John Harris, ‘Designs for the Museum and Library of the Spalding Gentlemen’s Society’, The Georgian Group Journal, Vol. xIX, 2011, pp. 39–49
text © the authors 2011 DESIGNS FOR THE MUSEUM AND LIBRARY OF THE SPALDING GENTLEMEN’S SOCIETY
JOHN HARRIS
In August , travelling for the Buildings of Books of the Society – ; again when I England: Lincolnshire , I joined the Spalding contributed to Dr Cinzia Sicca’s edited book on Gentlemen’s Society, fascinated that the Society had John Talman; and most recently when I read with emerged as long ago as as the singular creation of excitement the Honeybones’ exemplary editing of the Maurice Johnson ( – ), whose family had lived Society’s correspondence in . This was the spur at Ayscoughfee Hall since the later-seventeenth century. for me to write the present account of this group of The Hall, now the local museum, is still redolent of design s for what would have been the second custom- the Society’s founder, but I particularly recollect it built museum in England, albeit a small one. for the taxidermy in the Ashley Maples Collection of British Birds, alas now partly dispersed to the Leicester aurice Johnson ( – ), a young barrister Museum. I was introduced to Mr Woodward, Mtrained at the Inner Temple in London, was Headmaster of the Spalding Grammar School, and born in Spalding, where six generations of his family ex-officio Secretary of the Society, who had done much had flourished, in a town described in by to revive the Society’s fortunes during the s. I was William Bogdani, Clerk to the Ordnance at the amazed that this kind encourager left me with the key Tower of London, and a member of the SGS in , to the Museum, to spend three agreeable days without as ‘separated from the rest of Mankind’; and in the supervision. I believe in my fashion I turned everything same year by the antiquary Roger Gale, describing over, for books, manuscripts and drawings in this the Spalding Gentlemen as ‘a sett of Virtuosi almost fascinating repository were all mine to examine, and out of the world and who would never have been I must confess that more than fifty years on I cannot known but by the emanations of their own light’. recollect a comparable experience. I already knew of In London Johnson had enjoyed clubs and coffee John Talman, for since I had been cataloguing houses for social and cultural exchange, and it was the Talman drawings in the Royal Institute of British natural that when he returned to remote and fenny Architects where I was the Assistant Curator. So Spalding for marriage and the life of a country imagine my excitement at finding an albu m of lawyer, he should form a club where friends met drawings with one sheet inscribed ‘Mr Tallmans plan weekly to chat and read the Tatler and weekly papers for a Museum’, together with a group of others by newly arrived from London. A recent Public Library Maurice Johnson, William Stukeley, ‘Messrs Todd Act of was aimed at saving public libraries, and Sands’, Giuseppe Grisoni, and Captain Francis often established in parish churches, and so it was at Pilliod. Alas, although I penned a draft of an article Spalding, where a library in the church had been set in , it went into my ‘Pending’ file and remained up in the mid-seventeenth century, and where the there for fifty-one years, only briefly emerging in books were now in serious need of repair. when I acquired Dorothy Owen’s edition of the Minute This cultural socializing led to the founding of
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIX DESIGNS FOR THE MUSEUM AND LIBRARY OF THE SPALDING GENTLEMEN ’ S SOCIETY the Spalding Gentlemen’s Society, the first reference Maurice Johnson was the first to submit this idea to which are to be found in the Society’s Minute of a museum to paper on a single sheet (Fig. ) Books. At the weekly meeting held on Monday inscribed ‘Mr Johnson secretary of the Gent Soc November it is recorded that ‘the company his Plan for a museum for Soc. Gent. Spal. ’. had some Discourse about holding their Meeting in It proposed a museum and hall on two storeys, the the Record Room at the farther end of the Town length of the museum feet ½ inches, the Hall Hall, or in the Free School, if they could either of feet inches, the building feet wide. The them be fitted up’. The use of the Free School was drawing is also inscribed as having a ‘Courtyard’ encouraged by the Rev. Timothy Neve, the local Free measuring yards by , perhaps the first idea for the [Grammar] school Master who taught his pupils in a Society’s Physic Garden. He seems to have proposed two-storey school building created in the s out a ‘Winter’ and ‘Summer’ arrangement. No particular of one of the chapels in the Parish Church, where the site was indicated, and as it is not referred to in the Vicar was the Rev. Stephen Lyon, president of the Minutes, it might well have been a hypothetical Society. Alas, of the Free School project at this time, project on Johnson’s land at Ascoughfee Hall. despite high hopes, nothing came of this, and during On July occurs the first reference in the the period – the Society met on every Minute Books to