October 2021 Reviews

Edited by Stephanie Appleton and Mairi Macdonald

(Dugdale Society vol.52 2020 xxiv+466pp and 513pp ISBN 978-0-85220-106-0) £45+£10 p&p

Medieval and early modern probate material survives for many communities, and various record societies and historical organisations have published collections of wills and inventories. In 2002 and 2003 the Dugdale Society published two volumes, edited by Jeanne Jones, comprising 346 probate inventories from Stratford-upon-Avon, appraised between 1538 and 1699. The two-volume set of wills reviewed here, the main body of which realistically begins in 1538, complements the inventory volumes; indeed, the wills and inventories should be used together. The earlier volumes are still available from the Society at £20 each.

There are 522 surviving wills from Stratford up to 1701, comprising 115 (22 per cent) by women and 407 (78 per cent) by men. In these volumes the heading of each will states its number in the sequence, the testator’s name, their status or occupation if given, their place of residence if not Stratford itself, followed by the archival reference. Four dates are also supplied where known: those of the will, burial, inventory and grant of probate. The wills are ordered by date of probate, or the latest of the other dates. Where an inventory has survived, its number in those volumes is noted. William Shakespeare’s will is included (and that of Ann Hathaway’s father) but the former is discussed only briefly, as it has been covered in detail by other referenced writers. A tabulated analysis of the known status of testators would have been useful: although the editors describe them in general as ‘middling sort’, this does not acknowledge the wide range of status, occupations and indeed wealth. For example, there was an almsman and almswoman; various tradesmen and craftsmen, including innholders, weavers, a button maker and a ‘walker’ (not in the glossary as such, but eventually located under ‘fuller’); and a 16-year-old girl and a soldier, as well as yeomen, husbandmen and gentlemen.

Apart from the first, which is in Canterbury Cathedral Archives, the wills are held in three archives. The second and many later wills are in the Shakespeare Centre Library and Archive at Stratford; nos.3 to 15, and several later ones, at The National Archives in the PROB 11 series with a few in PROB 10; the remainder are held by the Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service, among the records of the diocese of Worcester in which Stratford lay. The probate process at Stratford was complicated due to its jurisdiction as a ‘peculiar’: the vicar had the authority of the bishop for two years out of every three, although it is not clear how effectively the system worked in practice. Furthermore, some of the peculiar wills are missing: from 1658 to 1701, 120 wills proved in the peculiar court were entered into a register; it is known that a register existed for the earlier (pre-1658) period, but it has not survived, so the 70 or so surviving original peculiar court wills published here dating before 1652 are only a proportion of those granted probate.

The editors shared the work of compiling the volumes. Stephanie Appleton’s PhD thesis is entitled ‘Women and wills in early modern England: the community of Stratford-upon-Avon, 1537-1649’, therefore she transcribed and edited those wills and wrote the introduction. Mairi Macdonald transcribed and edited the earlier and later wills and compiled the very comprehensive indexes. A brief sketch of the history of Stratford c.1350-1700 outlines the economic background. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was a bustling market town, with a horse fair that drew traders from across the Midlands and brought trade to its other businesses, but there were crises, such as those resulting from the nationwide series of harvest failures in the 1590s and devasting town fires in 1594, 1595, 1614 and 1641.

There is a useful discussion of will-making ‘in precept and practice’, and of literacy in relation to marking or signing wills although, as Appleton notes, most testators were sick, if not dying when they made their wills (as evidenced by the dates of making and burial. Some 40 per cent were proved within two months of being made. Perhaps more to the point, only five actually wrote their own wills. Appleton also discusses religious persuasion as demonstrated (or not) in a will preamble: she is rightly cautious in her conclusions, pointing to Stratford’s transition towards the ‘hotter’ sort of Protestantism throughout the seventeenth century, but preambles were likely to be conformist since wills were proved in a church court. For me, the most interesting analysis is that of the fifty wills written by the scribe William Gilbard alias Higgs. These provide the opportunity to examine whether the contents expressed the concerns and attitudes of the testator or of the writer; Appleton concludes that Gilbard ‘offered his testators a sensible balance of guidance and freedom when putting their affairs in order’. In ‘Wills and kinship’ she provides five family case studies, analysing to which kin testators made bequests; these are accompanied by detailed family trees with colours indicating bequests from the different people. She concludes that the thinking behind bequests seems to have been ‘to provide for those family members who either had the most right to expect a legacy, or with whom the testator wished to acknowledge a particular bond’. Many of the wills provide examples of love and care between family members, such as concerns for sick relatives, like Adrian Quiney’s brother William, and for the education and apprenticeship of children. ‘Wills and their contents’ considers the goods that people bequeathed and deduces a burgeoning of material culture in Stratford. From the 1570s onwards there are more details of goods, which help to ‘build a more vivid picture of how houses were furnished and what testators thought about their possessions’. Jewellery, especially rings, and also gloves, were markers of memory and tokens of affection. Regarding Ann Shaw’s bequest of her ‘Closse stoole’ to the wife of William Smith, haberdasher, it is noted that ‘owning such a convenience … would have marked a person out as of higher status, presumably pun intended.

