The Froebel Educational Institute was inaugurated at a meeting held in the Westminster Palace Hotel on the 25th October 1892, through the initiative of Mrs Julia Salis Schwabe and a group of liberal-minded men and women who formed the membership of the Froebel Society (to give it its full title, Froebel Society for the Promotion of the Kindergarten System) which had come into being in London in 1874. The Froebel Educational Institute (FEI) was inaugurated as a non-denominational college, and was intended to promote the kindergarten system in Britain. One of their most strongly held convictions was that the training of teachers should include practical experience, and consequently the FEI was provided from its inception with a co-educational Demonstration School with a Kindergarten.
On 20th September 1894, the College formally opened in Talgarth Road, West Kensington, and Madame Emilie Michaelis was appointed as the first Principal. FEI's first school, the fee-paying Colet Gardens Demonstration School, was opened in 1895, and was followed by the Challoner Street Practising School in 1899 (the latter survived until 1918, when its pupils were transferred to Colet Gardens). In 1896, the Michaelis Guild was formed as the alumni organisation for ex-Froebel College students.
In 1900, the FEI became the 'Incorporated Froebel Educational Institute', a registered company under the Board of Trade; the governing body was known as the Committee of Members. Esther Lawrence succeeded Emilie Michaelis as Principal in 1901: she remained in the post until 1931, overseeing the growth and development of FEI into a residential college based at Roehampton. Esther Lawrence was closely involved in the founding of two of the oldest nursery schools in London - the Michaelis Free Kindergarten in Notting Dale (founded in 1908, later the Notting Hill Nursery School) and the Somers Town Nursery School near St Pancras (1910).
In 1921, the FEI purchased Grove House at Roehampton and moved the students there in 1922. Colet Gardens School remained in Talgarth Road and expanded into the old College accommodation. As the Roehampton site developed, there was a need for a school in the grounds, and Grove House School was opened in 1929 (it closed in 1939). Student numbers were growing so rapidly that the FEI purchased Templeton, a listed building in Priory Lane, Roehampton, in 1930. A new Principal, Eglantyne Mary Jebb, continued the policy of expansion and growth, overseeing major extensions to the Grove House property designed by Verner Rees. During World War Two, the College was evacuated to Knebworth and Offley Place, Hertfordshire, while the Demonstration School was moved to Little Gaddesdon nearby. When the war ended, the Demonstration School moved to new premises at Ibstock Place in Roehampton. Offley Place was retained as a rural training centre until 1953.
On the establishment of the University of London Institute of Education, FEI became one of its constituent colleges. Eglantyne Mary Jebb retired as Principal in 1955 and was succeeded by Molly Brearley, who oversaw some major changes, not least the requirement in 1960 that all teachers take a three-year training course. The following year, Molly Brearley introduced the pioneering one-year Diploma in Education, the first offered in a College of Education. More expansions to the College took place under the direction of the firm Norman and Dawbarn, notably several halls of residence and the Olive Garnett Building. Molly Brearley retired in 1970. Further course developments included the introduction of the Postgraduate Certificate of Education in 1971, and an MA in Education in 1974. A joint project with Queen Mary Hospital came to fruition in 1989, when the Redford House Nursery was opened, once again providing a school on-site.
Plans to form a union of the four voluntary teacher-training colleges in the south-west of London began to take shape in the early 1970s, with the four acting as an academic unity to offer BA, BSc and B Humanities degrees, validated by the University of London, from 1974. The Roehampton Institute of Higher Education (RIHE) was formally incorporated in 1975, with each of the constituent colleges - Froebel, Whitelands, Southlands and Digby Stuart - retaining its own corporate identity. The title Roehampton Institute London was subsequently adopted. Though its degrees were validated by the University of Surrey from 1985, full university status was achieved in 2000, when the Roehampton Institute formally entered into federation with the University of Surrey and became known as the University of Surrey, Roehampton.
Methodist teacher training for women began in Glasgow Normal Seminary in 1841, and in 1851 Westminster College for Men and Women Students was founded. As a separate college for the training of women teachers, Southlands Wesleyan Training College was opened on 26th February 1872 by the Wesleyan Education Committee. The Committee had chosen a site at Battersea known as the 'Southlands Estate', which contained a large mansion, and proceeded to build practising schools, and later a Principal's House, within the grounds. The first Principal was the Reverend G.W. Olver, and the Headmaster was Mr James Bailey. The government of the College was closely linked to Westminster College, and both institutions shared a Governing Body until 1929. Moreover, the Chairman of the Governors was, until 1921, also the President of the Wesleyan Conference.
The College continued to grow in numbers and reputation, and in 1886 was reckoned the second-best womens' college in the country by the Wesleyan Education Committee. Building work was undertaken to provide a new library, and art room, a laboratory, a new hall and more student accommodation. Several students worked towards degree qualifications. In 1908 the staff was organised into Departments which consisted of Religious Instruction, Principles and Practise of Teaching, English, History and Geography, Mathematics, Science, Latin and Greek, French, Music and Needlework. Various student societies had been in existence from 1872 and the Southlands Student Society was formed c1898/1899 formally as an alumni association, and local branches were set up, although reunions and events had been taking place since the college beginnings.
Though they had initially been used as practising schools, during the 1920s the attached schools were changed to demonstration schools, and were eventually taken over by the local authority when the College moved. This it did in 1929, following its purchase of the 'Belmont Estate' at Wimbledon. The years 1927-1929 were spent at the Burlington Hotel in Dover whilst the Belmont site was prepared for occupation. Three accommodation and teaching blocks were added, and the official opening was held on 7th May 1930.
The College was evacuated to Weston-super-Mare during World War Two, returning in 1946. In 1948 Southlands was made a constituent college of the University of London Institute of Education.
Several properties were bought to house the growing student numbers, including a house on Queensmere Road in 1946, and a new Hall was completed in 1953. Building continued apace, with the Rank block in 1957 and Osborn and Roberts blocks at Queensmere in 1963, and continued well into the 1980s.
With the introduction of the three-year training course in 1960, and the growth in student numbers, went an increased range of courses including a Postgraduate Certificate in Education in 1962 and the BEd degree in 1965 (validated by the University of London). Male students were admitted in 1965.
In 1969, the governance of the College was changed: the old Belmont Trust was replaced by a new Trust Deed approved by the Methodist Conference, and a new Instrument of Government for the College was approved by the Methodist Education Committee. This allowed the Governors more complete and effective control over the running of the College.
Plans to form a union of the four voluntary teacher-training colleges in the south-west of London began to take shape in the early 1970s, with the four acting as an academic unity to offer BA, BSc and B Humanities degrees, validated by the University of London, from 1974. The Roehampton Institute of Higher Education (RIHE) was formally incorporated in 1975, with each of the constituent colleges - Froebel, Whitelands, Southlands and Digby Stuart - retaining its own corporate identity. The title Roehampton Institute London was subsequently adopted. Though its degrees were validated by the University of Surrey from 1985, full university status was achieved in 2000, when the Roehampton Institute formally entered into federation with the University of Surrey and became known as the University of Surrey, Roehampton. The move to Roehampton Lane took place in August/September 1997, and Mount Clare House and the student hostels at Roehampton were purchased in 2002.
Whitelands College was founded in 1841 by the National Society for the Promotion of Education of the Poor in the Principle of the Established Church, as a teacher training college for women. The National Society took a lease on a house in the King's Road, Chelsea, known as 'Whitelands House', and the College opened in January 1842 with Julia Field as its first Lady Superintendent. Student numbers grew rapidly in the first two years from 12 to more than 40 and the College soon expanded to other houses in the area. In 1844 the dining room of the College was converted into a practising school where poor children were admitted free. Other schools were to follow for different ages and classes, so that soon Whitelands had four attached schools, including a girls' secondary school. All of these were fitted into the corner of Whitelands at the junction with Walpole Street.
In 1850 the College was given its own Council, thus gaining a measure of independence from the National Society. The new governing body oversaw the expansion of Whitelands House by the erection of new buildings in the grounds. In [1874] the roles of the various officers who had headed the college - the Lecturer, the Chaplain and the Secretary - were amalgamated and the Rev John Faunthorpe was appointed as the first Principal. Faunthorpe improved the training at the College to such a degree that by 1878 Whitelands College was judged to be the best in England by her inspectors. In addition to the basic government syllabus, the curriculum included French, Latin, botany, art, algebra, first aid, kindergarten theory and drill. The College was also renowned for its music and needlework. The number of students continued to grow, necessitating the lease of new houses for accommodation, and the erection of a completely new block housing dormitories and a recreation room. Five years later the space between the original Whitelands House and the Schools was filled with a new wing and in 1899 further buildings were erected above the schools.
One of the most famous friends of Whitelands was John Ruskin, who donated hundreds of books and pictures. His was the original suggestion for the annual May day ceremony which is still held in the present day, and he was also instrumental in persuading Edward Burne-Jones to design windows for the College chapel and William Morris to make them. The Guild of St Ursula, originally the Reading Girl Guild, was founded by the students in 1879 as a means of combining the ideals of serious study and Christian friendship. The Chapel of St Ursula was begun by Faunthorpe in 1881 and soon beautified by the William Morris windows and subscriptions from students.
From 1907, Whitelands began to accept non-conformist students under the terms of the 'Modus Vivendi' agreement drawn up by the government. The last of the Whitelands practising schools was closed in 1917, but was reopened as lady Margaret School, Parson's Green.
In 1931 the College moved to a larger site called Melrose Gardens, in East Putney. The new building had been designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, and comprised one large purpose-built structure, which held common rooms, dormitories and classrooms. The sole exception was the chapel, which stood at the main entrance to the College and continued to be maintained by donations from the students (though the Morris windows were moved from the old site and incorporated).
During World War Two, the students were taught from home via correspondence courses, and practised teaching in their local schools under the supervision of Whitelands tutors. The College was finally gathered in one place, the buildings of the College of the Venerable Bede in Durham, in 1941. In Putney, serious bomb damage was done to the College building. The first students returned in October 1941 and normal service was soon resumed.
In 1948 Whitelands was made a constituent college of the University of London Institute of Education. With the introduction of the three-year training course in 1960, and the growth in student numbers, went an increased range of courses including a Postgraduate Certificate in Education in 1962 and the BEd degree in 1965 (validated by the University of London). The first male students were enrolled in 1966. Expansion and development of the site continued. Plans to form a union of the four voluntary teacher-training colleges in the south-west of London began to take shape in the early 1970s, with the four acting as an academic unity to offer BA, BSc and B Humanities degrees, validated by the University of London, from 1974. The Roehampton Institute of Higher Education (RIHE) was formally incorporated in 1975, with each of the constituent colleges - Froebel, Whitelands, Southlands and Digby Stuart - retaining its own corporate identity. The title Roehampton Institute London was subsequently adopted.
Though its degrees were validated by the University of Surrey from 1985, full university status was achieved in 2000, when the Roehampton Institute formally entered into federation with the University of Surrey and became known as the University of Surrey, Roehampton.
The Carnival Resource has been collected by Ruth Tompsett, Principal Lecturer, for use by students studying Carnival on the BA in Performing Arts at Middlesex University.
Staff College, Camberley, was inaugurated in 1862 to provide Staff training to British Army officers, and remained in existence until 1997 when single-Service Staff training was ended. Staff Training for the British Army is now conducted by the Joint Services Command and Staff College.
Staff College, Camberley, was inaugurated in 1862 to provide Staff training to British Army officers and remained in existence until 1997 when single-Service Staff training was ended. Staff training for the British Army is now conducted by the Joint Services Command and Staff College.
Staff College, Camberley, was inaugurated in 1862 to provide Staff training to British Army officers, and remained in existence until 1997 when single-Service Staff training was ended. Staff Training for the British Army is now conducted by the Joint Services Command and Staff College.
Cecil Collins was born in Plymouth, Devon on 23 March 1908. His early life was physically and economically difficult and he was apprenticed to an engineering firm for a year before winning scholarships to Plymouth School of Art (1924-1927) and the Royal College of Art in London (1927-1931). At the RCA he won the William Rothenstein Life Drawing Prize. He also met and, in 1931, married Elisabeth Ramsden, a sculpture student. They lived in London and rented a cottage at Speen, north of High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, where they were introduced to Eric Gill, nearby at Piggots, and met David Jones. In 1933 the Collinses visited Paris, where they saw the work of Paul Klee and visited Gertrude Stein's apartment. They also became life-long friends with Mark Tobey after his exhibition at Beaux Arts Gallery. Collins held his first exhibition at the Bloomsbury Gallery in October 1935, where he showed some of his most important early paintings, including 'The Fall of Lucifer' (1933), which indicated the mystical direction of his work. He published a poem in 'The New English Weekly' in 1936 and a painting and a drawing were included in the 'International Exhibition of Surrealism' (New Burlington Galleries, 1936). In the same year, the couple moved to Devon, attending Tobey's classes at Dartington Hall. Collins held an exhibition in the Barn Studio (1937) attached to the Dartington Hall Art Department and, after Tobey's departure in 1938, Collins taught there (1939-1943) alongside Bernard Leach, Hein Heckroth and Willi Soukop. The combination of interests in Far Eastern art and philosophy and German Expressionist performance proved important, and it was there that Collins began the series of Fools.
