John Richard Walbran, wine merchant, historian, twice mayor - and famous introvert?

For such a prominent public figure, Walbran was well-known for shunning the limelight and living a simple, almost monastic life outside of his profession.

This week, we’re delving into the life of Ripon’s pioneering historian which - perhaps despite his best efforts - was one lived very much in the local community spotlight.

Early years

Walburn was born on Christmas Eve, 1817 at an address at Allhallowgate, the eldest son to John and Elizabeth Walbran, a family of iron merchants.

From a very early age, he displayed a fascination with history and the tales that shaped the local area. Even in childhood, he was known for having more knowledge of Ripon than anyone in his neighbourhood.

Yet another John enters the picture in his formative years; his maternal relative Reverand John Husband who was responsible for his education. This fuelled an interest in antiquarian civil and ecclesiastical law, which was important for his later research and understanding of historical documents.

Despite his obvious intellect, Walbran did not go to university to study law as he wished. It appears his parents dissuaded him, keen for him to instead follow in his father’s footsteps and enter the iron trade.

Working from the family home at Fall Croft, on the corner of Blossomgate and Trinity Lane in Ripon for many years, he took over John Walbran & Co after his father’s death.

It seems that he also set up another business around the same time, a wine and spirits company on Park Street. If he wasn’t already busy enough, he also got married in 1849, to Jane Nicholson, the daughter of the town clerk. 

Charting Ripon’s heritage

Throughout the time period he was working for the family business, he was also extensively researching and documenting local history; his first work the Genealogical Account of the Lords of Studley Royal was privately published in 1841.

In the same year, he published the work he was perhaps best known for; A Guide to Ripon, Harrogate, Fountains Abbey, Bolton Priory, and Several Places of Interest in their Vicinity – like, many scholarly works of the era, it seems a short and snappy title wasn’t en vogue.

He also helped to excavate part of Fountains Abbey from 1848, unearthing part of the Infirmary. In 1858 he also discovered bones and other items in the Saxon crypt below the Cathedral.

Through a combination of excavation and academic papers published, much of what we know of Fountains Abbey today can be credited to his efforts.

Sadly, a lot of Walbran’s work has been lost to time or unfinished, due to his ill health later in life.

Despite his prolific writing and research, he was strangely opposed to the print press. If not for the persistence of his close friend William Harrison, we might have even less evidence of his vast contribution to marking Ripon’s history.

This peculiar resistance to printing his work could have been part of his almost chronic aversion to the limelight; he was a man of simple, structured routine, rarely breaking habit.

Fellow antiquarian and author Edward Peacock described him as having ‘seldom left home except for work purposes’. If he ventured out for pleasure, it was to a cathedral or historical site he had written about, although he hated the ‘crowds of sightseers’.

Despite this, he was still a key figure in the community, standing for local council and serving two terms as Ripon’s mayor between 1856 – 1857.

He was also elected as a Fellow to the prestigious Society of Antiquities in 1854 – although he apparently refused to join in any of social arrangements with other members. 

Legacy

Walbran considered his most important work to be ‘The Memorials of Fountains’ which he spent many years researching, but only managed to publish one volume of before his death.

In 1868, and after years of declining health, Walbran suffered a stroke that left him paralysed. On April 7 the following year, he passed away and was buried at Ripon’s Holy Trinity Church.

There’s a morbid irony in this; firstly, the church was only 40 years old at the time - a rather modern building for a man preoccupied with the past.

Secondly, in a later edition of his famous guide he had a few damning words to share about it, and its architect Thomas Taylor, lamenting that ‘[Taylor’s] successful practice should have suggested something better than this incongruous compilation’.

Flash forward to 2018, and the Ripon Civic Society unveiled the green plaque outside Fall Croft, commemorating his remarkable achievements.

While many of Walbran’s works are sadly not available today, his impact on uncovering and preserving the history of Ripon, Fountains Abbey and the surrounding areas cannot be overstated. 

Perhaps Edward Peacock said it best of all, when he wrote: 

Sources for this article include an article on the Ripon Civic Society website written by David Winpenny, a biography entry on Wikipedia, an article on the Harrogate Advertiser from 2016, The Harrogate Visitors Handbook (1847) by John Richard Walbran and ‘Memoir’ written by Edward Peacock (1875) taken from the 12th edition of A Guide to Ripon, Harrogate, Fountains Abbey, Bolton Priory, and Several Places of Interest in their Vicinity by John Richard Walbran (first published 1851) and ‘Echoes from Ripon’s Past’ edited by Mike Younge (2004).