Local History News Number 147 Spring 2023

The success of the Association in supporting and promoting local history throughout the country depends very much on contributions made by members, readers, and all those interested and concerned.

Material published in The Local Historian is written by a wide variety of people from many different backgrounds. Offers and suggestions for articles are welcomed, and the editor, Alan Crosby, is always pleased to discuss ideas for contributions and to advise on their preparation. ‘Notes for contributors’ is available on request, and can be found on our website at www.balh.org.uk/thelocalhistorian-contributors.

Local History News relies on material – articles, news, pictures, advice, questions etc – from local societies and individual local historians. We also welcome your newsletters and other regular publications. Information about local initiatives is particularly welcome, and we are always keen to publish items that give examples of best practice, illustrating the diversity and vitality of local history. Readers’ comments and queries allow our members to share their knowledge and enthusiasm. If there is a specific event you wish us to mention please allow plenty of time ahead of the date – we can also list larger events such as conferences at the BALH website and in the BALH e-newsletter. Local History News is normally mailed at the end of January, April, July and October, with deadlines at the beginning of the previous months.

The BALH Reviews Editor is Dr Heather Falvey; if you have a newly published work, either as an individual or a society, please send a copy for listing and possible review to her at the address given below. Be sure to include all relevant details such as price and where to purchase.

Important contacts

News and article proposals: editor.lhn@balh.org.uk

Newsletters/regular publications: please send digitally if possible, to editor.lhn@balh.org.uk and to reviews.editor@balh.org.uk, otherwise by post to BALH Office c/o Moore Insight, St James House, Vicar Lane, Sheffield S1 2EX.

Proposals for The Local Historian: agcrosby@waitrose.com, Dr Alan Crosby,
77 Wellington St, Preston PR1 8TQ

Books for review: Dr Heather Falvey, 119 Winton Drive, Croxley Green, Rickmansworth WD3 3QS

All other enquiries: email admin@balh.org.uk, write to BALH Registered Office, c/o Moore Insight, St James House, Vicar Lane, Sheffield S1 2EX, or call 01625 664524

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By Alan Crosby

In recent years many local history societies have developed projects to record changes in their community, recognising that capturing key aspects of contemporary events and trends could provide an invaluable resource for local historians in the future. I suspect that many of us have on occasion thought, ‘If only someone had left us an eyewitness account of that’ (or had jotted down their impressions at a time of change, or taken photographs of the scene). The pandemic inspired numerous recording activities – making collections of medical ephemera, keeping diaries and day-by-day logs, writing memoranda about the effects of lockdown and other restrictions, and of course charting the sad litany of deaths, isolation and fear.

Underlying much of this is the sense that we are all part of history, and that our experiences and personal perceptions have historical significance and value. The local history of the ‘common people’, like their family history, is seen as intrinsically significant and therefore worth protecting and cherishing. How often have I heard the question (or variants of it) which asks, ‘What was it like to live then/to be in those conditions/to encounter that challenge?’ Perhaps local historians of the next generation will have more answers than we do, thanks to the collecting and recording activities of our generation.

When change happens, we quickly forget what used to be… what those fairly ordinary but pleasant green fields and hedgerows looked like before they disappeared under the creeping tide of bricks and mortar, how it felt to try to cross the road prior to the opening of the bypass, how the air smelled when the coking plant was still operating. That one is personal for me – it was in the valley a couple of miles away from my mother-in-law’s house on a hillside at the edge of Sheffield, and the powerful pungent smell, reminiscent of sulphur and carbolic soap, is an abiding memory. Should I have captured its essence in a bottle for future local historians to sniff, after they had signed disclaimers regarding possible side-effects?

I look around my own city, Preston, and everywhere there are changes. In the almost 40 years that I have lived here, the built-up area, the physical sprawl of the place, has nearly doubled as many thousands of new houses have buried those pleasant fields, ponds and brooks, and patches of woodland. Skeins of new roads have transformed the structure of the city, while great factories have vanished, to be replaced by retail parks and yet more housing. The university, a modest polytechnic when I came here, is now the largest employer, and it has, like a cuckoo in the nest, come to dominate a whole sector of the townscape as well as radically reshaping the local economy. How can anywhere sustain quite so many fast food outlets!

In the city centre several of the key buildings which were less than 20 years old when we came here have now been demolished and redeveloped, while traditional landmarks (a cinema, pubs, family-run shops) have disappeared. The gleaming new shopping centre which was built after we came (I can recall the small buildings and shops which were pulled down to make way for it) is now half-empty, because Debenhams was its anchor store. There is a continuous turnover of restaurants which are opened in a spirit of optimism and after a few years close in one of pessimism about the gastronomic future of Lancashire’s de facto county town. The charity shops apparently flourish, the banks close their branches, and this building and that one are earmarked for conversion to flats (which now of course are ‘apartments’ and – it surely goes without saying – are invariably ‘luxury’ ones).

It’s all local history, and it is to be seen against the backdrop of a thousand years of urban history. In the broad overview which we might adopt, the reshaping going on at the moment is just another phase in the long sequence of identities it has had, from medieval borough, important market centre, focus of county administration, textile manufacturing town of global significance, shopping centre for half a county, the most Catholic town in Victorian England, major railway junction, 20th century engineering hub, higher education centre… it’s more embroidery on the already rich tapestry.

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BALH Outstanding Individual Contribution award winner Stephe says he has always been interested in history – not kings and battles and politics but in the everyday lives of people in the past, in the industrial history of the remains scattered around the country, and in the buried history brought out into daylight by archaeologists.

Stephe Cove has been active in the Duddon Valley Local History Group throughout his membership. Among other activities, he set up and maintains the group’s website and has been instrumental in helping to catalogue its extensive archives ready for digitising. Stephe is also a member of the Lake District Archaeology Volunteer Network, run by the Lake District National Park Authority.

Stephe has frequently involved local schools, for example with the Longhouse Project (the excavation of three medieval longhouses in the hills near Seathwaite Tarn), and ‘Coniston Copper’, inspiring children to enjoy investigating their local history with classroom programmes, including making models of copper mining equipment and on-site visits, always ensuring their experience was valuable, relevant and enjoyable.

In a major project with the Wordsworth Trust, the University of Leicester, Duddon Valley History Group and other collaborators, Stephe and other enthusiastic members shared their rich knowledge of the area to pinpoint locations related to Wordsworth’s series of 33 sonnets The River Duddon. Despite delay due to the pandemic, his commitment continued to contribute to the project, which resulted in a highly successful multimedia exhibition centred on a map of the valley created by Stephe.

To mark the 175th anniversary of the Furness Railway, Stephe and a fellow member designed and produced a display board which now sits proudly on Foxfield Station, with a similar board on the disused track-bed in Broughton.

As a long-standing member of the Duddon and Furness Mountain Rescue team, Stephe has raised a lot of money for them by giving talks on local history throughout the region.

He has made a major contribution to researching the history of Duddon Valley and the Lake District more widely.

www.duddonhistory.org.uk

If you’d like to listen to Stephe describing how the group’s contribution to the exhibition came about follow this link: balh.org.uk/WYB135

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By Andrew Chapman

After nearly 20 years at the helm of Local History News, Jane Howells has set aside her editor’s red pen in search of the elusive myth of free time. Looking through the archives, it’s hard to pin down exactly when Jane’s contributions to the magazine and the wider work of BALH began, but she has been a powerhouse of knowledge, support and production for a long time.

Back in issue 38 of LHN (Spring 1996), we can find what may have been her first article here, on ‘Women in local history’ (bylined ‘Jane Howells is a history teacher’). The first issue with her listed as editor dates from Autumn 2004, although as Jane noted in her last issue of LHN, she ‘gradually took over various parts of the job’ so there was never an official arrival in the editor’s chair.

Women’s history is certainly a theme Jane has returned to, particularly through her involvement on the steering committee of the West of England & South Wales Women’s History Network, and her 2007 PhD was on independent women in public life in Victorian Salisbury. Jane has co-written two books on the city’s history and edited newsletters for Wiltshire Local History Forum, and has given many conference papers, articles and talks on related subjects. Here at BALH, Jane has also been an active contributor well beyond the pages of this journal, including being a past manager of the website, judging awards and running stands at events. It is no surprise at all therefore that many of her colleagues past and present at BALH wanted to pay tribute to her achievements and contributions:

‘I have worked alongside Jane in BALH since the end of the last century, and it has been a delight. Her calm and practical approach to the work, her sense of humour, her talent for identifying what needed to be done (for example, on successive Local History Days), her exemplary organising of the personal achievement awards, and her willingness at all times to help with refereeing and commenting on papers for The Local Historian, assessing publications awards material, and very much more, all made for a most excellent partnership. I know too that she has been instrumental in nurturing and developing local history in Salisbury and Wiltshire which has reinforced and enhanced her work for BALH. Retirement is perfectly reasonable, but goodness me Jane, we’ll miss you.’ – Alan Crosby, editor, The Local Historian

‘I particularly appreciated all Jane’s guidance, help and friendship during the years I acted as chair. Though BALH is losing Jane’s services I hope Salisbury Chronicle will be benefiting from her editorship for years to come.’ – Professor Claire Cross, BALH Vice President

‘It has been a pleasure to work with Jane and to meet up with her at BALH events. I hope that she now has more time to pursue her own historical interests.’ – Heather Falvey, Reviews Editor

‘My thanks to Jane for so many editions of LHN which was always my favourite read, long before I became involved in BALH as anything other than as a normal member. I’m especially grateful to Jane for her friendly welcome at the first Local History Days that I attended, in her role as administrator, and of course for her wisdom and knowledge of the past in BALH which she so generously imparted over a cup of tea in a cafe in Tisbury when I first became the chair of Outreach –I think we outstayed our welcome, but Jane had so much to tell me that we ignored the grumpy looks from the cafe owner!’ – Susan Moore, BALH Trustee

‘Jane, your contribution to BALH has been immense! We will greatly miss you. On a personal note thank you for being wonderfully supportive, endlessly patient and always kind.’ – Jane Golding, Vice-Chair, BALH Trustees

‘As a representative of a local history society, Hornsey Historical Society, I want to thank Jane for constantly highlighting the work and events of local history societies such as ours. Giving us a national profile, particularly during the last few difficult years, coping with the consequences of the pandemic and now with rising financial costs and a dearth of volunteers, has given a boost to our work enthusing and educating local people about the history and heritage of the area and their part in its continuing story.’ – Janet Owen, BALH Publishing Committee

‘Having known and worked with Jane in various capacities even longer than her tenure of LHN, I have always held her in the highest regard, and have greatly enjoyed and benefited from our long friendship and collaboration.’ – John Chandler, Trustee and Chair, Publishing Committee

‘Our warmest thanks to Jane for all that she done over the years for BALH in so many capacities. I also know that Jane will be very badly missed by all of us, not to say the loyal readers of Local History News. Its popularity, as confirmed by our survey, is down to Jane’s skills as editor and her wide network of contacts across the local history world. I am hopeful we will continue to see Jane at future events, in person and online, and to rely on her sage advice.’ – Paul Dryburgh, Chair, BALH Trustees

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Paul Dryburgh has it in a nutshell: ‘Andrew has formidable shoes in which to step.’ I’m very grateful myself to Jane for her warm welcome to LHN and her support as I take over the role – and I shall be taking great care of the many useful Post-it notes she has marked up previous issues with!

