Object 43: Photograph of William Richardson

 

William Henry Richardson 1836-1909

 

The 1897 Old Abingdonian cricket team, William Richardson back row second from the right

 

Richardson’s inscription inside Samuel Johnson’s Prayers and Meditations

Without William Henry Richardson (1836-1909) OA c1854, the School would have no history – or rather it would, we just wouldn’t know much about it. Not that Richardson ever wrote a history of the School but, in trying to compile a register of Abingdonians 1563 to 1905, he accumulated a vast collection of manuscript letters and notes. These are now deposited in the Bodleian Library, where they have been an invaluable source for all the histories of the School, including this 63 Object project.

Richardson died before completing the register but not before he had written numerous letters and received hundreds of replies. There are 665 letters in the Bodleian collection and the detail is fascinating. In 1905 he did manage to publish a small pamphlet, A List of Some Distinguished Persons Educated at Abingdon School, 1563–1855. The List contains ninety brief biographies – clergymen, politicians, judges, academics, authors and soldiers – all Old Abingdonians who, in Richardson’s opinion, ornamented the School’s reputation.

To accompany the list, Richardson sought out prints of these men’s portraits and donated them to the School. He also tracked down the books they had written or were associated with and gave these to the School too, inscribing them all meticulously with the details of their significance.

Richardson’s donations are documented in the pages of The Abingdonian, the school magazine established with his support in 1890. He contributed numerous articles to this publication: on the School’s past, its heraldry (Object 15), its connection with Samuel Johnson (Object 16), biographies of famous old boys, the derivation of the School motto (Object 15) and his suggestion for a School Song. This latter, with the best will in the world, can only be described as terrible. Here is the first verse:

“Would you know how to throw
A cricket ball a hundred yards or so-so-so?
Come to us, emulous,
without bumptiousness or fuss,
and we’lI show you how to whack it in with go-go-go.”

It doesn’t get any better.

Determined that the old schoolroom should not be forgotten after the School’s move to Albert Park, Richardson collected descriptions and sketches of the room and its layout, identifying which tables were used by which masters to teach which subjects. He gave the School the photograph of the room that corrects the spacious image created by the Owen print (Object 27), and the two photographs of Dr Strange and his pupils taken in 1865 (Object 32) and 1867.

In 1901 he began to collect a history of the Boat Club (Object 36), sending a manuscript notebook to former rowers and asking them to write in it their memories before sending it on to the next person. Known as ‘Memories of Rowing’ it is the most charming of books in which, on 5 March 1901, Henry George Tomkins looked back at his days on the river whilst he had been a pupil at the School between 1841 and 1843:

“I rejoiced in the beauty of the water flowers especially. The creeks and backwaters were full of their lovely foliage and blossoms… I remember the singular ‘musk-beetle’ on withies by the river bank, discerned far off by scent; and divers out-of-the-way happinesses to be found and enjoyed in and under the clear water by one not tied to time.”

The impetus to record the history of rowing accompanied Richardson’s determination to raise enough money to buy the School a new boat, which he succeeded in doing, the boat being ready for the race against the Old Boys in June 1901. In 1903 he decided to raise an appeal for the restoration of the eagle lectern (Object 11), which had held such a prominent place in the old schoolroom and was now going to find a home in the new School Chapel. As with the record of the boat appeal, every donation and every item of expenditure was recorded in meticulous detail in notebooks that are now in the School archives.

Richardson was born in Oxford on 25 January 1836, where his father was a grocer. At age 15, he was a printer/binder in Wantage before going to St Mary’s Hall, Oxford. After this he became an assistant master at Christ Church Cathedral School and then moved to teach at Ipswich School. In later years he lived in Blewbury and had a house in Lansdowne Square, London. He was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. His younger brother was Walter Wycliffe Richardson.