Table of Contents

List of Writers covered in this book: ALLEN Charles Grant Blairfindie 1848-1899 ALLINGHAM William 1824-1889 BARING-GOULD Rev Sabine 1834-1924 BEVERIDGE Annette Susannah (nee AKROYD) 1842-1929 BLOUNT Godfrey 1859-1937 & Ethel (nee HINE) d. 1943 BROWN George Douglas 1869-1902 BUCKTON George Bowdler FRS 1818-1905 BURROUGHS John 1837-1921 CARRINGTON Richard Christopher FRS 1826-1875 COSTELLOE Benjamin Francis Conn ('Frank') 1855-1899 DAKYNS Henry Graham 1839-1911 DOYLE Sir Arthur Conan 1859-1930 ELIOT George (Marian EVANS) later Mrs Cross 1819-1880 GALTON Sir Francis FRS 1822-1911 GARNETT Lucy Mary Jane GILCHRIST Anne (nee BURROWS) 1828-1885 HAMILTON Bernard HARRISON Frederic 1831-1923 HOLL Henry 1811-1884 HOPKINS Manley 1818-1897 HUNTER Sir Robert 1844-1913 HUTCHINSON Sir Jonathan 1828-1913 KER David 1841-1914 KING Joseph MP 1860-1943 KING Maude Egerton (nee HINE) 1867-1927 LE GALLIENNE Richard 1866-1947 LEWIS George Henry 1817-1878 MANGLES James Henry 1832-1884 METHUEN Sir Algernon Methuen Marshall, Bt (ne STEDMAN) 1856-1924 MURRAY George Gilbert 1866-1957 NETTLESHIP Edward FRS 1845-1913 NEVILL Lady Dorothy (nee WALPOLE) 1826-1913 OLIPHANT Mrs Margaret (nee WILSON) 1818-1897 PINERO Sir Arthur Wing 1855-1934 POLLOCK Sir Frederick, 3rd Bt 1845-1937 PONSONBY Arthur Augustus William Harry, 1st Baron Ponsonby of Shulbrede 1871-1946 ROGERSON Mrs Christina ('Chrissie') Adelaide Ethel Athanasia (nee STEWART) later STEEVENS c.1839-1911 ROSSETTI Christina 1830-1894 RUSSELL Lady Mary Agatha 1853-1933 RUSSELL Bertrand Arthur William, 3rd Earl Russell 1872-1970 RUSSELL Hon Francis Albert Rollo 1849-1914 SALVIN Osbert FRS 1835-1898 SHAW George Bernard 1856-1950 SILLICK William Austen c.1877-1955 SMITH Hannah (nee WHITALL) 1832-1911 SMITH Lloyd Logan Pearsall 1865-1946 STORR Rayner 1835-1917 STRACHEY Rachel Conn ('Ray') (nee COSTELLOE) SWANTON Ernest William 1870-1958 TENNYSON Alfred, 1st Baron Tennyson 1809-1892 TENNYSON Lady Emily (nee SELLWOOD) 1813-1896 TENNYSON Hallam, 2nd Baron Tennyson 1852-1928 THOMPSON Flora Jane (nee TIMMS) 1876-1947 TYNDALL John FRS 1820-1893 WALES Hubert (pseudonym of William PIGGOTT) 1870-1943 WARD Mrs Mary Augusta (nee ARNOLD) [generally known as 'Mrs Humphry Ward'] 1851-1920 WEBB Sidney James, 1st Baron Passfield 1859-1947 & WEBB Martha Beatrice (nee POTTER) 1858-1943 WELLS Herbert George 1866-1946 WESTON Dame Agnes Elizabeth 1840-1918 WHITE Montagu d.1916 WHITEWAY Richard Stephen JP d.1926 WHYMPER Edward 1840-1911 WOLSELEY Garnet Joseph, 1st Viscount Wolseley 1833-1913 WRIGHT Thomas 1859-1936

About the Author

Wilfred Robert (Bob) Trotter was born into a medical family in London in 1911. His father, Wilfred Batten Lewis Trotter, a distinguished surgeon, physiologist and philosopher was appointed as honorary surgeon to King George V in 1928. Another of Mr Trotter's relatives, Ernest Jones, wrote a biography of Sigmund Freud. Bob followed his father's footsteps by qualifying in medicine at Oxford and University College Hospital in 1935. During the Second World War he served as a major in the Royal Army Medical Corps, and researched the treatment of malaria. After the war he became a consultant physician at University College Hospital, London, where he specialised in thyroid cases. He was also a senior lecturer at London University. He wrote widely on medical matters and retired to Haslemere in 1973. With his wife, Enid, he shared an interest in archaeology and when a local archaeology group was started at Haslemere Museum they both joined up. Together they took part in field walking, surveying and occasionally making small excavations. By the 1980s the archaeology group had broadened its scope to include local history and worked on a number of projects. During this time Bob also wrote articles on a variety of subjects including literature, local history, gardens and archaeology. One project that he particularly enjoyed researching was the diary of James Simmons, master paper maker at Sickle Mill. This is one of the few first hand accounts of life in Victorian Haslemere and is therefore of intense interest to local historians. Working with a small team of fellow enthusiasts a full transcript of the Simmons diary was produced in 1990. It was during his research work in the archives of Haslemere Museum that Bob came across the 'literary scrapbook' of William Austen Sillick which, as he explains in his Acknowledgements, formed the inspiration for this book. It took him some years of further research to complete the work, which was then 'launched' publicly at Haslemere Museum in August 1996. Bob kept active by helping to sort and catalogue manuscripts and other archive material at the museum, right up until the week before he died, in November 1998.

Reviews

These are some of the many fascinating and sometimes surprising pieces of information contained in Bob Trotter's book 'The Hilltop Writers -- a Victorian colony among the Surrey Hills,' which reveals the lives of 65 local Victorian writers. Mr Trotter discovered in the archives of Haslemere Museum a remarkable collection of notes and newspaper cuttings left by local journalist William Sillick, who died in 1955. It made him realise what an astounding flurry of important literary activity there had been in the neighbourhood of Haslemere during the fifty years or more following the arrival of the railway in 1859, and from this the book was conceived. Some of the writers he deals with are well-known -- people such as Alfred Tennyson, George Eliot, Arthur Conan Doyle and George Bernard Shaw. Others less so, but equally fascinating. Collectively they came to this area for similar reasons -- for the beauty and health offered by the wild and, as then, uninhabited uplands, now for the first time within easy reach of London. And for similar reasons they left -- when too many people had followed their example and the place began to become more populated! The book is organised into four main sections: a brief local chronology from 1859 through to the start of the First World War; a short discussion of the politics and other issues in vogue during the period; biographical notes on each of the writers; and an appendix of references and other more general notes, including a superb index. It is a pleasure to read. Bob Trotter has not only encapsulated the essentials of these people's lives in his pages, but also given us the benefit of his medical training to add his own fascinating personal comments. And in these days of generally slap-dash editing, it is nice for once to find a book where so much care and attention has obviously been taken in checking presentation and content before publication. This book is required reading for anyone interested in local history -- it will certainly become one of the better-used items on my reference shelf. John Owen Smith -- August 1996