January 2021 Reviews
Contents
JUST THE JOB: how trades got their names Show more
By Alexander Tulloch
(Bodleian Library Publishing 2020 218pp ISBN 978-1-85124-550-5) £12.99
This intriguing and informative little book offers a thoroughly engaging insight into bygone jobs, looking into the demise of some but the continuation of others into the modern world of work. A third category is included—new and emerging roles and job descriptions, with several surprising facts to link some of them to much older beginnings and backgrounds. Tulloch is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Linguists, an author and a translator, with a very sound academic background in the study of the origin of words and the ways in which they change, evolve or become re-appropriated over time. His skills in etymology are apparent throughout, with a wealth of detail on every page. It is a fascinating read, very accessible, and exhibiting a great depth of knowledge.
The introduction outlines the scope of the book and describes the three groups of jobs, trades and occupations: those which have disappeared (such as gong-farmer); survivors (such as jeweller); and those from the modern era (such as ‘Cloud Architect’). It also describes how surnames related to an occupation can be explored and includes etymologies and derivations behind the entries in the following A-Z listing of 136 occupations, with their social and linguistic stories. Tulloch recognises that forces of social change have extended the acceptability of many occupations to everyone, irrespective of gender. Formerly an ‘Archer’ or ‘Bowman’ was a male role and the occupation of ‘Charwoman’ was, by its very name, gender specific, but today the terminology of, say, ‘Front Line Soldier’, is gender neutral.
The A–Z entries provide interesting reading. First appearances can be deceptive, and it would be easy to assume that this book would mainly be quirky detail and amusing anecdote. It is indeed full of detail, and there are anecdotes, but there is much more to the content and scope. Tulloch provides a descriptive paragraph for each word, giving its origins and derivation, and its first recorded use in English—such as ‘Bailiff’, borrowed from French in the fourteenth century, or ‘Currier’ and derivative surname Curry from a century earlier—and then places it in a global context alongside other languages. A particularly interesting entry is ‘Miller’, a word familiar to most and one which is widely understood. The author lists it together with equivalent and similar-looking words in no less than 13 languages and ends the observation that the meaning of the word ‘maelstrom’ is ‘a pool that grinds’. He also lists descendent associate words to do with milling. Other words are similarly explored in meticulous detail, each one an engrossing short read. Tulloch explores how words have sometimes followed meandering, wandering routes which can reveal early origins. One recent phenomenon is shown to have its roots going back centuries and can be linked with Sanskrit karabha, Persian karwan, Greek kamelos, and Hebrew gamal (all meaning ‘camel’) and Arabic jamala meaning ‘to carry’, ‘to transport’. As the author says this ‘completes the circle’ and brings us to ‘White Van Man’.
The layout of the book is appealing: most individual entries have an accompanying addition—a drawing, lines of poetry or prose, or helpful Greek or Latin guidelines (non-Classicists need not be alarmed: it is all explained in an easy-to-follow style). Entries also lists associated phrases which the English language appropriated from other countries as international travel and trade expanded. The book is a delight which will appeal to anyone interested in the origins of words and how they have developed over the centuries. The engaging language may mean that much more is absorbed than from a similar study in a more formal style. It certainly encourages me to read an earlier work by Alexander Tulloch about ‘word routes’, which is listed in the further reading and bibliography.
Carol Dougherty is a retired teacher with several historical and archaeological interests. She is currently engaged in transcribing documents for a Heritage Lottery Funded project looking into the early days of Appleby in Westmorland; is a member of a project transcribing medieval wills; and is engaged in an archaeological survey of stone settings in the Westmorland Dales.
HTP – HOSKEN, TREVITHICK, POLKINHORN & CO LTD: The families who controlled Cornwall’s Great Conglomerate Show more
By Philip M Hosken
(Marrack Publishing 2020 291pp ISBN 978-1-8380899-0-0) £30 www.htpbook.co.uk
My father bought his early cars from HTP Motors in the 1960s and 1970s—the HTP garage in Truro was a well-known institution but there would have been relatively few who could say what the initials stood for. This book unpicks the amazing story of the company until 1936: a second volume is promised. The author is descended from the Hosken family and spent years as president of the Trevithick Society so is extremely well placed to write this book. He has been gathering material for 30 years and has managed to accumulate a vast amount—in some cases rescued from skips. The book reveals a company that penetrated many aspects of life in Cornwall and beyond, including milling, baking, shipping, wool combing, motor dealing, haulage, retail and wholesale.