As an historian with a keen interest in medieval wills, I was disappointed by the coverage of these volumes. The deceptive title suggests that there is a run of surviving wills from Stratford-upon-Avon beginning in 1348; this is not the case. The first will is that of John de Stratford, archbishop of Canterbury (d.1348), the second dates from 1465, the third from 1473, then two from the 1490s, and ten from 1501 to 1530. Number 16, granted probate in 1538, begins the main series. There is no continuous run of wills from 1348, merely fifteen from the first 190 years; perhaps these should have been placed in an appendix, and omitted from the title, since the main series ties in with the inventories already published. Thus, there are few insights into pre-Reformation life and death in the town. On the other hand, the editors are to be congratulated on producing such a fine collection of early modern wills which, together with the inventories, allows a detailed study of the material culture and lifestyle in sixteenth and seventeenth century Stratford-upon-Avon.

Heather Falvey has transcribed, translated and edited for publication more than 200 pre-Reformation wills from Rickmansworth (Hertfordshire). She is also managing a group palaeography project to transcribe the PCC Register Milles, dating from 1487-1491.

LETCHWORTH SETTLEMENT, 1920–2020: A century of creative learning by Kate Thompson (Hertfordshire University Press 2020 148pp ISBN 978-1-912260-29-4) £9.99

Two common characteristics of histories of educational settings are the dedication of staff and the shortage of funds and resources. This excellent little book reveals such a picture at the Letchworth Settlement, an idea which was built on the much longer-established adult school movement and grew after the First World War. The early part of the book follows a roughly chronological approach. A Ministry of Reconstruction report in 1919 stressed the role and importance of a liberal adult education. Toynbee Hall in London is usually regarded as the first Settlement, but they developed in many places in Europe, the United States and elsewhere. The establishment of the Educational Settlement Foundation in 1920 helped galvanise the movement and by 1935 there were 32 members including Letchworth.

The fact that Letchworth has celebrated its centenary indicates that this was a successful venture, although certainly not without challenges. A major reason for the choice of Letchworth as a venue for a Settlement was the idealism associated with its pioneering role as a Garden City. The best indication of its work in providing adult education in the town and the surrounding villages is the huge range and variety of courses offered. They provide a helpful guide to interests and needs over the century in which it has operated. Chapter 6 in particular gives an admirable account of the range of courses and lectures, some award-bearing and many not. Some belonged to a specific period, such as preparing housewives for decimalisation, and there has always been a strong emphasis on music, dancing and drama, but provision extends far beyond that: industrial history, English literature, geology, public speaking, the League of Nations Union Study Circle, nature study rambles, American history, chamber concerts, modern novelists, Russian life and literature, psychology, local history, ‘the problems of the unemployed’, the evolution of French art, embroidery, weather forecasting, socialism, tariff reform, rock climbing, bookbinding, tailoring, fencing, Esperanto, lip reading, Remembering the Beatles, a Beauty Forum, pre-retirement, race relations, using an iPad, and yoga.

The Letchworth Settlement was able to attract the support and involvement of prominent people. The historian Eileen Power gave a lecture as did E.M. Forster, and George Bernard Shaw was a supporter. Some prominent lecture series were organised with speakers including Viscount Haldane, Shirley Williams, Terry Waite and Baroness Warnock. There were visits abroad, to France, Italy, Switzerland and elsewhere. The challenges were many—in the early days, finding and developing suitable accommodation, balancing the academic versus the recreational, funding, central and local government attitudes to liberal adult education, and problems with recruiting and retaining staff given the low salaries that were offered. Nor were they alone in terms of providing adult education. There was competition from community centres, while after 1944 responsibility for providing adult education was given to local education authorities and some set up rival centres. The Letchworth Settlement had to adapt to survive.