Between 1944 and 1948, the Collinses divided their time between London and Cambridge. His exhibition at Lefevre's in February 1944 escaped major damage even though paintings were blown off the walls in an air raid, and two more exhibitions in London followed in 1945. This period saw the publication of the first monograph on the artist 'Cecil Collins: Paintings and Drawings 1935-45' by Alex Comfort 1946 and Collins's own major text written in 1944, 'The Vision of the Fool' was published in 1947. Both confirmed his links with the poets of the 'Apocalypse' group and an inclination towards a visionary Neo-Romanticism in painting. In Cambridge from 1948, the Collinses were part of a circle, including the painters Nan Youngman and Elisabeth Vellacott, which founded the Cambridge Society of Painters and Sculptors (1955). From 1951, Collins also taught life drawing part-time with Mervyn Peake at the Central School of Art and Crafts and the City Lit. in London. He had a major retrospective at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1959, which included some "matrica" paintings, which developed mystical images from gestural beginnings. The Collinses moved to Chelsea in 1970. In these later years he received a number of religious commissions, making an altar front for the Chapel of St Clement in Chichester Cathedral (1973), for which Elisabeth made kneelers, and windows for St Michael and All Saints, Basingstoke (1985). In 1979 he was awarded the MBE (Member of the British Empire) in recognition of his service to art. A retrospective of his prints at the Tate Gallery in 1981, was followed by one of paintings and drawings in 1989. The painter died on 4 June 1989, during the course of the exhibition.
The British Council was founded in 1934 as the 'British Committee for Relations with Other Countries' and in 1936 it was re-named' The British Council'. The aims of the Council were:
"to promote abroad a wider appreciation of British culture and civilization, by encouraging the study and use of the English language, and thereby, to extend a knowledge of British literature and of the British contribution to music and the fine arts, the sciences, philosophic thought and political practice."
Funded by the British Government the Council's work was developed during World War Two and was particularly important during the 'Cold War' period and this is reflected in the papers in this collection. The Fine Arts Department role was to organize exhibitions of the work of British artists and send them overseas. In this work they established international relationships with overseas arts organisations and brought British art to wide and varied audiences.
The first Director of the Fine Arts Department was Major Alfred A. Longden. He was succeeded in 1947 by Lilian Somerville, who had joined the Council during the war; she was appointed as Director of the Fine Arts Section of the Visual Arts Department). In 1949 she was appointed Director of the retitled Fine Arts Department, and remained in this position until her retirement in 1970. She was succeeded by John Hulton (1971-1975) who had been her deputy. Other heads of the Department include Henry Meyric Hughes (1984-1992). The current Director is Andrea Rose.
The papers in this collection run from 1945-2003. Other documents relating to the British Council Fine Arts Department for this period have been deposited at The National Archives.
John Piper was a major figure in modern British art. He was a painter in oils and water colour, designed stained glass, ceramics and for the stage, made prints and devised ingenious firework displays. In addition to this he was also a gifted photographer of buildings and landscapes. Piper also wrote poetry, art criticism and several guidebooks on landscape and architecture.
Piper was born at Epsom, Surrey on 13 December 1903 and educated at Epsom College. He joined his father's law firm as an articled clerk in 1921 and loyally stayed there until his father died in 1926. He then gave up law and entered the Richmond School of Art (1926-7), later moving to the Royal College of Art (1927-1929) where he studied engraving, painting, drawing, lithography and stained glass and also developed his interests in music, ballet and theatre. In 1929 he married Eileen Holding a fellow student at Richmond College of Art.
In the early 1930s Piper, influenced by the work of Picasso and Braque, produced some dramatic abstract works. He was involved in the avant-garde developments in British Art, showing paintings at the exhibitions of the London Group from 1931 and in 1934 he was elected a member of the 7&5 Society. He was soon appointed secretary of the group whose membership included Ben Nicholson, Ivon Hitchens and Henry Moore. In the late 1930s he moved away from this abstract phase and looked for new ways to record the landscape and architecture of England which he loved. He created a romantic idiosyncratic style which combined rich colour, sharp lines and varied textures. Piper also went on to develop his photography and use collage and printmaking.
Piper began writing reviews from the late 1920s making a name for himself as a critic writing for periodicals like 'The Listener' and the 'Architectural Review'. From 1935-1937 he assisted Myfanwy Evans, with the production of a quarterly review of contemporary European abstract painting called 'Axis'. In 1937 Piper was commissioned by his friend John Betjeman to write the 'Shell Guide to Oxfordshire'. Piper went on to write and provide photographs for a number of the guides as well as edit the series. In the same year John Piper married the writer Myfanwy Evans. Together they had two sons and two daughters and lived at Fawley Bottom Farmhouse.
He also designed stage sets and costumes, starting with the play 'Trial of a Judge' by Stephen Spender at the Unity Theatre in 1938 and thereafter designing for many theatre, ballet and opera productions. Designing for opera led to his friendship with Benjamin Britten with whom, in 1946, Piper founded the English Opera Group which became the mainstay of the Aldeburgh Festival. He designed Britten's last opera 'Death in Venice' (1973) and Myfanwy Piper wrote the librettos for three of Britten's operas.
Although not created an Official War Artist until 1944, Piper recorded the effects of bomb-damage to buildings in works such as 'St Mary le Port, Bristol' 1940 now in the Tate Collection (N05718) and he also drew Windsor Castle. In the 1950s he was given his first commission to design stained glass windows for Oundle School Chapel. This was followed by many other commissions including the blaze of colour he designed for the great Baptistery window of the new Coventry Cathedral and the windows for the Metropolitan Cathedral of Liverpool. From the 1960s he exhibited at the Marlborough Gallery a series of landscape paintings of Britain, France and Italy. Throughout his life Piper collaborated with other artists, designers and publishers in a mass of popular art on both a large and small scale. He planned decorative panels for buildings and in his sixties took up ceramics.
Piper was also a member of the Royal Fine Art Commission for a long period, served on the Arts Council and as a Trustee of the Tate Gallery for three terms and at the National Gallery for two. He was appointed a Companion of Honour in 1972. John Piper died in 1992.
Stanley Spencer (1891-1959) was born in Cookham, Berkshire, where he spent much of his life. He attended the Slade School under Tonks, 1908-1912; returning in 1923, where he concentrated on drawing. His contemporaries at the Slade included Nevinson, Bomberg, Roberts, Gertler, Wadsworth, Carrington, Allinson, Jacques and Gwen Raverat, Lightfoot and Ihlee; the latter four being his closest friends. In 1912, Spencer exhibited in the 2nd Post-Impressionist exhibition, organised by Roger Fry, and in 1913 he met Edward Marsh who, with fellow artist Henry Lamb, supported his work. Between 1915 and 1918 he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps where he saw action in Salonika. In 1918 he was commissioned for an official war picture: 'Travoys with Wounded Soldiers' (Imperial War Museum). In 1919 Spencer met Hilda Carline (sister to Richard and Sydney), and they married in 1925. They had two children, Shirin born 1925 and Unity born in 1930. A member of the New English Art Club, 1919-27, his first solo exhibition was at the Goupil Gallery in 1927, where he exhibited 'The Resurrection, Cookham', 1924-26 (Tate). Between 1927 and 1932 he worked on the decorations for the Sandham Memorial Chapel, Burghclere, and he subsequently exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1928, 1930, 1932 and 1938, and at the Tooth, Leger and Zwemmer Galleries in London. Elected Associate Royal Academician in 1932 (resigned 1935) he was re-elected Royal Academician in 1950. In 1937 Hilda divorced Stanley so he could marry Patricia Preece. His second marriage only lasted two years and Spencer remained in love, and in close contact, with Hilda until her death in 1950.
From the 1930s he worked on a series of paintings for his unrealised Church-House scheme and in 1940 he was commissioned by the WAAC to paint shipbuilding subjects at Port Glasgow (Imerpial War Museum). 'The Resurrection, Port Glasgow' (Tate) was one of nine pictures of the Resurrection painted between 1945 and 1950. He received his CBE in 1950 and was knighted in 1959. In 1954 he visited China as part of a cultural delegation, and in 1955 the Tate held a retrospective exhibition of his work. His painting gives an autobiographical, visionary interpretation of secular and religious subjects, often depicting biblical scenes in the contemporary environment of Cookham. Influenced by early Italian painting and work by his contemporaries at the Slade, he used distortions of scale, perspective and anatomy, heightened realistic detail, cool, earthy colour and rhythmical forms to produce work of great imaginative intensity. In the 1920s and 1930s he painted urban, domestic subjects, sometimes with an erotic content. His sharply defined work was based on drawn preparation and painted in a methodical manner which rarely altered or overpainted images. In December 1958 Spencer was diagnosed with cancer and taken into hospital for a colostomy operation. The operation was a success, but Spencer's recovery was slow and painful. During 1959 Spencer limited his social engagements to allow more time for his painting. He also moved back into 'Fernlea', Cookham, his childhood home. Stanley Spencer died at the Canadian War Memorial Hospital, Cliveden, on 14th December 1959.
The Artist Placement Group (APG) emerged in London in the 1960s. The idea of artist placements took its focus from the group of UK artists, including John Latham and Barbara Steveni, who were experimenting with new art forms. Initiated and directed by Steveni, the APG pioneered the concept of art in the social context; from the outset her concept of 'placement' directly acknowledged the isolated and marginal position that artists held within society and was an effort to overcome this situation. The APG acting outside the conventional art gallery system, attempted to place artists, through negotiation and agreement, within industry and in government departments. Artists such as Keith Arnatt, Ian Breakwell, Stuart Brisley, and Barry Flanagan, had important placements or early associations with the APG.
Today the organisation exists as Organisation and Imagination (O + I), and describes itself as 'an independent, radical international artist initiative, a network consultancy and research organisation'. Its board of directors, members and specialist advisors include leading artists, senior civil servants, politicians, scientists, and academics from various disciplines. The name was changed in 1989 in order to distinguish the initiative from arts administrative placement schemes set up following the APG example.
Keith Vaughan 1912-1977, born on the 23rd August 1912 at Selsey Bill, Sussex, was an English painter and writer. After attending Christ's Hospital school, he worked at Lintas advertising agency until he abandoned his career in advertising in 1939 to pursue painting. When the Second World War broke out Vaughan joined the St John's Ambulance as a conscientious objector. In 1941, Vaughan was attached to the Pioneer Corps and was periodically moved from camp to camp around southern England, generally working on the land until he was transferred north in 1943 to Yorkshire. His drawings of army life attracted attention and he entered the circle of Peter Watson in London. During the war Vaughan formed friendships with the painters Graham Sutherland and John Minton, with whom, after demobilization in 1946, he shared a studio. Through these contacts he formed part of the Neo-Romantic circle of the immediate post-war period. During the 1950s, Paul Cezanne and Henri Matisse were major influences, but most important was that of Nicolas De Stael, who enabled him to reconcile figurative and abstract elements. After 1945 Vaughan travelled in the Mediterranean, North Africa, Mexico and the USA, where he was resident artist at Iowa State University in 1959. He taught in London at Camberwell School of Art (1946-1948) and the Central School of Arts and Crafts (1948-1957) and was a visiting teacher at the Slade School of Fine Art (1959-1977). Vaughan is also known for his journals which he began writing in August 1939, selections from which were published in 1966 and more extensively in 1989 (Keith Vaughan Journals 1939-1977, Alan Ross, London, John Murry, 1989). Vaughan had considerable success, including the award of a CBE in 1965. He was diagnosed with cancer in 1975 and committed suicide on the 4th November 1977.
