July 2020 Reviews

By Jennifer Godfrey

(Pen and Sword History 2019 276pp ISBN 978-1-52672-3-512) £16.99

The back cover advertises the content of Suffragettes of Kent in breathless style: ‘Learn how some Kent residents boycotted the 1911 census and of the Kent manor house subjected to a militant arson attack whilst servants slept inside’. Indeed, the book’s tone is often uneven as the author slips between a chronological approach and a thematic one. At times the two are difficult to combine. This is noticeable in the first chapter, which deals with what is currently known of the life of Ethel Violet Baldock. She was arrested in March 1912 for breaking a plate-glass window and the chapter is her memorial. Her descendants provided what information they knew but could contribute nothing specific about her suffragette activities. The chapter nonetheless successfully links her individual history to our national one.

The next chapter goes back to the first mass votes for women petition, presented to parliament in 1866. Fifty-five signatures are identified as coming from Kent and investigated using census information. The author then deals with external campaigns targeting Kent, and women from Kent participating in national demonstrations. These included the London Procession of 21 June 1908 and the pilgrimage from Kent to London for a rally in Hyde Park on 26 July 1913. Photographs and maps of the intended routes, as organised by the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), provide illustration. Campaigns targeting Kent were more loosely organised. They included a caravan tour in 1908 and a ‘holiday campaign’ in 1913, both organised by the Women’s Freedom League (WFL): participants’ accounts give vivid reports. The Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), the militant element, also went on tour in 1913 but not so far into Kent as the WFL, who were concerned to reach rural women and were pleased to talk to hop-pickers. Campaigners met with mixed receptions from the groups they addressed, but pro-suffrage speakers were often reported as dealing well with hecklers, thus gaining a crowd’s sympathy. Participants felt the tours were very worthwhile and enjoyed publicising their cause on their travels. The author provides details, where known, about how such tours were organised. She also introduces suffrage activities such as ‘How the Vote was Won’, a play performed in Dover and Sevenoaks.

The grim topic of forcible feeding is dealt with at length and militant actions in Kent are mentioned, including attempts to confront prime minister Asquith in Lympne in September 1909. Two suffragettes accosted Winston Churchill at Sandwich by rushing into the road with their bicycles in front of his oncoming car in order to speak to him. Much ill-feeling was caused locally when, on 11 April 1913, the Nevill Cricket Ground pavilion in Tunbridge Wells was burned, with the loss of many sporting trophies. When the Pilgrimage of 1913 set off, its participants were careful to publicise that they were the non-violent movement, suffragists not suffragettes. The WSPU and the NUWSS ceased campaigning on the outbreak of war and suffragists were urged to perform war work. In 1928 the Equal Franchise Act at last gave all women the vote. The book finishes with notes on Kent, including changes to the county boundary and the introduction of the telephone, commenting on the great area the campaigners had to cover.

The author has made very good use of contemporary sources (referred to in plentiful endnotes), especially local papers like the Sevenoaks Chronicle and Kentish Observer and the Whitstable Times and Herne Bay Herald. This is a great merit. There are some editing errors and much of the text is chatty, though balanced by extensive quotation from suffragists’ writings and from contemporary newspapers. Readers with a general interest in the history of Kent will find this book interesting. Those keen on social history and the women’s suffrage movement in particular can enjoy its local focus. Those interested in the development of political campaigning will also find matter for thought.

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.

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By Trevor Fisher

(YouCaxton Publications 2019 xviii+105pp ISBN 978-1-913425-02-9) £8 available from https://www.youcaxton.co.uk/

This 105-page paperback, ‘a local history with national and international dimensions’, aims to show how Staffordshire was the location for crucial developments during the exile Mary Queen of Scots (1542-1587) by rehearsing familiar accounts of her life in France, Scotland and England, ending with the events of 1587 which led to her execution for treason. Despite much narrative detail, there is limited emphasis on local aspects such as how Mary managed her household, especially her female companions, while confined in Tutbury Castle and afterwards Chartley Manor, or to the career of the double agent Gilbert Gifford or Giffard (c.1561–1590), a member of a distinguished family, the Giffards of Chillington Hall (Staffordshire). After failing to be ordained as a priest but maintaining links with Catholic dissidents, in 1586 Gifford returned from France and offered his services to Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth I’s secretary and spymaster. Catholic contacts instructed Gifford to forward letters to Mary who was incommunicado at Chartley, at times by concealing them in the bung of a barrel of small beer delivered to the Manor, a scheme described here as ‘the brewer’s sting’. Mary’s encrypted response was then intercepted, decoded and sent to Walsingham. Correspondence concerned Anthony Babington’s plan to kill Elizabeth, free Mary and place her on the throne, although this may have been largely a fantasy, in part manufactured by the spymaster and his agents, and no real threat to the reigning queen. Mary’s acceptance of this proposal was sent by Gifford to Babington in the ‘gallows letter’ received by Walsingham on 19 July 1587. The following day Gifford fled abroad, fearing his role would become publicly known, but he was not named at Mary’s trial. In receipt of a pension of £100 from Walsingham, he never came back to England. Though not noted in this book, Gifford died in France in 1590, after eventual ordination as a Catholic priest, then arrest in a Paris brothel, followed by a sentence of twenty years’ imprisonment for acting against (French) Catholic interests. His father wrote ‘I wish to God he had never been born’ and another Staffordshire gentleman, the diplomat Edward Stafford (1552–1605), son of Sir William Stafford of Chebsey, said Gifford ‘had showed himself to be the most notable double, treble villain that ever lived, for he hath played upon all the hands in the world’.

Marred by idiosyncratic grammar, stylistic infelicities, repetition and poor proofreading, this book nevertheless offers an overview of the Midlands context for the later years of the Queen of Scots. Today there are few Staffordshire buildings associated with her. The ruins of Tutbury Castle are now the scene of various Tudor re-enactments, but Chartley Manor burned down in 1781 and Tixall Manor, which Mary visited, has been demolished; its gatehouse survives as a Landmark Trust property. Chillington Hall is still the Giffard family home and for ten years between 1996 and 2006 one of Gilbert’s collateral descendants, John Giffard, oversaw law and order in Staffordshire as chief constable of its police force.