That it did so was the result of a number of factors, although Kate Thompson clearly suggests that it was a close-run thing at times. There was a reliance on fundraising, and the generosity of the Letchworth community played a key role. The Settlement took its offering to many of the villages as well as its own centre, but it relied on many other local organisations using its facilities; for example, in 1985-1986 it was estimated that fifty other organisations were doing so. Although many users could be described as middle class, the Settlement reached out to those working in local industries. By the 1930s the majority of students were from factories and offices, with a preponderance of 20-40 year olds. Local industries could be very supportive. For example, a legacy from the American Spirella Company allowed the Settlement to build a new hall. Only members could attend lectures, so membership income was important.

By 1925 the Settlement had its own accommodation and relied on gifts of furniture and equipment. It tried hard to link closely to the community. The governing body included, for example, representatives from Hertfordshire County Council, the Workers Education Association and the Women’s Co-operative Guild and Trade and Labour Council. Its relevance to its community can be exemplified by the continuation during the Second World War of a range of classes, held under blackout conditions. There were classes for those arriving in the area (including evacuees) with practical themes such as hygiene and mothercraft. The war affected the classes in the villages, as petrol rationing, blackouts, men being called up and others being on civilian duties dealt a blow to many outlying activities.

The last fifty years have witnessed continued financial and administrative challenges, such as meeting rising health and safety demands. Gaps were plugged by legacies and much voluntary work, especially with decorating. Various attempts have been made to obtain lottery funding, with limited success. At times the story is of a hand to mouth existence—for example, a telephone cable snapped in 1999 and the Settlement managed without a telephone line for a month. It was also subject to the whim of changing government priorities. In the late 1980s and early 1990s there were many pressures on non-vocational adult education. In 1993 the power to fund further education was removed from local education authorities and by the end of that year the Letchworth warden was no longer full-time. Yet the book provides hope that the lofty ideals of the early Settlement have not vanished. It remains a centre in its own right and is a venue for groups as varied as ballet, marriage guidance and Gingerbread. Kate Thompson takes the story up to the Covid pandemic—yet another hurdle but one would put one’s money on the Settlement surviving this like so much else.

The later part of the book outlines the range of lectures and courses over the years; the key personalities; and its use by other organisations. Kate Thompson has trawled a range of sources such as record books, newspapers, minutes and scrapbooks to provide a fascinating picture of a type of educational service that receives nothing like the attention of other institutions. The overall impression is of a high-quality facility serving a non-metropolitan community with dedication and fervour. That it has survived 100 years to justify this publication is a testament to the vision, passion and resilience of a band of people who deserve not to be forgotten.

Tim Lomas is a former chair of BALH and a current trustee. He has an interest in educational history and is currently involved in research on education in 1920s Devon.

THE PLACE NAMES OF DORSET part five: districts, rivers, introduction, analyses, index edited by A.D. Mills (English Place Name Society: Survey of English Place Names vol.94 2020 vii+487pp ISBN 978 1 91164002 8) £45

The English Place Name Society volumes are a unique resource for explaining and understanding the history of a county, exploring the landscape, and looking back to a time before the earliest surviving documents when many names were first adopted. A.D. Mills has researched all five Dorset volumes and brings a lifetime’s knowledge to the introduction which, as is the custom with this series, is published as the final part. In the first four Dorset volumes Mills set out the names of the hundreds and parishes with their minor settlement and field names. Here he ties together the previous work by examining the names of rivers and districts, providing notes on phonology, gazetteers of personal names and place-name elements, categories of field names and minor names, and a transcription of the Anglo-Saxon charter boundaries. There is also an index to all five volumes.

The origins of names are endlessly fascinating and not always obvious: Bucky Doo Square in Weymouth, from the early modern English bucardo, meaning prison or dungeon; Chideock from the Primitive Welsh cediog, wooded. Sometimes the differing origins of names are not apparent until the earlier forms are examined: Caundle Marsh derives from the Old French mareis, whereas Margaret Marsh is from the Old English mersc. Landscape historians and archaeologists will find evidence of former land use in place-name elements: the clearance of ancient woodland in the element leah in Leigh, West Parley and Sixpenny Handley; pot-making at Crockern Stoke, Crockerton Hill and Potterne; cloth-bleaching at Buckhouse Farm; weaving at Loomcroft. The coney/coninger/conygar that indicate the presence of rabbit warrens throughout the county are almost as numerous as the laes/leaze elements commonly found in the names of enclosed pastures close to settlements, as in Cowleaze or Eweleaze.

