Clifton and Hotwells Improvement Society (CHIS)
CHIS Plaques
This plaque is at the bottom of Sion Hill, by the lookout.
New Plaques
- Saturday 14 November 2009 11am: William Budd,
13 Lansdown Place. Physician and Epidemiologist
(born in 1811 in North Tawton, and died on 9 January 1880 in Clevedon, Somerset).
In 1849 he stated his belief that cholera was water-borne. When the 1866 cholera epidemic reached Bristol, he demonstrated that limiting the contamination of a town's water supply could stop a cholera epidemic. Much reduced death figures showed that he had largely won the grim fight to improve the nation's health.
Unveiled by Professor David Speller, Emeritus Professor of Clinical Bacteriology at the University of Bristol - Sunday 28 June 2009, 11am, 20 Sion Hill: Hester Lynch Thrale (born Hester Lynch Salusbury and after her second marriage, Hester Lynch Piozzi ) (27 January 1741–2 May 1821) was a British diarist, author, and patron of the arts. Her diaries and correspondence are also an important source of information about Samuel Johnson and eighteenth-century life. She died at 20 Sion Hill in Clifton.
- Sunday 13rd july 2008, 12 noon, 2 Royal York Crescent
Empress Eugenie de Montijo (1826-1920). Wife of Napolean III. Attended school here in 1836.
Unveiled by Annie Burnside, South West honorary consul for France - Sunday 3rd February 2008 (noon)- Pam Maclaren and Burnaby Portal (great-great grand children) unveiling the new plaque as part of a ceremony in front of the Clifton Club to replace the CHIS plaque in memory of Francis Greenway who designed the then Hotel and Assembly Rooms for the Clifton Spa and became known as the father of Australian Architecture
- The plaque to Thomas Guppy (Brunel's friend and investor in the Gt Western ship and the GWR) at 8 Berkeley Square was unveiled by Adam Hart Davis at 11.00 on 30 September 2006.
- One to Sarah Guppy at 11am on Wednesday 8th March 2006 (7 Richmond Hill)
by Nicholas Guppy - a descendant.
Beautiful and intelligent, inventor and mother of Thomas Guppy (). Her 19th century patents included a bed with built-in exercise apparatus. In 1811, Sarah Guppy proposed improvements for a suspension bridge which predated the works of both Thomas Telford and Brunel, but her name does not appear in the histories of engineering and bridge-building.
Sarah Guppy and Thomas Guppy (mother and son) lived in Richmond Hill for the longest period of time of their residence in Clifton. - The memorial unveiled by the wife of the vice-chancellor of Bristol University on 7th December 2005, marks the date - September 11, 1645 - when Prince Rupert surrendered Bristol to Parliament's army towards the end of the first Civil War, and marked the imminent end of the war. Bristol was the country's second city after London at the time and a Royalist stronghold loyal to King Charles. Prince Rupert, King Charles' illustrious cavalry commander, agreed a treaty with Fairfax and surrendered the city from his castle, where the Royal Fort now stands.
- The tablet put on the railings at the corner of Canygne Road was paid for with a legacy from Barbara Thorne, and dedicated on Saturday 16 July 2005, followed by a reception at the house of Dudley Fromant. Duncan Ogilvie made the speech.
- One to Sir Fabian Ware (1869-1949) (Glendower House) was unveiled on 5 November 2005 (close to Armistice Day) at 11am by the War Graves Commission. He was responsible for originating the Imperial (now Commonwealth) War Graves Commission during World War One
- Rear Admiral Sir Doveton Sturdee lived at 13 Sion Hill. He was the victor at the Battle of Falkland Islands in December 1914 and would merit a plaque.
- On Thursday Sept 8 at 10.30 at 47 Hampton Park a plaque to Adolph Leipner, put up by Redland and Cotham Amenity Society, will be unveiled. Adolph Leipner taught science at Clifton College in 1862. He became the first Botany Professor at the then new Bristol University and created first botanical garden in Bristol at Clifton. He founded the Bristol Naturalists Society.
Plaques put up by CHIS in recent years.
