Page 2 - Hampdens Monument Unveiled

FOREWORD

While Gill and I were researching for items of interest

concerning the Chalgrove Battlefield we chanced upon an

advertisement in 'The Aylesbury News' 27th May 1843, to witness

the lifting into place of a marble portrait of John Hampden, on

Monday 19th June 1843. Dinner was to follow at 3 0' clock, all

for the cost of 5 shillings. We kept this snippet of

information in mind as a matter of interest to possibly follow

up at a later date. While searching the archives for items for

our book 'The Controversy of John Hampden's Death' we found

various write ups of the unveiling. We learnt that Hatfield

College Library had all the copies of 'The Times' on microfiche

in date order.

There for the 20th June 1843 was an article tucked away among

the text of a less than complimentary piece about the Chalgrove

event of the day before. The Reading Central Library had an

identical piece in 'The Windsor and Eton Journal' for the same

date. The Aylesbury Library had in its archives copies of 'The

Aylesbury News' and 'The Oxford Chronicle' for the 24th June

1843. 'The Aylesbury News' article was quite detailed in its

coverage of the unveiling and the speech that followed after

the celebratory dinner. 'The Oxford Chronicle', by contrast,

commented on the event and drew parallels and criticisms of

politicians and statesmen past and contemporary.

All this material was filed away as it had little to add to the

projects that we were researching. Then at a John Hampden

Society committee meeting at the Spread Eagle in Thame, Maurice

Kirtland brought in 'The Oxford Chronicle and Reading Gazette'

dated the 24th June 1843. Virtually the whole broad sheet was

dedicated to the unveiling. The type set was as small as this

and somewhat blurred. There on four sides of the broad sheet

was a detailed description of the previous Monday's unveiling

and a verbatim report of Lord Nugent's speech with Dr Renn

Dickson Hampden's reply.

Newspapers of the early Victorian period relied on the power of

descriptive text to set a scene or draw a picture, but there on

the back page we were most fortunate to have a drawing of the

Monument as it stood at the unveiling. The front cover of this

book is taken from this contemporary drawing, by courtesy of

Barry Keating. He used his artistic talents to re-create the

scene of yesteryear. To some at the committee meeting this

newspaper was impossible to read. Maurice let me take the

newspaper home and while it was in our possession we

transcribed it to the computer. The contents of all these

newspapers are included in this book for comparison. In most

cases the original spelling, punctuation and layout have been

kept. It is a credit to the typesetters of the day that we

could not find a single spelling mistake. If we have achieved

the same we will be most pleased.

Derek Lester

Chalgrove February 2006