Local History News Number 134 Winter 2020

By Alan Crosby

Shortly before Christmas I was doing some research in a certain record office in the East Midlands, while the rain poured down outside and the hills of *****shire were shrouded in low cloud. It was serious academic research into local history, which happened to be about my own direct ancestors, so very pleasingly it combined two of my all-consuming interests and was moving as well (to me, even after well over thirty years, it’s still emotional to hold a document signed by a forebear three or four hundred years ago).

Anyway, this was an exercise in nostalgia in other ways, because I wanted to look at a series of land tax returns and they were on MICROFILM. I hadn’t used a microfilm reader for several years ... the last time was at Banbury local studies library (aka The Centre for Banburyshire Studies) before the Banbury Guardian was digitised and available online. So I went into the microfilm room (the only person there during my two-day visit) and sat in front of the infernal machine. It is of course a truth universally acknowledged that any microfilm reader is going to differ in significant ways from every other reader which you’ve used over the years, and this was no less the case in December.

There was the usual, oh so familiar problem of trying to get the image to be NOT upside down and NOT back to front. Usually, in my extensive experience, the film is wound from left-hand reel to right-hand reel. Here it was the other way round. Then there was the equally familiar challenge of a) making sure the film went into the correct narrow slot in front of the light, so that it would wind through correctly; and b) making sure the loose end of the film was firmly threaded through the slot on the reel. Naturally, the first couple of times it wasn’t, so there was that archetypal ‘record office circa 1990’ soundtrack of demented whirring and rattling as the reel revolved minus the flapping film.

Eventually, those challenges were overcome. The machine was getting warm, then quite hot, as I began winding on. Foolishly – and how many times have I done this – I pressed the ‘fast forward’ button and the room was filled with that characteristic eldritch screech of microfilm moving at a thousand feet per second between two glass plates. It screeched to a halt, and I slowly rewound. And of course I mean slowly, since every frame had to be checked before I found the beginning of the section I wanted ... whatever did we do without keyword searches?

So, here was my section – the townships, arranged in alphabetical order, in a particular hundred of *****shire. A very familiar visual experience – jerkily moving the film on, as a thick scattering of fluff, dust and other deposits wound across the screen, backed by the text. Scratches and smears, black blobs (what on earth were they?) and feathery fragments drifted from right to left and into oblivion. Constant twiddling of the focus knob more or less succeeded, but it was often necessary to remove my glasses and peer intently at the screen from a distance of two or three inches, before being able to read a particular name or place.

Now, the relevant data having been copied down, came what was always the most exciting part of the whole ritual – pressing the ‘fast reverse’ button. The whirring grew louder and more manic, the screech more piercing, the tension mounted and then, yes, the film was wound back and the frantic flapping filled the air. I was transported back a quarter of a century, to a time when microfilm readers were so contemporary, and microfiche was still a novelty. I reminisced about noise-filled searchrooms with overheating machines, flickering lights, the constant rattle of reels and slamming of microfilm drawers, and the frequent curses as readers discovered that a film had been rewound the wrong way. Thanks, *****shire Record Office, for the memory!

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A much respected historian of Shropshire

Neil Clarke retired as a secondary school headmaster in the late 1990s. A Salopian by birth, he read modern history at King’s College, London University and taught history in Warwickshire, Hertfordshire and Shropshire, ensuring local history was always an important part of the syllabus.

Even before his retirement, Neil was increasingly involved with local history organisations in his native county. He was one of the founder members of the Friends of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum, and is a Trustee of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. The Wilkinson Society was founded in 1972 to honour pioneer iron-master John Wilkinson, and renamed The Broseley Local History Society in 1997 to better reflect its objectives of researching, preserving and promoting Broseley’s unique heritage. One of the leading local history groups in Shropshire, its membership is now around 200. Neil Clarke was a founder member, has been on the committee since the beginning and is now vice chairman and programme secretary, and editor of its journal.

In addition to Broseley LHS, Neil has been an officer of Wrekin Local Studies Forum, The Shropshire Archaeological & Historical Society, the Wellington History Group, and Friends of Shropshire Archives.

Neil Clarke’s research and writing has been on local industrial and transport history; his extensive knowledge is well known and his enthusiasm is widely shared. He is particularly keen to encourage others to publish their research and over the years his work as editor of a number of local journals has involved persuading first-time as well as experienced authors to appear in print. Amongst his own publications are four books Railways ..., Waterways ..., Roads ... and Industries of East Shropshire Through Time for Amberley Publishing.

As a recognised expert Neil Clarke has presented conference papers at major national and international events, but he also gives numerous talks locally and leads walks as an effective way of explaining local industrial history in the landscape.

One of his referees for this award comments that Neil Clarke is a worthy recipient for all his contributions mentioned here, and as ‘a mentor to new recruits’ in local history.

www.broseley.org.uk

With thanks to Neil Clarke, Janet Doody, Gillian Pope and William Cooper.

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The Institute of Historical Research has recently launched its new Centre for the History of People, Place and Community: the new home for the Victoria County History of England and many other projects. Directed by Professor Catherine Clarke – the new Chair in the History of People, Place and Community – the Centre builds on the IHR’s long-standing expertise in local history, and in urban and metropolitan history.

The Centre fosters engaged, innovative research into placed histories across all regions and periods, from the rural to the urban and the parish to the metropolis, with an emphasis on the localised, the micro-historical, and the site-specific. It bring together academics, heritage professionals, community groups, creative practitioners, and all those interested in places and their stories. Its aim is to promote inclusive, imaginative approaches to making history, and to identify opportunities for history to make a difference in the real world today. The Centre also offers training, a programme of events, and a conceptual space for everyone working on place, people and the past to connect, experiment and share ideas.

Projects within the Centre range from the Victoria County History, which celebrated its 120th anniversary in 2019, to the pioneering Layers of London crowdsourced digital history project, supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund (https://www.layersoflondon.org/) and initiatives such as British and Irish Furniture Makers Online, in partnership with the Furniture History Society (https://bifmo.history.ac.uk/).

Centre Director Professor Catherine Clarke said, ‘As we build our new Centre, we’re especially excited to welcome the BALH Local History Day to the IHR in 2020, and are keen to develop our links with local historians in the association. We hope to identify opportunities for collaboration in future, and look forward involving BALH members in our projects and events.’

You can discover more about the Centre on the IHR website (https://www.history.ac.uk/research/centre-history-people-place-and-community), including details of forthcoming events.

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By Liz Millman

Last year the ‘Learning Links International (LLI)’ team successfully applied to the National Lottery Heritage Fund in Wales to explore the story of the production, and the unlikely market, for a woollen cloth that became internationally known as ‘Welsh Plains’. This fabric was produced by impoverished tenant farmers in rural communities in Mid Wales and was known locally as ‘Brethyn’, which means ‘home spun cloth’. The lengths of cloth woven and finished were destined to be used to clothe enslaved Africans, it was a hard wearing, rough cloth. The spinners, weavers and fullers involved became part of a massive international trade that supplied the goods that enabled great wealth to be created on the sugar plantations in the New World. The production of sugar on British plantations earned the commodity the name “white gold” as the demand in Britain was seemingly insatiable.

The project plan was to involve community research volunteers and initial requests went out to members of the Welsh Guilds of Spinners, Weavers and Dyers, with further recruitment at ‘Wonderwool’ in Builth Wells in March 2019. This created a great deal of interest in the unlikely story of ‘From Sheep to Sugar’ or in Welsh, ‘O Wlân I Siwgr’. The project team provided background information and bilingual training resources to support volunteers to explore the history and the processes of home-based production of Welsh Plains from 1650, its heyday in the 1700’s and the decline of the cottage industry by the 1850’s.

The Guild of Shrewsbury Drapers had the monopoly of all the export of Welsh wool until the monopoly was broken by the Liverpool traders. The Drapers Hall in Shrewsbury provided the focus for the project launch and Professor Chris Evans from South Wales University outlined the background, based on his fascinating and informative book, ‘Slave Wales: Wales and Atlantic Slavery 1660 – 1850’.

Very often the history of Wales is blurred in with English history, as ‘British History’, but across Wales academics and local history groups are active in investigating the past. Also since 2007, with the recognition of the Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, new networks across Wales have been exploring the links Wales had with the Slave Trade, and historians have become more aware of the profound impact that the Atlantic slave system had on unlikely places like rural Mid Wales.

By August the project had engaged over 50 Community Research Volunteers: spinners, weavers and dyers have been investigating the production of the cloth, with a special focus on the process of ‘fulling’ which washes and treats the newly woven cloth in a fulling mill or ‘pandy’ in Welsh. Local farming families explored their family history looking for spinners, weavers and fullers, as well as the other trades needed in the complex production process. Local historical groups started to explore their local valleys and streams to find where the fulling mills / pandau had been built, and incomers and locals who are now living in converted properties, were encouraged to research the origins of the fulling mill / pandy or previous hand weaving factory that they live in.

The proliferation of fulling mills along mountain streams in Montgomeryshire and Merionethshire in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries shows the scale of the industry’s growth, and ‘factories’ were often built nearby to bring weavers together to better standardize production which was so widely dispersed.

The Community Research Volunteers also found ways to share their understanding, for example: Jenny created a display of slave clothing at the National Trust’s Weir Garden as an interpretation of the links with the sugar trade that funded the design and development of the gardens; Jill obtained a fleece of the sort of hardy sheep on the mountains and spun , wove and fulled the resulting cloth, providing a tantalizing glimpse and feel of this tough, itchy cloth.

The project soon created more questions than answers! As a result, the research is set to carry on finding out more about the trade routes out of Wales to the main markets and the slaving ports, as well as to learn more about the processes of ‘fulling’ and ‘tentering’ as it is clear that fullers were highly skilled and important professionals at work creating various finished products from the basic woven cloth.

Local reading and research networks are now set up in the key areas which have been identified as the main producers. This is enabling volunteers to find out more about the trade and the packhorse routes used and to explore in more depth how the merchants from Shrewsbury, London, Bristol and later Liverpool took advantage of the impoverished Welsh workforce.

It also seems that Welsh maritime specialists were active as slave ship captains and crew, as well as pirates or privateers, and Welsh shipbuilders were also commissioned to build specially designed vessels that could carry up to 600 Africans from their home lands in West Africa across the Atlantic tightly packed below deck.

The sugar wealth came to Wales in the fortunes brought home by Welsh plantation owners like Richard Pennant, whose shrewd investment in the slate industry in the Ogwen Valley bought further financial rewards as Welsh slate not only roofed the British Empire but was also used in schools around the world. The descendants of Richard Pennant went on to use their accumulated wealth to build the extravagant folly called ‘Penrhyn Castle’ which is now a National Trust property that is also looking to tell the stories of the slave trade links.

The project has attracted world-wide attention and in July, Professor Chris Evans organized an international conference with the Museum of Wales, to bring academics together from Europe and North America to share their interests, along with a presentation by the Community Research Volunteers from the ‘Sheep to Sugar’ project.

