Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

I stumbled across this site:

http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report ... mpid=45109

Might be of interest to some.

Mid A 15 wrote:I stumbled across this site:

http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report ... mpid=45109

Might be of interest to some.

and what comes out of that? Mentioned near the end is a grecian called le Grice; his descendant (now deceased) was Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall in the 1950's and it was that man's son, Valentine le Grice, who was the barister leading the campaign against Prince Charles' second wedding.

Apart from the interesting reading, I browsed further and discovered that on the 1870 Ordinance survey maps of Plumstead there are both Hopgood's Cottages, where my forebears opened a pub, (still there) and also a Hopgood's Place, which we knew nothing about.

I was very interested in the mention of Le Grice as the name featured in some research I did several years ago and I did not realise that any descendants were still alive. Charles Valentine Le Grice (1773-1858) was at Housey with Lamb, Coleridge, et al, where he was known for his addiction to fun and punning. At a school debate where the motion was “Who was the greater orator - Pitt, Fox or Burke?” he proposed Sheridan! In 1792 he won an exhibition to Trinity College Cambridge and was ordained in 1798. The reason he had gone to Cornwall (as mentioned in the reference) was that in 1796 he had become tutor to the son a of a wealthy Cornish widow and in 1799 he married the lady. The boy died in 1815, the lady in 1821, and Le Grice inherited the lot – an early 19th century equivalent of the National Lottery! The general opinion among his contemporaries was that he did not live up to his many talents.

He was the author of no less than 17 of the entries in Boyer's "Liber Aureus" - the greatest number by any contributor to that remarkable document.

John,
Presumably your Hopgood ancestor served beer made from good hops?

Foureyes wrote:He was the author of no less than 17 of the entries in Boyer's "Liber Aureus" - the greatest number by any contributor to that remarkable document.

Having googled Boyer and his Liber Aureus (ashamed never to have come across it before), I came across a biography by Anthony Holden of Leigh Hunt, who was not a contributor to Boyer's book but a student of his nonetheless.

I thought this was a rather apt quote for the forum by Lamb and the attitude of Leigh Hunt still prevails over 200 years later.

‘In affectionate recollections of the place where he was bred up, in hearty recognitions of old schoolfellows met with again after a lapse of years, or in foreign countries, the Christ’s Hospital boy yields to none,’ wrote Charles Lamb. ‘I might almost say, he goes beyond other boys.’

So it was with Leigh Hunt. For all his mixed feelings about his schooldays, later converted into undiluted gratitude for the excellent literary grounding he received, fifteen-year-old Hunt felt somewhat lost on leaving Christ’s Hospital in November 1799.

http://www.hachettebookgroupusa.com/boo ... 22015.html

The Liber Aureus was retained by Boyer when he retired and passed down through his family until the 1920s, when it was sold. Sadly, it was not bought by C.H. but passed through several hands before ending up in the British Library, where it remains - in pristine condition and readily available to inspection in the Manuscripts Room.

If an essay satisfied Boyer's very high standards the author was allowed to copy it into the Liber Aureus - which is, in fact, simply a school exercise book of the time and eventually reached three volumes. As soon as you see it, you realise that the "gold" in the title refers to the contents and not to the book's phyiscal appearance. There are 104 essays by 22 writers, including Lamb (1) and Coleridge (9), but as canteen cath rightly points out, none by Leigh Hunt. The total period covered is from 1783 to 1799. My admiration is for the eight young Blues who have one entry only - how proud they must have been to be invited to transcribe their work!

I agree that's rather a shame CH couldn't pick up this remarkable piece of literary history. But I guess the British Library is more accessible for those who want to study it.

Do we know whether other schools at the time had the equivalent of Boyer's book? Is it a complete one off?

cj wrote:I agree that's rather a shame CH couldn't pick up this remarkable piece of literary history. But I guess the British Library is more accessible for those who want to study it.

Nowadays it would be impossible for the school to acquire it as the price would surely be astronomical given whose work is included. It is something the school should be proud of - what about facsimile copies?

cj wrote: I thought this was a rather apt quote for the forum by Lamb and the attitude of Leigh Hunt still prevails over 200 years later.

‘In affectionate recollections of the place where he was bred up, in hearty recognitions of old schoolfellows met with again after a lapse of years, or in foreign countries, the Christ’s Hospital boy yields to none,’ wrote Charles Lamb. ‘I might almost say, he goes beyond other boys.’

Cath, you have a knack for (very discreetly) hitting the nail on the head.



As for the 8 CH boys with essays in The Book, I can't help wondering if their descendants know? How delighted I would be to find that my (?)5x greatgrandfather was recorded for posterity...