Margaret O’Sullivan, a retired archivist, lives in mid-Staffordshire.

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By Michael Hall

(Quinton Local History Society 2019 280pp ISBN 9780955192128) £14.95

This book offers a microscopic examination of who lived in Quinton—located five miles from the centre of Birmingham—between 1840 and 1861 and what can be said about their lives. Densely packed with information, it is truly a labour of love for the author, Michael Hall, who is the doyen of local history in the area. Drawing on manuscript material that accompanied tithe maps and the censuses of 1841, 1851 and 1861 and the religious census of 1851, Hall has assembled, with great care, an expert reference book. For that is what it is ... a reference book. I would imagine that readers will mostly dip into its pages.

There are, however, parts that they will want to read all the way through: the introduction, which charts the story of Quinton (or Ridgacre, as it was long known) from earliest times to the mid-nineteenth century and the sections devoted to religion and schools and road transport. In the former they will discover that the school established by the National Society in 1846 was unable to hang on to its schoolmasters for long, probably because the salary ‘was set at £20 per annum with such extra fees (which given the nature of Quinton’s population were presumably negligible) as he was able to collect’. The result was that standards of learning and discipline did not impress the inspectors.

Censuses provide only basic—though often interesting—information about residence, age and family relationships. That is the case with many of the agricultural labourers and nail makers that Hall lists here. But it is work painstakingly done. Occasionally, when these men became Primitive Methodist preachers, a little more can be said about them because they earned themselves obituaries. Thus, of the nail forger John Hall, who trooped ‘along country lanes ... in all kinds of weather’ it was said ‘he was not, as some say, talented but he was useful’. This book will be indispensable to all those who wonder what it might have been like to live in Quinton almost two centuries ago.

Stephen Roberts is the author of a series of books about Victorian Birmingham: www.birmingham-biographies.co.uk

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By Michael Farley and Barbara Hurman

(Buckinghamshire Archaeological Society 2019 xii+130pp ISBN 978-0-9957177-5-6) £15

Archaeologists sometimes seem to be obsessed with pottery, and a large proportion of excavation reports is dedicated to the analysis of ceramics. This is because pottery is easily broken but very difficult to destroy, so ceramics form one of the largest categories of finds. Analysis of the fabrics and forms can reveal where and when that pottery was made, which in turn allows it to be used for dating, the examination of site formation processes, and the reconstruction of trade patterns, among other themes. This volume, a revised version of an article originally published in Records of Buckinghamshire for 2015, is an introduction to the subject for that county. It is written with both specialist and non-specialist in mind, with marginal notes explaining such matters as how the Harvard referencing system works. The volume is in two parts: a short introductory section and a longer parish-by-parish gazetteer of the evidence for the industry. It is lavishly illustrated in colour, and there is an excellent bibliography.

The introduction briefly covers a number of themes including an interesting discussion of potters in the written record. Unsurprisingly, early references are sparse, but by the eighteenth, and especially the nineteenth, centuries there are frequent references to potters in wills and censuses. Other sections include the resources needed for potteries (clay and fuel); hawkers and dealers; and the relationship with the widespread ceramic building material industry.

The main part of the book is a ‘gazetteer of information about potters and potteries’. This is arranged by parish, which can sometimes be problematic because of boundary changes or ambiguities in the written record. Most have an introductory section followed, where the information is available, by details of known kilns, potters (from the written sources) and ‘indicative names’. The size of entries varies greatly with, for example, the important centre at Brill taking up nineteen pages, whereas Wotton Underwood has but one indicative name from 1649: Crockers Edge Furlong. One dips into the gazetteer, rather than reading from end to end. The evidence employed is very varied, from excavations to the Domesday Book, sherds found on the surface of a field to personal communications. Where available, the products are illustrated by material from the county museum. Maps, excavation plans and photographs enliven the entries.

I expected a rather dry archaeological account of forms and fabrics, but that is not what this book provides. The combination of information about the industry and its products, and the people involved in it, is as interesting and informative as it was unexpected. This book could, and should, form the starting point for a variety of further research. Potteries that are only known from vague historical references could be looked for on the ground, and the foundations are laid for a social history of, for example, the pot-hawkers of Amersham. The authors should be applauded for bringing together such a disparate range of evidence, the result of many years’ work, and the Buckinghamshire Archaeological Society should be applauded for publishing such an interesting volume at such a reasonable price.

Kris Lockyear is an archaeologist who has a long standing interest in the archaeology of the region, and in ceramic building materials. He currently teaches archaeology at University College London including many aspects of archaeological method.

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By Lizzie Sanders

(Saffron Walden Historical Society 2019 vi+162pp ISBN 978-1-87366-920-4) £12

This is a beautifully presented book, densely packed with information. In its ten chapters Lizzie Sanders seeks to give the reader an impression of the landscapes of the grounds of Audley End and its surrounding villages and hamlets as they have developed over time. The first two chapters focus on the manor of Brooke Walden and Audley End village and show how the development of the park at Audley End led to the loss of a large part of these communities. The dissolution of the abbey of St James is mentioned, since if this had not happened there would have been no Audley End House and park. The Abbey had led the development of houses and watermills which were lost as the park was developed. The middle part of the book mostly concerns the Audley End estate, with a particular focus on how Sir John Griffin Griffin sought to consolidate his landholdings in the area as enclosure progressed in the eighteenth century. The changes in the landscaping of the pleasure grounds of the park, by Capability Brown and others, are discussed at length, as are the artistic representations of William Tomkins. It was interesting to discover that relations between Capability Brown and his employer were not always harmonious. These chapters are complemented by numerous illustrations, both paintings and map extracts.