When the language that gave rise to a name is no longer understood explanations of their origins may run away with themselves: the parish name Piddletrenthide derives from the Old English river name Pidele, a marshy stream, combined with the Old French trente (thirty) and the Middle English hide; it was an estate assessed as thirty hides beside a marshy stream. By the sixteenth century the central element was taken to be an alternative name for the river, perhaps because it was similar to other rivers called the Trent or the Dorset river Tarrant, and thus for part of its course the River Piddle became known as the Trent, based upon this misunderstanding.

The English Place Name Society produces volumes to a tried and tested formula which serves academics and local historians alike. There are two minor criticisms: the addition of maps showing the distribution of certain elements relating to settlement, agriculture and clearance would have been welcome, and the Anglo-Saxon charter boundaries, which are only provided in Old English, are inaccessible to most researchers without translations. The EPNS volumes examine the origins of the principal place-names within each county and give a flavour of those given to smaller settlements and fields. But the editors cannot examine every manuscript and describe every name, so there is plenty of scope for the local historian to expand the catalogue by searching deeds, court rolls and estate records. Classification of these newly discovered names is greatly assisted by nearly two hundred pages set aside by Mills to discuss Dorset’s place name elements. Future generations of local historians will spend long hours entertaining themselves and discovering new research areas through his work.

Mark Forrest has recently written the useful guide Reading Early Handwriting 1500-1700 for BALH and is currently working on a guide to manorial documents.

A COUNTY OF REFUGE: Refugees in Cumbria 1933-1941 by Rob David (Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society 2020 156pp ISBN 978-1-873124-85-7) £17

A County of Refuge is an important addition to the existing body of work on refugees in Britain, and will interest academics and local historians alike. Rob David focuses on the experience of those refugees who made their way to Cumbria between the years 1933 and 1941, a period when the Lake District and the surrounding area played host to refugee communities from Spain, Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia. In focusing on Cumbria, David provides a crucial history of migration which is non-metropolitan. Discussion of a rural environment is welcome and necessary. While he acknowledges that Cumbria ‘attracted few migrants’ prior to the 1930s, it is perhaps easy to overlook the experience of the refugees who did come to the county and the importance of the local communities which assisted them.

The book is divided into three parts. In the first David provides a brief but informative background of the individuals and families covered in his research. These case studies give a fascinating account of the ‘disrupted lives’ of the displaced. This is followed by discussion of Britain’s immigration policy from 1933 to 1941 and consideration of the British efforts to assist refugees from Spain, Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia. His insights on Sir John Hope Simpson, Liberal politician and international advocate of refugee issues, are particularly noteworthy and frame this work in a wider context. Part 2 examines efforts to assist refugees which occurred across Cumbria. Through six chapters David explores the work of the (mostly female) volunteers who assisted refugees in Brampton, Wigton, Carlisle, Windermere and Whitehaven. Part 3 presents an epilogue which draws together the research covered in the work and provides discussion of the integration of European refugees into British society after the War.

Rob David’s work, despite its regional focus, contributes to the wider field of refugee studies. In common with other scholars such as Kushner and Gill, he explores popular support and cultural interaction between Cumbrians and refugees, identifying the broad-based support that refugees attracted. For example, he notes that colliers, trade unionists, businesspeople, charities and churches all donated at various points to refugee communities across the county. Moreover, the inclusion of information on the popularity of folk dancing and singing by Basque refugees to raise funds offers insight into meaningful cultural exchange between British and Basque communities. As David observes, the public ‘strongly supported cultural events involving refugees’. The contribution of refugees to culture within the region appear to have been notable—Austrian and German emigres in the Lake District were involved in holding educational and artistic events. Refugees were not immune to xenophobia: common anti-migrant sentiments recorded elsewhere affected refugees in Cumbria. They were said to impact upon employment, housing and crime. For example, English forestry workers at Derwentwater complained regarding fellow workers from the Sudetenland. Nevertheless, David argues that xenophobia was not a salient feature of life for refugees in Cumbria, attributing this to the relatively short history of migration to the county.