This so called ‘Negro Cloth’ which was spun and woven by poor rural families in Mid Wales, was also produced by similar hill farming communities in Kendal in Cumbria and marketed as ‘Kendal Cotton’ as well as in a moorland parish in the West Riding of Yorkshire called ‘Penistones’. However it seems that the dominant variety of Negro Cloth, known as ‘Welsh plains’ or ‘Welsh cotton’, was produced in Montgomeryshire and Merionethshire, produced in vast quantities specifically for the Plantation Trade.

Check out: www.welshplains.cymru to find out more about the findings of the Community Researcher Volunteers and information from the projects advisory team. Much of the information about life at the time and the cottage industry has come from the writing of travelers who were fascinated by life in North and Mid Wales at the time and the Learning Links International team are currently exploring how best to explore the production of Negro Cloth in Northern England.

Beyond the NLHF project, research will continue in Wales as the ‘Brethyn Local History Network’.

Liz Millman is Project Manager – ‘From Sheep to Sugar’

Director: Learning Links International CIC

Member of Gwynedd Guild of Spinners, Weavers and Dyers

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By John Hare and Jean Morrin

The VCH needs no introduction to local historians. It was a remarkable act of Victorian self-confidence: the idea that one could produce a history of every parish and county in England. Now over 230 volumes later, its work still continues. Hampshire was the first county in the country to have completed its coverage, all five volumes of the VCH were published, between 1900 and 1912, and these have formed an essential first step for much work in local history in the county.

But pioneering has its problems. The original parish histories reflected many of the assumptions of their age: a world dominated by the landowner and apparently by the church of England. Now a parish history needs to cover the life of all in the community, its economy and society and not just the rich of the community. But in addition, the communities themselves have been transformed in the last century. Basingstoke is no longer the flourishing but relatively small market and industrial town, while the villages around are no longer predominantly inhabited by the workers of the land. In 2007, a century after the first edition, several organizations pledged their support to update and extend the VCH for a new age. These included the Hampshire Archives Trust, the HRO, the Hampshire Field Club and the University of Winchester. Realism dictated that work should initially be limited in focus, and the Basingstoke area has proved an admirable choice.

Whereas the original work came out in large volumes, the new VCH Hampshire is initially published as a series of ‘shorts’, each dealing with a relatively small area: a parish, or a pair of parishes, or a period in the history of a town. To date four volumes have been published covering: Mapledurwell; Steventon; Basingstoke: a Medieval Town 1000-1600; and the latest, on Cliddesden, Hatch and Farleigh Wallop. Future titles which are being worked on or are in press include Penton Mewsey, a village near Andover, further villages in the Basingstoke area and a study of Basingstoke in the 19th century. The advantages of this ‘short’ approach is that it provides concrete tasks attainable within a limited time span, particularly important with the use of volunteers, while retaining the opportunities for a traditional red book at a later date. Within the basic red book structure, it also allows greater flexibility to explore the particular strengths of a village’s documentation.

The choice of places reflects both local and national interests. Basingstoke is the main town in the area. It was an important town within the county in the Middle Ages, as a market centre and a route stop. It became particularly important in the 15th and 16th century with the growth of the cloth industry in the town and in the district around. The coming of the railways both devastated the through traffic trade and opened up the opportunities for the development of machinery and clothing industries that saw Wallis and Stevens steam rollers and Burberry coats exported around the world. A group of villages around Newnham and Up Nately offer the opportunity to compare the very different development of the chalk and clay. Herriard possesses a remarkable range of sources in the archive of a resident landlord from 16th to 20th century. Dummer offers another well-documented chalkland village. It is hoped both that our work will encourage other fully referenced studies of villagers beyond our own VCH area, and will provide case studies that will be of interest to historians whose interests are more national.

Work is being carried out on a voluntary basis under the leadership of historians Drs Jean Morrin and John Hare, supplemented by limited commissioned works by younger historians and seasoned VCH authors. A group in Basingstoke meets fortnightly to transcribe 16th and 17th century wills and inventories and as a focus for planning research while individuals write the text for publication on the web or eventually as shorts. The output is seen in the ‘shorts’, in draft chapters accessible on the VCH web site under ‘work in progress’, and in the VCH Explore site.

Rewriting Hampshire’s history is very much a long-term project, whose value should be seen both on a national as well as a county-wide scale. It is to be hoped that this will help towards a reappraisal of Hampshire’s past and help generate further interest in the development of its diverse communities.

Published

J. Hare, J. Morrin, S. Waight, Mapledurwell, £7 +£2 p & p

J. Morrin, with contributions by J. Hare, Steventon £12 +£2 p & p

J. Hare, Basingstoke: a medieval town, 1000-1600, £12 +£2 p & p

A. Deveson and S. Lane, Cliddesden, Hatch and Farleigh Wallop £14 +£2 p & p

Copies can be purchased from Dr Jean Morrin, 23 West Road, Emsworth, PO10 7JT. Cheques should be made out to Hampshire Archives Trust (VCH Project).

‘Work in progress’ is accessible on VCH web site; other shorter piece and, documents, particularly transcripts of wills and inventories are accessible on the VCH Explore site (although this is now frozen).

https://www.history.ac.uk/research/victoria-county-history/county-histories-progress/hampshire

https://www.victoriacountyhistory.ac.uk/explore/county/hampshire

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By David Killingray

My wife and I have visited the United States regularly since 1968, the last 30 or so years to holiday with close American friends. Perhaps because of the country’s size, local history is an active pursuit throughout the ‘States. Most cities, towns and communities have thriving local history societies, and all states their historical journals. Good standard guides exist, as well as a rich fare of published studies of localities. Long ago my interest was provoked by D.W. Meinig’s four volumes, The Shaping of America. A geographical perspective of 500 years of history (Yale U.P., 1986 to 2004), by John R. Stilgoe, Common Landscape of America 1580-1845 (Yale U.P., 1982), the essays in Michael P. Conzen, ed., The Making of the American Landscape (Winchester, MA, 1990), and Howard S. Russell, A Long Deep Furrow. Three centuries of farming in New England (Hanover, NH, 1976).

To these firm foundations can be added the growing number of books on early native peoples, European settlement, and African American communities. On the latter, a less familiar source for local historians is by W.E.B. Du Bois, the intellectual voice of African American protest, in his famous The Souls of Black Folk (Chicago, 1903), frequently reprinted and currently in Penguin classics. This book contains several essays on localities: Du Bois’ days as a rural schoolteacher in Tennessee, and on black landholding and labour conditions in Dougherty County at the heart of the Georgia ‘black soil’ cotton growing country.

Many of the museums are also exciting. Take DeKalb, IL., a smallish place, home of Northern Illinois University, and a barbed wire museum, the industry that gave the city its wealth and growth. Joseph Glidden and Isaac Ellwood developed and marketed the product that looks like the barbed wire of today. In 1875 10,000 pounds of barbed wire was produced, enough for 31 miles of fencing. The application of steam power to the process increased output to 600,000 pounds in 1876. The industry expanded contributing to the rapid enclosure of western grasslands with limited timber supplies, making a fortune for its successful pioneers, and soon being used in warfare.

There is much in US capitalism that repels me. However, there is a good deal of the accompanying boldness that appeals: the splendid local libraries, even in small provincial towns that from my experience seem to be thriving, serving as focal centres of the community, well-stocked and well equipped with new books and a range of journals and magazines. And there are imaginative museums too. One ‘local history buff’, recorded in the Milwaukee Journal Centinel (9 October 2019), was an enthusiast seeking to preserve old and disused local shop and business signs, rescuing the former Goldmann’s Department Store sign in the city which he was going to present to the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati. So, museums of barbed wire and shop signs, along with National and State parks, reconstructed Williamsburg, preserved old forts and farms, and the strategically located large Native American urban centre at Cahokia in southern Illinois. which flourished from 1050-1200 AD. America’s local history offers much to explore, seated in an armchair in Britain, and in the United States on foot and by auto.

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By Kate Tiller

Local history is very much an international activity, and to meet local historians from other countries and to see how they do local history, the subjects and perspectives they take on, and how they set about spreading the word and developing the subject, is always fascinating and enjoyable. It also makes the visitor think afresh about approaches to local history ‘at home’, in Britain. In October 2019 I was fortunate to experience all this, and to find out about Local History developments in Portugal at the Third International Congress on Local History: Current Concepts, Practices and Challenges, held at the University of Evora.

The event brought together those researching local history from around Portugal. It is the initiative, begun in 2017, of a group of young Portuguese historians including Diogo Ferreira, Ines Jose, Mariana Castro and Joao Santos, graduate researchers in local history. Their aim is to open up opportunities for local historians, both in and beyond Portugal’s major university centres of historical studies (Lisbon, Oporto and Coimbra), to meet and to present and discuss their work. From this contact and subsequent networking they seek to identify and share the issues encountered in local history research and to reflect ‘on what Local History is and its diverse potentialities, in particular its close relationship with the communities it addresses.’ An important feature of the project is that the annual gathering is ‘decentralised’, in a different location each year, so far Cascais, Setubal and Evora.

The 2019 Congress took place over two days. Its programme reflected some major themes of Portuguese local history studies to date, and took the open approach of a call for short papers, from which an organising committee selected 16 contributors on the first day and 17 on the second. Themes concentrated on the modern (post-1789) and contemporary periods. The three main strands were the identity of local history, its theory, methods and educational importance; regional and local studies of particular communities ( 18th to 20th centuries), with an emphasis on local power and institutions; and significant anniversaries ( e.g. the outbreak of World War Two, and for 2020 the 200th anniversary of Portugal’s Liberal Revolution).

There is a feeling that Portuguese local history has yet to develop fully as compared with France, Spain, the USA and the UK. Participants were keen to hear about local history in the UK, and I was invited to be the introductory keynote speaker. I took the title ‘Trends, achievements and challenges: the English perspective’. It always concentrates the mind to present familiar material to a new audience as do their interesting questions and comparisons. Just what is ‘the greatest present challenge to English local history’? Perhaps we should ourselves create a forum to reflect and discuss?

The initiative, of which the Evora congress was part, was initiated by young researchers and has been supported by History Faculty members notably at the Institute of Contemporary History, at the New University of Lisbon. I was also invited there, by Professor Maria Fernando Rollo, to meet new ICH research students and to discuss with them the importance and potential of local history in historical research, as illustrated by a range of English examples and their own topics of interest. The match of Local History and research proved strong, but as ever is a case that needs to be made and remade.

To meet Portuguese local historians, in two such contrasting settings - the College of the Holy Spirit (see back cover) in the University of Evora, founded 1559, re-founded 1979 and located in an ancient Alentejo city of Roman remains, Moorish occupation and medieval cathedral and walls; and Lisbon’s New University, founded in 1973 - was fascinating. To talk with them about what were swiftly shared interests was enjoyable and illuminating. As yet there is no national association for local history in Portugal. They were interested in BALH and want to make contact. I hope conversations and links may continue and grow.