Vanessa Bell was born in 1879, daughter of Sir Leslie Stephen and sister of Virginia Woolf. She studied art under Sir Arthur Cope and at the Royal Academy Schools under John Singer Sargent. In 1907 she married Clive Bell and worked mainly in London, Sussex and France. Vanessa Bell exhibited first at the New Gallery in 1905, and at the New English Art Club, the Allied Artists Association and at numerous London galleries. She became a member of the London Group in 1919 and her work was exhibited at the second Post-Impressionist Exhibition in 1912. A central figure in the Bloomsbury Group, she founded the Friday Club in 1905, and was influenced by Roger Fry and by Duncan Grant. As co-director of the Omega Workshops she carried out many decorative projects, particularly with Grant. The impact of Post-Impressionism caused a radical change in her work. Influenced by Matisse she established a leading role as a colourist before 1920. Between 1914-15 she produced some pure abstracts but later returned to a more traditional naturalism and greater realism in works that centred around her friends, still-life and landscapes. Vanessa Bell died in 1961.
Kenneth McKenzie Clark was born on 13 July 1903, to a family who made their fortune in the Glasgow cotton trade. Clark described his parents as 'idle rich', moving between their country house in Suffolk, their home and yacht in Scotland and the South of France. An only child, he was sent away to Wixenford School, from where he went to Winchester College from 1917 to 1922. He gained a scholarship to read 'Greats' at Trinity College, Oxford, and it was here that he began to fully develop the artistic eye which had been nurtured by rearranging his parents' picture collection and by the exhibition of Japanese art in London in 1910. At Oxford, Clark made many of the friends he was to keep throughout his life, including Maurice Bowra, Colin Anderson and Gordon Waterfield. He also began to collect original works of art, managing to buy cheaply works from Old Master drawings and pictures by then unknown, or unfashionable, artists. He began to help out at the Ashmolean Museum, and was befriended by the Keeper, Charles Bell.
In 1925, during a visit to Italy, Bell introduced him to the art connoisseur Bernard Berenson at his house, I Tatti, near Florence. Clark made an impression on Berenson, who invited him to work for him on the revisions of his 'Florentine Painters'. After a struggle with his parents, who insisted on him finishing his degree, the arrangements were made for Clark to join Berenson. In the meantime Clark spent the summer of 1926 travelling in Europe and seeing the great collections in pre-war Germany, where at Berenson's instruction he learnt German. In 1927 Clark married Elizabeth Jane Martin, known as Jane (or Betty to her family), a fellow student at Oxford. They were introduced by Gordon Waterfield, her then fiancé. In 1928 their first son, Alan, was born, followed by the twins, Colin and Colette (known as Celly). There were plans for more work with Berenson, but in 1930 Clark was offered the position of Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, to succeed Bell.
Although he had little museum experience, Clark had made a name for himself, in particular through his work on the Royal Academy's exhibition of Italian art, a major exhibition of 1930, and was already working on the Leonardo drawings in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle (eventually published in 1935). It was an unprecendented appointment, which damaged forever his friendship with Bell. Berenson urged Clark not to go into curatorship, but to concentrate on writing, but Clark accepted the position. His activities at the museum included the reorganisation of the collection and the notable acquisition of Piero di Cosimo's 'Forest Fire'. In 1933 Clark was offered the post of Director of the National Gallery. He was only thirty years old when he began to work there in 1934. The Clarks were launched into a whirl of public and social activity: they became the toast of London society and were constantly in the newspapers. 1934 also saw Clark's appointment as Surveyor of the King's Pictures. Clark's reign at the National Gallery was not without problems. In the first year he acquired seven panels, believed to be by Sassetta, in somewhat dubious circumstances from Duveen, an art dealer and National Gallery Trustee. Another controversy was the acquisition of four panels which Clark originally believed to be by Giorgione, although the Trustees acquired them as 'Giorgionesque'. Other problems included an appearance before the Committee for Public Accounts.
The outbreak of war in 1939 changed the Clarks' life. Jane and the children moved to Upton House, Tetbury, Gloucestershire, where they had many guests including Graham and Kathleen Sutherland. Clark stayed in London, where his flat in Grays Inn was bombed in 1940, destroying many of his early papers. After the evacuation of the National Gallery's pictures to the mines of Manod, Wales, he was less involved with Gallery work than with his secondment to the Ministry of Information. Clark joined the Ministry in 1939. He was first Director of the Films Division, then Controller of Home Publicity until 1941. Clark found the work interesting, but the bureaucratic machinery and rivalries in the Ministry wearying. He was involved in some interesting work including propaganda and public information films, however, the cream of his work there was the War Artists' Advisory Committee. Clark was chairman of the Committee and it was a role he felt very useful in, although he was unable to help as many artists as he would have liked. Artists were selected to carry out work for the armed forces and Clark often acted as a mediator, for sometimes it was hard to reconcile the artists interests and desire to experiment, with what might be very conventional and specific requirements. The Committee met from 1939-1945, then faced the problem of dispersing the thousands of works created.
At the end of 1945 Clark resigned from the National Gallery as soon as he decently could. Contrary to popular belief he did not have another post to go to: he simply wanted to concentrate on his writing. However, he was soon invited to be Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford University, a post he held from 1947-1950. Over the winter of 1948-1949, Clark embarked on a trip to Australia. He found the country stimulating and made contacts with both art administrators and artists, including Joseph Burke and Sydney Nolan. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, Clark spent much of his time writing and lecturing. He was always inundated with invitations to lecture and he accepted many. His books sold well and he became enormously popular in America. In 1953 he was appointed Chairman of the Arts Council, a post he held until 1960. Clark had been involved in radio broadcasting since the 1930s. As well as art based programmes, he often appeared as a "celebrity guest" on more general programmes. He was a regular panelist in the early days of the Brains Trust. With the development of television, Clark extended his broadcasting by bringing art images into thousands of homes. However, public reaction was mixed when he agreed to be Chariman of the new Independent Television Association in 1954. In the 1950s Clark became further involved with independent television production companies and began to work with his son Colin, a producer. The subject area of his material remained wide, but perhaps the culmination of his TV work was the 1969 series 'Civilisation'. This brought Clark worldwide fame and he became popularly known as 'Lord Clark of Civilisation'. In 1953 the Clarks moved from Upper Terrace House, Hampstead, to Saltwood Castle in Kent (to which Thomas à Becket's murderers had fled from the scene of their crime in Canterbury Cathedral). The Clarks kept a small flat in Albany, Piccadilly and Clark had a secretary in both residences. However, as the Clarks grew older the Castle became too much for them and they built The Garden House at the edge of the grounds, where they moved, while Alan, their son, moved into the Castle. In 1976 Jane, who had been intermittently ill for many years, died. Clark remarried in 1977, Nolwen de Janze Rice, who was French and owned an estate in Normandy. Clark continued to write and lecture on a smaller scale almost to the end. He died in 1983.
Vanessa Bell was born in 1879, daughter of Sir Leslie Stephen and sister of Virginia Woolf. She studied art under Sir Arthur Cope and at the Royal Academy Schools under John Singer Sargent. In 1907 she married Clive Bell and worked mainly in London, Sussex and France. Vanessa Bell exhibited first at the New Gallery in 1905, and at the New English Art Club, the Allied Artists Association and at numerous London galleries. She became a member of the London Group in 1919 and her work was exhibited at the second Post-Impressionist Exhibition in 1912. A central figure in the Bloomsbury Group, she founded the Friday Club in 1905, and was influenced by Roger Fry and by Duncan Grant. As co-director of the Omega Workshops she carried out many decorative projects, particularly with Grant. The impact of Post-Impressionism caused a radical change in her work. Influenced by Matisse she established a leading role as a colourist before 1920. Between 1914-15 she produced some pure abstracts but later returned to a more traditional naturalism and greater realism in works that centred around her friends, still-life and landscapes. Vanessa Bell died in 1961.
Naum Gabo was born Naum Pevsner in Russia, in 1890. He was the younger brother of the sculptor Antoine Pevsner. Gabo went to Munich University in 1910 to study medicine and natural sciences, but also attended art history lectures by Heinrich Wölfflin. In 1912 he transferred to an engineering school in Munich. In 1913 he joined Antoine, then a painter, in Paris and whilst there he met Kandinsky. After the outbreak of war, Gabo moved from Paris to Copenhagen and then to Oslo. From 1915 he began to make constructions under the name Naum Gabo. Between 1917 and 1922, Gabo was in Moscow with his brother. Whilst there, they jointly wrote and issued a 'Realistic Manifesto' on the tenets of pure Constructivism. In 1922 Gabo moved to Berlin, where he lived in contact with artists of the de Stijl group and the Bauhaus. In 1926 he co-designed with Antoine, costumes for Diaghilev's ballett 'La Chatte'. In 1932 Gabo moved back to Paris and became a member of Abstraction Création. In 1936 he left Paris, moved to London and married Miriam Franklin (née Israels) in 1937. Gabo edited 'Circle: International Survey of Constructivist Art' along with J.L. Martin and Ben Nicholson. Gabo became good friends with Nicholson, and in 1939 he moved to Carbis Bay, Cornwall, where Nicholson was also based. In 1944 Gabo joined the Design Research Unit and in 1946 he moved to the USA, settling in Conneticut in 1953. He became a US citizen in 1952. Between 1953 and 1954, he was a professor at the Graduate School of Architecture, Harvard University. From 1950 onwards, Gabo took a number of sculpture commmissions, including one for the Bijenkorf store in Rotterdam. In 1971 Gabo was awarded an Honorary KBE. He died in Conneticut in 1977.
The General Post Office was, until 1969, a government department, and its expenditure was controlled by the Treasury. Prior to 1969 the treasury supervised all GPO financial management, policy, planning and development.
The Receiver General was an independent appointment, designed to remove all responsibilities for cash from the hands of the Postmaster General. There was, however, another major financial position in the Post Office, the Accountant General, who was appointed by the Postmaster General to keep an account of all revenue. This produced duplication of records. The Receiver General took receipt of all money paid into the Department, and paid costs directly from these funds.
The sources of income are mainly payments received from inland letters; window money (postage due on letters handed in by the public to the clerk behind the window of a post office); postmasters; letter receivers; returned letters; charges levied on incoming foreign letters. Expenditure includes payments for salaries of postmasters, letter carriers, sorters, window men, clerks of the roads and of the inland and foreign offices, inspectors, watchmen and other employees; ship letters; returned letters; accommodation, furnishings and equipment; travelling expenses; allowances and pensions; local taxes; contractors and tradesmen; building, hire, wear and tear of packet ships; captains fees. The balance of cash was transferred to the Exchequer.
Born 1919; joined RAF Volunteer Reserves, 1939; navigator, No 78 Squadron and No 79 Squadron, 1940-1941; Pilot Officer, 1941; navigation instructor, 1942; Navigation Leader, 196 Squadron, 1943; Pathfinder Squadron, Sept 1944; Flight Lieutenant, 1946; RAF Transport Command, 1946-1948; Air Ministry, 1948-1950; Staff College, 1950; Exchange Officer, Washington DC, USA, 1953; Wing Commander (Operations), 1957; Singapore, 1960; staff appointments, Ministry of Defence; Group Captain, 1969; commander, RAF Gaydon, Warwickshire and RAF Finningley, Yorkshire, 1969-1971; chairman, Tactical Air Group, Mutual Balanced Force Reduction talks, NATO, Brussels, 1971-1974; retired, 1974; worked for British Aerospace, Lancashire, 1974-1986; died 2003.
Born 1887; educated at St. Pauls School and at New College, Oxford; student interpreter at the British Embassy in Tokyo, Japan, 1913; appointed second assistant in Seoul, Korea, 1915; became acting Vice Consul in Kobe, Japan 1915; Vice Consul in Kobe, 1919; 1924-25 was the acting Consul in Dairen (Dalian, China); retired from the consular service in 1928; died 1940.
Dr Basil Hood, MRCS, LRCP, was the Medical Superintendent of the St Marylebone Infirmary, later St Charles' Hospital, from 1910 to 1941. Few further details of his career may be found in the Medical Directory.
Redwood College was formed in July 1993 by the merger of Roding and Romford Colleges of Nursing, Midwifery and Healthcare Studies. These Colleges were in turn formed by the amalgamation of several Schools of Nursing and Midwifery in Essex and London. Redwood College of Health Studies merged with South Bank University in 1994.
Records in this collection were created by several hospitals in Essex and London, which taught nursing but which no longer exist, with the exception of Whipps Cross Hospital.
South London Polytechnic Institutes was established following the City of London Parochial Charities Act, 1883. In the Act the Government's Charity Commissioners were to distribute money to schemes which would improve the physical, social and moral condition of Londoners. Edric Bayley, a solicitor and member of the London School Board, wanted to use the money to establish a people's college in Elephant and Castle, which could help alleviate the extreme poverty he saw in that area as well as help strengthen British industry.
