260

SOMERSET ARCHAEOLOGY AND NATURAL HISTORY, 2006

MRS S.W. RAWLINS

The death occurred on 31 August 2006 at her home,Newton Surmaville, Yeovil, of Sophia WyndhamRawlins, a former President and Trustee of theSociety and by a good many years its longest-servingmember. She was 97. Sophie Rawlins, born on 12November 1908, was the only child of thedistinguished local historian Prebendary E.H. Bates-Harbin who played such a significant part in thestudy of the county’s history before his untimelydeath in 1918, by his wife Hilda, née Fry. Sheinherited her father’s passion for his adoptive countyand in 1962, on her mother’s death, moved to thehouse that had been built by her ancestor RobertHarbin in 1612.There she remained, welcoming theannual meetings of the editorial committee ofSomerset and Dorset Notes and Queries as her fatherand mother had done at least since 1913. Within aweek or so of her death she was expecting to hearfrom the committee’s chairman about the date of thenext annual meeting.

Sophie was educated privately but between 1928and 1930 she completed an external degree throughBedford College, London, and was awarded FirstClass honours. Consciously or unconsciously sheslipped into the role her father had filled a decadebefore. She joined the Archaeological Society in1926, served on the Council 1932–42 and was aTrustee 1938–87. She was President of the Societyin 1964. She joined the council of the SomersetRecord Society in 1931/2, served as HonorarySecretary and Treasurer from 1953 and held theoffices until 1981 and 1976 respectively. She was avalued member of the editorial committee ofSomerset and Dorset Notes and Queries from 1933until 1990 and served as its chairman from 1962.From 1990 until her death she was patron.

Sophie’s academic interests turned to Somerset’sMPs, and notes on all those who had representedthe county between 1258 and 1832 were publishedas appendices to our Proceedings between 1932 and1939 and subsequently appeared as a single volume.Colonel Josiah Wedgwood MP, pioneer historian ofthe House of Commons in his belief thatparliamentary politics could only be understoodwhen each individual MP’s connections andopinions were discovered, acknowledged the helpof the young Sophie in his magisterial History ofParliament, Biographies, House of Commons 1439–

1509 which appeared in 1936. In that same year theSomerset Record Society published as its 51stvolume her edition of Somerset Enrolled Deeds, arecord of land transactions officially recorded beforethe county magistrates between 1536 and 1656. Thesociety in 1952 published a joint work by Sophieand I. Fitzroy Jones entitled Somerset Wills fromExeter.

Family history was always close to Sophie’s heartand her own family demonstrated in its manyconnections both the importance of blood ties andthe necessity of accurate research and writing tomake them understandable. Among her manycontributions to Somerset and Dorset Notes andQueries were an edition of the letters of Dr GeorgeHarbin, the Nonjuror, dating between 1719 and1744, which appeared in seven parts in Volume 25;and substantive articles, replies or reviews inVolumes 23 and 26–8. Her last, in Volume 32, told

OBITUARIES

Sophie Bates Harbin with her dog, Tabitha,at Newton Surmaville in 1930

261

the story of the early years of the publication and ofher family’s intimate connection with it

For the Society’s Proceedings Sophie contributeda paper on Dr George Harbin to Volume 93 and onNewton Surmaville in Volume 109. In Volume 108appeared her Presidential Address, the distillationof a detailed biographical study of the county’s HighSheriffs from Domesday Book to 1966 which hadbeen published as appendices to our Proceedingsbetween 1962 and 1965. The biographies and thetext of her Presidential Address were published as asingle volume in 1968.

Together, her written contributions and her activemembership of the county’s historical societiesamount to an amazing record; and scholars such asDr Thomas G. Barnes, Professor David Underdownand a succession of editors of volumes published bythe Somerset Record Society while she was generaleditor acknowledged her help and her extensiveknowledge of the county’s history. Her election tothe Fellowship of the Society of Antiquaries ofLondon in 1950 was a proper recognition of herstatus as an historian.

Sophie’s life at Newton, surrounded by familyportraits and her father’s books changed in 1940when she married Cosmo Rawlins, inevitably adistant cousin, a man fascinated like her by familyconnections and a member of the staff of the Bankof England. She moved to London and then with

the evacuated Bank staff to Stratford upon Avon.There she contributed to the war effort by workingin a local fruit canning factory. On Cosmo’sretirement due to failing sight caused by diabetesthey came to live at Court House, Stoford. In 1962,on the death of her mother, Sophie and Cosmo tookher place at Newton. Cosmo died in 1983.

Sophie was not only the owner of the estate atNewton; she was also patron of the living of StJohn’s, Yeovil, and lay rector of Barwick in a linewhich could be traced back to the nuns of SyonAbbey and beyond. Local organisations werewelcome to her property for fishing, camping andriding and she supported many organisationsconcerned not only with history but also withwildlife, deprived children and cats. She wasgardener, painter, writer of poetry and of a slightlyanonymous historical novel Kay of the Hills. Asecond novel remains in draft.

Sophie Rawlins was clearly a remarkable woman,shy but with definite views and a mind that remainedclear until the last. Her wish that her local historybooks should be given to the ArchaeologicalSociety has been fulfilled by her heirs who, sadlybut almost inevitably, will probably be forced to seeNewton Surmaville pass out of the hands of thedescendants of its builder at the beginning of the17th century.

