Percy Manning

The Man Who Collected Oxfordshire Access

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edited by Michael Heaney

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Archaeological Lives

ISBN 978 1 78491 528 5 ISBN 978 1 78491 529 2 (e-Pdf) Access

Back Cover: Percy Manning at the Devil’s Quoits, Stanton Harcourt. Ashmolean Museum Archive 1648/MANN/1/MS/253/26.

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List of Figures ��iii

Acknowledgements and Sources ��vii

Abbreviations ��x

Preface ��xi

Contributors ��xii

Introduction ��xv

1: Percy Manning – A Life ��1 Michael Heaney 2: Bibliography of Works by Percy Manning �� 49 Michael Heaney Access 3: Percy Manning’s Archaeological Survey of Oxfordshire �� 53 Alison Roberts 4: The Lost Undercroft at Duckington’s Inn and other Oxford Tavern-undercrofts in Context ��Open 83 David Clark 5: Percy Manning: A Collector of Medieval Earthenware Paving Tiles �� 111 Maureen Mellor 6: Percy Manning’s Picture Collection �� 123 Julian Munby 7: Percy Manning, Thomas Carter and the Revival of Morris Dancing �� 145 Michael HeaneyArchaeopress 8: Manning’s Mummers’ Plays �� 173 Peter Millington 9: ‘Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen’: Songs, Music and Musical Instruments in the Percy Manning Collection �� 221 Alice Little 10: Percy Manning Contextualized: How Manning’s Collection of Lighting in the Pitt Rivers Museum Tells Us More about the Man, his Collection and its Context �� 257 Faye Belsey and Madeleine Ding 11: Manning’s Curiosity Projected into the 21st Century �� 289 Brian Durham Index �� 311

i © Archaeopress and the authors, 2016. Access

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Figure 1.1: Weetwood House, Headingley. �� 3 Figure 1.2: Percy Manning at 18. �� 4 Figure 1.3: The dig at Alchester, 1892. �� 6 Figure 1.4: Advertisement for the Randolph Exhibition. �� 11 Figure 1:5: Contributions to the Randolph loan exhibition. �� 12 Figure 1.6: OAHS excursion to Goring 12 May 1894. �� 23 Figure 1.7: Manning at North Leigh, 13 July 1910. �� 29 Figure 1.8: A View of the Conduit, part of Carfax Church, the piazza called the Butter Market, the Town Hall, the West Front of Christ Church College, &c. -- John Donowell, 1755. �� 32 Figure 1.9: Manning in uniform. �� 38 Figure 1.10: Manning’s grave at Wolvercote Cemetery. �� 39 Figure 1.11: Books in the Manning collection ��Access 44

Figure 3.1: Excavations at the Roman site of Alchester in March 1892. �� 56 Figure 3.2: OAHS excavations at the Clarendon Quadrangle in September 1899. �� 57 Figure 3.3: Manning’s record of the find of an iron Openspearhead at Dorchester. �� 63 Figure 3.4: Manning’s annotated copy of James Park Harrison’s ‘Index of British and Roman- British Finds in Oxford’. �� 66 Figure 3.5: Manning’s record of archaeological finds from Kingston Road, Oxford. �� 67 Figure 3.6: Edward Thurlow Leeds (1877-1955) in June 1936 �� 70 Figure 3.7: Handwritten list sent by Edmund Craster to Leeds recording the volumes of Percy Manning papers transferred to the Ashmolean by the Bodleian. �� 72 Figure 3.8: Percy Manning’s Archaeological Survey of Oxfordshire OS Map Sheet XXIII West. �� 75 Figure 3.9: ReceiptArchaeopress for the purchase of Percy Manning’s object collections from Cecil John Manning. �� 80

Figure 4.1: Extract from Loggan’s view of Oxford (1675). �� 85 Figure 4.2: St Aldate’s looking south in 1879. �� 86 Figure 4.3: St Aldate’s looking south in 2016. �� 86 Figure 4.4 Extract from 1876 1st edition Ordnance Survey map. �� 87 Figure 4.5: Undercroft floor plan. �� 88 Figure 4.6: Undercroft sections. �� 89 Figure 4.7: ‘Old Crypt’. �� 90 Figure 4.8: Tile fragments from Post Office site. �� 91 Figure 4.9: AM Tile 1970-1164. �� 92

iii © Archaeopress and the authors, 2016. Figure 4.10: AM Tile 1970-1170. �� 93 Figure 4.11: ‘Part of window once site of Post Office.’ �� 94 Figure 4.12: ‘Cornice – from the Post Office, Oxford. �� 94 Figure 4.13: ‘Cornice ornament site of post office preserved by Mr Hussey’ �� 95 Figure 4.14: A view of arches under the Town Hall c. 1751. �� 97 Figure 4.15: ‘Sectional Interior of Domus Conversorum.’ �� 97 Figure 4.16: Cellar at Carfax. Mr Sotham’s cellar. �� 98 Figure 4.17: Cellar at Carfax. �� 98 Figure 4.18: Early arch under Sotham’s office. �� 99 Figure 4.19: Vault of Old Crown Inn. �� 100 Figure 4.20: Plan of cellars under Falkner’s. �� 101 Figure 4.21: The passage to the Sun wine vaults exposed 1896. �� 101 Figure 4.22: Undercrofts at the Crown, Rochester. �� 104 Figure 4.23: Undercroft at 20 High Street, Chipping Norton. ��Access 106 Figure 4.24: ‘Gluttony’ from a 14th-century Italian manuscript. �� 107

Figure 5.1: Watercolour of probable chimera, illustratingOpen the hands of both Manning and Mrs Hore. � 113 Figure 5.2: Reconstruction of four-tile design from Osney Abbey. �� 114 Figure 5.3: Small-scale ‘etchings’ from paving tiles from Osney Abbey. �� 115 Figure 5.4: ‘Stabbed Wessex’ style paving tile, recovered in 1879. �� 116

Figure.6 1: Joseph Fisher: Interior of the University Galleries, c. 1850. �� 131 Figure 6.2: Joseph Fisher: Magdalen College School (interior), c. 1850.. �� 132 Figure 6.3: J.-B. Malchair: Mud house at Binsey near Oxford, July 16, 1784. �� 133 Figure 6.4: J.-B. Malchair:Archaeopress View from Oriel College, June 30, 1790. �� 134 Figure 6.5: Miss Ann Hornsby: landscape dated February 1800. �� 135 Figure 6.6: J.C. Nattes: New College & part of the Town Wall, 1804. �� 136 Figure 6.7: J.C. Nattes: View of the inner part of the Castle at Oxford, 1804. �� 137 Figure 6.8: Hugh O’Neill: Old House at N end of Folly Bridge. �� 138 Figure 6.9: William Turner: Old Houses on site of New Schools, William Turner 1825. �� 139 Figure 6.10: William Varley: Nos 79-83 St Aldates drawn and signed by Wm Varley, 1813 �� 141 Figure 6.11: [J. Bonnemer]: St Nicholas School Hythe Bridge St. c.1860. �� 143 Figure 6.12: Francis Grose: Minster Lovell Priory [sic], Francis Grose, 1775. �� 144

© Archaeopress and the authors, 2016. Figure 7.1: Radband/Wells/Tanner family tree. �� 146 Figure 7.2: Carter’s notes on Ascot-under-Wychwood morris. �� 152 Figure 7.3: Manning’s picture of the Headington Quarry Morris Dancers. �� 157 Figure 7.4: Drawings of Headington Quarry Morris Dancers at the 1899 concert. �� 161 Figure 7.5: Headington Quarry Morris Dancers 26 June 1899. �� 163 Figure 7.6: Headington Quarry bell pad from 1902. �� 166

Figure 8.1: Headington Quarry Mummers, December 1901. �� 175 Figure 8.2: Locations in Oxfordshire and Berkshire where Manning, Binney and relevant third parties collected. �� 178 Figure 8.3: Locations relevant to Manning’s Seven Champions chapbook. �� 193 Figure 8.4: ‘Culham’ mummers’ group. �� 195 Figure 8.5: ‘Culham’ Father Christmas & Doctor. �� 195 Figure 8.6: Headington Quarry Mummers, December 1901. ��Access 196 Figure 8.7: Islip Duke of Cumberland and King George. �� 197 Figure 8.8: Islip mummers general group. �� 198 Figure 8.9: Mummers at Cherry Orchard, Holton, c. 1893.Open �� 199 Figure 8.10: Mummers at Dorchester, 1898, drawing a tooth on the end of a shoelace. �� 200 Figure 8.11: The ‘Culham’ Doctor pulls a tooth from King George. �� 200 Figure 8.12: The Islip Doctor pulls a tooth from Molly, assisted by the rest of the team. �� 200 Figure 8.13: Islip texts compared by line. �� 201 Figure 8.14: Islip texts compared by motif. �� 201

Figure 9.1: Cuddesdon May Day 1901. �� 225 Figure 9.2: Named Archaeopressinformants. �� 230 Figure 9.3: Breakdown of seasonal songs. �� 233 Figure 9.4: Spelsbury May song. �� 238 Figure 9.5a: Morris songs, tunes, and notation: Tanner set ��244-245 Figure 9.5b: Morris songs, tunes, and notation: Trafford set ��246-247 Figure 9.6: Titles in Manning’s notes. �� 248 Figure 9.7: Kidson’s ‘The Maid of the Mill’. �� 251 Figure 9.8: Whit-horns. �� 253

v © Archaeopress and the authors, 2016. Figure 10.1: Group portrait of the Diploma in Anthropology Class of 1910. �� 259 Figure 10.2: Labels in Manning’s manuscripts for the objects in the PRM collection. �� 263 Figure 10.3: Henry Balfour, the first Curator of the PRM, circa 1926. �� 264 Figure 10.4: Henry Balfour working in the Upper Gallery of the Museum circa 1890-1895. �� 267 Figure 10.5: PRM Acquisitions for 1911. �� 272 Figure 10.6: Donation by Manning in July 1911 �� 278 Figure 10.7: Tinder box �� 284 Figure 10.8: Page 174 of PRM Accession Book VI showing tinder box 1911.29.35. �� 286 Figure 10.9: Section from Fire Making Accession Book showing tinder box 1911.29.35. �� 287 Figure 10.10: Label associated with 1911.29.35. �� 287

Figure 11.1: Particle-size analysis of loam-capping from two terraces �� 292 Figure 11.2: LiDAR model of Alchester environs. �� 294 Figure 11.3: Percy Manning at North Leigh Roman villa, 13 July 1910.Access �� 296 Figure 11.4: Leopold Arms, Cornmarket Street 1906. �� 298 Figure 11.5: Provisional layout of primary burh and proto-castle overlaid on contours of gravel-Loess interface (GLI). ��Open 301 Figure 11.6: Thames-Cherwell confluence inferred as two alluvial fans pushing the Thames to west side of valley floor. �� 305 Figure 11.7: Options for reconstructing the western route into Oxford. �� 306

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All Ashmolean Museum (AM) images © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford. All Bodleian Libraries (Bodl.) images courtesy of Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford. All Pitt Rivers Museum (PRM) images© Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.

