St Albans Abbey

St Albans Abbey at Night

Early post cards of the Abbey

A Silhouette of St Albans Abbey from 1904

An unusual early post card of St Albans Abbey

More Information

Are you interested in doing research on St Albans Abbey?

Click Here for more 100 year old views of the Abbey

I have just discovered that if you would like to get an M.A. degree on St Albans Abbey without having to pay any tuition fees you have about two weeks to get in an application. It would be supervised by the University of Hertfordshire and involve working in the Cathedral archives. Projects may cover the following themes:

1. The heritage, restoration and material culture of the Abbey from the 19^th century to the present day;
2. The Abbey's role in charity, the poor law, and the wider community in the 19^th and 20^th centuries;
3. The Cult of Saints in recent history.

For details see: http://www.herts.ac.uk/regional-history/study-with-us

The Street Memorials of St Albans Abbey

Military

The St Albans Arc and Arc Society have issued the following announcement:

St Albans

"The new edition of The Street Memorials of St Albans Abbey Parish, original book by Alice Goodman, this new edition by John G E Cox and Ann Dean, is now available. It has been updated and now contains information about all but one of the soldiers commemorated on these memorials.

The book is currently on sale at the Abbey's bookshop and the Tourist Information Office at the Town Hall, priced £9. It is also available at the SAHAAS library on Wednesday and Friday mornings at a discounted price for members of £8."

I have put it on my list to get a copy the next time I am in St Albans - but due to my current "overload" position it may be some time before I can find time to publish a review.

Was John Sergius Fothergill really buried alive? I don't think so.

Memorial Brass in St Albans Abbey

Following my recent post on Harpsfield Hall I got a message from Anthony drawing my attention to the will of John Sergius Fothergill of Harpsfield Hall, proved on 12th April 1836. I decided to look further and Ancestry directed me to billiongraves.com which had a picture of this memorial tablet in St Albans Abbey recording the death of as taking place on 24th March 1836. Clearly getting Probate was very much quicker in those days than it is today. So next I checked familysearch which told me he died and surprisingly was buried the same day, 24th March, in  St Albans Cathedral. This information is sourced to an unnamed affiliate - but the reference number suggests the affiliate was the billiongraves web site.

So I decided to check the burial record of FindMyPast and was told that he was buried at St Albans Abbey on 18th March 1836, at the age of 70, So he was buried six days before the brass plaque say he died! How uncomfortable for him. (At the time he was buried St Albans Abbey was not a Cathedral and the modern official name is "The Cathedral and Abbey Church of St Albans" - see Wikipedia)

So was he buried alive? Of course not? And if further proof was needed  the Northampton Mercury of 19th March 1836 which read "On the 11th instant, at St Albans, John Sergius Fothergill, Esq. of Harpsfield Hall, Herts, in his 70th year." and further searching shows that the same message appeared in the Bucks Herald and Oxford Journal of 19th March, the Herts Mercury of 22nd March, and the Chelmsford Chronicle of 25th March. (In all these cases the name Harpsfield had been misread in the scan, which is why I hadn't found them earlier.)

There is an important lesson here. All records, however impressive they look, both contemporary and modern, can contain errors and while researching you are almost certain to make one or two errors yourself on occasions. The answer is to check everything and be aware that the information you have accepted in good faith may be wrong.