Chapter 4 deals with Severals Field in the parish of Littlebury. Henry Winstanley (clerk of works to the king when Audley End was a royal possession) produced a set of 24 engravings of Audley End at its greatest extent. He lived here in his House of Wonders before meeting an untimely death on the destruction of his Eddystone Lighthouse in 1703. The chapter includes numerous pictures, maps and plans showing the house and its grounds and provides a fascinating insight into what must have been a most intriguing place. The chapter entitled ‘The Ancient and Picturesque Estate’ provides not only paintings but also a fascinating selection of photographs of other buildings on the estate. These include what is now known as the College of St Mark, formerly the Almshouse or Almshouse Farm; Ring Cottage, the site of Sir John Griffin Griffin’s aviary; and some of the lodges and estate cottages. The information about these gives an intriguing insight into the lives of ordinary men and women involved in making the estate work. The remainder of the book discusses the river Cam and its bridges, looking in particular at how these were prepared for destruction should an invasion have occurred during the Second World War—the GHQ line followed the line of the Cam making it a primary line of defence. The hamlets of Duck Street and North End are also discussed. Both lay within the Audley End estate and retain very few of their original buildings or character as much was destroyed by Sir John Griffin Griffin’s work in the eighteenth century and that of later owners.

The author has researched her topic thoroughly and is very keen to share her findings with the reader. She has illustrated the book with relevant pictures and also many extracts of historic maps, but many of these are rather small making it hard to spot the relevant details and they also lack compass roses to enable easy orientation. Intriguing as these map extracts are, the book does not have a clear map setting the estate in context and marking the features mentioned in the text. Without this, anyone unfamiliar with the immediate locality would find it very challenging to orientate themselves—and even locals, such as me, might find it difficult. A clear sketch map or Ordnance Survey extract would make it far easier to locate the details and would provide a general orientation to anyone not familiar with the park and the surrounding estate.

The text is packed with fascinating detail, but the author’s style is somewhat complex and would have benefitted, in places, from the oversight of a good proofreader and editor. The complexity of the text makes this a book for locating information rather than one to read straight through. Despite these reservations, it is a treasure trove for anyone wanting to know more about the way in which the landscape of Audley End park and the surrounding estate developed over time. The abundance of references and the comprehensive bibliography offer fertile ground for further discovery by any reader intrigued by the topic, although the omission of a general index makes the search for clues a bit of a treasure hunt.

Hilary Walker lives no more than 200 yards from the back wall of the Audley End estate and has a particular interest in the artisans of eighteenth-century Saffron Walden, the town which abuts the park. Some of these artisans are mentioned in the book as they plied their trades in the service of Audley End.

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LINCOLN’S CASTLE, BAIL AND CLOSE edited by Andrew Walker (Survey of Lincoln 2015 78pp ISBN 9780993126307) £6.95; PUBS IN LINCOLN: a history edited by Andrew Walker (Survey of Lincoln 2017 76pp ISBN 9780993126338 £7.50; SHOPS AND SHOPPING IN LINCOLN: a history edited by Andrew Walker (Survey of Lincoln 2018 76pp ISBN 9780993126345) £7.50; GEORGE BOOLE’S LINCOLN 1815-49 edited by Andrew Walker (Survey of Lincoln 2019 80pp ISBN9780993126352) £8.50

The Survey of Lincoln is a splendid ongoing local history project which brings together a large number of contributors—over 30 different researchers have supplied chapters for these four books—under the supervision of the distinguished historian of Lincoln and Lincolnshire, Andrew Walker. Beginning in 2000, there have now been sixteen books in the series. The publications are laden with maps, tables, postcards and other contemporary images and modern photographs, making them visually very attractive. The themes of each publication are clearly carefully chosen to ensure that the series is wide-ranging and the essays in each book are relatively short and easy to read. Clearly the intention is to reach not especially to an academic audience—although for someone like me who has written about some of the leading citizens of Victorian Lincoln, they contain much interesting information—but for local people with a thirst for knowledge about the history of their own city. In this intention they succeed admirably.

Lincoln’s Castle, Bail and Close has seventeen essays, each of a few pages. When, forty years ago, I made the first of what have become many research trips to Lincoln, I was provided with lunch by a member of the Thomas Cooper Memorial Church. In his garden were small pieces of Roman pottery that he regularly uncovered. I didn’t find things like that in my own garden! I was allowed to choose a piece of pottery as a memento; I still have it. So I read Michael J. Jones’ very informative contribution on Roman and medieval remains with great interest. An essay with some nice surprises is by Mary Lucas, revealing hidden places in Lincoln Cathedral, such as the bishop’s prison (known as the wynde), where disobedient clerks and choristers found themselves. Other essays tell the stories of the Judges’ Lodgings in the castle grounds, built in 1812 and sumptuously furnished; and of the water tanks installed in uphill Lincoln to protect against incendiary bombs.

Shops and Shopping contains sixteen essays, mostly concentrating on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. There is an interesting portrait by Beryl George of the shops in the centre of the city in the nineteenth century: most were local enterprises such as greengrocers but by the 1880s there were branches of Boots and Freeman, Hardy and Willis. Shirley Brook and Adam Cartwright guide us through the city’s butcher’s shops, and Geoff Tann ensures that corner shops are not forgotten. It all amounts to an engaging exploration of the social history of the city. Pubs in Lincoln features nineteen essays, again focusing on the later period. The Crown Brewery of the Rudgard family (who played a significant part in the governance of the city) is examined by Chris Page. The stories of particular pubs (including the Green Dragon, a favourite watering hole of mine when I am in the city) are recovered. There are also useful chapters on the role which pubs played in Lincoln’s often stormy elections, and on temperance.

George Boole’s Lincoln 1815-49 looks from different perspectives at one of the city’s most famous sons. Boole’s father was a shoemaker, but he rose to become a celebrated mathematician and logician. A compendium of manuscript material relating to him was recently published (see TLH 49: 3 2019), but a shorter account will be of great use to those who want to know something, but not everything, about this man. So we have an excellent chapter from Andrew Walker on the self-improvement societies of early Victorian Lincoln, as well as interesting discussions on such matters as Boole’s years as a schoolmaster, his involvement with the Mechanics Institute, and the memorial glass window in the Cathedral. These four books offer fascinating glimpses into Lincoln’s past. They should serve as a model for how local historians can present to the public the stories of other cities and towns in provincial England.

Stephen Roberts is the author of Lincoln in 1837 and other books.