When I joined the BALH Publishing Committee just over a year ago, I certainly had no inkling that this was where it would lead – but as a passionate fan of ‘national local history’, I’m delighted.

I come to this arena partly from the world of family history, where I have been writing for and editing magazines since 2005. I was managing editor of the newsstand magazine Your Family History for a few years and I have been editor of Discover Your Ancestors since 2011, where I have been particularly keen to make it as much about social history as the specifics of genealogy. And of course there are plenty of Venn diagram overlaps with these disciplines and local history.

My background is in publishing rather than as a professional historian, and much of my work is as a freelance consultant, editor and designer for authors and publishers of books (though over time I find myself ever more keen to focus on history-
related ones); I also write a weekly email newsletter ferreting out first-hand accounts from hidden corners of history. My two sons, now at secondary school, are both keen on history, so I hope some of my enthusiasm has rubbed off.

Having lived in eight different counties of England (now settled in rural Oxfordshire), plus both Scotland and Wales, I’m certainly keen to ensure that LHN encompasses every corner of these isles. I have taken great delight in exploring local history in all of those regions, and indeed beyond through my chief pastime of walking, wherever and whenever possible (so you can certainly expect some of my own ‘While out walking’ columns here) – bringing us full circle to shoes and stepping out!

I look forward to getting to know many of you better, and do of course send me your news, ideas and articles (editor.lhn@balh.org.uk).

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By Barry Shurlock

Local history and local newspapers are ready-made soulmates, although they may not be a perfect fit. On the upside, they have a large readership, in print and online, and generally welcome well-written, interesting stories. On the downside, they are not fond of academic nuances or long words and don’t print endnotes or references. Overall, however, any local historian who wants to ‘get the message out’ would do well to get to know local editors and provide them with regular copy. For the past few years I have done just that and to date have published more than 160 articles in local outlets (as the jargon goes). These have appeared mainly in the Hampshire Chronicle, published in Winchester, with syndication in the Romsey Advertiser, and occasionally other local papers, including the Daily Echo, published in Southampton.

The mechanics may vary with different editors, but essentially it’s important to deliver the numbers of words (approximately) and pictures that the editor needs to fill the space available. In my case, it’s generally about 1,200 words and four pictures, together with captions, though I try to submit six pictures, which provides some flexibility in laying out the page. Editors will love you if you have spent time in finding interesting and unusual pictures. There are many that can be used under Creative Commons (see https://search.creativecommons.org) and are otherwise available on the internet (but always check the copyright first), while most owners of local collections are usually glad to have their material printed, provided it’s credited. (LHN editor’s note: look out for an article on this subject in a future issue.)

The narrow columns of newspapers mean that short paragraphs and short sentences work better than great slabs of text. And don’t hesitate to start a sentence with ‘and’ or ‘but’ to break a complex statement into digestible bits. Word files for text and JPG files for pictures are the norm.

If you get a regular slot, the editor will be most impressed if you always submit your copy at the appropriate time. Habits vary, but the mad rush to put an edition to bed means that newspaper offices have a huge influx of material (now mostly digital) followed by enthusiastic dumping. Delivering too late is, of course, a sin, but delivering too early risks the material getting ‘lost’, so the best thing is to file (another jargon word) the article an agreed number of days before it is published.

Another important fact about local newspapers is that they are all struggling to survive in difficult circumstances. Advertising is down, paper costs are up and everyone gets a lot of news from a growing number of other sources. Journalists have never been busier writing and editing a huge amount of copy each week (and with online editions, every day). Hence, do not expect to have extended conversations about your precious work, and do not expect ‘sloppy copy’ to be sorted out – it will just get spiked (meaning not used).

Equally, although it is always useful to supply a headline (with the appropriate number of letters to fit across the columns), and a standfirst (the short description under the headline), it will probably be rewritten, sometimes in a way that is less precise – but try not to get too upset. In a week’s time it will be fish and chip paper (at least it would have been before Health and Safety).

Selecting a topic for an article is a mixture of what you fancy and what is appropriate. Pieces on freak snowstorms are hardly ideal for a summer edition, while there are obvious answers for such fixed points as November the Fifth, Christmas and even Burns Night (though check whether the editor uses an apostrophe). Some national events may also be relevant. For example, when Rishi Sunak became prime minister, I wrote a piece on previous political grandees who had been to Winchester College – six chancellors, but only one PM, namely Henry Addington (1757–1844). With Covid, I wrote about Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year under the headline ‘Epidemics – we’ve been here before’. I’ve not yet found a link for Ukraine, but economic and political turmoil are full of possibilities.

Looking back at my output, there are several set approaches that have worked. New ventures by local history groups, ‘new discoveries’, recently published books, calls for information to solve ‘mysteries’ – all these and other similar ones are good openings for an article. Of course, extreme events in the genre of ‘horrible history’ always work, though they may not be historically very interesting. The odd ghastly murder, daring robbery, catastrophic fire and the like are all worth covering from time to time, though they may not amount to much in the way of historical insight.

Unusual stories of any kind are always of interest. I have written on an eel fishery, a parson who fought at Waterloo, a farm that once made its living from growing tobacco, local men lost in one of the five Ashanti Wars, and such headlines as: ‘Hampshire’s “track and shack” settlements’, ‘International business sparked by a shepherd’, ‘Soldiers saved by fruit stones and nut shells’, ‘Old records and legend of WW2 plane crash’, ‘The ornithologist and the “common brewer” ‘, ‘Hampshire’s forgotten author’ – and many, many more.

News about archives and new approaches to local history are always worth an airing. I have written on the archives of Hampshire police, the muniments of Winchester College, audiovisual records, writing plays based on historic events, and such headlines as ‘Recycling medieval music’, ‘Romsey history – in print after 200 years’, ‘Not the north – Hampshire’s industrial heritage’, ‘One small town – 2,000 pictures’, ‘Fruitful visits to a Cambridge college’, ‘A surprising find in deepest Hampshire’, ‘Making sense of timber-framed buildings’ and lots more.

One obvious fact which many local historians quickly learn is that the past provides an endless store of fascinating stories. Provided they are well researched, set in context and relevant to the newspaper in question they will be welcomed by any journalist needing to fill his or her pages. Some historians are sniffy about writing for the press but a newspaper will reach many more people than a low-circulation journal, though there is a place for both.

Oh, and by the way, don’t expect to get paid.

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By Bill Laws and others

In the last issue of Local History News, Doug Cox, treasurer of Horley Local History Society, explained his group’s dilemma: an archive accumulated over 70 years but with nowhere to store it. ‘We have come to believe that digitisation is the way forward. But how do we go about this huge task?’ he said. This has prompted a lively and informative response from several BALH readers. Doug’s group is far from alone: Joanna Moncrieff, vice chair of Chingford Historical Society, for example, said: ‘We are in the same boat as you. We have been awarded some Heritage Lottery money for digitisation but don’t know where to start!’ Jane Davidson of Goudhurst & Kilndown Local History Society noted that her society’s archives are stored in a garage and an oasthouse, At Yatton LHS, said Anita Jays, it’s all in a room at the local Methodist church. She also recommended an article in LHN140, ‘Sharing your local archives’. Here we offer a round-up of useful advice from BALH members, starting with Bill Laws in Herefordshire.

‘I used to lie in bed on New Year’s Eve listening to the echo of the steam engine whistles. At midnight all the drivers down there would blow them.’ This brief but evocative recollection, from a railway man who’d lived and worked on the Great Western line near the Severn Tunnel all his life, was captured during a recent oral history project. His words have since been archived by Gwent Archives and, while there is a national debate about how such records will ultimately be stored, we can be confident that they are preserved for posterity.

It’s not so straightforward for us local historians, agonising over managing our ‘hard’ histories. Our own history group, the relatively youthful county reminiscence group Herefordshire Lore, was set up 33 years ago. Yet in that time we have acquired 200 face-to-face interviews, 3,000 black and white photographs, 128 back issues of our magazine and a Clarks’ shoe box of ephemera. Like our colleagues at Horley we too decided to digitise.

How did we go about it? Initially we listed everything (Step 1, below) and, following a useful Zoom session with BALH (the BALH digital skills workshop: ‘Archiving Your Local History Collection’, by Dr Ellie Pridgeon)*, we set up a digital archive (Step 2).

Step 1: List what you’ve got – digitise the lot

Having bought a computer, scanner/printer and a portable hard drive for back-up, specifically for the job, we started scanning documents. Each was saved to the computer and copied on to the hard drive. Initially they were saved in the familiar Microsoft formats, (Word .docx files, etc) but since this medium may one day go the way of CDs, floppy discs and Zip drives, we’re now saving items in the more widely readable .pdf format. Everything is listed on a database (we’re still using Microsoft’s Excel).

Our magazines followed, once again scanned and stored in .pdf format. The photos, published in our journals, are stored on the computer in .tif or .jpg format and two enthusiastic volunteers are poised to begin listing them on an Excel database.

Currently we are tackling the audio, gradually transferring it from old cassettes, MiniDiscs and even a couple of old iPhone recordings to the computer in mp3 or the larger WAV format. (We had to buy a cassette player and a MiniDisc player and some sound software with which the computer could ‘read’ the audio.)

Step 2: Setting up the archive

We have created a duplicate archive: the first as ‘preserved’ archive, the second an ‘access’ one. The one is a mirror of the other, but (in theory) the preserved one is kept ‘closed’ and only the access archive will be consulted. The whole archive, along with the databases, is stored not only on our computer hard drive, but twice for good measure on the portable hard drive. We will produce printouts of the databases when we are finished and consider saving everything to some remote cloud storage. But we have yet to get our heads around that!

The finished archive will be lodged at Herefordshire Archive and Record Centre where, we trust, it will be as safe and sound as those railway man’s words.

Bill Laws, Herefordshire Lore (www.herefordshire
lore.org.uk)

Isobel Turner from Coddington History Group in Nottinghamshire writes:

Look at Awards For All: www.funding
forall.org.uk/funds/awards-for-all. They like ‘community’ projects. You could get training and equipment for the digitisation, for instance.

Elvie Herd from Norfolk writes:

I sympathise with your dilemma over storage. We are a much younger group and collection, the Loddon & District Local History Group.

Our collection is mainly photographs, cuttings and interesting paper items, local maps and a number of oral history items. We were fortunate for many years to have a small room in the Loddon Library which we sometimes manned but was open for interested folks to browse when the library was open and staffed.

Three years ago, starting in April 2020, we were enrolled on a Sustaining Local Archives Project organised by Norfolk Record Office and with a Lottery grant for two staff to support and train about 30 very varied local groups – then Covid hit and no face-to-face plus the horrors of Zoom were upon us; added to this the Library was closed. The newly appointed staff set to work to create an online toolkit and then some online training.