The discussion of investment by wealthy refugees is particularly important. Cumbria had been recognised by the Special Areas Act of 1934 as economically depressed. Frank Anderson, Labour MP for Whitehaven, and John Adams, director of the West Cumberland Development Company, attracted investment to the region by Jewish émigré entrepreneurs. Dr M.A. Steiner and F.S. Hayck established Cumberland Childware Ltd to produce children’s clothing in Maryport. Throughout the Second World War garment factories and food processing centres were created by Jewish industrialists from Germany, Poland and Hungary. These factories employed refugees and local people alike. During the war some of these establishments were transformed into production centres for military uniforms and aircraft parts. Notable among the companies created by refugees was the beret manufacturer Kangol, owned by Polish-French Jew Jacques Speiregan, who established a factory in Cleator in 1937. The impact of government restrictions upon aliens forms the basis of the penultimate chapter. The introduction of Aliens’ Tribunals in 1939 and later extensions to internment affected Austrian and German passport holders already resident in Britain. While most refugees were interned for a short period, David notes that one German internee was later killed on board the Arandora Star in July 1940.

The structure of A County of Refuge to some extent conceals the significance of the research. Initial discussion of the context of the historical and political context for refugees is perhaps too brief. Moreover, a brief account of Cumbria during the interwar years would have strengthened David’s principal arguments. Nevertheless, he has undertaken an impressive level of research, spanning local archives, secondary literature and oral histories. Indeed, his use of the individual stories of refugees and volunteers is the book’s greatest strength. As Gatrell has noted, refugee voices are too often absent within historical research. The inclusion of letters, anecdotes, photographs, and paintings create an immersive account of the efforts to assist refugees in Cumbria. In the final chapter, David refers to his own father’s experience of escape from Germany and internment—following his release from the Isle of Man in December 1940, he attended Manchester University, and his expertise in chemistry assisted with the production of Ensis Fluid 256, which was used to protect electronics from sea water during the D-Day landings. Inclusion of this personal story adds to the overall significance of A County of Refuge and underlines the wider contribution of exiles to the Allied War effort.

Kieran Taylor is a Scottish historian with an interest in immigration history, refugee studies and civic development. His PhD thesis examined Glasgow Corporation's relief of Belgian refugees during the First World War.

UNITY AND LOYALTY: The Story of Chippenham’s Red Cross Hospital by Ray Alder (Hobnob Press Chippenham Studies no.5 2021 vi+298pp ISBN 978-1-914407-04-8) £19.95

Unity and Loyalty is an intriguing title for this fascinating and profusely illustrated history of Chippenham’s Red Cross Hospital which provided convalescent care for those injured in the First World War. As the author explains, these were the names of the hospital’s two principal wards and were the town’s motto. Since the hospital was located in the Town Hall and later, to expand capacity, the adjoining Neeld Hall, this seems entirely appropriate.

The book is divided into four parts. In the first, covering the years leading up to the outbreak of the War, the approach is primarily chronological, although themes to the fore include the fear of invasion; the scheme of voluntary aid and registration of voluntary aid detachments; the role of organisations, including the Red Cross and the Order of St John of Jerusalem Ambulance Association; and the identification of buildings that could be used as rest stations and temporary hospitals in the event of hostilities. In each case, close attention is given to the impact of these on Chippenham and elsewhere in north Wiltshire. This approach is continued in Part 2, with the course of the war and the implications of what was happening on the front line for the local area in general, and the Hospital (following its opening in October 1915) in particular, being examined in considerable detail. As evidenced, the war touched many aspects of daily life. The third part is primarily thematic, with chapters on the care provided in the hospital; its discipline and routines; entertainment for the patients, including sporting events; the raising of funds; ambulances; and outings and friendships, including romances some of which resulted in matrimony. The final part covers the period between the armistice of November 1918 and the hospital’s closure in October 1919. Attention is also given to what might be described as its legacy. There are two appendices, the first of which provides brief pen portraits of the many women and small number of men who contributed to the running of the hospital and its ancillary services. This will be of particular value to family historians. The second consists of lists of those who comprised Red Cross working parties in the Chippenham Division. There is also a bibliography and an index which is of considerable value for a publication of this length.

Overall, the book brings out very clearly the interplay between an event of global significance and its impact on the life of a local community. One of the most poignant examples of this was the fact that Mrs Helena Jane Wilson (1858-1934), who served as the Hospital’s exemplary commandant and was awarded the OBE, lost all three of her sons during the conflict. Two other examples were the conversion of the premises of the local railway signalling company of Saxby and Farmer into a munitions factory, and the enlisting of schoolchildren to work on the allotments when food was in scarce supply. There were also the challenges involved in establishing a hospital almost from scratch, with considerable attention being given to practical issues including the recruitment of a wide variety of staff, from nurses to cooks and from kitchen-maids to clerks; cleaning arrangements and the provision of laundry facilities; transportation of the injured; and finance.