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PENRITH IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 1715-1800 by Michael A. Mullett (Bookcase [Carlisle] 2019 297pp ISBN 978-1-912181-20-9) £15; PENRITH IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Chapters on the Victorian Town by Michael A. Mullett (Bookcase [Carlisle] 2020 402pp ISBN 978-1-912181-34-6) £15

Michael Mullett’s new book is the fourth in the New History of Penrith series, taking the story through to 1800. This was a time of innovation, but the Industrial Revolution bypassed Penrith, a peripheral inland town cut off from access to raw materials and markets. Instead, during the latter part of the century, the town embraced the new trade of tourism. It was never likely to out-compete Keswick as a centre for the ‘Lakers’, but its location on the main road north meant that not only was it a convenient stopping-off place en route to Keswick, but also for those heading into Scotland (next stop Gretna). Moreover, it had its own appeal to the more antiquarian-minded tourist, with its castle, the Giant’s Grave, and nearby Long Meg and Mayburgh Henge.

To some extent, then, eighteenth century Penrith was the invention of the turnpike age, beginning with the arrival of the first stagecoach over Shap in 1763, and the opening of the new Penrith-Cockermouth turnpike in 1769. By 1783 there were three scheduled coaches a week passing through Penrith from Kendal, en route for Carlisle, Glasgow and Edinburgh. It is intriguing that in the previous century the Post Office Act of 1660 laid down a weekly post via Lancaster to Kendal—but if you wanted to send a letter to Penrith, it had first to go up the eastern side of England to Newcastle, then across to Carlisle, before heading south to the town.

Before its rebirth as a tourist centre, Penrith twice featured on the national stage during the two Jacobite Risings, the first of which is perhaps the least glorious moment in the town’s history. Its position on the north road gave it a strategic importance: this was the place where an invading army could be stopped, before it pressed on to the reinforcements expected in Catholic and High-Tory Lancashire. Late in 1715, perhaps a mere 1800 rebels found themselves up against as many as 13,000 locals organised (if that is not too strong a word) into a posse comitatus. In the event the locals ran away. Mullett is possibly too generous in his assessment of the defenders, attributing their abandonment of the field to ‘sheer hunger’. But while they may well have been late for lunch, they were also suffering from poor equipment – and poor leadership. As they melted away, without a shot being fired, the rebels entered Penrith and proclaimed King James III on 2 November. When history repeated itself 30 years later, a somewhat larger rebel army took Carlisle, then headed for Penrith. Once again, there was little real resistance: but on their return north there was a minor skirmish on nearby Clifton Moor on 18 January 1746, a delaying action when Lord George Murray successfully held off the advance of the government troops under the Duke of Cumberland. It is now remembered as ‘the last military engagement on English soil’.

The town through which the rebels passed was typically unplanned, with narrow streets hosting a range of markets in the few open spaces, selling wheat, barley, oats, a beast market and a horse market. This did not meet the expectations of the ‘Lakers’ and towards the end of the century the Duke of Devonshire led a campaign to replace the medieval centre with a more ‘rational’ one, removing the market cross and shambles, and in 1809 the moot hall too. Penrith was not corporate, and never had borough status. The town’s governance was dominated by its manorial lords, such as Devonshire after 1787. Its institutions were dominated by the Church of England, with the High Tory Dr Hugh Todd (who kept a low profile in 1715) replacing the ‘rude’ and ‘gothic’ parish church with one more appealing to eighteenth-century classical tastes, in what Mullett calls ‘an architectural celebration of Laudian ideology’. Catholics were all but non-existent, while congregations of Presbyterians and Friends were present, but not large. Subsequently, though, Methodists became more of a mass-movement, despite Wesley’s neglect of the town in favour of the growing western towns of Cockermouth and Whitehaven.

Mullett’s book will appeal not just to those who have passed through, or lingered, in this town. There is much of wider, general, interest in this account of a middle-ranking town, bypassed by industry, and on the fringes of the Lakes, but which nevertheless more than doubled its population of 2000, by reinventing itself as a genteel centre of hospitality. If there are a few, perhaps carping, criticisms, they are to do with the production of the book. Why are the chapters not numbered? Why does none of the illustrations have picture credits (particularly the anonymous contemporary map featured on page 119)? Why, above all, is there no decent present-day location map to help those with a less than intimate knowledge of the region?

Following hot on the heels of Penrith in the Eighteenth Century comes Michael Mullett’s latest volume, taking the story from 1800 to 1900. This was an age of reform, of modernisation and improvement. The Industrial Revolution had largely passed Penrith by, but the town embraced the new trade of tourism; and now it was to be even more transformed by the coming of the railways, despite the vocal opposition of local nimbys. There had been much debate as to whether the main western line from London to Scotland should cross Morecambe Bay and go up the Cumbrian coast, but the decision was taken to go direct from Lancaster via Shap and Penrith to Carlisle. An Act of Parliament of 1844 facilitated the project, and the railway company bought Penrith Castle from the Duke of Devonshire to ensure a central location for the station. Between 1844 and 1846 an army of navvies took the line over Shap summit, at 1000 feet above sea level the highest elevation any railway line had yet reached. As it approached Penrith, industrial grievances, and sectarian and ethnic differences, led to three days of rioting between the Irish Catholic navvies based at Plumpton, north of the town, and the English and Scottish Protestant navvies to the south at Yanwath. The Yeomanry Cavalry were called out, and the Riot Act read: but Penrith’s equivalent of Peterloo was averted largely thanks to the good offices of the town’s Catholic priest, George Leo Haydock, who persuaded the navvies to go back to work.

George Leo features in the substantial part of Mullett’s work which deals with the religious history of the town, some eleven of the 32 chapters being devoted to the churches, while good use is made of the 1851 religious census which, perhaps surprisingly, shows that only 46 per cent of the townspeople attended worship on the census day. The complexities and controversies of nineteenth-century Anglican worship are dealt with in some detail, as the parish church ripped out its triple-decker pulpit and box pews, and brought in stained glass, to allow for a more ‘Tractarian’ worship, moving the focus ‘from sermon to sacrament’: while almost at the same time a determinedly Low Church bishop of Carlisle ensured that the new chapel built to take the pressure off the parish church was evangelical in its practices. Meanwhile the Wesleyan Methodists thrived, while the Primitive Methodists struggled to survive in non-industrial Penrith. Catholics had virtually no presence in the town prior to the 1830s, and shared their first priest with Wigton, unable to afford a resident priest until the independently-wealthy George Leo, already famous for his translation into English of the Catholic bible in use throughout the country until relatively recently, stepped up in 1839, building a new church which he did not live to see open in 1850. Surprisingly, in a part of the world with a strong Quaker history, there were just ten people in the meeting house on the morning of census day.