Then the library contacted us to say that our room was to be converted into a disabled toilet, and did we want the library service to store our stuff or did we want to collect it?

We collected and it moved to my garage – three years on much of the contents of umpteen albums and folders has been listed, with varying levels of detail. Most of the albums have been digitised, and images have been linked to the catalogue sheets; maps have also been digitised. Some other items, such as house histories, are already Word or PDF documents so they can be linked when time allows.

There is still masses to do, but I have folks listing the contents of folders, and a lot of assistance with digitising. Some items we have successfully photographed, and smaller ones we have scanned; it takes time and can be very frustrating. There are no plans to put the whole lot online (yet!). But what the project did produce was a toolkit with lots of how-to guides, which can be found at: www.archives.norfolk.gov.uk/community-archives

No magic wand but a possible way forward – good luck.

Since these responses, Doug has been in touch with an update:

Just a quick note to give you an update on the response to the article which you published on our behalf on page 8 of the Winter issue of LHN. Within a few days of publication I received several calls and emails from societies stretching from Milford on Sea in the south to Redditch in the Midlands. Some were calls to offer advice and others were from societies which shared our dilemma to a greater or lesser extent. One of the most helpful calls came from Elvie Herd – I can recommend the Norfolk Record Office website to all others seeking a guide to digital archiving. We also received a call from the principal archivist at Surrey CC, Mike Page, and we have arranged a Zoom meeting with him. I will let you know how we resolve things in due course.

* Dr Ellie Pridgeon will run an updated version of her talk on ‘Archiving Your Local History Collection’ on 9 May – see page 35

If you have similar dilemmas or have found useful solutions, please do share your experiences via editor.lhn@balh.org.uk and we will present them here again in future.

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By Catharina Clement

At Chatham Historical Society, each year we have one or two society evenings rather than speakers. It was decided a few years ago to make these research-based evenings, helping members to investigate their local history rather than just be passive.

Some 20 years ago the society helped to pay for a facsimile copy of a local WW2 diary kept by a naval tailor in Chatham during this period as the owner did not want to part with the original. However, no one had done any research into the diary or local bombing raids and incidents during WW2. With the 80th anniversary of WW2 looming, we borrowed the diary back from the local archives (where it is lodged for safekeeping) over several sessions in 2018 and 2019. Groups worked to establish details of various bombing incidents from the diary, newspaper articles, online reports and members’ memories etc. This culminated in us producing articles for our magazine and plotting WW2 bombing incidents on contemporary 1939 Ordnance Survey maps, as well as having a presence at the Medway Archives WW2 event in October 2019 to commemorate the outbreak of WW2, where all this material and the diary were on display for the public to browse and ask questions of our society.

This was followed up in 2022, after two years of closure due to lockdowns, with a desire to continue this kind of research evening once a year – our topic for January 2023 was ‘Local Worthies’. A number of members chose a local persona they wished to research between October 2022 and our meeting this January. The members were then invited to give a five-minute presentation to the society on their chosen topic. Twelve members took part in the presentation and another two were unable to attend but will submit their findings for our magazine in April.

The Local Worthies included Ann Pratt, William Cuffay, Richard Dadd and Thomas Waghorn. The subjects included a wide range of occupations and professions: an architect, artists, a writer, a botanist, a postal pioneer, a Black Chartist, an MP, an engineer etc. Our members used the internet, books, library and local archives as well as newspapers to research their topics. Many have now sent in their research as articles to include in our next magazine.

The overwhelming feedback was that it was an extremely useful project, an entertaining evening and something they would like to repeat next year. A suggested idea for next year was unusual or demolished buildings with historical significance that are often forgotten.

I hope this may encourage some other historical societies to offer more than just talks and outings etc, but actively engage in their local history.

Catharina Clement, secretary, Chatham Historical Society

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By William Morgan

When I decided to write a history of race tracks that have gone, inspired by riding for a trainer who used an old racecourse, I never dreamed it would be such a size. I thought there might have been 150 venues, but in fact there have been over 1,000 in some sort of ‘official’ calendar, so that a reasonable book has turned into what will hopefully become four large volumes, each with hundreds of maps and photographs, including some taken with a drone. (It is difficult to imagine now that the area around Harrow, for example, was one of the first centres of steeplechasing.)

I wanted to go back to the original sources where possible, partly to widen the scope of the book to be a social history, because racing was at one time the national sport, a local holiday activity and the chance for everyone to drink and gamble, and there are many entertaining stories to tell.

I have read countless newspapers in libraries, plundering the rich resource of the Victorian journalists particularly, who would survey the scene, largely ignoring the action of the course (rightly so). I have visited as many places as I could – part of the fun of doing the research as I went to locations I had never seen before and probably never would have otherwise.

Many times, however, just going to a place or reading beforehand that, for example, races at St Columb were held on New Downs would leave one none the wiser. Sometimes landowners will know, but frequently they will not. That scenario was one of many when a local history society provided the vital answer, as well as information on the people involved, breathing life into what would otherwise be a dry assembly of facts about small courses in particular that might have lasted only a few years and attracted little press attention.

Sometimes I will tell a society more than I learn and I have happily sent what I have written about a location to many, but more often it is a useful exchange of information, where I can inform the society about the racing and the society teaches me about the location and the people. Sometimes, of course, neither party ends up any the wiser and occasionally one gets no reply, but a benefit of the internet has been connections, sometimes via a parish council, to individuals or societies that will yield a nugget.

When I started this project, I had to record reports in newspapers and books in longhand, then reader printers became more common – and now so many papers are on the internet. Similarly, although libraries had some information about local history societies when I visited a location or I telephoned them, often I had to go to a post office or a local pub and hope. Now I can do much more in a fraction of the time and fill in many more gaps in my knowledge. At the same time, local societies have been encouraged to do more, knowing they can inform many more people than before as well as being able to connect with each other. It does, however, make one admire even more those who kept the light burning before, as one often reads beautifully written books and ledgers.

Volume One (The South-East) of William’s book Strongholds of Satan: A survey of the bygone racecourses of Britain is in full colour and has 1,032 pages. It is available for £75 from mainholmpress.co.uk

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By David Alderton

Questions have sometimes been asked of the Battle and District Historical Society about the origin of our local road and street names. Some information about both road and place names is available but it is often scattered and non-specific. We therefore decided to develop a project to look at the roads of our district and attempt to determine how their names have been, or may have been, derived.

The roads studied in our project are those that are in Battle (the main town) and the 16 (essentially rural) surrounding parishes; this is the area of immediate interest to the society. We generated a list of roughly 550 roads, mainly derived from county and district council data, but supplemented using other information, including old Ordnance Survey maps, tithe maps, census returns, town street lists and some published texts. Most of the roads in the compilation are public but some private (‘unadopted’) roads have also been included, as have some roads identified as such on some old maps but which have changed their name or are now no longer navigable by car.

The derivation of the older road names appears to fall into several categories, but those based on personal names of individuals (especially landowners and occupiers) appear particularly prominent in our area. Also common are those derived from place names, buildings (e.g. church, bridge, station), geographical and topographic features (e.g. river, stream, ground conditions) and former industries (e.g. iron working, pottery, blacksmith). Of course, place names and personal names were often intricately linked, as people were originally distinguished by their place of abode or origin.

For the explanation of the many names deemed to have medieval and Saxon origins, it was necessary to look at Old and Middle English words and sometimes engage with the Sussex dialect. Fortunately there are several texts and website compilations for the origin of place names both nationally and for the county of Sussex. However, it should be borne in mind that these are sometimes ambiguous, with more than one possible explanation, and indeed there are even some differences of opinion between the different authors. Thus it is important to realise that many of the existing place name explanations and etymologies given are suggestions and should not be considered definitive. We have tended simply to state the various views without engaging in any discussion as to their reliability. To add confusion, place names often appear in ancient records and the older literature with significant spelling variations and corruptions. This is hardly surprising considering that most of the population would at the time have been illiterate, and the initial documentation and transcriptions could have been made by Norman French speakers who would have had problems with the local accents, or by monks who wrote down what they heard in varying phonetic ways. Such name variations even occur in parish records and census returns until at least the mid-1800s.

‘Modern’ (post-1918) developments have been distinguished in our tabulation. In total there are c.150 in this category and of these, the town of Battle has the greatest proportion – 58 out of its 134 roads. These have been identified by reference to OS maps of the 1920s and onwards. In some cases a road may have been present at an earlier date but it is not always clear if it already had a name, especially if it originally contained no houses. These roads have been identified using this cut-off date because in our area there was rapid building development after the First World War. Their names provide an indication of prevailing 20th century tendencies, so we see the increasing replacement of the established, earlier, second descriptive element Road, Street and Lane for the use of terms such as Close, Way, Meadow, Drive and Gardens. Of course many of the newer roads in Battle town have been given names with a 1066 or Battle Abbey connection, but others appear to have no specific local connection at all. Clearly, at a time of rapid development, developers needed to create a favourable impression and market a pleasant, bucolic atmosphere for would be purchasers. Thus we can see a
proliferation of quite mundane and random names, such as those related to trees, flowers and birds. Other names seem to incorporate personal names and one is left with the feeling that the developers felt the need to leave
some sort of personal legacy to their work.

It is a shame that explanations for name choices were never provided when planning applications were originally submitted. Perhaps too many councils could not be bothered to engage with their imaginations and we have been rather disappointed that the rich history of our area has not been drawn on as much as it should have been. In their defence our district and town councils have now adopted some street naming criteria and hopefully this will provide some impetus towards improving developers’ imaginations.

The results of our project can be seen on the Society website: battlehistorysociety.com/Road%20Names

There are still numerous uncertainties in our compilation so we have now sought assistance from the local community and encouraged feedback to help fill in the gaps. In particular, we need information on the more recent road names before these memories are lost forever.

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By Roger Ottewill

In the Autumn 2022 edition of Local History News (p.19) a short article provided details of the preparations being made to celebrate the bicentenary of the birth of Hampshire’s influential and prolific author, Charlotte Mary Yonge (CMY). Plans are now well advanced and the base for the morning of Saturday 24 June 2023 will be the John & Betty Mobbs Suite at Otterbourne Village Hall. Those attending will arrive between 9.30 and 10am, and from 10 there will be a performance by ‘The Madding Crowd’. This will be followed by two short presentations on topics of relevance to CMY and an opportunity to walk in her footsteps by following the CMY Otterbourne trail.

The base for the first half of the afternoon is the majestic Hursley Park/House, courtesy of IBM, where there will be an opportunity to learn about the part it played in CMY’s life. In addition, it will be possible to follow the CMY Hursley trail and enjoy the delights of Hursley village.

If you would like to join us, the charge for the day is £17. This includes the booklet mentioned in the previous article, morning coffee and afternoon tea and the performance by ‘The Madding Crowd’. To book a place either visit www.hantsfieldclub.org.uk/sections/localhist-yonge-day.html and use the TicketSource facility or email Roger Ottewill of the Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society (rogerottewill@btinternet.com). An information sheet giving further details of the programme and guidance as to how to get to Otterbourne Village Hall will be sent to those registering for the day.

