Old Bible

cj · Post by cj » Fri Mar 09, 2007 11:12 am

I have recently acquired a very old copy of a CH bible and was wondering if anyone could provide some information about it.

I can't find a publisher's date, but the editor's date is 1898 and it was given to a Rose Taylor 'by the Governors' in 1927. It is a 1611 version, beautifully bound in black leather with the CH crest embossed in gold on the front and "verbum domini manet in aeternum" embossed on the back around a gold crest. The end papers are black with three thin gold bands running around the edge, and inside the back cover is a paper 'plate' stuck in which reads
"ex dono Chris: Meredith citizen and stationer 1655".

It is rather gorgeous as an object and I'm rather pleased to have been given it.

kerrensimmonds · Post by **kerrensimmonds** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 4:08 pm

Meredith left money so that leavers from Christ's Hospital could be given a Bible. The one I was given in 1966 sounds not dissimilar from the one you describe (will have to check when I get home!).
There were differences however around whether this applies to all leavers, or only those who stick it through to the end, or only those who are Christian. I know that Baroness Deech, who left Hertford from the Lower Sixth (and who in any case was a Jew) was very hurt that she was not given a Bible. Richard Poulton, Head Master at Horsham, rectified the situation for her many years later.
These days the Leavers' Bibles are much thinner than ours, and they are not covered in leather any more.

At Hertford, if one was also a Monitress, you had the choice of a matching Book of Common Prayer or a Concordance, as well.

One quite often sees old CH Bibles on eBay.

Great Plum · Post by **Great Plum** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 5:33 pm

kerrensimmonds wrote:Meredith left money so that leavers from Christ's Hospital could be given a Bible. The one I was given in 1966 sounds not dissimilar from the one you describe (will have to check when I get home!).
There were differences however around whether this applies to all leavers, or only those who stick it through to the end, or only those who are Christian. I know that Baroness Deech, who left Hertford from the Lower Sixth (and who in any case was a Jew) was very hurt that she was not given a Bible. Richard Poulton, Head Master at Horsham, rectified the situation for her many years later.
These days the Leavers' Bibles are much thinner than ours, and they are not covered in leather any more.

At Hertford, if one was also a Monitress, you had the choice of a matching Book of Common Prayer or a Concordance, as well.

One quite often sees old CH Bibles on eBay.

Really - mine must be imitation leather then I guess...

J.R. · Post by **J.R.** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 5:40 pm

Mine is soft leather bound.

I also have my Grand-Fathers, which is as cj describes. Black leather with the gold crest on the front.

Katharine · Post by **Katharine** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 5:53 pm

Mine is almost certainly the same as Kerren's as she was in the next batch to leave Hertford after me. It is bound in black leather with a gold crest on the front, with the words Christ's Hospital in a scroll under it. On the spine there are two smaller crests and the words Holy Bible with in a smaller font just under it Apocrypha, further down it says Revised version. The preface inside has the date 1898, some time before I left

midget · Post by **midget** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 8:05 pm

The preface in mine is dated 1884, but otherwise sounds the same.

kerrensimmonds · Post by **kerrensimmonds** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 9:07 pm

Mine is as Katharine describes.
No mention of Meredith...but I have seen them referred to as 'Meredith Bibles' (DRW's Spirit of Susannah), and somewhere in my adolescent consciousness I knew that someone called 'Meredith' had paid for me to be given a Bible when I left CH.
Kerren

cj · Post by cj » Fri Mar 09, 2007 9:13 pm

Thanks for that, folks. Mine sertainly does not stand up in any way to this one!

kerrensimmonds wrote:At Hertford, if one was also a Monitress, you had the choice of a matching Book of Common Prayer or a Concordance, as well.

I was given a Book of Common Prayer also. I wasn't a Button Grecian, but was a house monitor. Was that why?

Jim Rayner · Post by **Jim Rayner** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 10:10 pm

Mine too is bound in hard black leather and matches Katherine's description.

I've always been puzzled about why we were given the Revised Version which was produced at the end of the 19th century as a revision of the 1611 Authorized (or King James) version. It never really caught on and most churches stuck with the AV. And by the time I left CH it had been superseded as a modern translation by the RSV, which I think was produced in the 1950's, or the New English bible.

Maybe the school bought up a job lot of surplus stock?

sejintenej · Post by **sejintenej** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 11:37 pm

Katharine wrote:Mine is almost certainly the same as Kerren's as she was in the next batch to leave Hertford after me. It is bound in black leather with a gold crest on the front, with the words Christ's Hospital in a scroll under it. On the spine there are two smaller crests and the words Holy Bible with in a smaller font just under it Apocrypha, further down it says Revised version. The preface inside has the date 1898, some time before I left

_________________

midget wrote:The preface in mine is dated 1884, but otherwise sounds the same.

I suspect that de facto they are the same: mine has a "Preface to edition with marginal references" dated May 1898 followed by "Revisers' preface to the Old Testament" dated 10th July 1884.
The Preface at the start of the Apocrypha is dated January 1895 but the footnote to the preface is itself dated July 1898.
Interestingly it was "printed for the universities of Cambridge and Oxford" but elsewhere it says "Cambridge at the University Press" with an address in London.

At the end there are "Cambridge Bible Maps and Gazetteer" (no further mention of Oxford)

Any suggestions as to why there is an index at the front to the Old and New Testaments but not to the Apocrypha? (It has a separate index at the end of the Old Testament.)

Katharine · Post by **Katharine** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 7:00 am

Yes, David mine has the various dates, I chose to include the latest date there. I am sure the school had a job lot - how many were in a single year at Horsham? We probably had up to 50 leavers a year which soon mounts up!

sejintenej · Post by **sejintenej** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 7:41 am

Katharine wrote:Yes, David mine has the various dates, I chose to include the latest date there. I am sure the school had a job lot - how many were in a single year at Horsham? We probably had up to 50 leavers a year which soon mounts up!

My guess is 110 or thereabouts. 850 boys doing 8 years each - some (like me) did 9, some perhaps as few as 6 but the vast majority went on to at least A level. Depended also if you came in at 9 (like me) or at 11 (which I guess was a majority).

OTOH in my year in Col A I think there were only 5 but some years had up to 7 boys - which, with 14 houses messes up the figures slightly!

Not sure about somebody's reference to not getting a bible if you didn't stick it to the "end". I got the impression you got one provided you were not expelled or had to leave really early. I left 2 weeks before the end of my last term but still got summoned to the Headmaster's study to receive mine. Was he sour!

kerrensimmonds · Post by **kerrensimmonds** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 10:29 am

By 'sticking it to the end' I meant those who went through to complete their secondary education with A levels or equivalent. I don't think that those who left after O levels (GCSE's today) got one, neither (I think) did those who left in what we called the Lower VI and finished their secondary education somewhere else. I am sure that those who left a few days or weeks before the very end would have had a special summons to receive their Bible - they just missed out on the Leavers' Service and standing in line in the nave of Chapel, waiting to go forward to pick up their Bible from the HM.

Harold · Post by **Harold** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 10:55 am

When I left in 1969 I received the bible, (revised version with Apocrypha, and bound in black in leathertex?), and a Companion to the bible, but I don't think everyone received the latter.
Sad to say they've spent most of their time in their golden cardboard boxes.

H

kerrensimmonds · Post by **kerrensimmonds** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 3:15 pm

Hello Harold. Welcome to the Forum!
I think that you would find that your Bible is leather, not leatherette. And the companion volume would be because you must have held some office at e.g. House level, in your last year.