W. J. PETCHEY1935-2001
The sudden death of Bill Petchey in 2001 deprived Maldon, Essex of its
premier historian. A Maldon man, son of the town’s Chief Fire Officer,
William John Petchey spent his life endeavouring to disentangle the
complex history of the ancient borough. His education at the Maldon
Grammar School was fundamental in guiding his life’s work. Under
A.C.‘Gus’ Edwards, he developed an interest in brass-rubbing and heraldry
which led to his 1962 revision of
Armorial Bearings of the Sovereigns of
England,
still in print after forty years..
Living opposite the elderly Plume Librarian Sydney Deed, ‘young
Petchey’ was conscripted by Mr Deed’s wife to fetch books down from the
upper shelves of the Library while her husband compiled his Catalogue.
From this contact with ancient learning derived Bill’s lifelong fascination
with history)' in all its forms. Whilst still at school he won the coveted
Emmison Prize for a study of Maldon Chamberlain’s Accounts for the
Tudor period.
After a scholarship to Christ’s College, Cambridge, and postgraduate
training at Balliol, Oxford, he published a study of the history of Maldon
Grammar School which corrected the previously accepted account of its
origins published in the
Victoria County History of Essex.
Most of his
working life was spent at Ripon Grammar School, latterly as a housemaster,
but school holidays invariably found him in Essex, frequently in Thomas
Plume’s Library, gathering material for his Leicester PhD thesis. This was
later published by Essex Record Office as
A Prospect of Maldon 1500-
1689,
surely the definitive study of the town at that period.
After retiring early to care for his ageing mother, Bill taught local
history for the WEA and Essex University, before returning to his beloved
Plume Library as Librarian for a period tragically cut short by his death. To
be conducted around the Library by him was to get an insight into the
seventeenth century granted to few. Added to his wide historical
perspective was a fund of anecdote which made him a delightful
companion, but he was not simply backward-looking. It was at his initiative
that the work towards the comprehensive computerised catalogue of the
Plume Library began.
Olive Earnshaw, Plume Librarian 2001-2003,
and Max Earnshaw