One might imagine that with such close links to the family firm, this would simply be a joyous account of all the achievements and its superb employment practices, but Hosken avoids this and leaves us with the impression that, despite enjoying considerable economic success, the company was in many ways dysfunctional and (as he comments) ‘bastion of feudal attitudes’. Members of the three families in its name filled the directorships but had little training, and often did not get on with each other. There was no sense of an integrated company—employees thought they were working for individual firms. For much of its existence there was no managing director and much of the burden seems to have fallen on dedicated but hapless company secretaries and the many loyal employees.
The conglomerate was formed at Hayle in 1890, as a marriage of convenience not built on strength. The Trevithick shipping business was in danger from the railways and Hosken’s milling industry was precarious. Polkinhorn, as an entrepreneur, saw benefits and joined in creating an unlikely alliance. Hayle was a town prominent in industrial history largely through its association with Harveys and HTP received a boost from the demise of that company. The early business was largely milling, with a series of mills in Cornwall and a large enterprise in Plymouth. This side of the business continued throughout, its fortunes often linked to the state of agriculture, but it was bought out by Spillers in 1936—hence the cut-off date for this volume. Much of the book centres on the milling element, revealing regular financial mismanagement with lending to farmers as a kind of IOU—there was a chaotic accumulation of debt and many farmers saw HTP as a friendly bank. That was not altruism—simply poor financial management. Links with milling provided another business: biscuit making. The ‘Cornubia’ brand lasted for years but according to the accounts never once made a profit.
The company was never far from calamity. Throughout there are tales of disasters: accidents, fires, corruption and legal disputes. The book is not too explicit about what kind of employer HTP was but, reading between the lines, it probably fitted the norm for the times. Much depended on which side of the business you were working in. There are occasional references to letters of appreciation and small rewards for exceptional service but equally there were some sharp practices, poor safety and lack of security.
The overarching question is therefore “How did HTP manage to be so successful when it had such archaic management practices”. The answer is that on one level they did not succeed: aspects of the business such as biscuits and shipping came and went, and there were bankruptcies in the family. However, they had the real support of the Cornish community, with many willing and unquestioning Cornish shareholders who did not demand huge dividends. There was also a heavy reliance on bankers who were prepared to support them with loans. The individual businesses did sometimes have good managers, who were left to get on as best they could. The times were also sometimes on their side—they did quite well out of the First World War, partly because of increasing government control, and their wool business especially benefitted from the need for uniforms and blankets. Management chaos was often well hidden and HTP remained a respected name for many decades. There was also no shortage of initiative: the directors may have been quite timid but many worked hard and embrace new opportunities such as the use of grain ships, the sale of wirelesses, or the motor industry (setting up a garage selling a wide range of early cars as well as a repair business).
The families and their family trees, and complex interrelations, are discussed in detail, and the author has obtained an enormous number of family photographs. He is not afraid to bring out their rivalries and a great deal of pettiness; yet there are many positives. There are no distinctive heroes, and none of the three families had an unbroken line of competent people, but some had achievements which stand out—one was Sam Polkinhorn, perhaps the real entrepreneur of the partnership and a prominent Truro citizen. It is no coincidence that the company moved its headquarters from Hayle to Truro in 1915.
Generally, the book is a joy to read, although some sections are a bit heavy, such as the long accounts of the families and the AGMs, which are described in detail. In places it employs a diary style, where the highlights of each year are covered in turn, which is a mixed blessing. However, some sections veer into tangential description such as how mills operate and how bread is made; the history of the lands and properties they purchased (the families clearly did not live abstemiously); or the shorthorn cattle for which they became famous. These diversions are fascinating but occasionally disrupt the flow.
This book will appeal most to those with an interest in Cornish history but HTP spread much further—its wool business was centred in Tavistock and its ships regularly sailed to Bristol, Cardiff and Liverpool. Their influence was felt in places as diverse as Bradford, Plymouth, Southampton, London and the Channel Islands. The Trevithicks had an office in New York and the Hoskens family were prominent in South Africa where they were supportive of rights for Indians. Overall, this is a most interesting and useful book not only for those with an interest in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Cornwall but also as a case study of the reality behind a company. It makes it easy to understand how many similar companies might not have been quite so lucky and instead went under, and is a reminder that even in what might be seen as a golden age of business and industry there could be many losers. Clearly, for example, technology did not always work successfully—a particularly fascinating section looks at the huge disputes and frequent mishaps caused by the steam-driven lorries which formed a part of their haulage business.
