January 2022 Reviews

By Jean Turnbull

(Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society 2021 x+112pp ISBN 9-781-873124-88-8) £20 post free from 10 Peter Street, Carlisle CA3 8QP

At first glance one is struck by the quality of production of this volume and the contents do not disappoint. The text reads well and is supported by extensive footnotes and a comprehensive bibliography (including citation of a website devoted to roadside finger-posts)! Many will know that in 1974 Westmorland was subsumed into the new county of Cumbria—for those not familiar with the old county a very clear map showing the 1938 road network and principal locations is provided as a frontispiece, derived from a map featured in an old Kelly’s directory. The eye-catching front cover by Bryan Harper is based on old photographs taken from Stainmore Summit. Readers familiar with the trans-Pennine A66 trunk road will be amazed at the lack of traffic but will recognise the landscape captured so well in a style similar to railway posters of the last century.

Jean Turnbull not only writes in an accessible style but also provides a logical and coherent structure to the book. Chapters typically begin with a concise consideration of the national context followed by a detailed account of the situation in Westmorland, and end with a brief case study taken from the county. This allows the reader to appreciate a local history of motor transport as it developed within the interplay of county and national politics. Once the structure of the book has been introduced, two chapters consider infrastructure development. Chapter 4 is concerned with the transport of goods and passengers. Roadside businesses are addressed next and in chapter 6 attention turns to motoring as a leisure and sporting activity. A final chapter is devoted mainly to the 1900–1939 infrastructure legacy and concludes with a case study of Brough, a village that has experienced varying fortunes as the road and rail network has changed over the years.

Westmorland, during the early years considered, is characterised as a county of limited financial means and rather inept at securing nationally available funding. Initially there was a reluctance to tar-spray road surfaces because it was thought horse-drawn transport would struggle on such a surface, especially on hills—of which there are many. However, we learn that many later road improvement schemes have stood the test of time. It was intriguing to read that the county council in 1939 proposed a new road to relieve congestion on the A6 and that the route suggested was similar to that now taken by the M6 as it passes through Cumbria. The later years of the period covered lie just within living memory and Jean Turnbull has included transcripts from the Kendal Oral History Group archives. These reminiscences bring an intriguing personal touch, especially regarding memories of bus services and wayside businesses. At its zenith motor-bus transport provided the local population with a network unmatched by that of the railways. Oral recollections describe the roadside garages and cafes which often combined their primary purpose with ancillary services such as general shops or even wireless outlets and repair workshops. These seem to be remembered fondly, not least by the author.

Regarding the transport of goods, 1900–1939 was a period of change that can be characterised too easily as a competition between road and rail—Jean Turnbull reminds us that at times the two networks complemented each other, for example in the collection and distribution of milk. We learn that horse-drawn carts were used to distribute goods locally from railway stations, although this role was increasingly taken over by motor lorries. Only towards the end of the inter-war period were so many goods transported entirely by road that lorries joined charabancs as the object of criticism for damage done to road surfaces. Before the 1920s most excursions had been by rail. In considering the leisure aspect of motoring the author explains the growth of motor bus excursions which brought many passengers from the seaside resorts of the north-west into the county. Conversely, local folk were able to take the bus to access the dancehalls and other facilities of those same resorts. Motor sports were legal on public roads until 1930 and enthusiasts took full advantage of this to engage in hill trials.

The final chapter looks forward from 1939, although perhaps more could have been mentioned regarding current problems such as congestion in tourist honeypots or the need to build flood resilience into the road network. Mention might have been made of the scheme to dual the entire A66, but this is a minor point. The book is primarily a local history, and a fine scholarly one at that. Jean Turnbull is to be congratulated on writing an academic yet readable volume which should have a wide appeal, beyond those interested in the north-west of England or motor transport.Alan Dougherty, like many residents of old Westmorland, can now only dream of the public transport network described in this book. He is a geographer and environmental philosopher with an interest in local history as giving context to a sense of place. Circa 1974 he ascended The Struggle to the Kirkstone Pass as a passenger in a grossly-overloaded Bubble Car.