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By Roger Morris

The hearse house found on the periphery of churchyards or nearby may be easily overlooked. They are mostly windowless with air vents, double doors, functional and unpretentious buildings that do little to attract further attention. Few survive today yet once they were a part of everyday life, as the home of the horse-drawn hearse for parishioners on their last earthly journey.

Ninebanks hearse house in rural Northumberland originates from 1856, when local philanthropist and itinerant tea seller Isaac Holden raised funds for a hearse to enable free carriage for burials in the West Allen Valley. In his idiosyncratic fashion, he kept to himself what he had in mind when he began ‘selling his own likeness’ in a daguerreotype photograph until he had secured sufficient funds.

After the target was reached, a hearse house was constructed of local sandstone. This is about 100 yards further up the roadside from St Mark’s church as space was at a premium in the overcrowded graveyard. The simple design is similar to the lead mine lodging shops and some of the early Primitive Methodist chapels of the area.

Over the next 70 or more years, the comings and goings of the hearse became a familiar sight, trundling on the highways and byways of the dale. A study of the 500 Ninebanks burials records provides a good overview of local life and death over this period. The peak year for burials was 1861, when 18 funerals took place. Each burial is a personal history, whether of a life lived to old age or one cut short in infancy, midlife or in childbirth, in tragic accidents, epidemics, diseases and for other reasons. After the comparative prosperity of the lead mines, albeit with generally high mortality rates, the years from around 1870 witnessed the collapse of lead mining with little other than the fellside farmsteads as the mainstay of livelihoods.

Many of the young and the more mobile left to find work on the coalfields and growing industries of the North-East and overseas. The decline in population is apparent in the drop in burials to no more than a handful each year at the turn of the 20th century. By the 1920s, the cumbersome old hearse had fallen out of fashion with the arrival of motorised vehicles offering a more stylish and modern presence at funerals. Isaac’s hearse was made redundant in 1933 and scrapped, and by then the hearse house had lost its purpose. With the passing of time the building was in danger of falling into disrepair with holes in the roof and bulges in the wall from tree roots.

Good fortune was at hand with the formation of the Allen Valleys Heritage Landscape Project and a successful bid was made to the Heritage Lottery Fund to secure funds for conservation; the extensive restoration was completed in 2016. In tandem was a move to repurpose the hearse house as a welcome community space with interpretation panels and later the addition of a micro museum of artefacts.

The hearse house serves to keep the memory of Isaac Holden alive. It is also a shelter from the elements for walkers on Isaac’s Tea Trail, a long distance footpath on a circular route of 36 miles between Allendale and Alston in Cumberland. The trail and the hearse house showcase this corner of the North Country’s mining and industrial heritage, as well as its spiritual dimensions and wildlife in abundance.

Roger Morris is the author of Isaac’s Strange Gift (Coolgeordie Publishing, 2008)

Isaac’s Tea Trail: isaacs-tea-trail.co.uk

Allen Valleys Local History Society:
www.allenvalleyslocalhistory.org.uk

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By Phil Rowland

A tribute to a long-standing member of Cartmel Peninsula Local History Society (CPLHS) sent in by society member Phil Rowland reveals the breadth of the society’s work and the diversity of Peter’s talents.

Peter Roden was employed as a company secretary and latterly a business consultant before retirement. He had lived in the Potteries and became interested in researching local history connected to his family. On retirement to Wood Broughton in Cumbria, he completed his research and published his 448-page thesis, Copyhold Potworks and Housing in the Staffordshire Potteries 1700–1832 in 2008.

Peter had an insatiable appetite for collating, transcribing and/or digitising documents and records, turning historic material into easily accessible and understandable research material. When he attended our meetings, he would approach members asking if there was anything else for him to do! He has left us with the most amazing set of resources. Below are a just few of his achievements.

Wills: During lockdown TNA made digitised records available with free downloads. Several members of our society downloaded all the available wills and letters of administration for the parish of Cartmel. Along with other wills that we already held, Peter collated over 300 records, transcribed the documents and prepared a catalogue of the testators and an index of all the people mentioned.

Enclosure map: Peter organised and funded the digitisation of the enclosure map of the parish which is held by Cumbria Archives at Kendal. It is annotated with the names of the people who were allocated plots in 1799/1800.

Buttle’s survey and valuation: In Cumbria Archives at Barrow-in-Furness, a survey and valuation book is held that relates to Cartmel parish. The field numbers contained in the book correspond with the enclosure map and the survey was carried out 11-12 years after the enclosure – it provides a superb and complete picture of owners and tenants in the parish, field by field. We are using the data to plot ownership of blocks of land – Peter’s digitisation of the data has enabled us to do this easily.

Document hoards: Over the past few years, CPLHS has been given access to documents of great interest from many families in the area. Two notable hoards are from the Morris family who have occupied Wraysholme for over a century, and the Hibbert family who own land in the Cartmel Valley. Peter has photographed, transcribed and collated all of the documents and provided indexes.

Cartmel census records (and later the 1939 Register): Peter digitised these records for us amounting to 47,000 records and we have analysed the records relating to agriculture.

Oral histories: CPLHS and Cartmel Village Society have recorded interviews with some of the more senior residents. Peter undertook the arduous task of transcribing and summarising interviews (17 available on the CVS website).

Annals of Cartmel (1872): This treatise is an invaluable source of material used by local historians, but although it is crammed with information, the contents list and index are poor. It is no longer difficult to access the information since Peter prepared an overview of the text and a most detailed list of contents (available on the CPLHS website).

Peter had an exceptional talent for recording the detail of his work, including full summaries, collated PDFs of the document images, and in many cases detailed explanations of the important features of the documents. He has left the society with a tremendous archive of material. The challenge for us is to fully catalogue his work and to make the most of his legacy.

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By Gill Sarre

Although Farnsfield Local History Society in Nottinghamshire has been going since 2002, it has never had a newsletter. Gill Sarre, the Society’s secretary, contacted LHN to share the first issue with us, and her experiences of getting it off the ground.

We are planning to produce two a year at the moment, to see how it goes. We are keen to share archive material and new research with our members and the wider community and hope that members will also contribute to it.

For me, the greatest challenge was format. I looked at lots of examples of other societies’ newsletters and tried out various templates & couldn’t get to grips with any of them. So it’s just a simple Word document with various tables, which I’m very familiar with. That did waste a lot of time in the first instance but I’m now quite happy with the simple template I’ve created for us.

This first edition was entirely done by me and I had lots of interesting and varied things to write about. I would dearly love our members to contribute – photos, memories, information, research etc, but so far this hasn’t been forthcoming and I think that will be the greatest challenge going forward. I have plenty of things I can include, as I’m very involved in local research, but I don’t want it to be ‘my’ newsletter. I think we will have to approach people individually and encourage them to contribute.

The other issue that came up for discussion in our committee meeting was whether it should be available only to members or more widely. Initially we distributed it by email to members (plus a few hard copies to those not on email) and put a reference copy in the local library. However, it does have great potential to attract new people to local history and the Society, so we’re now asking for a £1 donation from non-members who might like a copy to cover printing costs. I think we’ll have ongoing discussions about offering more hard copies to members and whether to put it on the website.

I’d be very interested in any insights or advice you or LHN readers have about the subject.

farnsfieldlhs.co.uk

If you have advice on running a society newsletter to share with Gill and others, please email editor.lhn@balh.org.uk. We hope to run articles on this sort of subject here in future.

A reminder: Local History News welcomes your newsletters, both as sources for news items here and for consideration in the annual BALH Newsletter Award: please send digitally if possible, to editor.lhn@balh.org.uk and to reviews.editor@balh.org.uk, otherwise by post to BALH Office c/o Moore Insight, St James House, Vicar Lane, Sheffield S1 2EX.

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LHN reader Tony Gee is a former kick boxer, and a Xen-Do black belt, and is considered one of the leading authorities on 18th and 19th century bare-knuckle fighting. He is the author of an acclaimed book on the London prize-ring, Up to Scratch: Bareknuckle Fighting and Heroes of the Prize-ring, and is a contributor on the subject to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and the Cambridge Companion to Boxing.

He is now writing a book on 18th and 19th century pugilism in Scotland, a subject about which little has been written before.

Tony notes: ‘While the history of sport in Scotland has received significant coverage, and gloved boxing detailed before, the Caledonian prize-ring has remained, at least until now, more or less ignored. Although this never attained the same level of prevalence, or in fact calibre, as in England, it was far more
common than has previously been realised, and there is an interesting tale to tell here.’

Tony also explains that numerous English, Irish and American fighters went to Scotland to appear before ‘the fancy’ (an often aristo­cratic audience for these fights), whether competitively or in often lucrative sparring exhibitions/benefits.

Tony’s new book, First Blood, will offer a comprehensive account of pugilism in Scotland before the modern era and incorporate a wealth of archival information, as well as many illustrations which have not been published in book form before.

Any help at all which any members might be able to provide relating to boxing in Scotland pre-1900 would be most gratefully received, and, of course, if used will be acknowledged accordingly. Contact: tonyprhist@gmail.com. To record an interest in the forthcoming book, email orders@lennardqap.co.uk.

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Surrey-based Newdigate Local History Society’s magazine offers a good idea which other societies might like to replicate: a simple map of all the places mentioned inside the particular issue (this is also an idea we’ve seen in the ‘neo-antiquarian’ quarterly Northern Earth). The Newdigate group is gradually indexing and archiving old magazines (dating back to 1985) at its website: nlhs.org.uk/index.php/nlhs-magazines

Meanwhile in Oxfordshire, Radley History Club’s newsletter has an interesting regular feature of a short quiz based on an archival photo – a good way to highlight holdings and stimulate discussion.

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With thanks to Mike Winstanley, Heather Falvey, Trevor Fisher, Dick Hunter

Echoes of the North is an hour-long film produced for the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. The film consists of more than a hundred fragments of archival film from northern England around a century ago, accompanied by a new all-brass soundtrack – it covers rural and industrial life, festivals, wartime, transport and aspects of daily life from the early 20th century. Although the film was released on YouTube it is no longer currently available, but there will be screenings with live performances of the soundtrack at the Victoria Theatre, Halifax on 8 July and the Stoller Hall, Manchester, on 22 July. More information on the film itself is at www.ysff.co.uk/echoes-of-the-north-project.

An archaeological survey at a potential development site in Garforth, Leeds has uncovered a previously unknown Anglo-Saxon cemetery – believed to be the first found in West Yorkshire. Also at the site were the remains of a high-status Roman woman buried in a rare lead coffin (pictured), dating from the last years of the Roman occupation, c.400AD. David Hunter, principle archaeologist for West Yorkshire Archaeology Advisory Service, said: ‘At Garforth we’ve got the Roman graves which are roughly east west in alignment and the Saxon graves which are north south in alignment, so the differences stand out like a sore thumb. The presence of two communities using the same burial site is highly unusual.’