The book takes the form of a series of ‘thematic essays’ rather than a chronological history, which generally works well. Between 1800 and 1900 the population more than doubled, but that was a modest increase compared with other northern towns, and much of the transformation that took place was social and cultural rather than physical. This remained a classic country town, closely tied to its surrounding farmland and landed estates rather than pursuing an independent industrial career. The influence of the noble families of the dukes of Devonshire and earls of Lonsdale remained strong, the former having a dramatic effect on town planning at the start of the period when the old moot hall and shambles were cleared in 1809. The latter, the Lowthers, became the dominant family by mid-century, twice entertaining Kaiser Wilhelm II at Lowther Castle in 1895 and 1902. His arrival at Penrith Station was feted by the great and good of the town, much to their subsequent embarrassment.

The retailing revolution is well covered, as the town acquired a growing number of specialist shops, from snuff-makers to, in 1873, a ‘Silk Dyer and French Cleaner, Ostrich Feather Dresser’. The demand for entertainment was met by the 55 public houses serving a population of some 7000 people, while from early in the century the Penrith Theatre operated out of the George on Devonshire Street, venturing out three nights a week during the season to put on al fresco performances in neighbouring villages. A growing number of newspapers—the Penrith Observer, Times, Beacon, Herald and Recorder—provided information as well as entertainment to the townsfolk, not least about politics. Penrith did not have its own parliamentary seat until 1885, when it was won by the Liberals, only to lose it the following year to the Conservatives, who held it for the rest of the century. At the local level Penrith only became self-governing in the 1850s, prior to then being ruled by the vestry and the JPs. From 1851 a board of health provided a modicum of local autonomy and democracy, while a fully-fledged urban district council came into being in 1894, surviving until local government ‘reform’ in 1974.

As with the earlier books in the series, while obviously appealing most to those who know the town, there is much of wider and more general interest. The book is well illustrated with nostalgic photographs, but again lacks a location map and a town plan to help the reader find his or her way around the town.

William D. Shannon is an independent researcher in history. Following retirement in October 2002 he graduated MA at Lancaster University in 2004 and PhD in 2009, with a thesis on enclosure in the lowland wastes of early-modern Lancashire. His main research interests and publications concern the landscape, agricultural and cartographic history of early-modern England. He is treasurer of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society and a Trustee of the Cumbria County History Trust.

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By Alan John Curtis

(Poppyland Publishing 2018 100pp ISBN 978 1 909796 53 9) £10.95

In 1906 the Royal Navy inaugurated a revolution in naval warfare with the launch of the fast, all big-gun battleship HMS Dreadnought. The launch triggered a naval arms race with Germany, which by 1912 the British had emphatically won—and both sides knew it. There was, however, a spectre at the triumphal feast. Naval commanders were well aware of the threat posed to their magnificent ships by cheap and cheerful underwater weapons, the torpedo and the magnetic mine. If anyone doubted this threat it was soon forcefully brought home by the sinking of the Dreadnought-class battleship HMS Audacious by a mine on 27 October 1914 off the coast of Donegal. Given these concerns, it is a little surprising that the Royal Navy took no steps before the outbreak of war to establish a modern minesweeping capability. This had consequences not only for the operational conduct of the war at sea but also for the British east coast fishing communities, not least that of Lowestoft.

During the first months of the war the German navy managed to lay five minefields in the North Sea: in the Tyne and Humber estuaries, and off Scarborough, the Dogger Bank and Southwold. The first Lowestoft fishing vessels to fall victim to mines were the Fraternal and the Will and Maggie on 3 November 1914. In all some 177 Lowestoft boats, mostly drifters and smacks, were lost, the last (the Francis Robert) being sunk by gunfire from UB 40 on 28 July 1918. The majority of the boats were lost not to mines or torpedoes, but to ‘bombs’. These were less fatal than mines, the latter being responsible for the majority of the Lowestoft fleet’s 117 fatalities, many of them boys. German U Boats, operating on the surface, would apprehend fishing boats, remove their crews, and then destroy the boat with a charge. After interrogation, crews were usually abandoned to their lifeboats and left to fend for themselves. The ability of German U-boats to prowl British coastal waters with little interruption from the Royal Navy was somewhat humiliating, but at a deeper level it showed how weak German naval power actually was. They were not going to win the war by sinking a few drifters, while the thorough and determined way in which the U-boat crews salvaged war materials and food from the ships they stopped was an indication of the toll the British naval blockade was taking on living standards and health in Germany.

Alan John Curtis has produced a succinct and admirable account of a community on the front line of the economic war against Germany, based on The National Archives series ADM 137, statements made by the skippers of Lowestoft fishing vessels sunk by enemy action. These were made under oath to an official from the Board of Trade and were linked to a compensation scheme for trawler owners, the British Fishing Vessels War Risk Assessment. This archive has allowed him to reconstitute Lowestoft’s war, which was marked by heroism and insouciance as well as by tragedy and suffering, not least for the families of those who were killed, for whom little provision was made. This is a welcome account of the real price of fish.

John Bourne is Hon. Professor of First World War Studies at the University of Wolverhampton. He is the author and editor of numerous publications on different aspects of the Great War.

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By Maureen Spinks

(The Badsey Society 2018 176pp ISBN 0954746961) £6

This is the story of the impact of the First World War on the Vale of Evesham parishes of Badsey with Aldington and its neighbour Wickhamford. It is beautifully illustrated, and the author intersperses relevant background context and explanations with eyewitness descriptions from parish magazines, a local newspaper, oral histories and letters to and from local people. Despite having no connection to these communities I was immediately drawn into this account, confirming that it will have great appeal to people interested in the local history as well as those with ancestral connections. However, I should have liked to see a map showing the locality and/or some reference right at the beginning to larger places close by, for geographical context. While there is an index of personal names, it would also have been helpful to provide a wider one for topics and places mentioned in the text but not in the contents page.

