Henry John Sutton: The Fareham Bookseller Whose Family Papers Survived

Henry John Sutton was born in 1833 and became part of a Fareham family whose surviving papers give an unusually intimate glimpse into nineteenth-century local life.

He was a bookseller in Fareham, working in a family business associated with George Sutton. The Sutton family archive, now held by Derbyshire Record Office, specifically records that George and Henry John Sutton owned a bookshop in Fareham.

The archive is remarkable because it contains far more than business records. It includes family papers stretching from 1803 into the twentieth century: apprenticeship documents, letters, photographs, diaries, marriage notices, property records, family-history notes and even material relating to naval service. Among the items is Henry John Sutton’s own memorial card from 1885, together with a photograph of him.

These records preserve details that usually disappear from local history. One letter contains a family rhyme about washing day. Later papers include photographs of members of the Fareham Fire Brigade, documents concerning the family home in West Street, and a transcript of the log of HMS Virago.

Henry married Catherine Ann King in 1862. Their daughter Nellie later married William Robert Smith in 1900, and the archive continued through later generations of the family.

Henry died in 1885.

His memorial at St Peter & St Paul therefore has an unusual importance. Many people remembered on the church walls survive only through a name, a date and perhaps an official record. In Henry John Sutton’s case, an entire family archive survives, allowing us to see something of the ordinary texture of life behind the memorial.

Through the Sutton papers, nineteenth-century Fareham becomes less distant: a world of books, letters, photographs, family jokes, work, marriage and everyday life.