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By Phoebe Merrick

One of the joys of rooting around in county record offices and their catalogues is tripping over a previously unknown set of documents that adds a new dimension to a local historian’s knowledge of the people of the area. Some time ago I came across an Outdoor Relief List for Romsey Union. Romsey Union covered an area of rural Hampshire to the north-west of Southampton, including the small market town of Romsey.
I was enchanted with the information this List provided. It covered a single month and showed the names of all the people who were receiving Outdoor Relief together with how much relief each household received from the local Board of Guardians in the form of bread and money. In each case, the head of the household was named and any other family members referred to by status. Thus, for example, the household might consist of a solitary widow, or it might have a male head together with a wife and a specified number of children. The parish of settlement was listed as this determined who was responsible for them in the first instance. The List also showed where each household was living and why it was entitled to relief in their own homes, rather than being in the workhouse. Despite the intention in the New Poor Law Act of 1835 to stop giving relief to people in the community, certain classes of recipient were in receipt of such relief.

The List also stated who was in the workhouse and their parish of settlement, and who was in the County Asylum at the Guardians’ expense. Unlike the outdoor relief, this part of the document named each person individually, with their age and parish of settlement. In some cases it was possible to link names in the Register of Deaths in the Workhouse with the disappearance of names in the workhouse.

Inspired by this item, I then searched the catalogue to see whether other lists had survived, since this one was numbered 882. It appears that these lists were started with the establishment of Boards of Guardians. The first list was number 1, and the numbers kept going so by August 1896, for example, list number 885 was produced.

At this point things got a bit difficult. These lists are not recognised as a group in their own right in the Record Office catalogue, and imagination is therefore necessary to track them down. The most useful search item is ‘Outdoor Relief’ but I don’t think it finds all the sheets held by the record office and it also turns up other items that are different. If you are particularly lucky, these lists may be catalogued with the other Poor Law returns. Certainly in Hampshire, the Lists are catalogued as part of the collection with which they were received and thus spread about.

I have not come across any complete sets of returns; they consist of disparate items that had been included with other material. One or two Boards of Guardians in the County of Hampshire had better runs of documents than those of Romsey and many had none at all. I looked at the catalogues for Wiltshire and for West Sussex and ‘outdoor relief’ found fewer entries, but sometimes a collection of these returns was listed as one item, rather than each return being listed individually.

The returns were printed, but the print was so erratic that my Optical Character Recognition programme failed to cope, so I had to type the material. Each return had 8 sides with two-columns on each so 18 returns involved a good deal of typing.

Was it worth the effort? I think so – but then I would, wouldn’t I? The returns also included an Apportionment of Expenditure of the Several Parishes in the Romsey Union. The information contained on these pages varied over time, but showed how many paupers came from each parish and therefore how much the parish cost the Union. Some returns included the acreage and size of population of the constituent parishes in the Union and rateable values. Therefore it was possible to see where poverty was concentrated. For example, the largest parish, Michelmersh, had a surprisingly small number of its poor living in the parish. They seemed to have decamped elsewhere, for reasons that are not apparent. Was this an early example of gentrification, from which Michelmersh continues to suffer?

As might be expected, most of those receiving relief were elderly, sick or disabled but included a number of women, mostly widows, the younger ones with children. The sick came and went from the lists, sometimes only receiving a single relief, such as a shilling or two, or a single issue of bread, but many of the others turn up time after time. At intervals the lists were updated and show recipients ageing, or children leaving home and the size of the family, and thus the relief, changing. Some surnames recur frequently indicating a whole family in continuing financial distress. Sometimes a group will appear, say an aged parent, a daughter-in-law and perhaps children, indicating that something catastrophic has happened to the family such as the death of the breadwinner.

Although the transcription was time-consuming, these lists have given a useful insight into the world of the poor in this rural area.

Phoebe Merrick
18 Oct 2019

Footnote: Outdoor relief lists for Romsey Hampshire, kept in Hampshire Record Office can be found in 4M92/O/2, 11M66/12 and 37A18/1.

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By Rhiannon Phillips

Gwent Archives is the official archive repository for the five local authorities in the former county of Gwent – today this consists of Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council, Torfaen County Borough Council, Monmouthshire County Council, Newport City Council and Caerphilly County Borough Council. Our main role is the collection of historical material relating to that geographical area, ensuring its long-term preservation and accessibility.

Our oldest document dates from the twelfth century and our youngest from the early 2000s. Our strongrooms hold maps, photographs, church records, school records, hospital records, deeds and leases, building plans, estate records and the personal letters and/or diaries of individuals. If you were to use our Subject Index, you would find references to accountants, brewers, bee-keeping, greyhound racing, refugees, coal mines, lunacy, wig makers and the Women’s Institute.

The majority of our visitors consist of family or local history researchers, archaeologists, academics, students, local government employees, the police and probate researchers. Archives hold a treasure trove of primary sources and information relating to the histories of individuals and communities – but how best to engage with those who are unaware of the wealth of material that we hold in our strongrooms?

Since 2014, Gwent Archives has been delivering a series of Past and Present Walks. These were created in response to a series of themed reminiscence sessions held in 2013 – turnout was low, and feedback indicated that the location of the Archives was a factor. However, the discussions generated from maps, photographs and newspaper adverts during the reminiscence sessions prompted the Archives to develop a series of outreach events where documents, or rather their facsimiles, were taken out to the localities they related to and explore their context.

For the last five years, we have covered Ebbw Vale, Blackwood, Cwmbran, Pillgwenlly, Usk, Abercarn, Abertillery, Blaenavon, Caerleon, Caldicot, Abergavenny, Blaina, Newport City Centre, Pontypool, Risca, Forgeside (Blaenavon) and Monmouth. Locations were chosen by selecting one town from each of the five local authority areas that we serve – though some were created as requests from local societies (eg. the Cholera in Newport walk) or as part of projects (eg. the Forgeside walk as part of the ‘Step Back in Time’ series at Blaenavon). Walks are roughly 1-1.5miles in distance and take place over a two hour period. Facsimiles are predominantly maps, photographs and newspapers adverts – but there are also school records, deeds and leases, workhouse records and crime records. Traditionally the walks begin with a general overview of the history of the town. We aim to cover the development of the town from its earliest settlement, to industrial growth in the nineteenth century, to the changing face of the local high street in the twentieth century. We also explore the day to day life of the local community – places of worship, schools, housing, crime, local disasters and drinking habits to name a few.

For example at Pillgwenlly, the walk explored the development of the Docks which attracted people from all over the world – using facsimiles, attendees learnt of the Scandinavian sailor, Nils Landstrom who made Pillgwenlly his home; of the sailors sent to Usk Gaol and whose mugshots are held in our collections; and of the impact of the 1919 Race Riots.

At Usk, the walk explored the many different gaols or houses of correction that used to be in the town and the stories of men, women, and children who passed through the prison system – such as 11 year old Charles Driver, caught stealing tobacco and sentenced to one month’s hard labour at Usk, and five years at Little Mill Reformatory School.

The walks have helped to raise awareness of local history and encourage the public to engage with, and in some cases preserve, their local heritage.’ One benefit to the Archives, and an important aspect of the walks, is the amount of local knowledge and anecdotal information shared by the attendees – stories and information that may not be found in our holdings. The interaction and discussion between the groups enhances the tour immensely. The walks have continued to prove popular and we are now receiving bookings from local societies to deliver walks as part of their programme of events. We are looking forward to delivering more walks in 2020.

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By Peter Jackson

No, we are not printing a page from a tabloid. Read on …

My title is that of a talk given by a colleague, Gill Shapland, to our local (Cambridgeshire) family history society. She and I have been transcribing and indexing some quarter sessions records, this piece is based on that work.

I got into local history through family history: it’s all very well having a family tree, but how did your ancestors live, what did get up to do? Quarter sessions records are a great source for bridging that divide. Of course, if your family are decent law-abiding citizens they may not show up in these records, but they still might appear to give evidence, for either good, or bad, behaviour of their neighbours.

The records I have been working on are held at Cambridge University Library, and are the quarter sessions for the ‘Isle’, that is the Isle of Ely, the northern part of Cambridgeshire: they were held alternately at Ely and Wisbech, and are for the middle quarters of the 18th century, 1725 to 1775. Just to remind LHN readers, quarter sessions were held, well, quarterly, hence their name, from the late 14th century until 1971. They dealt with a range of lesser offences, the ones that did not go to the assizes, and may include records of licenced premises, and of ale-wives brewing without licence, beggars, the poor being moved on to their parish of settlement, orders for maintenance of highways, minor assaults and the brawls of the title, lists of prisoners awaiting trial, and of course sexual offences: all human life is there.

Let’s have sex: on 28 February 1767, George Smith, overseer of the poor of Whittlesey, was to charge Esther Fevre of Whittlesey with being ‘lewd and disorderly’: George Smith gave evidence before Henry Burrough concerning her: it was reported that she ‘had 4 bastards, 2 living … doth misbehave in the workhouse … frequently runs away in Summer and returns in winter in rags and filthiness and refused to assist in the maintenance of her children.’ Two months later, in the calendar of the house of correction in Wisbech, entry for 28 April 1767 lists Esther Fevre for a ‘lewd life’ It also lists John Loggan and Richard Godfrey, both for bastardy. I wonder, was one of them a father of one of Esther’s children? Esther had form: 2 years earlier, on 20 Apr 1765, she appears charged with the theft of linen items from the workhouse; and two days later she confessed to the theft, and Margaret Riccard, an inmate of Whittlesey workhouse, confessed to aiding her by taking the stolen goods to the wife of William Webster.

More sex: on 13 February 1767 there is the examination of Elizabeth Lowder of Wisbech, who says Richard Hutcheson had carnal knowledge of her several times, and she is now with child, a bastard chargeable to the parish. The settlement statement says she is about 30, born Wisbech, but father removed to Gedney, Lincolnshire, later returning to Wisbech. In May the same year is the recognizance of Richard Hutcheson to answer a charge of begetting a bastard.

Assaults: on 25 June 1767 there is recorded the examinations of Robert Wallis, John Gibbs and Robert Harrison, all of Wisbech: Wallis, lodging at the house of John Cartwright, claims he was assaulted by William Sleigtholme, watchmaker. Gibbs and Harrison witnessed the assault. The same day we have the recognizances of Robert Wallis, watchmaker, John Gibbs, cordwainer and Robert Harrison, constable to bring a charge of assault against William Sleigtholme; another entry records that this was ‘a true bill’, so, in the eyes of the court, the assault did take place.

This is only a sample of what can be found. It’s fun seeing what our ancestors got up to!