the Free Grammar School proposal: Thursday afternoon and evening, in a variety of ‘Proposed by the President [Captain Francis Pilliod] places: the White Hart inn, Mr Younger’s Coffee that some part of the Building used for the Free House in the Abbey Yard, the Assembly Rooms, the Grammar School of Spalding be fitted up for a Town Hall, in the homes of member or in a room Museum for the Soc. Ordered that the same be hired by the Timothy Neve in the parsonage house. proposed to ye Governors of the said Schole by the Secretary … Accordingly upon the th of July … the There are clear parallels between this new Society same was proposed by me to the Governors & They and Johnson’s London experiences, particularly the with the President & Treasurer Viewed and Measured meeting and drinking club revived in as the the school & they declared Their Approbation of ye Society of Antiquaries, with Peter le Neve as its first Proposal provided the Same was executed so as not to President, Talman as its Director, and Maurice be any prejudice to the Use of ye said Building for the Master & Scholars’. Johnson and William Stukeley as Officers. Not surprisingly, as the years progressed, the rapidly This minute is followed by dimensions of the school increasing collections of books, curiosities, room . On the August it was ‘Agreed & Ordered archaeological finds and scientific instruments that the Free Grammer [ sic ] School be fitted up & encouraged the Officers of the Society to consider used for the Society to meet in’. However, as reported some permanent accommodation with a museum, a in the Minutes, ‘The President declared That he had library and a meeting room. By Johnson already heard Some People object to the Free Schole’s being had what he called his ‘museum’ in Ascoughfee Hall. used for the Soc. to meet in … [and as a result] The The idea of a specially-built dedicated museum was Treasurer [Neve] offered to spare the Soc. as much novel, even if the Society’s plans were modest for of his garden fronting the North Porch of the Church their parochial situation, for the only precedent was as is necessary to build a Museum on …’ So on the Ashmolean in Oxford, opened in , although September it was ‘Resolved upon Ballot that a there were many private collections of curiosities that Museum be built on part of Mr Neves Garden as could be described as museums, as well as the Royal proposed by him & that the prompt paymt of Monthly Armouries set up in in accommodation in the subscription be made as proposed’. To this period Tower of London. must belong the three designs (Figs. –) inscribed
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIX DESIGNS FOR THE MUSEUM AND LIBRARY OF THE SPALDING GENTLEMEN ’ S SOCIETY
Fig. (above) . Maurice Johnson’s plan for a museum, . Fig. (right) . Messrs Todd & [William] Sands designs for a museum attached to the Free Grammer School, July to August .
Fig. (left) . Design from Messrs Todd & Sands for fitting up the Free School & Museum. Fig. (above) . Another design by Todd & Sands.
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Fig. . John Talman’s design for a museum and for altering the Moulton Chapel, .
‘for fitting up the Free Schole & Museum’, the building Here then is documentation for three of the surviving measuring feet high, feet long, and feet wide. designs. Talman’s sheet (Fig. ) is fascinating, for the It would seem from the elevational sketches that left half is devoted to the museum, whereas the right the local mason-architect William Sands and Todd, half is his record of the Moulton Chapel of St James his associate , were proposing a Gothic exterior, near Spalding, designed by Sands in , to which maybe in stylistic accord with the church building. Talman proposed to add an Italianate campanile. On December there was further progress: One plan on this left half of the sheet is inscribed ‘The Members who accordingly met to measure the ‘Mr Tallman’s plan for a Museum’, indeed internally ground proposed & agreed to build the museum, in the shape of a double cube, but with external return that they find there are Thirty four feet in Front attachments to the angles. However, another plan and as much room backwards as is necessary being not above this is more ambitious, proposing a building that way confined. And hereupon the Secr[retar]y lay ranged around three sides of a courtyard with a little before ye Society sketches for the plans thereof (viz) one drawn by John Talman of Hinxworth Esq being in sketch to one side suggesting an internal chapel. the proportion of a double cube. Another for both He signed the sheet ‘Johes Tallman Ar[chitectus] stages by himself [Captain Pilliod] in the same delineavit apud Henxworth Agro Hertforde proportion & [indecipherable] another by Dr Mesure Novr’. On the verso is a view of the central Stukeley in which the Proportion is not regarded & elevation of Ayscoughfee Hall, where it is likely that there were many debats thereupon’. Talman stayed, for in the circles of Spalding, as a
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Fig. (top) . Captain Francis Pilliod’s plan for a museum, .
