Local History News Number 135 Spring 2020

By Rachel Radford*

My interest in local history is relatively recent. I read chemistry at university, went on to teach science and then joined the Civil Service, ending my career as a Senior Civil Servant working in HMRC in Whitehall. After living in Cambridge for many years, my husband and I moved to Ickleton some 11 miles from Cambridge in 2002. Ickleton is a village of some 700 people and has an active village society – the Ickleton Society. Keen to get involved in village life, I joined the Society and became a Committee member in 2003. The Society has three roles:

Encouraging high standards of planning in the village and surrounding area; monitoring and commenting on planning applications and major developments that could adversely affect the village;

Encouraging an interest in the history of the village and maintaining the village archive; and

Organising a wide range of social activities.

I was quickly introduced to the village archive of old photographs and documents of and about the village and villagers which was housed in a 4 drawer filing cabinet in the Village Hall. This sparked my interest and I gradually became more involved in collecting items for the archive, helping to digitise the photographs and make them available via the village website and at village events. I also became more involved in running the Society, first as Secretary and then, in 2014, becoming Chairman.

During this time the Committee has very successfully increased local interest in the archive and the history of the village. We have received many donations of photos, documents, audio and video recordings, including several from overseas, as well as having added to it ourselves as a result of researching sources including the various County Record Offices, English Heritage (as was), items held in libraries and archives such as Cambridge University and those at Cambridge Colleges. We also took the decision to include photographs of current village events so it is a living archive which will be there for future generations. Our archive now occupies nearly 20 metres of shelf space.

Over recent years, we have:

put on regular displays of items from the archive;

held ‘Ickleton Past and Present’ and ‘Show and Tell’ events;

hosted talks by local historians;

transcribed and published a book of newspaper articles about the village from 1777 onwards;

created a database of people who have lived in the village to aid people researching their family histories;

started work looking at how local fields and tracks have changed pre and post enclosure by researching the medieval terriers, deeds, enclosure documents, pre and post enclosure maps;

worked with a local group of geophysical researchers to look for remains of a small abbey that was in the village. Last year another group undertook an archaeological dig at the site which will continue this summer;

worked with the Portable Antiquities Scheme to identify and record artefacts in our collection;

converted an old telephone box in the village into a mini exhibition space; and

researched the history of approximately 200 people who contributed to the war effort in the First World War, published a book about them and held an exhibition.

Ickleton and the Great War

This started with the idea of researching the history of the 16 Ickleton men who died in the war and are commemorated on our war memorial, aiming to publish a booklet about them. One member of our Committee started work on this but after a while, I felt it was important to record the lives of the men who had fought and returned from the war as well. We also knew that there had been a small Red Cross Hospital in the village and we had a number of photographs of patients and local VAD nurses. I got in touch with the Red Cross who gave me the records of a few of the VADs and told me they were going to publish all the VAD records on their website beginning in late 2014. As they came online, I downloaded them. Then in early 2016 came more information when two albums of photographs of the Ickleton Red Cross Hospital came up for auction on eBay. With the help of residents, we successfully bid for them. It transpired that they had been taken by one of the VAD nurses from the village who had gone on to serve overseas, and some of the patients and nurses were named on the photos.

I researched some 200 people in all – men who had gone to war, women who had served as nurses overseas and in the UK, the VAD nurses and many other villagers who volunteered at the Ickleton Red Cross hospital. I identified photographs we had of those people in our archive. I also found newspaper articles which showed the extent of support for the men serving in the forces and for the hospital amongst the local community – fund raising activities, entertainments for patients, knitting of clothing and collecting of eggs by children of the village school. Meanwhile, the person who started the original work about the men who died in the war, had sadly died and that part of the project was eventually taken over by a new member, Glynis Hammond. Periodically we updated our members and the village on what we were doing and this resulted in more information and photographs and other items being given or loaned to us.

We agreed that we should aim to publish in November 2018 to commemorate the centenary of the end of the Great War. This now seemed ambitious as the project had expanded so much. I set about drafting the book, adding general background information about the village, the war, the forces, the treatment of the wounded, the Red Cross hospitals and so on, illustrating it with the photographs I had collected and others I had found and obtained permission to use. I merged in the material Glynis had put together and then Glynis, who is much more artistic that me, came up with ideas to design the book to make it more interesting for the reader. Other members of the Committee did proof reading for us. The result was a book of 240 pages with photographs or other illustrations on virtually every page and set out in such a way that it can be dipped in and out of at leisure.

As we began to see what the end result was going to look like, I thought it would be good to give free copies to any household in the village that wanted one, and to descendants of people in the book. I successfully applied for grants from South Cambridgeshire District Council and the Wellcome Genome Campus (which is partly in Ickleton parish) which paid to print 200 copies of the book. I also successfully applied to receive 10 ‘There But Not There’ Perspex Tommies funded by the Armed Forces Covenant. On Saturday 10 November, with the whole Committee involved, we held a day long exhibition in the Village Hall with displays of hundreds of photographs, documents, maps and other memorabilia relating to Ickleton and its inhabitants in the Great War. We gave out and also sold copies of the book and at one point, villagers read a number of war poems. Over 500 people came to the exhibition and afterwards we received many congratulations and comments about how much people had learnt from the book and exhibition.

Rachel, as seen by others:

‘Besides being a joy to work with, I would describe Rachel in two words – exacting and tenacious. Her interpersonal skills are exemplary ... Under her leadership she has expanded not just the archive but also the relevance of the society within our village and the wider community. I would be delighted if Rachel received recognition for her enthusiasm and commitment to keeping the history of the village alive for all generations’

*Readers will notice that the ‘profile’ of an award recipient in this issue is slightly different, and longer, than normal. My usual approach is to ask the person concerned to send me some notes, and to incorporate them with the information in the award nomination form and the details supplied by the two referees. On this occasion Rachel’s ‘notes’ were so comprehensive that it seems a waste not to use them. And because it provides a valuable example of both how a First World War project was done, and how the local society works, I have scarcely cut the length. In fact I have added the final paragraph to include brief comments by referees, who clearly appreciate Rachel’s qualities.

With thanks to Rachel Radford, Fiona Rose, Sian Wombwell and Glynis Hammond.

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A History of English Places

Have you discovered the brand new smartphone app from the Victoria County History: A History of English Places?

The History of English Places is a map-based smartphone app for discovering the rich history of places in England. Information is drawn from the Topographical Dictionary of England (Lewis, 1848) and the place-by-place histories of the Victoria County History (VCH), published between 1901 and the present day.

In the free version you can navigate the historical first-ever edition of the Ordnance Survey map and use the location pins to explore the 13,713 short nineteenth-century descriptions of England’s villages, towns and cities.

A monthly or annual subscription (£1.99/month; £9.99/year) is available that allows access to detailed entries taken from 175 volumes of histories produced by the Victoria County History project. For the first time, you can explore the rich, detailed histories produced by the VCH in their geographical context, and discover the past of places around you when you’re out and about. The app can recognise your location and show the histories of places near you. Whether you’re interested in family history, house history, local history, or learning more about historic places as a visitor, the English Places app can help and inform.

This is a really exciting new venture for the VCH, exploring alternative ways for sharing our content, and expanding our users and audiences. We’re really keen to hear your feedback, or for you to tweet a photo of yourself using the app, with the hashtag #MyHOEP (‘My History of English Places’). We’d love to know how you use it, whether church-crawling, rambling, or out researching your local place.

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By Catherine Clark

The Victoria County History of England is well known to most UK local historians – its rows of handsome Red Books a familiar sight on library shelves. Founded in 1899 and dedicated to Queen Victoria, the VCH is an ongoing national project to write the history of every county in England, from the earliest times to the present. And 2019 saw the 120th birthday of this venerable project – the inspiration for a special ‘VCH Red Boxes’ project, bringing together counties and communities across England.

In 2019, taking inspiration from the iconic VCH Red Books, we sent a specially-customised VCH Red Box to every active VCH county in England, inviting each county to fill their box with objects which told their story in quirky, imaginative and surprising ways. It was an interesting challenge: how to tell the history of your county in a collection of objects which could fit in an A4 box file?

Counties across England rose to the challenge brilliantly, working with local individuals and groups to invite ideas, source objects – often with meaningful personal connections – and share their stories. In Wiltshire, the Wiltshire VCH and Chippenham Museum worked together to co-ordinate the participation of other museums across the county. In Leicestershire, the local VCH Trust revealed each one of their items on social media, with a fascinating interpretative thread. And in Norfolk – not currently an active VCH county – a group of local historians determined to get in on the act, involving a wide range of participants from academics, to Norfolk Museums, to the brilliant ‘Rosie’s Plaques’ project.

Opening the Red Boxes here at VCH Central Office was like Christmas! Fascinating objects ranged from a miner carved in coal (County Durham), a tie which can only be worn by pilots who have used their ejector seat in action (Oxfordshire), and the sheet music for Eric Coates’ Dambusters March, stamped as property of the Boots Orchestra (Nottinghamshire; most of us know the Notts origins of Boots the Chemist, but perhaps not of the composer!). Other intriguing objects included musket balls from Oliver Cromwell’s siege of Basing House, Hampshire: one flattened, where it had fired and hit the walls, the other still round, where it had rolled out of a musket barrel after a nervous soldier hadn’t loaded it properly. Counties shared plenty of food, from a Melton Mowbray pork pie to Maldon Sea Salt. And the rich, multicultural history of England’s counties was represented in stunning sari fabric from Leicester, and a Kathak jewellery set from Middlesex.

The items – from fifteen counties – were displayed at the IHR in a special exhibition, and remain in a permanent online gallery on the IHR website (https://www.history.ac.uk/research/centre-history-people-place-and-community/chppc-red-boxes-gallery).

The Red Boxes project was a great way of opening up VCH research and stories to new audiences, and involving new people in our project. Many counties now have plans to take their Red Boxes and micro-collections ‘on tour’ to local schools and community groups, or to stage touring exhibitions at local museums and archives. The project really brought to life the wider relevance of the VCH today, in its 120th year. The VCH has always been a public history project – even, in many ways, a crowd-sourced history project – even if those terms weren’t in the vocabulary of its nineteenth-century founders. Writing history will always be at the heart of what we do – but there are many other new and imaginative ways to tell our stories, and connect with our communities, too.

With thanks to all those involved.