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By David Johnson

(Amberley Publishing 2021 96pp ISBN 978-1-445699-40-0) £15.99

David Johnson’s introductory chapter begins by considering the definition of a brick, something we all think we can recognise but which almost defies a concise definition. He makes clear the fact that not all bricks are made of clay, that not all clays are the same, and that bricks vary widely in size, shape and use. This leads into his second chapter, on the geological distribution of clays, marls and coal measure shales, usefully drawing attention to the relationship of the location of these materials and the distribution of brickmaking sites.

Chapter 3, ‘Historical Overview’, is a very brief introduction to the use and manufacture of bricks prior to the eighteenth century and obviously is not intended to give the reader anything more than background information. The narrative moves quickly to discussion of simple brick clamps of the eighteenth century but there is no reference to the numbers of bricks that could be produced earlier: sixteenth- and seventeenth-century elite houses did require many thousands. The author moves to a more comprehensive mode in the next chapter, on clay working and processing. The change from hand preparation of the raw materials to machines is illustrated by the contrasting images of brickyards in the eighteenth century and the fully automatic, computer-controlled, brick plant, using shale, of Forterra at Accrington. In July 2021 Forterra announced they are investing £27million in a new kiln, dryers and handling equipment at Wilnecote (Staffordshire): as always, the industry continues to develop. It seems surprising not to see Nathanial Lloyd’s book A History of English brickwork (1925) in the bibliography: although somewhat outdated his chapter on brickmaking gives interesting information concerning early kilns and their output.

In the next three chapters Johnson moves to the aspect of the subject about which he is clearly passionate: kilns, their design, use and development. He takes the reader through their complexities, from updraught and downdraught kilns to continuous kilns and onto the modern tunnel and shuttle kilns. The description of basic updraught and downdraught kilns is well stated, followed by an explanation of their further development. The text does not say when the simplest form of updraught kiln (called a Scotch kiln, for no known reason) was first introduced but it is generally acknowledged that they were in use in the later medieval period alongside clamps in producing tiles and bricks. There are some interesting and informative photographs of Scotch kilns and their derivatives—the Lincolnshire, Suffolk and the Newcastle kiln—with each development claiming an advance in speed and fuel efficiency over the earlier type. The downdraught kiln is usually of a shape referred to as a beehive, having multiple kilns arranged in a circle with underground flues leading to a common central chimney. Having explained the downdraught kiln, Johnson then reverts to a description of a particular form of the updraught kiln—the bottle kiln—with an intact late-seventeenth-century example at Nettlebed (Oxfordshire), used for bricks, although elsewhere this form was used for pottery and glass. The bottle kiln consists of a tall conical structure with a perforated charging area under which wood was burnt to dry the bricks, followed by burning coal to fire them.

The move from batch-firing to continuous production was the next major development, in the late-eighteenth century, with early attempts to redesign kilns taking place in continental Europe. The new form was an annular structure with movable walls between chambers. Arnold’s German continuous kiln and the British development by Joseph Gibbs are illustrated with diagrams of their structure—these useful in understanding how they worked (perhaps more diagrams could have been provided of other forms of kiln). The major breakthrough came in 1858 with the development and patenting of the annular continuous kiln by Frederick Hoffmann and Albert Licht, now called the Hoffmann kiln. These, with variations, were used for widely throughout the world: in Britain in 1930 62 per cent of the 991 kilns were of this type. It would have been helpful to have diagrams illustrating the nature of the structure and how they worked to improve fuel efficiency. Chapter 7 explains the developments such as the Manchester kiln and the Bull’s trench kiln—there is a useful diagram of the latter, explaining its layout and how it works. Next is a short three-page chapter on tunnel and shuttle kilns.

The final chapter considers ‘Brickworks as heritage assets’: the survival of representative kilns, even if listed historic monuments, is shown to be a matter of considerable concern. Johnson commends the preservation of sites such as at the Ironbridge Gorge Museum (Shropshire) and Bursledon Brickworks (Hampshire) but is concerned that many sites are poorly preserved and lack continuing care—even the vast Stewartby site at Bedford is no more. The book is well illustrated with photographs of sites and has a very readable text which will appeal to the industrial archaeologist interested in the brickmaking industry, particularly in the nineteenth century.Carrying out excavations for the National Trust, where seventeenth- to nineteenth-century brick structures predominated, led to Michael Coles writing a dissertation for a Master of Studies degree at Cambridge on the brick industry in west Cambridgeshire. More recent study has been directed towards the use of brick in surviving buildings in the rural area.