Fig. . William Stukeley’s plan for a museum, . Fig. (above) . Giuseppe Andrea Grisoni’s plan for a museum, . great collector and Director of the Society of storey. What is not mentioned in the Minutes is the Antiquaries, he would have been a most distinguished submission (Fig. ) by Giuseppe Andrea Grisoni, visitor. William Stukeley’s design (Fig. ) dated Talman’s colleague and personal draughtsman in November offers a free-standing open room of both Italy and England, inscribed ‘Signr Giuseppi three bays with a table in the centre and a bookcase Grisoni’s plan for a Museum Soc. Gen Spaldg ’, at one end. ‘Captain Pilliod’s Plan of of Decr ’ drawn on the verso of a receipt dated November , (Fig. ) is a free-standing building feet by feet, . Suggestively Grisoni’s sketch must have been ‘the height within feet’ and ‘ or Steppes raised made looking over Talman’s shoulder. As Grisoni the Floor being feet from the Ground’, so a single was married to the daughter of Francis St John, a
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Fig. . Scheme for fitting up the museum in Mr Sparke’s room, March .
distinguished collector of antique sculpture who Sparke, a canon of Peterborough Cathedral, had owned drawings of Talman provenance, and had been a member of the SGS since . By January succeeded to Thorpe Hall, Peterborough, in , it was minuted that ‘the Soc do move to it is likely that Talman in this November took the Mr Sparkes Room at the Abbey Yard; by April the coach from Hertfordshire, meeting up with Grisoni ‘Society Room’ was ordered to be altered’, and was at Thorpe Hall, when they both took the coach to finished by May when the officers instructed that Spalding. ‘the Presses to be fitted up for necessary Books This burst of optimistic architectural activity in papers & Curiositys in Art & Nature’ fitted up & a came to naught, for perhaps it was just a little walk made in the garden , which was laid out as a too ambitious for a provincial society. However, the Physic Garden. This move is demonstrated by two Minutes of December disclose a happy sheets (Figs. – ), dated March , detailing alternative: ‘that the Soc do view Rooms of the fitting up of the museum, a rare document. Mr Sparkes in a passage to the Abbey Yard in order The Society enjoyed their Abbey Yard rooms to remove thither if found commodious, until the until early when the Society’s Minutes on May society shall think proper to build a museum or describe new accommodation in Holyrood House, a some more convnt plan’. The Reverend Joseph property of the Ambler family that had descended to
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Fig. . Scheme for fitting up the museum in Mr Sparke’s room, second sheet.
Johnson through his wife, and was adjacent to larger and loftier room, though the first be of above ten Ascoughfee Hall, both facing the river Welland. feet high. The hall is the orchestra or concert room, furnished with a press facing the door, well-stored This was the house before its Georgian re-fronting in with a good collection of music of all masters in . According to the plan of the rooms on the request, and some of the antients, or not now living, entrance or river front, the Society occupied the hall as Blow’s, Purcell’s, Bassano’s, Corelli’s works &c. and the adjacent parlour, with a servant’s room and This leads you into the Museum with four book-cases, cellars, of the late Tudor house, the hall adapted as two deeper for charts, plants, and prints, and two on an ‘Orchestra’ and entered directly from the porch. them, in one of which is our Hortus Siccus, and our Matera Medica in the other, in proper partitions and As there are few descriptions of society museums subdivisions, what medals, coins, small pieces of at this time, Johnson’s letter to Samuel Gale, carving, turning, or other curious works of art, we September , is worth quoting: have, with room abundant for the reception of more. The like provision for gems, minerals, metals, fossils, ‘A pair of great gates, fronting the London Road, leads petrifications, shells and insects. This our Museum is through a court yard (of their garden) of yards by , feet inches and a half clear within, by feet wide, to this porch; thence into a hall of feet by inches and feet inches, and a half high within the by feet, well paved, hung with maps, plans, charts, compartments’. &c leading through a pair of folding doors into a much
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Fig. . Bookplate of a Society designed by Francis Johnson and engraved by George Vertue.