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By Stephen Roberts

Malcolm Chase wrote about the radicals of nineteenth century Britain with style, sympathy, immense knowledge, deep reflection and, ultimately, great authority for more than thirty years. For historians of Chartism the absence of a comprehensive, reliable and fair-minded narrative history of the movement was an issue that had long needed addressing. With its rich manuscript and printed sources and a vast secondary literature, taking on the task was a huge undertaking. We could have asked for no one better placed than Malcolm to rise to the challenge. I remember chatting with him about his approach at a Chartism Day in Dodford in 1999 and, eight years later, the book was published. Chartism: A New History (Manchester, 2007) is a superb synthesis – one, readers of this magazine who have consulted it will know, is strongly underpinned by local studies. The book is of such a high standard that no one need ever write another one-volume history of Chartism.

I first met Malcolm at a History Workshop in Leicester in 1984. Our shared interest in the Chartists meant that we stayed in touch, and he was a strong supporter of the annual Chartism Days that I organised at the University of Birmingham from the mid-1990s. Indeed I remember he invariably arrived earlier than I did – and I lived just a few miles away! It is fair to say that – though he also wrote extensively about the past from a national perspective and held a chair in social history at the University of Leeds – his work was founded in adult education and local history. In 1982 he had secured a post teaching in the adult education department of the University of Leeds at Middlesbrough. Just a few years ago he made clear to me how fondly he remembered teaching adults. A stream of articles about Teesside began, amongst them an article about the Chartist Land Plan in The Local Historian in 1988. Malcolm’s engagement with local history extended beyond writing about it – he also took on editorial and management responsibilities for journals published in the north of England.

Malcolm was always a highly productive scholar. When I assembled Annotated Bibliography of Chartism 1995-2018, I listed no fewer than nineteen essays and three books written by Malcolm - as well as his much-prized ownership of two letters relating to the great Chartist demonstration of 1848. His final article, published in the English Historical Review in 2018, revealed that Robert Kemp Philp, a Bath Chartist and author, also enjoyed a secret career as a racecourse bookie! It was an article that summed up Malcolm’s rare ability to make reading articles in scholarly journals an enjoyable experience.

Malcolm was always generous in sharing material he had gathered. When I was writing up the editor of the Northern Star the Revd. William Hill for the latest volume of the Dictionary of Labour Biography, he sent me photocopies of his own notes. Offprints of his articles were also always despatched to me. I was always pleased to see an email in my inbox from Malcolm and always knew that I would enjoy reading it. His final words were invariably the same and say a lot about him: ‘I hope you are thriving.’

Stephen Roberts is Hon Ass Prof Australian National University.

Malcolm Chase gave the BALH annual lecture at Local History Day in 2013 and it was reprinted in TLH Oct 2013 Vol 43:4

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By Lowis Lovell and Rhian Diggins

On the Road!

The Motorway Archive Trust Collection at Glamorgan Archives

Glamorgan Archives was honoured to receive, in 2019, the John Armstrong Award for Transport Archives to fund the cataloguing of the Motorway Archive Trust collection for Wales.

Professor John Armstrong was one of the most significant transport historians of his generation. Professor of Business History at Thames Valley University, his interests ranged across transport history, including railways, urban buses and road transport, but his specialism was the study of coastal shipping, on which he published several notable works. A founding member of the Transport History Group in the 1970s, he convened the British Commission for Maritime History’s highly respected seminar series, and for over a decade was Editor of the Journal of Transport History.

The Motorway Archive Trust

The Motorway Archive Trust was established in 1999 with the aim of advancing public education by acquiring and making available at local and national repositories archives relating to the creation of the British motorway network. The Trust developed from the suggestion of Sir Peter Baldwin, Permanent Secretary of the Department of Transport, that an archive relating to the motorway achievement in the UK should be created by those involved in the work, in order to safeguard the records for present and future research. In Wales, a Regional Committee was formed to carry forward this work, leading to the publication of the book ‘The Motorway Achievement. Building the Network in Wales' (2010) by Brian Hawker and Howard Stevens. The Trust has produced publications and educational packages, and collected archive material, depending heavily on the work of about 200 volunteers. The Motorway Archive Trust was wound up as a charity in December 2014 with responsibilities transferred to the Institution of Civil Engineers and the Chartered Institution of Highways & Transportation.

The Road Network in Wales

A road connecting London and south Wales was first proposed during the 1930s as a response to the economic depression at that time. The plan for the M4 motorway was approved in 1956 as one of the first major road improvements in post-war Britain. The Welsh section was finally completed in 1993, with the second Severn Crossing added in 1996. The A55 North Wales Expressway connects Chester to Holyhead and has developed during the period from the 1930s onwards.

Transport, and especially road transport, is an area often overlooked by historians. But the M4 motorway, leading to the Severn Crossing, and the A55 expressway in north Wales, are key to the history, economy and politics of the Welsh nation. The routes link Wales to the rest of Britain but are also distinctly Welsh – exemplified by the Severn Crossing which marks the boundary of the Welsh and English sections of the M4. The development of these roadways is bound in with the history of Welsh politics and devolution, reflecting the relationship between government in London and the Welsh Office in Cardiff.

The development of the road network in Wales reflects economic change, with the move from heavy industry, the products of which were transported by rail, to a manufacturing industry more reliant on road transport, and the creation of commuter belts around the roadways. These roads had an enormous impact on major towns such as Cardiff and Newport, now by-passed by the road, and Port Talbot – bisected by the M4. The impact was felt in the valleys beyond the roadways, with resentment building towards the M4 and A55 corridors seen as drawing economic investment to the detriment of the areas beyond, and through the transformation of small communities into commuter towns. The developments illustrate the strong east/west links across north and south Wales but the lack of internal transport links between the north and south.

The Motorway Archive Trust Collection at Glamorgan Archives

The Motorway Archive Trust collection at Glamorgan Archives records the development of the M4 motorway across south Wales, the Severn Crossing, and A55 'North Wales Expressway', along with several trunk roads. The records date from 1939-2010 and comprise minutes, correspondence, reports, contracts, photographs, plans and background papers to the publication of ‘The Motorway Achievement: Building the Network in Wales’.

The completion of this catalogue provides transport, construction and engineering enthusiasts with an exciting new collection to explore. The making of the M4 motorway was a pivotal moment in Welsh history; it allowed travel throughout South Wales to become easier and more fluid; it created thousands of jobs for the Welsh workforce as well as access to more employment opportunities, as the Severn crossings provided a direct link between England and Wales.

The collection includes engineering records evidencing the huge task facing those charged with constructing these roadways through often difficult terrain. This material could potentially be used to explore the environmental impact of the developments.

The Motorway Trust Collection contains documents that reflect the history of the road network in Wales outlined above, and which illustrate the impact of key roadway infrastructure, with great research potential for historians of the politics, economy and culture of Wales and its people. Academic research on the M4 to date is limited. We hope that now the records are catalogued and fully accessible work on this neglected area of Welsh history will be promoted and advanced.

We also believe it will be of interest to the general population living within the areas of Wales impacted by roadway development. When used in conjunction with other significant collections of records such as those of the coal, steel and manufacturing industries, it could be used to enhance a sense of community identity and pride.

Lowis Lovell is Archivist and Rhian Diggins is Senior Archivist, Glamorgan Archives

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By Mary Siraut

Was education a privilege or a right before the era of compulsory schooling? Should workhouse children be educated when other poor children were not? They were probably minor issues for those dealing with the parish poor but nevertheless had to be addressed. A parish might encourage a literate adult inmate to teach poorhouse children if only to keep them occupied until they were old enough to work. In the early 19th century Taunton St Mary’s parish workhouse had a schoolroom and there were usually 25 or more children in the house.[i]

The new Taunton union workhouse was built with a schoolroom under the chapel and a couple were employed to teach the children who from 1838 were no longer allowed to go out to school.[ii] By 1840 the room was overcrowded and the infants were placed elsewhere and taught by one of the older girls.[iii] Later separate boys, girls and infant schools were built in the yard for 200 children but they were still unfinished in November 1848.[iv] The infant school was described as fit only for a coal cellar and the girls school was regarded as the source of the 1849 cholera epidemic, which killed 25 of the 67 girls with the master and nine boys from the boys school. It was said that fewer boys died because their habit of breaking school windows ensured better ventilation.[v] Many children were violent and disruptive and corporal punishment was regularly administered to older boys.[vi]

The school was inspected although the inspectors were more concerned that the children should work than be educated. However, from the late 1850s reports indicated that teaching was improving and for town children a basic education gave more employment opportunities. The then clerk to the guardians took a special interest in the school.[vii] By the later 19th century the children were rewarded for good work, received Christmas and New Year treats, and were taken out to local events such as the flower show or a circus.[viii]

Attempts were made from the start to provide older boys with a remunerative skill like shoemaking and carpentry but they were not always easy to teach especially for the elderly paupers entrusted with the task.[ix] In 1856 one of the more able boys was appointed a pupil teacher in the school.[x] Later several boys went for military training including three to the training ship Formidable in 1878 and 1880, other were transferred to St Saviour’s Home in Bishops Hull parish and girls went to the silk factories or the servants’ training home in East Reach.[xi] Children were supplied to employers as far away as Newton Poppleford in Devon[xii] and it was stated in 1901 that such distance was desirable ‘to remove workhouse associations’.[xiii] In 1905 one deserted child wanted to emigrate to Canada.[xiv]

By the late 19th century it was felt that workhouses were not suitable for children especially the unaccompanied, whose parents were only allowed to visit once in two months. Workhouse children came to be regarded as victims to be pitied by the public who provided them with gifts and treats. Most girls and infants were boarded out and attended local schools by 1871 when there were only eight girls and infants and 31 boys aged 6 to 14 in the workhouse. A mixed school was created under a single schoolmistress and the old boys school was converted to a dormitory.[xv] A Sunday school was started in 1880 but in 1881 only four children were still educated in the workhouse. The schoolmistress resigned in 1883 and remaining children attended the adjoining Holy Trinity school. They also attended the Sunday school and its teas and outings. They wore ordinary clothes so as to be indistinguishable from other children.[xvi] The short-lived era of workhouse education finally came to an end in 1912 when the children were transferred to a new children’s home in Cheddon Road and went out to the nearest school.[xvii]

Mary Siraut is County Editor, Victoria County History, Somerset

[i] Somerset Heritage Centre [SHC], D/P/tau.m/9/1/10.