The Victoria County History in Gloucestershire has just completed a very successful course of ten workshops on local history research, aimed at VCH and archives volunteers, and anyone else interested in developing their skills. The course, held on alternate Tuesday mornings from October to March, was taught entirely by present and former VCH contributors, and was run in conjunction with the University of the West of England’s Regional History Centre and Gloucestershire County Council, at the Gloucestershire Heritage Hub in Gloucester. To the organisers’ surprise more than 40 people enrolled and attendance hovered around that number throughout. A number of attendees are now intending to become volunteers. There are plans to re-run the course next winter.

A year ago, in LHN 143, Trevor Fisher reported on an arson attack on The Leopard, an empty historic pub in Burslem, Staffordshire with associations ranging from Arnold Bennett to Josiah Wedgwood and Ava Gardner. Trevor reports that the arsonists have not been found and the shell of the building left untended. Trevor’s latest report on the area:

One of the figures linked to the pub, Josiah Wedgwood, has made a story in his own right when an iconic statue near his Etruria home was demolished by workers. Cllr Dan Jellyman resigned on 17 February as deputy leader announcing he had accepted ‘officers’ poor advice on this matter’ (reported in the Stoke Sentinel). As council member for regeneration, his decisions raise further questions on how Stoke-on-Trent deals with its history. However, Burslem’s indoor market has been given listed status, after a campaign by the Victorian Society.

The government has published details of more than 100 projects across the UK which will share its £2bn ‘levelling up’ fund. Heritage and history-related projects to benefit include: the preservation of the 15th century South Gate in King’s Lynn; £8m of improvements at Alford Manor House, Alford Windmill and Spilsby Sessions House in Lincolnshire; updating of Rutland County Museum in Oakham; restoration of Haigh Hall in Wigan; creation of a new museum and library at Arbuthnot House, Peterhead; the reopening of Canterbury Castle and improvements to the Poor Priests’ Hospital in the city; major regeneration work at Morfa Copperworks and Swansea Museum; restoration of St Peter’s church and the town square in Ruthin; £13.3m to support the ‘visitor experience’ at Pontcysyllte Aqueduct in north Wales; and improvements to Leek library and museum in Staffordshire.

Clydach Ironworks in the Brecon Beacons National park has been identified as being ‘at risk’ by Welsh heritage organisation Cadw and is now going to come under the ownership of Monmouthshire Count Council, with a view to improving safety and progressing plans for a visitor centre.

Avon Local History & Archaeology reports that GCHQ is offering guidance to small charities on protecting against cyber attacks – see www.ncsc.gov.uk/information/funded-cyber-essentials-programme. Two of the Avon group’s member bodies are co-organisers of this year’s Stukeley 300 events, marking the tricentenary of the antiquarian William Stukeley, a man perhaps loved and loathed in equal measure by local historians. Celebrations will be focused around Stanton Drew in Somerset and its stone circle on the weekend of 22-23 July – see www.balh.org.uk/QWV142

Millom and District Local History Society has published a 140-page booklet, Millom and District: Prehistoric Past, detailing major archaeological finds in the area dating from the Mesolithic to the Iron Age. These include ancient footprints on Duddon foreshore, flints, stone axes, monuments and cairns which have been found throughout the Millom peninsula, along with distinctive circular cropmarks with pit holes where wooden poles may have been placed to create henges (these have yet to be excavated). Local detectorist Josh Carr recently found three bronze axe heads (pictured), a rare discovery in Cumbria; these have now been reported to the coroner.

Meldreth Local History Group in Cambridgeshire reports that its website now has more than 700 pages, including information about how Canadian-born violinist Kathleen Parlow lived in the area – and this spring a group of Canadian film-makers have been visiting to work on a documentary about her.

The West of England and South Wales Women’s History Network has issued a call for papers for its 30th annual conference, on the theme ‘Women and the Natural World: historical perspectives on nature, climate and environmental change’ – the BALH website has more details: www.balh.org.uk/UPT141

The February and March issues of the Edmonton Hundred Historical Society newsletter have carried an interesting pair of articles by Ian Jones about the history of public swimming in the area – including a sober catalogue of child drownings. He also demonstrates that the current fad for ‘wild swimming’ is what people in the past just called swimming.

Highlights of the 2022 annual journal of Ruislip, Northwood and Eastcote Local History Society include interesting features on a one-day garden fête maze ‘formed of galvanised-wire netting supported on six-foot fir stakes and thickened with elm foliage’, created in Eastcote by a maze expert of the era in 1921; a lavish account of a society wedding at Haydon Hall in 1898; and an impressive piece of research into rental documents and court rolls to tell the story of women in 14th century Ruislip.

Our very own Alan Crosby notes in the newsletter of Lancashire Local History Federation that this year sees the 50th anniversary of the Federation itself, along with the Regional Heritage Centre at Lancaster University and the Lancashire Family History and Heraldry Society. www.lancashirehistory.org

On 9 May, Hexham Local History Society welcomes Professor Ruth Dalton to speak on the subject ‘Living in houses: a personal history of English domestic architecture’ (also the title of her book published by Lund Humphries last October). Society member Robert Turnbull has set up his own online ‘local’ bookshop, www.reiverreads.co.uk, specialising in a range of local and medieval history publications focused on the North-East – perhaps an idea local history societies themselves could replicate elsewhere.

Oxfordshire Local History Association has a spring study day and AGM on 16 May at Rycote Parl, on the theme of garden design in Oxfordshire (olha.org.uk/events/study-days). There will be two illustrated talks and a guided tour of the gardens at Rycote, as well as the 15th century chapel there.

While perhaps LHN wouldn’t want to be seen encouraging a scattergun approach to regional history, the Scottish Local History Forum’s March newsletter, Clish-Clash, mentions the fascinating cornucopia that is www.randomscottishhistory.com, a project to scour pre-1900 books for snippets of history, folklore and more. The same issue also reviews Galloway: The Lost Province of Gaelic Scotland (John Dewar Publishers), a diverse academic exploration of everything from language to land-holding in Galloway and Carrick and profiles the work of Inveraray and District History Society.

Tickhill & District Local History Society’s Spring newsletter has an interesting piece on the small town’s first café – a ‘coffee and cocoa room’ which opened in 1878, presumably with the encouragement of local temperance advocates. The same year saw similar rooms open in both Sheffield and York. Sadly the Tickhill room had gone by 1891.

Beeston & District Civic Society has launched a campaign as part of its 50th anniversary celebrations to celebrate local women throughout history. None of the Nottinghamshire town’s blue plaques celebrates the achievements of a woman, so the Lady Plaques project will put up red plaques instead. Nominations for suitable candidates are open at beestoncivic
society.org.uk/ladyplaques/

‘Reimagining Lincolnshire: Discovering and sharing untold stories’ is the theme of a conference organised by the Society for Lincolnshire History & Archaeology and the University of Lincoln on 20 May at Welton Village Hall. The theme is described as ‘Lincolnshire’s connectedness to the wider world over two millennia’. Pre-booking (£25) is essential, via www.balh.org.uk/GTY143

The Society of Genealogists’ magazine (vol. 34 no. 5) includes a detailed exploration of ‘Dade registers’ – a more detailed (and useful) form of parish register pioneered by the York vicar William Dade in the 18th century; although associated with Yorkshire, his format also influenced record-keeping in Cheshire, and there were in fact two parishes in Essex and Devon which specifically adopted his system. The same issue includes tributes to Jeremy Gibson (see LHN 146) and Audrey Collins, TNA’s family history specialist who died in February after a short illness.

It hasn’t escaped the attention of the Mortimer Society that their illustrious rebel forebear Roger Mortimer broke out of the Tower of London 700 years ago this August – details of their celebrations (including a conference at the Tower) are at mortimerhistorysociety.org.uk. The society has also purchased an account roll for Wigmore, Herefordshire from 1387–8 (it was made for Roger Mortimer) and transcribed and translated it; the original is now held at Herefordshire Archive and Records Centre.

St Albans & Hertfordshire Architectural & Archaeological Society has announced two significant events this year. St Albans uniquely was the location for two battles during the Wars of Roses. The Society has organised the first exhibition about the second battle to be held in the city – at St Albans Museum running until 28 June. Second, TV historian Professor Michael Wood will give a talk on Friday 2 June (topic TBC, £10 per ticket). www.stalbanshistory.org. The Society’s newsletter also reports that the new Harpenden Museum is expected to open by the end of July this year.

Newport & District History Society in Shropshire is researching the historic inns and alehouses in the town, with a view to creating a local walking guide and in due course to contribute to the Victoria County History Red Book series. The group is looking for volunteers this autumn to help with a variety of aspects of the project – see newporthistorysociety.org

Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society has celebrated the completion of a project to make over 170 years of its annual journal freely available online. Its Proceedings were first published in 1851 – every issue has now been scanned and digitised, along with a combined index, and they are freely available at https://sanhs.org/digital-proceedings.

The English department at the University of Oxford has launched a public history project, ‘Their Finest Hour’, based on collecting and digitally archiving ‘everyday stories and objects’ relating to the Second World War. Details of related events and how to contribute are at theirfinesthour.english.ox.ac.uk.

A project to explore ‘miners’ row’ villages in East Ayrshire by the Scottish Oral History Centre at the University of Strathclyde has been extended after face-to-face visits to record the memories of older local people had to be halted during the pandemic. More than 450 items and interviews have already been documented; volunteers and interviewees are sill sought for the ongoing project. Full details are at www.thelostvillages.co.uk

A free exhibition at Oxford’s Weston Library explores the early history of photography in Britain, from 1800 to 1850, examining the ‘broad range of uses that photography would quickly come to fill’ and its role in changing society. The exhibition runs until 7 May – visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/event/a-new-power

The National Library of Scotland has enhanced its interface (with sheet outlines) for its collection of online Ordnance Survey town plans for Scotland, 1847–95, at maps.nls.uk/townplans; the NLS has also added 1972 Ordnance Survey maps for England, Scotland and Wales, plus more than 2,000 further one-inch/mile maps for England and Wales from the 1870s to the 1950s. Interesting articles about Scottish maps can be found in Cairt, the newsletter of the Scottish Maps Forum, at maps.nls.uk/cairt.

London researchers will know that Lambeth Archives has left its historic 133-year run at the Minet Library for a move to Brixton – this is now expected to be complete by July this year (see www.lambeth.gov.uk/libraries-0/lambeth-archives for the latest). Southwark and Lambeth Archaeological Society’s newsletter has an interesting snippet recording the very last visitor at the old centre – someone researching his paternal grandparents, who had been married in 1895 only 500 yards from the library itself (his quest was successful). The newsletter also reports on interesting research into Civil War defences in London, and provides a list of known forts south of the river.

City of Doncaster Archives has reopened (now at Chequer Road in the former museum and gallery) having been closed since August 2019 due to problems with the previous premises: www.heritagedoncaster.org.uk/archives/

The Centre for West Midlands History e-bulletin reports that this year the Collegiate Church of St Mary in Warwick is celebrating its 900th anniversary – for details of events see www.stmaryscampaign2023.org.uk/faire-and-goodly-built. The Centre’s newsletter has detailed reports on recent webinars, including one by doctoral researcher Ginny Hartley on Birmingham’s ‘gilt button dispute’ of 1795–1800, based on the problems of counterfeiting in the industry. One worker informed on his employer for producing more than 70,000 sub-standard gilt buttons!