The true test of a good book is whether one is desperate for the second volume. This is promised, taking the story from 1936 to the present day and dealing with issues such as their role in the Second World War (the Spitfire connection seems enticing) and the lives of those associated with the company, drawn from oral testimony. I look forward very much to reading more about this fascinating company in a volume which takes the story into events and times I well remember!
Tim Lomas is a past chair of BALH and a former education inspector and adviser. Things Cornish remain in his blood despite having lived away from the Duchy for 50 years.
THE FALL OF THE YARMOUTH SUSPENSION BRIDGE: A Norfolk Disaster Show more
By Gareth H. H. Davies
(Poppyland Publishing [original 2015] revised edition 2020 120pp ISBN 978-1-909796-21-8) £10.95
In Great Yarmouth and its hinterland there has been a wealth of new local history books over the past 20 years, recording information which otherwise might have been lost to posterity. These range from setting out oral history drawn from individuals to a scrutiny of historic events involving careful research, the final work being carefully footnoted for the historians come afterwards. The Fall of Yarmouth Suspension Bridge has many carefully chosen illustrations, with vignettes of local life at the time of this tragedy in 1845. The interweaving by the author of local and national events surrounding this collapse produces a very accessible narrative of how commercial opportunism without forethought can lead to tragedy with wide consequences—opportunism in the form of a local businessman Robert Cory, who tried take control of the toll road by building a suspension bridge; opportunism in the shape of the visiting Cooke’s Royal Circus seeking to drum up trade for its visit to the town; and opportunism after the tragedy by those who picked the moment to kill off the toll road and introduce a railway—all are interwoven in a good read.
The 1845 collapse of the suspension bridge in Great Yarmouth, with a death toll of 78 mostly young and poor people, is contrasted with the grand civic opening of the bridge in 1829. Not until 2014 was the tragedy marked by memorial close to the site of the collapse, a project instigated by Julie Staff, an interested townswoman. This book puts flesh on the bones of the disaster itself and fits it in the context of life in the mid-nineteenth century town. Davies draws together issues surrounding the tragedy such as growth of population, the consequences of the French wars, the transport revolution, the condition of the poor and forms of entertainment available.
The disaster is described in minute detail: a simple publicity stunt advertising the arrival of the circus in town went terribly wrong with tragic consequences. Nelson, the clown from the visiting circus, proposed to sail in a tub drawn by four geese along the River Bure within Great Yarmouth and under the suspension bridge. It was something he had done on several occasions and even after the tragedy, as Davies records, he repeated it elsewhere in the country with touring circuses. The tragedy resulted from a failure in the construction of the suspension bridge, which was never intended to stand the stresses caused by an excited crowd running from one side of the bridge to the other. Davies explains how the bridge was constructed as part of a toll route over the River Bure, where a ferry had hitherto carried people across the river. He then describes how the arrival of the railway negated the benefits of the suspension bridge, with a new railway bridge in the vicinity and the toll road being eclipsed by the railway.
A large number of the victims were poor and, using contemporary documents, the book contrasts their lives with those of the middle-class oligarchy who controlled the fortunes of the town. Particularly telling was evidence for the town’s conscience: the jury visited the homes of the deceased when trying to assess the reasons for the collapse, and this revealed the poverty of some of the townspeople. The illustrations (particularly one from the Illustrated London News of 10 May 1845) portray the after-effects of an accident waiting to happen on a less than carefully designed bridge with a realistic panorama of the victims in the water. Local guilt for the neglect of the poor in the town is examined against the background of how regulations to assist the poor operated nationally. This is a very readable book, carefully written by a local author who has set a town tragedy in a wider context, leaving other historians to follow his careful annotations and footnotes to explore the wider implications of the event.
Michael Boon is a Norfolk local historian who has written books and articles on the history of his home town of Great Yarmouth, its historic grammar school and its minster church of St Nicholas. Now retired from running the Great Yarmouth Port Authority for a quarter of a century, he is a postgraduate researcher at the University of East Anglia working on the fifteenth-century history of the town.