Figure 1.1: Betty Longbottom. Geograph.org.uk image 470860. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic Licence. Figure 1.2: Clifton College: Wiseman’s House 1871-1888 Album. Photograph courtesy of Clifton College. Figure 1.3: AM Archives 1648/MANN/1/MS/102/28. Figure 1.4: OAHS, Bodl. Dep. c.586. Figure 1.6: Bodl. G.A. Oxon a.77, f.27v. Figure 1.7: AM Archives 1648/MANN/1/MS/236/3. Figure 1.8: Bodl. G.A. Oxon a.64, picture 322a (p.98) Figure 1.9: Oxford Journal Illustrated 21 March 1917. Figure 1.10: Michael Heaney. Figure 1.11: Michael Heaney. Access Figure 3.1: AM Archives 1648/MANN/1/MS/102/29. Figure 3.2: AM Archives 1648/MANN/1/MS/246/126. Figure 3.3: AM Archives 1648/MANN/1/MS/159/86. Figure 3.4: AM Archives 1648/MANN/1/MS/246/3. Figure 3.5: AM Archives 1648/MANN/1/MS/246/64.Open Figure 3.6: AM Negative number P7. Figure 3.7: AM Archives 1648/MANN/2/1/3. Figure 3.8: AM Archives 1648/MANN/1/MAP/41. Scan by Bodleian Libraries Map Room. Figure 3.9: AM Archives Administrative Records, Cash Vouchers Box 2 ‘1913-1925/6’.

Figure 4.1: David Loggan, Oxonia Illustrata (1675) (extract). Figure 4.2: Oxfordshire County Council photographic archive, HT1696. Figure 4.3: David Clark. Figure 4.4: Ordnance Survey is The City and Liberty of Oxford sheet XXXIII.15.17, surveyed in 1876. Figure 4.5: Bodl. MSArchaeopress Top. Oxon. a.24, f. 55. Figure 4.6: Bodl. MS Top. Oxon. a.24, f. 139. Figure 4.7: Bodl. MS Top. Oxon. a.24, f. 138. Figure 4.8: AM O71, http://tileweb.ashmolean.org/parker-hore/enlargements/o071.html. ©Worcestershire Archaeological Society. Figure 4.9: AM Tile 1970.1164. Figure 4.10: AM Tile 1970.1170. Figure 4.11: Bodl. MS Top. Oxon c.312, f. 27a. Figure 4.12: Bodl. MS Top. Oxon c.312, f. 27b. Figure 4.13: Bodl. MS Top. Oxon c.312, f. 28. Figure 4.14: Bodl. MS Top. Oxon c.313, f.122. Figure 4.15: Bodl. MS Top. Oxon c.313, f. 122v. Figure 4.16: Bodl. MS Top. Oxon c.312, f. 33a. Figure 4.17: Bodl. MS Top. Oxon c.312, f. 33b. Figure 4.18: Bodl. MS Top. Oxon c.312, f. 35. Figure 4.19: Bodl. MS Top. Oxon c.312, f. 39.

vii © Archaeopress and the authors, 2016. Figure 4.20: Bodl. MS Top. Oxon c.312, f. 42. Figure 4.21: Bodl. MS Top. Oxon c.312, f. 225. Figure 4.22: Gentleman’s Magazine 59 Supplement (December 1789): Plate 1, Figure 1 to p. 1185. Figure 4.23: David Clark Figure 4.24: British Library Add 27695 f.14 reproduced with permission from the British Library’s on-line digital image collection at https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/ illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=24291.

Figure 5.1: AM H014, http://tileweb.ashmolean.org/parker-hore/enlargements/h014.html. ©Worcestershire Archaeological Society. Figure 5.2: AM O175, http://tileweb.ashmolean.org/parker-hore/enlargements/o175.html. ©Worcestershire Archaeological Society. Figure 5.3: AM O174, http://tileweb.ashmolean.org/parker-hore/enlargements/o174.html. ©Worcestershire Archaeological Society. Figure 5.4: AM Tile AN1970.1160.

Figure 6.1: Bodl. MS Top. Oxon b.89, no. 14. Figure 6.2: Bodl. MS Top. Oxon b.89, no. 81. Figure 6.3: Bodl. MS Top. Oxon b.93, no. 9. Figure 6.4: Bodl. MS Top. Oxon b.93, no. 24. Access Figure 6.5: Bodl. MS Top. Oxon b.93, no. 29. Figure 6.6: Bodl. MS Top. Oxon b.93, no. 43. Figure 6.7: Bodl. MS Top. Oxon b.93, no. 57. Figure 6.8: Bodl. MS Top. Oxon b.91, no. 222. Open Figure 6.9: Bodl. MS Top. Oxon b.91, no. 199. Figure 6.10: Bodl. MS Top. Oxon b.91, no. 219. Figure 6.11: Bodl. MS Top. Oxon b.91, no. 161. Figure 6.12: Bodl. MS Top. Oxon b.90, no. 3.

Figure 7.1: Reproduced with permission from Keith Chandler, Morris Dancing at Bampton until 1914 (Eynsham: [The author], 1983). Figure 7.2: Bodl. MS Top. Oxon d.200, f. 133. Figure 7.3: Oxfordshire County Council photographic archive, OCL: 4848. Figure 7.4: Jackson’s Oxford Journal 18 March 1899. Figure 7.5: OxfordshireArchaeopress County Council photographic archive, OCL: 88/156. Figure 7.6: PRM Accession Number 2008.59.1.1. Image copyright PRM, University of Oxford.

Figure 8.1: Bodl. MS Top. Oxon. d. 199, fol. 360. Figure 8.2: Peter Millington. Map data © Google. Figure 8.3: Peter Millington. Map data © Google. Figure 8.4: Bodl. MS Top. Oxon d.199, f. 354. Figure 8.5: Bodl. MS Top. Oxon d.199, f. 356 (detail). Figure 8.6: Bodl. MS Top. Oxon d.199, f. 358. Figure 8.7: Bodl. MS Top. Oxon d.199, f. 361. Figure 8.8: Bodl. MS Top. Oxon d.199, f. 363. Figure 8.9: © Holton Park Archive. Figure 8.10: R.H.Cocks, ”’Mumming’: A Primitive Christmas Custom”, The Sketch 21 December 1898, p. 342.

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© Archaeopress and the authors, 2016. Figure 8.11: Bodl. MS Top. Oxon d.199, f. 355 (detail). Figure 8.12: Bodl. MS Top. Oxon d.199, f. 362. Figure 8.13: Peter Millington. Figure 8.14: Peter Millington.

Figure 9.1: Bodl. MS Top. Oxon d.199, f. 194. Figure 9.2: Alice Little. Figure 9.3: Alice Little. Figure 9.4: Bodl.MS Top. Oxon d.199, f. 179 Figure 9.5: Alice Little. Figure 9.6: Alice Little. Figure 9.7: Bodl. MS Top. Oxon d.200, f. 105. Figure 9.8: Percy Manning, “Some Oxfordshire Seasonal Festivals: With Notes on Morris- Dancing in Oxfordshire”, Folklore 8.4 (1897), plate VI, facing p. 320.

Figure 10.1: PRM Accession Number 1998.271.11. Figure 10.2 Bodl. MS Top. Oxon d.192, ff. 173-176. Figure 10.3: PRM Accession Number 1998.356.17.1 Figure 10.4: PRM Accession Number 1998.267.94.5 Figure 10.5: Faye Belsey and Madeleine Ding. Access Figure 10.6: Faye Belsey and Madeleine Ding. Figure 10.7: PRM Accession Number 1911.29.35. Figure 10.8: PRM Accession Book VI, p. 274. Figure 10.9: PRM Fire Making Accession Book 1911.29.35.Open Figure 10.10: Label associated with 1911.29.35.

Figure 11.1: Brian Durham. Figure 11.2: LiDAR mapping © Environment Agency copyright and/or database right 2015. All rights reserved. Figure 11.3 AM Archives 1648/MANN/1/MS/236/5. Figure 11.4: Lower: Site drawing, Bodl. MS Top. Oxon a.24, f. 7; upper: coloured fair copy, Bodl. MS Top. Oxon a.24, f. 6, overlaid on 1772 plan of Northgate from Salter, “A survey of Oxford in 1772”. Figure 11. 5: Brian Durham. Figure 11.6: Base planArchaeopress from Newell, Morphology and Quaternary Geology of the Thames floodplain around Oxford, 2007, Figure 9. Contains British Geological Survey materials © NERC 2016. Figure 11.7: Contains British Geological Survey materials © NERC 2016.

ix © Archaeopress and the authors, 2016. Abbreviations

Abbreviations

AM Ashmolean Museum BL British Library BM British Museum Bodl. Bodleian Libraries OAHS Oxford Architectural and Historical Society OHC Oxfordshire History Centre PRM Pitt Rivers Museum

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Any published work relies on the good will and support of innumerable people and organizations. My task as editor of this volume was made easier by the fact that, time and again, when people become aware of the remarkable talents of Percy Manning they have been keen to contribute towards celebrating his life and achievements. My first debt, of course, is to my fellow authors, all of whom have fitted the work on their respective chapters into already busy and demanding schedules. Several of them are also working on other aspects of Manning’s centenary: on exhibition displays and events, on the creation of digital resources, on lectures and workshops. Those people and institutions who have provided illustrations are listed formally in the Acknowledgements and Sources which follow this Preface, and my thanks are due also to them. In this regard I am pleased to acknowledge with gratitude the financial and in-kind support given by the Ashmolean Museum, the Bodleian Libraries, the Greening Lamborn Trust,1 the Oxford Architectural and Historical Society, the Oxfordshire History Centre and the Pitt Rivers Museum.

The staff at the Bodleian Library in particular have had toAccess cope over the past couple of years with unprecedented demand from me and my fellow authors for the dozens of volumes of Manning material in the Library, with the same volumes often being requested many times over as research progressed and facts were checked. The staff at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford Institute forOpen Archaeology, Pitt Rivers Museum, New College, Oxfordshire History Centre, Sackler Library and Vaughan Williams Memorial Library have been equally assiduous and helpful.

Michael Heaney

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1 The Greening Lamborn Trust’s objective is to promote public interest in the history, architecture, old photographs and heritage of Oxford and its neighbourhood by supporting publications and other media that create access to them.

xi © Archaeopress and the authors, 2016. Contributors

Faye Belsey is a curatorial assistant at the Pitt Rivers Museum. She has worked at the Museum since 2008 and during this time has contributed to the documentation of objects from all over the globe. She has a keen interest in researching the histories of objects in Museum collections and a new-found enthusiasm for Percy Manning and local traditions and customs.

David Clark is a freelance architectural historian with a particular interest in vernacular buildings. His publications include articles on medieval shops, post-medieval roof structures in Oxfordshire farm buildings, and on timber framing in Berkshire (for the revised Buildings of England volume). In 2008 he co-wrote (with Antonia Catchpole and Robert Peberdy) Burford: Buildings and People in a Cotswold Town. Elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 2008, he is also an active member of the Vernacular Architecture Group and was its President from 2011 to 2014.Access He is also active in the Oxfordshire Architectural and Historical Society and the Oxfordshire Buildings Record.

Madeleine Ding is currently Curatorial Assistant and Volunteers Officer at the Pitt Rivers Museum, and she has worked in the Object OpenCollections Department of the museum since 2008. She has a keen interest in all aspects of world cultures.

