Diary of a Devon Antiquary: 1871 - 1894 — Peter Orlando Hutchinson

Peter Orlando Hutchinson spent all his adult life inSidmouth, Devon. The son of a doctor and a man ofadequate means, he was able to pursue a wide range ofinterests extraordinary even by Victorian standards.Everything interested him, from fishermen's tales tointernational politics, and into his diary went suchdetails as precise astronomical measurements, thelatest methods of preserving telegraph poles, thedesign of an iron-clad gunboat he proposed to the government,and the result of testing explosive shells of hisown design on Sidmouth beach.His many talents matched his interests whetherperforming on the flute or French Horn in public concertsin Exeter, carving decorative stonework for thenewly restored Sidmouth church, or building his homethe Old Chancel, out of discarded fragments ofchurches in the vicinity.His pioneering geological observations and archaeologicalresearches arc now of special value, particularlyhis mapping of Bronze Age burial mounds of south-eastDevon, many of whic.