GUNPOWDER, APPLES AND CEMENT The story of an English country home Show more
By Evelyn Cook
(Conrad Press 2020 271pp ISBN 97-1-913567-24-8) £9.99
On its back cover this book is described as ‘fascinating and meticulously researched’, and that description is true. In September 2010 Evelyn Cook seized the chance to live in a historic house in North Kent, commenting that ‘it was simply wonderful to live there’. She was curious to discover the lives of previous occupants of Higham Hall. Having studied history at the University of Manchester she was well equipped to locate sources, and her excellent research gives great depth to her account. The narrative, which is both peculiar to Higham and also applicable to South East England in general, flows easily in chronological order. The future Higham stood on a route between Ebbsfleet and Rochester, and on another to a ferry across to East Tilbury, and was orientated towards the Thames (although modern Higham faces south towards the Gravesend-Rochester road on higher, drier land). The author deals lucidly with family history, agricultural developments, legal wrangles and gavelkind, the system of land tenure in early Kent. Gavelkind made it possible to buy land without permission from a senior tenant, so people with no inherited land could buy a ‘starter’ estate; therefore, Samuel Cordwell could buy land in Higham in 1628. The author dates the inglenook fireplace in the Hall to his day but believes there was an earlier house on the site, as her garden walls have been dated to the sixteenth century. Cordwell’s career put the ‘gunpowder’ into her title, as he was Gunpowder Manufacturer to Charles I. He was granted a monopoly in 1636 but his career had its difficulties—he survived financially by supplying gunpowder to the Parliamentary forces, dying in 1648.
The ‘apples’ came from the growing of produce for the London market; a Finnish botanist of 1748 said, ‘between Gravesend and Rochester were many cherry orchards sending fruit by the boatload to London’. When the population expanded, because of improved water and rail access, local agriculture declined and plots of land were sold off separately from the houses they had once financed. This fate befell Higham. The author provides the sale particulars of 1843 for the Hall and its former landholdings. Earlier, in the later eighteenth century, a long legal dispute had encumbered the owner, perhaps because a previous owner’s widow understood how gavelkind would benefit her. Sums were borrowed but not repaid so the creditor, a tea merchant, foreclosed on Higham. For 60 years tenants occupied it, the most successful being William and Sarah Barnes, who farmed the estate for nearly 30 years. While tenants farmed, Higham was sold on. In 1874 the tenant was Vitale de Michele. His great-grandfather was Italian; his father was a diplomat who served in St Petersburg for 17 years; and Vitale himself trained in engineering. When his father invested in a cement company, Vitale took charge of it and rented Higham, 7 miles away from his new enterprise. When the property was auctioned off in 1897, he bought it, so providing the ‘cement’ of the title.
The author provides diagrams to show how she believes the house was built, then altered and expanded by various owners, including proposals for changes not carried out. There are photographs of Higham Hall and some of its twentieth-century owners, as well as of memorials in St Mary’s church where several of the owners were interred. A sketch map shows the probable position of an earlier manor, but the book really needs a map of the whole Higham area—I found it much easier to follow the account of Higham’s development by using a West Kent street atlas. Kate Perugini, youngest daughter of Charles Dickens, painted a portrait of Vitale de Michele’s daughter which is now in Rochester’s Guildhall Museum. An image of this portrait would fit well in the account of her life: why was it not included? These comments apart, there is much to enjoy in this engaging book. Look out for a watchmaker and an art collector of Dutch heritage, and admire the impressive resources supporting Higham’s long story.
Jan Mulrenan is a resident of Kent, formerly a teacher of modern languages, a contributor to the Richard III Society’s Milles Wills Project, and a member of Cranbrook Local History Society.
THE COURT ROLLS OF THE MANOR OF WAKEFIELD FROM 5 OCTOBER 1360 TO 28 SEPTEMBER 1361 Show more
Edited by Christopher J. Watson
(Wakefield Court Rolls Series of the Yorkshire Archaeological Society vol.20 2019 xii+180pp ISBN 978-1-916506-69-5) £20 inc p&p, by cheque to YAHS at Yorkshire Archaeological and Historical Society, Stringer House, 34 Lupton Street, Hunslet, LEEDS LS10 2QW, or by BACS, details from office@yahs.org.uk
The manor of Wakefield is particularly remarkable: not only was it one of the largest manors in England but also its records comprise probably the longest and most complete set of surviving English court rolls. In addition to Wakefield itself, the manor covered a huge area of the West Riding of Yorkshire. The court rolls document the manor’s business beginning in 1274, and are almost continuous from 1323 until manorial courts ceased to function in 1925. In 2011 their international significance was formally recognised by UNESCO when they were inscribed on the National Register of the Memory of the World. The YAS has, of course, long appreciated the importance of the rolls and in 1977 the first volume in its revived Wakefield Court Rolls Series was published.
