By Henry John Feasey
The book is simply remarkable and one of my most prized possessions. It’s a history of Westminster Abbey from 1899 with over 70 black & white photographic plates of the Abbey, showing all kinds of details.
This book is extremely rare and as a consequence, you probably have never seen these pictures of Westminster Abbey before. According to an inscription at the front, only 360 copies of this book were ever printed. Only 100 were sold to America. This book is numbered 158 out of 360. I wonder where the other 359 copies are! I suspect its something you can find in the library at Westminster Abbey! I have no idea why so few were printed and I have no idea how many actually remain.
This book is massive – it measures 15 inches by 12 inches, it’s not something that fits on a regular bookshelf. There are well over 100 pages and over 70 black & white plates. Think about when this book was printed. Queen Victoria was still the monarch. Britain was at the height of its global Imperial power. Westminster Abbey sat at the heart of this empire, it was the Empire’s church, where its kings and queens were crowned. Photography itself was only just about 60 years old by this point. So, it’s a real treat to see Westminster Abbey get an architectural study like this in this new medium.
The book was printed in London by George Bell & Sons, a publisher founded in 1839. Amazingly, this publisher existed all the way until 1986 when it was absorbed by Unwin Hyman and then acquired by HarperCollins in 1990. Bell started out as an education bookseller that became known as an independent publisher of classics and children’s books. They even bought the British rights to Webster’s Dictionary and were the official British publisher for decades.
The principal author of the book was a Henry John Feasey, but I could not find much information about him other than that he was the author of many books about religious subjects in the Victorian era such as Monasticism – What is it? and The Ancient English Holy Week Ceremonial. There is a second author listed described as providing an account of the abbey buildings and he has the delightfully British name of J. T. Micklethwaite. It turns out, though, that there is considerably more information about this man available.
For one, he’s actually buried in Westminster Abbey. The J.T. in his name stands for John Thomas, which is amusing to me because that is actually my name (yes, my British readers, my name is Jon Thomas, which is why I go by Jonathan officially). He was buried in the Abbey because he was the official architect to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster Abbey. He was a very important man. And this is actually a position that exists today – currently held by Ptolemy Dean. Westminster Abbey is a living building, it’s had changes and additions through its entire history. Even now, they’re preparing to open an extension to a new museum in the Triforium in summer 2018.
