Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Hope, William Henry St. John
HOPE, Sir WILLIAM HENRY ST. JOHN (1854–1919), antiquary, the eldest son of the Rev. William Hope, rector of St. Peter's, Derby, by his first wife, Hester, daughter of the Rev. John Browne Williams, vicar of Llantrisant, Glamorgan, was born at Derby 23 June 1854. His taste for ecclesiology, inherited from his father, was developed in his school days at St. John's College, Hurstpierpoint, where his lifelong friend, Joseph Thomas Fowler, was then chaplain. He entered Peterhouse, Cambridge, in 1877, when he had already achieved some success in his excavations at Dale Abbey, near Derby. As an undergraduate, his knowledge of English antiquities was recognized and respected by older men, and he formed close friendships with Henry Bradshaw [q.v.] and John Willis Clark [q.v.]. His work at Dale was followed by excavations at Repton Priory, and subsequently at Lewes Priory and Alnwick Abbey. After taking his degree, he was for a short time an assistant master at the King's School, Rochester. His increasing reputation led to his election as a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1883, and two years later he was appointed assistant secretary of the society.
During the twenty-five years (1885–1910) in which Hope held this congenial position his authority in antiquarian circles was unique. His keen observation and retentive memory found exercise in many directions. While his chief interest always lay in ecclesiastical architecture, and the best work of his life was done in his researches into monastic history and buildings, he kept up an exceptional acquaintance with Roman antiquities and mediaeval fortification. Heraldry, mediaeval plate, and alabaster carvings were among the studies which he pursued throughout his life; and upon these and several branches of ecclesiology his authority was generally recognized. His life was entirely devoted to his vocation, and his holidays from his duties at Burlington House were spent in practical work upon the remains of abbeys and castles and at meetings of archaeological societies, where his clear method of exposition was of great educational value. Among his numerous activities during this period, punctually recorded in papers contributed to Archaeologia and other learned publications, his part in the excavation of the Roman town of Silchester deserves special mention.
After 1910, when he retired from his official post, Hope continued to work and write with unabated energy. He now completed a monograph upon Windsor Castle, undertaken some years previously by royal command, and, after its publication in 1913, was rewarded (1914) by the grant of a knighthood. He died at Great Shelford, near Cambridge where he spent the last few years of his life, on 18 August 1919, and was buried in the churchyard at Normanton, close to Derby. He was twice married: first, in 1885 to Myrrha Fullerton (died 1903), daughter of Major-General Edward Norman Perkins; secondly, in 1910 to Mary, daughter of John Robert Jefferies, of Ipswich. There was one son by the first marriage.
Hope's writings include more than two hundred papers, many of them of considerable proportions, contributed to Archaeologia, The Archaeological Journal, and other similar publications. Of his works, reprinted from such collections or published separately, the following are of special importance: Fountains Abbey (1900); The Architectural History of the Cathedral Church of St. Andrew at Rochester (1900); The Stall-Plates of the Knights of the Order of the Garter (1901); The Abbey of St. Mary-in-Furness (1902); Windsor Castle, an architectural history, 2 vols., with portfolio of plans (1913); A Grammar of English Heraldry (1913); Heraldry for Craftsmen and Designers (1913); Cowdray and Easebourne Priory (1919); The History of the London Charterhouse (1925). He was also a principal collaborator in The Chronicles of … All Saints, Derby (with J. C. Cox, 1881); The Corporation Plate … of the Cities of England and Wales (completed from the work of Llewellynn Frederick William Jewitt [q.v.], 1895); Inventories of Christ Church, Canterbury (with J. Wickham Legg [q.v.], 1902); Kirkstall Abbey (with J. Bilson, 1907); Pageant of the Birth, Life and Death of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick (with Viscount Dillon, 1914); English Liturgical Colours (with E. G. C. F. Atchley, 1918).
[Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, second series, vol. xxxii, 1919–1920; Archaeological Journal, vol. lxxvi, 1919; personal knowledge.]