The manorial accounting year ran from Michaelmas to Michaelmas. In 1360-61 customary courts were held every three weeks at Wakefield, and courts leet or tourns, as they were called, were held twice in the year at Wakefield and also at Kirkburton, Brighouse and Halifax. The tourns at the latter three venues were accompanied by a customary court on the same day. The manor of Wakefield had formed part of the extensive lands in Yorkshire granted to William de Warenne, second earl of Surrey, some time before 1121. The Warenne lordship ceased in 1347 on the death of the seventh earl without legitimate heirs. The manor reverted to the crown and was granted by Edward III to his fourth surviving son, Edmund de Langley, then a minor aged 6. The significance of the 1360 roll is that it marks the period when preparations were in hand for Edmund’s assumption of full lordship.
These rolls record the business of 23 customary courts and eight tourns. In many respects the business of the courts is similar to that of customary and leet courts elsewhere, the main difference being the sheer volume of business transacted due to the size of the manor and number of tenants. Business came to the courts in two ways: either individual parties brought personal actions in the customary courts, or juries or other court officials presented offences from the localities within the manor in both the customary and leet courts. In the introduction Watson analyses the business of the courts: 1512 items of business, 1163 in the customary courts and 349 in the tourns. These are then broken down into types in the two courts and also presentments for breach of byelaws in both courts. The reader can easily see the preoccupations of the courts—or rather of the tenants, whether individuals or juries who brought the various matters to court. With regard to byelaw breaches, the prevalence of presentments for the illegal taking of timber and underwood indicate its importance as building material, fuel and fodder: the mostly small penalties suggest that taking small amounts of wood was tolerated.
Watson observes that ‘the chief motivation of court roll keeping was fiscal’ and so the rolls record manorial income. This was from two sources: the leasing and sale of manorial rights and resources, and the perquisites of the courts—fines (payments given to the lord in exchange for some favour, such as permission to be absent from court) and amercements (fines in the modern sense). Leases and sales were far more valuable: again, these are broken down and illustrated in a graph. Some of the lord’s income was ploughed back into the manor: during the year repairs were made to the manorial moot hall in Wakefield (a very detailed description on pp.53-54) and to the fencing around the 3000-acre Erringden park.
By their very nature the business recorded in most court records is fairly mundane: land transactions, contravention of customs and byelaws, and confrontations between locals, although of course the very survival of such records is important in itself. Occasionally, however, there are glimpses of more unusual aspects of medieval life. Among the numerous brewers who were amerced for breaking the assize of ale (or, licensed to sell ale) were five who were also amerced for not setting up an alestake outside their premises—a sign that showed ale was for sale. Robert Passelewe and William Schorch were each allowed to set up a forge in Wakefield Outwoods, each paying a weekly rent of 9s. Robert, son of Thomas Hundhil, seems to have been a troublemaker: he was presented for drawing blood from William Turnour at night, and for being a habitual nightwalker and disturber of the king’s peace. The agreement between Alice, widow of Walter Gunne, and William Tropynel was ratified: he would pay her 20 marks for her land and tenements and would provide food, clothes and all other requirements, and pay her debts when due. Alice stated debts that were then due to her and that she owed; she agreed to pay the latter out of the 20 marks. Perhaps she was the mother of William’s wife Alice? At various courts men were presented for digging coal on the lord’s waste and selling it for their own profit. Thomas de Helyleghe and John son of William Mylner had been caught red-handed (probably literally) with a dead fallow buck and were taken before the steward ‘with its hide’; they claimed that they were not guilty and opted for a trial by the manorial jury.
A glossary has been supplied, as have indexes of people, places and subjects. These documents are an important part of our national heritage and their continued publication by the YAS is to be applauded.
Heather Falvey is Reviews Editor for The Local Historian and is currently managing a group project to transcribe the medieval wills in PCC Register Milles for the Richard III Society.