The book is organised into themes which results in a series of fascinating snapshots of different aspects of life. Some of these, such as the prevalent use of child labour, are particularly interesting as they are often neglected in accounts of the war and the home front. One that I found especially intriguing was the growing of medicinal herbs such as belladonna, digitalis and henbane. The crucial role of the local market gardeners and the jam-making industry highlights the practical problems faced in feeding the nation and troops, and making foods palatable. As the author says, ‘The troops did not much love the plum and apple that they got rather frequently’. She makes excellent use of her sources by deftly weaving them together to bring people to life. As a result, we really see those who were trying to keep their market gardens going; those who objected to fighting on conscientious grounds; the experience of hosting Belgian refugees; the impact of husbands and sons going off to war; and the views of some of the women left behind. At the same time it is clear that these do not necessarily reflect the outlook of everyone who lived in Badsey, Aldington and Wickhamford.

This book is very well written and engaging to read. My only minor criticisms are, first, the occasional excessive use of exclamation marks to emphasise a point—stylistically these are unnecessary as an author should, as this one does, create enough emphasis with the words alone. Second, there is the odd well-worn cliché and use of phrases such ‘little did they know’ (there two variants of this just in the opening). Obviously, nobody knows what is about to happen next. Nevertheless, these are small detractions. Maureen Spinks has done a brilliant job at highlighting the personal experiences of people at home during the war. I would recommend the book to anyone wanting to see how to put together an interesting local history as well as to understand how the Great War impacted on everyday life in England generally.

Gill Blanchard is an author and historical researcher specialising in family history, local history and house history; and runs Writing Your Family History courses. Her publications include several research guides with Pen & Sword Books, a biography of Vice-Admiral Sir John Lawson, and the tale of a scandal in north Norfolk in 1836: I Therefore Post Him as a Coward. Her book Struggle and Suffrage in Norwich will be published in 2020.

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Edited by Ian Hilder

(Country Books/Ashridge Press 2018 248pp ISBN 978-1-910489-61-1) £15

In the last few years, many local communities have undertaken a variety of projects to commemorate the centenary of the First World War and, in particular, to honour those from their communities who never returned from the war. This handsomely produced book, the first of a planned two-volume tribute, is a fine example of what can be achieved by this type of collaborative project. The focus of the book is the small East Sussex village of Barcombe, four miles north of Lewes, with the history of the village between 1914 and 1919 being traced through the ‘parish news’ section of one local newspaper, the Sussex Express. This is not a book to read from cover to cover but to dip into over time, in much the same way that we read newspapers. Six main sections cover each year of the war and the first year of peace, and through the articles reproduced here the full impact of the war on the lives of everyone in the local population can be experienced as well as efforts to continue life as normal. The approach of the editor, Ian Hilder, is chronological and not thematic so the many reports reproduced range from the trivial to the tragic. They detail the village at work and play, including, for example, sports such as hockey, football, stoolball and, especially, cricket in the summer; marriages, deaths and funerals; parish council meetings; and concerts and lectures. Inevitably, many reports cover the tragedy of war with the weekly casualty list providing the names of those villagers killed or wounded at the front. Even so, a large number of reports detail the staunch support for the war from the village in the form of collections, subscriptions, the ‘Strength of Britain’ campaign with its aim of the ‘prohibition of the selling of liquor during the war’ in response to official concerns over the impact of alcohol on production for the war effort; entertaining wounded soldiers; and dispatching parcels of such welcome treats as plum puddings and cigarettes to Barcombe men fighting at the front. Frequent applications for exemption from conscription bought before the Chailey Rural District Military Tribunal, examining the cases of Barcombe men, are fully covered in the pages of the Sussex Express. Added information on these tribunals is provided by editorial insertions and such contextual additions are employed at suitable points in the text.

Although the newspaper reports make up the bulk of the book, there are other features which add value to this excellent volume, especially the large number of evocative and illuminating contemporary illustrations. After a brief introduction there are two contemporary descriptions of the village in 1914: one from Kelly’s Sussex Directory (1915) and the other an article published in the Sussex Express on Christmas Day 1914. The latter is particularly informative, highlighting the fact that in 1914 Barcombe possessed two railway stations and then taking the reader on a journey through the village to observe its main buildings. These included the forge, the post office, village reading room, mission house, Barcombe mills and two churches. Throughout this article, frequent mention is made of the Grantham family whose family seat was at Barcombe Place. That this was socially the leading family in the area, as well as one of the principal landowners, is confirmed by the large number of times members feature in the newspaper reports.

The most poignant part of the book is the appendices which provide brief details of the 36 men associated with the parish who lost their lives during the war, together with maps indicating the location of their homes. They did not survive to experience village life again during the first year of peace in 1919, described in the final chapter of newspaper reports up to October of that year. The emphasis here is on planning suitable war memorials, demobilisation, new cottages for the local workers (‘homes fit for heroes’), thanksgiving services and, finally, the Barcombe peace celebrations. The end of the 1919 chapter tells us that ‘A second volume is planned to continue the Barcombe story from November 1919 to the unveiling of the war memorials in November 1920, along with the detailed biographies of the thirty-six men associated with the parish who died’. The printed outcomes of this project will stand as a suitable and lasting historical memorial in their own right.

CHRISTOPHER FRENCH is Emeritus Reader in History and Honorary Research Fellow at Kingston University. His most recent book, published by the Borough of Twickenham Local History Society, is ‘The Hidden Area of Teddington’: the growth of Fulwell, 1870-1939 (2019).

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BRIDGNORTH IN THE GREAT WAR by Christopher W.A. Owen (xvii+140pp ISBN 978-1-78383-117-3) £14.99; CANTERBURY IN THE GREAT WAR by Stephen Wynn (vii+109pp ISBN 978-1-47383-408-8) £12.99; ENFIELD IN THE GREAT WAR by Stephen Wynn (vii+167pp ISBN 978-1-47385-075-0) £14.99; POOLE IN THE GREAT WAR by Stephen Wynn (viii+152pp ISBN 978-1-47383-519-1) £14.99 [all published by Pen & Sword in 2019]

These latest additions to the Pen and Sword catalogue of books on towns and cities in the Great War are, as usual, full of the authors’ enthusiasm for their subject and their areas. The publishers know their audience and the two writers have responded to whatever guidance they were given to produce studies which will certainly appeal to the residents of these four towns. The prolific Stephen Wynn has done well to produce studies on three such different places as Canterbury, Enfield and Poole, and Christopher Owen’s work on Bridgnorth demonstrates a knowledge both of the town and the war in general.

