William Thomas Pike (January 1838 – 22 April 1924) edited and wrote Pike's New Century Series, 1898–1912, and some books of local interest to his native county of Sussex, England.

Pike's New Century Series, 1898–1912 This is a series of quarto volumes, published at 19 Grand Parade, Brighton, and paid for by subscription. Each volume contains the topography and biographies of a specific county of England or Ireland. Named authors, and occasionally Pike himself, were responsible for the topography sections, Pike's team edited and expanded the biographies supplied by the subjects who were also the subscribers, and Pike edited the whole.

[The series combined] a text with the qualities of a high-grade guide-book, printed on art paper and copiously illustrated with half-tone plates, with an illustrated biographical dictionary, the whole bound in good-quality imitation morocco".

The local authors who contributed the topographical sections were sometimes "distinguished antiquarians", but otherwise those sections do "vary greatly in quality". The way in which the order of the biographical section follows established tradition, and its almost total exclusion of women, indicates the social hierarchy of the pre-First World War era. In the biographical section of each volume, the "lord lieutenant, bishop and sheriff" are first illustrated and described, with larger photographic portraits than the rest. Following those, there are biographies and photographic portraits of "the nobility and gentry, the gentry and magistrates, the clergy, the legal, medical, dental, scholastic, literary and musical professions, engineers, architects and surveyors, auctioneers, estate agents and accountants, veterinary surgeons, and businessmen" — in that order.

The 1912 East Anglia volume was reviewed by the newspaper, Truth, in 1913:

Among those literary productions which appeal to parochial patriotism and the simple vanity of the undistinguished, is one entitled East Anglia in the Twentieth Century ... One feature was to be a full account of all the East Anglian churches, and another was to be the usual biographical list of celebrities. The price was £5 5s (). A subscriber interested in churches complains that so little space is devoted to them, while, on the other hand, the list of nobility and gentry is so complete that even the name of the manager of a Cambridge brewery, who is now a guest of H.M. prisons, is included in it. That is the worst of being a five-guinea celebrity. You never know who is going to share the honour with you.

List of volumes (Note: in the 1980s, the biographical sections and indices of Pike's New Century Series were reprinted in the A Dictionary of Edwardian Biography series). Numbered volumes (In two volumes). This volume boasts the rare inclusion of a woman: Mrs William Henry Vaudrey, lady mayoress of Manchester 1896–1899. Her portrait by Pike & Co. is shown on page 61 alongside her husband the lord mayor of Manchester, but although her name is mentioned in his biography, she is an exception in the volume as no biography is given for her.

(Re-issued in 1907 as no. 24).

There was no number 20.

(Erroneously published as number 25).

Un-numbered volumes

(possibly by J. E. Vincent).

Reissued with Cambridgeshire as East Anglia, in 1912 (see below).

Other works Books (published biennially or by subscription)

(ISBN is a reprint).

Journals

References

External links Note: The Commons category "William Thomas Pike" includes images and details of some of the above listed books.