Stukeley and Stamford, Part II, Tribulations of an Antiquarian Clergyman, 1730–1738 Edited by John F H Smith, 2023 152 pages. Hardback - ISBN 9781910653104 The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, Suffolk - (Publications of the Lincoln Record Society, Series Volume 111) On a warm, sunny evening in June 2023, I had the pleasure of attending Lincoln Record Society’s formal book launch for both volumes of its Stukeley and Stamford series, held in the elegant surroundings of the Court Room in Stamford’s Georgian Town Hall. During a convivial evening, the editors of both volumes gave lively, knowledgeable talks about their fascination with the life and legacy of William Stukeley (1687–1765). The Lincolnshire physician, antiquarian and latterly Anglican clergyman is probably best remembered as the father of British archaeology and for undertaking the first rigorous studies of the Neolithic stone circles at Avebury, Stanton Drew and Stonehenge. The motivation for both volumes was to remedy the relative neglect of Stukeley’s years in Stamford (1730–1748), leading the editors to research and bring to the public eye many documents that had not been touched for some time, including an anonymous, handwritten commentary on the election in Stamford, The Historical Part of Stamford Election, 1734, which recent analysis has shown was written by Stukeley in the May of that year. John F H Smith ’s volume, the second in the Stukeley and Stamford series, is a beautiful, large format, hardback book (32 cm x 23.5 cm) which shares the same elegant, crisp typeset and layout as the first volume. The large format allows for generous reproductions of both drawings and documents. The dust cover has an image of Stukeley’s 1736 sketch of Peter Hill and the castle in Stamford viewed from the south. Inside, there are another 62 illustrations, 32 in colour, including many of Stukeley’s drawings, sketches, paintings and maps. There are also full colour images of Savile Cust’s petition to Parliament raising his grievances following the 1734 general election and of John Proby’s submission to Parliament defending his election as one of the two MPs for Stamford. The depth of the editor’s research, in library special collections or private collections, is evidenced by the wealth of footnotes which themselves provide a rich source of contextual and explanatory material while allowing the documents, and thereby their authors, to speak for themselves. The time period in Stukeley’s life considered in the second volume overlaps with the end of that addressed in the first (Honeybone and Honeybone, 2021). This series is the result of a close collaboration between the editors of both volumes and Smith says that they ‘discussed everything in detail at every stage’ (p x). Consequently, there are many links between the volumes. Although the enjoyment of new readers to this series does not depend on having read the first volume, reading (or rereading) Honeybone and Honeybone’s introduction to Stukeley’s character, his life before moving to Stamford, and the full versions of his books Iter Oxoniense (1710) and Stanfordia Illustrata (1736-7) in the first volume will only enrich readers’ enjoyment of the second. Aside from the appendices and biographies, the second volume can be divided into three sections. In the first, Smith sets the scene by narrating Stukeley’s life from his application to be ordained to the mid-1740s. Smith considers Stukeley’s motivation for being ordained in the Church of England and his hostile reception when he accepted the living of All Saints’, Stamford, as an inexperienced free-thinking, Whig, low churchman in ‘a conservative Tory town with Jacobite tendencies’ (p 3). I was particularly interested in the background to the 1734 general election in Stamford and the account of how the agents of the victorious Tory families, particularly the Cecils of Burghley and the Noels of Exton, who dominated the borough’s corporation and its parliamentary representation, as Stukeley puts it, ‘set their revengeful witts [sic] to work’ on him in response to his high-profile support of the Whig candidates, especially after the Riot of Friary Gate, by means of a ‘barrage of lawsuits’ (p 9). Another strength is Smith’s detailed and balanced account of the long-running dispute over the administration of Browne’s hospital in Stamford, which caused both sides to lose their sense of proportion and, probably, good judgement, and which further soured Stukeley’s relationships with some of the town’s inhabitants, leading to his withdrawal from public life in the late 1730s to concentrate on his parishes and completing writing-up of his discoveries at Stonehenge and Avebury. In passing, historians of Rutland will note the account of two families with large landholdings in Rutland, the Cecils of Burghley House and the Noels of Exton, uniting to ensure the borough of Stamford returned two Tory MPs to consolidate Tory dominance over the town’s political life. Both candidates for the confrater of Browne’s hospital in 1738 also had ties to Rutland: the Rev Henry Ridlington was from Edith Weston and William Ross was educated at Oakham School. The second section includes Stukeley’s account of the 1734 general election in Stamford, The Historical Part of Stamford Election, 1734, which he wrote and presented to Sir Robert Walpole (regarded as Britain’s first Prime Minister). This extraordinary document is accompanied by an introduction and footnotes for explanation and elucidation as well as the full texts of Savile Cust’s petition to the House of Commons Committee of Privileges and Elections following the election result and a draft of John Proby’s submission to the House of Commons in his own defence. All three documents are remarkable survivals from the early Georgian period. As Smith observes, ‘it is very rare for detailed written accounts of the events leading up to an election, and