In 1887 Bayley established the South London Polytechnic Institutes Council, whose members included the Lord Mayor of London and the Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VII) as its President. In January 1888 the Council appealed to the Charity Commissioners for the money they needed. The Commissioners were impressed and pledged that they would match any funds raised by the public up to the sum of £150,000 in order to establish three technical colleges, or polytechnics, in South London.
A Committee of the Council had the task of raising the money needed from the public and also of deciding where the three polytechnics should be located. The Committee decided that one should be established at Elephant and Castle (now LSBU), another at New Cross (which is now Goldsmiths College) and lastly at Battersea (which eventually moved and became part of the University of Surrey). The public appeal for the money needed was launched at a widely publicised dinner held at Mansion House in June 1888. Within four years £78,000 had been raised through the public's generosity for the Elephant and Castle and Battersea Polytechnics, which was matched by the Charity Commissioners.
William Pickles (1885-1969) general practitioner and epidemiologist practised medicine in Aylsgarth in Yorkshire between 1912 and 1964.
Pickles practiced as GP for over fifty years in Aysgarth, Yorkshire, until his retirement in 1964. Throughout this period he conducted extensive research into epidemiology, using the Aysgarth District and its inhabitants he worked tirelessly to investigate epidemiological trends in rural areas. He lectured throughout Britain and worlwide, in America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. He was appointed Cutter Lecturer, 1947-48 at Harvard University, America. Pickles was influential in the founding of the College of General Practitoners (later the Royal Collge of General Practitioners) and held the post of First President, 1953-1956.
Arthur Woodward (17 Mar 1917-5 Feb 2008) was born in Wigan, Lancashire, and was educated at Hindley Green Council School. At the age of 15 he began his career as an apprentice at Leyland Park, Hindley, maintaining the tennis courts and doing horticultural work when time permitted.
In 1935 Woodward was appointed gardener, at a level known as ‘improver’, on a private estate, Leggatt’s Park in Potters Bar, where he spent 18 months, and where in due course he was put in charge of the fruit and plant houses. In 1937 he moved to Cambridge University Botanic Garden, employed as student gardener in the glasshouses and propagating department. He left two years later as a trained gardener, to gain more experience in parks work and joined the Council Parks Department at Dudley, Worcestershire. His time at Dudley was interrupted by the war, which he spent in the Royal Air Force, during which time he continued to practice horticulture.
After demobilisation Woodward spent a year as a student gardener at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, before being appointed ‘technical assistant’ at Beckenham Parks Department, where he had a wide range of administrative responsibilities. Over time he gained a number of qualifications: the RHS junior and senior certificates in general horticulture, the RHS Teachers preliminary and advanced qualifications in school and cottage gardening, RHS National Diploma in Horticulture qualifications in general horticulture, and the Diploma of the Institute of Park Administration.
In 1947 he was appointed Deputy Parks Superintendent at the Borough of Richmond. In 1956, following the retirement of George Humphreys, Woodward was appointed Parks and Allotments Superintendent, a post he held until his retirement in 1982. During his time at Richmond he developed the Terrace Gardens, Richmond, improved tree care practices, opened up the parks by removing gates and fences, and created 200 acres of natural parkland from gravel pits near the river. He also established a central nursery at Ham and a nine-hole golf course at Twickenham.
After retirement Woodward joined a local group of architects as Landscape Consultant, and was variously President of the University Botanic Gardens Association, Kew Guild, Richmond Rotary Club and the Barnes Horticultural and Allotments Association.
Woodward married Adah Major in Lancashire in 1942, and they had two sons.
Source: The archive of Arthur Woodward
Stephen Percival (‘Percy’) Cane (1881–1976) was brought up in Braintree, Essex. The family had a house with extensive grounds, and as a young boy Cane gained practical experience in horticulture, planting and tending a small plot of his own in the family kitchen garden. As he grew up he developed a strong interest in art and architecture, and read widely in these fields. At the age of 22 he went to work at a local firm run by friends of the family, the Crittall Manufacturing Company, which made metal windows. The work was not entirely to his taste, but it provided a reasonable income until he took the decision to enrol as a full-time student at the Chelmsford College of Science and Art. Cane began to design gardens in the Chelmsford district in his spare time, and it was after a visit to Easton Lodge, a stately Essex home which was having its grounds altered in a contemporary style by the garden architect Harold Peto, that he decided to make his own career in the field. Through the First World War he contributed garden designs and plans to the monthly magazine ‘My Garden, Illustrated’, and in 1918 became its editor, which prompted him to enrol at the Chelmsford County School of Horticulture in order to learn more about the science of gardening. By 1919 he was styling himself ‘Landscape and Garden Architect’, and working full time as a designer.
Cane was soon in great demand, and received numerous commissions for gardens both in the United Kingdom and abroad. These include designs for Ivy House, Hampstead, Hascombe Court, Godalming, Falkland Palace, Fife, the palace of the Emperor of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa, and Dartington Hall, Devon. He became a respected authority and wrote many articles and several books on garden design. A regular exhibitor at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, he received eight gold and three silver-gilt medals at the show between 1934 and 1952, and in 1963 was awarded the Veitch Memorial Medal for his work. He practised as a garden architect, based at his home in Lower Sloane Street, London. Some plans in this collection were created after he suffered a stroke in Sep 1972.
Sources:
'Percy Cane Garden Designer' / by Ronald Weber. Edinburgh, 1974
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, entry by Charlotte Johnson
William Robinson was born on 5 Jul 1838 in Ireland, the son of William and Catherine Robinson. He began his career as a garden boy at the Marquess of Waterford’s estate at Curraghmore, County Waterford, and subsequently worked at Sir Hunt Johnson-Walsh’s estate at Ballykilcavan as foreman gardener. He left in 1861 under circumstances that are disputed, and made his way back to the National Botanic Gardens in Dublin. With the encouragement of David Moore, the curator, he went to London, and in 1862 took a letter of introduction from Moore to Robert Marnock, who ran the Royal Botanic Society’s garden in Regent’s Park, where he spent four years. He rapidly became foreman of the educational and herbaceous departments, and began travelling to other gardens and nurseries in the United Kingdom, in an attempt to increase the number and range of plants at Regent’s Park. By 1864 plants were coming in from many sources, and Robinson, now ‘the Society’s gardener’ (head gardener), had embarked on an ambitious programme of improvements to the garden. He started contributing articles to ‘The Gardeners’ Chronicle’, describing his tours around the country and the different gardens he visited, and in 1866, having recently been elected Fellow of the Linnean Society, he resigned his post at Regent’s Park in order to devote himself to studying horticulture full-time. With commissions from various gardening journals he was able to travel extensively in Europe, travels that provided copy for numerous articles and two books.
From 1868 Robinson lived in a house in Kensington, which he used as a base from which to write and travel, including to the United States. He published further books in the early 1870s including ‘The Wild Garden’ and in 1871 he founded ‘The Garden’, an illustrated weekly publication which he was to edit for 28 years, and own for nearly 50. He launched a number of other journals on specialised aspects of horticulture, mostly relatively shortlived, but including ‘Gardening’ (later ‘Gardening Illustrated’). In 1883 Robinson published his most important book, ‘The English Flower Garden’. He was vehemently opposed to the Victorian taste for garishly coloured flowers in garden displays, and through his advocacy of a more natural way of gardening is credited with having invented the English cottage garden style of planting.
Robinson’s opinions on wider issues are reflected in his correspondence. He was an advocate of cremation, and actively protested against what he regarded as unfair taxes imposed by the Government of the day. In 1885 he bought and moved to Gravetye Manor, in Sussex, an Elizabethan manor house with extensive grounds. Robinson altered the house and redesigned the garden according to his own taste, writing about the work in a series of books about Gravetye. Though paralysed after an accident in 1909, he remained as active as his wheelchair existence permitted, assisted by his staff, in particular his nurse, Mary Gilpin. In 1917 he wrote his last book ‘My Wood Fires and Their Story’, and only in 1919 aged 81 finally gave up his interests in ‘The Garden’ and ‘Gardening Illustrated’. He died at Gravetye Manor on 12 May 1935.
Source: biographical notes based on the entry for William Robinson in the 'Oxford Dictionary of National Biography', ‘William Robinson: The Wild Gardener’ / by Richard Bisgrove, and ‘William Robinson 1838-1935: Father of the English Flower Garden’ / by Mea Allan.
Iran and the West was a three-part series which examined relations between Iran and Western countries for thirty years beginning with the Islamic revolution of 1979. The documentary was produced by Brook Lapping Productions Limited, a London-based television production company. It was first broadcast by the BBC in Feb 2009. The Executive Producer of the series was Brian Lapping, with Series Producer Norma Percy, Producer/Directors Paul Mitchell, Dai Richards and Delphine Jaudeau and in Iran, Producer/Directors Mohammad Shakibania and Hosein Sharif.
Born 1898; educated Eton and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst; 12 Lancers, 1915; served in France, 1915-1918; Staff College, 1928-1929; Brigade Major, 2 Cavalry Brigade, 1930-1933; commanded 12 Lancers (Armoured Car Regiment), 1935-1938; General Staff Officer, 1938-1939; served in France, 1940; Commander, 8 Armoured Division, Home Forces, Dec 1940-Oct 1941; Major General, 1943; Chief of General Staff, Middle East, 1942; Tunisia, 1943; Lieutenant General, 1944; commanded Eight Army, Italy, 1944-1945; General Officer Commanding in Chief, British Forces of Occupation in Austria and British representative on the Allied Commission for Austria, 1945-1946; General Officer Commanding in Chief, British Army on the Rhine, 1946-1948; General, 1948; British Army representative, Military Staff Committee, United Nations, 1948-1949; retired, 1949; Colonel Commandant, Royal Armoured Corps, 1947-1956; Colonel, 12 Lancers, 1951; Colonel, 9/12 Royal Lancers, 1960; died 1967.
The Antients Grand Lodge came into existence following a meeting at the Turk's Head Tavern, Greek Street, Soho, London on 17 July 1751, attended by about eighty freemasons, many of Irish extraction, from five lodges. These were lodges meeting at the Turk's Head [SN 275]; The Cripple, Little Britain [SN 276]; The Cannon, Water Lane, Fleet Street [SN 277]; The Plaisterers' Arms, Grays Inn Lane [SN 278] and The Globe, Bridges Street, Covent Garden [SN 279]. Those present decided to establish a rival to the Moderns (or premier) Grand Lodge, which had been formed in 1717, as the Grand Lodge of England 'according to the old institutions'. The new Grand Lodge, which referred to itself as a Grand Committee until 27 December 1753, claimed the first Grand Lodge in England had introduced innovations and that it was the only one to preserve the ancient customs of freemasonry. It claimed that the first Grand Lodge had changed words in the ceremonies and signs of recognition; had 'dechristianised' and abbreviated ceremonies and lectures; used the term Wardens not Deacons for certain Lodge officers; and removed an esoteric installation ceremony for Lodge masters. In consequence, the first Grand Lodge became known as the 'Moderns' (or premier) Grand Lodge, while the new one formed in 1751, assumed the name 'Antients'.
Rules and Orders agreed at the first meeting in 1751, included in the first Antients' Grand Lodge membership register, known as Morgan's Register, were signed by Philip McLoughlin, a member of Enoch Lodge, No. 6 [SN 355], who returned to Ireland by 29 July 1751; Samuel Quay, a member of Lodge of Fidelity, No. 2 [SN 338], a habit maker of Tavistock Street, London, first Senior Grand Warden; James Shee, a member of Royal York Lodge of Perseverance, No. 4 [SN 774], an attorney of Fetter Lane, London, who returned later to Ireland and John Morgan, a member of Antients' Lodge, No. 2 [SN 275], who resigned to join a 'stationed ship' on 4 March 1752, as Grand Secretary. One of the first members listed was Abraham Ardasoif [or Ardisoif], of Broad Court, Bow Street, Covent Garden, 'deemed unworthy' of membership on 17 July 1751 but readmitted the following year. By the end of 1755 over a thousand members had joined the Antients' Grand Lodge, including several members who had transferred across from the Moderns' Grand Lodge.
