Whitehouse family of Churchdown

D6035

Whitehouse family of Churchdown

1844 - 1979

ARTHUR EDWARD WHITEHOUSE AND CAROLINE ANNIE WHITEHOUSE,

ARNOLD A G WHITEHOUSE AND MARJORY WHITEHOUSE,

Personal and general correspondence,

Science, philosophy and politics,

Teaching,

Weather records,

Accounts,

Diaries,

Gardening, cycling and travel,

Genealogy, local history and topography and other records

<p>For an account of the Whitehouse family see</p>

English

9 series

THESE RECORDS ARE IMMEDIATELY AVAILABLE FOR RESEARCH

Accession 6035 was deposited by Roger Whitehouse, 11 September 1989; accession 6137 was deposited by Harold Whitehouse, 13 March 1990

Files D6035/1/20, 2/86-93, 3/18, 4/10, 6/6, 7/2, 8/7-10, 9/6, 10/3-4 and 11/1-3, were withdrawn by Roger Whitehouse for further sorting in July sorting in July 1992, and were redeposited by him on 8 March 1994

These records were returned to the Record Office having been removed by Mr Whitehouse for further sorting in July 1992.

Arnold Whitehouse, whose records make up the bulk of this archive, attended St Dunstan's College in Catford between 1887 and 1897 and went on to read mathematics at Queen's College, Cambridge and physics at London University. Having taught at Lymm Grammar School (Cheshire), Southport Grammar School and the University Tutorial College in London, in 1908 he joined the Crypt Grammar School in Gloucester where he became Senior Science Master and where he remained until his retirement in 1941.

Most of these records came from the Whitehouse family home in Churchdown, 'Caledonia' (part of the Manor House).

Apart from the main series of correspondence (see the introduction to section 2), they have been arranged to reflect the variety of Arnold Whitehouse's interests and activities. He appears to have been an outstanding science teacher and a man of considerable philosophical insight. Besides being interested in biology, chemistry, physics, astronomy and meteorology as distinct subjects, he attempted from his undergraduate days onwards to reconcile his science with his Christian belief and to formulate a general philosophy of knowledge. He gave his ideas formal expression in a substantial but unfinished manuscript of a book (see 3/12). In 1923 he wrote that 'misgivings as to the possibility of finishing my book have arisen from a wrong estimate of what it set out to do or anyhow of what it can do ' (Quoted by Mr Roger Whitehouse) Such misgivings, together with domestic and teaching pressures, seem to have led to the abandonment of the project at this time.

Arnold Whitehouse also took an interest in current affairs and politics (This was partly reflected by his collection of newspaper cuttings, most of which has not been retained by this office) and was an active member of teaching organisations. Together with his wife, he was a dedicated keeper of personal accounts and was also a keen gardener, cyclist and camper.

His younger brother Norman was an industrial chemist who before the First World War was engaged in the extraction of radium from ore produced by mines in St Ives (Cornwall). He later worked in the United States (see 1/13) and died in 1958 from leukaemia caused by his contact with radium (see 2/56)

The hardcopy catalogue has a pedigree of the family (simplified) on the title page