John Christopher Atkinson

Career Religious / Antiquarian / Writer

Biography Educated at Cambridge University, he was ordained and worked as a curate in Scarborough from 1843. In 1847 he became the domestic chaplain of William Henry Dawnay, seventh Viscount Downe, who presented him with the living of Danby, in the North Riding of Yorkshire which he held until his death. Keen antiquarian with wide interests who published works on folklore and dialect studies. His most famous work was Forty Years in a Moorland Parish(1891) which recorded the people, customs and traditions from around Danby. Some of his papers are held at the North Yorkshire County Record Office, Northallerton, and at the Whitby Museum, which also has his portrait.[Alison Petch [as part of 'The Other Within' project 2006-9] 04/12/2006]

Biography References http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/849 / http://homepage.ntlworld.com/bandl.danby/Skelton.ack.html

Clubs & Societies Athenaeum

County Yorkshire

Relationship Field Collector / Other Owner / PRM Source

Archaeological or Ethnographic Ethnography

Collected around 1896

Dates active 1814-1900

Donated around 1896

English collections Witchpost, charms, coins buried with dead, amulets, door-latch

Oxford Uni Education No

Oxford based No

Portrait link Whitby Museum and http://homepage.ntlworld.com/bandl.danby/Skelton.ack.html

English collection size 12

Connections John Wrightson / Jonathan Frankland