This move encouraged Maurice Johnson to draw by Dr Marten Perry, senior physician at the Johnson and have engraved by George Vertue in a Hospital in Spalding, who organized an appeal in bookplate for the Society. (Fig. ) which led to the building of the present The Society enjoyed twelve years here, but museum designed by J.B.Corby & Sons of Stamford, because of the death of Maurice Johnson in it and opened in as a memorial to Maurice not only lost its Founder but also the moving force Johnson, and indeed, in retrospect, in memory of the and inspiration that had inspired the early founding museum that might have been built in . members. It then moved to rooms (Fig. ) in a building by the old High Bridge across the Welland, belonging to Michael Cox, the apothecary, who held the title of ‘Operator’ to the Society. This was the meeting place until the building was demolished for road building in the s. The Society was revived
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APPENDIX page is a set of sketches for Moulton Chapel near List of the designs based upon compilation by Spalding] Verso: half is an elevation of Michael and Diana Honeybone. Ayscoughfee Hall and an indistinct note reads . ‘Mr Johnson Secretary of the Gents Soc his Plan ‘John Talman of Hinxworth etc Director of the for a museum for Soc. Gen. Spal. ’. .cm x Antiquarian Society’; the other half is an cm. unrelated letter, probably the first piece of paper . ‘Messrs Sands & Todd plan for museum in the that came to hand at the time/ Free School’ [ c. ?]. .cm x .cm. N.B. . William Stukeley’s plan for a Museum, dated This is drawn in the verso of sketch no. ⁄ Dec . cm x cm. . ‘Messrs Todd & Sands for fitting up the Free , ‘Captain Pilliod’s Plan for a museum’ Dec. Schole & Museum for Gents Soc Sp’ [ c. ?] . . cm x .cm/ . cm. x .cm. N.B. This is on the recto of . ‘Signor Giuseppi Grisoni’s plan for a Museum and maybe is Todd and Sands/ Soc Gen Spald ’ cm. cm. . Messrs Todd and Sands plan for a museum in . The Sparkes Room : ‘The Schaeme for fitting the Free School/ up the museum of the Gents Soc’, . . JohnTalman’s plan for a museum, inscribed, .cm x cm/ signed and dated, ‘Joh[ann]s Tallman Ar. . The Sparkes Room, details for fitting up, Delineavit Apud Henxworth Agro Hertforde inscribed ‘Schaema Musei agr Lady Day / Mesure Novr’. cm x .cm. [half of this [i.e. March ]. .cm x cm/
Fig. . View of the Meeting Room in Mr Cox’s rooms by the old High Bridge.
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NOTES in the world of letters(where you are chiefly A typical guide to the Hall is Ayscoughfee And conversant) affords me no small pleasure Its History , ‘New And Enlarged Edition, Fifth where I’m only a humble admirer at a distance Issue’ (Spalding, ); or the History produced how well the learned heroes of the age by the South Holland Museum Service in perform’. ‘I am able to give you some better . At this point I must warmly acknowledge account of our body Politick at Spalding than I Diana and Michael Honeybone , the editors of did at my last, these two last meetings we’re The Correspondence of the Spalding Gentlemen’s brightened up, and either a spirit of witty Society – , (Lincoln Record Society, mirth or learned dispute have agreeably vol. , Woodbridge, ) . My article could enough entertained us. I wou’d according to yr not have been written without their generous advice have set immediately about fitting up advice, drawing upon Michael Honeybone’s the room for our Museum, but that it cannot doctoral thesis, ‘The Spalding Gentleman’s conveniently be done till the Tenant that how Society : The Communication of Science In has shall have left it. I’ve sent Mr Todd to The East Midlands of England, – ’ survey it, and to give me the changes of wt it (Open University, ). will amount to, & he reckons us pounds for By far the best general account of Talman is the bare flooring of it. But I suppose the Graham Parry, The John Talman Letter Book , expence will terrifie none of us, and I’m very based upon the work of the late Hugh much oblig’d to you & Mr John for yr generous Macandrew (Walpole Society, vol. , ), offer’. especially sections and . But see also The situation at this time is referred to in the Howard Colvin, A Biographical Dictionary of Minute Book , f. r : ‘the Society fitted up a British Architects – (th ed., New little Room in the Old part of the Parsonage Haven & London, ), pp. –, and House and by the favour of the Revd Mr Neve Cinzia Sicca (ed.), John Talman: An Early who hired it met there at their usual times’. Eighteenth Century Connoisseur (New Haven ‘Untill the number of their members increasing & London, ). They were on that Act obliged to find a Larger A very large volume titled ‘An Alphabet of the & agreed for the use of the Assembly Room’. Arts and Sciences’. I am