the election itself, to survive, especially by someone deeply involved in the process… Stukeley’s record is unique and without it the events he describes, such as the battle at Friary Gate, would be entirely unknown’ (pp 22-23). Although both sides would have interpreted the causes, events and documents in radically different ways, Smith is careful to afford them as much balance as possible after almost three centuries. Smith then lets Stukeley make his case in his own distinctive voice, recounting the testimonies of Whig inhabitants of Stamford with his own particular perspective on the actions of the agents of Brownlow Cecil, 8th Earl of Exeter, and Baptist Noel, 4th Earl of Gainsborough, over the year prior to the election. Smith provides the reader with detailed footnotes setting out the context and corrections where Stukeley’s account is exaggerated, mistaken or omits salient points. Although allegations of bribery, corruption and violence were frequently made by both Tories and Whigs about their opponents’ conduct during eighteenth century elections, the 1734 general election in Stamford appears to have been an extreme example. There cannot be many other recorded instances of parliamentary candidates leading a mob of their agents and supporters heavily armed with stones, cudgels and, possibly, a few swords, to the home of one of their opponents as happened in the Riot of Friary Gate. The third section focuses on Stukeley’s Designs of Stanford Antiquitys, Centuria, I, 1735. A sketchbook probably intended to illustrate another of his works, Stanfordia Illustrata, Stukeley’s Designs depicts many of the ancient buildings, monuments and landmarks around Stamford that Stukeley visited with his friend, the Rev William Warburton, and then recorded in Stanfordia Illustrata. As Smith observes, the importance of Stukeley’s Designs lies not in the numerous printed plates, many by another of Stukeley’s friends and collaborators, the Rev Francis Peck, but in Stukeley’s own sketches of ‘buildings and features that no longer survive [because] his drawings are the sole remaining pictorial evidence of their existence’ (p 50). Stukeley’s ability to make accurate, objective, closely observed records was recognised by contemporary antiquarians and is still acknowledged today. It was these skills that he employed so effectively at Avebury and Stonehenge. Stukeley’s problem was that many of the ancient buildings that he drew had been altered significantly or demolished before he took up residence in Stamford. This led Stukeley to develop a critical method for making reconstructions of the original buildings by making comparisons with extant buildings, folk memory and the memories of older inhabitants, which Smith describes. One of the highlights is a reproduction of part of the Knipe map of Stamford (1833), fascinating in its own right, annotated with sites that Stukeley illustrated in his Designs from speculations about the foundation of Stamford in the early medieval period by the Saxon leader Hengist, through to the sites of Stamford’s friaries and objective records of existing buildings such as All Saints’ vicarage and Sempringham Hall. Another two highlights are Stukeley’s drawings of the monumental brass installed in All Saints’ church commemorating one of his predecessors, Henry Wykes , who owned the manor of Burghley, and the decorative stone panel that Stukeley drew in situ in Sempringham Hall’s courtyard, which Stukeley believed had been dug up from the ruins of the nearby Augustinian friary (and which was rediscovered during work at a property on the High Street in the early 1980s). Like his contemporaries, Stukeley’s interpretation of these buildings, monuments and landmarks rested on and was constrained by the writings of earlier antiquarians such as Anthony Wood, Brian Twyne and John Leland, whose accounts of medieval academic halls in Stamford are printed in full in an appendix. Consequently, Smith counsels against deprecating Stukeley’s work because he concurred with antiquarians of his own generation and earlier who ‘built a whole edifice of halls and colleges in Stamford that was based on little more than conjecture and suppo- sitions’. Stukeley’s drawings are ‘unique records of medieval buildings in Stamford now long vanished’ (p 51). In conclusion, as befits the subject’s life as a polymath, Smith’s volume has broad appeal, especially to anyone with an interest in Stukeley and his time in Stamford, the 1734 parliamentary contest, or the development of Stamford and its medieval and early modern architecture, much of it now lost. The volume will also appeal to those interested in drawing links and making comparisons between the county of Rutland and the neighbouring borough of Stamford as well as those interested in the early legal and parliamentary career of William Noel (1695-1762), one of Stamford’s MPs from 1722 to 1747. (William Noel, son of the 4th Baronet of Kirkby Mallory in Leicestershire, was a distant cousin of Baptist Noel, 4th Earl of Gainsborough, of Exton House, sharing a direct male ancestor in the sixteenth century, Andrew Noel of Dalby in Leicestershire.) Both volumes in the Stukeley and Stamford series have pride of place on my bookshelves, well-thumbed as they contain a wealth of fascinating detail that I keep dipping into. Perhaps they won’t be the last: I agree with Smith’s observation that ‘a full comprehensive biography of Stukeley is badly needed’ and, I would argue, long overdue in order to set Stukeley’s experiences and achievements across his eventful life of 77 years in the context of a dynamic, often overlooked, period in British history. Reference: Honeybone, D. and Honeybone, M. (eds) (2021) Stukeley and Stamford, Part I, Cakes and Curiosity: the Sociable Antiquarian, 1710-1737. Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press (Publications of the Lincoln Record Society, 109). Richard Hunt