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By Maggie Ashcroft

(West Deeping Heritage 2020 iv+188pp ISBN 978-1-916267-00-8) £18.50+p&p from wdheritage@hotmail.co.uk

West Deeping is a few miles east of Stamford, a little south-west of Spalding, and just within the southern margin of the county of Lincolnshire. Maggie Ashcroft’s volume, published by West Deeping Heritage, is an excellent study of a slice in time in the long history of this village—the first quarter of the twentieth century. Its main theme, and primary motivation, is to re-examine the First World War years, and the impact of this conflict on the place and its people. Many such offerings have been produced around the country, as localities and communities approached and passed through the centenary years of the Great War. This contribution is a worthy and accessible addition to this major and nationwide chronicling effort and record of remembrance.

The volume opens with the geographical setting, the area at the 1-inch and 25-inches to the mile scales of the Ordnance Survey and, in more detail, an annotated village plan for 1919 derived from the OS, showing various landmarks featured in the study. The introductory chapter sets out the aims of the study and its methods. The main objective of the research was to recover the story of those caught up in the war, with the wider task being to discern the broader and longer-lasting impact of the conflict on a relatively small village, in which life before and after might appear to show more continuity than change. The investigation achieved these objectives, uncovering much about the life of combatants, their families, and the village in general in wartime, and the local legacy. The study acknowledges earlier local history publications on the village, but provides a list of the ways in which research into the early twentieth century has been able to move forward, with new sources discovered locally, the release of fresh sources nationally, and the greater availability of material via the internet. The source base, then, is broad, and incorporates much of what would be expected in an exploration of a community in the first decades of the twentieth century.

The first main chapter is a historical survey, outlining the topography and structure of the village and its locality, including the network of footpaths, their direction, and purpose; roads, their purpose and condition; traffic accidents and incidents; the presence of the first motorised vehicles in the neighbourhood, including the omnibus; the rail connection with Peterborough and beyond; a profile of the demography of the village and its occupations; the female residents and their roles in social and economic life; and the typical leisure and entertainment activities for adults and for children. Chapter 2 provides an overview of the impact of the war on villagers and their community; those enlisting, those lost, and those returning; and the marking of the proclamation of peace, the creation of a memorial tablet and scroll; and saving of family memorabilia. The value of the research is demonstrated in terms of what has been added to the stories of the soldiers concerned, including profiles of four who were not included in the roll of honour, two of whom died in the war.

The main body of the book resembles a street-directory, proceeding along the main routes through the village: Stamford Road, King Street, Mill Lane, and The Lane. Each section discusses the residences and properties along or close to these roads, with a particular focus on the houses of those serving in the war. The histories of farms, cottages and other buildings are intertwined with those of soldiers or workers. Photographs, past and present, accompany the descriptive account, as do dates and events in the lives of the fallen and those who survived. Domestic and parochial lives switch to experiences overseas: varied, tragic, moving, and life-changing. Some who returned stayed locally, some moved away; some had long lives after the conflict, some not. Images and text give glimpses into other aspects of local life around the time of the war: trades, farm work, streets, public houses, school staff and pupils, family group portraits, characters and notables, religious buildings, and the uniformed themselves.

The story closes with the establishment of a parish council for the village, and what this brought in the years immediately following the war. Campaigning issues were familiar ones, addressing local problems of flooding and poor drainage and, as part of a broader national agenda, the provision of council housing. A postscript was prompted by the advent of the current pandemic, and research into the impact of the ‘Spanish Flu’. The volume ends, fittingly and helpfully, with a full roll of honour, a list of primary and secondary sources, and a detailed index.Andrew Jackson is Head of Research and a Reader in History at Bishop Grosseteste University in Lincoln. In recent years he has undertaken much research on the impact on the home front of the First World War and the Spanish Flu that followed.