[ii] SHC, D/G/ta/8a/2.

[iii] SHC, D/G/ta/8a/3.

[iv] SHC, D/G/ta/8s/8, passim.

[v] Rep. Gen. Bd of Health on Cholera Epidemic 1848—9, 37—8, App. II, 11—13.

[vi] eg SHC, D/G/ta/8a/10 (1850, 1851),8a/12 (1855), 8a/33 (1891).

[vii] SHC, D/G/ta/8a/13 (1857), 8a/15 (1861, 1863, 1865, 1876).

[viii] SHC, D/G/ta/24 (1879), 8a/33 (1890, 1891, 1892)

[ix] SHC, D/G/ta/57/42 (1839).

[x] SHC, D/G/ta/8a/13 (1856).

[xi] SHC, D/G/ta/8a/13 (1856), 8a/25 (1878), 8a/26 (1880), 8a/27 (1880); 8a/29 (1883).

[xii] SHC, D/G/ta.8a/29 (1883)

[xiii] SHC, D/G/ta/8a/37 (1900), 8a/38 (1901).

[xiv] SHC, D/G/ta/8a/40 (1905).

[xv] SHC, D/G/ta/8a/21 (1871).

[xvi] SHC, D/G/ta/8a/29 (1883), 8a/37 (1899), 8a/39 (1904).

[xvii] SHC, D/G/ta/8a/43 (1911, 1912), 8a/44 (1914, 1915), 8a/45 (1917); D/R/ta/34/11/4.

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Sandwiched between two world wars, put into the shade by the drama of the nineteen-thirties, perhaps it is not surprising that there doesn’t seem to be much recent local history work on the 1920s. Yet – what a decade!

Such promises to change the country, enshrined in little grey pamphlets published by the Ministry of Reconstruction and signed up to by the 1919 Coalition Government! Such hopes dashed by the ensuing age of austerity! A grim time, with industries beset by strikes, and populations beset by poverty. Farmers feeling the impact of the ‘Great Betrayal’. Big landowners - who once employed most of the home village workforce - selling up. Infant mortality down but maternal mortality up.

And on the other side of the coin, the domestication of exciting scientific discoveries: the motor car (and motor bus and motor bike) transforming life opportunities; the wireless, letting the world into the home; the advances of medical science prompted by war-time research; the ‘talkies’ and exciting new American music transforming the experience of an evening out.

Devon History Society, in partnership with Devon Family History Society and the South West Heritage Trust, has launched a new research collaboration to gather information about Devon in the 1920s for a celebration of that decade in 2024. We’ re only at the beginning of our work – some fantastic family histories, such as the one illustrated in this photograph – are starting to come in, but we know, if we are to understand the distinctiveness of Devon’s history, that we need to compare the Devon experience with experience elsewhere. So, on behalf of the ‘Devon in the 1920s’ Steering Group, I am writing to ask if there are any other local history groups out there who either have begun, or might be interested in beginning, a similar venture. If you’re one of these, please do get in touch with me to see how we can share our knowledge. Please get in touch with me via j.f.neville@btinternet.com or through the Devon History Society website contacts page.

Julia Neville, Devon in the 1920s Project Manager

https://www.devonhistorysociety.org.uk/

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By Sandy Walkington

The St Albans and Hertfordshire Architectural and Archaeological Society celebrates its 175th anniversary this year with a significant exhibition at St Albans Museum + Gallery and a gala lecture by Professor Michael Wood.

Hertfordshire's original historical society was one of the first of its kind in the country, founded in 1845 with the aim of saving the crumbling fabric of St Albans Abbey church and other Hertfordshire churches. The parlous state of the Abbey was emblematic of the town itself. Today’s inhabitants of the pleasant commuter city struggle to understand what St Albans was like in the 1840s: with no railway and little industry, only venal corruption made the town a place of mark.

The establishment of the St Albans Architectural Society was one of the few bright spots. With a membership consisting of the usual mix of established churchmen and professionals with time and money on their hands, the Society focused on the enigmatic Abbey building – then still 30 years from being the Cathedral. But it was members excavating the Roman theatre in Verulamium in 1847/8, a chance find just a few hundred metres away, that brought the Society to national attention. This led to the addition of ‘and Archaeological’ to the Society’s title. The final element of the title, ‘and Hertfordshire’, was added in 1897 to mark the establishment of the County Museum in St Albans, another Society initiative. We are now known colloquially as ‘the Arc & Arc’.

The fortunes of the Society may have waxed and waned over 175 years but any Society that can attract active contributions from experts such as Sir John Evans (archaeologist and geologist), William Page (founding editor of the Victoria County History) and J.T. Smith (inspector for the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England) must have something to say for itself. In the 1930s it initiated and part-funded Mortimer and Tessa Verney Wheeler’s extensive excavations at Verulamium and, more recently, it has developed a strong culture of local history research. This has resulted in well-received books about St Albans in the later 17th century, life in the city during the First World War and prolific local architect, Percival Blow.

Today the Society has over 520 members and undertakes a wide range of activities: there will be 24 lectures this year in addition to the Michael Wood public lecture plus four visits and a mixture of ten seminars and workshops; it maintains an extensive, publicly accessible library with an online catalogue; a number of groups work on different research topics; and it continues to assist with archaeological projects. Publishing members’ research is a particular strength with five books produced in as many years and the publication of short articles of around 600 words in the BALH award-winning quarterly newsletter and on the newly-redesigned website. It produces the Hertfordshire Archaeology and History journal in association with the East Herts Archaeological Society, while fruitful partnerships with the University of Hertfordshire Press and the Hertfordshire Record Society have allowed it to produce books that would have otherwise been beyond the Society’s capabilities.

The exhibition at the St Albans Museum + Gallery opens on 19 June and is titled ‘Discover, Protect, Innovate, Inform: How ‘the Arc & Arc’ made St Albans history’. Given its significant contributions in so many fields over its 175 years – the discovery of the Roman theatre at Gorhambury, the protection of significant buildings threatened with demolition, innovations in archaeological techniques and the treatment of finds, the extensive programme of lectures, seminars, visits and publications – that title does not seem too vainglorious a claim. For more information about the exhibition, the Michael Wood lecture and the Society’s other regular events and activities, please see www.stalbanshistory.org.

Sandy Walkington is President, St Albans and Hertfordshire Architectural and Archaeological Society

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By Clive Harrison

Cottingley Village History Society was formed 15 years ago and has steadily been collecting information about the village’s history in the form of photographs, maps, plans, newspaper articles, deeds, censuses, military service records, etc. Originally all these items were held by individual members but two years ago the society opened Cottingley Heritage Centre so that all the documents could be held at one site and made available to the general public.

Cottingley has worldwide renown for a hoax perpetrated by two schoolgirls towards the end of and just after the First World War. They claimed to have photographed fairies near the beck beside their home. Several famous people, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, were taken in by their story which was maintained for several decades until the truth was revealed.

Cottingley, however, is more than just “The Cottingley Fairies”. It has a rich history and can claim to be a village of history, industry, fantasy and culture.

Cottingley has fourteen listed buildings of which one, when it was built, was quite unique. Cottingley Town Hall was opened in 1865 and comprised a nondenominational church, a day school, a Sunday school, a library, a Mechanic’s Institute and, on one evening a week, a bank. It is still in use today as a church and community centre, complete with original clock and pipe organ.

Cottingley has been home to several important people. Among them were William Wickham who was instrumental in assisting some of the nobility to escape the French Revolution, John Gillies Priestley whose contribution was to scientific discovery, Richard Thornton who accompanied David Livingstone, as his geologist, on his expedition to the Zambesi and Arthur Harry Briggs who was instrumental in the success of Rolls Royce.

Cottingley can also claim to have been the home of a much published poet. James Allan Mackereth had thirteen books of poems and two novels published while resident in Cottingley between 1902 and 1948.

As far as industry is concerned, Cottingley had a thriving tanning industry at one time. The mills later converted to use for the woollen trade and are in use today as a thriving business park. Coal mining was also important to the village with, at one time, forty coal pits in the area.

Cottingley Heritage Centre opens on Saturday mornings from April to September at Cottingley Town Hall, Main Street, Cottingley, BD16 1SR. See also the website history.cottingleyconnect.org.uk.

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By Chris Whitton

CHAG was founded in 2007 and, with the support of The Heritage Lottery Fund and the Universities of Leicester and Nottingham and others, we have pursued the aim of investigating and preserving a record of the village’s history and bringing it into the present day, hence the title of our website – Cottesmore, ‘The Living Village’. This gives details of buildings, people, schools, farming, quarrying, trade, fox hunting, world wars, and parish records. There has been a settlement here since the mid-11th century and it was already a flourishing village at the time of the Domesday survey in 1086 probably under the name of Goda’s Moor.

One of our first projects was to produce the Cottesmore Round which is a guided and illustrated tour of the village detailing its 27 listed buildings and 800 years of history.

Another project involved the updating and organisation of a new Church Rectors Board to replace the existing paper record. Research for this produced several interesting characters one of whom was Weston Henry Stewart who, in 1943, was appointed Bishop of Jerusalem and was involved in designing model villages for displaced Palestinian Arabs in 1952. He was rector of St. Nicholas from 1957 to 1964.

In 2014 we organised a pilgrimage to the village for members of the Society of the Sacred Heart whose head Janet Erskine Stewart was born here, to celebrate 100 years since her death.

We have monthly meetings at the local hostelry and an annual talk and presentation. In 2018 Alan Crosby spoke on The Lowthers of Cottesmore, which included a fascinating insight into Hugh Cecil Lowther – the ‘Yellow Earl’ who was once described as England’s greatest sporting gentleman. This year’s talk was on the Oakham and Melton Mowbray Canal.

In 2018 we produced a publication and film of ‘How Old is Cottesmore’ about an investigation using dendrochronology into the age of ten of the older village buildings including the church, pub and two grander houses. We researched the archives at Kew, Exton and Leicester, and used architectural surveys to trace the buildings’ development and some of their occupants.

Our latest book is based on interviews carried out a few years ago with several of the older residents, some of whom are sadly no longer with us. We have 15 recordings, providing interesting insights dating back to the 1930s. These have been grouped into selected headings, with photographs, to cover the main aspects of village life. The book will be published in early April 2020, with a launch event planned for later in the year.

