Much of the great debt Bradfield owes to Antony Collieu, who served the college for 43 years as a teacher and housemaster from 1962, lies in his committed stewardship of its Archives.  He was instrumental in the consolidation of the College Archives in the Muniments Room in the early 1970s and collected many items of historical importance to the school throughout his career.  Antony passed away in 2025 and further evidence of his keen interest in Bradfield’s past is reflected in the recent gift of an album of historical watercolours he had acquired, generously presented to the College by his widow Anne.

Little is known about the provenance of the album, but it was created by a Charlotte Stanley and dated 1890.  Entries in local census returns record that Charlotte (née Wasbrough) was born in Bitton, Gloucestershire about 1814, and married a solicitor and banker from Nevis, West Indies, named John Bligh Stanley.  They lived in Gloucestershire for most of their lives and it appears that Charlotte moved to Berkshire sometime after her husband’s death, perhaps to be near family, finally settling in Buscot where she passed away in 1898.  Charlotte was acquainted with the family of Bradfield’s Headmaster Herbert Gray, since a watercolour is dedicated to ‘her young friend Alice Marriott’, who was the sister of Gray’s wife Selina.  The album contains 56 watercolours, many of Bradfield and its environs, and is a beautiful pictorial record of the College’s appearance at the end of the nineteenth century.

We would be very grateful if anyone could shed further light upon Charlotte Stanley and her connection to Bradfield.