History: Reverend Duke and the Amesbury Oliver

Edward Duke was an Oxbridge educated cleric, landowner, magistrate, author, and antiquarian who became an ex officio guardian of the Amesbury Union Workhouse in 1836. In 1840 he published a bizarre astronomical theory of the origins of Stonehenge, Avebury and Silbury Hill, but his major activities revolved around his work as a magistrate and his guardianship of the workhouse. At the Quarter Sessions he disputed with his brother magistrates on practically every issue, and as soon as he became a workhouse guardian—along with 26 other local dignitaries—he began disputing with them also. His complaints varied from objections to the number of clean stockings provided to the paupers, to accusing the workhouse master of manslaughter, which charge was contained in a letter he wrote to the Home Secretary. The revelations arising from the subsequent enquiry were sensational, both as to Duke’s accusations and the testimony of the many witnesses called, but no word of the enquiry and the extraordinary outcome ever became public knowledge. Peter Maggs has examined and transcribed hundreds of original documents in the archives, and for the first time relates the true story of Edward Duke and the Amesbury Oliver.