A.E. Richardson President of the Royal Academy & Professor of Architecture at London University lived at Ampthill, Bedfordshire. When I practised as Ampthill clinic surgeon in Bedford he was a patient of mine & I knew him very well. He had a home at Ampthill filled with a large collection of beautiful & interesting antiques. He would not have electric light & used candles as being more in keeping with his Georgian house and chattels. He also refused to have the telephone installed & was rather a nuisance to the doctor opposite his house. He would sometimes dine dressed in Georgian costume as were his wife & daughters and the maids waiting at table. He had a brilliant brain & was always active. When I suggested that he might at any rate rest his eyes by closing them during the train trip to & from London he retorted angrily that if Pliny could write on a wax tablet while traveling to Rome in a chariot surely he could read in a first class carriage! Once when going out to dine in Ampthill he was conveyed in a sedan chair & was summoned for not having a rear light. He was I believe fined though he maintained that a sedan chair was not a vehicle.
