Registered Charity number 243773

Celebrating Hampshire Historians

Minns, George William Walter

23 April 1837 – 15 February 1919

G W Minns was born in Norwich. The son of a builder, he inherited an interest in craftsmanship and construction, but after Cambridge (St Catherine’s) he attended Cuddesdon College and was ordained in 1860. He spent eight years in Norfolk and on the Continent and was an active member of the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society.

In 1868 Minns left Norfolk and for the next twenty years put family and parish interests before his own antiquarian pursuits. By the late 1880s, he was the Vicar of Weston, Southampton and, described by an acquaintance as ‘an oak tree planted in a flower-pot’, ready to turn his energies to his former interests.

The Hampshire Field Club was founded in 1885 and in the following year a dozen papers were assembled in the hope of producing ‘a respectable pamphlet’. The post of editor was offered to Rev George Minns. Production of the annual ‘Papers and Proceedings’ became his main secular business for the next three decades.

In his time as editor and co-editor he contributed over twenty papers, with subjects ranging from ‘An Ancient Lockplate at Basingstoke’ via baptismal fonts and sepulchral monuments, to his own excavations at Place House, Titchfield. He also edited material for the newly formed Hampshire Record Society (1888).

He was described as a ‘rather autocratic’ editor, but his contributors ‘generally came round to admit that his changes were for the better’. In maintaining the expected standards of scholarship and accuracy ‘he was much helped by his devoted daughter’. He brought to the Club ‘a wide knowledge of antiquities…sound common sense…and a vigorous personality’, all of which contributed to its early successes.

Sources

HFC Proceedings 8, pp XII-XIII

Portrait

Rev G W W Minns

Contribution to county’s history

As the first editor of the Proc Hants Field Club, George Minns played an immeasurable part in bringing the history, archaeology (and natural history) of the county to the printed page. His role encouraged him to contribute personally with a wide range of papers. He was also a very effective researcher and cataloguer of monastic records. Read his introduction to the first edition of Proceedings - Vol 1, Part 1 1887.

Relevant published works

Minns G (1890) Notice of an Ancient Lock-plate at Basingstoke, Proc Hants Field Club 1, p. 68-70.
On the Baptismal Font at Odiham, ibid., p. 84-89.
Minns G (1893) The Ancient Christian Church at Silchester, Proc Hants Field Club 2, p. 241-252.
The Slavonian Tomb at North Stoneham, ibid., p 357-364
Minns G (1896) On a Portrait of Lady Betty Delmé and the Delmés of Cams Hall, Fareham, Proc Hants Field Club 3 p 99-114.
Titchfield Abbey and Place House, ibid., p. 317-338.
Minns G (1899) Westgate House, Southampton, with a Notice of the Town Walls and Gates, Proc Hants Field Club 4 p. 81-95.
On a Saxon Sepulchral Monument at Whitchurch and the Font at Barton Stacey, ibid., p 171-6
Funeral Garlands at Abbot's Ann, ibid., p. 235-9.
The Stocks at Odiham, ibid., p. 263.
The Old Seaweed Hut at Weston, ibid., p. 265.
Minns G (1906) An Old Map of Titchfield, Proc Hants Field Club 5 p. 203-209
On the New Device of Seal of the Hants Field Club and Archaeological Society, ibid, p. 225-8
Minns G (1913) Relics of Old Southampton,Proc Hants Field Club6 p. 1-5
Leland in Hampshire, ibid supp 43-68
Henri, Earl of Galway, ibid supp 69-74