author
Robert Charles Hope
1855–1926
Best known for writing about England’s holy wells, folklore, and local history, this Victorian antiquary brought old places and traditions to life with a patient, curious eye. His books range from place-names and medieval music to bellfounders and leper houses, showing an unusually wide set of interests.
1 Audiobook
The Leper in England: with some account of English lazar-houses
by Robert Charles Hope
About the author
Born in 1855 and died in 1926, Robert Charles Hope was an English antiquary and historical writer. Records and library listings consistently connect him with works on folklore, topography, and the history of religion and everyday life, and archival sources identify him specifically as an antiquary.
His best-known book is The Legendary Lore of the Holy Wells of England (1893), a wide-ranging study of wells, springs, and the beliefs attached to them. He also wrote The Leper in England, Mediæval Music, English Bellfounders 1150–1893, and a glossary of dialectal place-names, which together suggest a writer deeply interested in how language, landscape, craft, and custom preserve the past.
Hope’s work still appeals to readers who enjoy the quieter side of history: forgotten practices, local legends, and the small details that give older England its texture. A surviving portrait on Wikisource, apparently dating from around 1901, also helps place him as a serious late-Victorian scholar with a broad and practical curiosity.