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By Peter Roebuck

The Cumbria Local History Federation is a sizeable organisation with over 5,000 members and it operates throughout one of the largest counties in England, whose central core is mountainous. Inevitably, therefore, the Federation faces challenges in regard to access and communication. Recent annual Conventions have been held in Shap (2016), Askam-in-Furness (2017), Newbiggin, near Penrith (2018), and Workington (2019). In 2020 the Convention will be held in Melmerby, on the western flanks of the Pennines. Other activities have also been widely distributed. In the past year groups of members have visited museums at Coniston and Dent, and libraries in Carlisle and Ambleside. In considering its future agenda, the Committee decided to consult the membership more systematically by organising four Cluster Meetings in a single week in June: at Warwick Bridge (north), Cockermouth (west), Appleby (east) and Swarthmoor Hall, near Ulverston (south). The Committee distributed papers on the topics it wished to discuss and asked members to indicate what was uppermost in their minds. Each local group was invited to send two representatives to one of these meetings, whose locations were chosen to maximise participation, though members were free to choose whichever site they preferred. Some 40 of our 60 groups were able to take up our invitation and the outcomes of an intensive week will guide us for some time to come.

For some years now the Federation has published a 'Directory of Speakers': an alphabetical list of individuals willing to address our groups, together with their topics, their requested fees and expenses, and their contact details. Groups have found this very useful when constructing their annual programmes. And since the launch of our new website (www.clhf.org.uk) it has been possible to update the Directory instantly, replacing the previous paper-based revision which took place every two years. Following the Cluster Meetings we have launched a drive to expand the Directory. Local groups have been strongly encouraged to submit recommendations and two Committee members are examining the programmes of other county organisations with a view to contacting speakers not currently listed in the Directory. We are also identifying people who are prepared, in the event of a late cancellation, to speak to groups at short notice.

A couple of years ago we also produced and placed on our website a 'Guide' to the process of booking speakers. There was no desire to regíment the behaviour of our groups, nor could we if we tried. We simply wished to outline what is generally regarded as good practice in everything to do with delivering a successful programme of speakers. The 'Guide' was the subject of lively discussion at the Cluster Meetings, with members keenly aware that many speakers were booked over a year in advance of their talks. Following the current practice of a few groups, it was decided to design a pro forma for general use: this would itemise all aspects of agreed arrangements in each case, acting as an aide memoire for both parties. Members also urged the Committee to provide advice to speakers as to what is expected of them, and made a number of recommendations in this regard. Both items will be incorporated in a review, expansion and re-titling of the current 'Guide'.

For many years we have successfully produced three numbers of our Bulletin each year under the editorship of Committee member, Nigel Mills. This is made available in print form and on-line, and we are seeking ways of developing it further. Our first objective is to begin to separate the gathering of copy from the process of production. This was discussed at the Cluster Meetings, and members from around the county were sought to act as sub-editors, communicating suggestions and/or copy to the Editor. A number of individuals offered to act in this capacity and are currently meeting with the Editor in two groups (north and south) to explore the role and to ensure that all sing from the same hymn sheet.

Although our re-designed website has attracted much favourable comment, it is not as widely consulted as we should like, and not only because some members do not have ready access to the internet. In seeking to remedy this the Meetings agreed that a News Page would be given priority as a fresh development for the site. On another front, each group receives one paper copy and one electronic copy of our Bulletin, but some of these copies are not distributed among their membership. Such problems are best solved via effective communication. In what was perhaps a key decision of the Cluster Meetings it was agreed that each group would provide contact details for two of its members who would liaise as necessary with members of the Federation Committee, the division of responsibility between them being decided by their group. Two contacts should cater for the difficulties that arise periodically due to illness, holidays etc.

From informal contact with groups Committee members knew that many had gathered collections of archival material, and that some had produced publications based on their holdings. We also knew that their situations varied, not only in terms of the material they had accumulated, but also in its nature, the extent of its organisation, where it is stored, the degree of access to it, etc. etc. We also knew that our groups needed professional advice and assistance in these and related matters. This was borne out in correspondence before the Cluster Meetings, so much so that Adrian Allan, a professional archivist on our Commíttee, designed a questionnaire which was completed by interested groups, and which in most cases was returned before the Cluster Meetings. Analysed and tabulated, this material has produced a much clearer picture of the situation of our groups in this regard, and has enabled us to develop policies across our membership to tackle their problems. This exercise seems to have been particularly worthwhile in view of the difficulties faced by archive services during recent years of 'austerity'.

While this was progressing the Federation applied for and achieved charitable status, putting it in a better position to seek external funding for archival projects. We are now at an advanced stage in a funding application which, if successful, will enable us to engage professional assistance in identifying the particular needs of our groups, and leading to workshops in our region. We are in close consultation on this with the Cumbria Archive Service and anticipate that the workshops will be a prominent feature of our forward programme of activities. This is complex business and we will need a measure of good fortune: but we would not have come as far without the Cluster Meetings.

This first phase of response to the Meetings will be followed by a second, which will include actions to publicise the activities of all our groups and, thereby, of the Federation as a whole. A map will be provided on the website of their locations. Following further enquiries, it will also include plans to incorporate a social media presence on the web site. Finally, feedback is strongly in favour of further Cluster Meetings in 2020.

Peter Roebuck is Chairman, CLHF

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By Michael Winstanley

Published by the Lancaster Archaeological and Historical Society, Contrebis began life in 1973 under the Lancaster Archaeological Society, later assisted by the Department of Classics and Archaeology at Lancaster University. It was intended as a short description of local finds. From 1980 however, it expanded to include local history and now consists of 70+ pages and up to ten refereed historical and archaeological articles on anything from prehistory to the twentieth century. All issues have been digitised and indexed and can be downloaded (with the exception of the current year) from the society’s website. http://lahs.archaeologyuk.org/ Contributors include lecturers who have spoken to the society as well as local archaeologists and historians and in the latter context and a group has recently been established with the intention of assisting more members to pursue and publish their own historical research. Archaeology, alas has not been taught at Lancaster University for several decades, but the society has good links with the History department’s Regional Heritage Centre, www.lancaster.ac.uk/regional-heritage-centre/, and with Oxford Archaeology North, the commercial archaeological unit based in Lancaster. https://oxfordarchaeology.com/

But who or what was Contrebis? Roman Inscriptions of Britain https://romaninscriptionsofbritain.org (RIB 600 and 610) describes it as of Celtic origin meaning ‘of those who dwell together’; others have argued it refers specifically to a regional deity of that name. Ialonus, ‘the god of the meadowland’ is found with it on one altar near Lancaster and can also be found in a different context in Provence. But, as various authorities had noted, including Sir Ian Richmond, Contrebis occurs only on the altar near the River Lune near Lancaster and at the Roman fort of Overborough (Burrow). The journal’s original editors adopted it therefore because ‘it may have been the Roman name for Lower Lunesdale’ but they admitted that ‘if our excavations (or anyone else’s) ever reveal the Roman name for Lancaster, we may have to think again!’ We would indeed!!

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By Doug Cox

Horley Local History Society was established in 1952 and, like many other local history groups, our numbers have waxed and waned ever since. We meet on the fourth Thursday evening of each month (though not in August) and try to have an activity meeting in July and a Christmas Party Quiz night in December.

In partnership with Surrey County Council Library service we have, for many years, also run Horley History Centre at our town library where a small group of members are available to help the public with local history questions on Tuesday afternoons and Saturday mornings.

By 2013 the society had reached its lowest ebb with only about 20 members and actually held a meeting specifically to discuss winding up the society. With some difficulty, a nucleus of newer members managed to keep it afloat. A new Committee was formed with a combination of old and new members and efforts were made to put together a programme of talks which would attract local interest. We also established a Facebook presence and began to improve our website, particularly allowing viewers to submit questions about local historical features or family related issues. Our numerous publications were made available via e Bay.

We met in a comfortable local meeting hall which, whilst adequate for our immediate needs, lacked car parking space and was some way from our town centre. In May 2015 this venue was destroyed by fire and we made hasty plans to meet in future at our local Methodist Church hall. This meeting hall was much larger and also had the benefits of being very close to our town centre, having a large car park and also a kitchen area where refreshments could be prepared.

The most immediate effect of this move was that a large number of Church members joined our Society.

Our membership fees have always been very low. We have made a conscious decision that we are not a money making organisation and fees are unchanged for the last 10 years or so at £7 per annum for individual members and £10 for couples. When a new member joins after about August in any year we run their membership through the following year for the one fee. We encourage non members to attend meetings and charge visitors £1 entry fee which we waive if they join up. Fees are important because the vast majority of our members are of pensionable age and cash is tight these days. The charge for our monthly meetings is our major regular expense and we are fortunate that this is just £26.

Having made our local Parish Church the subject of several monthly talks (history and bell-ringing) we also recruited a number of members from their congregation.

When meetings are held we always have a selection of our publications for sale and these bring in a steady income, as does the supply of tea, coffee and choccy biscuits which are free but with a voluntary payment plate.

Many of our e Bay sales are local which are then hand delivered to save postage money and accompanied by a membership form.

Recently we have taken advantage of the 'Nextdoor' neighbourhood App to publicise our presence and our meetings and also place a notice in a local free magazine.

We are fortunate to have the support of Horley Town Council and several local councillors (who tend to know people and how to get things done) have served, and still do, on our committee.

We have managed to feature on local radio on several occasions and our local station kindly publicises our meetings.

The society has also been represented with a stall at our local annual summer Town Carnival and has recruited a good number of members from this source. We also conduct a free annual Town Walk with an illustrated guide book which we sell for £3. This event too, has bought us a steady influx of members.

Our recovery from the nadir of our fortunes in 2013 has resulted in a slow but steady growth rate and as at October 2019 our membership stands at 85 addresses with 105 numerical members. Attendance at monthly meetings varies somewhat depending on the talk subject but is usually between 40 and 60. We are fortunate to have several members who, although they are now quite elderly, have excellent memories and an encyclopaedic knowledge of our local history and between them they usually know the answers to any questions that arise during the questions that invariably follow our meetings.

We still face many challenges to ensure our survival. Our website is still not as we would wish it and we do not have a dedicated webmaster. We have still not, despite many years of searching, found anywhere suitable and affordable to store our archives. The annual programme of talks is always a headache to fill (particularly with essentially LOCAL interest) without incurring extortionate fees. Very few members actually want to contribute time nor effort to the society and much of the hard work falls on the usual few.

Thankfully we are flourishing at present, we are comfortably financially solvent and the programme for 2020 is coming together. Long may it continue.