Applied to the research which underpins Unity and Loyalty, the cliché ‘no stone has been left unturned’ is entirely apposite. Ray Alder is to be commended for the wide range of sources he was able to access with his extensive list of acknowledgments and the range and variety of references speaking for themselves. In addition, he is to be applauded for amassing such a wonderfully evocative and diverse collection of photographs as illustrations. These greatly enhance the text and assist in capturing something of the atmosphere in the hospital and aspects of life in the local community and surrounding area. They also help to show that despite the gravity of the War there were also opportunities for relaxation and enjoyment, such as ‘Patients in Pierrot costumes, an act at a Chippenham variety show’; ‘Fun Day at the Saxby and Farmer sports ground’; and ‘Patients in fancy dress at the Red Cross Fete’. In addition, there are some amusing cartoons, such as one showing the badly-fitting blue uniform patients were required to wear: ‘The men were easily recognised in their uniform, known as hospital (or convalescent) blues. The uniform jacket and trousers were made of blue flannel and worn with a white shirt and red tie … [They were] designed without pockets and in just a few sizes. This standardisation, although saving money, meant that suits were generally a poor fit and men complained that trousers were either too long or too short and sleeves had to be turned up’. Another feature is the testimony of patients praising the high quality of the care and the many kindnesses they received. Indeed ‘The Final Word’ is a letter from Vincent Boreham, an Australian who served in France, in which he expresses appreciation of his ‘happy memories of Chippenham during the War’.

As the author explains, the catalyst for the book was an exhibition held at Chippenham Museum to commemorate the centenary of the First World War, and ‘the fact that the town had its own temporary Red Cross Hospital’. Thus, the resulting publication can be thoroughly recommended for anyone interested in not only the First World War but also what may be broadly described as international history mediated through experiences at the grassroots. How Chippenham and its inhabitants rose to the challenge of contributing to the war effort on the home front lies at the very heart of this book. But it is to be hoped that it will appeal to a wider readership than simply the residents of Chippenham and its environs. Certainly this reviewer, who is not familiar with the area, found it to be an enjoyable, enlightening and, on occasions, affecting read.

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.

THE REGENERATION OF A LOCAL COMMUNITY Fulwell, 1939-2020 by Christopher French (Borough of Twickenham Local History Society 2021 140pp ISBN 978-1-911145-05-9) £6.50

In his earlier book on the growth of Fulwell between 1870 and 1939 Dr French documented the time during which Fulwell became a fully-built environment with community facilities and a fairly stable population. This new book describes the regeneration of Fulwell from 1939 to 2020, using a wealth of photographs, contemporary documents, plans, drawings and memorabilia. Most of his detailed research was carried out during the pandemic but, thanks to the internet, was largely unimpeded. The book includes recollections by local people of the communities in which they lived and meticulously records the changes in the built environment that brought Fulwell into ‘renewed existence’.

The opening chapter covers the effects of the Second World War on Fulwell and includes entries from official Air Raid Diaries and personal descriptions of the damage caused by the bombing. One ARP warden received a medal for locating a family trapped in their house: he ‘scrambled over debris … and supported the weight of the falling debris upon his shoulder until help came’. There are vivid accounts of evacuations to Cornwall during the V1 and V2 aerial bombings in 1944 and of school life. Fulwell golf course was taken over for food production and pig bins were attached to lamp posts for collecting animal feed.

Dr French then looks in detail at housing, shops and places of work after 1945, as well as community facilities. Although a relatively few new houses and a greater number of flats have been built since 1939, he describes, with reference to detailed plans, the creation of some new residential roads, the rebuilding of damaged buildings, the ‘gentrification’ of the existing houses and the advent of social housing. Changing patterns of ownership are also traced and the extraordinary rise in house values from an average of £4949 in January 1970 to £79,909 in January 1990.

Perhaps unusually, Fulwell has lost few of its small shops but changes in type over the period are remarkable—from predominantly food, drink, newspapers and tobacco, and services such as chemists, to nail and beauty spas, tattoo parlours, restaurants, wine bars, cafés and takeaways, showrooms and fashion. A baker’s and a hairdresser’s however have survived unscathed from 1939. Locals recall one hairdresser who ‘came in with the Boston haircut when it became popular’ and a toy shop that ‘held a Yo-Yo exhibition outside … with an expert doing tricks’. Pearce Duff’s Custard premises gave way to eight light industrial units and the site is now becoming residential. The most significant place of work however is still the Fulwell bus garage which opened in 1902, evolving from trolley buses to double- and then single-decker buses. Two sisters recorded their work as ‘clippies’: ‘I loved it because I was in charge of the driver’. The loss of its social club and sporting facilities, and with it the cup-winning Fulwell Garage Football Team, is regretted.

