Of the huge number of guidebooks for walkers published over the years, An Historical Account of Winchester, with Descriptive Walks published in 1817 by Charles Ball set a standard rarely bettered. His firm objective was to improve on previous attempts to recount the history and antiquities of Winchester, which he regarded as ‘little better than…

Frances Awdry was the eighth child of Sir John Wither Awdry Kt, who served as Chief Justice in Bombay before returning home to live at Notton House, Lacock, in Wiltshire. Her brother Vere Awdry (1854 –1928) one-time vicar of Ampfield, was the father of Wilbert Vere Awdry (1911-1997) author of the Thomas the Tank Engine…

Elinor Aubrey was born in Southampton and until her retirement she spent her whole life in the town. Census records indicate that her father was an ‘elementary school master’ and in the 1901 census return her occupation is shown as that of ‘teacher’ (with the enumerator incorrectly adding the word ‘school’). The 1911 census shows…

G.H. Blore was a student (1882-89) and schoolmaster (1902-1930) at Winchester College. Much of his historical research and writing came after his retirement from the College in 1930. He was an inaugural member of the Friends of Winchester Cathedral (FOWC) in 1931 and editor of the annual Winchester Cathedral Record from 1935 until he handed…

Ernest was born in Breslau in eastern Germany. His family, described as ‘professional and academic … with a liberal tradition’, came to England as refugees in 1935. He was educated at the Dragon School in Oxford and the Leys School in Cambridge, where the family initially settled, and soon become proficient in English.

The Venerable Bede is known as ‘the father of history’ and is included in CHH as he was probably the first person to mention any place in what became Hampshire. In his The Ecclesiastical History of England, written in about 731, he described the foundation of the diocese of the West Saxons, and later the…

A Yorkshireman and graduate of Cambridge University, William Bingley was ordained in 1799, becoming a curate at Christchurch (Hants.) from 1802 to 1817, before moving on to Fitzroy Chapel in London. He published several books on botany and zoology, which were popular and went through multiple editions.

Samuel Best was Rector of Abbotts Ann, near Andover, from 1831 to 1873, and instrumental in founding a (non-denominational) village school, long before such institutions were required by law.  He also created the Abbotts Ann Provident Society, believing that labouring families should not be denied the benefits of Victorian progress.

Educated at Charterhouse and Trinity College, Cambridge, he was the son of Dr Samuel Birch, Keeper of the Department of Oriental Antiquities at the British Museum, where he too worked between 1864 and 1907 in the Department of Manuscripts.

Bigg-Wither came from a family that had been seated at Manydown Park, Wootton St Lawrence, since 1789, when his great-grandfather, Lovelace Bigg, had inherited the estate from William Wither on the condition that he take on the name of the Wither family, which had farmed lands on lease from the dean and chapter of Winchester…