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By Anthony Annakin-Smith

When, in 2013, I set about writing the story of two coal mines operating in west Cheshire during the Industrial Revolution I agreed a copy deadline of the following year with the publisher. How optimistic I was, for the book didn't appear until late last year! It was entirely my fault – I hadn’t reckoned on the extraordinary diversity of valuable information available during this fascinating period and the rich insight it could give on every aspect of the mines – operational, commercial and social. This article explores just a few of those sources.

Probably the single biggest aspect of the research comprised delving into the social history of the colliers and their families. To discover as much as possible, I sought to compile a database which included every known reference to the local men (all the colliery workers were men) and their wives and children; this database is available for free access to any user. Information was scattered across numerous sources – most obviously parish registers and, from 1841, census returns but also newspaper stories, infirmary listings, coroners’ accounts, death certificates, poor law records, quarter sessions proceedings, business documents and many more. It was painstaking work and has resulted in over 3,100 lines of information concerning more than 600 men: the result is an extraordinarily rich source of information both about individuals and about the colliery community in aggregate. To take just one example …

Early information on collier Robert Anglesey comes from parish registers. He married in 1830 aged 19 (colliers often married young; they knew might not have a long life ahead of them). There was clearly no stigma concerning pre-marital sex for the couple had a child baptised within four months. This reflected practice at a community level – the database reveals that 36% of couples had a child baptised within eight months of marriage. Over the following twenty years Robert and his wife had eight more children, of whom one died in infancy. In this respect they were relatively fortunate: perhaps the single most astonishing statistic I uncovered was that half of all couples lost at least one child. At least one child in five died before age 15 – most within their first two years.

The Angleseys appear in the 1841 census in Neston but by 1851, as the town’s mines wound down, they had migrated twenty-five miles or so to work in a pit at Wigan, Lancashire. The following year was to be a momentous and tragic one for Robert. He first appears in a report for a parliamentary committee on mining accidents which recorded that he had been injured in a roof fall – a common cause of injuries. He went on to return to work and, one hopes, was fit enough to enjoy the weddings of two of his children that year, both listed in the Wigan parish register. But, exactly two months after his daughter was married, Robert’s burial was recorded in the same register. His death certificate stated, ‘Burned in a coal pit’. Despite his tragic end, Robert’s three sons also became colliers – they had few other options.

As with the collier database, so often in historical research it’s the painstaking piecing together of individual items of information which eventually reveal something worthwhile – the whole is much greater than the sum of the parts. The National Archives’ ‘port books’ are one such information source.[i] They exist for many ports around the country, listing imports and exports of goods, the places the vessels came from or were going to, and much more. The Chester port books are sometimes illegible, not least because of deterioration in early storage. However, there was still plenty to go on and as I worked through I realised that something important was missing – reference to Flintshire, four miles or so across the Dee Estuary from Neston. Many books and other studies have indicated that Flintshire’s mines were the key regional exporter of coal in the late eighteenth century. However, information pieced together on more than 8,700 voyages from the port books, alongside evidence from several other sources, suggested something very different with Neston’s mines being far more important – until diversion of the River Dee in the early nineteenth century rapidly turned things in Flintshire’s favour and Neston’s exports collapsed. The port books also reveal that coal was being shipped to unlikely destinations such as Newfoundland, Barbados and Gibraltar, bringing back goods as diverse as cod’s tongues (a delicacy), rice grown on slave plantations, and ‘books not french’ reflecting Britain’s’ adversarial relationship with France for much of the period under review.

As a researcher I find that one of the most satisfying outcomes is when diverse bits of information unexpectedly come together to make a coherent whole. For example, I stumbled across an 1803 Chester newspaper cutting which suggested that smuggling activity was taking place at Neston, with metal pike heads hidden amongst a shipload of coals destined for Holland. This struck me as reasonably interesting and worth a passing mention in the book, but little more than that. However, when delving into Admiralty records at the National Archives I came across a series of letters from a local magistrate who was concerned about such activity, citing ‘improper intercourse’ between England and Ireland involving ‘traitors’. He complained that corrupt customs officers would turn a blind eye to goings-on with ‘the timely application of a guinea’. The newspaper story then fell into context. This was a period of considerable unrest in Ireland as republicans, spurred on by relatively recent revolutions in France and America, fomented unrest and rebellion. This, and France’s sabre-rattling, created security fears on Britain's west coast. The republicans had sympathisers in England and the pike heads, then, were arms intended for them, to be nefariously dropped off in some out-of-the-way Irish cove.

I could write much more about sources: for example, newspapers and hand-written accounts of court proceedings were best at revealing how appalling acts of sabotage – engine-wrecking, devastation via explosives, and deliberate flooding – were carried out by one of the aristocratic mine owners on his downtrodden neighbour’s works; Coal Authority plans show the long, underground canals used at the collieries which made them almost unique in the country; printed maps evidence the early use of steam engines – and show a horse gin, the only one I’ve ever seen depicted on a map; and business stationery unexpectedly revealed how a Neston colliery had one of the earliest business logos in the country. Meanwhile parish registers – again – reveal how Emma Hamilton, the mistress of Admiral Lord Nelson, was born into the humble Neston mining community – a story of rags to riches (and back to rags, dying in poverty in Calais).

I am very conscious that the survival of records on any particular historical research topic is highly serendipitous. But it is no coincidence that we seek ‘evidence’ – it is the thrill of playing detective to piece together disparate bits of information to make a coherent whole which makes a researcher’s lot so rewarding.

The colliery database is available free to users at www.nestoncollieries.org. Anthony’s book ‘The Neston Collieries, 1759-1855: An Industrial Revolution in Rural Cheshire’ is available from the University of Chester Press and from booksellers.

[i] TNA, E190 series

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By Mike Brogden

Four hundred years ago in September, the Mayflower left Plymouth for America. There were 102 passengers, including 34 children and 30 or so members of the crew. Half of the passengers were traders, hoping to make their fortunes. The other half were Puritan Separatists hoping for religious freedom in a new colony. Amongst the children were Elinor (aged 8), Jasper (7), Richard (6) and Mary (4) More, placed in the care of three of the Separatist leaders. They had been taken from their mother, Katharine, and banished from their home in Shipton, near Much Wenlock, Shropshire. Katharine’s husband, Samuel, had decided that the children looked too much like Jacob Blakeway, son of one of Katharine’s father’s tenant farmers on the Larden Hall estate.

The background to this story is of greedy landowner cousins who wanted to amalgamate and protect the inheritance of their two estates, an arranged (probably forced) marriage, an unproved betrothal, lengthy and expensive court cases, the lack of legal rights of the mother and the malign influence of Samuel’s important London employer. Added to this is the story of the Puritan and other settlers, their arduous life establishing the colony and their relationship with the indigenous people, the Wampanoag.

The full story and its historical context will be told by three local historians at a History Day in Shropshire on July 4, followed on other dates by guided walks, a choral concert and a commemorative service. For details visit www.shropshiresmayflowerchildren.com or email mike@brogden.info or phone 01581841649

Mike Brogden is Secretary, Shropshire’s Mayflower Children

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Local historians and local history societies can play an important part in this campaign which was launched by The Ramblers in February. Over 10,000 miles of footpaths across England and Wales could soon be lost forever if they are not added to the definitive map of rights of way by 2026. The network of paths is a precious asset, which has developed throughout history and isa key part of the evolution of communities and the landscape. Local knowledge is vital to identifying and recording lost paths and hidden ways before it is too late. The Don’t Lose Your Way online mapping tool splits the country into 150,000 1 km squares and makes it easy to compare current and historic maps side by side. Users simply select a square, do a quick ‘spot the difference’, mark on any missing paths and click ‘submit’.

Across all Ramblers social media channels images, videos and quotes will be shared, and everyone is encouraged to take part, to add their contribution to this rescue campaign.

ramblers.org.uk/dontloseyourway

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By Julian Hewitt

The Neave family have lived in Fordingbridge for generations. In the 1792 directory they were recorded as wool staplers or dealers in wool. By the time he died aged 44 in 1896 Josiah Reynolds Neave had expanded the family business of milling cereal at their Bicton and Town Mills and selling the farinaceous food which made their name and fortune.

Farinaceous food was flour based food that was sold in airtight tins for one shilling. It was expertly marketed as a nutritious food for infants and growing children but was also aimed at invalids, nursing mothers, aged persons and as a cure for dyspepsia and indigestion. The advertisements for it boast that the food won a gold medal at the Women’s Exhibition in London in 1900 and also that Neaves were, “Purveyors by Special Appointment to H.I.M. The Empress of Russia.” Modern marketing managers would appreciate the inducement offer of, “Free to mothers – a useful book by a trained nurse and samples sent free.” There are also testimonials attesting to its nutritious content from senior medical figures and the prestigious medical journal The Lancet.

The food was packaged in a factory that is still to be seen, now used by Corintech, behind The Augustus John pub. The factory was located to take advantage of the nearby railway station which opened in1866. This meant that Neaves Food could be transported all over the world and that the Neaves became very wealthy. Their magnificent Highfield House is still to be seen on the left at the top of the hill on the road out of Fordingbridge towards Alderholt. The Neaves were prominent members of the Liberal Party and hosted party meetings in their house. It is now divided into private apartments.

The family were Quakers and looked after their workers well giving them paid holidays and good working conditions. They were pillars of Fordingbridge society acting as magistrates and playing a leading role in local events and institutions. In 1905 Mrs H Neave presented medals at the local Gymnastic display and in 1909 Charles Neave was awarded first prize for the best illuminated gardens at Fordingbridge Regatta.

As Quakers they were teetotal and in 1902 they organised a tea party in their grounds for the temperance organisation the Band of Hope to which 500 children and 50 workers were invited. Less happily it was Mr W.R. Neave who, in 1902, moved the resolution, endorsed by the committee that oversaw the workhouse, to deprive the inmates of their traditional glass of beer to go with their Christmas dinner. The next year Mr Neave died and the committee, now free from the abstemious local grandee, voted to reinstate the beer ration.

During their winter closure, Museum volunteers have been preparing a new exhibition on the Neaves. It will be available when they do eventually open, hopefully later in 2020.

