Few people have done more for those interested in the history of Bedfordshire than Joyce Godber. Born at Kempston, brought up at Willington, she has spent much of her life serving the county of her birth. As County Archivist from 1945 to 1968 she made sure that no comparable record office had a more complete coverage of its area’s sources, and none had collections more thoroughly catalogued and indexed. She had great satisfaction in seeing the office move in 1969 from its unbelievably cramped quarters in the Shire Hall to the well-designed and spacious premises in the new County Hall, towards which she had worked for many years. The Bedfordshire County Record Office had been the creation of Dr G. H. Fowler, and he was also founder and first editor of the Bedfordshire Historical Record Society, Miss Godber followed him here too, and was editor from 1945 to 1976. The editorial work, and her own contributions to the series ranging from the Newnham Cartulary to the charming life of the Marchioness Grey, took up most of her spare time for many years. Her work in both fields led to her comprehensive History of Bedfordshire, written during her last two years as County Archivist, which has become an essential tool for all studying any aspect of the county’s past.

As a small tribute to the work done by Joyce Godber over the years, a group of friends and colleagues considered that it would be appropriate to produce a volume of studies on aspects of Bedfordshire history, all of which expand some topic mentioned, but of necessity briefly, in her History of Bedfordshire.

The Reverend Timothy Matthews was in his lifetime, and still is, a controversial figure. He is unknown to the Dictionary of National Biography, but was the subject of a laudatory biography published nearly a hundred years after his death. Notices concerning him have appeared from time to time in Bedfordshire newspapers and other periodicals. He has been more recently referred to in Miss Godber’s History of Bedfordshire. To Thomas Wright, his biographer, Matthews was ‘this truly great and noble minded man,’ whom he would include in succession with Wyclif, Latimer, Whitfield and Wesley! Miss Godber writes of a new spirit of expansion among all denominations induced by the growth of population and a wider view being taken of their responsibilities. She refers to Timothy Matthews as ‘the most unconventional figure of the time … a law to himself.’ The relationships between the established church and dissenters, related to general movements of Reform, are discussed by Professor Owen Chadwick in his work on The Victorian Church. Throughout the country, even before the accession of the Queen, these movements and ideas of Reform and change had begun.

In view of the interest shewn in Timothy Matthews and of his importance in the religious history of Bedford, it was felt that an edition of a bundle of letters in the files of John Kaye, Bishop of Lincoln from 1827 to 1853, whose diocese extended from the Humber to the Thames and included the archdeaconry of Bedford, would be of interest in throwing some new light on Matthews position and on the Bedford of his time. This bundle of letters is one of a collection of just over 250 bundles of correspondence received, dealt with and filed by the Bishop during his episcopate and returned to be with the diocesan records by his descendants many years after his death. Collectively they, in their turn, throw some light on the diligence of at least one bishop of the mid-nineteenth century. The letters in the bundle now under consideration were written between 1830 and 1836, and extracts are given from two letters in other Bedfordshire bundles.