The final chapter describes the changes in schools, youth centres, churches and public houses. The evolution of the education system was reflected in the alterations to the schools during this period, but school journeys are still remembered fondly. One pupil recalled a trip to Gloucester where ‘they visited a coal mine, ruined abbeys and castles and climbed a high hill called Lord Hereford’s Knob … It was wonderful!’. Teachers are also recalled with varying degrees of affection. Of one a pupil wrote, ‘It was woe betide me when Miss Inkpen was riding her bike home and caught me swinging the beret around!’. One school caught fire in 1967 and a local resident remembers: ‘The night of the fire we were awoken by the sound of loud gunfire at 3am, by then the sky was lit up with flames and the gunfire turned out to be the roof tiles exploding’. Teddington Youth Centre, situated in Fulwell and opened in 1969, was a popular centre for quizzes, table tennis and trips, together with lessons in judo and self-defence but is now the home of the first after-school care providers in the area, which was established in 1991. The churches in Fulwell have also suffered mixed fates. One experienced such a decline in parishioners that it was closed in 2001 and allowed to deteriorate (losing a richly carved reredos); however, in 2010 it was listed and is now the home of a new congregation. A new Catholic church was opened in 1966, building on a century of local missionary work, but the Fulwell Evangelical Free Church has also closed. The public houses are also centres of the community: one has been in business for 150 years but a wine bar opened in 1970 only lasted until 2002. Finally, mention is made of the two long-established Fulwell landmarks: the golf club and the garden centre, although in 2002 their combined land was subject to a local task force report into possible irregularities.

Dr French concludes that despite many changes it is still possible to identify a real sense of community in Fulwell and the book ends appositely with two pictures of street parties—one being the York Road Coronation Street Party in 1952 and one recorded recently on Facebook.

Rachel Barnes has lived in Twickenham for over 40 years but, despite its proximity to Fulwell, she has hitherto only been familiar with the bus garage, the garden centre and Stanley Road. This book repairs that gap in her knowledge and has introduced her to some fascinating Second World War history as well as giving a detailed account of the changes in community life in Fulwell up to the present day.

THE SCRATCH OF THE HOP: Hop picking in Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Shropshire by Marsha O’Mahony (Logaston Press 2021 x+262pp ISBN 978-1-910839-44-7) £15

There is a significant difference between ale and beer—ale relies on malt for its flavour, while hops add flavour and other properties to beer. Hops are thought to have been introduced to this country in the sixteenth century, and their cultivation was one of Thomas Tusser’s Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie (1557). The first woodcut of a hop, by C. Plantin, appeared in 1581, showing, incorrectly, the hop-bine climbing anti-clockwise, whereas it climbs clockwise. The gradual shift from ale to beer had a consequent effect on the cultivation of hops, which became widespread. In the nineteenth century commercial hop-growing became centred on the West Midlands and Kent areas, the latter in that period having a rather greater acreage. Both areas had labour resources nearby, London in the case of Kent, and the West Midlands conurbation for the hop-growing area in the south-west of the region—essentially the area between the Severn and Wye, mostly in Herefordshire, but overlapping into Shropshire and rather more into Worcestershire.

It has always been assumed that the arrival of the railways in the 1850s was a prime factor in stimulating the annual invasion of the hop-pickers in September and October, but there are indications that this had already begun, and was expedited by the coming of the railways. So, for instance, on 20 October 1855, the Hereford Times reported, under a Worcester by-line, that the picking had almost closed, and the hop-pickers were returning to the manufacturing districts, and had ‘made a pretty good purse, which enables them to travel northward by rail, instead on foot as here[to]fore’. At this time the only station in Worcester was Shrub Hill, which had been opened in 1850, thus giving a terminus pre quem for this migration. Hop-pickers also came to the area from South Wales, and the hop-harvest was one of the destinations of the Romany gypsies on their regular travels in search of work.