Julian Hewitt is a Trustee of Fordingbridge Museum

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By David Killingray

How do we perceive the local history that we research and write? How locaI is it, and does it really make sense unless placed within a wider context of the region, the nation, and the world? My view is that local history invariably requires a wider horizon, a context that defies ‘the tyranny of the discrete’. It is not only that a history of, say Thurso, can be read with profit by someone who lives in Truro, and vice-versa, but that all human events are interconnected in varying degrees, by conversation and text, with wider patterns of production and consumption, marriage, commerce, markets, cooperation and war. An obvious example is the pervasive influence of Britain’s involvement in the African slave trade and American colonial slavery that put sugar on the table, tobacco in pipes, coffee in cups, and clothed people in cotton.

This idea of the bigger picture is well captured by Jan Rüger in Heligoland. Britain, Germany, and the struggle for the North Sea (OUP, 2017), where he writes that ‘there is no doubting the miniature scale of the locale at the heart of this book’, but ‘for microhistories to work, they have to engage simultaneously with small settings and large contexts’ (5). Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie’s classic account of Cathar and Catholic ideas in the small French village of Montaillou (London, 1978), has a resonance far beyond its Pyrenean boundaries. Two recent ‘local’ histories describe happenings that might have been overlooked, but had resonance far beyond their borders. Steven J. Zipperstein, Pogrom. Kishinev and the tilt of history (New York, 2018), discusses the origins and course of a pogrom in a Bessarabian village of Tsarist Russia in 1903, and then looks at the way it was publicised by Russian emigres in the United States. It caught the notice of African Americans, who saw parallels with their own horrific experience of lynching, which propelled them to more concerted political organisation. Anna-Lisa Cox also refers to lynching and racial discrimination, but her study, A Strong Kinship. One town’s extraordinary story of hope and faith (New York, 2006), focuses on the history of the small town of Covert, in Michigan, where the founding fathers defied current ‘Jim Crow’ codes and laws to integrate their community at every level, including marriage. It is a richly and meticulously researched jewel of a book, about a jewel of a town, that deserves to be read far beyond the frontiers of Michigan.

My final PhD student is working on a small patch of northern Nigeria, a single square mile called Wusasa, that was given by the Muslim emir of Zaria to the Church Missionary Society in 1929. He vainly hoped to exclude Christian influence from his town. Wusasa became an incubator for much more, and in the next 30 years its influence touched the whole of Nigeria - but that is the story that is currently being written. Staying in this area, in pre-colonial times often referred to as ‘Hausaland’, an older book comes to mind, written by William F.S. Miles, Hausaland Divided. Colonialism and independence in Nigeria and Niger (Ithaca, NY, 1994). This is a comparative local history of two neighbouring villages, divided by an arbitrary international border. Hausa was and is the universal language, Islam the accepted religion, and Shari’a law the measure of justice, but the global languages, French and English, were imposed by alien colonial administrators. This history could have been written as an inward-looking narrow anthropological study. Mercifully not so. It has enriched the recent history of both countries.

One friend of mine, reviewing Landeg White’s Magomero. Portrait of an African village (1987), acclaimed it as ‘a kind of African Montaillou’, credit well-placed. Since 1859, Magomero, what White called ‘a place of utmost unimportance’, developed as a centre for Christian mission work, was drawn into a developing world export market for tobacco based largely on the exploitation of African labour, and then was a place of proto-nationalist revolt. The study may have drawbacks as a local history, but it is a perceptive account of ordinary men and women in an African rural community. When teaching, whether in school or University, I often found students reluctant to engage with what they deemed to be ‘local‘ history. Nevertheless, they would readily turn to William Sheridan Allen’s The Nazi Seizure of Power: the experience of a single German town, 1930-1935 (Chicago, 1965), actually Northeim, and use its insights to argue that Hitler gained power by exploiting quasi-legitimate means.

To close with an explanation: Iain Taylor (the treasurer of the BALH) and I have written a book on an English town in the long nineteenth-century, currently with a publisher. It is a ‘history from below’ where we have tried to deal in a balanced way with religious belief and its influence on political ideas and activity. Reference is made throughout to the town in its wider context, and a penultimate chapter looks at ‘The parish, the nation, and the world’. Not just preaching, but doing.

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By Win Stokes

I have been upbraided of late by my fellow north-easterners for not reminding the rest of the country of the region's importance as a site of historical activity by popping some news into the LHN. Some of this was down to preoccupation with what could only be described politely as national and international affairs but I won't dwell on that as an excuse. I also had an article to deliver to my local history society journal. That is now in the hands of the editor so I can go back to the North East news.

I have decided that rather than dish up snippets of information about ongoing projects most of which as of 16 March are now on hold anyway I would report on what was an experiment on the part of the County Durham Forum for History and Heritage to engage with an audience outside its usual remit. The Forum is an umbrella organisation with 60 member societies and institutions which aims to facilitate interaction between them by providing information about meetings and events of common interest. Since 2013 it has taken over from the Durham County Council the running of a biennial History Fair, ‘Yesterday Belongs to You’, initially based in Durham City but in 2017 and 2019 at Beamish open air museum. The thinking behind the changed location was that this would extend the outreach of the participating groups to casual visitors to a popular attraction and hopefully stimulate interest in groups' activities and publications.

Apart from the fact that the 2017 Fair housed in two huge marquees, was marred by continuous rain and the lowest summer Saturday footfall the museum had known, it became clear that a more interactive approach was needed. So in collaboration with museum staff the Forum's organising sub-committee negotiated a set up in which the various groups would be distributed across the museum's buildings. There were some in the Masonic Lodge, some in the chapel, some in a pitman's cottage, some in the band hall, some in the bank etc. To make sure that as many people as possible visited all the venues occupied by the groups one of the members devised a quiz/treasure trail with a prize for the lucky winner. The organising sub-committee had prepared the ground by informal consultations with members and a more formal training session for intending participants.

Those who have been to Beamish will know that the main body of buildings is dated to 1913 while another section is based on a manor house dating back to the 18th century. Most recently the new development has been focussed on the 1950s. Thankfully, because appropriate costumes were required the Forum's groups were all in the 1913 section .Long black skirts for women exhibitors and waistcoats, braces and collarless shirts for men.

Did it work? Well the sun shone ALL DAY. Despite a few moans the general response of participants was that it had been both interesting and enjoyable. Has it stimulated an influx of recruits into local history societies? I doubt it. The only real complaint about the arrangement was that there was less opportunity for networking among fellow society members than when all were together in one building, or tent! So alongside the AGM on 14 March the Forum held a mini history fair where all the groups could exhibit their ongoing project work and talk to each other. Despite forebodings about coronavirus nerves only one group withdrew and it was agreed that the format should be repeated alongside the next AGM regardless of the structure of ‘Yesterday belongs to You’.

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By  Joanna Mattingly

Clothing in Cornwall – Vanity & Utility

Cornwall Association of Local Historians Spring Conference 7-8 March 2020

The brain-child of Marilyn and Ian Thompson, this year’s two-day CALH conference was one of the most enjoyable I’ve ever attended and even involved some dressing up. On the bracing north coast at Newquay, with around 60 people attending each day and probably 100 overall, local historians, academics, archivists, museum curators, volunteers, and re-enactors came together in a wurlitzer of a conference. As well as the talks, 19th and 20th century items of costume were on show including a blue shot silk jacket of c1980s by Vivienne Prideaux found in a charity shop. There was also a tribute to Veronica Chesher who died on 6 January 2020 aged 99 and a half. Veronica was presented with a BALH Award for Personal Achievement in 2004.

I began the programme, speaking on clothing in Cornwall in the period 1300s-1580s; the visual evidence came mainly from monumental brasses, tombs and stained glass in Cornish churches. The Medieval Combat Society website is a great source for male and female tombs, allowing comparisons to be made with other counties. This was supplemented with evidence from wills and household accounts. Although brasses are not an entirely accurate record of fashion, we did find consistency between brass and other dateable costume imagery.

Christine Edwards, retired county archivist, next gave a lecture entitled ‘The Fashion in Newfangledness – Merchants and merchandise in the 17th century.’ Her initial project was to study all the Cornish wills and inventories from 1600 to 1740, but in the event she only covered the first 25 years. Recommended sources included William Beck’s Drapers’ Dictionary because as many as 80 fabrics were named in just 6 inventories. Most fabrics came from a distance which means that some Exeter wills include Bodmin people. Hooks and eyes were in common use. A useful tip for interpreting ells is that an ell is 1 yard and 9” or from the tip of a finger to the nose plus 9”.

From Plymouth came Katrina Wood with a fantastic collection of handmade hats based largely on Cornish and Devon roof bosses and tombs. Both Kat and her husband Richard Babbage were dressed in 14th century costume, enabling a layer by layer explanation, at times hilarious, of what was being worn and why. Recreating and then wearing costume also have the added advantage of testing out practicality. Sally Pointer’s, The Artifice of Beauty – A History and Practical Guide to Perfumes and Cosmetics shows that lanolin face-creams, beeswax lipsticks, rosewater and frankincense were applied to the face. Kat and a friend were horrified to discover their faces had gone green during one experiment, but when buffed off their complexions became pearlescent!

‘The Development of Military Costume’ was the subject of Hugo White’s equally entertaining talk which began with how un-uniform uniform has been in the past. One of Wellington’s generals took a top hat and umbrella into battle. More recently, in 1944 only General Montgomery’s beret was standard army issue. Buff coats were universal in the Civil War with red being relatively rare even in the Napoleonic Wars. In 1742 Cumberland brought in the first dress regulations, and, as in the medieval period, military fashions followed civilian. Identifying friend from foe was a real issue in the smog of cannon fire and Field Grey proved to be as good as anything.

Jeremy Rowett Johns spoke on Polperro guernsey sweaters immortalised in the mid- to late 19th century photographs of Lewis Harding. Details of the sweaters were enhanced with colour - the digital equivalent of hand-tinting. An experienced Polperro knitter could take a week to knit one with contract knitting a local mainstay until the 1920s. Mary Wright's book on Cornish Guernseys and Knit-Frocks (1979, rep. 1988) has revived interest with Jeremy modelling his own family pattern.

Day Two began with a film of the last working tannery in Cornwall – Croggan’s Tannery at Grampound, home to at least six tanneries at one time. Jane Sloan of the Grampound and Creed Heritage Centre introduced Major Gill’s 1930s film from the Royal Institution of Cornwall collections, which was augmented with 1983 BBC filming shortly before this six-generation family tannery closed. Some of the machinery including the polishing roller was passed on to a Bristol firm that still does traditional tanning.