Over the last two years, Shropshire Archives has run a virtual volunteering project to index fire insurance documents (see picture) issued by the Salop Fire Office between 1780 and 1889, held in a series of 12 policy books. This project has now been completed and the index has been incorporated into the online catalogue at www.shropshirearchives.org.uk. The records include details of properties, valuations, owners and tenants.

The 2021–22 annual review for Archives West Midlands (AWM) reports on recent work within its Digital Progress Programme. In the last year this has included events training AWM members in the legal requirements around digital copyright and in understanding metadata for digital collection management. Some of these events are open to non-members. A particular innovation has been a sell-out ‘escape room’ attraction at Hereford Cathedral, set in 1890 and based in the newly refurbished Old Chapel in the Eastern Cloisters.

Work has started on the new £5.1m Staffordshire History Centre in Stafford, which will incorporate the renovated William Salt Library and extend the county record office. For details of public access to holdings in the meantime see www.balh.org.uk/FZB144.

The new Local and Family History Centre in Hartlepool has opened in its own dedicated space at Sir William Gray House in Clarence Road, a building which has been closed to the public since 1994. The centre is open from Monday to Thursday, 10am to 3pm.

A six-year cataloguing project by a team of volunteers at The National Archives has now been completed, providing a new, important resource for researchers interested in family history and the Second World War. The volunteers worked to sort and digitally catalogue the WO 416 file series, which primarily contains records of British and Allied prisoners of war captured by German forces during the war. The project has seen over 200,000 individual records catalogued and reorganised from large, unsorted boxes into numbered and ordered envelopes. Researchers are now able to search for these records on TNA’s Discovery catalogue.

Sittingbourne Heritage Museum in Kent has now reopened in its new location at 22 The Forum – the new premises offers more light and space, and has enabled the museum to have a video display visible from outside. The museum has also published a c.500-page volume on the history of West Street in the town, a companion to the previous one on East Street. www.sittingbourne-museum.co.uk

‘Sew what?’ is the whimsical title of an exhibition running all year at the Museum of English Rural Life in Reading – it explores ‘the big questions on sewing and fashion’ through Britain’s history of garment making: merl.reading.ac.uk/event/sew-what

Wallingford Museum in Oxfordshire has an exhibition, ‘House Detectives’, about local houses from the medieval period until the 20th century. www.facebook.com/
wallingfordmuseum

Lancaster City Museums have been broadcasting a series of podcasts on the theme ‘100 Years, 100 Objects’, telling stories from their collections to celebrate their centenary. Previous episodes, with more added regularly, can be found at visitlancaster.org.uk/museums/100-years-100-objects-a-century-of-lancaster-city-museums-podcast/

Hertfordshire Building Preservation Trust is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, founded in 1963 to ‘stop the flow of needless destruction’ endemic in that era. The trust manages Cromer Windmill, the Much Hadham Forge Museum, Place House Hall in Ware and Castle Cottages, Hertford. The mill has various open days this summer (www.cromerwindmill.co.uk); the museum is open from April to December (hadhammuseum.org.uk).

The Museum of London has begun its process of moving from London Wall to West Smithfield – this will entail logging, digitising and physically moving around 10,000 items. It is due to reopen in 2026 with the new name The London Museum (details at https://museum.london). In the meantime a new digital platform for the museum will open in 2024 and will include 5,000 new public oral histories from the capital.

Clitheroe Castle Museum in Lancashire has a new free exhibition, ‘On Track’, in the Stewards’s Gallery, showcasing the railway heritage of Lancashire’s railways and the community stations along the Ribble Valley Line. The exhibition runs until 30 June.

One of Coventry’s most significant heritage sites, the 14th century Charterhouse, has opened to visitors after a £10m refurbishment by Historic Coventry Trust – the first time the site has been open to the public. It began as a Carthusian monastery and was later home to Robert Dudley. Features include medieval wall paintings – and a café run by a Michelin-starred chef.

Durham Museum of Archaeology has a new online exhibition, ‘Hidden Stories from the River Wear’, showcasing 1000 years of the city’s history through the finds of underwater archaeologist Gary Bankhead. Items on show at stories.durham.ac.uk/riverwear include an 18th century obituary ring, a medieval brass candle holder and some Victorian dentures.

A free exhibition about the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, explored through the prism of the works of William Hogarth and his contemporaries, has opened at Derby Museum and Art Gallery. ‘Hogarth’s Britons’ will run until 4 June. www.derbymuseums.org

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A £9.2m collaboration between the British Library, the Alan Turing Institute and other organisations, ‘Living with Machines’, has led to 400,000 more historic newspaper pages being added to the British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk) and its parent site Findmypast.com. The project has been using AI to analyse the texts and explore the history of mechanisation; among the 67 different newspaper titles (covering the period 1847–1920) in the new additions is Cotton Factory Times, an early trade union newspaper.

TheGenealogist.co.uk has added georeferenced 1871 census data for England, Scotland and Wales to its Map Explorer tool, making it possible to explore census records from modern or historic map layers; this feature is already available for the censuses from 1881 to 1911.

An online project from The National Archives and Nottingham Trent University, Voices of the Victorian Poor, makes it possible to access more than 3,500 letters from paupers, and associated manuscript material such as petitions, sworn statements and advocate letters (those written on behalf of paupers). These materials show even the very poorest members of society could be literate, understand the poor laws, regulations and rules, and were able and willing to resist or contest the power of the national and local state. The letters explain their situations in their own words, providing an invaluable insight into the lives of everyday ordinary Victorians whose thoughts and opinions are often considered ‘lost to history’. The material can be found at www.victorianpoor.org

Tenement Town (tenementtown.com) is an online project by local historian Diarmid Mogg to explore the stories of people who lived in the tenement blocks of Edinburgh’s Southside. Using the British Newspaper Archive and other resources, he has so far unearthed stories about a man who later drowned after a steamship sank near Canada, and a plethora of ‘salacious divorce stories’.

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Local history societies looking to improve their online presence have benefited greatly from two recent talks in the BALH Digital Webinars series.

In February our Digital Strategy Coordinator Megan Kelleher spoke to an online audience of around 150 people on the theme ‘Effective Social Media for Local History’.

Megan began by advising that it’s best to start with the platform one enjoys using the most instead of creating accounts on every one. Whether you favour Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter or YouTube, it’s important to understand each platform’s audience, purpose and tone. She stressed the need for professionalism while also showing some personality, and always bearing the content’s purpose in mind.

Megan then looked at the different types of content that can be included in social media posts, again depending on the needs of the platform. She suggested using images if possible, citing sources when necessary, as they are important for attracting an audience’s attention. Software such as Canva was suggested as a visually appealing option to create infographics.

Megan went on to discuss the effective use of hashtags, tagging other people’s accounts and cross-sharing to reach a broader audience and show support for the local history community. She advised using a maximum of two or three hashtags per post, capitalising every new word to ensure accessibility.

Maintaining a consistent voice on social media is essential, and finding the right tone to engage with audiences. Guidelines to consider include avoiding breaking up conversations, not sharing inappropriate or offensive posts, and avoiding indirect posts that are antagonistic. It is best practice to keep accounts open and accessible, but privacy settings can be used to limit replies, direct messages and post visibility, and to mute or restrict accounts. When dealing with difficult people online, it is essential to maintain a polite and professional tone and not respond to hurtful or offensive messages.

Megan then discussed how planning social media content can make it less overwhelming and emphasised the importance of consistency in posting to maintain a presence in people’s feeds. She suggested that the best times to post include 8am, 2pm and 4pm, but this may vary depending on the audience’s time zone. She also recommends using analytics to track growth and engagement with posts. It’s also useful to do some market research and look at how influencers interact with their audiences to develop strategies for creating engaging content.

Whenn asked during the Q&A session about good use of hashtags, Megan suggested starting with pre-established ones and then experimenting with more creativity and perhaps the use of alliteration or creativity (editor’s note: a classic example would be the #FingerpostFriday hashtag used every week by people sharing photos of interesting signposts of all kinds around the country). Follow popular accounts is also a good way to find well-
established hashtags and communities.

Using YouTube

March’s Digital Webinar focused on video in particular, with BALH’s Digital Content Coordinator Catherine Warr speaking on the subject of ‘Creating Engaging YouTube Videos for Local and Family History’. Catherine has our own successful channel exploring Yorkshire’s hidden history (www.youtube.com/c/yorkshireshiddenhistory).

Catherine explained that YouTube is the largest video platform in the world, and it offers an excellent opportunity for local and family historians to promote research projects and tell fascinating stories of people and places. She focused particularly on short form video content, BALH’s ‘Ten-Minute Talks’ series (www.balh.org.uk/ten-minute-talks) being a good example.

Catherine reassured the webinar attendees that it’s okay not to understand everything upfront: these are things that are learned by trial and error and experience.

Why short form video? Catherine said that experience has shown that 10–12 minutes is the perfect length of time for digital content: the breakfast zone, as it is called, is long enough for the viewers to get reasonably in depth about a topic, but short enough to not feel like they’re watching a full documentary.

Catherine explained the process of using a PowerPoint presentation to create a 10-minute talk – one straightforward way to get going without the pressure of live filming. She recommended recording oneself giving the
presentation as it allows the speaker to adapt the content as one goes along. The process involves clicking the record button, giving the presentation while recording, and then exporting the recorded file as a video file. A microphone is advisable to record the presentation with good sound quality; there’s plenty of guidance to be found online for further instructions.

Catherine also mentioned alternative ways of recording a PowerPoint presentation, such as exporting it as image files and then importing them into a video editing software to separately record the audio. She advised editing out any unwanted noises and breathing sounds, – this can be done easily with video editing software. She also noted that the audio quality doesn’t necessarily reflect the quality of the microphone being used and that it is possible to run into problems during the recording process, but they can usually be resolved.

The first question in the Q&A was about free and simple video editing software, and Catherine recommended VideoPad, which has a free version which has served her well for a few years. Another question was about making videos for people with hearing needs, for which Catherine suggested using the manual subtitling feature in YouTube or adding subtitles in video editing software, although the process can be tedious. The automatic subtitling feature in YouTube offers a starting point – you can go through and edit any mistakes.

Catherine also emphasised the importance of engaging the audience, and suggested adding movement, transitions and dynamic images to make the video more interesting. These can be done in PowerPoint. If you are making videos on a phone, make sure you record in landscape format and to use a tripod. If you’re setting up a YouTube channel, it’s important to have a solid identity for the content produced.

Finally, Catherine highlighted the importance of passion and engaging presentation skills to make the video interesting to watch and listen to.

For details of the next BALH Digital Webinar, see page 35.

