Devon and Exeter Institution - 7 The Close

The Devon & Exeter Institution occupies a building that can trace its heritage back to well before the 16th Century. Originally built to house cathedral clergy, the building was remodelled in the 16th Century. The Parliamentary General, Sir William Waller as a young man travelled to the continent as an English volunteer. He was knighted in 1622 for his foreign adventures, and married Jane Reynell, the daughter of a Devonshire family. The couple made this building their home. In 1662, the Earls of Devon or Courtenay family, a name long associated with Exeter, acquired the building as their town house. The house was used in April 1782 to '"lay in state at his Lordship's house in St. Peter's Churchyard till the next morning, when the funeral procession left in great state for Powderham" the remains of Frances Viscountess of Courtenay who had died at their house in Grosvenor Square.

The Courtenay's started devolving some of their land and property, for in 1807, the Courtenay estates in Ireland were sold for £200,000. Then, in 1813, the lease for the Courtenay House, as it was then known, was taken by the newly formed Institution from the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral and later the Committee purchased the freehold.

On 24 August 1813, an advert in the Flying Post stated that a committee had convened to '"form a set of rules for the government of the institution", signed by T Dyke Acland. The advert went on that "Gentlemen wishing to become Proprietors who have not yet subscribed their names, are requested to signify their intention to the Right Worshipful the Mayor..."

When the Institution first occupied the property it consisted of the house with a hall and kitchen surrounding a large courtyard. The rooms for the library were constructed in the courtyard - there is a gallery around each library and both are naturally lit from above. The front of the building was given a Georgian makeover.

The aim of the institution was to promote the arts and sciences in the west country, and provide a meeting place for gentlemen to meet and discuss both local affairs and affairs of state. Although there was no lecture theatre in the building, an early talk was given in November 1815 by Mr Bakewill on geology.

William Kendal was an earlier benefactor to the Institution when he donated a number of books in its first three months. He also donated two important paintings by Luny, one of which depicted the siege of Algiers, and on another occasion £100 to expand the library, a large sum at the time. In March 1832, he was found drowned by Knowles Bridge in Bovey Tracey.

In August 1820, it was proposed to ban all Exeter papers from the reading room because the Western Luminary had "grossly abused many of the Members", including Lord Clifford, and had libelled her Majesty the Queen. Objections were raised, by members, that an institution devoted to the "collection of materials for local history, has been deprived, for the purpose of screening it, of an infinite variety of current facts, which are no where preserved, but in the County Papers." The ban was obviously not implemented, as the Institution has the finest collection of bound copies of the major Exeter newspapers for the 19th and early 20th Century.

The next year, in coldest January 1821, Captain Parry of the Northern Expedition visited the library of the Institution. It was noted that he was dressed as though it were summer day, having become accustomed to the cold during his first journey north, as commander of HMS Hecla, to the North West Territories of Canada in search of the elusive North West Passage. The Caledonian Mercury noted that on Wednesday 22 January the Institution's meteorological station recorded a temperature of 22 fahrenheit (-5.5 celsius), so the Captain must have been feeling uncomfortable in the unaccustomed heat.

The Weather Station

Through the 19th-Century, the Institution ran a meteorological station from the garden; the measurements were published every week in the Flying Post, as interest in natural phenomena and in the new art of forecasting grew. In October 1862, the weather station measured a wind speed that reached the limit of the anemometer, and the barometer fell to 29.020 inches (mean for month 29.902), both measurements obviously worthy of comment. The librarian Mr Parfitt wrote a piece for the Flying Post during the July 1870 heat wave, when he reported the maximum temperature reached was 85.5 F. In the true spirit of analysis he stated that in July 1835 it had reached 86 F.

The librarian is a very important post and during the 19th-Century, three librarians are remembered in particularly. Mr Squance held the post for many years and on his death in December 1849, his daughter Miss Squance was elected in his place. Mr Parfitt replaced Miss Squance and was active, as already mentioned, with the meteorological station. He also had an inquisitive mind and in 1873 he investigated the vein of quicksilver, said to exist at Head Weir, and decided it was an illusion and that quicksilver had been placed there or had arrived by accident. Mr Parfitt died in February 1898 and Mr Alfred Richard Allinson MA succeeded him.

In the same month that Mr Parfitt died, the Committee decided to divide off part of the reading room as a smoking room for the use of members, a concession that no longer applies in modern times with new anti-smoking legislation. The Institution was also equipped with electric light by 1897, supplied from the generating station in New North Road. About twenty years later, an imperfect copy of a fourth folio Shakespeare, dating from 1685 was sold at Sotherby's in August 1919 for £60. It had originally been presented to the Intitution by Lady Collier in 1829.

The Devon and Exeter Institution is still running, and its library, holding 40,000 books devoted to Exeter and the West Country and its historic newspapers from Exeter and the South West, is an important resource for anyone studying local history.

Source: Trewman's Exeter Flying Post and the Times.