Angela Aylward of St Tudy Local History Group focused on inventories and wills of John and Temperance Clickerd of St Tudy who died in 1606 and 1619. John’s clothes comprised 2 cloaks, 2 doublets, a pair of hose, a jerkin, 3 pairs of stocking, 1 pair garters, 5 plain bands, 2 shawls, a pair of gloves, a hat with twisted band, 5 bands or collars, 2 night caps, a girdle and purse. For Temperance the following items were included in her will among 27 items of clothing: her best gown, holland kercher, dowlas apron, a plain wearing-band and veil, smocks, petticoats, cloak, apron, waistcoats, partlet (part of bodice), hose and shoes with a final item being her shroud.

‘Dating Dress from Photographs’ was the subject of Marilyn Thompson’s talk which was based on a remarkable collection of family photographs going back to the early 1860s. An photo of c1864 showed a young girl wearing a short crinoline with pantaloons and ringlets, a fashion going back to the 1840s. Backdrops also help dating with classical drapes and balustrades in the 1850s-60s and chairs as props in the late 1860s-70s, along with spats. For women chignon hair was replaced by fringes in the late 1870s-80s as part of the emancipation of women. Lace becomes more common in the 1890s with leg-of-mutton sleeves, and white blouses more common after 1900.

Anna Tyacke of Cornwall’s Portable Antiquities Scheme spoke next on ‘Dress fastenings’ (see www.finds.org.uk). Starting with a Penzance Volunteers’ button with the head of St John the Baptist of 1794-7, Anna worked backwards in time through heart-motif stud fasteners and cufflinks of 1660s-1700s to post-medieval buttons. Sword belt hangers attached by a metal plate to the belt have been found at Lostwithiel and St Kew, with Tudor dresshooks of hook-and-eye type coming from Perranuthnoe, Marazion, Tregony, Roche, and Carlyon near Par. 60 objects of 12th century or earlier date include a Frankish brooch at Phillack and distinctive 4th century Roman-Celtic brooches.

Helston Museum of Cornish Life volunteer Andrea Newall brought along items from the collection, chosen largely for their ordinariness. She started with a mourning outfit of 1890s style which was found separated in different parts of the stores, a Helston outfitter’s label was a clue that brought them together. The next item was a man’s coat which had been misidentified as a woman’s despite the obvious buttoning difference; this was utility wear and so had only 3 buttons and was not double-breasted. A small black French fashion dress of the 1953 (‘father never saw the bills’) and crimplene dress of the late 1960s (drip-dry but sweaty to wear) came next. The final item was a red Helston Flora Day dress made for the young woman who led the dance in 1973.

The closing talk was given by Janet Axten of the St Ives Archive. Her subject was ‘The Legacy of Crysede – the history of the textile industry in Penwith 1920-1970s’. This unexpected outshoot of the Forbes’ School of Art at Newlyn, started in 1920. The founders were art student Kay Earle and her new husband Alec Walker whom she had enticed down to Newlyn after applying for a job with him as a poster designer. Bold colours and beautiful designs on silk or linen by Alec, still remarkably modern and fresh today and imitated by Sea Salt, characterised Crysede. Crysede’s story had been well chronicled by Hazel Berriman, but Janet focused on the later story of the St Ives site with takeovers by John Lewis and Berketex. Tom Heron revived the Crysede label at Hayle in 1947-52 and it then became Cresta till the 1970s when Debenhams took over. Interviews with women workers of all these firms are in the St Ives Archive.

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Essex Record Office and Clacton VCH Group were planning a memorial exhibition and book launch at the end of April to mark the 80th anniversary of the plane crash on 30 April 1940, that caused the first mainland civilian deaths of the Second World War. A German mine-laying plane was hit by anti-aircraft guns from Harwich, and crashed into 25 Victoria Road Clacton, the home of Mr and Mrs F Gill who were killed, though their son surprisingly survived. The crew of four also died, 160 people were injured, 34 seriously, and 54 properties were badly damaged. Valuable lessons were learned for national policy from this incident.

Although the exhibition has been cancelled, the book will be available shortly. It has been written and published by member s of the group, under their chairman Roger Kennell. Further information by email from chpreen@gmail.com, or via Essex VCH

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By Mike Kipling

The LPSS held a conference in Oxford in October 2019 entitled ’Paths to marriage: Courtship in England and Wales c.1700-c.1945’.

Steve King of Leicester University opened the event with a presentation on what could be discovered about courtship practices from diaries, letter and coroners’ records. Parental discouragement was frequently observed where the partner differed in character, religion or nationality. An innkeeper in Nottingham actually ran a book on whether one couple would split up!

Angela Muir looked into practices in 18th century Wales. She had sought, but largely failed to find, evidence of ‘bundling’, where a couple, sleep together fully clothed to determine compatibility, although there was evidence of unwed couples spending nights together.

Rachel Jones then told of the attempt of brilliant Indian law student Syed Ameer Ali to woo the daughter of an English Victorian QC. Syed Ali had met Napoleon III at Brighton, whom he described as ‘small’. His affections were not reciprocated, as the lady married an Englishman only three months after Syed Ali had to return home.

Kevin Schürer looked at the distance people travelled to marry using census evidence. Typically c.40% marry within 5km of their birthplace and only c.25% more than 50km away. This distance increased between 1851 and 1911 although not, perhaps surprisingly, correlated to the growth of the railway network.

Following lunch, Stephanie Ward reported on Welsh courtship practices from 1920 to 1950. Young pit workers wanted to look like Rudolph Valentino but also knew that improving their education would improve their marriage prospects.

Lynne Pearce then told us of Tax Inspector Doreen Bates’s wartime liaison with a married man recorded only as ‘E’ in her diary and its ‘sub-DH Lawrence’ descriptions of their activities. Lynne also related Wren Audrey Deacon’s much more objective diary of her courtship hikes on Dartmoor.

Finally, Colin Pooley regaled attendees with extracts from a number of 19th and 20th century diaries which documented couples’ meeting, increasing intimacy and engagement/marriage or break-up. He concluded that, in matter of love, very little actually changes over time.

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The next deadline for Canterbury Historical & Archaeological Society’s (CHAS) Annual Grant (to a maximum of £500) is midnight on 30 June 2020. The grant is awarded to individuals researching any aspect of the history or archaeology of Canterbury and its region. Individuals may apply at any time between now and the end of June. Preference is given to work resulting in publication in any media. Apply in writing to Mr B Beeching, Hon Sec of the Grants Committee, referring first to the list of information required in your letter. Further details may be obtained from beechings1@gmail.com http://www.canterbury-archaeology.org.uk/grants/4590809426

The Croydon Natural History & Scientific Society will be celebrating its 150th anniversary in 2020. It was founded as Croydon Microscopical Club on 6 April 1870. Over the years it has changed its name twice, catering for a widening range of members interests. Its meetings cover local and industrial history, archaeology, geology, entomology, botany and ornithology. The society’s annual journal Proceedings has published members’ research since 1871. Of course the programme of celebrations will not now take place as planned, updated information will be on their website. www.cnhss.co.uk

The Wavertree Society, Liverpool, published Discovering Historic Wavertree in 1999, and decided to use part of the proceeds to put a series of ‘green plaques’ on historic buildings and landmarks within Wavertree Village and the Garden Suburb. So far 11 have been installed and another 6 are in the pipeline. www.wavertreesociety.org

Layers of London is a free online map-based resource, the subject of a recent talk to Hendon & District Archaeological Society. By overlaying historic maps and data sets, users can fade them in and out to discover how their area has developed. The project also encourages anyone to contribute their own local histories, memories, images and stories, building records and collections that enrich this unique historical resource for the future. www.hadas.org.uk www.layersoflondon.org

There are few, mostly huge, motor vehicle manufacturers today, but when such things were new many local firms operated, often evolving from cycle, agricultural machinery, or other industrial engineers. One example was Britannia Motor Cars, the subject of an article in Lexden History Group’s newsletter. Made in Colchester, this firm functioned from the 880s until 1908. Initial experiments were not successful, but in 1903 the Nicholson brothers took over but even their innovations and better business understanding did not guarantee a longer life for the company. www.lexdenhistry.org.uk

Breconshire Local & Family History Society, Cymdeithas Hanes Lleol a Theuluoedd Brycheniog, Newsletter contains useful snippets (other editors will recognise the value of short pieces to fill gaps!). Under the heading of ‘Free Online Resources’ there is www.powyswarmemorial.co.uk, seeking to find and record all Powys war memorials. The BLFHS contributes a ‘Your History’ column to the monthly free magazine distributed in the area ‘The Beacon’. Brecon U3A has produced a book ‘Brecon Remembers World War One’. And amongst the longer articles is a thought provoking piece that begins ‘How much notice can you take of the recollections of a child, when recalled some sixty years later?’ Memories are an important source for local and family history, but need treating with caution. www.blfhs.co.uk

Resources for Research is a regular item in the Newsletter from Barnes and Mortlake History Society. A recent example covers historic planning applications, of which Richmond Local Studies holds some 22,000 dating from 1880 to the 1960s. These can be accessed online, but see first the advice under Research Resources on the society’s website www.barnes-history.org.uk

Local history certainly has an interest in an extraordinary variety of topics, but it was still a surprise to turn the page of Send & Ripley History Society’s journal to find some magnificent Great Danes. The society was reproducing pages from Country Life of December 1934 which reported on ‘Great Danes and Poultry of Send Manor’ under ‘Organising our Hobbies’. Mr Gordon Stewart of Send Manor was a successful breeder and exhibitor of the dogs, several of which featured in films, including one starring as the Hound of the Baskervilles! www.sendandripleyhistorysociety.co.uk

Two maps in Ruislip, Northwood & Eastcote Local History Society’s journal for 2019 demonstrates how medieval landownership could spread over a very wide area of the country, resulting in challenges for local historians if sources are spread equally far and wide. In the 13th century Ruislip was one of two priories (the other was Ogbourne in Wiltshire) that ran the English estates of the Abbey of Bec in Normandy. The lands and resulting incomes stretched from Norfolk to Devon, much of it given by rich landowners concerned for the future of their souls. The legal, financial and other administrative work involved generated substantial burdens with resulting paperwork. www.rnelhs.org.uk