| Erected | Who/What | Details | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1989 | Randolph Sutton (1888-1960) | Music Hall Star, was born here. He recorded songs with particularly infectious tunes (for example Good 'Eavens, Mrs. Evans, My Canary has Circles under his Eyes) | 29 Anglesea Place |
| 1990 | Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864) | Poet, lived here (1836-37). "Epicurus, Leontion, and Ternissa," Imaginary Conversations (1824-1829) etc. O what a thing is age! Death without death's quiet. | Penrose Cottage, Harley Place |
| 1992 | Dr W.G Grace (1848-1915) | Father figure of cricket, lived here (1894-96). His huge stature and characteristic beard made his presence felt immediately as he walked upon each cricket ground. The number of years he played the game and the records he achieved was a marvel of the game in the 19th century | 15 Victoria Square |
| 1992 | E.H Young (1880-1946) | Novelist, lived here (1907-18). All the novels share a trenchant observation of Clifton’s inhabitants and have been compared with Jane Austen’s or more recently Barbara Pym’s writing. | 2 Saville Place |
| 1995 | Conwy Lloyd Morgan (1852-1936) | Psychologist, First Vice Chancellor University of Bristol, lived here (1886-1903). He wrote a textbook on animal biology and published a number of papers on local geology. He decided that he could make a more significant contribution to knowledge in the study of psychology, and began to direct his research effort to the field of what he called "mental evolution", the borderline between intelligence and instinct, where he developed his reputation in experimental psychology and animal behaviour | 14/16 Canynge Road |
| 1996 | Hannah More (1745-1833) | Author, playwright, educationalist lived here (1829-33). This evangelical philanthropist provides an indispensable link between the Georgian and Victorian periods. Born in Fishponds, just before the last Jacobite rebellion, she lived to see the beginnings of the railway age. In her youth she was the friend of David Garrick, Samual Johnson and Horace Walpole. At the age of seventeen she wrote a play, The Search after Happiness, for the girls at the school where she taught, to perform. She herself was closely involved with the Theatre Royal Bristol and became a particular friend of the actor William Powell. In middle age she was closely connected with William Wilberforce and his fellow Evangelicals in the Clapham sect. As well as working among the poor, Hannah More continued her connections with polite society, and produced a series of conduct books, of which the most famous was Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education (1799). In her retirement she welcomed two promising children to her home in Somerset, William Ewart Gladstone and Thomas Babington Macaulay. | 4 Windsor Terrace |
| 1996 | Cecil Powell (1903-1969) | Physicist, Nobel Laureate, lived here (1954-69). At the University of Bristol from 1927 to 1969, first as Research Assistant to AM Tyndall, then appointed lecturer, and, in 1948, established as Melville Wills Professor of Physics. He contributed numerous papers to learned societies on the discharge of electricity in gases, and on the development of photographic methods in nuclear physics. He was a co-author of Nuclear Physics in Photographs (1947) and The Study of Elementary Particles by the Photographic Method (1959). Prof. Powell was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1949: he was awarded the Hughes Medal in the same year and the Royal Medal in 1961. | 12 Goldney Avenue |
| 1996 | Clifton Spa Pump Room | Part of the Clifton Grand Spa Hydropathic Institution (opened in 1898) | on side of Avon Gorge Hotel. Entrance to baths |
| 1997 | Thomas Beddoes (1760-1808) | Scientist, lived here. He established the Pneumatic Institution for Inhalation Gas Therapy in Clifton in 1798. The influence of its work on gases and vapours was to prove seminal in the development of inhalation anaesthesia. | 11 Hope Square |
| 1998 | John Addington Symonds (1840-93) | Poet, critic, historian of the Renaissance, lived here (1865-71). His many writings include travel books, Sketches in Italy and Greece (1874) and Italian Byways (1883); literary essays, Introduction to the Study of Dante (1872) and Studies of Greek Poets (1873–76); biographies of Shelley (1878), Sir Philip Sidney (1886), Ben Jonson (1886), and Michelangelo (1893); a masterly translation of the autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini (1888); and several volumes of verse, notably Many Moods (1878) and Animi Figura The Renaissance in Italy (7 vol., 1875–86), is a classic collection of sketches in cultural history. | 7 Victoria Square |
| 1998 | Samuel Jackson (1794-1869) | Painter, lived here (1843-69) | 8 Canynge Square |
| 2000 | Susanna Winkworth (1820-84) & Catherine Winkworth (1827-78) | Susanna (Philanthropist)/ Catherine (Hymnologist), lived here (1862-74) | 31 Cornwallis Crescent |
| 2000 | Sir George Oatley (1863-1950) | Architect (designed Wills Building, Bristol Baptist College, Wills Hall), lived here (1902-34) | Bishops House, Clifton Hill |
| 2002 | Paule Vezelay (Marjorie Watson-Williams) (1892-1984) | First woman abstract artist, lived here (1939-42) | 2 Rodney Place |
| 2003 | Eliza Walker Dunbar (1849-1925) | Pioneer doctor, lived here (1882-1925) | 9 Oakfield Road |
| 2003 | Ellen Sharples (1769-1849) & Rolinda Sharples (1793-1838) | Artists, lived here (1821-32) | 37 Canynge Road |
| 2004 | Gertrude Hermes(1901-83) | Wood Engraver & Sculptor, died here (1983) | 5 Sion Hill |
| 2004 | Sir Henry Newbolt (1862-1938) | poet of Clifton College (most famous poem Vitai Lampada with its first line, There's a breathless hush in the Close tonight ... used to be included in every anthology of poetry) | south end of Clifton College Close unveiled by Barbara Janke, our local councillor. There was another plaque unveiling 28 May by the Old Cliftonian Society |
| 2005 | Jeremy Rees | visionary arts administrator who founded the Arnolfini Centre for the Contemporary Arts in Bristol, and was its director for the first 25 years | 20 Canynge Square |
| November 2005 | Sir Fabian Ware (1869-1949) | responsible for originating the Imperial (now Commonwealth) War Graves Commission during World War One | Glendower House, opposite Christchurch crypt |
| December 2005 | Prince Rupert | Marks September 11, 1645 - when Prince Rupert surrendered Bristol to Parliament's army towards the end of the first Civil War. | Royal Fort House, University of Bristol |
| March 2006 | Sarah Guppy | Beautiful and intelligent, inventor and mother of Thomas Guppy. Her 19th century patents included a bed with built-in exercise apparatus. In 1811, Sarah Guppy proposed improvements for a suspension bridge which predated the works of both Thomas Telford and Brunel, but her name does not appear in the histories of engineering and bridge-building. | 7 Richmond Hill |
| September 2006 | Thomas Guppy | Brunel's friend and investor in the Gt Western ship and the GWR. Son of Sarah Guppy | 8/10 Berkeley Square |
