Published in Windlesora 22 (2006)
© WLHG
A short time ago I was surprised to receive details of an artefact in the Newcastle Museum known as the Sebroke Crozier. The Newcastle Museum had been considering the historical objects in its care and had been intrigued by this Bishops crozier, carved in wood, and with representations of St Peter and St Paul. On a metal collar on the staff was inscribed:
“This Crozier was found Anno 1741 in the Coffin of Thos. Sebroke chosen Abbot of Gloucester in 1450. He died in 1457. It was given to the Abby (sic) of Old Windsor by Dr Milles, Dean of Exeter in 1764.’
It was discovered that it came into the possession of the Newcastle Museum along with another crozier made of ivory and referred to as the Allan Crozier. John Philipson wrote an article in Archaeologica Aelana detailing his investigations into its history.
As local readers will be aware, there never was an abbey in Old Windsor so this complicated the matter, but eventually a probable history was worked out. The Benedictine Abbey of St Peter at Gloucester was founded in 681 and Thomas Sebroke was elected Abbot in 1450. During his time the building of the Cathedral tower was commenced. Sebroke died in 1457, and was buried in a chapel in the south west end of the choir. In 1741 Bishop Henson had the choir repaved and a number of coffins, including Sebroke’s, were opened. Alongside Sebroke was the crozier and this was removed. The Dean of Exeter at the time was Dr Milles and of him Coleridge said ‘Though only a Dean, he was in dullness and malignity, most episcopally eminent’. It is known that at this time he was President of the Society of Antiquaries of London, and was regarded as a specialist in medieval artefacts.
It was in the middle of the eighteenth century that Richard Bateman, living in what is now known as the Priory, Old Windsor, was furnishing his estate in the Gothic taste and establishing what he called the Abbey of Old Windsor. Wishing to give credence to the idea, he purchased the tomb of Bishop Caducanus of Bangor (from 1215 to1266) and installed it in a mausoleum upon the altar of which lay —a crozier. It possibly lay there for only a couple of decades as Bateman died in 1773 and all his possessions were sold at auction by his nephew.
About this time, another gentleman, Marmaduke Tunstall, was collecting diverse selection of museum objects. After his wedding in 1776 he left London and settled on a family estate at Wycliffe on the Tees. He was said to collect manuscripts, books, prints, coins and gems, together with stuffed birds and other curiosities, including the croziers.
In a catalogue dated 1817 it is recorded that “In the Hon Mr Bateman’s catalogue of furniture removed after his death from Old Windsor and sold in May 1774 in London, No 73 was this article ‘An ancient Greek crozier in ivory; and the crozier of Sebroke, abbat (sic) of Gloucester 1457, taken out of his coffin.’” Christies catalogue shows that the lot was sold for £1. 17s 0d.
When Tunstall died in 1791 his museum was bought for £700 by George Allan and removed to Blackwell Grange near Darlington. He died in 1800 and the museum was sold for £400 in 1822 to the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle, which had been founded in 1793.
However, over the course of time the Lit and Phil, as it was called, became a little disenchanted with its purchase as the stuffed birds in particular were in a state of decay, and began to realise the problems of cataloguing and conserving the material they had acquired. A proper museum was needed!
Responsibility for the collection was shuffled between the Lit and Phil and a newly formed Natural History Society and in the 1840s a museum building was erected, but it rapidly became overcrowded. At one time the museum was housed in the Keep. Later the collection was divided into subject areas and from the continuing Newcastle Museum developed the Hancock Museum where the crozier now resides along with the smaller one which came with it.
Windsor Local History Group 