Celebrating Hampshire Historians

Bigg-Wither, Reginald Fitzhugh

9 January 1842 – 7 November 1929

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 since at least 1402. In 1874 (or 1871) the Rev. Lovelace Bigg-Wither, son of Harris Bigg-Wither (the overnight fiancé of Jane Austen) and the father of the subject of this profile sold the estate to Edward Bates MP.

Reginald Bigg-Wither went up to Pembroke College, Oxford, and took holy orders. He was acutely aware of his ancestors and in 1907 published Materials for a History of the family, in the tradition of exhaustive family histories, and limited to 200 copies. It was a monumental work written ‘through an enforced winter’s rest’ and the loss of his only son during the proof stage. As well as notes on related families, he sketched the family estates in eight different places. He contributed a scholarly article to the Proceedings on one of them, the Manor of Woodgarston, Monk Sherborne. The manor of Worting followed the same descent as Manydown, and was also sold to Bates, though Lovelace Bigg-Wither retained the manorial rights and advowson and Reginald Bigg-Wither was inducted to the living there in 1879. In 1898 he translated to the living of Wonston, which he held until 1911, after which he and his wife went to live in Hartley Wintney.

In 1867 he became warden of St Thomas’s Home, Basingstoke, the Winchester Diocesan Penitentiary for Friendless and Fallen Women, retiring in 1899. This had been the brainchild of Admiral Sir Alfred Phillips Ryder (1820-1888) Admiral of the Fleet, KCB. Commander in Chief, Portsmouth, who died in 1881 by falling in the Thames, perhaps in an act of suicide. From at least 1880, Bigg-Wither occupied the warden’s house in Darlington Road in the town and in c.1887 wrote a history, which contains excerpts from heart-rending letters written by women who had stayed there. As such, it is a significant source for Victorian social history.

Late in life, in a curious change of interest, he wrote on the history of the Russian church.

Sources

• Reavell, D (ND), A Short History of South View, Basingstoke Heritage Society

• Kitchen GW (1895) The Manor of Manydown, Hampshire Record Series, London and Winchester

• FamilySearch

• Fisher, J, (1990), Newsletter, Tadley and District Historical Society

Portrait

Photograph, said to hang in Wonston Church, copy HRO, 94A03/PZ8

Contribution to county’s history

An example of an active family historian and recorder of the social history of ‘fallen women’.

Relevant published works

• Bigg-Wither (1887) History of the Foundation and of the Chief Incidents in the gradual establishment of St. Thomas’ Home, Basingstoke, the Winchester Diocesan Penitentiary for Friendless and Fallen Women, with a chapter concerning the penitents and the sermons preached at the laying of the foundation stone and dedication of the chapel : Illustrated with photographs and plans, London

• Bigg-Wither (1894) Worting in Olden Times, Hants & Berks Gazette, 24 November, 1894

• Bigg-Wither (1901) On the Manor of Woodgarston and Some Documents Relating Thereto, Proceedings of the Hampshire Field Club, 4, Part 3, 241-251.

• Bigg-Wither (1913)Historical Notes on the Parish of Wonston, Its Manors, Its Church and Its Rectors, HRO, COPY555/23

Critical Comments

His Materials contains not a single source. Wordy titling of works.

Other Comments

A pioneer of family history.

Contributor

Barry Shurlock, 26 January 2022

Key Words

Family history, St Thomas' Home Basingstoke, Worting, Woodgarston, Wonston

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