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By Tim Lomas

As the last formal parts of the joint Historical Association/BALH Teacher Fellowship initiative are concluded – largely final editing and uploading to the BALH website – a number of tangible benefits are already apparent. It is already noticeable that:

• BALH is now more recognised in many schools, both primary and secondary. For example, schools now recognise there are useful articles available and some have asked about BALH products such as the societies directory.
• The links with the Historical Association are reaping other benefits. With over 11,000 full members and many associate members at the HA, including a huge teacher membership, the initiative has been well publicised – for example, articles appearing in the Historical Association’s educational journal. It has also resulted in some serious discussions about HA/BALH collaboration on other issues.
• It has given an enhanced status to local history at school level. It would be an exaggeration to describe local history as a Cinderella aspect of the curriculum but its potential was rarely exploited. Now it has become prominent in more schools partly because of the status of this initiative but also because organisations such as Ofsted are seeing good local history as part of a broad and balanced history curriculum.
• It has demonstrated that local history need not be limited in schools to a few common topics. The variety of these 12 projects illustrates the breadth and fascination of local history enquiries. The approach has also helped disseminate ideas about what constitutes effective local history by providing a template which can be adapted and extended to cover so many different local enquiries.
• It has raised the profile of local history beyond the teaching profession. Above all it has demonstrated to the wider world that quality local history can be done even by the youngest pupils. Many who have seen the programmes produced and often used by pupils as part of the Teacher Fellowship process attest to how high the quality can be. Some materials have been stated to warrant articles in adult journals. When the resources appear on the website there may be some of interest and relevance to local history researchers and certainly some ideas for topics.
• It acts as a spur to more good work. The initiative is not just confined to the six primary and six secondary schools and the teachers (even though they are likely to prove effective ambassadors) but it has generated interest among other schools. Sadly finances are unlikely to allow us to pursue another Teacher Fellowship in the foreseeable future but some schools are already wondering how they might engage in local history activities, perhaps working with clusters of schools.

It is planned that a fuller report can be produced in the next LHN when the final stages of the Teacher Fellowship have been completed.

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As well as articles here in LHN and in The Local Historian, BALH publishes a wide variety of fascinating articles at its blog, www.balh.org.uk/blog – recent posts cover subjects including the female factory workers of Yorkshire; the Society for One-Place Studies; and the joy of humorous place names. Proposals for blog posts are welcome from members – there is a guide for contributors at www.balh.org.uk/TQB146

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By Heather Falvey

I wanted a boat – so I built one: The story of the Emery family boatbuilding business

Michael, Malcolm and Jonathan Emery (Poppyland Publishing 2022 92pp ISBN: 978-1-909796-96-6) £10.95 + £2.95 p&p

In about 1850 Lewis Emery was a carpenter and fisherman in Sheringham, north Norfolk, who wanted a new boat but could not find anyone to build one, so he did it himself. It was such a good boat that other fishermen asked him to build boats for them. Demand and his skill were such that he switched from fishing to full-time boat building. His four sons joined him, with his second son, Robert, eventually taking over the business.

Many of the boats were for crab fishing, which was becoming a food rather than simply bait. His Norfolk crab boats had rowlock holes in the sides – different from the usual thole pins – and which were safer for rowing purposes, particularly in rough seas, indicating that Lewis’s boats were innovative (although the idea was taken from Viking longships).

When Sheringham’s first private lifeboat needed replacing, the Emerys’ growing reputation meant that Lewis was approached by Lady Caroline Upcher to build the new one. The boat, named Henry Ramer Upcher after Lady Caroline’s late husband, was launched in 1894 and retired from active service in 1935, having saved 202 lives on 56 ‘services’; it can still be seen in its original shed.

In the early 20th century the introduction of motors brought about a big change in boat design. A combination of the determination of fisherman Harry Johnson and the craftsmanship of Robert Emery ensured the (eventual) successful incorporation of a motor into the ‘time-honoured’ design of the family’s boats.

There are no surviving plans because the Emerys built boats without them, working from finely tuned craftsmen’s eyes and knowledge of what the seafaring community needed in their working vessels. There is, however, an invaluable transcript of the live broadcast of Reginald Emery’s description of how the boats were made, which was broadcast on the BBC Home Service on 15 July 1953.

The story is fascinating, but it is the pictures that make the book. The construction of the Emerys’ boats was often compared with that of Viking longships: this likeness can be seen clearly in the photographs. A series of pictures shows the Knot emerging from the building shed and being lowered down a precariously built ramp to the road (and presumably thence to the sea). Various illustrated boat ‘biographies’ have been provided in chronological order of building. Although the boats were constructed as working craft, mostly for fishermen, some still sail today, mainly for leisure.

In 1981 the workshop and business closed following the death of Harold Emery. The pictures and stories which have been handed down through the family – and have now been set in print – form an invaluable archive of a bygone craft which would otherwise be lost.

Rails to Chorleywood…
and Beyond

Hugh Howes (The Friends of Chorleywood Signal Box 2022 62pp
ISBN:978-0-907220-02-2) £12

Obviously, given the book’s title, its focus is on Chorleywood (Hertfordshire) but it also tells the story of the development of the Metropolitan Railway (MR) out into the Chilterns. Interestingly, one of the original plans of Sir Edward Watkin, chairman of the MR (from 1872 to 1894) and of what became Grand Central Railway (GCR), was to make those two railways part of a route joining the north of England with Paris via a channel tunnel. (His grand plan included a copy of the Eiffel Tower at Wembley, the construction of which did reach the first stage, but proved unstable.) In the early 1880s a mile of pilot tunnel was dug at Folkestone but then halted by the government. Without this dimension much of the purpose of Watkin’s vision was lost and after his retirement the interests of the two railways diverged, although in places they continued to use the same or parallel tracks. In 1899 Marylebone station was opened as a new London terminus for the GCR, and indeed Chiltern line trains from there run out to Chorleywood and beyond. With the establishment of Metro-land, commuter stopping trains predominated so the Metropolitan line developed differently from the GCR. For much of its length the line did not present significant engineering challenges, although there are 21 bridges or subways under or over the 4.5 mile stretch of line between Rickmansworth and Chalfont & Latimer.

Chapter 2 describes Chorleywood station itself and how the Metro-land estate developed around it. This is illustrated by numerous plans and pictures from sales brochures of houses (the prices of which now need at least 000 on the end of them). From 1910 until 1939 Pullman dining cars were part of a Metropolitan train, although a letter from 1932 indicates that they were proposing to reduce meal prices to try to attract diners.

Changes under London Transport are outlined in Chapter 3. There were also various alterations due to technological change, such as electrification of the line. This was not completed along the whole length of the MR until 1960: electric and steam locomotives had to be swapped at Rickmansworth in the intervening years. As the book has been published by the Friends of Chorleywood signal box, Chapter 4 is devoted to that building.

From time to time ‘Steam on the Met’ events are held, which, as the author says, provide ‘an opportunity for unbound nostalgia’ [p.49]. Appendices 1 to 3 are oral histories from three men who work on the railway in the 1950s and early 1960s, covering the some of the intricacies of working a traditional signal box, the goods and services that went through the station and goods yard, and the hazards of swapping electric and steam locomotives. There is also a glossary of technical terms.

This beautifully illustrated book is about trains, many pulled by steam engines, and so it will appeal to a certain section of the historical community. But its appeal is wider, for it also gives insights into the development of 20th century ‘Metro-land’ estates and links with the garden city movement.

Life in the 1950s

Goring Gap Local History Society Journal (no. 24, 2022), £٧ including p&p, contact goringgaphistory@gmail.com

The sections of this account cover different aspects of life in the 1950s in the villages of Goring (in Oxfordshire, on one side of the Thames) and Streatley (in West Berkshire, on the other) and carefully place them in the national context. Following the Second World War, Britain was broke and a period of austerity ensued. The country’s emergence from such a situation ensured that the 1950s was a decade of great change everywhere. ‘The mood of the nation’ sketches the background.

‘The 50s scene in Goring and Streatley’ describes the services available then. In this rural area, many of the houses had no mains drainage or running water and lavatories were outside, and some had no electricity, although this was more indicative of the location of the villages than of poverty in the area. Based on advertisements in the parish magazine, local newspapers and old photographs, the (surprisingly wide) variety of retail premises in the area has been reconstructed. These included several garages selling, as well as repairing, cars; Robinson’s General Stores, which also sold fishing tackle; and a branch of Jackson’s Reading department store.

‘Public services’ describes medicine, policing and the fire service in the area. ‘Goring Gap grand Coronation ceremonies’ gives details of the villages’ celebrations of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation: inevitably one was a pageant about Elizabeth I. Money was raised beforehand to fund events and some was recouped through ticket sales. As well as outlining local school provision, ‘Education’ includes memories from one of the teachers’ children and various past pupils. A wonderful source for the amenities in the area is the Official Guide for Goring-on-Thames, produced by the parish council. The example from the second edition (c.1950) of the guide includes general information such as names of the churches, hotels and inns, the rateable value, recreation and sport, and transport facilities.

‘Transport’ covers, among other forms, steam trains, haulage companies, bicycles and motorbikes, the latter being in short supply because most British ones were exported. ‘Recreation and social life’ conjures up a world now lost. Perhaps most interesting are the stories behind the establishment of various recreation grounds and why they were named after particular people. ‘The river’ explains the big part played by the Thames in the local economy; indeed the Official Guide waxed lyrical about its facilities and benefits. Finally, ‘Where is Goring Gap?’ is an amusing account by a resident of how he (eventually) first found the ‘Gap’ in 1956.

The chapters have been ably edited by Janet Hurst. Many of the sources used are in the Society’s archives. Strictly speaking this is not a book, but the 2022 issue of a journal, the focus of which is a single decade – the 1950s – to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. However, as soon as I read it, I realised that this would be an excellent model for any society wishing to produce a book on similar theme – that is, a decade in the history of its locality.

A Place of Last Resort: History of the Fordingbridge Workhouse

Fordingbridge History Society (Fordingbridge History Society 2022 36pp ISBN: 978-1-3999-2954-7) £9 + £1.70p&p

After briefly outlining the history of workhouses and of the old and new Poor Laws in general, they are linked to the development of the workhouse at Fordingbridge (Hants). The first workhouse there, which was established in Shaftesbury Street in the 17th century and was extended over subsequent decades, burnt down in 1831. Another was built on the same site in 1835 but that building was declared unfit for habitation in 1885. After much discussion a new workhouse, which was built on Bartons Field, opened in January 1887. This could accommodate 100 inmates and had greatly improved facilities and sanitation. The text conveys not only uneasy relationship between the community and its less fortunate members but also shows how the former tried to meet its obligations.

Chapters cover, among other topics, what life was like in the workhouse, including the food and accommodation provided, medical attention and schooling for children. On special occasions treats were given to the inmates, including extra food and entertainments, such as a Coronation dinner in 1838, and special meals on Queen Victoria’s Golden and Diamond Jubilees. The section on ‘Privation, punishment and prison’ not only recounts what happened to some inmates who left the workhouse without permission but also describes the many occasions when JW, a bad lot, was violent within the workhouse, apparently preferring to be sent to prison rather than back into the workhouse.

There is a timeline of events and three tables giving census data on inmates, their occupations and workhouse staff. The booklet has numerous illustrations, including newspapers cuttings relevant to the workhouse and its inmates (with their names redacted) and also some detailed and beautifully coloured architect’s plans dated 1883.