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The Dugdale Society is marking its centenary with a conference on 16 May 2020 ‘Warwickshire’s changing past’. The guest speaker will be Diarmaid MacCulloch. The society is also awarding three prizes for work on Warwickshire’s history, two for essays (16 – 18 years and over 18) and one for a submission that is not an essay. Further details maybe found at www.dugdale-society.org.uk/centenary.html

Abbots Langley Local History Society celebrated 25 years during 2019, and their winter Journal illustrates the exciting events they organised or took part in, to mark the anniversary. From May to September there was Carnival, Open Day, Exhibition, Parish History Walk and more, plus a splendid birthday cake. It was clearly a year to remember. www.allhs.org.uk

East Midlands Industrial Archaeology Conference on 2 May at the Peak District Mining Museum is on ‘18th and 19th century Metal Mining in the Peak District’. After a morning programme of varied talks, the afternoon will be a visit to Magpie Mine, probably the best example of a 19th century lead line in the UK. North East Derbyshire Industrial Archaeology Society http://nedias.co.uk

Warwickshire Local History Society will be holding its AGM on 17 March, followed by Prof Chris Dyer speaking on ‘Immigrants in Warwickshire: a mobile population 1200 1525’. www.warwickshirehistory.org.uk

Local society programmes never cease to amaze with the variety of topics covered under the label of ‘local history’. Two examples from the current pile on my desk:

Sandwich Local History Society includes the Home Front, a local river the Nailbourne, a neighbouring community and the Glorious Revolution of 1688. www.sandwichlocalhistorysociety.org.uk

Staffordshire Archaeological & Historical Society (actually an e-newsletter, so not strictly in a pile) covers the Lunar Society, West Midlands dialects, the Ice Age and the Palaeolithic, and a Viking mass grave. www.sahs.uk.net

More surprises come from what can be purchased on eBay. Items of local historical interest are reported not infrequently. In a recent issue of Fleet & Crookham Local History Group Newsletter their Chairman describes acquiring two pages of The Building News dated 26 June 1903 with a drawing and plans for new premises of the Capital and Counties Bank Ltd in Fleet.www.fclhg.org.uk

In Smoke Signal, the newsletter of Leckhampton Local History Society, a meeting report includes a discussion of an oral history project which might have wider interest. Dave Abrutat is interviewing former GCHQ staff about their time working there. He can be contacted via the society: editor julieannsharpe@gmail.com

FRAM is the journal of the Framlingham & District Local History & Preservation Society which has reached its 60th issue since 1997. It is a smart publication with a colour cover, and the high-quality articles are well-illustrated and have references. Its predecessor which began in 1968 was more modest but contained significant articles and useful information. Now there is to be another change. The new newsletter/journal will be emailed to members, and paper copies posted to those who need them. It will be produced when there is sufficient content, it can vary in size, and can include colour illustrations, resulting in much more flexibility and reduced printing costs for the Society. www.framlinghamarchive.org.uk

Troon@Ayrshire Family History Society Journal 88 contains an article about Penny Readings, using the local newspaper, The Ardrossan & Saltcoats Herald, reports of these events which provided cheap and wholesome entertainment. On the first evening in February 1869 the chairman was R C Reid Esq (banker and JP) who introduced proceedings in verse, beginning ‘In a sentence or two – short, simple and clear, I shall try to explain to you why we are here; That is - why we’re assembled here, in this hall, with our scheme of amusement for one and for all’. The article describes the readings, varied musical items, and even ventriloquism, and they have identified many of the numerous local people who took part. www.troonayrshirefhs.org.uk

Also demonstrating the overlap between family and local (and other) history is an article in The Midland Ancestor, December 2019. This examines the lives and experience of the wives of British troops ordered abroad during the Napoleonic period. Regulations stated that wives of soldiers were permitted to embark in the proportion of six to one hundred men. Those going were selected by ballot. Others accompanied their men to the port of departure and were given an allowance to make their way home, with a certificate indicating the route they were to take which could be presented to the overseers of the poor on the way. Women with the troops experienced the same conditions as the men, some were injured, many were widowed (and often married another soldier immediately to continue to receive rations). The author, David Clammer, would be interested to know of evidence of these women when they returned home. Some are recognised with impressive memorials in their local churchyard, others needed poor relief or fell into crime. He can be contacted at davidclammer@gmail.com www.midland-ancestors.uk

The Bell at Thames Street, Hampton, has a very long history. Sources that can be used to follow its story are illustrated and explained in an article (the first of a series) in the newsletter of the Borough of Twickenham Local History Society. There is a lease dated 1557, and a trade token from 1669. 18th and early 19th century paintings of the area illustrate The Bell, and the earliest known photograph was taken in about 1855. www.btlhs.co.uk

Health Visitors often played an important part in people’s lives, and were respected members of the community; but how many have roads named after them? The memories of Barbara Reed who served London Colney for over thirty years are written up in The Record, from London Colney Local History Society. ‘Reed Close’ is named in her honour. www.londoncolneyhistory.co.uk

Towcester Racecourse went into administration in August 2018, and in October 2019 when attempts to save it had failed, the meetings were re-arranged and the fixtures sold. Racing began in 1876 by Elizabeth, the Empress of Austria; ‘considerable trouble was taken to exclude those who might lower the tone of a promising social event ... the stewards also insisted that coloured hats and coats, placards, large umbrellas and clogs should not enter the enclosures’. Towcester & District Local History Society www.mkheritage.co.uk/tdlhs

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AIM, the Association of Independent Museums, has published some fascinating statistics calculating the economic impact of the independent museums sector in 2019. For example, there were over 24 million visitors who spent a total of £440 m, of which £290m was off-site, benefitting the local economy and supporting 5,400 full-time-equivalent jobs. Volunteers gave ½ million days’ work, worth £28m. The overall gross economic contribution was calculated to be £730m expenditure, and 17,100 FTE jobs. December 2019. www.aim-museums.co.uk

In the last issue of LHN we mentioned the recipients of AIM Biffa Award ‘History Makers’ funding. The new website is now live, where you can find out more about the lives and achievements of the inspirational ‘history makers’ celebrated by the awards. Your guide is ‘Billie the bulb’! There are useful and fun learning resources linked to STEAM subjects, plus an enjoyable quiz. https://www.history-makers.co.uk/

With the change in the year, a new series of anniversaries appear on the horizon. You will probably not have missed that it is 400 years since the Pilgrim Fathers crossed the Atlantic to North America. They set sail (eventually) in September from Plymouth. In the Spring the new ‘cultural hub’ as the trendy term goes, The Box, will open in Plymouth, housing the Art Gallery, Museum, Plymouth and West Devon Record Office, South West Film and TV Archive, and the Local Studies Library. The city’s gallery and museum have been closed for the redevelopment, and although the focus this year will be on Mayflower exhibitions and activities, it will be good to have the previous collections available again too. https://plymhearts.org/thebox/

There are exciting developments at the Black Country Living Museum. They are working on a new town centre and industrial area to tell the story of the Black Country in from the 1940s to the 1960s. That’s well within living memory of course, so they would like to hear specifically from people who remember the transition to self-service at the Halesowen Co-op; anyone who worked for J H Lavender’s aluminium foundry in Hall Green, West Bromwich, and anyone who lived in their two cast-iron houses in the 1950s, but other memories will be useful too, contact the museum by email collections@bclm.com or phone 0121 557 9643. Further details of the ‘Forging Ahead’ project can be found at bclm.com/forgingahead

Wessex Museums is a partnership between Poole, Dorset (Dorchester), Salisbury and Wiltshire Museum (Devizes). Not for the first time, they have created an exhibition of objects from their collections in a particular theme that will tour around the museums. Their current joint project is on Wessex Women. The items are a Downton lace pillow from Salisbury, a lantern and bonnet that belonged to a ‘knocker-upper’ in Poole before the days of alarm clocks, iron age pots from the Wiltshire Museum excavated by pioneer woman archaeologist Maud Cunnington, and stone sculptures made of Purbeck stone by artist Elizabeth Muntz (1894-1977) who lived in Dorset from the 1920s. #WessexWomen (or search for the websites of the individual museums for the programme)

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The next exhibition at The National Archives opens on 14 February, and runs until 5 July. ‘With Love’ presents 500 years of love letters in what they describe as ‘an intimate exhibition’. There is a programme of associated talks and tours, including at noon on 18 and 20 February (half term?) two sessions of the Time Travel Craft Club, for all ages. https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/about/visit-us/whats-on/

Lancashire Archives is celebrating with an 80th Anniversary Open Day on Sunday 1 March. There will be an exhibition of special treasures from the collections, a tour behind the scenes, local history organisations will be there to offer advice, and Preston Family History Society will hold a family history surgery. This is a free event, and there is no need to book. It is just one of the many events and activities offered during the year, mostly held in Preston, including ‘Getting to know Lancashire Archives; a comprehensive talks programme, and ‘Family History Fridays’. Once a month during the year an archivist will be at local libraries around the county, explaining what the archives contain for that particular local area. Thornton and Cleveleys, 28 Feb; Ingol 16 March; Euxton 2 April; Tarleton 19 May, Eccelston 10 June, Burscough 16 Jul; Freckleton 9 Sept and Oswaldtwistle 12 October Further details can be found at http://www.lancashire.gov.uk/archives

Bedfordshire Archives have announced ‘Weaving Narratives 2020’. This is a repeat of the very successful project in 2016 in which amateur and professional textile artists created pieces of work inspired by the archives. There will be three workshops - on 7 March to introduce the service , 4 April for participants to pursue their own research, and 13 June for people to share and discuss work in progress. Places on the workshops are limited and must be booked in advance, but the project is open to all. Email archive@bedford.gov.uk to register an interest in taking part. www.bedford.gov.uk/archive

Hundreds of years of Hackney’s history will soon be available through an online map thanks to a partnership between local archivists and the University of London.

Members of Friends of Hackney Archives, which supports the work of the borough’s history collection, have been working to digitise more than 300 records. They will be available on the Layers of London map created by the Institute of Historical Research at the University of London. www.hackneyhistory.org www.layersoflondon.org

The archive of Women’s Pioneer Housing (WPH) was deposited at London Metropolitan Archives recently. WPH was founded in 1920. Many women who had lost their husbands in the First World War needed to work to support themselves, but landlords would not rent accommodation to single working women. Meanwhile the loss of domestic servants following the war meant that many large houses in London became vacant and cheap. Etheldred Browning took advantage of this and using money from wealthy benefactors, many of whom were connected with the women’s suffrage movement, she bought some of these houses to convert to low-rent homes for newly-independent working women. WPH remains dedicated to providing homes for single women in London, owning almost 1000 properties in west and north-west London today. www.womenspioneer.co.uk

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Newly established in the Special Collections at the Library of the University of Kent is the UK Philanthropy Archive. This will identify, collect and preserve archives that record the activities of philanthropists, philanthropic trusts and foundations, networks and other related organisations. The material is an essential component in research on the history and current practice of UK philanthropic and charitable giving. A founding donor is Dame Stephanie Shirley. https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/specialcollections/

Institute of Historical Research seminars: the programmes for the winter term seminars at IHR can be found on their website. It is worth searching the extraordinarily wide range of series and topics available. They are free to attend and everyone is welcome. Those of the People, Place and Community (see page 6) series include 12 February ‘Houses, Homes and Histories’, 26 February ‘Dismantling the Monasteries’, 11 March ‘Researching Dub London’ and 25 March ‘Place and Commemoration: a crowdsourced discussion’. https://www.history.ac.uk/search-events-seminar

The next seminars at the Centre for West Midlands History, University of Birmingham will take place on 13 February Rethinking Berkswell: the twelfth century church of St John the Baptist, Berkswell; 12 March Plants, print and patronage: gardening women in the floriferous eighteenth-century; and 2 April Women, Wives and Daughters in a Middle-Class Victorian Suburb: Moseley, Birmingham, 1850-1900. Further details can be found at www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/activity/cwmh/index.aspx

Although the formal education programme of the War Memorials Trust has come to an end, all the resources developed remain available on the website www.learnaboutwarmemorials.org. There are three key sections featuring resources for primary schools, secondary schools and youth groups, with lesson plans and background briefing materials, and suggestions for Assemblies. There are resources on World War I and World War II, and Kent and Sussex have specialist resources due to local projects there. Each section also has a ‘showcase’ area with inspirational stories of getting involved.