Considered by some to be more progressive, the Antients attracted as a member Laurence Dermott, a painter and decorator born in 1720, who was initiated as a freemason aged 20 in Good Lodge, No. 26, meeting in Dublin at the house of Thomas Allen (later Worshipful Master of Lodge, No. 2 [SN 275], Antients), under the Grand Lodge of Ireland. Having served as Junior and Senior Deacon in that Lodge, Dermott later served as its Worshipful Master. Dermott served as Secretary and Right Worshipful Master of the Grand Lodge of Ireland from 1746, before relocating to London two years later. On arrival he lived in Stepney, near the burial ground of the Portuguese Synagogue at Bevis Marks, and joined a Lodge meeting under the Moderns Grand Lodge or an independent Lodge, before joining the Antients' Kent Lodge, No. 9 [SN 284] and then a Lodge which became Royal Athelstan Lodge, No. 10 [SN 754]. He married Susannah Neale on 20 January 1759 at St Paul's church, Shadwell, witnesses Edward Newth and Ruth Rush. The couple, who lived at Broad Bridge, Shadwell, had at least three children, Susanna baptised at St Giles' church, Cripplegate on 28 February 1755; Susanna Mary, baptised at the same church on 4 April 1757 and Elizabeth, buried at the same church on 4 August 1758. His wife, Susanna, was buried there on 7 December 1764 and Laurence, a widower of St Clement Danes, described as a vintner, married a widow, Elizabeth Merryman of Bethnal Green on 13 November 1766 at St Matthew's Church in that parish, witnessed by Robert Pell and Isaac Laud(?). On 30 December 1767, their son Laurence was baptised at St Botolph's Church, Aldgate. Laurence Dermott was buried at St Olave's Church, Bermondsey on 8 July 1791, aged seventy one.
Dermott, who maintained that his Grand Lodge acted as the custodian of 'pure ancient freemasonry', served as Grand Secretary for the Antients Grand Lodge from 1752 to 1771; Deputy Grand Master between 1771 and 1777 and again between 1783 and 1787. He was appointed Grand Secretary on the recommendation of his predecessor, John Morgan, in preference to John Morris, Past Master of Lodge, No. 5 [SN 278]. Dermott wrote the first edition of the rule book of the Antients' Grand Lodge, referred to as Ahiman Rezon, or, A help to a brother, in 1756. Dermott encouraged John, 3rd Duke of Atholl, to serve as Grand Master of the Antients from 1771 until his death in 1774. The 3rd Duke was also elected Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Scotland on 30 November 1773. His son, John, 4th Duke of Atholl, was initiated, passed and raised aged nineteen in Grand Masters Lodge, No. 1 on 25 February 1775. He was installed as Master of this Lodge at the same meeting and was proposed as Grand Master of the Antients' at the next Grand Lodge meeting. He was installed as Grand Master on 25 March 1775, serving in this role until 1781, before returning as Grand Master from 1791 to 1813. Due to the significant involvement of both Atholl peers, the Antients' Grand Lodge is also referred to as the Atholl Grand Lodge.
Over time some Moderns' Lodges and members changed allegiance to the Antients' Grand Lodge and vice versa, with rivalry emerging between the two Grand Lodges both in England and Wales and overseas, where lodges sometimes competed to attract members. In 1813 HRH Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex became Grand Master of the Moderns' Grand Lodge. In the Antients' Grand Lodge, the 4th Duke of Atholl stood aside for the installation of HRH Edward, Duke of Kent (brother of the Duke of Sussex and son of King George III) as Grand Master. The brothers led meetings that year to consider and discuss arrangements for the union between the Antients' and Moderns' Grand Lodges to form the United Grand Lodge of England.
The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was founded in 1888 by Dr William Wynn Westcott, Dr William Robert Woodman and Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, who were all Freemasons and members of Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia (S.R.I.A).
The Order was based on the rituals and knowledge lectures found in the Cipher Documents. [A series of encrypted documents containing outlines for a series of initiation rituals, see GBR 1991 GD 1/1/1-8]. Although the history and authenticity of these documents is subject to considerable debate, in general it is now agreed that they were written by Kenneth Mackenzie as outline rituals for the Society of Eight [a Golden Dawn prototype body founded by Frederick Holland in 1883 but which never developed into a membership body] or the Sat B'hai [This order, founded around 1871 by Captain J H Lawrence-Archer, using some Hindu terminology within a framework derived from masonry, had little more than a paper existence until 1875, when Mackenzie joined]. Westcott acquired these papers after Mackenzie's death, and set about transferring them into full grade rituals.
An additional paper found within the cipher documents contained the address of a woman in Germany, referred to as Fraulein Sprengel. Described as being an Adept of an occult order known as the Die Goldene Dammerung, Westcott asserted that Sprengel had authorized him in a series of letters to sign documents under her name and had granted him permission to set up a Temple in England. Researchers now believe that Westcott created this story in order to give the Golden Dawn a legitimate provenance and to attract serious occultists and freemasons to his new Order. The Order grew steadily and by the end of 1888 three temples had been set up, namely Isis-Urania in London, Osiris in Weston-Super-Mare and Horus in Bradford.
From 1888 to 1891 the Golden Dawn functioned as a theoretical school, performing the initiation ceremonies of the Outer Order from the 0°=0° Neophyte grade to the 4°=7° Philosophus grade and teaching the basics of the Qabalah, astrology, alchemical symbolism, geomancy and tarot. No practical magic was performed until 1891, when Mathers completed the ritual for the 5°=6° grade, the first grade of the Secord or Inner Order of the Golden Dawn, known as the Order of the Rosae Rubeae et Aureae Crucis (the Ruby Rose and Cross of Gold). By this time Woodman had died and as a replacement was not appointed, Mathers managed to reconstruct the Order, becoming its primary Chief.
The new 5=6 ritual was based on the legend of Christian Rosenkreuz, a great spiritual teacher who was secretly buried and later found perfectly preserved within a seven sided tomb. Mathers and his wife, Moina (nee Mina Bergson), created an elaborate full-size replica of his tomb, referred to as the Vault of the Adepts, which members of the Inner Order used when performing the rituals. The Inner Order transferred theory into practice, with members making and consecrating their own magical implements. Mathers also created a formal curriculum, which included guidance on scrying, astral travel, and alchemy and a series of eight graded examinations which lead to members achieving the sub-grade of Theoricus Adeptus Minor.
In 1895 the stability of the Order was threatened by the breakdown of the relationship between Mathers and Annie Horniman. This lead to her expulsion and increasing unrest among the Second Order Adepts in London. In 1897 further problems arose when civil authorities became aware of Westcott's link with the group, forcing him to resign in order to keep his position as Coroner for North East London. Florence Farr assumed Westcott's role but without his administrative supervision of the paperwork, the decline in grade work and examination system undertaken by members led the Order to decline in London.
By 1900 Mathers' domineering behaviour led to Farr suggesting that the Order should be dissolved. Fearing this was an attempt to replace him with Westcott, Mathers wrote to Farr stating that the Sprengel letters had been forged by Westcott. As Westcott declined to defend himself this shook the trust of London members in particular, leading to open rebellion after Mathers initiated Aleister Crowley, who had been refused admission as a member in the London Temple. A committee was set up to investigate Mathers' claims which led to the expulsion of Mathers, Moina Mathers, Crowley and other supporters in May 1900, despite Mathers sending Crowley as his envoy to London in an attempt to take possession of the Inner Order headquarters at 36 Blythe Road, London (subsequently referred to as the Battle of Blythe Road).
Those remaining loyal to Mathers formed a rival Isis Temple, headed by Mathers and run by Dr E. Berridge. This was later known as Alpha and Omega 1. The Paris Temple and later Amen-Ra in Edinburgh, under John W. Brodie-Innes also became part of Mathers' Alpha and Omega Order.
After Mathers' displacement, William Butler Yeats resumed responsibility for the Temple in London. Further trouble was caused by the newly reinstated Annie Horniman, who led disputes over the forgotten examination system and Farr's splinter organisation, known as the Sphere Group. A further blow came in 1901 following unwanted publicity as a result of the Horos case. An American couple, Frank and Editha Jackson, also known as Theo and Laura Horos, used the rituals, which they had duped Mathers into handing over to them in Paris, to set up their own order in London, known as the Order of Theocratic Unity. They defrauded and raped several young women persuaded to join this Order and the subsequent court case lead to the exposure of many Golden Dawn secrets in the press. Editha Jackson was also known as the Swami Vive Ananda and assumed various other names, including Anne O'Delia Diss De Bar but was born into a respectable Kentucky family, the Salomons, during a criminal career as a spiritualist and extortionist in New York and New Orleans, America. As a result of this Case, leading to the imprisonment of the American couple in London, many members left in order to distance themselves from the Golden Dawn. Remaining members changed the Order's name to the Hermetic Society of the Morgenröthe.
In 1903 a further schism occurred within the Order. Arthur Edward Waite took over the remnant of the original Isis-Urania Temple, which became known as the Independent and Rectified Rite. Waite's new Order moved away from the ritual magic present in the old Order, replacing it with a more mystical path. This Order existed until 1914 when internal disputes led to Waite closing the Temple and forming the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross the following year. This continued to exist until Waite's death in 1942.
Those members who preferred the rituals and magic developed by Mathers joined Dr Robert Felkin in his new organisation known as the Stella Matutina. Their temple, based in London was named Amoun. After lengthy negotiations, Felkin signed a concordat with Waite in 1907 to govern the relationship between the two Temples, but this agreement only lasted until 1910.
Once he became Chief, Dr Felkin communicated with several mystical individuals including the discarnate Arab teacher, Ara Ben Shemesh and the Sun Masters. Increasingly, Felkin became interested in establishing new links with the 'Secret Chiefs' and the original Rosicrucian societies in Germany, with which Westcott had claimed to have had links. Felkin's quest led him on several continental trips where he met Ruldolf Steiner (1861-1925), the Austrian philosopher and esotericist, and claimed to have been given higher grades, the equivalent to 8=3 and 7=4 grades. Felkin also corresponded with Anne Sprengel, a patient of his, whom he claimed was the niece of Fraülein Sprengel.
While travelling in New Zealand with his family in 1912, Felkin founded a new Temple, Smaragdum Thalasses, at Havelock North, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand. Before his relocation to New Zealand in 1916, Felkin issued a new constitution for Stella Matutina, which included details for three daughter temples for Amoun, namely Hermes Temple, Bristol (which became independent in the early 1920's and survived until c. 1972); The Secret College, London, which was to be 'confined to members of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia, who have taken at least Grade 4' (this college was active in 1921 but may not have survived long beyond this date0; and finally Merlin Temple, perhaps located in London but not established successfully, which was to consist of former members of Waite's group or the Anthroposophical Society.
After Felkin's departure, the Order in London came under the control of Christina Stoddart. She became increasingly paranoid and obsessed with details about the Order's origins. After working on her paper 'Investigations into the Foundations of the Order G.D. and R.R. et A.C. and the Source of its Teachings' for four years, she concluded that the whole Order was evil. Stoddart's attitude, further internal disputes and bad publicity in the press led to the closure of the Amoun Temple, London, in the early 1920's. By 1923 a significant quantity of the Order's papers had been given by Stoddart to a colleague for safekeeping.
The Royal Masonic Benevolent Annuity Fund was set up in 1842 to provide financial support for elderly freemasons. In 1849 a female annuity fund was set up to provide financial support for the widows, spinster daughters and sisters of freemasons. In 1850 a home for the care of annuitants was opened in East Croydon under the control of the Royal Masonic Benevolent Institution, which was created at the same time through the merger of the two annuity funds. The home was moved to Hove in Sussex in 1955 and seventeen further homes were opened at locations around the country between 1966 and 1998.
Proposals for a Freemasons' Hospital and Nursing Home were made by Major Charles Heaton-Ellis, Percy Still and four other members of Malmesbury Lodge, No. 3156, London at an installation meeting in 1911, recommending that, ‘Bros A[rchibald] D Ryder, C[harles] H[erbert] Thorpe, Major K[enneth] R[obert] Balfour, Sir C[harles] Heaton-Ellis, A[ugustus] Turner and Percy Still, be appointed a Committee of the Lodge to formulate a scheme for the suggested Masonic Nursing Home, and be empowered to take such steps as may seem necessary or desirable in the promotion of the scheme.’ By 5 March 1913 the Quarterly Communications of the United Grand Lodge of England recorded that, ‘Grand Lodge views with approval the praiseworthy efforts of certain Brethren to establish a Masonic Nursing Home, and recommends the Scheme to the favourable attention of the Craft at large.’ By 1916 fundraising began for the proposed Freemasons' Hospital and Nursing Home but the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 led to a change in plans. In consequence, the United Grand Lodge of England proposed running and meeting the expenses of a hospital for the War Office, provided the government department located appropriate premises. The former Chelsea Hospital for Women, at 237 Fulham Road, Chelsea was acquired by Grand Lodge with the assistance of the War Office for £10,000. This hospital had been constructed in 1880 to 1883 on a plot of land on the south side of Fulham Road and was designed by the architect, J T Smith. The first hospital in London built especially for diseases specific to women, it offered a free ward funded by a Samaritan fund, and featured red brick facings, stone dressings and decorative elements, with spaces for sixty three beds. In 1891 Earl Cadogan led an appeal to raise funds to construct a larger hospital facility, as it was assisting 500 in patients and 12,000 out patients each year and the operating theatre was enlarged in 1899.
