. He had made his London house a centre of warm hospitahty to his friends, and especially the circle of amateurs d'armes who formed the Meyrick Society of which he was a Vice-President. He was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, and at Sandhurst. He was commissioned in 1887 in the 21st Hussars (later Lancers) and served with them in India, but left as a subaltern to marry Marthe, daughter of the Hungarian patriot General Georges de Klapka. He was then called to the Bar, but did not practice in the Courts. His sister, Mrs. Florence Marc, came to live near him at Harvel in later years, and she will be remembered for her fine character and intelligence by many in the neighbourhood. Mr. Cripps-Day retained his health 224 OBITUARIES and faculties until a very great age, and died peacefully in his cottage surrounded by such of his books and arms as he had not given away in his lifetime. He had no children by either of his marriages. Two of his nieces continue to live in Harvel. J.S.M. 225 20