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William Henry Abbey F/M [Abbey-396] c Married: 1888 Florence Belcher F/Mc | ||||||||
| John (Jack) Roland Abbey [Abbey-392] [CFT #1186] Born: 1894-Nov-23 Died: 1969-Dec-24 |
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| b Brighton, Sussex d Westminster, London Abbey, John Roland (1894?1969), book collector, was born in Brighton on 23 November 1894, the eldest of three sons of William Henry Abbey, brewer, of Sedgwick Park, Horsham, and his wife, Florence, daughter of Henry Belcher, of Hove, Sussex. He was named John Rowland, but later dropped the 'w'. In consequence of an accident which caused lasting damage to one elbow, Abbey was educated by a private tutor, Mr M?ens, at Rottingdean, instead of at school. In November 1914 he was commissioned in the rifle brigade and served as a regimental officer on the western front for two years from September 1915. The 13th and 8th battalions, to which he was posted in succession, saw severe fighting and both suffered heavy casualties. During the capture of Flers on 15 September 1916, when he was temporarily in reserve, the 8th battalion lost all its officers except one. He spent five months in hospital and on sick leave after being gassed in November 1916, the only interval in this long term of active service. He was invalided home in October 1917 and demobilized in August 1919. His war experiences in France and Flanders, especially during the third battle of Ypres, remained a vivid memory even in old age. His younger brother Lieutenant Noel Roland Abbey was killed in action in France in 1918 while serving with the Grenadier Guards. Abbey became a director of the Kemp Town brewery, Brighton, after leaving the army, and succeeded his father as chairman after the latter's death in 1943. The brewery was sold to Charrington's in 1954. On 7 June 1921 he married Lady Ursula Helen Cairns (b. 1899), second daughter of the fourth Earl Cairns. There were two daughters of the marriage. Abbey rejoined the rifle brigade in November 1939 and served for two years from 1941 as staff officer to the admiral-superintendent, Great Yarmouth, until his release in October 1943. In 1946 he was granted the honorary rank of major. Abbey started to collect in 1929, buying initially the productions of the modern private presses, and eventually formed complete collections of books from the Kelmscott, Ashendene, and Gregynog presses. In 1946 Abbey entered a new field by buying for ?40,000 the collection of illuminated manuscripts, mostly written in Gothic or humanistic scripts, formed by C. H. St John Hornby, the founder of the Ashendene Press. With the help of a small but distinguished group from Sir Sydney Cockerell, of the fourteenth-century Ruskin Hours and the late and lavish Monypenny Breviary bought from a Hove collector, D. M. Colman, and of single purchases from booksellers and at auction, Abbey finally acquired 143 medieval and Renaissance manuscripts. This collection, however, although including many outstanding volumes, remained a somewhat heterogeneous assemblage, owing its excellence more to the taste of Hornby and Cockerell than to its owner's discrimination. The library reached its maximum size at Greyfriars, Storrington, in the mid-1950s, with the addition of many bibliographical works and private library catalogues?bought in part at the suggestion of A. N. L. Munby?and an almost complete set of Roxburghe Club publications. Abbey made no pretensions to scholarship and knew no language except English. It was the appearance, not the contents, of books which appealed to him. He was, however, a keen reader and a tireless visitor to libraries and bookshops; he had an excellent visual memory and a flair for quality in bindings; and he was fortunate in being advised by distinguished scholars, notably G. D. Hobson and A. N. L. Munby. He admired bibliographical scholarship and wanted his collections to be of service to bibliographers. But a post-war visit to Sir Robert Abdy's eighteenth-century morocco library at Newton Ferrers, in a room permanently curtained to prevent sunlight fading the spines, converted him to the French attitude to book collecting, in which quality and fine condition are the predominant considerations. In 1967 Abbey moved from Redlynch House, Salisbury (his residence since he left Storrington in Sussex in 1957), to a flat at 12 Hill Street, Mayfair. Here the medieval manuscripts, French illustrated books, and modern bindings were shelved. He died in London on 24 December 1969. With the exception of a select group of manuscripts retained by his family, the Kelmscott Press books, which he had given to Eton College Library, and a choice of six French bindings bequeathed to the British Museum, the remainder of the collection was dispersed in five further sales in 1970?75 for ?993,509. If not the most learned, Abbey was certainly the largest English book collector of his time. His colour-plate collection showed genuine originality and his catalogues represented real advances of knowledge. Although sometimes too ready to take offence in matters affecting his collection, he was of a naturally amiable disposition and a generous and charming host, always glad to welcome scholars or fellow collectors. He was responsible for the publication of three books, compiled by E. Jutro and other collaborators: Scenery of Great Britain and Ireland in Aquatint and Lithography, 1770?1860 (1952); Life in England, in Aquatint and Lithography 1770?1860 (1953); and Travel in Aquatint and Lithography (2 vols., 1956?7). His favourite pastime, next to book collecting, was croquet, a game he played with skill and enthusiasm. Abbey was appointed high sheriff of Sussex in 1945. Abridged from Oxford DNB, August 2022. Author of English Bindings, 1490-1940, in the library of Maj., of Redlynch House, nr. Salisbury, Wiltshire High Sheriff of Sussex (1945). Served in WWI and WWII |
1: 1925 Juliet Hermione Abbeycw H/C 2: 1936 Gloria Jean Abbeycw 3: (A) Abbeyw | |||||||
| 3 Children | ||||||||
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