Many years ago I bought a book which was published in France 1899, and which I am now about to donate to Oxfam. Inside the book was a small note, written in French, addressed to ‘Master E— Stanley, Wootton Courtenay Rectory, Dunster’ and signed ‘C. Bohin’. The note reveals that Bohin was giving the book to Master E (name illegible) as a belated 8th birthday present. I have tracked down the young recipient as The Rev Stanley’s son, Edmund S. Stanley, born in 1892, so at the time of giving this was a recently published book. There is no personal inscription in the book itself, just the note.
I was delighted to see from ancestry records that Edmund Stanley was baptised by his own father, Rev Edward Phipps Stanley, in All Saints’ church, Wootton Courtenay, in 1891. Edmund seems to have spent much of his life as a schoolteacher, and in 1939 he was living in a house in Hastings which he had named ‘Wootton’ (I presume it was he who had named it, anyway). He died in Hastings in 1968. His move to East Sussex might explain why I found the book in a Brighton bookshop.
I thought that, rather than sell the book with the note to someone who may not have any connection to Wootton Courtenay, I would offer the note separately to the village in the hope that a local person might have an interest in the Rev Stanley, or may know the Stanley, Bohin or Phipps families.
A £5 donation to Oxfam would be appreciated in return for the note. If you are interested, please email me at s@hinton.clara.net
Suzanne Hinton
Wootton Courtenay 