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Celebrating Hampshire HistoriansFinch, Arthur Thomas1860 - 1954Finch is an example of a clergyman writing local history at a time when there was much encouragement do so, especially by other churchmen. A review of his Story of the Parish Church at Clere published in the Hants & Berks Gazette on 31 March 1906 praised him for having a ‘capable and careful pen’ and performing ‘a literary labour which we know the Venerable Fearon D.D. earnestly desired to see general in the county’. Dr William Andrews Fearon was headmaster of Winchester College between 1884 and1901 and later Archdeacon of Winchester from 1903 until his death in 1920 (19 works by him, some on local history, are listed in the Hampshire County Libraries Catalogue). Finch was the son of a clergyman, educated at Bradfield College, Berkshire, and Pembroke College, Cambridge. He held several curacies before becoming curate at Bramhope in Yorkshire and then in 1893 its vicar. Two years later he was instituted to the vicarage of Kingsclere, with the chapelries of Ecchinswell and Sydmonton. His Story of the Parish Church at Clere. Published in 1905 was a substantial product, with pullout plans and a colour map of the parish. It included extensive notes on monumental inscriptions, some with translations from the Latin, as well as lists of rectors, churchwardens, parish clerks, sextons and subscribers to a restoration fund that in 1849 had rescued the church from collapse. His book is in many ways a paean to the achievements of those who had saved the church from falling down. It had been allowed to get in a poor state by the patron and lay rector, William Orde-Paulet, 2nd Baron Bolton, who lived in Yorkshire (at the time, the family’s Hampshire seat, Hackwood Park, was rented out). In September 1846 a surveyor, Charles Pink, had written an alarming report on the state of the church. There were serious problems throughout: the stone coping, was ‘very defective, and consequently the wet is admitted, and runs down the walls, keeping them always in a damp state, and rotting the timbers…’ and the nave had ‘one oak tie beam … rotten for four feet from the south end’. The rector from 1829, John Mitchell, was unable to take action as he was in poor health and living in Southsea. The business was left in the hands of, James Tanner, the curate since 1834, who acted as clerk of works for the architect. Thomas Hillyer of Ryde. Authors of the Buildings of England volume for North Hampshire judge it a ’ferocious restoration, with ‘a silly stone tower’. There are interesting parallels between Finch’s interest in his church of Kingsclere and that of Bradfield: in the 1840s the rector of this Berkshire parish, Thomas Stevens – the fifth generation of his family to hold the living – set about rebuilding the church and then in 1850, largely to improve the quality of the choir, founded Bradfield College, where Finch was educated. SourcesA 1914 account by Finch regarding the restoration of Kingsclere church. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses White’s Directory of Hampshire, 1856, p. 495 (re Hackwood Park) Bullen, M., et al., Hampshire: Winchester and the North, Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England, 2010, London.PortraitThere is no known portrait of A T Finch. Contribution to county’s historyThe history of the church at Kingsclere. Relevant published works
Critical CommentsThe motivation in many places in Victorian times to restore the church was a driver for local history, not only that of the church, but of the parish in general. Other CommentsThe VCH cites Finch’s book. His inclusion in Celebrating Hampshire Historians is a marker for the ubiquitous role of the clerical historian in the early 1900s. ContributorBarry Shurlock, 21 January 2024 KeywordsKingsclere, Fearon, Bradfield CollegeAny queries or further suggestions for this part of the list should be addressed to celebrating@hantsfieldclub.org.uk.
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