ROBERT DUNNING

JOHN R.B.S. PENOYRE, ARIBA

John Penoyre’s death on 30 April 2007 has deprivedthe Society of a member who contributed much tothe study of historic buildings in Somerset, wherehe and his wife Jane settled in 1983. He spent hisearly years in Wiltshire, which left him with a lastinglove of the countryside, went to school in Oxfordand trained as an architect at the ArchitecturalAssociation before the Second World War, duringwhich he served in the army in North Africa andItaly. In the post-war period he worked with YRM(Yorke, Rosenberg & Mardall) on modernarchitectural projects including schools, housing andparticularly hospitals, including the LondonderryHospital and, in London, St Thomas’ and theWellington hospitals, the latter built in ziggurat style.Other YRM projects with which he was involvedincluded YRM’s new office building in the City, a

new building at Gatwick Airport and RobinsonCollege, Cambridge.

John was an expert water-colour artist and writerand illustrator on architecture, whose best-knownwork, co-authored with Michael Ryan, was TheObserver’s Book of Architecture, first published in1949 and reprinted several times. This pocket-bookconveyed, by explanatory text and instructivedrawings, a remarkable range of essentialinformation about the development of architecturein this country from the Saxon period to the 20thcentury, and attempted to relate that development tothe historical background. The book may be regardedas a small classic in its field. Houses in theLandscape: a Regional Survey of VernacularBuilding Styles, published in 1978, was co-authoredby John and his wife Jane (also an architect, whomhe married in 1951): this placed particular emphasison geology and building materials, based upon the

OBITUARIES

262

SOMERSET ARCHAEOLOGY AND NATURAL HISTORY, 2006

authors’ own observation of the variations invernacular architecture throughout England andWales, and displayed John’s artistic ability and giftfor descriptive writing.

After retiring to Somerset John joined the Societyand was a member of the Historic BuildingsCommittee for a number of years. He also contributedto Proceedings: he and Jane co-authored ‘SomeBruton town houses’ in Vol. 140 (1997) and‘Somerset Dendrochronology Project, Phase 3’ inVol. 142 (1999), and he illustrated Jane’s paper on‘Medieval Somerset roofs’ in Vol. 141 (1998).

John and Jane also joined the Somerset VernacularBuilding Research Group (in which they were closelyassociated with John Dallimore and others) and theirrecording work contributed in a major way to the‘Village Studies’ series of books produced by theGroup. Several of the books, including TheVernacular Buildings of Shapwick which the Grouppublished in 1996 as a contribution to the ShapwickProject, were greatly enhanced by John’s illustrationsof buildings and village scenes, and also benefitedfrom his editorial input.

John and Jane collaborated with the late E.H.D.(Desmond) Williams in some of their recordingwork, including surveys of Gray’s Almshouses inTaunton and Manor Gatehouse, Combe Florey,which were published as Vernacular ArchitectureNotes in Proceedings 132 (1988) and 133 (1989).John co-authored with Williams and B.C.M. Hale a

paper on ‘New Street, Mells’ in Vol. 130 (1986) andJohn and Jane collaborated with Williams in producinga paper on ‘The George Inn, Norton St Philip’ in theArchaeological Journal Vol. 144 (1987).

John was an active member of the VernacularArchitecture Group and contributed to its journalVernacular Architecture. His drawing of themedieval barn at Doulting was the cover illustrationfor Vol. 17 (1986) and he illustrated Jane’s paper on‘Four Somerset aisled trusses: a lingering tradition’in Vol. 22 (1991). He and Jane co-authored threeshort reports on some houses in Bruton, Butleighand Stoke St Mary in Vol. 28 (1997) and a paper on‘The Somerset Dendrochronology Project: Phase 3’in Vol. 30 (1999).

Another product of their joint interest in thecounty’s historic buildings was John and JanePenoyre’s authoritative Decorative Plasterwork inthe Houses of Somerset 1500–1700 published bySomerset County Council in 1994, which wascopiously illustrated with photographs and drawings,and has been described in a bibliography producedby the VAG as an ‘excellent study of an outstandingvernacular decorative tradition’.

The quality and range of John’s artistic activity isindicated by the fact that a medal was awarded in2003 for a selection of his illustrations of fungi (aninterest which he had pursued since the 1950s) whichwere exhibited at the Royal Horticultural Society.

Although handicapped by failing health in his lateryears, John contributed the introductory chapter on‘Landscape and buildings’ (placing the buildings intheir geographical and geological setting anddiscussing the materials used in their construction)in Jane’s Traditional Houses of Somerset, publishedby Somerset Books in 2005, which brought togetherthe results of many years’ research by the Penoyresand other members of SVBRG and SANHS. Thesetting of buildings in their physical and historicalcontexts was a recurrent theme in John’s approachto the study of vernacular (and ‘polite’) architecture.

John’s family was of great importance to him.Among the wider circle of people who knew him hewill be especially remembered for his artistic andliterary gifts, his intellect and forthright personality,and the support he (and Jane) gave to other studentsof vernacular architecture in Somerset.Appropriately, the printed order of service at hisfuneral included two of John’s illustrations: a viewof the bridge at Ironbridge in Shropshire from TheObserver’s Book of Architecture, and a robin from aChristmas card.

MARK MCDERMOTT

John Penoyre, 1916–2007