Deindustrialisation is the subject of an article in The Blackcountryman (Vol 53 No 1) from The Black Country Society. The author draws contrasts between the feelings of optimism in the aftermath of the Second World War and the devastating impact of the collapse of manufacturing from the 1970s. Then over 300,000 jobs were lost and many large employers closed. Paul Barnsley is writing a PhD thesis on perceptions of work of those who had been employed in heavy industry and then took up work in the replacement call centres, retails parks etc. It is based on oral history research with the steelworkers of Bilston Steel, Round Oak or The Patent Shaft, and he would like to hear from anyone who could share their experiences. P.Barnsley@wlv.ac.uk www.blackcountrysociety.com

Using local government records can be confusing, especially when areas change their names. Chadderton Historical Society note their good fortune, that for the past 125 years Chadderton has been divided into three wards, identified by the same three names – North, Central and South - despite alterations in local authorities. www.chadderton-historical-society.org.uk

We would always hope local history societies keep their own archives as records of their activities and personnel. Suffolk Local History Council began a separate newsletter in 1969 (having put matters of general interest in the back of the Suffolk Review since 1953. The current issue is number 100, and in it they illustrate the way the newsletter has evolved as design and technology changed. www.slhc.org.uk

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‘The most beautiful, intriguing and powerful objects have one thing in common: they live in museums. Let’s go find them’ is the introduction on the Museum Crush website. You might cringe at the phrasing, but it is a site well worth exploring. I have probably recommended it before but while we cannot visit museums in person, this is one way of maintaining contact and discovering new possibilities. www.museumcrush@culture24.org.uk

When we can go out again, small, local, volunteer-run museums that exist on a shoestring will need our support and some of the most delightful and intriguing are hidden from obvious view.

The Vale & Downland Museum is tucked away behind Wantage market square, in a 17th century cloth merchant’s house, and former doctor’s surgery. It has exhibition galleries telling the story of the local people and landscape of this part of Berkshire. There is also a resource room with books, documents and an extensive collection of old photographs; this requires advance booking. www.valeanddownlandmuseum.org.uk Berkshire Local history Association www.blha.org.uk

In Hampshire on the edge of the New Forest, Ringwood Meeting House & History Centre is both a stunning building and a local history museum. The Meeting House was built in 1727, and has been carefully restored to show what an 18th century Non-conformist chapel would look like. There are displays tracing the history of the town and its long history, plus changing exhibitions, a copious archive collection, and a welcoming cafe. The excellent acoustics mean it is used regularly for a wide variety of concerts and other performances. https://www.ringwoodmeetinghouse.org/

The Sittingbourne Heritage Museum, in Kent, publishes a regular newsletter, works with local schools, takes in relevant donations and much more. They have recently been given photographs of Bowaters Silver Band, now the UK Paper Band, which was formed in 1883, and has undergone a number of changes of name. They would like to hear from anyone who remembers the band. While it is not possible to visit the museum, their website has new attractions (for example their search for ARP wardens, and for 1935 pensioners in the town) and they are always pleased to hear from anyone with memories of Sittingbourne and area. http://www.sittingbourne-museum.co.uk/

‘Crafting Relationships’ is a not for profit social enterprise that runs Local History Cafés which are ‘community based heritage and well-being get togethers for over 50s at risk of, experiencing or looking to keep at bay social isolation and loneliness’. They are delivered in partnership with museums, heritage organisations and libraries, in programmes of five events after which the participants have options to move on in various directions. This may be volunteering with the host organisations, developing a continuation groups around a chosen theme, or continuing to meet socially. Funding came from Museum Development east Midlands, and are a Midlands-wide initiative. Currently on pause, of course, but readers might find this an interesting opportunity for the future. www.localhistorycafe.tumblr.com www.craftingrelationships.co.uk Association of Independent Museums www.aim-museums.co.uk

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‘The Clock Tower’ is the magazine of Friends of Medway Archives. Small in format but large in content, it packs a huge amount of material into it pages. Just one example, the Friends paid £30 on EBay for a fascinating collection of documents from the 1950s for Medway Archives Centre. This included items relating to Gillingham’s commemoration of the funeral of King George VI, the programme for the 1953 Naval and Military Tattoo at the United Services Stadium in Gillingham, a souvenir and invitation to a banquet to mark the incorporation of the borough of Gillingham also in 1953, and material on the opening of Medway Crematorium in 1959. www.foma-lsc.org/index.html

An exciting new project at Berkshire Record Office is cataloguing the Thames Conservancy collection. This forms an unbroken record over 200 years covering the river’s management from its source to its tidal reach at Teddington. The archive consists of 617 rolls, 569 volumes, 66 files, 32 bundles, 19 documents and 1 box. In terms of size it measures 10 metres by 10 metres by 10 metres! Public engagements are planned for 2121, when the 250th anniversary of the conservancy will be celebrated. This ‘Liquid Assets’ project is funded by a grant from the National Archives ‘Archives Revealed’ scheme. www.berkshirerecordoffice.org.uk

Whitbread plc gave a large deposit of its company records to Gloucester Archives in 2001. This has now been sorted and organised to make it accessible, as deposit D8947. Malting and brewing have a long history in Cheltenham and elsewhere in Gloucestershire. The Cheltenham Original Brewery dates from the mid-18th century. This collection contains deeds and photographs, as well as minute books, director’s reports and accounts. The West Country Breweries collection at the Archives includes documents relating to the breweries of Cheltenham Original, Cheltenham Breweries Holdings, Nailsworth, Arnold & Prerret, Wintle’s, Stroud, and Godsell & Sons. Cheltenham Local History Society www.cheltlocalhistory.org.uk www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/archives/

From the 1890s to the 1990s Bedfordshire Archives Service has high quality photographs to record the heritage of the county. Since the arrival of digital cameras, the decline of local newspapers, and the reduction of local government in-house facilities there is a gap in the archival record. The service is running a project to try to fill this, with support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund via the Greensand Country Landscape Partnership. They were intending to organise workshops for volunteer photographers which cannot happen under present circumstances. However interested people with appropriate skills may care to contact them. archive@bedford.gov.uk www.bedford.gov.uk/archive

The Transatlantic Ties project, which began in 2019 is continuing throughout 2020 at West Sussex Archives. This explores the many links between West Sussex and the USA over the last 300 years. Also, the Sussex Record Society has launched a new imprint for online publishing which will provide digital editions of the Society’s older print publication, together with an online platform for record and other content which are complementary or additional to the printed volumes. www.sussexrecordsociety.org./srs-digital-editions From The Researcher, Newsletter of the West Sussex Archives Society, Friends of the West Sussex Record Office. www.wsas.co.uk

Epsom & Ewell History Explorer website has a new address www.EEHE.org.uk. The previous website was designed 14 years ago, and the content has outgrown the technology, which of course has moved on enormously in that time. Not only can the new site be viewed on different devices, it can also be read in 103 languages! Epsom & Ewell Local and Family History Centre.

Oxfordshire History Centre’s Picture Oxon website is constantly expanding; there’s now a total of 138,000 images online, plus prints and drawings, and oral history recordings. They are always happy to hear from people who can add to or correct the information about the images, or who could donate or lend images for the collection. www.pictureoxon.com

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See also pre-history for primary schools from The Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society page 34

Last Autumn’s issue of The Historian from the Historical Association contains an article entitled ‘Does historical fiction matter for children?’ which looks at the HA’s Young Quills awards for historical fiction, launched nearly 10 years ago. The awards are made in 3 categories, 6-10 years, 11-13 years and 14 and over. Many hundreds of reviews are received from children at participating schools. The lists are an excellent source of advice for birthday presents! Search ‘young quills’ at www.history.org.uk

My granddaughter is an avid reader and enthusiastic about history. ‘The Vikings’ appear in her home-schooling programme, so I have just ordered for her (from my real local bookshop, who will deliver) Janina Ramirez’s The Riddle of the Runes which won the youngest Young Quill category last year. Ed

If you have a budding archaeologist in your household, they might enjoy ‘Career in Ruins’ podcasts. The Council for British Archaeology has recently sponsored two special episodes, S2E1 and S2E2, and there is much more. https://careerinruins.podbean.com/

Western Approaches HQ, the Battle of the Atlantic Experience is a time capsule to be found hidden under the streets of Liverpool. The museum is closed, but history lessons are being presented live on their Facebook page. I have just watched one which explained the Battle of the Atlantic, and included the recruitment of staff, particularly women, to work in the bunker. Typical comments coming in from viewers ‘what am amazing history lesson with @WestApproaches getting a live tour of a WW2 Bunker!’ https://liverpoolwarmuseum.co.uk/

Look out for many more organisations filing the need for history lessons online.

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I recently spoke at a day school on the theme of ‘antiquaries’. My paper was about George Ormerod, who in the second decade of the nineteenth century published a monumental history of Cheshire in nine parts and three volumes. He’s an interesting character, a wealthy gentleman of relatively humble origins (the families of both his parents were in trade, which is shocking of course) who spent several years researching, writing, plagiarising, and transcribing huge chunks of the works of others, to produce a work which his great contemporary Joseph Hunter, the historian of South Yorkshire, described as ‘a succession of facts detached, a rope of sand’. That, I think, is one of the great put-downs of local history. However, Ormerod explained why he undertook this massive project, and his reason was probably not unique: it was, he said, to ‘avert the irksomeness of super-abundant leisure’. Not suffering from that condition myself, I don’t claim to need any diversion to escape from boredom, but at least he was honest.

Investigating the local historians and genealogists of the Victorian period, and their reasons for indulging in local or family history, suggests that that they often didn’t share the motivation of their modern day successors. Take, for example, the Reverend Henry Salter, the editor of a number of works on the medieval, Tudor and Stuart history of the city and university of Oxford. He liked local history, it is true, but his real obsession was cricket – his proudest boast and greatest personal achievement was that he’d seen the first test match between England and Australia. However he did not play: his only exercise was sawing large logs, a pastime for which he had a bizarre passion. To do so required two people, using a double-handled saw, but the hobby ended abruptly when his wife, aged 85, told him in no uncertain terms that she was now too old to be on the other end of the saw! After that, local history was all he had left – but the sound of ball hitting willow was his real pleasure.