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Who and what are we? The Association is an unincorporated charity governed by an elected Council. Its purpose is to encourage and assist the study of local history throughout Great Britain as an academic discipline and as a rewarding leisure pursuit for both individuals and groups. The elected members of Council are the trustees of the Charity. Trustees are listed elsewhere in this report with Officers of the Association and members of the advisory committees. Professor Caroline Barron, the President of BALH, has been a constant source of support for which I am personally very grateful as the recently elected chair of Trustees. Since that appointment in early June, I have also received the encouragement of a splendid group of fellow Trustees, supportive colleagues eager with ideas as to how to promote local history.

What have we done? This past year has seen a successful working relationship with our administrative partner KSAM which body has provided vital support in helping to manage data and procedures relating to finance and membership. The process of creating a more collaborative administrative system for the Association has been answered by several Trustees taking direct responsibility for tasks formerly borne by officers and the chairman. This has been to the financial advantage of BALH. To some extent it has obviated the immediate need for a paid secretary, although this matter remains a subject for further consideration. Two advisory committees, their membership consisting of Trustees and appointed members of the Association, assist the Trustees on Outreach and Education, and on Publishing. Membership of the BALH has been sustained during the year, half the members being societies. Two workshops conducted by Dr Jessica Lutkin for Trustees, chairs of the advisory committees, and officers of the BALH, have been held to produce an action plan for the development of the Association over the next five years. Several new trustees have joined the Board, others have departed, their accession and departure noted in Local History News.

What services are provided? Prominent for members is the Association’s quarterly journal, The Local Historian, and the quarterly Local History News. Both publications provide articles and up-to-date information on the state of local history across Britain and beyond, and point members to good and fruitful practice. Another publication is Reading Early Handwriting, 1500-1700, by Dr Mark Forrest, a substantially revised third edition of a book that continues to be invaluable to anyone working on that period of British history. A further guide is currently in hand to aid researchers interested in pursuing local history in the 1920s-1930s. A most important service offered by the Association is insurance cover for the activities of local history and conjoined societies.

Local History Day held at the Conway Hall, London, in June had a good attendance of members. The day included a lecture by Prof. Krista Cowman on ‘Sites of suffrage’, and the Annual Lecture given by Dr Rose Wallis on ‘The magistracy and the challenge of local government c.1790-1834’.

Awards for personal achievement in the field of local history were made to the following:

Eric Apperley, Cumbria: for ‘tireless and indefatigable’ work over a decade to the Cumbria County History website, contributing a wide range of data on every one of the 348 townships which make up the county.

Neil Clarke, Shropshire: a knowledgeable local historian, founder member of the Broseley Local History Society, who built up the membership to 200 and for many years oversaw a quarterly Newsletter and an Annual Journal. By word, text, and example he has encouraged many to pursue local history.

Joy Hockey, the Wirral, who, now in her nineties, has for decades used her historical skills and architectural knowledge to promote and conserve New Brighton, Wallasey by ‘painstakingly’ researching, recording, and writing on the area.

Michael McGarvie, Somerset: the chronicler of Frome, and for many decades a vital mover in the Frome Society for Local Studies; a major figure in the county’s local history which he has researched, promoted, preserved and recorded in many publications as author and editor.

Rachel Radford, Essex, chair of the Ickleton Society whose influence and fortunes she has advanced over many years, eminently illustrated by the Society’s project on ‘Ickleton and the Great War’ which she initiated, coordinated, promoted, and tenaciously pursued to considerable local acclaim.

The 2019 Award for a society newsletter went to St Albans & Hertfordshire Architectural & Archaeological Society

Awards for Research & Publication were made as follows:

The David Hey Memorial Article Award 2019:

Roger Gilboy, ‘Crisis mortality in Civil War Oxford, 1642-1648’, Oxoniensia vol.82 (2017) 83-104 [winner, long articles]

Long articles shortlisted:

Adam Cartwright, ‘Mowbray and Co. Ltd., brewers of Grantham (1837-1952)’, Lincolnshire History & Archaeology vol.49 (2014) 67-90 [published in 2017 despite apparent date]

Andrew Ford, ‘From beer to bombs: Wethered’s Brewery, Marlow, during World War 1’, Records of Buckinghamshire vol.57 (2017) 177-190

John Hardy, ‘Hidden lives: three Suffolk rectors who found time to read and write’, Suffolk Review new series 70 (Spring 2018) 27-38

Paul Cleave, ‘Gooseberries for the Fleet: the Home Front kitchen in Devon in World War 1’, Devon Historian vol.86 (2017) 93-106 [winner, short articles]

Short articles shortlisted:

Pam Brooke, ‘Death on the Home Front’, Huddersfield Local History Society Journal no.29 (2018-2019) 16-24

Martyn Everett, ‘Revolt in the fields: strike and lockout in South Cambridgeshire and North-west Essex in 1872-74’, Saffron Walden Historical Journal no.34 (Autumn 2017) 2-6

Helena Millen, ‘William Cawley: son of Chichester and regicide’, West Sussex History no.85 (Autumn 2017) 20-22

The Trustees believe that the Association continues to run effectively and according to the constitution and rules of its charitable status. Constant attention is being given to find ways and methods for the Association to function more effectively in reaching a larger constituency of people interested in local history. In all these endeavours the Trustees are grateful to all those who support BALH whether on paid contracts, on committees or as volunteers without whom the Association could not function.

David Killingray

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By David S. Johnson

(North Craven Heritage Trust 2019 ISBN 978-1-9160727-6-3) £9.99

This delightful book is at the same time an affectionate look at the dozens of former inns, taverns, alehouses, hostelries, pubs, beerhouses (so many possible labels!) which dot the Yorkshire Dales, and a serious and properly researched exercise in local history. David Johnson has written extensively on the history of the Dales, including their landscape, local industries, and a fine book about Ingleborough, and his love for the area shines through his work. Time, Please! includes a succinct but comprehensive historical overview and then has four major chapters: ‘Alehouses’, ‘Wayside and Village Inns’, ‘Inns in Market Towns’, and ‘Pubs – the Archetypal “Local”’. This division emphasises the key fact that those were very distinct categories in terms of location, role and function of establishments. The book is lavishly illustrated with excellent colour photographs taken by the author, a few images of historic posters, bills, and some early black and white pictures. There are references, and a useful paragraph on sources.

The historical research is in varying levels of depth, which is occasioned by the circumstance that, as Johnson says of the Plough Inn at High Bentham, the New Inn at Westhouse, and the Cross Keys at Ingleton, many houses are hardly documented, their history is almost unknown, and their very existence was ‘shadowy’. In contrast, some of the inns in truly wild and remote locations, high on the drovers’ roads between the dales, are relatively well documented. I was very pleased to see a quotation from one of my heroes, John Byng, Viscount Torrington, about Gearstones, standing lonely on the long road that leads from Ingleton beside the headwaters of the Ribble and over to Hawes in Wensleydale. In 1792 the splendidly-opinionated Torrington stopped there on a cold and rainy June night ‘which felt like November’ and was disgusted by the company at the inn (‘a seat of misery’) and even more so by the repulsive food – stale boiled pork, fried eggs, wretched beer and brandy ‘to which my hunger was not equal; and from which my delicacy revolted’.

There is a wealth of interest in this modest volume, not least because it documents the fate of the houses. Some are mere heaps of stones or roofless tumbledown ruins beside country lanes or moorland tracks. Many are, perhaps predictably, converted to houses (and a lot of these underwent that change many decades ago, long before the current spate of closure and conversion jobs). Others are shops – the Blue Bell in Richmond market place, a very imposing eighteenth-century building, somewhat ignominiously became Woolworth’s in 1979 but of course that, too, is now history. Others are cafes, guesthouses, or (as with the Ship at Skipton) a candle emporium. Through their destinies we can trace major changes in social and economic life in market town and country alike.

Knowing the area quite well, I thoroughly enjoyed the book – there were quite a few surprises when I said to myself, of a familiar building, “Good lord, yes, of course it does look like a pub, come to think of it” – and I can recommend it for anybody interested in the history and architecture of the Dales, or in drinking establishments past and present. But I also suggest that it might provide a model to be followed by researchers in other parts of the country – after all, there is no shortage of former pubs, inns and alehouses, anywhere from Lands End to John o’Groats. As the book shows, this may be a phenomenon of our own time, but the closure of such places has a long, if not always honourable, history.

ALAN CROSBY

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By Keith Warrender

(Willow Publishing 2019 ISBN 978-0-946361-47-2) £16.95

In the mid-eighteenth century the town of Manchester was architecturally rich in half-timbered buildings dating back to the late medieval period and the sixteenth century. Had it survived with tis character it would now be recognised as a national treasure – black and white multi-storeyed jettied townhouses, narrow winding lanes, and evocative street names (Hanging Ditch, Cateaton Street) would make it the equivalent of Chester or Shrewsbury. But this tightly-packed city centre has suffered a series of hammer blows over the past 150 years – rapacious Victorian property speculators, Edwardian improvers, Adolf Hitler and his Luftwaffe, 1950s’ and 1960s’ redevelopers and merciless town planners, and an IRA mega-bomb in 1996 have wrought wholesale havoc on that historic centre. Among the most destructive of the interventions was the construction, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, of the massive Arndale Centre, the city’s first and largest ‘mall’, a complex of such spectacular ugliness that it soon became a byword for the damage that urban redevelopment could inflict. Quickly christened ‘Europe’s largest public toilet’, because of its hideous tile-cladding, it survived the 1996 bombing and has since had a makeover which renders it rather less ugly but no less dominant.

But what was there before? In this richly-detailed account Keith Warrender looks at the townscape and the history of the vast central area which the Arndale development gobbled up. Dividing it into five separate sub-districts, he explores the intimate world of small lanes, passageways and courts, many dating from the Georgian period of Manchester’s rapid growth; the multitude of small and highly specialised shops and trading outlets which lurked in these narrow lanes, and the extraordinarily rich history of this congested and captivating sector of the city centre. The dozens of pubs and alehouses, the quirkily eccentric shops and cafes (T.B Rushton, Coffee Expert ... the Wishing Well Restaurant ... Greenwood’s Bus Office) are described in loving detail, and all the colour, confusion, chaos and vibrancy of the Edwardian and 1920s’ street scene comes alive.