Books for review should be sent to: Dr Heather Falvey, 119 Winton Drive, Croxley Green, Rickmansworth WD3 3QS – or contact her via reviews.editor@balh.org.uk

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we will be interested to read reports of local responses [to the death of Queen Elizabeth II] in society newsletters’. Barry Brooks, Chair of the Abington History Group in Cambridgeshire, tells us that the Group had periodically produced an annual chronicle of events in the villages of Great and Little Abington over one particular year. Using this idea, their latest publication is a timeline of the life and reign of Queen Elizabeth II linked to both ‘world events’ and what was happening in Abington in the same period. It just so happened that in 1929 the Abington Hall Estate was sold, breaking up the estate and resulting in dramatic changes for all local residents. The booklet that has been produced is a well-researched and beautifully illustrated account of the years 1926 to 2022 both locally and in the wider world. Heather Falvey

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By Joe Saunders

Throughout this winter the Outreach Team, ably assisted by our Outreach Coordinator and the Digital Team, have been working on various initiatives for BALH members in 2023.

In January we welcomed Else Churchill from the Society of Genealogists thinking about the ties between local and family history. We also hosted an online event entitled ‘Investigating Institutions’ in collaboration with the Society for One-Place Studies, a member society with a large and international membership reaching across local and family history worlds. This involved three speakers drawn across both organisations (Susan Moore, Helen Palmer and Liz Craig) who each delivered a short talk on investigating institutions in local history (Chancery, workhouses, a home for ‘inebriate women’). This was co-chaired between Joe Saunders, Outreach Chair and their Chair, Janet Barrie. Attendance was very good with some excellent discussion at the end and BALH and the Society are working to run further ‘Investigating…’ sessions. Part of the purpose of the talks is to create more video content and so each of the three talks has been uploaded to the Ten-Minute Talks/Video Shorts on YouTube: www.balh.org.uk/QFK140

In the spring of 2023 Outreach have been working toward a range of projects including our AGM in May, an online 1920s themed history event in September and working to celebrate our 20sStreets competition winners (in collaboration with The National Archives) and our Teacher Fellows (in collaboration with The Historical Association). We have also been working on a page on coronations and local history which can you can read more about on page 35 of this issue.

During the spring you will have been appreciating the excellent Historic Towns Trust collaborative series of lectures which have been organised by BALH Chair Paul Dryburgh. BALH hopes to welcome back the Trust in future. We are planning further online talks in late 2023.

BALH attends a variety of events but we can only do so if we are aware of them. Please get in touch with our Outreach Coordinator Stephen Miller if you are running an event and we will see if we are able to attend: outreach@balh.org.uk

The BALH blog continues to draw in excellent research as does our popular series of online ‘Ten-Minute Talks’. We are always looking for new blogs and videos so please get in touch if you would like to share your local history research with a wide audience. In 2023 we have a bit of a 1920s theme developing in BALH and we would be keen to hear more about your local history in your research. Get in touch with the Digital Team with your idea: digitalteam@balh.org.uk

You will see elsewhere in this issue (p.35) that we are currently seeking your help providing information and advice to local historians. The BALH Outreach Team, which promotes the Association and local history generally, is looking for new members help with our initiatives. Please see elsewhere in this issue for information on this.

Keep up to date with our activities via Local History News, the BALH website and e-newsletter.

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By Alan Crosby

The coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla prompts thoughts about the local history of royal occasions. In the past, many town histories included a section dealing with royal visits, though such occasions rarely made any difference at all in the longer term. Royal visits were simply a case of ‘passing through’. Some histories of Preston, published many years ago, even made a point of mentioning that Queen Victoria travelled through the town on the train on her way to Scotland.

But celebrations on the occasion of jubilees, coronations and other events were rather different, and they often reveal interesting social, cultural and political dimensions to the life of a community. They are worth investigating because of the light they shed on contemporary values and perceptions. In the Victorian period the earlier casual and spontaneous forms of celebration were increasingly eclipsed by carefully stage-managed festivities, with a much more obvious official input.

In the small borough of Clitheroe in Lancashire the centrepiece for Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee in 1897 was a huge communal ox roast. There had been a similar but low-key event in 1887, but this one was highly elaborate, organised (in properly bureaucratic local government fashion) by the Ox-Roasting Committee of the Borough Council. A large shed was erected in the market place, with a galvanised roof to reflect the heat of the fire back onto the roasting meat. Many inhabitants of the town took turns in basting the ox (one old lady proudly told the local press that she had performed the same task at the coronation ox roast back in 1837).

The cooking took all day, the blazing fire having been allowed to die back to intensely hot embers, and not until four in the afternoon did the chairman of the committee present the mayoress with a huge carving knife and fork, with which she cut a large thin slice of beef and held it aloft, to the cheers of the crowd. A host of assistants then cut up and distributed the ox among the people. A reporter claimed that ‘every scrap of meat and bone was called for, and indeed they could have distributed another ox and not had enough’. One man claimed that he had been fighting for a share for half an hour, and had emerged from the vast scrum with a tiny piece of meat the size of a threepenny bit. He would not, he said, dare go back in again even for a whole cow.

By 1897 patriotic fervour was at a peak. The 1887 golden jubilee celebrations had been modest partly because of the undercurrent of anti-monarchist feeling engendered by the queen’s protracted seclusion, but ten years on the sun had never set on the empire, Victoria had been sanctified by extreme old age (she was 78), and jingoism was a ruling force. Earlier in the century, though, royal events might be highly controversial. The very mixed reputation of the Prince Regent was compounded by shocking scenes which delighted a large section of the public – notably the high drama of the trial of Queen Caroline in 1820 and the coronation itself in 1821, when she was denied access to Westminster Abbey by guards with bayonets drawn. Such sensation!

These very public scandals came after the prolonged French wars and in the context of the strong radical and republican sentiments of many ordinary folk in the years after 1789. The memories lingered. In September 1831 William IV and Queen Adelaide were crowned in the Abbey, a cut-price affair since the new king hated ceremony and pageant. Up and down the land public celebrations marked the occasion, but these were not necessarily harmonious. The country was in the midst of a political crisis, as agitation for franchise reform led to civil unrest. The coronation was politically charged. The Lancashire dialect writer Ben Brierley, then six years old, later recalled that at Failsworth near Oldham ‘an ox was roasted in front of the Crown and Cushion. The boiling parts were converted into stew, to be served out to all comers [by] a woman who lived near the scene of the dole. I was sent with a jug to get a quart, but the woman pushed me aside. “Nawe, tha mun ha noane,” she said. “Thy gronfeythers a Jacobin.”’

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By Dr Daniella Marie Gonzalez

I am a medievalist interested in political discourse, language and civic life in pre-modern cities, with a particular focus on London. I am currently working on turning my PhD research on medieval London into a monograph and I am very excited to explore London’s history further and share this with wider audiences.

I am also an archive and heritage professional, currently undertaking my archive qualification with Aberystwyth University. I have experience of working in both library and archive sectors, having worked for Kent County Council’s Libraries, Registration and Archive service between September 2019 and January 2021 and the Parliamentary Archives between January 2021 and December 2022. In these roles I have been able to further develop my passion for local history and engage audiences with local history materials, such as microfiche of photographs and newspapers, as well as larger items such as plans and maps of railways, drainage systems, parks and so on. When working for Kent CC I was responsible for answering enquiries relating to local and family history and suggesting collections to visitors that would help them with their research. I will soon be starting a new adventure working in government archives. I also undertake freelance work and I have catalogued records of the Society of Antiquaries in this capacity.

I have a strong background in outreach and education and plenty of experience delivering workshops focusing on archival material and local history to varied audiences, from secondary school children to adults. As a doctoral candidate, I had many teaching opportunities and really enjoyed going to local schools in Kent to support their learning, teach them about historical materials, and link this to where they lived when I could. I was able to develop this skillset as the BALH’s first Social Media Fellow, between August 2020 and August 2021, during which I was able to bring local history to people at home through a digital platform. I have been able to continue my passion for making local history more widely accessible, especially online, as Hampshire Archives Trust’s Social Media Fellow, a role that I took on in February 2022. These roles have been extremely fun and a great way of meeting new people and finding out about the amazing local history research they are doing and the various archives that they use to do this.

I am also a member of various professional bodies and committees. I am a member of the Archives and Records Association (ARA), and previously volunteered on ARA’s Section for New Professionals as their Communications Officer between September 2020 and August 2022. I am also an Early Career Member of the Royal Historical Society plus Website and Social Media Secretary of the London
Medieval Society.

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By Joe Saunders & Andrew Chapman

Coronations in local history

Back in February BALH was put in contact with a project being run between King’s College London, Roehampton University and Art Projects for Schools, for the coronation in May. Alongside some creative elements and a survey of attitudes around the coronation the project has developed a series of lessons for teachers on coronation history. BALH was asked to provide advice on researching coronations in local history that interested teachers and pupils could follow to find out about the history of these events in this area. Members of the BALH team have worked to put together an information page which may be of interest to readers. This can be accessed here: www.balh.org.uk/coronation

Helping local historians

BALH aims to advise and inspire local historians. To do this we share excellent research from which you can take encouragement, we inform you of events and new books and offer support in the process of doing your local history through our website, publications and events. It is in this vein that we are asking readers to help us help others with their local history. You possess a wealth of knowledge about the practicalities of local history, whether this is researching, writing, giving talks, publishing, teaching, running societies and more. Please do get in touch if you feel you can share some of your knowledge with us in either a short, written piece for Local History News, for our blog and/or for a recorded Ten-Minute Talk.

Joe Saunders, Outreach Chair: joseph6.saunders@hotmail.com

To Zoom or not to Zoom?

As many societies return to in-person meetings, LHN reader Helen Gibson of East Herts Archaeological Society makes an interesting point advocating for at least running hybrid events: ‘A plea from a housebound member. The Zooming that was such a joy during lockdown has tended to be abandoned in favour of in-person meetings. Please can organisers try to include us.’

2023 Dymond Lecture

In December 2021 BALH initiated a new annual winter lecture, named in memory of eminent local historian and former BALH colleague David Dymond. We are pleased to announce that in 2023 the Dymond Lecture will be given by Fiona Edmonds, Professor in Regional History at Lancaster University and Director of the Regional Heritage Centre. Fiona’s research focuses on maritime connections and now-lost kingdoms in medieval Britain and Ireland. She is particularly interested in the Irish Sea region in the Viking age, and central Britain (northern England and southern Scotland) prior to the Anglo-Scottish border. The lecture will be hosted online in an evening in early December. Look out for further information in the next issue.

Looking after your archives

There has been much discussion among BALH members about preserving and digitising society archives (see page 10 of this issue). We’re pleased to announce that Dr Ellie Pridgeon will give an updated version of her BALH Digital Webinar on ‘Archiving Your Local History This session will provide advice on archiving local collections, on the best way of preserving physical and digital records for the future, on cataloguing, and on archiving emails, websites and social media. It will also explore depositing local history society archives with county records offices and history centres. Ellie is a consultant archivist who has worked for numerous museums, universities and community archives across the UK. Book your place at www.balh.org.uk/JGF145

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