Another well-known local historian and clerical gentleman of the period was the Reverend Andrew Clark (1856-1922), Anglican priest at Great Leigh in Essex. He was an Oxford don, famous because he so intensely disliked students that he would only go to Oxford out of term time, so he wouldn’t have to meet any, let alone lecture to them. Clark was also sport-mad, and a very enthusiastic cricketer. So how did he get interested in local history? Simple. He ate too much. In the words of one friend, ‘his ever greater bulk prevented his ordinary sports, so he turned to the more sedentary pursuit of local history’. I love that – only begin family or local history when you are too overweight to do anything more energetic.

Others started research and found it exhaustingly heavy-going. In 1867 one Manchester local historian wrote to a friend about his historical and antiquarian investigations: ‘my labour can only be compared to that of clearing a forest in the backwoods of America’. I begin to wonder why he bothered, if it was all so much trouble.

Just occasionally, though, we read of someone who had the kind of passion for history and research which many of us know very well. William Beamont of Warrington was a solicitor, and first mayor of that borough. In 1878 he reflected on his love of history, saying that he found the day job (not a phrase he knew!) extremely tedious, but confessing that he loved to look at ‘old deeds and musty parchments, and smell the aroma of age ... when time never hangs heavy upon me and the longest day seems too short’. We all know that feeling. We lose ourselves in the past – sometimes our own ancestral past, sometimes the history of a particular place or district. Perhaps it’s escapism for some, but there’s no doubting its fascination. I’m with Beamont on this (and I have never been able to play cricket!).

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Many local history societies and individual local historians have good cause to be grateful to their local bookshops, especially the small independent concerns, who promote and stock their publications, often on very favourable terms. As with all small businesses that depend on customer footfall, bookshops face an uncertain and potentially catastrophic future, and many have begun to offer bespoke ordering and delivery services to their customers in order to survive. As it seems many of us will have more time on our hands than expected for the foreseeable future, and will probably spend some of it reading, I hope that you will consider – when you do decide to buy books – contacting first your local bookshop to see whether they can supply them. We shall all need bookshops in the future to convey the results of our enthusiasm for local history to others, so it is in everyone’s interest to help them survive.

John Chandler

Chair, Publishing Committee, BALH

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The Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society (CWAAS) has funded the publication of a prehistory learning resource for primary schools.

the new resource provides background information, how the distant past is relevant today, highlights Cumbria’s sites and artefacts and provides activities for teachers to use in the classroom.

It was produced by Minerva Heritage with input from archaeological experts and feedback from teachers and learners after a pilot session with Maryport Church of England School, Maryport, Cumbria.

The resource provides opportunities to explore the History Curriculum, in particular ‘changes in Britain from the Stone Age to the Iron Age’. The activities offer opportunities for cross curricular working, for example:

 Develop English language skills

 Understand aspects of British and human geography

 Approach Science curriculum themes of materials properties

 Explore the Art and Design curriculum through producing their own creative work and reflecting on the work of others.

Included in the resource is an introductory slide show, in school activities and on site activity suggestions, using a site visit to Castlerigg Stone Circle as an example. It can be found on the CWAAS website for download at www.cumbriapast.com/cgi-bin/cwaas/cp_main.pl?action=cp_schools_area

Sarah Rose

This is a valuable example that could be followed in other parts of the country.

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Local History Day 2020

We are all disappointed that Local History Day this year has had to be cancelled, or at least postponed. It is such a significant annual event for BALH for many reasons. Every three years we visit a different area city. The presentations are always interesting and stimulating. The Awards give us the opportunity to recognise the achievements of local historians around the country when the President gives them their certificates. The AGM allows us to comply with the formal regulation of the Association. And last by not least, we make new friends and meet old ones, many of whom have been coming to the event for years. You know who you are, and we are very sorry not to be seeing you in June.

Society members 1

The central insert in this issue is the updated insurance fact Sheet for society members. Please detach read it carefully and keep this for reference.

Society members 2

One important element of the BALH website is the Society Directory. Member societies may have a profile page with details of their work and events. If you have not yet done this, now would be a good opportunity to contribute. https://www.balh.org.uk/societies-az

Everyone

Enforced ‘leisure’ = time for local history research and writing up the work you have already done, as well as Spring cleaning, DIY and gardening ... Don’t spend all of every day at your computer, but there are now so many resources available online to make it a productive time until we can again visit the local record office.

Use back issues of TLH and LHN for case studies of work done by others – examples from elsewhere for your local patch.

Just in this issue there are plenty of ideas:

Chair’s note – Supplement p1,

Devon project on 1920s

Ramblers on p 19, and see also

https://www.ramblers.org.uk/get-involved/campaign-with-us/dont-lose-your-way-2026/finding-historical-sources-online.aspx

primary school prehistory opposite

Remember BALH books (see supplement p2 – 3) and other resources on our website.

Minute by minute organisations are becoming increasingly innovative in ways of continuing to communicate with members, friends and supporters. Exhibitions are appearing on YouTube; Family Tree Live is putting its presentations online. By the time you read this there will be much, much more. Keep an eye on the websites of all your favourite places. It will be sad not to be able to mark the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War with communal events, but there are many possibilities for personal remembering and virtual group activities.

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Wakefield Historical Publications in association with Shaun Tyas, Donnington

2019 ISBN 978-1-907730-78-8 £19.95 (available via Amazon and ebay) x+ii5pp

This short book is packed with information and illustrations; in fact, nearly half of the book comprises excellent illustrations. It is a successful attempt to recover some of Wakefield’s lost buildings. It is also a tribute to Peter Brears, who as a young man realised what was happening to his home town and tried to record as much of it as possible before it was destroyed, forming the Wakefield Archaeology Research Group along the way. From his own records, bits and pieces kept in a variety of local museums, and the work of earlier antiquarians he has restored some of Wakefield’s lost glory. This history is also a tragedy: the barbarians were not at the gates but were inside, tearing down most of what was beautiful, important or historical, and replacing it with the ‘concrete blight’ of the 1960s.

Anyone visiting Wakefield today will see only a few surviving buildings – the parish church, the chapel on the bridge, the ruins of Sandal castle – and will be unaware of how important this town once was, and what beautiful buildings it once contained. This was no provincial backwater: the town was well situated, with a safe fording place across the river Calder and on the major route running north to south between Ripon and Derby. It became the regional centre of administration and was the seat of what was probably the largest manor in England. In 1180 it became a borough and in the post-medieval period was the court town for the quarter sessions. Its wealth came from local produce and woollen cloth woven in the Calder valley.

The town’s increasing prosperity enabled the parish church to be rebuilt in 1329, and its bridge (with the finest bridge chapel in England) in 1342. A magnificent spire was later added to the church in 1420. An expansion of the wool trade began in the early sixteenth century and continued until the eighteenth century when Leeds opened its first ‘white’ cloth hall and took much of the trade away. It was this prosperity in the sixteenth century that resulted in the rebuilding of the town. Houses and shops were built including a Free Grammar School in the 1590s, and in the seventeenth century multi-storied timber framed buildings went up. It is some of these buildings which are recorded in this book, the illustrations showing how magnificently decorated they were, both internally and externally. Today there are a few surviving timbers in museum stores, without this book they would still be lost from sight: using early nineteenth century lithographs and watercolours Brears has been able to show what the street scenes once looked like.

Historic records show us who built and lived in these houses, and these back stories to the buildings add to the picture of a town which was flourishing. Wakefield was the home of Sir Thomas Wentworth, Knight Marshall to Henry VIII. Wentworth brought fashionable craftsmen to Wakefield where they created ‘the finest interior in the district’ at his house, Bretton Hall. Robert Peck and his wife Margaret, who inherited Haselden Hall in the mid-fifteenth century, began major reconstruction work, and Francis Gaunt a mercer left a ‘little house’ to fund a free school in the town. Brears has managed to show us what was lost in terms of buildings and something of the people who inhabited them and how they contributed to what was once a thriving, beautiful and important town.

The book is an example of what can be recovered from just ‘bits and pieces’, and Brears should be congratulated for restoring Wakefield to us.

Lynda Pidgeon.

Her interest is in the social and political history of the late medieval period, with particular reference to the Wars of the Roses and the place of the North in the history of Richard III.

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(Y Lolfa 2019 165pp ISBN 978-1-912631-19-3) £14.99

Geoff Charles was a photographer whose career over 50 years captured innumerable stories of life in Wales and the Borders. He trained as a journalist and worked as a newspaper reporter, and this informed and influenced his work as a photographer and photojournalist. The author, Ioan Roberts, a personal friend and colleague of Charles, writes ‘he was always aware of the story behind the picture’, a fact which becomes apparent as one reads through this captivating book.

The photographs are necessarily only a small selection of Charles’ work. Nevertheless the reader – or ‘viewer’ – will find themselves caught time and time again, intrigued, impressed or moved by the quality of the images. The book is prefaced by Henri Cartier-Bresson’s observation that ‘Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again’. Charles was a photographer with consummate skill in preserving those ‘vanishing things’ through his lens. Often his pictures are carefully posed ; but if they lack the spontaneity of the modern snap, they more than compensate with the richness of the narrative they contain. The subject of a photograph may be grinning at the camera with complicit glee, or they may be solemn as the moment – and the photographer – demanded. A fine example is the photo of mackintoshed men gathered round a road sign at the official opening of what was claimed to be Britain’s first cattle grid in 1952. (See illustration)

The poignancy of some of Charles’ images is painful. A series of photographs recorded the personal loss and the political fervour associated with Tryweryn, the Welsh village drowned to provide a reservoir for Liverpool. Another series, including what was probably Charles’ most famous image, commemorate the tragic departure of an aged couple from their hill-farm in Snowdonia for a new home in England.

Ioan Roberts, who sadly passed away in December 2019, published several books in Welsh on the career and photography of Geoff Charles before writing this book. The text is informative, and entertaining, providing a personal context to the photographs, and exploring the ‘lost way of life’ of the title through the narrative of Charles’ wonderful images. Although this book will be of interest to industrial historians, rail enthusiasts, those with an interest in twentieth century agriculture and students of the politics of Wales, it is possible that the greatest delight may be had from looking at the portraits Charles’ photographs often comprised. We see people at work, at play, at their happiest and saddest, in the landscapes they understood and loved. This is a book about Wales for everyone who can read English, or indeed, enjoy a good photograph.

Helen Palmer, County Archivist, Information and Records Manager / Archifydd y Sir, Rheolwr Gwybodaeth a Chofnodion, Archifdy Ceredigion Archives

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