The book is profusely illustrated with a huge number of superb late Victorian, Edwardian and pre-war black and white photographs, and Keith Warrender has undertaken much historical research to elucidate the history (especially from the nineteenth century) of this warren of lanes, this congested complexity of buildings. A particularly evocative image shows the Seven Stars in Withy Grove, a long rambling structure in many gabled half-timbering, surviving in the very heart of a world city until it was wantonly pulled down in 1911 – cultural vandalism goes back a long way. To those of us who know Manchester (my forebears lived there even before the Seven Stars was built) it’s a book which is haunting and heartbreaking when it reveals what might have been (or rather, what might have survived were it not for developers, planners, Adolf and the IRA). But more generally, it’s an object lesson in demonstrating the way in which an entire townscape, of many historical periods and with powerful historical connections, could simply be obliterated. “Wouldn’t happen now”, we might think ... but Victorian central Manchester is heading the same way – gargantuan tower blocks, urban villages, luxury apartments and boutique hotels are, month by month, year by year, destroying the legacy of the city’s older golden age. Reader, beware!

ALAN CROSBY

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White horses cut in the chalk of the Wiltshire Downs, the military badges at Fovant in the same county, and the Cerne Abbas Giant in Dorset are well-known, but not far away is a kiwi, carved in 1919 by soldiers of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force awaiting repatriation ......

New Zealand: Bateman Publishing

ISBN 9781869539849

176 pages, paperback, includes index

The Kiwi story can be seen as a voyage of discovery, both for the author and for others who have been touched by the emblem and its place in history. Readers will be taken on a journey back to discover the causes for the emblem’s creation; political and personal.

The difficulties facing the New Zealand troops who were so very far from home during WWI and after are laid bare. There were also the practicalities of caring for the Kiwi as time passed. The role of the British Army, the New Zealand Government and the Kiwi Polishing Company are examined alongside the personal stories of the soldiers themselves, written home at the time. Disease, illness and an exacting military regime also had their part to play in the events that unfolded.

The Kiwi is an emblem forged of frustration and despair, cut into the landscape for the memory of those who had been lost. The author has shown that its future has been secured due to the respect and honour for those it stood for, who had already sacrificed so much.

The illustrations are interesting and well placed and the story is a good mix of factual data, interwoven with personal stories. It will prove particularly interesting to those who have seen the emblem and would like to find out more about its history and legacy, and to anyone interested in the history of the area and the part it played in WWI.

A captivating read.

Copies of The Bulford Kiwi are available at the Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre and Salisbury Library, kindly donated by Collen Brown herself.

Julie Davis is County Local Studies Librarian

Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre

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Our Irish correspondent, James Scannell, sends us regular updates on what’s happening in Irish local history. I’m afraid that I have been negligent in passing these on to Local History News, but here is a review of the last twelve months. Many thanks to James who, now retired, is kept busier than ever with his work for a number of local history societies in Dublin and Wicklow. We very much appreciate our link with him and with Ireland’s dynamic and lively local history scene. I’ve edited James’s reports – any mistakes are mine and so are the comments! (Alan Crosby)

Prestigious connections

One of the great things about local history in Ireland is that there’s a genuine interest and enthusiasm for the subject on the part of local and national politicians, who really value heritage and the discovery of the past. This was exemplified in Autumn 2018 when Dublin City Archives announced that it was again offering two life-long learning courses – the Lord Mayor’s Certificate in Oral History and the Lord Mayor’s Certificate in Local Studies. The previous year’s courses were fully booked almost immediately. How fantastic that these initiatives have the personal endorsement of the lord mayor.

A local history society lecture series

Rathmichael Local History Society held its annual lecture series in August 2018, looking at aspects of the medieval church in Ireland – an ambitious and richly rewarding subject. Evening lectures were given over a one week period, covering ‘The Abbey of St. Thomas’; ‘A Most Cruel Devastation: The Viking Impact Reassessed’; ‘Carrying the Holy Relics, Reliquaries and Insignia in the early Irish Church’; ‘The Chapter House of St. Mary’s Abbey: Dublin Oldest Building?’; and ‘Sacred Places, Sacred Spaces: The Churchyard and Church in Medieval Ireland’. Maybe this is an idea that local history societies in Great Britain might consider?

The 2019 summer series focused on medieval and early modern Irish cities, with lectures on ‘The Treasures of Medieval Waterford’, ‘The Castle and Medieval Town and Later City of Kilkenny’, ‘Murder and Mayhem in Medieval Cork’, ‘Limerick: City of Sieges and a Broken Treaty’, and ‘Renaissance Galway: Conversations with a Map’.

National Heritage Week 2018

There was a very large and varied programme of events and activities in the last week of August for National Heritage Week. Topics and events which James noted included his own lecture to the Bray Cualann Historical Society, Co. Wicklow, on ‘August 18th to August 26th 1918 in Bray’, and a follow-up 90 minute ‘Victorian Bray Walking Tour’. The Society also hosted a presentation on ‘A 400 Year Social History of Kilruddery and the Brabazon Family’ in the library of Kilruddery House, Bray: Brabazon is the family name of Lord Meath whose family have been resident in Kilruddery House for over 400 years. The Old Dublin Society presented two talks - ‘The Life and Times of Lundy Foot & Co, Tobacco Manufacturers’ and ‘An August 1922 Shankill Civil War Incident’. Alice Cullen of the Dun Laoghaire Borough Historical Society led an evening ‘Dalkey Town & Coastal Walk’ and in Dublin City the Liberties Cultural Association and the Dublin Inner City Folklore Group both held a week-long series of walks and talks. So successful were all these activities and many others that, as James noted, the number of events increases each year and the programme becomes very crowded, but despite requests from a large number of organisations to extend Heritage Week to a fortnight the government department which co-ordinates it insists that it should stay as one week.

Travellers

In 2017 the Irish Government formally recognised that Irish Travellers (gypsies) were a distinct ethnic group and in August 2018 Meath Travellers Workshops Ltd presented a ‘real’ picture of Irish Traveller life in the 1950s, at which visitors saw a fully restored barrel-top wagon, a traditional tent, a flat cart, a working tin-smith, storytelling Traveller women and a camp-fire.

Heritage at night

Friday 21 September 2018 was ‘Culture Night’, when numerous events took place all over Dublin City and suburbs from 5 pm, with institutions not normally accessible to the public opening their doors for this event and many providing conducted tours of their premises, all of which were free. Due to the increasing popularity of this annual one-night event, pre-booking was generally required. In 2019 the event, now 14 years old, took place on 20 September. It’s a night of tours, talks and entertainment with many venues staying open as late as 10pm. It’s also a night of queues, and on line booking in order to control numbers is now essential. In Dublin City alone there were at least 300 venues open to the public for that night. Maybe this is another idea to consider in this country?

A celebrated librarian

In September 2018 Michael Kelleher retired after more than 40 years’ service with Bray Library, part of the County Wicklow Library Service. Originally from Co. Clare, Michael joined Bray Library in the 1970s and due to his phenomenal knowledge acquired the nickname of ‘Mick the Book’ – he was often was able queries more quickly than Google. He was always extremely helpful to those who sought his assistance, no matter how trivial the inquiry, and due to his exceptional memory and knowledge he was a sought after member for those taking part in quizzes! Such was his reputation that on retirement he was interviewed on ‘Morning Ireland’, a daily national news programme broadcast by RTE Radio 1; in October was given a civic reception by the Bray District Municipal Council; and in November received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Bray Chamber of Commerce. .

In peace and war

At Balbriggan, north of Dublin, the local historical society commemorated events in peace and war. In October 2018 they held an exhibition, entitled ‘Balbriggan: People and Places 1893 Photographic Exhibition’, which focused on a unique photographic collection of the people and places of Balbriggan taken in 1893 by Lewis Whyte, amateur photographer and managing director at Smyco factory on Railway Street. Many of the photographs were taken on a single day and captured the people and familiar places of this town.

Less than thirty years later, Ireland was at war. In September 1920, in one of the most notorious episodes in the War of Independence, Balbriggan was sacked by the Black and Tans. Planning for the commemoration of this event is well in hand, emphasising that it should be in an ‘an appropriate and inclusive manner’. This crucial event in the town's history involved the shooting dead of a Royal Irish Constabulary officer, Peter Burke, and the wounding of another. This prompted the subsequent havoc wreaked on the town and its inhabitants by the Black and Tans. Numerous houses, a factory and several business premises in the town were destroyed, and hundreds of people were forced to sleep outdoors for several nights in fear of their lives. The night of terror on 20 September 1920 culminated in the brutal murder of two local men, James Lawless and John Gibbons, by the Black and Tans. In the weeks leading up to September 2020, Sack-related historical walks of the town will be organised. In co-operation with local businesses and Fingal County Council, the Balbriggan & District Historical Society intends to organise a photographic exhibition to be displayed in the streets and in local businesses throughout the town, to hold seminars, and to publish a book on the events of September 1920.

Historian and journalist Ronan McGreevy presented a ‘Goodbye to all that - Ireland and the end of the First World War’ in the Museum of Country Life, Turlough Park, Castlebar, Co. Mayo, on Sunday 4 November. The guns fell silent on the Western Front on 11 November 1918, and McGreevy told the story of the armistice from an Irish perspective, recalling those many Irishmen who lost their lives in the last days of the First World War. Many other events around the country included a Centenary Week lecture series held by Dublin City Library & Archives. On Saturday 17 November the 2018 Annual Military History Lecture at the National Museum centred on the 220th anniversary of the 1798 Rebellion. Historian and author Damian Shiels gave a talk on recent research and findings on the Vinegar Hill battlefield in County Wexford; the event also featured new research from the Centre for Military History and Strategic Studies at NUI (National University of Ireland) Maynooth, relating to ‘Irish Soldiers in Wellington's Army’.

Restoration Dublin

Dublin City Council held a day event entitled, ‘Living in Restoration Dublin, 1660- 1685’, in the Council Chamber of City Hall. Lectures included ‘The First Duke of Ormond and the development of Restoration Dublin’; ‘A Developer, Lord Mayor of Dublin and a bit of a Rogue!’; ‘Living and dying in Restoration Dublin: the strange death of Alderman Mark Quinn, 1674’; ‘Restoring Restoration Dublin - saving the survivors’; and a visit to Smock Alley, Dublin’s 17th century theatre.

The First Dáil

On 17 January a series of talks, ‘Marching on the Road to Freedom - Reflections on a Centenary’, was held in the Museum of Decorative Arts and History, Collins Barracks, Dublin, to mark the centenary of the First Dáil. A broad range of historians and curators explored and reflected on this momentous period in the development of modern Ireland. The event was followed by a reception to launch a new exhibition of artefacts from the Museum's collection associated with the First Dáil, including the Seal of the first and second Dáil and an admittance ticket for the first meeting of Dáil Éireann, 21 January 1919.