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By Philip Moss and Andrew Armstrong

(History Press 2021 for the Gloucester History Festival 96pp ISBN 978-0-7509-9790-4) £14.99

In local history circles Philip Moss is ‘Mr Gloucester’, as is Andrew Armstrong in the world of archaeology. Phil, a native of the city, has been a leading promoter of its history since the 1960s, and as a professional illustrator his reconstructions of historic scenes are well known and valued. Andrew, city archaeologist since 2012, has become a high-profile champion of Gloucester’s Roman past, with a series of spectacular and well publicised discoveries. So ‘recreating the past’ is a wholly appropriate subtitle to this attractive, large format, almost square full-colour paperback, which embodies their work and also their contribution, in different ways, to everyone’s appreciation of the city.

Their book therefore presents Gloucester from two angles, both rendering it invaluable. It brings together for the first time Phil’s oeuvre of a half-century of meticulous reconstruction drawings of city scenes and locations, many in colour and reproduced in fine detail; and it couples them with a readable and up-to-date ‘where we are now’ account of Gloucester’s archaeology. After a brief introduction, about half the book (pages 14-53) is devoted to the Roman period, and much of the rest (pages 54-77) to medieval Gloucester. This reflects Andrew’s archaeological perspective, of course, but it also encompasses most of Phil’s output, and to a large extent their two approaches complement and enhance each other. Photographs of archaeological features and structures supplement the drawings, so that we are presented with an absorbing and easily intelligible journey through a millennium and a half of change and renewal. By ‘we’ I mean those of us who walk around the city every day –and only we, because the publisher has provided no street map for a stranger to put all this information into context (nor an index, for that matter).

There are other difficulties. Leaving aside the careless captioning of an image of the High Cross as ‘in 1753’, depicting the buildings that the text tells us had been demolished in 1750, and the strange claim on the next page that the city ‘saw little change between the end of the Tudor period and the start of the seventeenth century’ (a period, by my reckoning, of minus two years), the authors themselves recognise a slight conceptual problem with the book: many of Phil’s drawings were made long before Andrew’s (and his predecessors’) investigations overturned the received understandings on which the drawings were based. The text acknowledges this on page 74 in respect of Llanthony Abbey, the site of which has been relocated since Phil’s drawing; but it occurs elsewhere, for example in the beautiful drawing on page 88 which includes a depiction of the Old Severn in full flow under Foreign Bridge in 1643, although we now know that by then it had become little more than an unpleasant watery ditch. The authors cannot be blamed for discrepancies of this kind, since they are inherent in the book’s concept. But the publisher should be ashamed to claim on the back cover that the book tells the story of Gloucester ‘from its Roman beginnings to the present day’: in fact, everything from 1750 to now is covered in a single sentence of 30 words on page 94.

It is easy to snipe, and the book’s promotion by its publisher is flawed, but the work of its co-authors is exemplary—lucid, elegant and informative. Just as the History Festival for which it was produced has done Gloucester’s heritage immense good, so should and will this delightful production by two of its most dedicated citizens. I am seeing my surroundings in a new light, and I hope that others will too.John Chandler chairs BALH’s publishing committee. He has lived in Gloucester for some eight years, and works for the VCH in Gloucestershire, and also in Wiltshire (about which he is a prolific author and publisher).

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By Allen Warren

(Quacks Books 2021 xii+128pp ISBN 978-1-912728-37-4) £20 inc p&p from Quacks Books, 7 Grape Lane, Petergate, York YO1 7HU Tel 01904 635937 martin@quacks.info

As explained in the introduction to this attractively produced publication, Allen Warren’s aim has been to examine the history of Keynsham ‘from 1900 until 1975, when it became part of the newly established county of Avon, through the prism of the Scout movement’. In so doing, he has laid some firm foundations upon which other historians can build as they explore different facets of the town’s development, from what was essentially a large village of 4000 inhabitants at the time of the 1911 census to over 16,000 today. The author has sought to ensure that Keynsham, overshadowed by its neighbours Bristol and Bath, is neither overlooked nor marginalised. Throughout, his commitment both to the village-cum-town and the scouting movement, with which he has been closely associated for much of his life, are clearly in evidence.

