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Monumental Inscriptions

Hertfordshire Antiquarians

William Blyth Gerish

W.B. Gerish (pronounced Gearish) came from an old Norfolk family. He was educated at Great Yarmouth College and entered the service of the London & Provincial Bank.

From the earliest days his main hobby was the study of antiquarian matters and his life's work in this connection was done in Hertfordshire, where he came to live soon after entering the Bank, first at Cheshunt, then moving to Hoddesdon and later to Bishops Stortford.

In 1898 he was instrumental in founding the East Herts. Archaeological Society, of which he was Hon. Secretary until he left the County in 1915 when his health broke down compelling him to resign his post in London. He went to live in Caister, Norfolk, where he died 12 March 1921 aged 56 years.

His interest in genealogy had grown in 1907 when he learned that the Suffolk Archaeological Society were starting a scheme to record M.I's in the churchyards there, and under the aegis of the EHAS he undertook a similar scheme in Hertfordshire.

Six years later, with the assistance of a small group of helpers, the county's M.I's were fully recorded, the first county to do so. The finished work, all in manuscript, filled 13 large quarto volumes comprising 8,000 pages containing some 70,000 entries. The transcriptions, however, contained no map or reference point as to where a particular inscription was located. All the volumes are preserved at the British Library but a copy on micro film can be seen at the Society of Genealogists.

Sources

Branch Johnson, W. - East Herts Arch. Soc. Transactions - Vol.7 Pt.1 & Vol.5 Pt.2 & 3

Camp, A. - Herts. Past & Present - Everyone had roots - No.8, 1968

Parker, Jack - Herts. People - Winter 1987 - Herts. Family & Population History Society

John Edwin Cussans

John Edwin Cussans (accent on second syllable) was born in Plymouth on 30 October 1837. Cussans was the fifth child of Thomas Cussans by his wife Matilda Ann Goodman. After education at North School, Plymouth, he entered a commercial house, in connection with which he visited America (1858) and Russia (1861). On his return to England in 1863 he married Emma Prior Ward, a daughter of John Ward of Hackney and Sarah Hunt who came from Much Hadham. He became a professed author and devoted the best part of his life to heraldic and genealogical studies. In both of these departments he achieved works of lasting value.

In 1869 the forthcoming History of Hertfordshire was announced and occupied Cussans until 1881. The History, though following traditional patterns, broke new ground in quoting from earlier historians the text of monumental inscriptions even then no longer readable and is an important supplement to existing histories of Chauncy and Clutterbuck.

Cussans' printed text contains instances of pungent quotations from previous writers and the vintage John Edwin is reserved for his own copy in the County Record Office, privacy freeing him from the restraints of authorship, containing as it does several very candid notes on contemporary landowners and parsons - some probably libellous!

In 1881 he entered the Anglo-Californian Bank in London, of which he became Secretary, remaining there until ill health compelled retirement in 1897. He died on 11 September 1899 in Upper Holloway and is buried in Highgate Cemetery, leaving a widow and eight surviving children in straitened circumstances.

Source

Abstracted from The Dictionary of National Biography Volume xxii (Supplement) and The History of Hertfordshire Volume 1, republished 1972.