Brian Durham trained as a biologist before a 40-year career as a field archaeologist, investigating UK deposits from Neolithic to industrial, but concentrating on post-Roman towns. He retired in 2008 as Archaeologist to Oxford City Council, since when he has continued investigating the planetary carbon cycle, both terrestrial and atmospheric. His recent publications include wetland conservation, heritage presentation and the structure of water. He has enjoyed the privilege of draping his personal curiosity about early Oxford and its county over the figure of an accomplished predecessor in Percy Manning. Archaeopress

Michael Heaney is a well-known researcher into folk music and folklore who has published widely on the subject. He combines this with extensive knowledge of the collections in the Bodleian Library where he spent his professional career. He is a past Editor of Folk Music Journal (and continues on its board) and acts as adviser to and a Trustee of the country’s leading research library in the field, the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library. He contributed the entries on Manning and several other folk music luminaries, including Cecil Sharp, Headington Quarry musician and dancer William Kimber and Bampton morris fiddler William Wells to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Alice Little has a BA in Modern History and an MSc in Material Anthropology and Museum Ethnography from the University of Oxford, as part of which she studied ethnomusicology and the history of collecting, specializing in collections of English

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© Archaeopress and the authors, 2016. musical instruments. She has worked as Assistant Curator of Musical Instruments at the Horniman Museum in London, as well as at the British Museum and at the Bate Collection of Musical Instruments. She returned to Oxford in 2015 to begin her DPhil, this time in the Music Faculty, focusing on collections of English ‘national music’ from the late eighteenth century.

Maureen Mellor is an archaeologist with a special interest in the material culture of interiors and in medieval diet. She has over thirty years’ experience, working with the products of English and European clay industries in field archaeology and in museums. She has recently written an overview on ‘commerce and industry’ for The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Late Medieval Archaeology in Britain and acts as Reader for Historic England. She is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, London and sits on the court of the Worshipful Company of Arts Scholars, linking the art world and collections to scholarship.

Peter Millington is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Sheffield, where he gained his PhD on ‘The Origins and Development of English Folk Plays’ in 2002. He has been researching mumming and guising plays for overAccess 45 years, with particular interests in historical evidence and textual analysis. He runs the Master Mummers website (www.mastermummers.org), and inaugurated the Folk Play Research website (www.folkplay.info). More recently, he has been researching the customs and traditions of the remote South Atlantic island of Tristan Openda Cunha, and is actively involved in the Tristan da Cunha Association.

Julian Munby works for Oxford Archaeology and has a long-standing interest in the buildings and topography of Oxford, and especially in the work of artists who have recorded its vanished streets and buildings. He has used drawings by Buckler and others to reconstruct lost buildings and has published papers on these in Oxoniensia. He worked with Colin Harrison on the Ashmolean exhibition on John Malchair in 1998, and occasionally collects topographical drawings. Alison Roberts is AssistantArchaeopress Keeper for European and Early Prehistory at the Ashmolean Museum and is also responsible for the manuscript archives held by the Department of Antiquities. She specialises in early Prehistory, lithic technology and the history of archaeology and antiquarian collecting. Her particular research interests include British Late Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic material culture, the early prehistory of Oxfordshire, and the antiquarian work of Sir John Evans (1823-1908).

xiii © Archaeopress and the authors, 2016. Access

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Introduction

In 1921, Edward Thurlow Leeds, Assistant Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, published a 38-page work titled ‘An Archaeological Survey of Oxfordshire. By the late Percy Manning, Esq., M.A., F.S.A., and E. Thurlow Leeds, Esq., M.A., F.S.A.’.1 The article consisted of a concise topographically organized index of archaeological finds from the county together with a short introduction that stated (p. 227) that the work ‘is almost entirely based on the material in the Manning Collections and stands therefore as a monument to one whose knowledge of Oxfordshire’s past has had few rivals’. The article was published in Archaeologia, the original journal of the Society of Antiquaries of London, which was appropriate not just as both Leeds and Manning were Fellows of the Society but also because Leeds stated that the Society Accesshad provided the model for Manning’s work.

Leeds’s introduction to the index outlined the background to both Manning’s work and to his own involvement with its posthumous publication:Open 2

In 1896 the late Mr. Percy Manning, M.A., F.S.A, compiled an archaeological survey of Oxfordshire on the same lines as those already published by the Society of Antiquaries of London, but for some reason did not have it printed immediately with the result that the manuscript soon ceased to be up to date. Nevertheless, from the year 1896 right down to the beginning of the war he was assiduous in collecting every available piece of information about archaeological discoveries in the county, and as the material collected shows, had evidently some intention of publishing it in a near future. This intention was frustrated, however, by the outbreak of war and later by his death in 1916.3 He bequeathed his manuscript collectionsArchaeopress to the University of Oxford and the archaeological portion has been deposited in the Ashmolean Museum.

Leeds further explained (p. 227) that he had not just compiled the published index from Manning’s papers, but had tried to bring it up to date: ‘Several additions have been made to the list of discoveries known to Mr. Manning and a few minor corrections have been found necessary.’ In the undertaking of this task, he thanked Margerie Venables Taylor and Mr T.W. Colyer for their assistance with Roman material and finds from south Oxfordshire respectively. Leeds never claimed that the 1921 publication was the entirety of Manning’s work on the archaeological survey, indeed it is implicit in his

1 Percy Manning and E. Thurlow Leeds, ‘IX.—An Archaeological Survey of Oxfordshire’, Archaeologia (2nd Series), 71 (1921): 227-265. The article is sometimes referred to as if it were a book, presumably as some offprints were separately bound, 2 Manning and Leeds, ‘IX.—An Archaeological Survey of Oxfordshire’, p. 227-228. 3 In fact Manning died on 27 February 1917 (see Chapter 1).

53 © Archaeopress and the authors, 2016. 54 Percy Manning: The Man Who Collected Oxfordshire

text that ‘the list of discoveries’ was only a summary of the information gathered by Manning. Leeds also included the Manning manuscript collection at the Ashmolean in the bibliography of sources for the published survey: ‘MS. Collections for an Archaeological Survey of Oxfordshire compiled by P. Manning’.4

In the introduction to the 1921 publication of the Archaeological Survey of Oxfordshire, Thurlow Leeds provides basic information about its background: when Manning began work on it, that he had worked on it for 18 years, that it was never finished, and that the published survey was based on Manning’s papers. There were many unanswered questions about the work however, which no doubt have contributed to the general lack of understanding of the scale of Manning’s work or appreciation of the value of his archive as a research resource. This paper attempts to fill in some of the gaps and consider wider issues regarding the survey, and of Manning’s motivations and methods over the course of nearly two decades in attempting to compile an archaeological survey of Oxfordshire. It first considers the evidence concerning the survey from the perspective of Percy Manning’s activities, and then considers the evidence of the archive itself. Percy Manning, Undergraduate, Archaeology and OxfordshireAccess As Michael Heaney discusses in Chapter 1, Percy Manning arrived at the University of Oxford in October 1888 as an undergraduate at New College. He had been educated at Clifton College, Bristol, and seems to have been the only member of his family to have attended university. Although no evidence hasOpen been identified as yet of a prior interest in archaeology or local history, Manning seems to have lost no time in joining the Oxford Architectural and Historical Society (OAHS) – being proposed for membership on 20 November 1888 by no less a person than Arthur John Evans, the Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum. Whatever his motivation for joining the society, Manning is well- documented as being an active member of the OAHS throughout his time as a student, and, indeed for the rest of his life.5

It was through the OAHS that he seems to have met John Linton Myres, later the first Wykeham ProfessorArchaeopress of Ancient History at the University of Oxford, then a fellow new student.6 Both Manning and Myres seem to have been interested in most, if not all, aspects of the work of the OAHS, but both seem also to have been interested in archaeological fieldwork– an activity not then specifically undertaken by the Society until the excavations at the Clarendon Quadrangle in1899. How they gained experience in archaeological fieldwork is unclear, but the early part of 1892 saw them conducting excavations at the site of the small Roman town of Alchester near Wendlebury. The work took place over a period of about six weeks, including during a time when Manning should have been writing Collections at the University (see Chapter 1). The work is described in a brief report in Archaeologia Oxoniensis: 7

4 Manning and Leeds, ‘IX.—An Archaeological Survey of Oxfordshire’, p. 232. 5 See Chapter 1. 6 John Boardman, ‘Myres, Sir John Linton (1869–1954)’, rev. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, September 2010 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/35180]. 7 ‘Recent Discoveries’, Archaeologia Oxoniensis 1 (1892): 34.

Mr J.L. Myres, of New College, has furnished the following information regarding the excavations that he and Mr. Percy Manning of the same College commenced at the end of last winter at Alchester. First some trial trenches were opened in the north part of the camp. After about six weeks’ work further digging was stopped, the field being required for roots, but it is hoped by the explorers that subscriptions will be forthcoming to enable the work to be resumed next season.

Members of the OAHS seem to have visited the excavations on both 8 and 19 March 1892, recording that the ‘Society visited the Roman station at Alchester where some interesting excavations were in progress under the direction of and chiefly at the expense of P. Manning Esq and J.L. Myres Esq’.8 Manning had come into a large inheritance from his father when he reached the age of 21 in January 1891, and from the OAHS comment it might be assumed that he was the major funder of the Alchester work.9 The Ashmolean accession record for the material from the site however refers to a ‘digging fund’: ‘… presented by the digging fund through P. Manning Esq. New College who superintended the digging’.10 Despite being led by two relatively inexperienced undergraduates,Access the work at Alchester appears to have been undertaken carefully. Although no documentation for the work seems to have survived, it is likely, based on the information provided in Myres’s subsequent report, that some recording took place.11 Photography also took place at the end of the excavations – and copiesOpen are preserved in the Manning archive at the Ashmolean. Most of photographs are of pieces of stonework uncovered in the excavation trenches, but two provide views of the excavations themselves. One of these photographs shows work in progress, and pencil annotations on its paper mount identify both Manning and Thomas J. Carter in the image (reproduced in Chapter 1 as Figure 1.3). The other shows the site from another angle, tidied up and with the diggers standing on the remains of the walls in the trenches to show both where the walls were located, and how far below the surface they were found (Figure 3.1). Thanks to the annotation of the other photograph both Manning (third from the left, with a big smile on his face) and Thomas Carter (front right, holding the long metal probe which was presumably used Archaeopressto locate the stone walls under the soil) can be identified. In addition, the person at back right in the white shirt appears to be Myres.

Percy Manning seems clearly to have enjoyed the excavations at Alchester. As Michael Heaney reports in Chapter 1, he all but abandoned his academic studies while the work

8 AM Archives 1648/ETL/3/2, Thurlow Leeds’s manuscript notes listing Manning’s activities with the OAHS. The notes were apparently compiled from OAHS minute books. The archive folder also contains copies of Manning’s obituary in the Oxford Times. 9 Michael Heaney records in Chapter 1 that Manning would have inherited over £10,000 from his father’s estate when he reached age 21 (roughly equivalent to about £1 million in 2017 based on ‘Historical UK inflation rates and calculator’ http://inflation.stephenmorley.org/). 10 AM Accessions Register, AN1892.2640-2654. Note that one record (2640) is for all the pottery from the site. ‘Roman vessels of different kinds of pottery, together with some of a decidedly British or Romano-British type; and fragments of Roman flue and ridge tiles.’ 11 J.L. Myres, “On excavations at Alchester, Oxon.”, Proceedings of the Oxford Architectural and Historical Society 5 (1892): 355. The only other known record from the excavations is Myres’s coins list (AM Archives 1648/ MANN/1/MS/102/27).