The narrative is constructed around various periods, each reflecting a particular stage in the changing relationship between the Scouts and the local community, including the churches. Chapter 1 provides a very helpful overview of the village in 1909, incorporating some background information concerning its location at the confluence of the rivers Avon and Chew and an outline of its history from the Anglo-Saxon period onwards. The author also seeks to capture something of the essence of Keynsham’s character at the beginning of the twentieth century. In chapter 2 the reader is introduced to the foundation of the scouting movement in general, and the establishment of a Scout troop in Keynsham in particular. One ‘less well known’ feature was the contribution of the YMCA in its early days. The chapter also covers the First World War years and the contribution of the Scouts to the war effort on the Home Front, which even included Bristol Scouts guarding ‘railway bridges and telegraph lines, post offices and other installations’. In Keynsham they were primarily involved in collecting salvage for which they were given a trek cart in appreciation of their efforts once the war had ended.

The first decade of the inter-war years, from 1918 to 1928, is the focus of chapter 3 with the latter year being a crucial turning point in the history of the Keynsham troop, securing its first permanent headquarters situated close to the centre of the village. It was also the year in which Vivian Turner first appeared on the scene. Until his death in 1949 he was instrumental in sustaining the viability of the troop in terms of both human and financial resources. In addition, as the author puts it, he ‘knew how to engage with the families of the town, who were the community leaders’. In chapter 4 the narrative is taken forward to 1945, the period in which Turner took centre stage. He was clearly a charismatic and inspirational figure. He was confined to a wheelchair during his later years, but this did not prevent him from participating in Scouting activities.

The post-Second World War years are covered in chapter 5 (1945-1960) and chapter 7 (1958-1975), while chapter 6 is devoted to an exploration of an activity of central importance to the scouting experience in these years, namely camping. During the first of these periods a pivotal figure was Tom Tookey, who ‘played a key role in the realisation of Vivian Turner’s vision of building a new Headquarters by 1958’. Later the baton was handed on to Ron Duggan, who masterminded an expansion ‘in the numbers of young people having the chance to become Scouts and to inspire the new residents of Keynsham to connect and support the Group’. Indeed, the importance of individuals in taking the troop forward is one of the key themes of the book. There is also a very moving appendix providing details of three Keynsham Scouts who lost their lives in the First World War and of eight in the Second: this serves as a fitting tribute to the ultimate sacrifice that they made in these conflicts.

A particular challenge for the author was the often limited evidence base from which to construct his narrative, a heavy reliance being placed on local newspapers and personal reminiscences. For the later years he was able to draw upon his own experiences before he joined the History Department at the University of York in 1971. The book is profusely illustrated with some very evocative photos of local Scouts engaged in a wide variety of pursuits, such as participation in the Somerset County Jamboree of 1928 and the National Scout Car Race of 1966, and a few street scenes of Keynsham and environs. There are also some helpful maps showing the changes to the built environment of the area in which the scout headquarters was situated.

Given that the author has an academic background and is keen to see this publication as the starting point for more broadly based narratives covering the economic, social and religious history of Keynsham there are one or two surprising omissions with respect to layout. Although there is a bibliography and some guidance on further reading, there is neither a table of contents nor an index, and only very limited referencing. As indicated, an important source has been local newspapers—but no details of editions or page numbers are provided. To give one example, the author writes that ‘The surviving evidence for a 2nd Keynsham is a single press reference to its presence at Bath District Scout Display in June 1914 in which 1st and 2nd Keynsham participated led by their respective Scoutmasters’, but nothing further. Notwithstanding this quibble, the book can be thoroughly recommended for the insights it provides into the changing character of the scouting movement at local level and Keynsham’s expansion from village to town. It is a fitting complement to the brand-new Scout headquarters on the original site which opened in 2021.Roger Ottewill was awarded a PhD in Modern Church History by the University of Birmingham in 2015. His interests include local religious, political and administrative history, with particular reference to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He is currently researching aspects of the history of Basingstoke for the new Victoria County History project and for the Family & Community Historical Research Society’s ‘Communities of Dissent’ project and is involved with two church-based projects in Southampton.

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By J. Clarke, J. Garner-Lahire, C. Spall and N. Toop

(Oxbow Books 2021 243pp ISBN 987 1 78925 735 9) £25; also available as an e-book

This book is the product of the Lincoln Castle Revealed project that ran from 2009 until 2015. Contractors, the Lincolnshire County Council heritage team, archaeologists from FAS Heritage, and numerous other specialists investigated, conserved, refurbished and opened up Lincoln Castle. The book is organised chronologically and tells us in far more detail than previously what lay under the Norman fortification, as well as untangling the development of the castle from a simple earthen motte from 1068 to the final military additions in the 1230s.