From 1911 the Women's Hospital relocated to a new site provided by Earl Cadogan in Arthur (later Dovehouse) Street, near the Royal Marsden and Royal Brompton Hospitals, which opened in 1916. After the relocation of the Chelsea Hospital for Women, the Fulham Road premises became the Freemasons' War Hospital and Nursing Home. The Freemasons' War Hospital opened in September 1916 and HRH King George V and HM Queen Mary visited soon afterwards. During the First World War, the Freemasons' Hospital treated over 4,000 members of the armed forces under a team of doctors, including Dr [Robert Maxwell] Chance and Dr Dobson, Red Cross nurses, Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurses, led by a Matron, Miss Minnie Evelyn Windemer (1877-1923). In 1918 the Bishop of London offered additional hospital facilities at Fulham Palace, which became known as the Freemasons' Hospital No. 2, which opened on 27 April, with Mrs Maude Minnie Fox-Symons (1868-1957), wife of the military surgeon, Sir Robert Fox-Symons (1870-1932), wartime head of the Auxilliary Home Hospital Department of the British Red Cross, as Matron. Rooms at the Palace were converted into wards and a wooden sign, entitled 'Fortitude', now on display at the Museum of Fulham Palace, hung in the drawing room. In addition a third hospital opened for convalescents at Cliff House, Caversham, near Reading. Records including details about the Freemasons' War Hospital in this collection include minute books of the general committee, medical advisory committee, an investments ledger, cash books, a diary noting Matron's weekly reports and ephemera collated by Percy Still. The minute books and investment ledger continue in use after the formation of the Freemasons' Hospital and Nursing Home after the war in 1919.
By the Autumn of 1919, the premises at 237 Fulham Road re-opened as the Freemasons’ Hospital and Nursing Home, with facilities for 46 in-patients, who had to be freemasons, their wives or dependent children. The Hospital was established as an endowment fund, in order that annual appeals would not be required. Some record series, such as the Medical Advisory Committee minutes, investment ledgers and visitors' books, which commence during the years of the Freemasons' War Hospital continue, additional record series commence in the early 1920's including the minutes of governors' meetings, Board of Management minutes, House Committee minutes, Finance Committee minutes, Building and Premises Committee minutes, propaganda committee minutes and nursing staff registers. Patients were asked to pay fees according to their means and a separate Samaritan Fund was established to assist those who were unable to pay, generated by individual donations as well as Lodge collections. Lodges which contributed 100 Guineas to the Hospital Endowment Fund became known as ‘Founding Lodges’. Founding Lodges were entitled to send representatives to the Hospital management board, with numbers of representatives depending on the levels of contribution made. The first Masonic patient was Mrs Fry, wife of Arthur, a member of Berries Lodge, No. 2928, Berkshire, who was admitted on 7 June 1920. Her consultant was the gynaecologist, Victor Bonney (1872-1953). In 1924 a permanent constitution for the Hospital was adopted and a Student Nurses Association was formed in 1926-1927. Structural alterations were made to enlarge the Fulham Road premises in 1928 but a search began for a new site to erect a Hospital ‘worthy of the craft’.
In 1929 an extension fund was established to raise an endowment capital fund to ensure the Hospital was self-supporting and a permanent Commemorative Jewel was issued to fund raisers, the only jewel issued by the Hospital. It was designed by C L Doman, the artist responsible for the Armistice Medal issued after the First World War. The jewel included an image of the hospital motto, ‘Humanity tending the sick’ or in Latin, ‘Aegros Sanat Humanitas’. The jewel ribbon, dark blue with light blue strip down the centre, was attached by means of a pentalpha, or 5-pointed star, long recognised as a symbol of health. In 1931 land overlooking Ravenscourt Park was identified as a site for a new Hospital, offering accomodation for 180 beds and much improved working facilities, and an Appeal was launched to raise £250,000. On 19 May 1932 a foundation stone, connected electrically to a replica stone at Olympia, was laid by the Grand Master, HRH the Duke of Connaught and Strathearn at a significant Masonic gathering, attended by over 12,000 people, including four Royal princes. A solid block of Lunel marble, engraved with lines from the poet, Rudyard Kipling, ‘By mine own work before the night, Great Overseer, I make my prayer’, supported a bronze and crystal casket containing an illuminated Roll of the Founding Lodges of the original Hospital at Chelsea. The stone stood on a base of Hopton Wood marble from Derbyshire, with an engraving around the base with the line, ‘Except the Lord build the house, their labour is but lost that build it.’ On 12 July 1933 King George V, accompanied by Queen Mary, officially opened the Hospital, announcing that it was to be known as, The Royal Masonic Hospital. The opening ceremony included a performance by the Band of HM Grenadier Guards. The first 75 patients arrived in November 1933, while thirty two patients continued to be treated at the Fulham Road premises, sold for £17,500 to pay for the proposed new Nurses’ Home at Ravenscourt Park.
The new hospital site, which occupied 10 acres, included accommodation for some 200 patients, with special departments for an X-ray unit and other facilities, costing £335,000. Nurses continued to reside at Fulham Road until Christmas 1937 and the premises were purchased and adapted for use the following year by the Chester Beatty Cancer Research Institute, later known as The Institute of Cancer Research. The striking architecture of the new building at Ravenscourt Park was created in a modern international Art Deco style by the architects, Sir John Burnet RA, Tait and Lorne, who won the London Architectural Medal for their work and was built by John Mowlem and Co Ltd. The site was deisgned to American hospital practice standards, comprising four principal building units linked by glass bridges on a cross-axial layout. It featured lavish decoration, influenced by the work of the Dutch architect, W Dudok, and clad with expensive hand-made red bricks. The Art Deco styled entrance featured concrete figures, representing Healing (Aesculapius) and Charity (Hygeia), on pillars designed by Gilbert William Bayes RA (1872–1953). An acid-etched window depicted Aesculapius surrounded by signs of the zodiac. The 50ft high entrance hall had the appearance of a cinema foyer, lined with Lunel, Hopton Wood and Botticino marbles. The Board and conference rooms on either side of the hall featured Australian walnut panelling, decorated with Indian Coramandel wood. A marble relief by C L Doman, included the design of the Commemorative jewel of the Hospital, ‘Humanity tending the sick’ or in Latin, ‘Aegros Sanat Humanitas’. The structural engineer responsible for the steel frame of the building was Sven Bylander, responsible for the innovative work at the Ritz Hotel and Selfridges department store.
The Hospital was designed by Thomas Smith Tait (1882–1954) and Sir John James Burnet (1857–1938), a Glaswegian who had trained in Paris, the architect of the King Edward VII extension to the British Museum. The Princess Royal Children’s wards on third floor of the Hospital included mural paintings by Reginald Lewis (girls' ward) and hand-painted tiles of animals. Kitchens on the fourth floor included special facilities for Jewish patients requiring kosher food. A nurses’ home was added to side of the Hospital site, now Grade II listed, in 1937. The following year this was opened on 25 May by the Princess Royal, providing accommodation for 200 sisters, nurses and domestic staff, with music performed by the Band of HM Grenadier Guards. Connected to the Hospital by a subway, the new Nurses Home facility included the Elford Recreation Room, a Silver Jubilee Room and roof top gardens. During the Second World War from September 1939, the Royal Masonic Hospital in London treated, at no cost to the government, 8,640 servicemen, including over 600 American officers and other allies from 1941 onwards. 150 beds were made available for service personnel, at first other ranks and then officers after the Dunkirk retreat. During the Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940, many fighter pilots were treated, including burns victims such as Flight Lieutenant Richard Hope Hillary (1919-1943), author of The Last Enemy, recently rewritten by Sebastian Faulkes as The Fatal Englishman. Others treated included P/O Donald Mclntosh Gray of 610 Squadron, who died in a flying accident on 5 November 1940 and General Giffard Martel, former head of the military mission to Moscow, who received eye surgery at the Hospital as he informed the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, in a letter dated 1944.
Also treated were members of the allied Resistance, some of whom had been tortured in Nazi concentration camps. Churchill visited the Admiral of the Fleet, Sir Dudley Pound, just before he died in October 1943. In the autumn of 1941, before his death, HRH the Duke of Kent visited all the patients at the Royal Masonic Hospital. In 1944 the Duchess of Kent visited the Hospital and the Nurses’ Home. One nurse, Jeanne Hyatt, recorded details about life at the Hospital during wartime as part of the BBC’s WWII People’s War, ‘I was in my last year of training at the Royal London Hospital when war broke out. I was moved to the Royal Masonic Hospital at Hammersmith in 1941, which experienced the worst of the London blitz and lasted every night for 3 to 4 months. It didn't stop us going out, we just hoped for the best. I can clearly remember the awful fires and the total devastation of huge areas of bombing, much of it residential. Travelling by tube was the safest way. One night my train was stopped because of the bombing, so a very kind stationmaster let me sleep on a couch in his little office, and even bought me a cup of tea in the morning. At least the bombing eased off a little bit the next day and I felt like a holiday so I headed off to my parents home in the Hampshire countryside.’ During Word War II the Hospital treated 8,640 casualties, a fact recorded on a plaque unveiled by The Secretary of State for War, Rt. Hon Emanuel Shinwell, MP on 10 June 1946, above the Hospital reception desk. The armed services provided a short-wave diathermy set for use in the physiotherapy department. In 1948 the School of Nursing opened, with priority given to pupils from the Royal Masonic Institution for Girls's school at Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire. The first nurses qualified in 1952.
After training Royal Masonic Hospital nurses wore a distinctive Masonic blue uniform, with a silver belt buckle incorporating a square and compasses motif. Miss W L Huntly, known as Peter, was appointed as the Principal Tutor. On 10 August 1949 twenty student nurses arrived but the introduction of a 10pm curfew proved an irritation to many and all male visitors were banned from bedrooms. Nurses once had to remove capes when speaking to a Sister, a rule later removed. Photographs of nursing sets taken on Prize Day from 1952 to 1976 are included in this archive collection at GBR 1991 RMH 5/2/1-24. On 17 March 1953 the Royal Masonic Hospital Convalescent Home opened at Frinton-at-Sea, Essex to ease bed pressure at the Ravenscourt Park site. The Home provided spaces for fifteen patients and remained open until 20 January 1973. By 1956 long waiting lists restricted access to Hospital facilities and an extension, known as the Wakefield Wing, was planned at a cost of £650,000. A foundation stone for the new extension, built by the same architects, was laid by the Grand Master, Lawrence Roger Lumley, 11th Earl of Scarbrough. Life Governors of the Hospital, who donated an additional amount each year or subscribed by covenant, were awarded a bar to add to the Permanent Commemorative Jewel from 1 January 1956. On 10 December 1958 HM Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, opened the Wakefield Wing, providing eighty additional beds and the new School of Nursing, Physiotherapy and Hydrotherapy departments, and the Bishop of London dedicated the new Chapel. In 1962 the Royal Masonic Hospital League of Nurses was founded by a former Matron, Dorothy Brand and Miss Huntly was appointed its Life President.
In 1963 a Rehabilitation Unit opened in the Wakefield Wing providing care for non-acute illnesses with specialised treatment and nursing. An Intensive Care Unit opened in 1966, which was extended at a later date to cope with demand. Close Circuit Television (CCTV) was introduced at an early date to monitor patients. In 1967 Mr Smart, appointed Chief Administrator of the Hospital, lived with his wife Isabel at Royal Masonic Hospital House until October 1976. He gave lectures to Lodges about the work of the Hospital. The Cantores Medicini, a choir comprising nurses, doctors and medical students was formed at the Hospital by Dr Roy Stoddard, a medical student at the Royal Free Hospital and later Medical Director at the Royal Masonic Hospital. The choir issued three albums of carols and sacred music of the sixteenth century which formed part of their repertoire and was performed at cathedrals countrywide. Following the establishment of the Redevelopment and Modernisation Committee in the late 1960's, an initiative driven by Frank William Radford Douglas (1897-1971), a Redevelopment and Modernisation Fund Appeal was launched on 1 January 1970, aimed at enabling the Hospital to meet the latest hospital management and medical standards. An organisation and management working party met during the 1970's to encourage efficiencies and updated working methods. A Redevelopment Fund jewel was issued by the Hospital and the Redevelopment and Modernisation Fund merged with the main Hospital appeal fund in December 1976. Due to inflation, the costs for modernisation, estimated as £2 million in 1970, rose to £4 million by 1973. This target was reached by 1976 but by that date an additional £5 million was required to upgrade Hospital facilities. In 1972 the Association of Friends of the Royal Masonic Hospital was formed, with volunteers running a Hospital shop and library, with tours provided for members on Saturday afternoons.
