Purvis; John Stanley (1890-1968); Canon

• Purvis; John Stanley (1890-1968); Canon

John Stanley Purvis was born in 1890 in Bridlington. He died in 1968.

John Stanley Purvis was born in Bridlington on 9 May 1890. Educated at St Catherine’s College, Cambridge, he initially worked at Cranleigh School in Surrey, joining the staff as a history teacher in 1913.

In 1915 he enlisted in the army and spent several years abroad, during which time he wrote the war poems ‘From Steyning to the Ring,’ ‘Chance Memory,’ and ‘High Wood’ under the pseudonym Philip Johnstone, the latter of which was published in ‘The Nation’ in 1917. He also made a number of sketches of battlefields, including one in 1916 which depicted the first time tanks were used in warfare.

Purvis was wounded at the Battle of the Somme in 1917 and in 1918 he returned to Cranleigh, becoming a Housemaster there the following year. In 1928 he wrote and directed the school’s pageant.

In 1932 Purvis took holy orders and was ordained deacon in 1932 and priest in 1933. Between 1932 and 1938 he served as assistant chaplain at Cranleigh School as well as curate of St Mary’s, Bridlington. In 1939, the year after Purvis retired from Cranleigh, the school founded the Purvis Society which holds regular lectures on a variety of topics to this day.

In 1938 Purvis became rector of Goodmanham, and in 1941 vicar of Old Malton, both in Yorkshire. Between 1945 and 1947 he was warden of the York Diocesan Conference House at Foston Hall. In 1947 he became vicar of St Sampson with Holy Trinity King’s Court in the city of York, a position he held until 1966. In 1956 he was made canon and prebendary of Strensall in York Minster.

From 1939 Purvis also held the position of Archivist to the archbishopric and diocese of York and had begun sorting and rearranging the vast diocesan archive with the aim of making it accessible to the public for the first time.

When, in the mid-1940s, a campaign developed to found a university in York, the diocesan archives became central to the plans of the newly formed Academic Development Committee, later the York Academic Trust, of which Purvis was member and director of its annual archive summer schools.

In 1949 a plan to rehouse the diocesan archive in a new Minster Library fell through and an alternative scheme was proposed by committee member Oliver Sheldon to use the archive as the foundation of a new institute of historical research. It was hoped that such an institute would not only provide a permanent home for the records but also bring scholars to York, raising the city’s academic profile and laying the foundations for a university.

As this scheme was being developed, Purvis also alerted Sheldon to a bequest left by fellow Bridlington man, William Borthwick, which was to give the institute its name and financial endowment.

Sheldon’s scheme was successful. The Archbishop of York agreed to the deposit of the diocesan archive and the Borthwick Institute of Historical Research opened in 1953 in St Anthony’s Hall in Peasholme Green, York. Purvis was its first Director, a position he held until 1963 when the institute became part of the new University of York and Purvis was succeeded by Norah Gurney.

As Director, Purvis undertook lecture tours in America to publicise the work of the institute and established a publications programme through the institute’s own ‘St Anthony’s Press,’ today known as the Borthwick Papers. He also designed the Borthwick’s logo, based on the boss of St Anthony’s pig on the ceiling of St Anthony’s Hall.

A noted scholar, Purvis was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and the Royal Historical Society, and a member of York Georgian Society, Yorkshire Philosophical Society and the Yorkshire Archaeological Society, of which he was also President from 1955. He was also President of the York branch of the Historical Association from 1958.

During his lifetime he produced a large number of scholarly works and articles on history and archives. In 1923 he published ‘The Dissolution of Bridlington Priory,’ followed in 1926 by an edited collection of Bridlington charters, court rolls and papers.

In the 1930s his published works included studies of monastic chancery proceedings relevant to Yorkshire, the priory of St John the Evangelist at Healaugh, and sixteenth century woodcarvings; in the 1940s his work included studies of Goodmanham Church, Old Malton Priory and Sheriff Hutton parish records.

His later work reflected his connection to the Borthwick Institute. In 1951 he published a history of St Anthony’s Hall, and in 1952, a guide to the provenance and history of the York diocesan registry. As Director he revised his history of St Anthony’s Hall and published a guide to ecclesiastical and educational records and a handlist of the Borthwick’s collections.

He also worked extensively on the York Mystery Plays, the medieval civic plays revived in the 1951 York Festival of the Arts. Purvis wrote the first modern script for the revival which was published in ‘The York Cycle of Mystery Plays: A shorter version of the ancient cycle’ in the same year, and expanded in his ‘The York Cycle of Mystery Plays’ in 1957.

In 1958 Purvis was awarded an OBE for his services to historical scholarship in Yorkshire.

John Stanley Purvis died in 1968 at the age of 78.

John Stanley Purvis was born in 1890 in Bridlington. He died in 1968.

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