The earliest remains shine a light on how a Roman fort became a town, as the excavations revealed evidence of a mixture of shops and large town houses built in the upper city of Lincoln in the late Roman period, as well as the possible remains of a destroyed first century statue. The book’s title is slightly misleading if the reader is expecting to learn about of an Anglo-Saxon fortification that preceded the Norman castle: there was not one. The project did, however, reveal a previously unknown tenth-century church (‘early medieval’ rather than ‘Anglo-Saxon’) during excavations in advance of a new stairway to access the walls. The associated early-eleventh century burials have been subject to sophisticated scientific analysis and the information revealed is fascinating. The remains seem to be of people often born far away: rather than just being from Denmark (as the historical sources would suggest for a town in the heart of the Danelaw), some may have come from the Near East, the Basque region and south-west Britain.

The sections on the castle walls are invaluable—and too comprehensive to detail here—but the most interesting revelation is that of a hitherto unknown southern gate. The castle has always held prisoners, but in the Georgian period the old gaol was torn down and a new brick building built, which dominates the interior of the bailey to this day. The investigations into this prison and the Victorian extension are thoroughly documented and include numerous plans, references to written records and artefacts brought to light during the project.

As somebody that knows Lincoln Castle well and often spoke to those involved during the project, I was already aware of some of the fascinating new discoveries, but still found new insights on almost every page. In such a well-researched book, which has obviously benefited from being run past many expert eyes before publication, it is therefore a little jarring when inaccuracies are found. However, these are rare and confined to general historical background information—for example, the account of the West Saxon conquest of the Danelaw or the 1217 Battle of Lincoln, a pivotal battle fought in and around Lincoln Castle. This is unfortunate, as knowledge of the newly found southern gateway may help to clarify confusion about the castle gates in the sources for the 1217 battle.

Overall, the book caters for the specialist and non-specialist alike. As well as an accessible summary of the evidence, there are technical data and reports (for example, pottery analysis, the radiocarbon evidence and the stable isotope analysis). It is lavishly illustrated with photographs, diagrams, maps, tables and reconstructions, making it a book to which the reader will want to keep going back. The index is a little sparse (numerous names and places do not appear in it) so it is easier to navigate using the contents—but far too many archaeological reports have no index, so perhaps we should be grateful for small mercies.

This book is a good benchmark for how a well-funded excavation should be presented to the public. It will be of interest to those wishing to know more about the history of Lincoln, but also to people with other historical interests. Indeed, it will be appeal to Romanists looking at how forts were developed into towns; it tells how towns that were refounded by the Danes in the tenth century (the term ‘Viking’ seems inappropriate here) fully embraced Christianity; it shows how a Norman castle developed up to the thirteenth century; and it tells a very human story of how prisons changed through the Georgian and Victorian periods. Erik Grigg is a lecturer in history at Bishop Grosseteste University, Lincoln, specialising in medieval history and military history. He spent ten years working at Lincoln Castle and other heritage sites in the city as a Learning Officer.

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By Stuart McClaren

(Poppyland Publishing 2021 ISBN 978-1-909796-89-8) £14.95 pb Amazon Kindle edition £7.95

This book might be considered outside the normal range of BALH interest, as the local element is confined to the world-famous scientist’s semi-secret four-week stay in a cabin on Roughton Heath (near Cromer on the north Norfolk coast) in September 1933, immediately before he left for his new and permanent home in the USA. Nevertheless, it is an excellent book, well written and well researched.

The author explains that his interest was kindled by one of his Norfolk uncle’s childhood memories of a wild-haired eccentric Jewish professor called Albert Einstein, who communed with goats and played a fiddle, living in a hut protected by an armed guard of a gamekeeper, a poacher, a posse of women and an irascible ex-naval officer. This seemed much too improbable to be true until he came across a biography of Einstein, illustrated with a photograph of the book’s subject, taken on Roughton Heath, and surrounded by a group of men and women carrying shotguns. One of the men was mounted on a horse. Further investigation of biographies of Einstein and some of his contemporaries, as well as local newspaper reports and an interview with an elderly eye-witness, identified the dramatis personae in the photograph, and fleshed out the detail of this unexpected and largely forgotten event.