Access Figure 3.1: Excavations at the Roman site of Alchester in March 1892. Photograph by F.J. Stewart, Bicester. was going on. It is therefore curious that AlchesterOpen seems to be the only major fieldwork that he participated in. He did visit excavations, for example work at North Leigh Roman Villa by Donald Atkinson and H.G. Evelyn White in 1910 for Francis Haverfield (see Figures 1.7 and 11.3 in their respective chapters). However, he did not conduct any further excavations himself, nor does he seem to have accompanied Myres on any excavations in Cyprus or Greece.12 He does not even seem to have been involved when the OAHS created an Excavations Subcommittee and began work in the Clarendon Quadrangle in Oxford in 1899, investigating the line of the City Wall (Figure 3.2).13

There is no evidence to explain why Manning took no part in these excavations – he was presentArchaeopress in Oxford, had just been elected one of the Vice-President’s of the OAHS along with Myres, and was apparently on good terms with the members of the Excavations Committee (Herbert Hurst, James Parker, and Falconer Madan). As Vice- President, he might have considered it inappropriate to be involved with the work of a sub-committee. However, it is equally likely that he was simply too busy with other endeavours to participate. The presence of the photographs in his papers shows that he had some interest in the work. Perhaps his focus on the archaeology of the county had changed from excavation on individual sites to broader issues.

12 Myres was awarded a Fellowship at Magdalen College after he graduated in1892, and he began working in the Eastern Mediterranean not long after. He is best known for his work on Cyprus, and with Arthur Evans in Crete. 13 The OAHS excavations in the Clarendon Quadrangle were never properly published by the excavators, but the context and results of the work has been the subject of a through report by Julian Munby, ‘Excavations on the Line of the City Wall in the Clarendon Quadrangle, 1899’, in Anne Dodd (ed.), Oxford before the University: The Late Saxon and Norman Archaeology of the Thames Crossing, the Defences and the Town, pp. 172-182. (Oxford: Oxford Archaeology, 2003).

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Figure 3.2: OAHS excavations at the Clarendon Quadrangle. Photograph by Henry Taunt, taken between 16 and 29 September 1899.

The Society of Antiquaries and the Origins of the Archaeological Survey of Oxfordshire, 1896

The year 1896 was eventful for Percy Manning: he passed his final examinations in February 1896, andArchaeopress received both BA and MA in the early part of the year. He was also elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London (FSA), presumably because of his work with local archaeology and with the OAHS. According to Leeds, he also began work on an archaeological survey of Oxfordshire ‘on the same lines as those already published’ by the Society of Antiquaries. Leeds does not specify the original model for Manning’s survey, but elements present in Manning’s archive as well the structure of Leeds’s 1921 publication indicate that he was intending to follow the pattern established by three surveys published by the Society between 1888 and 1893. These were ‘An Archaeological Survey of Kent’ by George Payne, read 28 June 1888 and published in Archaeologia in January 1889; ‘An Archaeological Survey of Hertfordshire’ by John Evans, read 26 November 1891 and published in January 1892, and ‘An Archaeological Survey of Cumberland and Westmorland’ by R.S. Ferguson, ‘and of Lancashire North-of-the- Sands’ by H. Swainson Cowper, read 28 April 1892 and published in 1893.14

14 George Payne, ‘XXI.—An Archaeological Survey of Kent’, Archaeologia 51 (January 1889): 447-468; John

All three of these published county archaeological surveys seem to have been the result of an idea proposed to the Society in 1879 by the incoming President, Henry Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon, in his first Presidential Address. In her history of the Society of Antiquaries, Joan Evans records that in this address, amongst other substantial proposals for the future work of the Society, Carnarvon suggested that ‘an archaeological survey should be made, county by county, of everything from the great monuments down to field-names, illustrated by a no less complete set of maps’.15 Although Carnarvon seems to have realized by the following year that his original plans for an national county by county archaeological survey might have been too ambitious,16 the publication of the proposed county surveys in Archaeologia seems to have remained an aim of the Society until 1893.17 Eventually interest in the project seems to have dwindled, especially after the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England) was formed in 1908 with a remit for producing inventories of archaeological and historical monuments.18 Although several county archaeological surveys were reported to the Society in the 1910s, no further surveys were published by them until Leeds’s publication of Manning’s survey in 1921.19

When Percy Manning first joined the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1896, however, the topic of the county archaeological surveys wouldAccess still have been active. Although there is no documentation as to why or how he accepted the task, it seems likely that Manning considered the undertaking of the survey for Oxfordshire as being an appropriate way in which he, as a young scholar, could contribute to the Society’s work. It might also have been possible that heOpen was encouraged to accept the task by other Fellows of the Society from the county, for example James Parker, then President of the OAHS. Manning was well qualified to undertake the task, and the value of such a survey for Oxfordshire would have been recognized by the members of the OAHS. The format of the surveys had been established by Payne’s work and the two succeeding publications, and the task probably appeared to be straightforward at the time.

While the Manning archive does not contain any specific terms of reference for producing a county archaeological survey for the Society of Antiquaries, some information regarding the expected format and style can be determined from the three surveys publishedArchaeopress by the Society prior to 1896. These all consisted of the same four-part structure first established in Payne’s work: a short introductory text, a bibliography, a topographical index to archaeological finds from the county in table form, and a printed map showing the location of the listed finds. They also all only recorded pre- medieval finds and locations. Information about the later periods, including the field names mentioned by Carnarvon, were not included. Payne’s topographical index table

Evans, ‘XIII.—An Archaeological Survey of Hertfordshire’, Archaeologia 53 (January 1892): 245-264; R.S. Ferguson and H. Swainson Cowper, ‘XXI.—An Archaeological Survey of Cumberland and Westmorland; and of Lancashire North-of-the-Sands’ Archaeologia 53 (January 1893): 485-542. 15 Joan Evans, A History of the Society of Antiquaries (London: Oxford University Press, 1953), p. 320. 16 Evans, A History, p. 321. 17 Evans, A History, pp. 358-359. Evans reports that the Society’s Council decided in December 1893 that future county surveys should be published separately from Archaeologia. 18 While it may be entirely coincidental, it is interesting to note that the first inventory published by the Royal Commission was for Hertfordshire, the subject of John Evans’s archaeological survey for the Society. 19 Evans, A History, p. 358, footnote 7.

consisted of only four columns titled ‘Locality’, ‘Period’, ‘Nature of Discovery’, and ‘Where Recorded’, with the period categories simplified to ‘Pre-Roman’, ‘Roman’, Anglo- Saxon’ and ‘Earthworks’. Although some details of the topographical index table were adjusted in the two later surveys, they were all clearly designed to present information in a concise and consistent manner. Given the consistency it would most likely have been expected that further published surveys would follow the same format.

Some further information about the Society’s late 19th-century archaeological surveys can be found in George Payne’s introductory text to the Kent survey in 1889. He starts the text with a description of the work: 20

I have the honour to lay before the Society an Archaeological Survey, in which will be found the principle and most of the minor archaeological discoveries which have been made in the county of Kent. A work of this kind must necessarily be incomplete, as many relics of the past are continually brought to light, and pass away unrecorded into various public and private collections, or are destroyed by ignorant and thoughtless workmen. It is hoped, however, that no important discovery has been omitted, either from the map or text, and that the general arrangement will be found convenient for reference. Access Or, in other words, it is a summary reference work that aims to be as complete as possible at the time of writing while recognizing the difficulties involved in producing such a record of archaeological discoveries. Other comments confirm that the survey was designed to provide as much information asOpen concisely and expediently as possible:21

In order to avoid repetition of the titles of the various publications, a Bibliographical List has been given with a key to the abbreviations, ...

The signs upon the map have been made as large as its size would allow, and are marked on or near the actual sites of discoveries; but in some instances the signs have had to be placed so as to avoid obliterating names of places.

Perhaps most revealing of Payne’s comments however is that the Society had specifically contributed to decisionsArchaeopress regarding the survey, and thus to the establishment of the format for his and succeeding volumes: 22

It now only remains for the writer to express his grateful acknowledgements to the President and Council of the Society for the encouragement they have given him in appointing a Special Committee to confer with him, from time to time, upon all matters connected with the survey, and for the map which the Committee caused to be expressly prepared by Stanford23 from the Ordnance Survey.

20 Payne, ‘XXI.—An Archaeological Survey of Kent’, p. 447. 21 Payne, ‘XXI.—An Archaeological Survey of Kent’, p. 447. 22 Payne, ‘XXI.—An Archaeological Survey of Kent’, p. 450. 23 Stanfords Ltd were the sole agents for Ordnance Survey Maps in England and Wales in the late 1800s.

It was perhaps no coincidence that the next published survey (Hertfordshire) was produced by the then current President of the Society, John Evans.

In most respects, Evans’s 1892 survey, and that by Ferguson and Cowper the following year, followed the model of Payne’s survey faithfully. Evans made two changes to the topographic index table to further improve the conciseness and accuracy of the survey: he reduced the number of columns to three by including the ‘Period’ information in the ‘Nature of Discovery’ column, and he introduced references to six-inch Ordnance Survey maps in the ‘Locality’ column.24 Ferguson kept Evans’s changes and added two modifications of his own. Firstly, he edited the basic four-fold chronological terminology to be more accurate for north-eastern England: ‘For Mr. Payne’s heading or division of “Anglo-Saxon” I have substituted “Post-Roman” which in the counties dealt with in this survey includes very little Anglo-Saxon, but a great deal of Scandinavian, Norse, and Danish remains.’25 Secondly, he further enhanced the accuracy of the geographic information: 26

In the first column, that headed ‘Locality,’ I have given, after the name of the place, the reference to the quarter (N.E., N.W., S.W., or S.E.,) of the 6-inchAccess Ordnance Map in which the place is or should be marked. The labour of doing this is no light work …. But once done, its convenience to all using the index is obvious.

Ferguson also included a comment on his own working practices regarding recording the locality of find spots and places: ‘I may mentionOpen that in the case of the county of Cumberland, I have marked on my set of the 6-inch Ordnance Map all the archaeological remains specified in the Topographical Index, using the same symbols as on the map given herewith.’27 This comment provides perhaps the strongest evidence that Manning intended to produce an archaeological survey of Oxfordshire for the Society of Antiquaries following their existing model for county surveys. Not only did Manning acquire a set of maps similar to Ferguson’s, but he also annotated them in the same manner and with the same cartographic symbology used by the three Society of Antiquaries published surveys. Manning’s basic symbology being consistent with that of the AntiquariesArchaeopress maps both with regards to the use of colour to distinguish between the periods (blue for pre-Roman, red for Roman, and green or black for post-Roman) and in the symbol-graphics utilized (for example an X for find location of bronze implements, a solid circle for a burial or cemetery, a five-pointed star for find location of coins, and a black E surrounded by a circle to indicate an ‘Earthwork’). Although Manning’s cartographic symbology did develop in some respects over the 18 years that he was working on his survey, he did not deviate from the Society of Antiquaries standards in any significant manner. His consistency in utilizing these standards from the start of his work on the survey no doubt indicates his intention to produce a work to the same model.