All the Hospital committees were reconstituted on 7 October 1975, following the Hospital modernisation and redevelopment campaign. Committees dating from this period include the Executive and Finance Committee and investment sub-committee, Building and Premises sub-committee, Treasurer's Advisory sub-committee, Patients' Services sub-committee [Minutes 1975 to 1982, see GBR 1991 RMH 1/2/14/1], Support Services sub-committee [Minutes 1975 to 1983, see GBR 1991 RMH 1/2/15/1], Nursing sub-committee, Medical Staff sub-committee, Appeals sub-committee and Building and Premises Committee. Given the distances travelled by some patients to the Hospital, limited on-site accommodation was introduced at a modest fee for patients’ relatives. By 1979, some 4,715 patients were being treated a year, 2,387 from the London area, 2,253 from the Provinces and 75 from Districts Overseas, and from 1977 some 349 non-Masons were accepted as fee-paying patients if members did not require beds. The cost of maintaining each patient had risen to £475 per week. As spiraling inflation devalued investments, capital funds had to be used to cover costs. Patient income declined, with 80% of brethren being subsidised by the Craft. By 1979 there were 7,487 Patron Lodges but only 4,869 Grand Patron Lodges, each of which contributed £420 each year. The Percy Still Wing, comprising four new operating theatres and Pathology Laboratories designed by the architects, Watkins Gray Woodgate International, were opened on 1 December 1976 by the Grand Master, HRH the Duke of Kent, President of the Hospital. Due to inflation, the costs had risen to over £6 million. In 1979 the School of Nursing became the Royal Masonic Hospital and Roehampton School of Nursing, a unique partnership between an independent hospital and a National Health Service (NHS) District.
The training programme was extended to include pupil nurse training, enabling both student and pupil nurses to gain experience at the Royal Masonic Hospital, Queen Mary’s Hospital, Roehampton and St John’s Hospital, Battersea and within the community, with all three locations providing training venues. Frank Douglas Court was constructed to provide modern flats for nurses. By October 1980 the Hospital renovation works were completed, increasing bed capacity from 205 to 273 but £1.5 million remained to be found to complete the renovation and modernisation programme. By this date annual running costs reached £4 million, with the Hospital employing approximately 700 staff, with responsibility for numerous pensioners. The Hospital was the largest independent hospital in Britain and the only private medical facility to offer a Nurses’ Training School linked to a National Health Service hospital to facilitate experience and training. A new permanent Appeal Committee for the Hospital was established under Alan Raymond Mais (1911-1993), Lord Mais, as Chairman. In 1982 Michael Richardson MD was appointed Chairman of the Hospital and served as Governor from September 1986. In 1983 the Golden Jubilee of the Hospital was celebrated by a concert at the Royal Albert Hall, featuring the Band of the Welsh Guards, the Band of the Irish Guards, the Basingstoke Male Voice Choir, Cantores Medicini, London Welsh Male Voice Choir, the jazz pianist Jack Dieval (1920-2012), composer and arranger Geoff Love (1917-1991), the soprano Ava June Cooper (1931-2013) and the tenor, Ramon Remedios (b.1940). In 1984 a Committee of Inquiry was established, chaired by , recommending the sale of the Royal Masonic Hospital to American Medical International with the conversion of its assets into a Masonic insurance scheme. The closure campaign was supported by Grand Lodge but failed to succeed as only 69.6% of Hospital Governors voted in favour of this scheme rather than the required 75%.
The Bagnall Report in 1974 recommended accepting fee-paying patients, the amalgamation of the Royal Masonic Benevolent Institution and the Royal Masonic Hospital to form the Masonic Foundation for the Aged and the Sick, which was formed in November 1979. A Committee of enquiry led by Sir Maurice Drake (The Hon. Mr Justice Drake) made further recommendations in 1984, published as the Drake Report. In consequence the High Court ordered a redrafting of the Hospital’s constitution and the election of a new board of management. In 1986 the Royal Masonic Hospital and the Royal Masonic Benevolent Institution combined to form the Masonic Foundation for the Aged and the Sick. In March 1986 the Nurses’ Training School closed due to changes introduced by the General Nursing Council which stipulated a format for training facilities with which the Hospital was unable to comply. On 22 January, the Hospital Chairman and Trustees went to the High Court, where the vote for selling the Hospital was ruled invalid. As part of a campaign, led by Douglas Brooks of Oakwood, a Grand Vice-Patron of the Hospital, the proposed sale was stopped. The Board of Management of the Hospital agreed to the formation of three sub-committees, namely Policy and Resources, Premises and Estates and Finance Committee. Viscount Chelsea, Chairman of the Masonic Foundation for the Aged and the Sick, recommended the termination of this charity in December 1987 and a committee formed to consider this recommendation submitted a report from its chairman, Iain Ross Bryce (1936-2015), in March 1988. In consequence a new Chairman, Sir Bernard Chacksfield, was appointed to the Hospital in 1988.
Legal objections made by the group formed by Douglas Brooks led to a High Court judge setting specific terms for, and a date of, an election. At the same time, a Writ was issued by Richmond, Roehampton and Twickenham Area Health Authority of the National Health Service against the threat of the Royal Masonic Hospital withdrawing from its nurse training agreement commitments. The Hospital re-emerged with a new management structure and reorganisation in 1986 and records, such as minutes of a Finance sub-committee, Premises and Estates committee and Policy and Resources Committee in this collection relate to this period. In June 1989 an In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) clinic opened at the Hospital, which was run by Professor Robert Winston (b.1940) and Raul Adolfo Margara (b.1944) in a separate wing. The Unit, which achieved excellent success rates and developed ground-breaking fertilisation techniques, transferred to Hammersmith Hospital Trust in 1996. In November 1989 the management consultants, Touche Ross, prepared an independent review of all aspects of the Hospital. By 12 June 1989, the Hospital Board decided to separate the Samaritan Fund to safeguard its charitable assets, and transferred the operation of the Hospital to a company limited by guarantee, the Royal Masonic Hospital Limited.
Grand Lodge distanced itself from the Hospital, while recommending its closure and the safeguarding of its assets. The School of Nursing and Convalescent Home were replaced by two new wings. The Hospital, influenced by the Report of the Inquiry into London's Health Service, Medical Education and Research by Sir Bernard Tomlinson in October 1992, aimed to attract private and NHS patients, as well as members. It leased out part of the Ravenscourt Park site formerly known as the R Unit as the Stamford Wing, a 26-bed unit which treated psychiatric patients, including conditions such as anorexia and other eating disorders, run by Cygnet Health Care from October 1990. The unit employed two clinical psychologists, seven mental nurses and a therapist, with treatment provided for depression and alcohol problems. In 1992 Hospital catering was outsourced to Sutcliffe Catering and Charterhouse Clinical Research, seeking to expand the number of beds available, transferred to the Royal Masonic Hospital in March 1992. Led by Dr Jorg Taubel, the Charterhouse Clinical Research Unit was an independent research organisation facilitating drugs trials. In 1993 a Diamond Jubilee Appeal Fund was launched by the Hospital to refurbish the Intensive Therapy Unit (ITU), to build and equip a health centre at Sintana, Romania and to facilitate use of the Hospital by the local community and the National Health Service. A Grand Fete was held at the Ravenscourt Park site on 10 July 1993. The Hospital aimed to become the UK’s premier hospital for sports medicine, with Peter R Norman treating members of the Royal Ballet School, and negotiated the transfer of the National Sports Medicine Institute at St Batholomew's Hospital to the Royal Masonic Hospital under Professor Greg McLatchie. Plans for the Hospital site included an eye clinic, psychiatric wing and an ITU. A centre for alternative therapies, such as aromatherapy and reflexology to assist techniques and procedures, was also planned.
The International Federation of Aromatherapists, based its department of continuing education at the Royal Masonic Hospital. Andrew T Austin, pioneered Neuro Linguistic Programming at the site from 1994 to 1995 and Stephen Brooks ran Ericksonian Hypnosis training courses. By this time 32% of patients were masons or their dependents and the Hospital sought to attract NHS patients. The Hospital employed sixty nurses, supervised by a Matron, Heather Cole, who introduced a quality assurance system of levels in patient care. A computer system introduced and an occupational health service for the London Borough of Hounslow. A laundry service was provided for Charing Cross Hospital and Ravenscourt Laboratories operated at the Hospital site on a contract basis as a clinical pathology facility, with a staff assisting pharmaceutical drug trials. In 1995 two Hospital nurses held the Guinness Book of Records' record for fastest time to make a hospital bed, 17.3 seconds, broken by Sister Sharon Stringer and Senior Staff Nurse Michel Ambler, in front of a live American audience. The Hospital site was used as a set for numerous films and television programmes including Jeeves and Wooster, Minder, Poirot, Rumpole of the Bailey, Kavanagh QC and Simon Brett’s How to be a Little Sod. The Hospital also served as a venue for Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons examinations. Despite numerous attempts to generate sufficient income to become self-financing, the Hospital proved unable to maintain its independent private status and a decision was taken to close the facility. In 1996 a consultants farewell dinner was held and the Hospital contents and equipment were sold in April 1997.
In 2001 the Charity Commission appointed a receiver, Price Waterhouse Cooper and manager to take control of the Royal Masonic Hospital Association of Friends. The building became known as the Stamford Hospital and in 2002 was acquired by the Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust on a 15-year lease to help cut operation waiting times. The Ravenscourt Park Hospital, with six theatres and 105 beds, was improved at a cost of £14 million to help to cut waiting lists for operations. However the anticipated NHS shortages of capacity did not materialise and Ravenscourt Park lacked the supply of patients to make the investment work. In 2006 the NHS announced the closure of this facility. During its four years as an NHS facility, the Hospital conducted 18,500 operations, an average of about 4,500 a year. However, this proved uneconomic and the Hospital, losing about £12 million a year, proved unable to treat 11,000 to 12,000 patients each year in order to break even, despite being sent patients from other regional hospitals.
Grand Lodge, to provide benefits to clothe and educate the sons of indigent freemasons. In 1808, a similar Institution was established by the Royal Naval Lodge of Independence, No. 59, of the Moderns Grand Lodge. In 1816, the two Institutions merged under the Patronage of HRH the Duke of Sussex following the union four years earlier between the two Grand Lodges to form the United Grand Lodge of England. Although known as the Royal Masonic Institution for Boys from 1798, its official title changed over time. Formed in 1798 as the Masonic Institution for Clothing and Educating the Sons of Deceased and Indigent Free Masons, by 1832, the suffix ‘Royal’ was added when King William IV (1765-1837) became the Patron. From 1858, the Institution operated under the name of the Royal Masonic Institution for the sons of Decayed and Deceased Freemasons, until it formally adopted the title of the Royal Masonic Institution for Boys in 1868.
The Institution initially supported boys by providing grants for clothing and education at local schools, known as out-education and maintenance grants. The Institution offered support to boys in this form throughout its existence but in 1857, the Institution also opened its own School for the sons of indigent freemasons. From 1857-1902, the Royal Masonic School for Boys was located in Wood Green, London. In 1903, the School relocated to Bushey, Hertfordshire and in 1929 the Institution opened a Junior School adjacent to the Senior School. Due to a fall in pupil numbers, the Junior and Senior Schools were merged in 1970. In 1977, due to a continued fall numbers, the Royal Masonic School for Boys was closed and the Institution reverted to its initial remit of supporting boys through out-education and maintenance grants.
In 1971, HRH the Duke of Kent, as Grand Master, set up a Committee of Inquiry on Masonic charity, under the Chairmanship of the Hon Mr Justice Bagnall. In 1973, the Committee of Inquiry produced a report, known as the Bagnall Report, which recommended the merger of the Royal Masonic Institution for Boys and Royal Masonic Institution for Girls into a single Trust. In 1982, the Royal Masonic Institution for Boys merged with the Royal Masonic Institution for Girls and the trust deed establishing the Royal Masonic Trust for Girls and Boys was signed. The Royal Masonic Trust for Girls and Boys became active in 1986 and it continues to provide educational support to the children of Masonic families where required.