The book gives a clear account of Einstein’s life, from his rather isolated and unhappy childhood, through his major work on the theory of relativity in 1919 and his further (ultimately unsuccessful) work on the unified field theory. The increasing hostility directed at him as a Jew, an outspoken pacifist and supporter of minority rights led to him renouncing his German citizenship and his departure from that country, soon after Hitler seized had power in 1933. After a three-month academic post in USA, where he had a hostile reception as a suspected promoter of socialism, anarchism and revolution, he returned to Europe and rented a seaside villa in Belgium. There he pondered where to settle with his wife and family, protected by an armed guard of Belgian police.

At this point the author identifies the man on horseback in the photograph as the MP and retired naval commander Oliver Locker-Lampson, who had invited Einstein to his Norfolk campsite in September 1933 when concerns were growing in Belgium about his safety from Nazi-hired assassins. Locker-Lampson, now largely forgotten, was a very colourful and complex individual, something of a maverick who was too outspoken and unpredictable as an MP to be ever offered any senior government post. In the 1920s he was actively anti-Bolshevik and formed a semi-military group, the Blue Shirts, to promote right-wing patriotic causes, including the continuation of white rule throughout the Empire. He was a tacit supporter of fascist regimes, generally seen at that time as an important bulwark against the insidious threat of Communism. By the 1930s, though, he had made a completely unexplained volte face and had become deeply concerned about the decline of democracy in Germany, and the threat to its minority Jewish population. In the face of considerable public and parliamentary opposition to an influx of refugees, he campaigned for an open door, and provided practical help and support to those who might otherwise have been unable to leave Germany in time. He probably regarded Einstein as useful publicity and a good potential ‘catch’. There was certainly a post on offer for Einstein at Oxford University, which he ultimately declined in favour of Princeton University, where he was to spend the rest of his life. Whether or not his armed guard in Norfolk was justified is not clear, but undoubtedly Locker-Lampson would have relished the high drama of this scenario. He did little to prevent the local press publicising this, though notionally Einstein’s sanctuary was meant to be secret. In addition, he facilitated Einstein’s appearance as a speaker at a public meeting in the Albert Hall in October 1933 to promote peace, and the tolerance of cultural minorities in Europe.

The author follows Locker-Lampson’s story to the end of his life, by which time his not inconsiderable support for Jewish escapees from persecution had been largely forgotten. His thoroughly researched book remedies this neglect, as well as providing useful hints to local historians about possible sources for recent events. It underlines the risks of uncritical reliance on unchecked personal memories which are notoriously unreliable after an interval of many decades. Close reading of this book provides an important correction to the accepted national mythology that Britain provided an open welcome to those escaping persecution, when the reality at the time was sadly rather different.Michael Leach is a local historian whose parents supported several Jewish friends after their escape from Nazi Germany.

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Edited by Alexandra Medcalf, compiled by George Redmonds

(Boydell/Yorkshire Archaeological and Historical Society Record Series vo.166 CLXVI 2021 for 2018 + 2019 760pp ISBN 978-1-916506-67-1) £75

The Yorkshire Historical Dictionary, compiled by George Redmonds who died in 2018, and edited by Alexandra Medcalf, is dedicated to the memory of Professor David Hey who served with distinction as President of the British Association for Local History (BALH) and who is remembered with affection for his teaching, research and publications.

The book reflects the work of Dr Redmonds in gleaning words and phrases from archival sources during a sixty-year career documenting Yorkshire’s past. A four-year collaboration with the Borthwick Institute for Archives and the Yorkshire Archaeological and Historical Society has enabled this publication to be produced for what was, until the 1974 boundary changes, the largest county in England. The result is a distillation of over 600 years of Yorkshire history in the language of people who experienced it, which will be invaluable to those researching the local and family history of the county, especially before 1800. Some words and phrases are still in use today, others have fallen into abeyance; some are dialect, others are regional variations. Each entry contains a description of its meaning, together with a phrase containing the word and the reference from the historical record. However, they all represent the relationship between language and history, although the manuscripts from which the words are obtained present only a partial view of the speech used at the time; the documents therefore need to be evaluated in relation to other contemporary evidence of local speech.

