Major John Roland Abbey was an English book collector and High Sheriff

High Sheriff

A high sheriff is, or was, a law enforcement officer in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States.In England and Wales, the office is unpaid and partly ceremonial, appointed by the Crown through a warrant from the Privy Council. In Cornwall, the High Sheriff is appointed by the Duke of...

.

Early life

He was the eldest of three sons of William Henry Abbey, a brewer, and was named John Rowland before dropping the 'w'. After an accident that caused permanent damage to one of his elbows he was educated by a private tutor, Mr Möens, instead of at school.

Military career

In November 1914, at the start of World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, he was commissioned as a regimental officer in the Rifle Brigade, serving for two years on the Western Front

Western Front (World War I)

Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne...

 in the 13th and 8th Battalions. He experienced a lucky escape as part of the 8th Battalion; while he was serving in reserve, the battalion took part in the Battle of Flers-Courcelette

Battle of Flers-Courcelette

The Battle of Flers-Courcelette, was a battle within the Franco-British Somme Offensive which took place in the summer and autumn of 1916. Launched on the 15th of September 1916 the battle went on for one week. Flers-Courcelette began with the overall objective of cutting a hole in the German...

, losing all officers but one. He was gassed in November 1916 and spent five months recovering in hospital before being invalided out in October 1917 and demobilised in 1919. His younger brother Lieutenant Noel Roland Abbey was killed on the Western Front in 1918 while serving with the Grenadier Guards

Grenadier Guards

The Grenadier Guards is an infantry regiment of the British Army. It is the most senior regiment of the Guards Division and, as such, is the most senior regiment of infantry. It is not, however, the most senior regiment of the Army, this position being attributed to the Life Guards...

. Abbey later rejoined the Rifle Brigade in November 1939, and served from 1941 to October 1943 as staff officer to the Admiral-Superintendent

Admiral-Superintendent

The Admiral-Superintendent was the Royal Navy officer in command of a larger Naval Dockyard. Portsmouth, Devonport and Chatham all had Admiral-Superintendents, as did some other dockyards in the United Kingdom and abroad at certain times. The Admiral-Superintendent usually held the rank of...

 at Great Yarmouth

Great Yarmouth

Great Yarmouth, often known to locals as Yarmouth, is a coastal town in Norfolk, England. It is at the mouth of the River Yare, east of Norwich.It has been a seaside resort since 1760, and is the gateway from the Norfolk Broads to the sea...

. Although he left the army in 1943, he was awarded the honorary rank of Major in 1946.

Business career

After leaving the army he became manager of the Kemp Town

Kemp Town

Kemp Town is a 19th Century residential estate in the east of Brighton in East Sussex, England, UK. Kemp Town was conceived and financed by Thomas Read Kemp. It has given its name to the larger Kemptown region of Brighton....

 brewery, succeeding his father as chairman in 1943 and merging the company with Charringtons

Charringtons

Charrington United Breweries Ltd was an English brewery company founded in 1738 which merged with Bass in 1967.-History:Robert Westfield, a member of the Brewers' Company from 1738, owned a brewery in Bethnal Green, London, prior to 1757, when he took Joseph Moss into partnership and moved to new...

 in 1954. On 7 June 1921, he married Ursula Cairns, daughter of Wilfred Cairns, 4th Earl Cairns

Wilfred Cairns, 4th Earl Cairns

Lieutenant- Colonel Wilfred Dallas Cairns, 4th Earl Cairns, CMG, DL was a peer of the United Kingdom and a Rifle Brigade officer....

, with whom he had two daughters. In 1945, he was appointed High Sheriff of Sussex

High Sheriff of Sussex

-History:The office of High Sheriff is over 1000 years old, with its establishment before the Norman Conquest. The Office of High Sheriff remained first in precedence in the counties until the reign of Edward VII when an Order in Council in 1908 gave the Lord-Lieutenant the prime office under the...

, a position he held for a year.

Book collecting

His book collecting started in 1929 buying books from various Private press

Private press

Private press is a term used in the field of book collecting to describe a printing press operated as an artistic or craft-based endeavor, rather than as a purely commercial venture...

es, eventually gaining complete collections of books from the Kelmscott, Ashendene

Ashendene Press

The Ashendene Press was a small private press founded by Charles Henry St John Hornby . It operated from 1895 to 1915 in Chelsea, England, and was revived after the war in 1920...

 and Gwasg Gregynog presses. He also became interested in modern bindings, and in 1931 commissioned examples from Sybil Pye and, from R. de Coverley & Sons, a copy of Siegfried Sassoon

Siegfried Sassoon

Siegfried Loraine Sassoon CBE MC was an English poet, author and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World War. His poetry both described the horrors of the trenches, and satirised the patriotic pretensions of those who, in Sassoon's...

's Memoirs of an Infantry Officer

Memoirs of an Infantry Officer

Memoirs of an Infantry Officer is a novel by Siegfried Sassoon, first published in 1930. It is a fictionalised account of Sassoon's own life during and immediately after World War I...

decorated with Abbey's coat of arms. He also collected antiquarian books, starting from the sale of Primrose's collection

Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery

Archibald Philip Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery, KG, PC was a British Liberal statesman and Prime Minister. Between the death of his father, in 1851, and the death of his grandfather, the 4th Earl, in 1868, he was known by the courtesy title of Lord Dalmeny.Rosebery was a Liberal Imperialist who...

 and building it up from 1936 to 1938 thanks to sales from the Mensing, Moss, Aldenham, Schiff, and Cortlandt F. Bishop collections, eventually holding over 1,300 books. He died on 24 December 1969 in London, and, with the exception of manuscripts given to his family and a group of books donated to the Eton College Collections

Eton College Collections

The Eton College collections are a collection of items of significant cultural or scientific value kept by Eton College. They include College Library, College Archives, Eton College Natural History Museum, Casa Guidi, Eton College Antiquities Collection and The Museum of Eton Life. The Collection...

, his remaining texts were sold for £993,509 between 1970 and 1975.