Dr. John Marcus Blatchly

MBE Mbe may refer to: * Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo * Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria * Mbe language, a language of Nigeria * Mbe' language, language of Cameroon * ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language Molal ...

FSA (7 October 1932 – 3 September 2015) was a schoolmaster, author and noted historian of the county of

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...

Life

The son of Alfred Ernest Blatchly and Edith Selina Giddings, he studied

natural sciences Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatab ...

at the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

and became a chemistry teacher. From 1972 to 1993 he was headmaster of

Ipswich School Ipswich School is a public school (English independent day and boarding school) for pupils aged 3 to 18 in Ipswich, Suffolk, England. North of the town centre, Ipswich School has four parts on three adjacent sites. The Pre-Prep and Nursery ...

. After retiring, he served as the school's archivist emeritus and published a history of the school. A keen local historian, he also served as chairman of the Suffolk Records Society, president of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology & History. As chairman of the Ipswich Historic Churches Trust, essential repair works were carried out four redundant medieval churches. St. Lawrence's became a community restaurant; St. Nicholas's was revamped for the Church of England for use as a conference and meetings venue; St Clement's is to be used as the Ipswich Arts Centre; the Ipswich Tourist Information Centre was installed in St Stephen's. He rescued the town's 16th-century library and issued a meticulous catalogue; and, in response to his forceful initiative, the town acknowledged its celebrated son, Cardinal Wolsey, with a bronze statue. His passionate interest in Wolsey and his Cardinal's College in Ipswich was reflected in John's election in 2014 as honorary Wolsey professor at University Campus Suffolk. He was awarded an

in 2006 for services to heritage and was elected honorary

Wolsey Thomas Wolsey ( – 29 November 1530) was an English statesman and Catholic bishop. When Henry VIII became King of England in 1509, Wolsey became the king's almoner. Wolsey's affairs prospered and by 1514 he had become the controlling figure ...

Professor at

University Campus Suffolk The University of Suffolk is a public university situated in Suffolk and Norfolk, England. The modern university was established in 2007 as University Campus Suffolk (UCS), the institution was founded as a unique collaboration between the Unive ...

in 2014. Photographs by John Blatchly are held at the Conway Library of the

Courtauld Institute The Courtauld Institute of Art (), commonly referred to as The Courtauld, is a self-governing college of the University of London specialising in the study of the history of art and conservation. It is among the most prestigious specialist coll ...

, London, and are being digitised. The John Blatchly Local Studies Library is a reference librarylocated at The Hold, a purpose-built

heritage centre A heritage centre, center, or museum is a public facility – typically a museum, monument, visitor centre, or park – that is primarily dedicated to the presentation of historical and cultural information about a place and its people, and often ...

in Ipswich opened by the

Suffolk Record Office Suffolk Archives manage the historical archives for the county of Suffolk. These archives include a wide range of historical council and parish records, plus various commercial records, local historic book collections, local historic newspapers and ...

in 2021.

Selected publications

*''Isaac Johnson of Woodbridge, 1754–1835: that ingenious artist'' (1979) *''Topographers of Suffolk'' (1988) *''The Town Library of Ipswich Provided for the Use of the Town Preachers in 1599: A History and Catalogue'' (1989) *''The Bookplates of Edward Gordon Craig'' (1997) *''The Bookplates of George Wolfe Plank, and a Selection of his Book Illustrations'' (2002) *''A Famous Antient Seed-plot of Learning: A History of Ipswich School'' (2003) *''East-Anglian Ex-Libris: Bookplates and Labels Made Between 1700 and the Present Day'' (2008) *''Ipswich School: A History in Old Photographs from the 1850s to the 1980s'' (2009) *''Miracles in Lady Lane: The Ipswich Shrine at the Westgate'' (2013), with

Diarmaid MacCulloch Diarmaid Ninian John MacCulloch (; born 31 October 1951) is an English academic and historian, specialising in ecclesiastical history and the history of Christianity. Since 1995, he has been a fellow of St Cross College, Oxford; he was former ...

References

2015 deaths History of Suffolk Schoolteachers from Suffolk Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London 1932 births {{England-historian-stub