Dorset Editor of SDNQ 1888-1921.
Born 28 February 1845.
Died 15 January 1929.
C.H. Mayo resigns as Dorset Editor (SDNQ, vol. 17 part CXXIX, March 1921)
THE DORSET EDITOR, C.H. MAYO. It is now thirty-four years ago, that at the request of the late Mr John Batten, of Aldon, Yeovil (Nov. 8th 1887), I ventured to undertake the Dorset Editorship of Notes and Queries for Somerset and Dorset, having Mr Hugh Norris, of South Petherton, as my Somerset colleague. The first Part was issued in March 1888, and the magazine has continued in an unbroken series to the present day, with the only change that the increased cost of production, coupled with higher postage and a gradual diminution of the support of the general public, which is not deeply interested in matters of archaeological lore, has restricted the yearly issue.
Meanwhile, the world has not been standing still. The Dorset Editor, like other folk, has felt the inroads of old age. On the 28th of February last he reached the beginning of his 77th year, and he now feels that the time has come when he should relinquish the burden of Editorship into other hands. The Rev. R.G. Bartelot, MA, Vicar of Fordington St. George, who has already occupied the post of Sub-editor for Dorset, will take his place, and on resigning his office of Dorset Editor, he is glad to surrender it into such able and efficient hands.
He hopes still to continue to help in the production of S&DN&Q, as an assistant to the Dorset Editor, and as a cordial well-wisher to its progress and success. He thanks the subscribers who have for so long been faithful supporters of the Magazine; the contributors who have from time to time supplied matters of interest to its pages; and not least the Printers, Messrs. J.C. and A.T. Sawtell, of Sherborne, who have always shown a lively and beneficent interest in its production: and he has no doubt that there still awaits the periodical a long and prosperous future; and he concludes with the wish in which he trusts that all will join.
SEMPER FLOREAT.
Obituary for Canon C.H. Mayo (SDNQ, vol. 19 part XLVX, p.193, March 1929)
THE LATE CANON MAYO. It is with much regret that the editors of S&DN&Q, record the death of Dr Charles Herbert Mayo, D. Litt., M.A., F.R.Hist.S., formerly for thirty-two years Dorset Editor of this publication. He was born at Salisbury on February 28th, 1845, being the younger son of the Rev. William Mayo, Rector of Folke, Dorset, and grandson of Dr. Robert Dyer. Magdalen College School gave him a good classical education and he won a scholarship at Lincoln College, Oxford, graduating with a double second in classical honours B.A. 1868 and M.A. in 1871. It was not until 1921 that he added the Doctorate of Literature to his other Oxford degrees.
All Canon Mayo’s clerical life was spent in Dorset. He was ordained in 1869 as curate to his father at Folke and North Wootton and three years later became Vicar of the adjoining living of Long Burton and Holnest. Here he remained forty years, serving his cure of souls with devout care, restoring his churches, and publishing books of antiquarian interest. His earliest book was the parish register of North Wootton (1539-1786). The register of his two parishes and that of Caundle Bishop he transcribed and printed in extenso. His larger works were Bibliotheca Dorsetiensis, the Borough Records of Shaftesbury, a similar volume for Dorchester Borough, the Dorset Minute Book of the Roundhead Sequestrators 1646-1650, and two editions of the genealogy of the Mayo and Elton Families. Besides these he wrote many articles for the Dictionary of National Biography, edited J.H. Mayo’s Medals and Decorations of the British Army, contributed a scholarly introduction to vol. xxvi of Somerset Record Society’s series “Feodary of Glastonbury Abbey,” and published guide books to Sherborne Abbey and Sherborne Almshouses. For thirty years (1882-1912) he served as rural dean of Stalbridge and recorded his experience and researches in a booklet entitled “Ruridecanal Registers.” In 1895 Bishop Wordsworth made him one of his non-resident Canons by collating him to the prebendal stall of Bitton in Salisbury Cathedral, which preferment he retained until his death. Several of his cathedral sermons have been printed. His fifty years membership of the North Dorset and Blackmore Vale Clerical Society was commemorated by his two volumes of “Annals” of that Society.
But it is as co-founder of this magazine and our Editor for Dorset that Canon Mayo merits our gratitude and remembrance. It was in March 1888 that he with the late Dr Hugh Norris published our first issue and to him we owe the selection of the efficient firm which is still printing S&DN&Q now in its nineteenth volume. It is impossible to peruse our earlier volumes without recognising the Canon’s wonderful genius for attracting notes and queries from antiquarians all over England and America. His own contributions reveal the wideness and depth of his learning, and his passion for original research and documentary evidence. He was also a keen musician. In our pages he printed many traditional Christmas Carols with words and music which he afterwards published in a separate book.
Resigning his living in 1912 he removed to Gillingham, but after the war returned to Long Burton where at his own house, which he named “The Retreat,” he passed his latter days amidst the books he loved so well. He gave up the Dorset Editorship in 1921, and of late we missed his quiet, retiring, and kindly personality at those happy summer meetings of the Committee of S&DN&Q beneath the hospitable roof of the Lady of Newton Surmaville. Illness at last necessitated his removal to Sherborne Hospital where he died on January 15th, within a few weeks of his 84th birthday. Four days later his funeral at Long Burton was attended by a large number of friends and old parishioners, including the present Dorset Editor who represented also the Dorset Field Club of which the Canon was Vice-President and one of the three surviving original members. After the service his remains were taken to Folke and interred beside those of his father and his brother Colonel Mayo in the peaceful Dorset churchyard adjoining the old Rectory home which he loved from his boyhood years.
Publications
C.H. Mayo, A Genealogical Account of the Mayo and Elton Families of the Counties of Wiltshire and Hereford; with an Appendix Containing Genealogies for the Most Part Not Hitherto Published of Certain Families By Marriage to the Family of Mayo (London: Chiswick Press, 1882)
C.H. Mayo, Bibliotheca Dorsetiensis (Chiswick: C. Whittingham and Co., 1885)
C.H. Mayo, The municipal records of the borough of Shaftesbury : a contribution to Shastonian history (Sherborne: J.C. Sawtell, 1889)
C.H. Mayo (ed.), Traditional Carols For Christmastide Sung For Many Years At Long Burton, Dorset. Collected by C. H. Mayo with harmonies arranged by E. C. Howorth (J.C. and A.T. Sawtell (1893)
C.H. Mayo, The Registers of Lydlinch, Dorset 1559–1812 (London: Parish Record Society, 1899)
C.H. Mayo, A Plea for Female Suffrage in the Election of a Representative Church Council (Sherborne: J. C. and A. T. Sawtell, 1903)
C.H. Mayo, ‘The St Aldhelm Celebration, Sherborne, Dorset’, SDNQ, vol.9, June 1905.
C.H. Mayo, A Genealogical Account of the Mayo & Elton Families of Wiltshire and Herefordshire and Some Other Adjoining Counties, Together with Numerous Biographical Sketches (London: Chiswick Press, 1908) 2nd edition.
C.H. Mayo (ed.), The municipal records of the borough of Dorchester (Exeter: William Pollard, 1908)
C.H. Mayo, The official guide to the Abbey Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Sherborne (Sherborne: F. Bennett & Co., 1925)
C.H. Mayo, A historic guide to the almshouse of St. John Baptist and St. John the Evangelist, Sherborne (Oxford: University Press, 1926)
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