In particular, I find that people are often most eager to be informed about what happened to the young men from their area who served in the armed forces, especially those who made the supreme sacrifice. In this respect Owen and Wynn have done a splendid job of researching the fate of these men and dealing with it in exhaustive detail. Indeed, given the amount of coverage of this topic, one is left with the impression that to do justice to this aspect of the war was their overriding aim in writing their books. The four books are replete with the stories of how, where and when these men met their fate. In particular, Owen, by his ransacking of the Bridgnorth Journal, has done this very well. By his inclusion of letters to parents written by commanding officers, which were sent to the newspaper, detailing how their sons died, he has given a sense of immediacy and poignancy to this most human aspect of the war. Wynn, too, has left no stone unturned in discovering the fate of the fallen. His research on the men whose names feature on the war memorials is very impressive and will doubtless be of inestimable help to anyone interested in taking this aspect of the war further. Uncovering the fate of the Great War fallen and its survivors has become a cottage industry in recent years, and both Wynn and Owen are to be congratulated on their contribution to the aspect of modern historical studies.

In Canterbury in the Great War, Wynn says that he has ‘attempted to paint a picture about what life was like for the residents’. Both authors have made a valiant effort to do this, although with limited success. They deal with the way the war unfolded in these places, the creation and work of military hospitals, the voluntary aid detachments, fundraising drives, and the work of the military tribunals which dealt with local conscientious objectors. However, any attempt to provide a thorough account of the social impact of the war is swamped by the cataloguing or chronicling approach which they have adopted, the many references to the international political situation and the war abroad, and the coverage of the numerous casualties among servicemen which appear throughout the books.

I am very much in favour of books about our towns and cities moving beyond the end of the war to examine something of the consequences of the conflict. Both have attempted to do this, with a modicum of success. They deal with local war memorials and, in particular, Bridgnorth and the Great War includes a brief account of how the memorial was brought to fruition; war memorials have a story all their own beyond the names on them. In general though, by continuing to focus largely on the fallen in the post-war years, they have rather neglected the social and economic dislocation that followed the war. It is a pity, for instance, that neither mentions the highly significant general election of December 1918, which must have had a major impact and would surely have been an aspect worthy of inclusion.

As much as these books reflect the passion of their authors, they are not without shortcomings. Unfortunately, some of these appear to be beyond the control of the authors themselves. Sadly, the lack of editorial supervision by Pen and Sword means that the finished product retains the appearance of a first draft. The authors have worked conscientiously to ensure that their books are free from factual errors, but the language used is often colloquial. Wynn is particularly fond of variations of the phrase ‘doing their bit’, and phrases such as ‘mind boggling’ and ‘was not going to be without hiccups’ appear. This does grate with those of us who are accustomed to the use of formal historical language. Likewise, when Wynn includes the full text of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s appeal in October 1914 but says that he does not know that what the archbishop was actually appealing for, it does not inspire confidence.

The chronological structure of the books, advancing through the war years, hinders any chance of introducing analysis or interpretation of the evidence unearthed. The chapter headings tend to be general rather than specifically linked to the experience of the locality. For instance, in Wynn’s three books each chapter has exactly the same title—a war year and a sub-heading; each chapter 3 is entitled ‘The Realisation’, although he does not explain what he means by this. This chronological approach, and the consequent lack of thematic and analytical content, means that the information is presented in a day by day as-it-happened manner; this is particularly the case with Wynn’s Canterbury. The result is that their research on one area of the war is constantly mixed in with other areas—the overall impression is a lack of structure rather clear planning and organisation.

The books are profusely illustrated by the standard of studies on localities, but far too many pictures, rather than being directly connected to the area, are about the war in general. The absence of endnotes is always disappointing, and it is disturbing that the bibliographies in these books rely heavily on the internet rather than on serious published historical works. For all their imperfections they are the result of genuine enthusiasm for their subject, and although I cannot recommend them as models for aspiring historians to imitate, they will undoubtedly strike a chord with the residents of these places and give them much new and undiscovered information about this shattering period in their history.

Paul Rusiecki is a historian who specialises in the history of 19th and 20th century Essex. He is the author of The Impact of Catastrophe: The People of Essex and the Great War 1914-20 (2008) and Under Fire: Essex and the Second World War (2015). His War Memorials of Colchester, a thoroughly researched study of the subject, is on the website of the Colchester Civic Society. His book The German Air War Over Essex 1939-45 was published in September this year.

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Edited by Ian Thomas

(DerwentWISE; Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, National Stone Centre 2019 191pp ISBN 978-1-871827-43-9) [cost see below]

Lottery funding met the cost of the initial print run, making current copies available free of charge. However, the cost of production and distribution of further copies was not covered, so recipients are invited to donate £15-£20 per copy. For further information or to order a book, please contact project coordinator Ian Thomas on 01332 833385; email ianthomas2@gmail.com, or contact Lisa Witham at Derbyshire Wildlife Trust 01773 881188; email lwitham@derbyshirewt.co.uk

Delving along the Derwent reveals the histories of the quarries, many long disappeared, that operated in a 20-mile stretch of the Derwent Valley, from just north of Derby to Matlock in the Peak District. A very readable two-page introduction covering the geology of the region, which primes the reader to better understand what follows, is followed by a summary of the pre-industrialisation period, from the Stone Age to the first half of the eighteenth century. Arranged chronologically, this section covers key events prior to industrialisation. It includes many historical examples—for example, how the medieval church often held quarrying rights and how this impacted on church buildings or the problems that disputes caused. There are glimpses, too, of the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and how the stone from these quarries helped to drive and support this development—an example is the role of limestone in iron smelting, and the evolution of the communities which arose. Quern stones, millstones, scythe stones and brick-making are also given their historical context.