24 Evans, ‘XIII.—An Archaeological Survey of Hertfordshire’, p. XX. ‘I have only to add that the Roman numerals following the names of the places given in the index designate the squares of the ordnance survey maps on the six-inch scale, in which the places can be found.’ 25 Ferguson and Swainson Cowper, ‘XXI.—An Archaeological Survey of Cumberland…’, p. 486. 26 Ferguson and Swainson Cowper, ‘XXI.—An Archaeological Survey of Cumberland…’, p. 485. 27 Ferguson and Swainson Cowper, ‘XXI.—An Archaeological Survey of Cumberland…’, p. 487.

An Archaeological Survey of Oxfordshire, Phase One: 1896-1899

There is considerable evidence, mostly based on the content of the archive, that Percy Manning was intensively working on an archaeological survey of Oxfordshire between 1896 and 1898. The key published information for this work comes from Leeds’s introduction to the 1921 publication in which he states that Manning had started the survey in 1896. The only other published information comes from a series of two articles titled ‘Notes on the Archaeology of Oxford and its Neighbourhood’ that Manning published in the Berks, Bucks & Oxon Archæological Journal 28 in 1898.29 In the first of these articles Manning states (p. 9) that the notes ‘… are the result of work undertaken with a view to compiling an archaeological survey of Oxfordshire …’. There is no other firm evidence that he was working on the survey other than the archive of the archaeological survey itself.

In compiling his notes for the archaeological survey Manning followed a paper sheet (slip) system of arrangement and filing. This was one of two major systems used at that time for organizing research data, at least in archaeology, the other system being the use of notebooks and scrapbooks. In a paper sheet system,Access a single research item is entered on each sheet of paper and the sheets are also labelled with key cross- referencing information. Their order and organization can be quickly and easily adjusted by the researcher as the need arises. Manning cross-referenced the pages of information that he collected for the archaeologicalOpen survey with both broad and detailed find spot location, and with a reference to the six-inch map sheet on which it was located (following the Society of Antiquaries model). References to the source of the information were also included, whether the source was a publication, letter or personal observation. In a notebook system, data is entered or pasted into notebooks or scrapbooks sequentially and cross-referencing lists and/or indexes are usually included at the beginning or end of the volumes. Use of the two systems appears to have been very much a matter of personal preference: for example, both Sir John Evans and Sir Arthur Evans used a notebook/scrapbook system, while Leeds and Manning preferred a paper slip one. Often researchers made use of both systems. The advantage of the paper sheet system wasArchaeopress in its flexibility and the ease with which sheets could be extracted or rearranged as needed by the researcher. The disadvantage of the paper sheet system is of course also in its flexibility and the ease with which sheets can be extracted and rearranged – and not necessarily by the original researcher.

Some reorganization of Manning’s papers for the archaeological survey has undoubtedly taken place since the late1890s, some probably by Manning as his work on the survey developed, but more probably by Leeds and his successors at the Ashmolean (see below). Nevertheless, as a high proportion of the papers are dated, or datable, it is possible to infer some information about the scale and extent of his work on the archaeological survey during this period from the archive itself. One of the major

28 This journal was produced between 1895 and 1930, and was the result of a collaboration between the OAHS and other archaeological and antiquarian societies from the three counties. 29 Percy Manning, ‘Notes on the Archaeology of Oxford and its Neighbourhood’, Berks, Bucks & Oxon Archæological Journal 4.1 (April 1898): 9-28; 4.2 (July 1898): 39-47.

components of the Society of Antiquaries county surveys was a literature search, and there is ample evidence in the archive that Manning was diligently working his way through all possible existing sources of information about the archaeology and history of the county during this period. He seems to have extensively consulted works in at least the Bodleian Library, making manuscript extracts of information from a wide variety of printed and manuscript sources ranging from Plot’s Natural History of Oxfordshire30 and Camden’s Britannia31 to the Bodleian’s Delafield manuscript (Gough MS Oxon 47).32 He was also recording manuscript extracts from both national and local journals. Other books consulted seem to have been in his personal library, for example Beesley’s History of Banbury.33 At some point, he must have obtained copies or reprints of articles from early issues of Jackson’s Oxford Journal (1753-1909) as extracts from these issues are present in the archive adhered to paper sheets rather than as transcripts. A date on one of these sheets suggests that this might have happened in 1896.34

An article published in the Berks, Bucks & Oxon Archæological Journal in 1897 is titled ‘Manuscript Materials for the Topography of Oxfordshire, in the Library of the Society of Antiquaries, London’,35 and records that during this period he also had conducted a thorough study of manuscript material relating to the archaeologyAccess of Oxfordshire at the Society of Antiquaries Library. Although it is not stated in the article, the work was certainly for the archaeological survey. Comparison between pages from the archive and the published article shows a direct correlation between the two and indicates the detail with which Manning was compilingOpen his records for the survey. For example, Figure 3.3 shows an image of a paper sheet relating to Dorchester from the archive, which provides a record of a report by the Reverend J.C. Clutterbuck of a find of an iron spearhead in Dorchester.36 Clutterbuck’s report consisted of a letter and a drawing. Manning’s record consists of a traced copy of the drawing of the iron spearhead along with a part transcript of the letter with information about the find spot.

This page from the archive can be directly compared to an entry in the published paper:37 Archaeopress DORCHESTER [Anglo-Saxon] Spear-head found one mile N.N.W. of Dorchester Oxon near the Turnpike Road in a gravel pit in a field belonging to Mr. Davy - 100 yards from the Brook which crosses the road. Feb. 1863; real size. J.C. Clutterbuck. [v. Proc.Soc.Antiq. Second series. II. 209

Water colour. Spear measures 14 3/4 x 1 1/4. Prim. Ant.]

30 See, e.g., AM Archives 1648/MANN/1/MS/111/32 re Benson. 31 See, e.g., AM Archives 1648/MANN/1/MS/253/16 re Rollright. 32 See, e.g., AM Archives 1648/MANN/1/MS/101/4 re Adwell. 33 See, e.g., AM Archives 1648/MANN/1/MS/100/6 re Adderbury. 34 AM Archives 1648/MANN/1/MS/102/6 re Alchester. 35 Percy Manning, ‘Manuscript materials for the Topography of Oxfordshire in the Library of the Society of Antiquaries, London’, Berks, Bucks & Oxon Archæological Journal, 2.4 (January 1897): 99-106. 36 AM Archives 1648/MANN/1/MS/159/86. 37 Manning, ‘Manuscript materials for the Topography of Oxfordshire’, p.101.

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Open Library of the Society of Antiquaries London. Library Archaeopress Figure 3.3: Manning’s record of the find of an iron spearhead at Dorchester, transcribed from a MS in the from transcribed spearhead at Dorchester, of the find an iron 3.3: Manning’s record Figure

Manning’s literature search for the archaeological survey also included recent publications by his friends and colleagues in the OAHS. One of the main recent sources consulted and incorporated in the survey was an article titled ‘Prehistoric Oxford’ with an accompanying map and ‘Index of British and Roman-British Finds in Oxford’ published by James Park Harrison, editor of Archaeologia Oxoniensis38 in the first issue of the journal. No author is credited with the article in the journal, but it was clearly the work of Park Harrison. In his first article on ‘Notes on the Archaeology of Oxford and its Neighbourhood’ Manning recognizes the value of the work, and also states that he has been able to update it from his work on the archaeological survey: 39

To Mr. J. Park-Harrison’s admirable Index of British and Romano-British articles found in Oxford [Archaeologica Oxoniensis, pp. 49-52, 111], I have the following additions to make.

Figure 3.4 shows the first page of a copy of Park Harrison’s index from the archive. Manning had annotated the index with his own (the Society of Antiquaries’) cartographic symbology for the find spots. Park Harrison had his own map symbology, but this was not followed by Manning. Manning also put ticks next to the entries in Park Harrison’s index – perhaps to indicate that he had checked the referenceAccess against his survey records and/or had entered the information on the map. Figure 3.5 shows another paper sheet from the archive, which records find spots on Kingston Road, Oxford, and that has later been annotated with a cross reference to Park Harrison’s index numbers (‘PH 7’ and ‘PH 2 and 10’). Manning also updatedOpen Park Harrison’s ‘Where Preserved’ column with Ashmolean accession numbers. The archive contains many paper sheets recording objects from Oxfordshire in the Ashmolean collections, but none of the sheets is dated. However, as Manning updated Park Harrison’s index with Ashmolean accession information prior to 1898, it may be presumed that his work recording the Ashmolean’s material for the survey was done prior to that time.

Manning’s work on written sources in support of his archaeological survey of Oxfordshire between 1896 and 1898 seems to have been extremely thorough and comprehensive. However, the remit of the Society of Antiquaries county surveys was also to record previouslyArchaeopress unreported finds, and Manning seems also to have been diligent in this respect, recording information provided to him by Thomas James Carter and others in letters or verbal reports, as well as by his own observations and discoveries. Some of these discoveries were published in 1898 in two articles titled ‘Notes on the Archaeology of Oxford and its Neighbourhood’. The introduction to the first article explains his purpose in writing:40

These notes are an attempt to place on record certain facts that, as far as I Know have not hitherto appeared in print, and also to supplement the printed accounts of various discoveries made in past years. They are the result of work undertaken with a view to compiling an archaeological survey of Oxfordshire; and as in this task I have been much troubled by the vagueness with which the exact site of many finds is described, I have tried, as far as possible,

38 Only six issues of this journal were published, between 1892 and 1895. 39 Manning, ‘Notes on the Archaeology of Oxford and its Neighbourhood [part 1]’, p. 24. 40 Manning, ‘Notes on the Archaeology of Oxford and its Neighbourhood [part 1]’, p. 9.

to enable anyone reading my notes to mark the places mentioned on the six-inch ordnance map with a fair degree of accuracy.

I need hardly say that I shall be most grateful for any additional information as to discoveries of Pre-Roman, Roman or Saxon remains in Oxfordshire. I must express my obligation to T.J. Carter, geologist, of St. Clement’s, Oxford, who has been indefatigable in collecting information for me, to the Rev. E.R. Massey, and to Mr. C.W.C. Oman, who kindly identified the Roman coins.

The name of each place is followed by the number [in brackets] of the quarter-sheet of the six- inch ordnance map of the county, on which the site is to be found. Then comes the description of the find, followed by the reference to the source of my information.

It is also worth noting that entries follow the basic structure of the Societies of Antiquaries county surveys, but provide more information and are not resented in tabular form. Again there seems to be a direct relationship between the publication and the archaeological survey records, with the page sheets of the archive providing the structure and substance of the published information. TheseAccess publications, however, seem to be a turning point for Manning in his work on the archaeological survey of Oxfordshire, and he seems to have ceased significant work on the project after their publication, until 1907. The reasons why he did not publish the survey at this point are as unclear today as they were to Leeds in 1921. Manning had obviously amassed a huge amount of information that was in a well structuredOpen and organized format and was ready to use. The maps and paper sheets were up to date and accurate and all the data was cross reference. Why then did he not write the brief introduction and publish the survey – which would have been very well received?

