Stukeley and Stamford, Part II

A series of drawings of medieval buildings in Stamford, made in the 1730s by William Stukeley, provide important new evidence for the history of the town, while documents relating to the bitterly contested parliamentary election of 1734 demonstrate the contemporary vitality of this Georgian town. The buildings and institutions of medieval Stamford have long fascinated historians and antiquaries, not least in the light of the claim that the fourteenth-century migration to the town of students from Oxford constituted the establishment of the 'third university of England'. The first history of the town, that of Richard Butcher, was published as early as 1646. So, when in 1730 the antiquary William Stukeley became Vicar of All Saints' Church in Stamford, he found a fruitful field for his historical studies. His manuscript history, 'Stanfordia Illustrata', has recently been published by the Lincoln Record Society. Now in this companion volume, the drawings which he produced to accompany that history, Designs of Stanford Antiquitys, are reproduced in full for the first time. Many of the buildings that Stukeley sketched no longer survive and his drawings form a valuable record of what has been lost. They are accompanied by a detailed commentary, the fruit of many years of research into Stamford and its buildings. Stukeley was a sociable antiquary and enjoyed the company of like-minded scholars, men such as Samuel Gale and William Warburton, taking them on elaborate tours of historic Stamford. But some of his fellow townspeople were not so friendly. As a Whig in a strongly conservative town, dominated by the Tory Cecils at nearby Burghley House, Stukeley was often involved in local disputes, sometimes over ecclesiastical appointments, such as the wardenship of Browne's Hosital, sometimes even over scientific matters, such as the treatment of gout. A notable struggle occurred over the Stamford election of 1734, both Tories and Whigs throwing mutual accusations of corruption and bribery, culminating in the 'battle of Friary Gate', an attack on the house of the major Whig candidate. Stukeley's account of the election, submitted to Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole, the subsequent Tory counter-petition and other related documents, are published in this volume. By the 1740s, and the publication of his major works, Stonehenge and Avebury, Stukeley had put such tribulations behind him and had reintegrated himself into Stamford society, eventually leaving the town early in 1748 to seek pastures new in London. The drawings and documents reproduced in this volume help us to see early eighteenth-century Stamford through Stukeley's eyes, providing new insights into an important phase of his life and into the history of a Lincolnshire market town in the reign of George II.

John Francis Howe Smith BEM FSA is a graduate of the University of York and was for almost twenty years curator of Stamford and Grantham Museums. He has a special interest in architectural history and the conservation of English churches and was a member of the English Heritage Cathedrals and Churches Committee, Lincoln Diocesan Advisory Committee and Peterborough Cathedral Fabric Committee.