Inevitably the entries are personal to the compiler and hence have limitations due to a concentration on the historical periods that reflect his interests and research, and the resulting records consulted. The words date mostly from 1100 to c.1750 and cover the length and breadth of the historic county. There are very few after 1800, as these were covered in Wright’s English Dialect History. There is also a Glossary of Words Used in Swaledale, Yorkshire compiled in 1873 by John Harland.

Unsurprisingly we find words with an Old English origin, like coal, which was an important part of Yorkshire’s industrial heritage, as well as from Old Norse such as skep, which referred to a basket or container, probably made of wicker, used for grain or charcoal and associated with specific measures. Cringle means a ‘circle’, suggesting the circular sweep of a river, a round hill or any topographic feature of circular shape. Wath, meaning ‘ford’, is of Scandinavian origin and is a place-name element. Others from Scandinavia indicate that goods were imported on trading routes into the coastal and inland ports and also along the Humber and Ouse as far as York, before transfer to river vessels for passage further inland. Thus, money due for loading and unloading the cargo in Hull was primage, whilst osmund is a term of uncertain origin and initially referred to high quality iron from Sweden in the thirteenth and early fifteenth centuries, but more generally applied to high quality iron and steel imported from Danzig from at least the sixteenth century for use by Sheffield cutlers. In the seventeenth century, however, Sheffield cutlers argued in favour of importing Spanish iron as this was preferred to the local Tankersley ironstone.

After the Norman Conquest some words had a French origin, such as pannage, which was used by Chaucer to mean swine fodder or the right to pasture swine in the forest. Surprisingly treacle, which derives from the Greek and was brought here by the Normans, originally referred to a salve (used as an antidote to poison) made of spices and drugs. Later, in the fifteenth century, the spices and drugs were mixed with a honey base, and treacle was inserted in a small box as a fashion item which ladies wore around their waist; only recently has it been referred to in its common usage as the syrup produced when sugar was refined and crystallised.

There are also references to agriculture, with affectionate names given to cows such as flowereld and marigold which are perhaps more appealing than the familiar ‘daisy’ and ‘buttercup’. Names were also associated with the appearance of the cow such as sterneld, spanged and hassled with common surnames such as Stirk and Bullock having agricultural roots. The textile industry is a prominent feature of Yorkshire’s historical heritage, so the names of specific yarn and fabrics appear throughout the dictionary like crewel, grogram, and sarsenet. Some relate to, or provided, place-names: the coarse cloth penistone was named from the town in South Yorkshire and tammy gave rise to Tammy Hall in Wakefield, built in 1766. Collop Monday was the day before Shrove Tuesday, when the customary dish of collops (rashers of bacon or other meat), was consumed prior to Lent, while Sheer Thursday was the Thursday before Easter in some sixteenth century references. There are dialect words that are familiar today such as ginnel, which originally meant an opening, and is a narrow entrance between houses, although it would be interesting to know what the clear distinction is between that and a snicket. Some words are only found in one specific location, the scabell or scaytbell in York being the bell hung on Foss Bridge to declare the fish market open.

The examples cited provide a flavour of the words to be explored in these two volumes. Abbreviated references are provided for the sources cited and there is a headword subject guide with subdivisions at the end of volume 2, together with a select bibliography. The dictionary is a well-researched glossary of words and phrases and represents a remarkable achievement. It reflects the relationship between language and history, presenting an insight into how people understood themselves, their relationships with others and their environment. It is not, however, a definitive collection and perhaps additions can be made in the future as more people become involved in researching local history in areas outside the interests of the compiler of this dictionary. In the meantime, it is an extremely valuable resource and reference guide for those interested in the meaning of words encountered in historical sources and spoken throughout Yorkshire for over 600 years.

Stephen Gregson is a Lancastrian who is still regarded as an 'offcomer' even though he has lived in North Yorkshire for the last twenty years. He has just completed a master's dissertation on the implementation and administration of the Poor Law in the North Riding of Yorkshire in the seventeenth century.

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