One possibility might be that he was distracted by other work – and as the other chapters in the volume record, he had many other interests and demands on his time. However, it might also be hypothesised that through the compiling of the archive and writing the two ‘Notes’ papers he had come to a realization that the Society of Antiquaries county survey modelArchaeopress was overly simple and restrictive. Certainly, in the ‘Notes’ papers he goes beyond the Antiquaries’ model and provides a commentary on the discoveries that he is reporting. This could have been to provide a bibliographic reference for the finds in the tabular topographic index of his planned survey. However, some of his comments indicate that his interests might have gone beyond that of simply collecting data to encompass the wider interpretation of the archaeology of Oxfordshire within a national context. For example, in reporting the recovery of Bronze and Iron Age objects during dredging at North Hinksey he draws attention to similar finds from Days Lock at Dorchester in 1837 and, while recognizing the problems in dealing with material recovered without a proper archaeological context, asks:41

41 Manning, ‘Notes on the Archaeology of Oxford and its Neighbourhood [part 1]’, p. 25.

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Figure 3.4: Manning’s annotated copy of James Park Harrison’s ‘Index of British and Roman-British Finds in Oxford’.

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Figure 3.5: Manning’s record of archaeological finds from Kingston Road, Oxford. Information originally transcribed from Ashmolean Museum records, and page later annotated with references to Park Harrison’s Oxford index.

Is it not possible that these two finds represent an overlap of the Bronze and the Iron Ages in Oxfordshire? Such an overlap must have taken place, and although the evidence is in neither case conclusive, yet it at least offers a fair ground for speculation.

Later in the article he also suggests that based on his understanding of coins found in the county, ‘that the Roman occupation of Oxfordshire did not become effective till the end of the 3rd century’. And further states that ‘I hope shortly to compile a more comprehensive list of coins, which I think will shew the same results’.42

This is however, pure speculation, and for whatever the reason Percy Manning seems to have stopped working intensively on his archaeological survey of Oxfordshire by 1899, although he probably still considered it to be an active project.

The Victoria County History and an Archaeological Survey of Oxfordshire, Phase Two: 1907-1914

The stimulus for Manning to resume work on the archaeological survey of Oxfordshire occurred in 1907, when he was invited to contribute theAccess ‘Early Man’ section for Oxfordshire volume of the Victoria County History (VCH). William Page, General Editor of the VCH wrote to Percy Manning on 2 July 1907:43

I am wanting an article on Early Man for Oxfordshire. I think you know the scheme of these articles - a general account of the prehistoricOpen conditions of the county followed by a topographic index of finds. The article should not exceed about 10,000 words and I fear I must have it not later than the 1st of January 1908; the question of time of delivery is rather important. The remuneration is at the rate of a guinea a thousand words. Could you undertake this for me? Mr Myres says he will give any help he can, which no doubt he would do to you personally in any case.

The letter suggests that Page had discussed the contribution with Manning’s old friend John Linton Myres, and perhaps with others. It must have been thought that that all of the work that Manning had put into his long dormant archaeological survey of Oxfordshire couldArchaeopress be put to excellent and appropriate use in the VCH. Manning must have thought so as well, as he seems to have responded quickly to the request with enthusiasm, and appears to have also offered further support for the volume.44

Page wrote to Manning again six days later 8 July 1907:45

Many thanks for yours of yesterday. I am very glad to hear that you will be able to undertake the article on Early Man for Oxfordshire and will be able to let me have it at the time specified. ... Thanks very much for what you say regarding the Roman and Saxon periods. I am not quite sure

42 Manning, ‘Notes on the Archaeology of Oxford and its Neighbourhood [part 2]’, p. 47. 43 AM Archives 1648/MANN/1/M/400/2. 44 In 1901 Manning had declined to help Francis Haverfield with the Roman section of the Hertfordshire VCH volume, but had expressed his interest if there were to be one for Oxfordshire. AM Archives 1648/ MANN/1/M/400/10-11. 45 AM Archives 1648/MANN/1/M/400/3.

for the moment what we shall do about the Roman - I hope that Haverfield will be able to do it - but Reginald Smith of the British Museum is going to do the Anglo-Saxon period, and will I am sure, be very grateful for any information that you can send him. Very many thanks for your kind offer.

Work seems to have proceeded rapidly and the archive shows evidence of much activity at this time, with many records being added and/or updated. This is likely to be the time that he also created folders of materials for writing the overview text for the various periods (see later). The original deadline for the volume however seems to have slipped, and Page only asks for ‘sufficient photographs to fill two full page plates’ in 1908.46 Receipts show that Manning had commissioned photographic prints of ‘prehistoric urns’ for the publication in February 1909. Publication seemed to be imminent, but, sadly, another letter, marked ‘Private’, arrived from Page on 28 June 1909:

Dear Manning

I dare say you have heard in Oxford of the difficulties which have fallen upon the V.C.H. As the work will have to be in abeyance for a time would you mind laying aside your work on it till I am in a position to ask you to complete your article. I hopeAccess this may be in the autumn. In fact, the financial difficulties affecting the VCH were so severe that it was not until the 1930s that work on the Oxfordshire volume could resume.47

Although work on the Oxfordshire VCH volumeOpen had ceased, Manning seems to have kept working on the publication of his archaeological survey of Oxfordshire to the VCH model. Receipts show that he was even having drawings prepared in December 1909.48 Perhaps he anticipated the VCH project being restarted imminently. Or, perhaps, having welcomed the VCH volume as an appropriate platform for publishing his archaeological survey of Oxfordshire, he was just displaying the determination referred to by Michael Heaney in Chapter 1 and was resolute in trying to complete it. The dating of various papers in the archive shows that he was still actively working on the survey up until at least 1913, and perhaps even until the outbreak of war the following year. Further evidence that he was continuing to work on the survey as late as 21 August 1913 is provided in a letter from Leeds who acknowledgesArchaeopress the work that Manning is doing on the Oxfordshire survey (at this point a concerted effort to locate further George Rolleston papers about his excavations in Oxfordshire). Leeds also encourages (pleads with) Manning to publish – if only in the original Society of Antiquaries format rather than a more comprehensive work:49

Dear Manning

Thanks for the letter returned - I long for your success in finding those Rolleston papers - they would be most useful. Also I am cheer to know that your Oxon notes are being put through the mill. I feel somehow that a tabulated archaeological survey with a preliminary

46 AM Archives 1648/MANN/1/M/400/8. 47 Victoria County History, “About the VCH”, https://www.victoriacountyhistory.ac.uk/about. 48 AM Archives 1648/MANN/1/M/400/6-7. 49 AM Archives 1648/MANN/1/M/401/2.

essay, not too long, is what you want. One can alas! never finish archaeological studies of an area, so long as there remains a square yard of turf to be dug up, but the world at large and archaeologists in particular will pour down blessings on you, if you will put forth the results of your many years of collecting data, so that the task of searching is thereby alleviated. The people who make indices are to my mind the most deserving in this world.

Leeds’s pleas were disregarded – and Manning seems to have continued with his plan for the more detailed work. Given time Manning might have Access finished the publication, but all work on it ceased following the outbreak Figure 3.6: Edward Thurlow Leeds (1877-1955) in of war in August 1914. Although over June 1936: Assistant Keeper of the Department of 40, Manning quickly joined the war Antiquities,Open Ashmolean Museum 1908-1928; Keeper effort and by November 1914 was of the Ashmolean Museum 1928-1945. posted to guard duty at Southampton docks as a member of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire national reserve. He died of pneumonia at Southampton on 27 February 1917 at the age of 47.

Following Manning’s death, Edward Thurlow Leeds (Figure 3.6) took on the task of publishing the survey, and worked on it between 1919, when Manning’s archaeological survey papers were transferred to the Ashmolean from the Bodleian, until it was published in 1921. Leeds declares in the introduction that the publication is a testament to Manning’s work, and that it Archaeopresswas ‘a monument to one whose knowledge of Oxfordshire’s past has had few rivals’.50 Appropriately, or perhaps ironically, Leeds completed and published the survey as it had originally been intended, for the Society of Antiquaries and to their model. It was the fourth and last of their published archaeological surveys of English counties.

Percy Manning’s Archaeological Archive: Transfer from the Bodleian to the Ashmolean, 1919

What we know today as the Percy Manning archaeological archive is almost certainly not as he left it, and has been somewhat disrupted. As has been described in Chapter 1, all of Manning’s papers were bequeathed to the University of Oxford and they were collected by the Bodleian Library a few months after his death in early 1917. It was not until 1919 that a decision was made to transfer the papers relating to his archaeological

50 Manning and Leeds, ‘IX.—An Archaeological Survey of Oxfordshire’, p. 227.

work (pre-Medieval) to the Ashmolean. Why the decision was taken to transfer these papers to the Ashmolean, or at whose instigation, is unknown. It could be suggested that the Ashmolean might have asked for the transfer, perhaps in order that Leeds could complete the unpublished county survey. However, it could equally be suggested that the Bodleian felt that the archaeological papers would be housed more appropriately by the museum. No documentation has yet been found that could clarify this question.

Some information about the transfer is provided in a letter dated 10 November 1919 from Arthur Ernest Cowley, Bodley’s Librarian (1919-1931) to David George Hogarth, Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum (1909-1927): 51

My dear Hogarth

Manning bequest.

At their meeting on the 8th last, the Curators authorized me to transfer to your keeping certain portfolios and maps. Among the unclassified papers are some which shd be incorporated with those to be transferred. As soon as the selectionAccess has been made, I will send the part which is to come to you – & my messenger can then, if you like, bring back MS. Rawl. D.1168. Yours sincerely Open A. Cowley, Librarian

The transfer of Manning’s archaeological papers to the Ashmolean was apparently part of an agreed exchange of material between the institutions with Thomas Hearne’s ‘Catalogue on my MSS’ (Bodl. MS Rawl. D 1168) going from the Ashmolean to the Bodleian. A receipt dated 19 November 1919 and signed by Herbert Henry Edmund Craster, then Sub-Librarian52 records the transfer of Hearne’s catalogue to the library: 53

Received from theArchaeopress Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum

Rawlinson MSS D. 1168 (Hearne 4 154)

transferred to the Bodleian Library in accordance with a resolution of the Visitors of the Museum on October 23rd. 1919.

The next day, 20 November 1919, the Manning papers were transferred to the Museum, as recorded in a letter from Edmund Craster to Leeds, then Assistant Keeper54 of the Department of Antiquities at the Ashmolean Museum: 55

51 AM Archives 1648/MANN/2/1/1 (Manning papers redacted from Topographic files). 52 Edmund Craster was later Bodley’s Librarian, 1931-1945. 53 AM Archives 1648/MANN/2/1/2. 54 Leeds was later Keeper of the Ashmolean from 1928-1945. 55 AM Archives 1648/MANN/2/1/3. AMS 47/6 is a typed copy of the transfer list.

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Archaeopress

Figure 3.7: Handwritten list sent by Edmund Craster to Leeds recording the volumes of Percy Manning papers transferred to the Ashmolean by the Bodleian, 20 November 1919.

