Craven Ord (bap. 1755, d. 1832), antiquary and brass-rubber, was born in London and baptized at the Temple Church on 6 August 1755, the younger son of Harry Ord, of the king’s remembrancer’s office of the exchequer, and his wife, Anne, daughter of Francis Hutchinson of Barnard Castle, co. Durham. His uncle Robert Ord (1700–1778) was chief baron of the Scottish exchequer.
Ord’s schooling seems to be undocumented and he did not matriculate from either of the English universities. He was, however, a competent classicist, and he developed a strong interest in the middle ages. He was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries on 26 January 1775, when his tastes were probably already formed, and there he found congenial companions. In June 1784 he married Mary Smith, daughter of John Redman of Greenstead Hall, in Greenstead by Ongar, Essex. They had five sons and a daughter, most of whom were born at Greenstead Hall, where Ord lived until the last few years of his life.
Ord’s marriage probably accounted for a substantial part of his fortune but it evidently did not make him idle. He was a purposeful and energetic student of history whose works are mainly to be found in other men’s books. He made several contributions to Archaeologia, the first of which (1790) was an edition of the inventory of the crown jewels made in 1329–30. His interests were not narrowly focused. He ranged over southern England in search of antiquities, in and out of churches, and he read in manuscripts and printed books even more widely. He gave substantial assistance to John Nichols (1745–1826), the geologist Gideon Algernon Mantell (1790–1852), and George Ormerod (1785–1873) in their respective histories of Leicestershire, Surrey, and Cheshire.
Mantell and Ormerod were younger men but Nichols, the master printer and antiquary, was of Ord’s own generation. Ord was also a friend of Richard Gough, and worked with him closely and harmoniously. Gough’s Anecdotes of British Topography appeared in 1768 and in an enlarged edition, of two volumes, in 1780. It led on to his celebrated edition of Camden’s Britannia (3 vols., 1789; 4 vols., 1806) but its wide array of material also suggested a more detailed study, which was warmly encouraged by Sir John Cullum, of Hardwick, Suffolk, another learned enthusiast, and Ord. Gough had always made sketches of subjects that interested him, and he came to recognize the exceptional value of tombs and memorials as records of costume and other features of medieval life. The outcome was his Sepulchral monuments of Great Britain applied to illustrate the history of families, manners, habits, and arts from the Norman conquest (1786–99), a carefully documented survey extending to the end of the fifteenth century. Ord in the meantime had been taken by the lure of medieval brasses. The three friends made a particularly successful tour of the great parish churches of the Lincolnshire and Norfolk marshland in 1780, which began in Wisbech and ended in King’s Lynn, proving rich in architectural wonders, and yielding a splendid crop of brasses in Lynn.
Ord’s concern, besides assisting Gough, was to further the detailed and comparative study of brasses, which lent themselves to accurate reproduction at a time when other artefacts could only be, with whatsoever pains, drawn and engraved. Instead of taking a simple rubbing from the surface of the brass he took a reverse impression with equipment of his own devising. Its only disadvantage, trifling to the enthusiast, was that inscriptions appeared in mirror-writing. His operations required large sheets of French paper kept damp in a specially commissioned case, a supply of printer’s ink, some lengths of cloth, and an abundance of rags. The paraphernalia were clearly such as a gentleman might use for his own dedicated purposes, but probably not such as he might himself carry. He inked the surface of the brass, then wiped it clean with the rags, leaving ink only in the incisions, as though it were an engraver’s plate. He then arranged the paper over the brass, covered it with an adequate thickness of cloth, and trampled on it to take an even impression. For intricate images he wetted the paper more thoroughly, on one occasion at least in the neighbouring Thames. At home he cut out the figures and any accompanying features, mounted them, and finally bound them in enormous volumes in deal boards more than 6 feet high. They were acquired after his death by the British Museum and have since been transferred to the British Library (BL, Add. MSS 32478–32479).
Ord collected manuscripts, printed books, drawings, and engravings. He assembled and indexed some twenty volumes of material relating to Suffolk but he also acquired fine manuscripts for their own sake, and large numbers of medieval deeds. He took a close interest in the business of the Society of Antiquaries, and served for several years as its vice-president. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1787. He began to sell his collections in 1829, when he travelled abroad for his health, and Francis Douce and Sir Thomas Phillipps bought extensively at his sales.
Ord died at Woolwich Common in January 1832. Of his children, his eldest son, Craven Ord (1786–1836), a prebendary of Lincoln, succeeded him at Greenstead and married a niece of Sir John Cullum. Three other sons, Sir Robert Hutchinson Ord, William Redman Ord, and Harry Gough Ord, served in the army, the artillery, and the engineers. Harry Gough’s son Sir Harry St George Ord (1819–1885) became a major-general of the engineers and a colonial governor. Ord’s fourth son, John, practised as a physician in Hertford, and his daughter, Harriot Mary, married the Revd George Hughes of Stamford Rivers, Essex.
G. H. Martin
Sources
DNB · Nichols, Lit. anecdotes · Nichols, Illustrations · GM, 1st ser., 102/1 (1832), 469–70 · J. Page-Phillips, Macklin’s monumental brasses, 2nd edn (1972) · IGI
Archives
BL, Suffolk collections, journal of tours of East Anglia, brass rubbings, antiquarian notes, and papers, Add. MSS 6391, 7101–7102, 7965–7967, 8986–8987, 14823, 25340, 32478–32479, 39852 · BL, notes and annotations made to the wardrobe accompt of Sir Andrew Wyndsore, Egerton MS 3025 · BL, annotated copy of Edmund Carter’s History of the University of Cambridge, shelf mark 731.i.12 · Bodl. Oxf., collections and papers · Bodl. Oxf., copy of John Kirby’s Suffolk traveller interleaved and annotated by Ord (and other antiquaries) · Lincs. Arch., calendar of Lincolnshire charters · LUL, papers relating to English coinage and the mint · Man. CL, Manchester Archives and Local Studies, copy made by Ord of the household book of Lord Thomas, earl of Lancaster · Suffolk RO, Ipswich, collections, notes, and papers relating to Suffolk, incl. notes by Peter Le Neve and Thomas Martin · Suffolk RO, Ipswich, commonplace book · Suffolk RO, Ipswich, pedigrees and arms of Suffolk families with earlier notes by Peter Le Neve, Thomas Martin, and others | Bodl. Oxf., letters to Richard Gough · Norfolk RO, corresp.
