Abbotsford Club Abbotsford Club The Abbotsford Club was a text publication society founded in Edinburgh in 1833 or 1834. This was the year after the death of Sir Walter Scott, whose residence of Abbotsford House gave the society its name, and whose literature the club's publications sought to illuminate. The club was modelled on the Roxburghe Club, of which Scott himself had been a member, as well as the Bannatyne Club, which was founded by Scott, and the Glasgow-centred Maitland Club. The founder and first secretary of the club was William Barclay Turnbull, a young Edinburgh lawyer. The stated objective of the
The Little Sweep Iken Hall, a large rambling farmhouse on the banks of the river Alde, the home of Margery Spring Rice. The child characters were transplanted from a nearby country house, Great Glenham, which in the late eighteenth century had been the home of George Crabbe, the author of the poem "The Borough" which had formed the basis of Britten's 1945 masterpiece "Peter Grimes". Great Glemham House was (and is) the home of Lord Cranbrook, a personal friend of the composer's who was at that time Chairman of the Aldeburgh Festival. Britten and Crozier adopted the names and personas of his children