Local History Society Day and ‘Practicing Public History: An Introduction’

This annual event was hosted by Dublin City Library and Archive on 23 March 2019. A very wide-ranging programme included talks on ‘Theft and pawnbroking of clothing in 19th Century Ireland’, ‘The Donnybrook Millrace’, ‘Sarah Cecilia Harrison’, ‘The loss of ‘The Edmond’ off the Clare coast in 1850’, ‘The Dublin butcher in the 20th Century’, ‘Dublin’s Fruit and Vegetable Market’, ‘Josephine Heffernan, a World War One Nurse’, ‘Captain Flora Sandes: an Irishwoman in the Serbian Army in World War One’, and ‘If Unsure – Ask: a Brief History of the Great Northern Railway (Ireland) 1876 -1958’

On 22 June a workshop entitled ‘Practicing Public History: An Introduction’ was held by Dublin City Library and Archive, co-organised with the Irish Association of Professional Historians. There were two sessions and six speakers, and the themes were: ‘When is an archivist your best friend? Sharing the Military Service (1916 -1923) Pensions Collection with the Public’ [Cécile Gordon, senior archivist and project manager, Irish Military Archives]; ‘Why should you recreate history? Using Living History as a means to popularise history and historic material culture’ [Dave Swift, archaeologist and founder of the living history and military heritage group Claíomh]; ‘How should you read a headstone? Simple techniques for reading headstones, searching graveyards and using them for historic purposes’ [John Tierney, archaeologist and co-founder of the Historic Graves Project]; ‘A case study of exhibitions on psychiatric hospitals and prisoners’ rights’ [Oisín Wall, historian and curator at the Centre for the History of Medicine in Ireland, UCD]; ‘What do we do when faced with difficult subjects?’ [Orla Egan, archivist Cork LGBT archive]; ‘Who can be included in Public History? Challenging traditional history through community history and historians’ [Tara Doyle and Mary Muldowney, Historian in Residence Programme, Dublin City Council]; and ‘Where does Dublin City Council fit in to Public History? Historians in Residence in Dublin city: a unique public history project’.

Cream Crackers

An unusual event was held at Dublin City Library & Archives on 24 August – a seminar on ‘Jacob’s Factory and Dublin Design’. Talks included: ‘The History of Jacob’s Biscuits: an overview’; ‘Harold Jacob, Harry Clarke and John Keats’s The Eve of St. Agnes’ (and then a coffee break at which, naturally, Jacob’s biscuits were served!); and ‘Design and the packaging of Jacob’s Products’.

New phases in Irish history

As the nation’s decade of centenaries (1912-1922) moves towards it close, attention is turning to the interwar period. In September the Greystones Archaeological and Historical Society held a weekend conference on the theme of ‘Ireland Through the Turbulent 30s’. Talks considered topics such as ‘Franco’s Irish Volunteers’, ‘The 30s and De Valera’, ‘Widows and Daughters in Dáil Éireann, and ‘Ireland’s View of Fascism & Communism’

Dublin played a central role in the War of Independence (1919-1921) and Dublin City Libraries held an exhibition to tell the story of this conflict in the capital. Dublin was the seat of the British administration in Ireland and had a heavy police and military presence. It was vital that the Irish Volunteers contested control of the city and demonstrated that British control over Ireland was loosening. Using contemporary photographs, newspapers and film, the exhibition charted the origins of the conflict and narrated the ambushes, raids and lost lives during this deadly war. A period Black and Tan uniform was included in the display.

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By Alan Crosby

Back in 1990 the rector of Preston wrote one of his weekly articles in the Lancashire Evening Post. They were usually about topical events in the town but this was headed ‘History is profitable bunk’, and the second paragraph made the startling claim that ‘local history booms, and has become a goldmine for anyone prepared to mine it. Go into any bookshop, and you will see shelves of the stuff, paper-backed goodies on anything from A Brief History of Bog Street Swimming Baths, 1900-1980 to Rope Lane In The Blitz. And the punters are lining up to part with their money’.

He commented that much of what was published didn’t reveal ‘great literary skills, just the ability to stick a few sentences together in logical order, and bung in a few old photographs to add tone to the production. If you can get the Mayor or Lady Claptrap to write a few glossy preface words [sic], this will ensure the writer is laughing all the way to the bank’.

The Reverend Dr Higgins also analysed the ‘four types who churn it out’. Type 1 was ‘the honest housewife or DIY scribbler with no training in history, who merely want to spin a few yarns about their childhood or local area’; type 2 ‘the learned local historians, steeped in the facts and figures of the past, probably beavering away in some local museum or archives ... Every town has its historical walking encyclopaedia’. Type 3, however, was ‘much more unpleasant, the historical entrepreneur, out to line his pockets’. The rector reminisced, not fondly, that when he worked in Somerset ‘a young man fresh from Oxford University arrived in the town, smooth and oily of manner. He rapidly turned out glossy local history by the cart-load, cornered the market, and a few years later bought a large Georgian country house out of the proceeds. His type invades many areas, and makes a swift fortune’.

Then there’s type 4, and I hope that is me? Type 4 ‘is much less common. He is the Real McCoy of your local history scene, who produces weighty books rather than booklets. A professional historian, he relates local trends and changes to the broad sweep of English history. His research takes time, and he writes it up with literary skill’. Ah yes, a perfect description of Alan - a scholar, with a sense of context and an ability to express concepts and ideas with literary skill.

But what of the rewards – where is my pot of gold, where are my riches, what happened to my ‘swift fortune’? Alas, that never materialised – indeed, just before the rector wrote that piece, thirty years ago, I gave a couple of very well attended lunchtime talks at the parish church, commissioned by him and on the subject of the religious history of Preston from the medieval period to the 19th century. There was no charge to ‘the punters’ and no fee to the speaker! Penury began early ...

... or, I wonder, dare I reveal to you that in truth I’m writing this endpiece enjoying the late autumn view towards the campanile of the Palazzo Publico in Siena, sitting in the loggia of the Tuscan villa which I bought with the proceeds of A History of Woking (1982). I’m enjoying a few glasses of the fine vintage wines which were a tiny fraction of the reward for A History of Lancashire (1998)? I came to Italy on my yacht, purchased after A History of Warrington was such a sensational bestseller for most of 2003, but I’ll be flying home in the private jet, which in honour of the fountain of riches which allowed me to acquire it is named ‘Piety and charity 1480-1580: the evidence of probate records from four Surrey parishes’. A team of accountants works overtime to maintain my finances in good order, and the large Georgian country house awaits me on my return. Fortunately the servants will have kept it trim and manicured in my absence. Ah, how I relish the filthy lucre which is the reward of local history.

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I have been a member of BALH since about 1993 when I began studying for a Certificate in Local History with the Institute of Continuing Education at the University of Cambridge. For some years I was a member of BALH’s Education Committee (now Outreach Committee) as I am a tutor in local and social history for the Department of Continuing Education at the University of Oxford and for the Institute at Cambridge.

As Secretary of the Hertfordshire Record Society I have also been involved in local history publishing for more than 20 years. I think it is important that local history publications not only appeal to the people who live locally but are also of use to historians and researchers of the particular topics that are part and parcel of those local studies.

I am chairman of the Rickmansworth Historical Society and editor of the Rickmansworth Historical Review, and also work as the Editors' Assistant for the Economic History Review.

My main historical interest is social unrest in the early modern period. My PhD thesis was ‘Custom, resistance and politics: local experiences of improvement in early modern England’ (University of Warwick, 2007). I have published a number of articles based on various aspects of my thesis in a range of academic journals and in three edited collections of essays. I have also edited a late-eighteenth century cookery book, The receipt book of Baroness Elizabeth Dimsdale, c.1800 (Hertfordshire Record Society, 2013) and co-edited several other record society volumes including, with Michael Zell, Walter Morrell’s ‘Manufacture for the New Draperie’ (1616) (Hertfordshire Record Society, 2018) and with Peter Northeast, Wills of the Archdeaconry of Sudbury, 1439-1474: Wills from the Register ‘Baldwyne’, Part II: 1461-1474 (Suffolk Records Society, 2010). I am currently editing for publication a series of letters written by members of the family of Humphry Repton, the landscape gardener. Thus, although an early modernist at heart, my historical interests range from the late fifteenth century to the early nineteenth century.

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Reviews Editor

Welcome Heather Falvey as our new reviews editor. Heather introduces herself to members on page 34 opposite.

BALH Regional Conference in Taunton

We hope to see many of our members and friends in the south-west (and beyond) on 21 March for ‘Unexpected Sources for Local History’, the Association’s latest regional conference. Please bring your friends and family, and spread the word about this special event to your neighbours, colleagues and fellow members of local history societies. Further information can be found on page 23.

CORRECTION:

Apologies for the error in Bill Dean-Myatt’s email address on page 8 of Local History News 133 it should read wdm@scottishdiscography.co.uk

Website

Have you explored our new website? If not, please do so. There is much of interest and value. Contributions from members are welcome. If you are a society please make sure your group is included in the Society Directory

Recently added is the valuable resource for member societies created by Cumbria Local History Federation – ‘A Guide to Good Practice in delivering a programme of speakers’. We are very grateful to the CLHF for sharing this with our members. You can find it under ‘Resources’.

LHN is on the website in full each quarter– so please share it with your friends and encourage them to join.

Booking for events such as the Taunton Regional conference and Local History Day can be done through the website. Our publications are available to purchase and you can buy back hard copies of TLH and LHN.

Congratulations

We were delighted to hear that Michael McGarvie was given a British Empire Medal in the New Year Honours. The citation is ‘for services to local history in Frome, Somerset’. Mr McGarvie was a BALH Award recipient last year, and his profile appeared in LHN 133.

‘For services to local history’ is also the citation for the MBE awarded to David Youle from Devon. He spearheaded a major project to restore the Church House (Grade II* listed) medieval building in South Tawton Dartmoor. It is now a vibrant, multi-functional venue which provides a focus for the community and a significant visitor attraction.

Help wanted at Poole

Dorset Family History Society is holding a Family History Day on Saturday 21 March at Parkstone Grammar School in Poole BH17 7EP. One of the guest speakers is Dr Janet Few, a well-known local and family historian. BALH would like to have a presence there but need a volunteer or two – is there anyone who would consider doing this, or perhaps you know an organisation that is already going and would be prepared to have some BALH materials on their table? Please contact Gill Draper with any suggestions by email: development@balh.org.uk

Local History Day 2020

We hope 6 June is in your diary for Local History Day in London next summer. The booking form is in the Supplement here, and on the website. The Agenda for the 2020 AGM, Minutes from last year and the Trustees’ Report for 2019 are also in this issue.

Look out for events and activities near you:

February is LGBT History Month https://lgbthistorymonth.org.uk

March is Women’s History Month www.womenshistorymonth.org.uk

And advance notice – Festival of Archaeology will take place 11 -26 July,

and October is Black History Month www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk

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