‘At the Royal Society. Mr. Collison showed me a Druid bead of glass, enameled, found at Henbury, near Macclesfield. Henbury is the old grave, as our Saxon ancestors would call an old long barrow, where an arch-druid was buryed, and I suppose this ornament belonged to one. They wore such hanging from their neck.’ This is from the diaries of William Stukeley, an English antiquarian, physician and Anglican clergyman, who died 250 years ago today. Though trained as a physician, his life’s work - reflected in his diaries - was to explore and study the country’s antiquities. He is credited with pioneering the scholarly investigation of prehistoric monuments such as Stonehenge.
However, Stukeley’s interest in ancient monuments soon drew him away from medicine, and over the next decade he made extensive tours across Britain, meticulously sketching and documenting prehistoric sites. His travels led him to Stonehenge in 1719, where he undertook a first systematic study. After moving to London, he joined the Royal Society and became friends with Isaac Newton. The 1720s marked a period of intense study and fieldwork. He co-founded the Society of Roman Knights, dedicated to the study of Roman Britain, and became increasingly involved in Freemasonry.
By 1721, Stukeley had been elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, this despite his continuing focus on antiquities rather than medicine. In 1724, he published Itinerarium Curiosum, a richly illustrated account of his travels. His life took a turn in 1726 when he married Frances Williamson (with whom he would have three daughters) and moved to Grantham. In 1739, two years after his first wife’s death, Stukeley married Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Gale, dean of York, who brought a substantial marriage portion to the union. In 1740, he published Stonehenge: A Temple Restor’d to the British Druids, proposing that these monuments were built by ancient Druids.
In late 1747, Stukeley became the rector for St George the Martyr, Queen Square, a parish in Bloomsbury, London, and soon after moved permanently to the city. In 1753, he was selected as a trustee to help establish the British Museum, reflecting his standing in London antiquarian circles. He was also involved in the running of the Foundling Hospital. One of his last books, in 1752, was a memoir of Newton in which he mentions how a falling apple inspired the theory of gravitation. He died on 3 March 1765. Further information is available from Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, and the BBC.
Stukeley was an inveterate diary keeper. The Spalding Gentlemen’s Society holds a collection of his papers covering the years 1740 to 1751, and the Bodleian Archives & Manuscripts houses other papers including diaries. Many diary entries can be found in the three volumes of The Family Memoirs of the Rev. William Stukeley as edited by the Surtees Society in the 1880s. These volumes (available at Internet Archive) remain an important source for researchers studying Stukeley’s life and work, as well as for those interested in the development of antiquarian studies and archaeology in 18th-century Britain. Volume 1 contains an autobiographical memoir and some chronological diary extracts from his early life, as well as correspondence. Volumes 2 and 3, however, are not structured as a chronological survey of his life, but by geographical counties (each county chapter including different kinds of texts, inc. diaries).
Here are some diary extracts as found in volume 2.
26 May 1743
‘Mrs. Lepla told me of a Roman urn dug up at Thorney Abby, with the ashes, which they buryed again. She says there’s a high raised gravel road, Roman, from Thorney to Ely, which, I doubt not, belonged to the Carsdike navigation, bringing corn from Cambridg. She says they dig up much antidiluvian oak there, of huge dimensions. They made a maypole of one, together with deers’ horns and nuts.’
4 November 1744
‘Dined with the Archbishop of York in his journey to town. His Grace told me Mr. Roger Gale dyed with a prophecy in his mouth, according to report of the country, viz., that it would be a most excessively wet harvest, for so it proved in the north this year, though with us it was very favourable. Mr. Hill told us he ordered a certain oak tree to be cut down, brought into his yard, and to be sawn into planks, a fortnight before his death. No one knew his purpose till he dyed, and then a paper was found directing they should dig a grave for him in such a place in the churchyard 8 foot deep or deeper if the springs hindered not. They should plank the bottom of it with those oak planks. He ordered his coffin to be made of a certain shape which he drew out upon paper, which being laid upon the planks was to be bricked round the height of the coffin, and a particular large blew stone which he mentioned laid over the whole, then to be filled up with earth and fresh sods laid so as that it might not be discernible where he was laid, that he might be the sooner forgot, as he exprest it.’
December 1748
‘A dog was taken from London in a ship, carried to Newcastle, some victuals given him, and let goe at the same time that a letter was put into the post to his master at London. The dog never had been at Newcastle before, yet was at home before the letter. Many are the instances of this nature, well attested. Therefore I conclude providence has extended some universal principle to all animals, which we are apt to call instinct, like that of attraction, gravitation, cohesion, electricity, &c., imparted to mere matter. This principle overrules animals, and irresistibly draws them on to pursue the ends purposed by them, or to which they are designed by providence, without variation, such as bees making their inimitable combs, birds making the nests peculiar to their kind, &c, whilst man acts spontaneously and of his own free will, and therefore only accountable for his actions. Many like storys are told of cats, a more unlikely creature than dogs, which I know to be true.’
16 February 1749
‘At the Royal Society. Mr. Collison showed me a Druid bead of glass, enameled, found at Henbury, near Macclesfield. Henbury is the old grave, as our Saxon ancestors would call an old long barrow, where an arch-druid was buryed, and I suppose this ornament belonged to one. They wore such hanging from their neck. Henbury is at the head of the river Pever. Henshaw, the next town, old wood. A great forest hard by, and a very open country too.’
24 July 1749
‘My wife, daughters, Mrs. Wade and I, went to Waltham Cross. We saw the two posts remaining which I set down 25 years ago to guard the noble edifice. Nevertheless it has very much suffered since that time. We visited the Abby. The front of the great gate-house remains, and some part of the north side of the abbatial buildings. The present cellar is part of the old cloysters, as thought; ’tis arched at top. At the very end of it, they have fixed up against the wall the side of king Harold’s tomb; ’tis a black stone with a grotesc head carved on it, and some cherubims. We saw the famous tulip tree, now in flower. The east of the present church has exactly the same appearance as that of Crowland. In both places they have pulled down the choir and transept. Crowland first church was exactly the same as what now remains here. They were both magnificent cathedrals of the first style; semicircular arches, great pillars. The building on the south is said to have belonged to the nuns of Cheshunt. We visited the old house at the end of the town, said to have been the house where the famous John Fox the martyrologist lived, whose family still remains in the town. There is his picture; and Archbishop Cranmer lived in the same place; his study remains. Mr. Fowler, the curate, showed me an old town book from the dissolution; mention of the last abbot, Robert Fuller.’
28 January 1752
‘Rode to Cheshunt; observed a Hebrew inscription over a door in Hockley in the hole ; an inscription by Clarkenwel. The two posts remain which I set up at Waltham cross 30 years agoe, and without them this curious fabric had been quite demolished by this time. The lord of the manor, instead of repairing it, as he ought to do, gave leave for the adjacent alehouse to build against it and take part of it away. The 4 Swans there belonged to Waltham Abby. The suit of rooms where the chimnys are were made for the tenants to meet in on court days, and to lodg pilgrims in. I take it that 4 swans with a cross were the arms of king Harold, and he had a mistress, whom he called swan’s neck, who only could find his body out among the slain.’
25 January 1759
‘At the Antiquarian Society. A pot of English coins of Henry II. found near Southampton, some cut in half for halfpennys, some in quarters for farthings.’
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