The Royal Masonic Institution for Girls was founded in 1788, by Chevalier Bartholomew Ruspini who formulated a scheme to establish a school to aid the education of the daughters of deceased and distressed freemasons. The first School was based in Somers Place East, near Euston, London and was known as the Royal Cumberland School for the Daughters of Indigent Free Masons. In 1795, the School moved to larger premises in St George’s Fields, Westminster Bridge Road, London and changed its name to the Royal Freemasons School for Female Children. The School moved to even larger premises in Clapham Junction, London in 1858 and in 1868, the Institution formally adopted the name the Royal Masonic Institution for Girls. In 1880, the Institution opened a Junior School, known as the Royal Masonic (Junior) School for Girls, at the site at Clapham Junction. In 1918, the Junior School moved to Weybridge, Surrey where it remained until its closure in 1973. The Royal Masonic (Senior) School for Girls moved to its current premises in Rickmansworth Park, Hertfordshire in 1934. Due to a fall in pupil numbers, fee-paying boarding pupils were allowed to fill vacancies from 1965 and fee-paying day-girls admitted from 1972, if they were daughters of a freemason. In September 1978, the Royal Masonic School for Girls became a limited company, The Rickmansworth Masonic School Limited and girls from non-Masonic families were accepted to fill vacancies on a fee paying basis. In 1984, the School became an entirely fee-paying independent school, with the Institution paying the fees of girls placed there as a result of petitions.
As well as providing places at the Royal Masonic Schools, from 1906, the Institution also awarded grants for girls to attend schools local to them, a procedure known as out-education. They also extended their benefits to provide special grants for girls to pursue courses in further and higher education.
In 1971, HRH the Duke of Kent, as Grand Master, set up a Committee of Inquiry on Masonic charity, under the Chairmanship of the Hon Mr Justice Bagnall. In 1973, the Committee of Inquiry produced a report, known as the Bagnall Report, which recommended the merger of the Royal Masonic Institution for Boys and Royal Masonic Institution for Girls into a single Trust. In 1982, the Royal Masonic Institution for Boys merged with the Royal Masonic Institution for Girls and the trust deed establishing the Royal Masonic Trust for Girls and Boy was signed. The Royal Masonic Trust for Girls and Boy became active in 1986 and it continues to provide educational support to the children of Masonic families where required.
The Supreme Grand Chapter, responsible for the governance of Royal Arch freemasonry in England and Wales and in Chapters overseas meeting under the English Constitution, came into existence on 18 March 1817. However evidence for working the Royal Arch degree exists from the 1730’s, with the first printed reference occurring in 1744. In addition to the three Craft degrees by the 1750’s this degree was conferred on a regular basis in England, Scotland and Ireland. From its formation in 1751, lodges meeting under the jurisdiction of the Antients or Atholl Grand Lodge also conferred Royal Arch and other Masonic degrees. The Antients formed a Grand Chapter in 1771 which met infrequently and did not create formal minutes, appoint separate officers or operate independently from its Grand Lodge. However the Antients Grand Lodge created and maintained separate registers of royal arch membership returns with an index, covering the period c.1746 to 1819.
The Moderns (or premier) Grand Lodge, formed in 1717, preferred to retain a distinction between Craft and Royal Arch freemasonry. While Antients’ Grand Lodges conferred the Royal Arch degree with consent and approval, the Moderns Grand Lodge did not acknowledge it openly and considered it an innovation representing irregular Masonic practice. In consequence several leading members who wished to do this additional degree established an Excellent Grand and Royal Chapter in 1765, in which the Moderns’ Grand Master, Lord Blayney, was exalted on 11 June the following year. A Charter of Compact dated 22 July 1766 constituted this new body as the Grand and Royal Chapter of the Royal Arch of Jerusalem. It met monthly at the Turk’s Head Tavern, Gerrard Street, Soho, from 12 June 1765 until November 1770, and then at various inns before relocating to the new Freemasons’ Hall in December 1775. Minutes, including names of new members exalted between 1769 and 1819, survive from 1765 and by laws were issued from December 1766. It only began to function as a governing body or Council from 13 January 1769, when it constituted three sub-ordinate Chapters and commissioned an official seal the following month. From 1801 the Excellent Grand and Royal Chapter met twice a year and during its existence it was also referred to as the Grand Lodge of Royal Arch Masons, the Grand and Royal Chapter of Jerusalem, the Most Grand and Royal Chapter, Royal Arch Grand Chapter, the Grand and Royal Arch Chapter of the Royal Arch of Jerusalem and the Supreme Grand and Royal Chapter of Royal Arch Masons of England, with no fewer than eight alterations to its official title.
Thomas Dunckerley (1724-1795) was a driving force behind the early development of the Grand Chapter, serving as a Royal Arch Superintendent in eighteen Provinces. Chapters working under the Charter of Compact welcomed members from both Antients’ and Moderns’ lodges. By September 1771 the new Moderns’ Grand Secretary, William Dickey complained of abuses and sought a meeting of Lodge Masters and Past Masters to discuss the future of the Grand Chapter. Some reforms took place in November 1773, when it was decided that the Chapter membership should be restricted to Masters and Past Masters, excluding those who had merely ‘passed the Chair’. Many lodge members considered Grand Lodge had no right to restrict them from becoming Royal Arch freemasons. By 1781 the formation of twenty five individual Chapters had been approved, mainly in the Provinces but only three in London. Two years later, thirty five Chapters were meeting but representation by members on its governing body remained limited, despite the formation of a General Convention in April 1784. Calls for reform were followed by unsuccessful attempts to separate the administrative functions of Grand Chapter from its role as a private Chapter that continued to exalt candidates and rehearse ceremonies. Grand Chapter experienced a period of stagnation between 1797 and 1800 but began to renew its activities from 1801, with the appointment of Arthur, 1st Earl of Mountnorris, as First Grand Principal. This revitalisation continued after Lord Moira, Acting Grand Master of the Moderns Grand Lodge under the Prince of Wales, was exalted in June 1803 and became First Grand Principal the following year. Moira resigned in 1810 to enable the Duke of Sussex to become First Grand Principal. Grand Chapter continued to perform both administrative and ceremonial functions until 1817, with the last exaltation of a member taking place on 12 March 1812 and a final Royal Arch ceremony worked on 17 May 1813.
At its last regular meeting on 30 November 1813, Grand Chapter announced the proposed Union between the Moderns’ and Antients’ Grand Lodges. Negotiations concerning the merger between the two Grand Lodges included an acknowledgement of the existence of Royal Arch freemasonry in the Articles of Union, representing the perfection of the Master’s Degree. The final meeting of the Supreme Grand and Royal Chapter took place on 18 March 1817, when the body that became known as the Supreme Grand Chapter of England, responsible for the governance of Royal Arch freemasonry, was formed. The laws and regulations of the new body were approved in May 1817, confirming that every Chapter had to be attached to a Craft Lodge and that no Lodge could form a Chapter without obtaining a Charter to attach to its Craft Warrant. In 1818 a Committee was appointed to regularise the installation ceremonies for Chapter officers, known as Principals. By February 1819 the Committee reported that Principals and Past Principals in London Chapters had been installed regularly but further ceremonies continued into 1824. In 1820 Grand Chapter permitted the installation of Principals and Past Principals in country and foreign Chapters. The first set of printed laws and Regulations appeared in 1823, including a list of 198 Chapters that had become attached to a Lodge.
The new administrative body was entitled initially the United Grand Chapter but from February 1822 it became known as the Supreme Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons of England. This indicated that the new body was not in effect a Union between two distinct Grand Chapters, but an amalgamation between the Moderns’ Supreme Grand and Royal Chapter and some Antients’ Royal Arch members. In 1834 and 1835 the Duke of Sussex, First Grand Principal, appointed leading members of the Supreme Grand Chapter to form a Chapter of Promulgation in order to regularise Royal Arch ceremonies. Royal Arch freemasonry incorporates unique symbolism and terminology. The term Brother, as used by Craft lodge members, continued to be used by Royal Arch freemasons until c.1778-1779, when the term Companion appears in Chapter minutes. The symbols Z, H and J for the three Chapter Principals or officers were already in use by 1765. The T and H symbols used in Royal Arch freemasonry, later referred to as the Triple Tau symbol, derive from the Latin phrase, Templum Hierosolimae, or Temple of Jerusalem.
No further information.
Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children was founded on its Bloomsbury site in 1852, as the Hospital for Sick Children. It became part of the National Health Service in 1948.
Great Ormond Street Hospital for children was founded in 1852 by Charles West on its current site in Bloomsbury. It was the first children's hospital in Great Britain. The administrative records were kept by the boards and committees of the hospital from its foundation.
Great Ormond Street Hospital was founded in 1852 by Charles West on its current site in Bloomsbury as the Hospital for Sick Children. It was the first children's hospital in Britain. It became part of the NHS in 1948 and took over the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Sick Children in 1968. It went through several changes of name during this period and adopted its current name in 1994.
Great Ormond Street Hospital was founded in 1852 by Charles West on its current site in Bloomsbury as the Hospital for Sick Children. It was the first children's hospital in Britain. It became part of the NHS in 1948 and took over the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Sick Children in 1968. It went through several changes of name during this period and adopted its current name in 1994.
Great Ormond Street Hospital was founded in 1852 on its Bloomsbury site. It has undergone several changes of title since its foundation. Its current description, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, dates from 1994.
Great Ormond Street Hospital was founded in 1852 by Charles West on its current site in Bloomsbury as the Hospital for Sick Children. It was the first children's hospital in Britain. It became part of the NHS in 1948 and took over the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Sick Children in 1968. It went through several changes of name during this period and adopted its current name in 1994.
Great Ormond Street Hospital was founded in 1852. It went through many stages of expansion and building at its Bloomsbury site.
Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children was founded on its Bloomsbury site in 1852, as the Hospital for Sick Children. It became part of the National Health Service in 1948.
Great Ormond Street Hospital was founded in 1852, in Bloomsbury. It has undergone several changes of name since its foundation, that of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children dates from 1994.
Gunnersbury Women’s Cricket Club was founded in 1925, a year before the formation of the Women’s Cricket Association. They first played their matches at a school in Gunnersbury Lane, West London, and later moved to Headstone Lane in North Pinner, Boston Manor and Ealing Technical College.
Gunnersbury have won the National Club Knockout competition five times – in 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982 and 2000. They also won the South Premier Division in 2001. Past members of the club include the cricketer, administrator and journalist Netta Rheinberg, and D M Turner and M I Taylor who played in the first England Women’s tour of Australia and New Zealand in 1934-1935. In 2010 the decision was taken to absorb the club as part of Finchley Cricket Club, thus changing the name of the women’s side to Finchley Gunns Cricket Club.
The collection is made up of items that originally belonged to Miss D Warden, one of the first Treasurers of Gunnersbury Women’s Cricket Club, during the early years of the club's existence.
Michael Hornsby-Smith is Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Surrey. He was Chairman of the British Sociological Association's Sociology of Religion Study group, 1990-1993.
Publications:
Catholic Education (1978)
Roman Catholic Opinion (co-author 1979)
Roman Catholics in England (1987)
The Changing Parish (1989)
Roman Catholic Beliefs in England (1991)
The Politics of Spirituality (1995)
An Introduction to Catholic Social Thought (2006)
Irving Rosenwater was born on 11 September 1932 at Mile End in London. He was initially known as 'Isidore' and was registered as such on his first birth certificate, until his parents (Rosenwater's father was Polish) decided to change his name. He was educated at Parmenter's Grammar School in Bethnal Green, London.
Rosenwater was a former assistant editor of The Cricketer magazine, founder editor of The Cricket Society Journal, a frequent contributor to Wisden, and a statistician for BBC and Channel 9. He was also a noted cricket writer - his book Sir Donald Bradman - The Biography, released in 1978, won The Cricket Society Literary Award. In 1970, Rosenwater became the cricket scorer for BBC TV, but he left in 1977 to become part of World Series Cricket. Rosenwater died in 2006 in Stepney, London.
Rosenwater was an avid collector of cricket material and the majority of this collection is made up of the period when he worked for BBC and Channel 9 - in particular during the World Series Cricket era - and contains scorecards, scoresheets and reports from that period, as well as ephemera. Also included in this collection is MCC records from the late 1920s-early 1930s, including letters sent to its then Secretary, William Findlay - an indication of Rosenwater's keenness for collecting any kind of cricket material. As Rosenwater was an MCC member he kept a lot of items sent to him during the course of his membership, such as invitations to events and notifications of meetings.