The comprehensive alphabetical gazetteer covers the period from 1750 to the present day, the latter because the quarrying industry is still a very big business in the area, with upwards of 2.5 million tonnes of stone extracted annually. The gazetteer covers 175 sites as well as places of special importance to the overall story, giving the sort of details and tabulations that can be so helpful to historians. Ideally this larger section would be the focus of any review, but this is difficult as the stand-alone nature of many entries means they are essentially self-contained vignettes. Taken together they tell a coherent story which snaps into focus. Numerous fascinating facts are brought to our attention: Florence Nightingale ran a coffee shop at Whatstandwell where the workers of two rival quarry owners, Sims and Cowlishaw, could receive their pay on neutral ground, rather than the local inn; tunnels in Duffield Bank Quarry were used to store wartime Spitfire designs; George Stephenson produced lime at Crich to use unsaleable coal slack from his local collieries, demonstrating his business acumen; and we are shown how we use stone-related products up to 100 times a day. The sections entitled ‘People’ and ‘Dynasties’ cover the individuals and families who underpinned the development and continuation of quarrying in the region. This useful section dovetails well with earlier parts of the book, particularly the gazetteer. There are also six appendices, including a comprehensive bibliography.

Overall, this book will appeal to many different readers, not only local residents and local historians but also, because it covers such a wide span from geological, archaeological, architectural, social, industrial and modern history, to a wider readership. There are no footnotes or endnotes, an omission which the author declares was necessitated because the pressures of space and working to defined limits made citations impossible; there are, however, six pages of general sources and several web addresses in the appendices, enabling further research on any particular point. The lead author and project supervisor is Ian Thomas, a geologist with an impressive c.v. in the industry; he was also responsible for the uncredited watercolour drawings in the book, giving a very personal feel. He was assisted by ‘The Delvers’, seven named experts, whose expertise is revealed in the history and statistics in the book. And what of that word ‘delvers’? We are all familiar with the expression ‘to delve into something’ and the archaic meaning is ‘to dig’. In times long passed the quarry men were collectively known as ‘delvers’. Peter Charnley is a retired company director, living in Derby. He is a member of the Richard III Society and part of a group that is undertaking the transcription of a register of late medieval wills.

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By Joan Dils

(Carnegie Publishing 2019 x+342pp ISBN 978-1-85936-234-1) £25

Writing the history of a town or city is in some senses akin to writing a biography. As well as setting out what in broad terms can be called ‘the facts’—the details of names and dates, people and places—there is a need to evoke the character and personality of the subject, and to draw attention to strengths and weaknesses. It is not an easy task, and furthermore there is always a need to assess the readership. Give too much minute detail and the more casual reader is deterred ... but simplify too much and the accusations of ‘dumbing down’ will fly, and the explanations might not work properly. The ‘urban biography’ has to have context, for no town or city exists in isolation, but that context must not include large chunks of standard national history—it must be carefully tailored to be relevant to the history of the place. How much knowledge should I assume on the part of the reader? Must I explain what the Dissolution of the Monasteries was about? Will the reader know that George II came immediately after George I? Is the term ‘tithe apportionment’ suitable to drop in casually without further elucidation? Truly, to write the history of a town or city is a daunting prospect.

And there’s more. The reader will perhaps be a life-long resident, a denizen of seven or eight decades, or perhaps has just arrived, a fresh-faced country dweller thrust into the hubbub of the sprawl of bricks and mortar. The first might think that he or she knows every corner and byway, every landmark and every insignificant humble dwelling, while the latter is completely ignorant. For the former, everywhere tells a personal story, while for the newcomer nowhere has any hidden meaning or private tale. What about the author’s own experience—life-long citizen or comparative interloper?

How fortunate therefore, given all these challenges, that Reading has Joan Dils as its new biographer. She ticks the boxes very well. As a highly-experienced researcher, historian, editor and tutor she has all the skills required; as a longstanding resident of suburban Reading (much of which pedantically is in the borough of Wokingham and therein lies a theme in the book) she knows the town very well indeed, but she isn’t a native and has no parochial partisanship; and as a tutor in adult education for several decades it is second nature for her to convey complex arguments in an accessible way, to contextualise and to set the scene, and to range far and wide in her historical, thematic and chronological catchment. She has written a great book in the classic urban history mould. It is thoroughly researched, attractively written, and well-referenced. Not only that, it looks lovely with a wealth of excellent colour photographs, old black and white images, maps and plans (some historic and others newly-created for the book), and a generous layout.

Reading is one of those towns which has a long and complex history but which many observers would not immediately consider ‘historic’ (I’m minded of my own city, Preston, or of places such as Stafford or Doncaster). It’s also one of those places which, like the aforenamed trio, has been less than respectful to its historic built environment. Joan has succeeded in overcoming this obstacle, emphasising not only the richness of Reading’s medieval and early modern history but also the enduring imprint of this on, for example, the street pattern of the town centre. She places it in the context not only of the geographically-quirky pre-1974 county of Berkshire, and of the southern reaches of Oxfordshire just over the river, but of its relationship to London, which has always played such an important part in the economic and social development of the lower Thames valley. Drawing upon her own superb edition of the churchwardens’ account of St Laurence 1498-1570 she highlights the nature of town life in the Tudor period, a theme which is returned to in later chapters. “What was it like to live in Reading” is a thread that draws much else together.

Another theme could be summarised as ‘independence versus external control’, surfacing in discussions of topics such as the great medieval abbey and its relationship with the borough; parliamentary and municipal reform; the achievement of county borough status, its loss in 1974, and then re-emergence as a unitary authority almost 25 years later. The disappearance of key industries as rationalisation and globalisation wrought their havoc, the demographic fortunes of population loss and gain, and multi-ethnicity; the impact of the university; and fast-rising house prices versus pockets of extreme deprivation are all part of far wider trends and processes, and throughout there is the clear sense that Reading does not stop at the almost meaningless borough boundaries. It has a wide hinterland, and it stands within a broad region, and that geographical context is well demonstrated. This is a book that I know was a long time in the making. It’s been well worth the wait!

Alan Crosby is the editor of The Local Historian and has been a friend of Joan Dils for thirty years.

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