Dear Leeds

Herewith the archaeological portion of the Percy Manning MSS. I think it best to send to you the speckled portfolio as it stands and leave you to return us any duplicates. Of course this applies generally. We shall be ready to take back anything that you find you need not keep.

Yours sincerely

HHE Craster

You may now be sure that you have all Mannings MS collections on Oxfordshire pre-Medieval finds and find-spots.

Figure 3.7 shows the original handwritten list of the material transferred from the Bodleian. That list transcribed and rearranged clarifies which papers were transferred:

Atlas portfolio ‘Oxfordshire six inch’ Portfolio ‘Arch. Survey Oxon. A-G’ (referencedAccess MS. top. Oxon. d. 188) Portfolio ‘Arch. Survey Oxon. H-Y’ (referenced MS. top. Oxon. d. 189/1) Portfolio ‘Archaeological Survey Oxon. miscellaneous’ (referenced MS. top. Oxon. d. 189/2) Portfolio ‘Oxon. OpenStone-age’ (referenced MS. top. Oxon. d. 190) Portfolio ‘Oxon. Bronze-age’ (referenced MS. top. Oxon. d. 191) Portfolio ‘Oxon. Iron-age’ (referenced MS. top. Oxon. d. 192) Portfolio ‘Oxon. Earthworks &c.’ (referenced MS. top. Oxon. d. 193) Brown-paper packet ‘Roman’ Envelope ‘Romano-British Oxfordshire, References’ Envelope ‘ Anglo-Saxon Oxon.’ Portfolio (referenced MS. top. gen. d. 12) Speckled portfolioArchaeopress ‘ Anthropology ‘ The Atlas portfolio contains the maps referred to by Craster.56 This is a set of 114 half- sheets of six-inch Ordnance Survey (OS) maps covering Oxfordshire and surrounding areas. These maps were hand-annotated by Manning to mark the ancient monuments, find spots and other places of interest in the county, and represent an essential component of his work. Printed on the maps is the information that they were ‘photozincographed and published at the Ordnance Survey Office, Southampton’ in 1889. Although no receipt or order has been found, it seems likely that the maps were acquired by Manning after he began work on the archaeological survey of Oxfordshire in 1896. Ferguson and Evans had certainly worked with this scale of map for their archaeological surveys for the Antiquaries.

56 AM Archives 1648/MANN/1/MAP/1-114.

The original OS sheets had been carefully cut in half by Manning so there is an east and a west part for each map, each 60cm long x 45cm wide. This was presumably done for ease of handling and to fit into the portfolio. However, it is also likely that the sheets were modified in this manner following the model of Ferguson’s work. The portfolio contains a west and an east part for most of the Oxfordshire OS map sheets, but for the ones that cover the boundaries of the county there is often only either a west or an east part as appropriate. A similarly annotated larger scale map of the City of Oxford is contained within the Oxford folder in his archive.57 Each sheet is labelled with the number of the map and whether it is the west or east part. Figure 3.8 shows Sheet XXIII West, the sheet covering Wendlebury and Bicester, with the small Roman town of Alchester marked in red. A small-scale map attached to the inner cover of the portfolio provides a reference to the broader geographic locations of the maps.

The three portfolios with titles including ‘Arch Survey Oxon’ would have been Manning’s original records for his archaeological survey. They are referenced in the transfer list with the Bodleian shelfmarks MS Top. Oxon d.188-189/2. The four portfolios also referenced with Bodleian ‘MS. Top. Oxon, d.’ shelfmarks (MS Top. Oxon d. 190-193) appear to be Manning’s documents relating toAccess planned overview chapters (Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age and Earthworks), possibly for his original survey as well as for the ‘Early Man’ section of the Victoria County History for Oxfordshire. The shelfmark references indicate that originally all seven of these portfolios would have been catalogued by the BodleianOpen between Manning’s files on churches and parishes (MS Top. Oxon d.185-187) and his notes on Monumental brasses (MS Top. Oxon d.195-197). Following the transfer of the volumes to the Ashmolean, the Bodleian reassigned the shelfmarks to other material from the Manning collection, probably from other previously unclassified papers. Following Charlotte McKillop- Mash’s recent catalogue of the Percy Manning collection at the Bodleian Library, the shelfmarks were reassigned as:58

d.188 St Mary’s Parish (material related to d.187 St Mary’s Parish survey); d.189 Notes on OxfordshireArchaeopress industries; d.190-191 Notes on Oxfordshire folklore (3 volumes);

d.192 Folklore miscellanea;

d.193 Notes on village life.

The content of the untitled portfolio referenced as “MS. Top. gen. d.12” is unknown. Based on other material in that shelfmark class at the Bodleian it could be suggested that it might have contained printed or manuscript antiquarian material relating to

57 AM Archives 1648/MANN/1/MS/246/6.. 58 Bodleian Libraries, Catalogue of the Percy Manning Collection, http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/ scwmss/wmss/online/modern/manning-percy/manning-percy.html. The cataloguing was supported by the Marc Fitch Fund as part of the Percy Manning Centenary Project.

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Archaeopress Figure 3.8: Percy Manning’s Archaeological Survey of Oxfordshire OS Map Sheet XXIII West.

Oxfordshire and beyond, or even a historic map. However, this is just conjecture. There is no further record of this portfolio, and there is nothing that corresponds with it or its possible contents in the Manning archive at the Ashmolean today. The contents might have been split up and refiled elsewhere in the archive, or the portfolio could simply have been returned to the Bodleian.

The materials without a Bodleian shelfmark reference are probably the ‘unclassified’ papers that Cowley refers to in his letter. The Roman and Anglo-Saxon papers stored in a brown paper packet and two envelopes would have been the papers relating to the Roman and Anglo-Saxon overview sections of Manning’s originally planned archaeological survey of the county. They were most probably not housed in the same portfolios as the papers referenced as MS Top. Oxon d.190-193, as Manning would not have been working on them for the ‘Early Man’ section of the Victoria County History volume for Oxfordshire.

From Craster’s letter to Leeds it appears there was uncertainty as to whether the speckled portfolio titled ‘Anthropology’ was appropriate to have been included in the transfer. Manning’s documented anthropological activitiesAccess were mainly related to folklore and music.59 It therefore seems probable that the speckled portfolio contained papers relating to the folklore of prehistoric archaeological monuments in the county. Manning was certainly interested in this subject, and a major part of his 1902-1903 paper ‘Stray notes on Oxfordshire Folklore’ concernsOpen beliefs and stories connected with several prehistoric monuments.60 Manning’s archive at the Ashmolean does not contain any papers directly concerning the folklore of these prehistoric monuments, and it can be assumed that the portfolio was returned to the Bodleian. In this respect, it should be noted that three of the shelfmarks for the transferred material were reassigned to volumes of ‘Oxfordshire folklore’, one of which (MS Top. Oxon d. 190) contains documents about prehistoric monuments, including the Devil’s Quoits, Rollright Stones, Hoar Stones (Enstone and Steeple Barton), and Wayland’s Smithy.61 These appear to be the material on which his folklore article was based, and it seems likely that they may have formed at least part of the papers in the ‘speckled portfolio’. Archaeopress Percy Manning’s Archaeological Archive: Ashmolean Museum, 1919-2016

As discussed in the previous section, when Percy Manning’s archaeological papers were transferred to the Ashmolean in 1919 they consisted of three components according to the Bodleian transfer list: the portfolio of annotated Oxfordshire maps, the papers relating to the Archaeological Survey of Oxfordshire, and papers relating to a comprehensive review of the archaeology of Oxfordshire from the Stone Age to the Anglo-Saxons. These groups of papers can still be identified, although the last group seems to have been very severely disturbed and integrated with the main archaeological

59 See Chapters 7-10. 60 Percy Manning, “Stray Notes on Oxfordshire Folklore”, Folklore 13.2 (September 1902), 288-295; 14.1 (March 1903), 65-74; 14.2 (June 1903), 167-177; 14.4 (December 1903), 410-414. 61 Bodl. MS Top. Oxon d.190, ff.150-177.

survey papers, probably by Leeds not long after the papers were transferred to the Ashmolean.

The portfolio of annotated maps62 has recently been digitized and the maps are the subject of a current ‘innovation’ and research project to record and geo-reference all of the annotations and to make Manning’s data more widely available. This work has been funded by the Oxford University Museums Partnership and an anonymous donor and is a collaboration between the Ashmolean Museum, the Pitt Rivers Museum and the Bodleian Library. The research on the maps and the georeferencing for this project were conducted by Dr S.N. Collcutt of Oxford Archaeological Associates and Dr M. Athanson of the Bodleian Libraries Map Room. Details of this project are beyond the scope of the current paper and will be presented elsewhere.

Percy Manning’s Oxfordshire archaeological papers at the Ashmolean were catalogued and rehoused by Rachel Mellor between 2003 and 2005 as part of project funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund in partnership with the Oxfordshire Historic Environment Record and Oxfordshire History Centre. The project was titled ‘Preserving and Enhancing Access to Historic Oxfordshire’ and had the aim of improvingAccess access to information about the cultural heritage of Oxfordshire held in archives at the Ashmolean. Mrs Mellor’s detailed catalogue of the Percy Manning archive and of four other archives has been available on the Ashmolean website ever since.63 The remit of the project however was only for the detailed cataloguing of the papersOpen that directly related to Oxfordshire, although this was expanded to include the papers for the Vale of White Horse which were in Manning’s Berkshire papers. The remaining papers remained uncatalogued except at the collection level.

Rearrangement of the Archive, 1919

At the start of the Historic Oxfordshire project the Manning archive consisted of the map portfolio and five quarto box files of papers: four files of Oxfordshire papers and one titled ‘Berks and Bucks’.64 All of the box files were labelled in Leeds’s hand, and each had a typed list ofArchaeopress the folders that it contained stuck to the inner sleeve. Each folder had a cover sheet with a brief list of contents in Leeds’s handwriting.65 It was extremely well organized, but the structure does not match exactly the list of seven portfolios and three small packages transferred by the Bodleian. Neither the number of archive containers nor the titles of the containers paralleled the Bodleian list.

One explanation for the discrepancy might be simply that Leeds’s box files were bigger than Manning’s portfolios and all the papers could fit in the five quarto boxes. Another explanation might be that Leeds had rearranged some of the papers and relabelled the

62 Ashmolean Museum, 1648/MANN/1/MAP/1-114. 63 “Oxfordshire’s Historic Archives “, http://historicoxfordshire.ashmolean.org/. The archaeological survey papers are catalogued as MANN/1/MS/OX/100-346. 64 At the end of the project there were eleven box files and one oversized folder of catalogued papers; one portfolio of annotated OS maps; and two box files of uncatalogued papers. 65 There is an image of two of the boxes prior to the Historic Oxfordshire project at http://www.ashmolean. org/ash/amps/oha/ArchivePages/Archives.html.

folders. In fact, both explanations are likely to have been true. No size for the portfolios is given on the Bodleian transfer list, and the box files were large. Recent examination of the uncatalogued part of the Manning archive shows that the papers matching the description of all items listed on the Bodleian transfer sheet do probably survive but have been much disrupted and rearranged.