WILLIAM CECIL'S SURVEY OF STAMFORD 1595: A town in turmoil Show more
By Alan Rogers
(Abramis Academic Publishing 2020 138pp ISBN 978-1-84549-769-9) £14.95
Published to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the birth of William Cecil, Lord Burghley, Lord Treasurer of England, this book presents a discussion and summaries of documents relating Stamford (Lincolnshire), which comprised part of Burghley’s estate. The main title suggests that its focus is the survey, commissioned in 1595, of Burghley’s manors of Stamford Lordship (the town of Stamford north of the river) and Stamford Baron (the town south of the river). The survey of these two manors is indeed published here, on pp.39-69. It lists the manorial holdings in the various parishes within Stamford and, as well as naming tenants and describing tenements, yards and fields, indicates the presence of retail and industrial premises in the town, such as Henry Wyles’ tanner’s house (entry 247) and the shops and stalls called ‘Butcherrowe’ near the conduit (no.191). There is also a transcript of a tax assessment made on 10 May 1582, and of the muster roll of 23 January 1584. The survey would enable a detailed analysis of this once prosperous town that was declining in 1595, especially if accompanied by a map, but there is neither. The survey, or rather the commissioners who conducted it, are discussed briefly but the rest of the text in the introduction discusses a series of ‘troubles’ in Stamford in the reign of Elizabeth I, and its antecedents in the 1540s. Extracts from some relevant documents relating to these troubles are provided.
While his account of the troubles, which Rogers suggests merely scratches the surface, is detailed, the matters being fought over were not directly relevant to Lord Burghley: the main protagonists were Lord Willoughby and Thomas, Lord Cecil, Burghley’s elder son, although the two ‘parties’ were fluid, with individuals changing sides according to their perceived interests. There were fights in the streets; Richard Shute and Edward Heron led ‘parties’ in the town council, exchanging verbal insults, leading to quarrels and dismissals; three successive Aldermen (mayors) of the town were imprisoned by the Privy Council; and ‘the municipal trouble at Stamford’ was repeatedly discussed by, and orders were issued by, the Privy Council. From the transcripts of documents relating to the Privy Council’s discussions and orders, it appears that its first response, in January 1589, was to ‘complaints, answers and writings’ submitted to them by Shute and Heron. The last document is a letter sent in February 1600 to Thomas Cecil’s commissioners, two years after his father’s death. Rogers is at pains to point out that although William Cecil was a member of the Privy Council he does not appear to have intervened directly in its orders regarding Stamford. He argues that Cecil’s approach to Stamford ‘was not heavy-handed; he respected it autonomy and charters’. Rogers suggests that because the troubles were discussed by the Council they ‘became a matter of national importance’ … or were they just local troubles that Burghley encouraged the Privy Council to deal with, because the townsmen continued to bring their complaints to the Council?
Heather Falvey is Reviews Editor for The Local Historian.
W.H. CROSSLAND An architectural biography Show more
By Sheila Binns
(Lutterworth Press 2020 xix+257pp ISBN 978 0 7188 9548 8) £30; e-book £19.90
William Henry Crossland (1835-1908) was a major architect of the Gothic revival, best known nationally for three master works: Royal Holloway College, Egham and Holloway Sanatorium, Virginia Water, both in Surrey, and Rochdale Town Hall in Lancashire. He was, however, a Yorkshireman from Huddersfield, in and around which may be found much of his early work, and from 1868 to 1883 he made a huge contribution to the Victorian townscape there as architect of choice to the Ramsden estate, the town’s principal landowner. Indeed, those of us who recently put together a volume about the Ramsdens in Huddersfield, Power in the Land (which is to be reviewed in the April 2021 issue of The Local Historian) tried but failed to find an author for a chapter on Crossland, whose Estate Buildings adorn its cover, unaware that Sheila Binns was on the case.
As its subtitle states, this is an ‘architectural biography’ rather than a work of local history. As biography, it tells a fascinating and in the end melancholy story. From humble origins—his father was a quarryman—emerged an architect who was startlingly precocious, winning the Rochdale competition at the age of 29, and immensely energetic, as befitted a pupil of George Gilbert Scott. Yet he died alone in London 1908, with £29 to his name, having undertaken no significant work for 20 years, and his burial place is unknown. As an architectural study, the book gives a comprehensive chronological account of his work, including his many churches and houses as well as the great public buildings for which he is best remembered.
Sheila Binns builds on and acknowledges her debt to Huddersfield historian Edward Law (1945-2013), who documented Crossland’s life and work on his personal website many years ago. Her amply illustrated book should bring renewed and well-deserved national attention to a major Victorian architect.
David Griffiths’ most recent publications are ‘The Ramsdens and the Public Realm in Huddersfield, 1671-1920’, in Edward Royle (ed), Power in the Land: the Ramsdens and their Huddersfield estate, 1542-1920 (University of Huddersfield Press, 2020) and Highfields: a most handsome suburb (Huddersfield Civic Society, 2020).