grateful to Michael But see also SGS Papers ( ) Acts, Orders & and Diana Honeybone for elucidating the Minutes : ‘At the West end of the Vicarage whereabouts of the drawings. house of Spalding a Room hired of the D. Owen, The Minute Books of the Spalding Ministers called Mr Neves Room fitted up by Gentleman’s Society – (Lincoln Record the Soc: there remained in his hands : : ½ Society, vol. , ), a misleading title wch part of wc[?] he was orderd to [being?] because she only published a facsimile of the Mappe – this room because too small and minutes for ; but in particular see her inconvenient so that the society was obliged to introduction. remove from it and hired a larger wherein the Listed as an appendix to this article. Gent & ladys kept an assembly’. I am quoting from the Honeybone’s See Joan Evans, A History of the Society of introduction, p.xi, letter , October , . Antiquaries (London, ). Honeybone, letter , September , . Minute Book, MB , f. r. Minute Book , f. r; but see the telling letter ‘Height from ground under the Upper School from T. Neve to Maurice Johnson, [in London’ to the Beauces of the Upper School fet’ at the Widdows Coffee-House in Devereux ‘Length Sch. Within walls feet’, ‘Breadth Court near The Temple’] March – , thereof within walls feet’, ‘ Width of each inscribed by Johnson, ‘abt fitting up the Vic. South Window within ye Lights ½ ft’ ‘Width Ouths [ outhouse] for house of the Soc’, of ye East Window within ye lights ½ ft’, the (Honeybone SGS no. ): ‘The kind Space from the Light to the Walls of the information you so often give me of wt passes window feet; the ‘Lower School is spacious
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enough for many Cellars feet high’; the Floor you to Judge of that when I have told you. All is half Oak, and half old badd firr and much who have the honr to be known to him admire broken. The walls are of stone and very strong & love him., & that Noble & learned sett of as is the Roof & Leaded the basse tracings men, the Society of English Antiquaries supporting the Floor will do again. & old Unanimously Elected him their Director of the floors will well make partitions for Cellars. Works & Undertakings where no Man acquits SGS, MB , f. v, September . himself better or be more highly Esteemed for Ibid ., f. r. he is not only an Ornamt to that Soc But an Ibid ., f. v. honor to the Nation’. For Sands see Colvin, Dictionary ( ), For Grisoni, see Sicca, op. cit . . pp. –. He has no reference to Todd, but SGS MB , December , f. v. Dr Richard Hewlings has kindly given me Ibid ., January , f. v. the information that Todd was one of four Ibid ., April , f. v. architects who contributed to the building of Ibid ., May , , f. r. See also SGS Misc the New Cross, a Market arcade with a room papers, showing seven wall divisions for books over it in Boston, Lincolnshire, in . and curiosities etc, and a plan for the garden. SGS I, , verso, December . See also Michael Honeybone’s account of this physic f. r, December : ‘Capt Pilliod layd garden in his thesis is very important for before the Soc. a sketch of a Plan for the garden history studies in relationship to the Museum /museum/Capt Pilliod/sketch of Plan. influential Chelsea Physic Garden. See Colvin Dictionary ( ), p. , for the SGS Minutes, MB , f. r, May , with account ‘by a member of the Spalding the plan of the Society’s proposed apartments Gentlemen’s Society’ of Talman’s collections. in the house; but see also MB , recto, The original source has never been given, and minutes of May. for this I am indebted to Michael Honeybone. Bibliographia Topographia Britannica , III. In fact it is by Maurice Johnson : SGS, MB , f. Steel engraving, ‘Interior Of The Gentlemen’s r, minuted January , ‘The Secr read to Society Room’, printed by William Pickering the Soc. part of Lr da Nov at Henx . (sic)worth in Hertfordshire the seat of my For the events at this time written by learned & most ingenious frd John Talman contemporaries, see the Rev. W.Moore, Esq’… adding to the transcript in Colvin, The Gentlemen’s Society at Spalding (reprint, ‘This Gentleman’s Father was a Celebrated Cambridge, ), including an addendum by Architect years in Collecting, & he himself Marten Perry, who also wrote a full piece on spent many years in Italy. He is deservedly the SGS in the Journal of the British blessed in a Excellent Lady of Fine Tact, has a Archaeological Society , () (March ). very good Estate Fine Gardens & Enjoys Life In addition Chris Renn has fully described the in a most rational & agreeable manner revival of the Society between and in imaginable. It wou’d be Vanity in me to his article ‘Keeping the Flame Burning’ in attempt his character, therefore I shall leave Lincolnshire History and Archaeology ( ).
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