The Reverend James Ford, 1779 – 1850

The Reverend James Ford was born in Canterbury and educated at Trinity College, Oxford, obtaining the degrees of Master of Arts in 1804 and Bachelor of Divinity in 1812. In 1830 he was presented to the vicarage of Navestock, where he was to remain until his death in 1850.

Ford was a collector and compiler on antiquarian subjects. His large collection for a new edition of Philip Morant's History of Essex is in the library of Trinity College, Oxford, and his manuscript collections for a history of bishops from the Revolution onwards were purchased by the British Museum.

He was also a contributor to the Gentleman's Magazine and to Nichols's Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century vols. vi. and viii.

A collection of portraits, drawings, landscapes and illustrations collected by Ford is held by the Suffolk Record Office

Ford was a significant benefactor of Trinity College, Oxford, and the Ford Lectures are named for him. In his will, Ford left a number of bequests, some of which were held in trust for the support of his surviving siblings. After they had all died, Oxford University received his bequest of £2,000 to fund a professorship of English history, which was to be established when the principal had grown to support payment of £100 per year. When this goal was reached in 1894, the sum was not enough to support a professor at the current stipend. After considerable discussion within the University, the funds were assigned to fund an annual lectureship in English history by a lecturer who was to be chosen annually by a board of electors. The first Ford's Lecturer in English History was S. R. Gardiner, elected for the academic year beginning in 1896. He also left £4,000 to Trinity College, for the purchase of advowsons.

It is also said that he made manuscript notes towards a history of the hundred of Ongar, which he left to Trinity College. They are now lost.

There is a monument to him in Navestock Church, and a portrait of him in the common room of Trinity College, Oxford.

In 1830 he married Laetitia Jermyn (born 1788), who was a British entomologist illustrator and author.

In 1824, Jermyn had published The Butterfly Collector’s Vade Mecum.

Ford was said to be 'an ardent bibliophile, studious, punctilious, meditative, but also rather pompous and intolerant.' One Sunday he rebuked his wife mid-sermon for arriving late to the service, asking "I wonder where you will be Madam when the last trumpet sounds?'

The couple had no children.

Laetitia died in 1848 and was buried (under her maiden name) in Navestock. She is commemorated in Navestock Church with a memorial tablet, which names her as 'Mistress Ford'.