A series of drawings of medieval buildings in Stamford, made in the
1730s by William Stukeley, provide important new evidence for the
history of the town, while documents relating to the bitterly contested
parliamentary election of 1734 demonstrate the contemporary vitality of
this Georgian town.
The buildings and institutions of medieval Stamford have long fascinated
historians and antiquaries, not least in the light of the claim that the
fourteenth-century migration to the town of students from Oxford
constituted the establishment of the 'third university of England'. The
first history of the town, that of Richard Butcher, was published as
early as 1646. So, when in 1730 the antiquary William Stukeley became
Vicar of All Saints' Church in Stamford, he found a fruitful field for
his historical studies. His manuscript history, 'Stanfordia Illustrata',
has recently been published by the Lincoln Record Society. Now in this
companion volume, the drawings which he produced to accompany that
history, Designs of Stanford Antiquitys, are reproduced in full for the
first time. Many of the buildings that Stukeley sketched no longer
survive and his drawings form a valuable record of what has been lost.
They are accompanied by a detailed commentary, the fruit of many years
of research into Stamford and its buildings.
Stukeley was a sociable antiquary and enjoyed the company of like-minded
scholars, men such as Samuel Gale and William Warburton, taking them on
elaborate tours of historic Stamford. But some of his fellow townspeople
were not so friendly. As a Whig in a strongly conservative town,
dominated by the Tory Cecils at nearby Burghley House, Stukeley was
often involved in local disputes, sometimes over ecclesiastical
appointments, such as the wardenship of Browne's Hosital, sometimes even
over scientific matters, such as the treatment of gout. A notable
struggle occurred over the Stamford election of 1734, both Tories and
Whigs throwing mutual accusations of corruption and bribery, culminating
in the 'battle of Friary Gate', an attack on the house of the major Whig
candidate. Stukeley's account of the election, submitted to Prime
Minister Sir Robert Walpole, the subsequent Tory counter-petition and
other related documents, are published in this volume.
By the 1740s, and the publication of his major works, Stonehenge and
Avebury, Stukeley had put such tribulations behind him and had
reintegrated himself into Stamford society, eventually leaving the town
early in 1748 to seek pastures new in London. The drawings and documents
reproduced in this volume help us to see early eighteenth-century
Stamford through Stukeley's eyes, providing new insights into an
important phase of his life and into the history of a Lincolnshire
market town in the reign of George II.