The Bodleian portfolios titled ‘Arch. Survey Oxon. A-G’ and Arch. Survey Oxon. H-Y’ must have formed the major part of Leeds’s ‘Oxfordshire’ papers. The ‘Archaeological Survey Oxon. Miscellaneous’ portfolio presumably contained Manning’s survey papers relating to places in adjacent counties (both annotated maps and paper sheets cover areas outside Oxfordshire), as well as some administrative documents. Berkshire and Buckinghamshire are named on Leeds’s box file title, and there are folders for both counties. However, the box file also contained other folders, listed on the typed box list. Some of these folders contain archaeological survey-like data from other counties adjacent to Oxfordshire (e.g. Northamptonshire, Gloucestershire, and Wiltshire), and are probably also from the miscellaneous survey portfolio. The other folders, or loose sheets, from the ‘Berks and Bucks’Access box file seem to be of a different sort of research notes. One of these folders is labelled ‘Geological notes: Oxford region; Thames valley’ and may well have once formed part of the ‘Oxon. Stone- age’ portfolio. Similarly, folders labelled ‘Distribution: Long Barrows’, ‘Pottery. Parallel types in Europe’, and ‘British Coins’ might haveOpen come from the Prehistoric period portfolios. Some folders with titles attributed to places by the person who typed the box list, are in fact more relevant to the period portfolios as comparison for the Oxfordshire material. For example, a set of papers titled ‘Kent’ is Manning’s notes on the Late Iron Age site at Aylesford, and were probably from the Iron Age portfolio. Similarly, the box list entry for ‘Red Hills’ turns out to be an offprint about the Red Hill I Roman salt- making site in Essex. and presumably came from the Roman packet. A loose sheet titled ‘scramasax’ was presumably from the Anglo-Saxon envelope.

While it might be tempting to think that all the papers from the period-based portfolios are present in someArchaeopress form in the uncatalogued part of the Manning archive, this is unlikely to be true. The original period-based portfolios and packages have clearly been dismantled, probably by Leeds as his cover sheets surround many of the small folders in the ‘Berks and Bucks’ box file. Leeds’s main aim when Manning’s archaeological papers were transferred to the Ashmolean in 1919 seems to have been to publish the archaeological survey as possible. As such he would have been most interested in making sure that the Oxfordshire survey files were as complete and correct as possible, and less concerned with maintaining the integrity of the overview folders.

Many of the Oxfordshire archaeological survey files in the archive contain documents which have slightly different formats and titling from the usual archaeological survey papers, and/or content which seems outside the remit of the archaeological survey. These papers may well have once been in one of the period-based portfolios, but were moved to the survey files as they mention finds from a specific area or parish. One example might be the page in the Oxford file that is titled by Manning ‘Bronze Age’ and

consists of a list of Bronze Age burials, hoards and implements found in and around Oxford66 – finds with separate paper sheet records in the same file. Another example could be the page in the North Hinksey file which is a drawing of a decorated late Iron Age dagger scabbard from Switzerland – probably seen by Manning as a comparison for the Minster Ditch scabbard in his collection.67 The presence of these documents and many more in the survey files can only be explained if they were relocated from Manning’s period overview portfolios by Leeds. Therefore, instead of representing the full content of the period based overview portfolios and packages, the uncatalogued non-survey papers in Leeds’s ‘Berks and Bucks’ box file are most probably only the papers from those portfolios that Leeds could not reassign to files in the main archaeological survey.

Disruption of the Archive, 1919-1921

In addition to the rearrangement of the papers in the original period overview portfolios not long after the archive was transferred to the Ashmolean, it also now appears that the archive has undergone three other episodes of disruption at the Ashmolean. The first also occurred between 1919 and 1921, and was connected with Leeds’s publication of the archaeological survey. This disruption was threefold.Access Firstly, for each file Leeds added a handwritten coversheet listing a summary of the contents of the file. While this is probably Leeds’s cataloguing of the original content of Manning’s files, it is an addition to the original archive. Secondly, Leeds also added documentary paper slip records and other documents to the files – allOpen appropriately compiled and filed in the same manner as Manning’s documents. These are presumably the ‘minor additions’ and ‘corrections’ mentioned by Leeds in his introduction to the 1921 publication. They are usually identifiable by the date, post-1917 subject matter and by Leeds’s handwriting. Leeds also made additional annotations to the maps during this period.

Finally, some additional disruption also occurred as a result of the Ashmolean purchasing Percy Manning’s object collections from his nephew Cecil John Manning on 7 February 1921. Cecil, the only child of Percy’s brother Arthur, had inherited the collection when he came of age on 29 January 1921. Given the short span of time between Cecil takingArchaeopress possession of the collection and the sale to the Ashmolean, it can only be assumed that the acquisition of the material by the museum had been agreed at an earlier stage.68 Figure 3.9 shows the receipt signed by Cecil Manning which records the sale of the material:69

Received from the Keeper of the Antiquarium, Ashmolean Museum for collections of prehistoric and medieval objects, formed by the late P. Manning., Esq., M.A., F.S.A., the sum of One hundred and fifty pounds.

£150 - 0 - 0

66 AM Archives 1648/MANN/1/MS/246/20. 67 AM Archives 1648/MANN/1/MS/336/2; AM Accessions Register AN1921.104. 68 At least some of the collection was already at the museum, having been placed on loan there by Percy Manning. 69 AM Archives Administrative Records, Cash Vouchers Box 2 ‘1913-1925/6’

The disruption in this case was a few losses of page sheets from the archive. It appears in some instances that where papers in the archive referred directly to objects in the acquired collection, Leeds removed them and inserted them instead either in the accessions register or in the parallel ‘object history’ file. For example, papers referring to iron horseshoes found in Oxford are now in the history files under the object accession number, AN1921.186. This does not seem to have been a widespread practice, however, and only seems to have affected a few documents. Leeds Access also seems to have annotated some papers in the archive with the 1921 Ashmolean accession numbers for other objects. For Open example, the page recording the find of five arrowheads from Hensington was annotated by Leeds with the accession number ‘1921.58’.70 Figure 3.9: Receipt for the purchase of Percy Manning’s object collections from Cecil John Disruption of the Archive, 1930s Manning, 7 February 1921.

The second phase of disruption took place the following decade and was similarly additive. Work onArchaeopress the Victoria County History volume for Oxfordshire was resumed in the mid-1930s with Leeds being responsible for parts of the ‘Early Man’ section and the ‘Anglo-Saxon Remains’ section. In completing his sections Leeds seems to have consulted and added to the Manning archive, using it as a primary source for his work. Materials that he added in the mid-late 1930s include new pages of information, handwritten additions to existing pages, and offprints of relevant publications. There are also some examples of material or information being added by Donald Harden, then Assistant Keeper in the Department of Antiquities who was responsible for some of the Roman sections in the volume, as well as Margerie Venables Taylor. Leeds was also adding information to the maps during this period, including at least the location of some of the crop marks recorded by Major George Allen’s air photographs. It seems as though Leeds made no further additions to the archive after the VCH volume was published in 1939. It is uncertain if he made any additions to the maps after this time.

70 AM Archives 1648/MANN/1/MS/189/2.

Disruption of the Archive, Post-war

In contrast to the two previous phases, the final disruptive phase was reductive and involved reorganizing some paper sheets of information to a different filing system. Although details are unclear, this activity seems to have taken place sometime between Leeds’s retirement in 1945 and the 1970s, At some point after the end of the war a new research archive was set up within the Department of Antiquities with a similar purpose to that of Manning’s of recording archaeological information about specific locations within Oxfordshire, and adjacent areas (known today as the ‘Topographic files’). The Department of Antiquities was actively involved in archaeological fieldwork and recording at this time and the new filing system might have been seen as a way of managing the information they were collecting. Unfortunately, at some point a decision was made to remove relevant information from other archives held by the department and insert them in the new system. While the full impact of this decision is not fully understood as yet, the three existing archives that seem to have been most severely affected were the Percy Manning archive, the Edward Thurlow Leeds archive, and the object history files (accession records). Almost every folder within the Topographic files contains documents from one, of not all three, of theseAccess sources. It is hoped that during Percy Manning’s centenary year that a record can be made of the displaced papers to enhance the existing catalogue of his archaeological survey of Oxfordshire archive. The maps were also annotated during this period. Open Concluding Remarks: The Legacy of Manning’s Archaeological Survey of Oxfordshire

In the 96 years since its publication, Manning and Leeds’s 1921 Archaeological Survey of Oxfordshire has been of great value to the study of cultural heritage of the county. However, perhaps its very usefulness has masked the history behind its production and the research potential of Manning’s original manuscript collections upon which it is based. Behind the short entries in the index lies Manning’s rich archive based on 18 years of often intensive work recording archaeological information from the county – all meticulouslyArchaeopress documented and including data from literature searches, correspondence with collectors, records of verbal accounts of discoveries by people from across the county, personal accounts of Manning’s own observations and discoveries, and his records of material seen in both museums and other private collections. It also contains his hand-annotated maps which provide a unique record of the location of archaeological find spots and features throughout the county. Although not widely known until relatively recently, Manning’s archive has been consulted and used by archaeologists and historians ever since it entered the Ashmolean collections – sadly often to the detriment of the integrity of his original work. This paper has attempted to provide some contextual information regarding Manning’s archaeological survey of Oxfordshire and how this is reflected in his archive of this work. The scale of his work on the survey over an extended period of time is remarkable, what is also extraordinary is that he was doing it at the same time as all of the other activities documented in this volume.

Acknowledgements

Percy Manning’s work on the Archaeological Survey of Oxfordshire could not have taken place without the assistance and support of a wide range of colleagues and friends – this paper about his work is likewise indebted to many people. First, and foremost, very sincere thanks are extended to Michael Heaney for conceiving and managing the Manning Centenary project and its activities, for inviting me to write this paper, and for his support, patience and generosity in sharing his knowledge about Mr Manning throughout. Thanks are also extended to my colleagues in the ‘Mapping Manning’ project, which is in the final stages of working on Manning’s annotated OS maps at present: Michael Athanson (Bodleian Libraries Map Room), Simon Collcutt (Oxford Archaeological Associates), Jonathan Moffett (Ashmolean and Museums IT), Alison Petch (Pitt Rivers Museum), and Michael Heaney (formerly Bodleian Libraries). That project is funded by the Oxford University Museum Partnership through the ASPIRE Innovation Fund. An anonymous donor has further supported the work. Christopher Powell (Ashmolean Digital Collections) and Jonathan Moffett have worked resolutely with me to update the Ashmolean’s ‘British Archaeological and Antiquarian Collections Online’ resource, which now provides enhanced informationAccess about the objects in Manning’s collections within a searchable online database of over 40,000 records. The information upon which the online records are based would not have been possible without the dedicated work of Christine Edbury and Angela Cox on the documentation of the Ashmolean’s British archaeological andOpen brass rubbings collections over the past decade. Their work initially for an AHRC-funded resource enhancement project (AR18365; B/RE/AN7100/APN18365), but most recently as voluntary workers. Their work is very much appreciated. I would also like to thank the Ashmolean Picture Library and Photographers for the figures in this paper, and my colleagues in the Department of Antiquities for their support. Last, but by no means least, I would like to thank Rachel Mellor for her superb and detailed catalogue of Manning’s archive at the Ashmolean. Completed over a decade ago, it has proved of lasting value and this paper could not have been completed without it. Archaeopress