The annual hop-picking holiday in the West Midlands was a feature of the industry until its decline in the 1940s and ‘50s, but for many who participated, particularly as children, this holiday in the hop-yards was a highlight of the year. Consequently, when the Bromyard and District Local History Society produced a book entitled A Pocketful of Hops in 1988, following appeals to former hop-pickers in the West Midlands newspapers, there was no shortage of written responses. An updated version of the book, which covers a six-mile radius about Bromyard, was published in 2007, and there have been other publications such as Christine Faulkner’s Hops and Hop-Pickers, undated but post-1989, which gives a Dudley perspective on hop-picking.

The Bromyard Local History Society book told the history of hop-picking in the area and used the material sent in to amplify and illustrate this, unlike The Scratch of the Hop in which the main thrust is the oral testimony. While it is stated to be the story of hop-picking, it covers all aspects of the production of hops, and brings it up to the present, so that hop-picking itself occupies only about a quarter of the text. Such a book lends itself to illustration, and it is remarkable how many photographs survive of the various activities associated with hop-growing. This volume has numerous photographs, although these are not listed at the front, and while earlier photographs are in black and white, the most recent are printed in colour. A number of the images were taken in the past by professional photographers, and these are some of the most striking in the book. Some show the Romany gypsies who regularly helped with the hop-picking, whose ancestors may well have been the first casual workers employed in this task.

In the late 1940s local authorities began to clamp down on children missing school to go hop-picking. This coincided with the gradual introduction of hop-picking machines, which very much reduced the demand for casual labour, and essentially the annual migration was finished by the end of the 1950s. Inevitably, therefore, those who were interviewed for this book about hop-picking itself would have been very young at the time, and a different perspective would perhaps have been given by their parents. It is also difficult to establish the views of local residents about the annual influx—on occasion this might not have been too welcoming. As an example, I am aware that at hop-picking time the public house at Burley Gate, not far from Ullingswick, where my wife’s grandfather grew hops at Lower Court, banned hop-pickers from entry: they had to consume their drinks in a corrugated iron shed which was used as a changing room for a local youth football team. Locals had to knock to be admitted to the Burley Gate Inn. On the other hand, it is clear that in many cases there were bonds between the hop-pickers and the farmer. Certainly, the same families of hop-pickers worked at Lower Court, Ullingswick, over a long period, until the farm was sold up in 1955 and hop-growing ceased: many years later my mother-in-law could still remember the names of those families, and when my wife and I lived in the farmhouse those names were still pencilled on a sliding door at the base of the hop kiln.

Inevitably there are a few niggles. In the introduction it would have been helpful to state how the various reminiscences were collected: presumably from interviews, but how were the subjects found or chosen? There is no real mention of the Kentish hop-gardens, and at least a comparison would be useful. There are few statistics, to give an idea of the size of the industry in previous times and now. I accept that this is a book on oral history, but these are necessary to set the context. There are also some mistakes in the names, only obvious to those with local knowledge, and for a couple of earlier reminiscences the source is not immediately identifiable. That said, the book gives a readable, and up-to-date account of the current hop industry in the West Midlands, much information being provided by prominent local growers, and paints a good picture of the past in living memory. It should be used as a starting point in the study of this industry, rather than as an end in itself.

John C. Eisel FSA is an active member of the Woolhope Club in Hereford, and has published many papers on nineteenth-century Hereford in the Club’s Transactions. Co-author of a number of books on Herefordshire, as a bell-ringer he writes extensively on the history of change-ringing and is a contributor to the ODNB. He is recognised as a national authority on the development of medieval and seventeenth-century bell frames.

THE SCHOOL ON THE COMMON A history of Christ Church Chorleywood C of E School 1853-2020 by Gillian Pugh (Rickmansworth Historical Society 2021 156pp ISBN 978-0-9544583-4-8) £12+p&p from gillian.pugh@gmail.com

‘Labour of love’ is overused as a term, but it surely applies to this book. Dame Gillian Pugh has had a long and industrious career, including being the chief executive of Coram, and has frequently espoused causes related to vulnerable children. In this capacity she has advised governments and many others. One of her other educational activities has been as a former chair of governors at this Chorleywood school. That she is proud of this school is something of an understatement. There is no question that it has been successful, and a good part of the book is an account of its many achievements in recent decades. It stops short of the pandemic—but many school histories give only thin coverage to the most recent decade. This book illustrates well how much has happened in terms of organisation—the pastoral side as well as the curriculum, inspection, the relationship with parents and community and finance. For those outside the world of education it can be a bewildering array of changes and challenges. It is as well that the author has been at the heart of many of these changes (and acronyms), for she explains everything clearly.

But the book is not solely about recent years—it adopts a predominantly chronological approach from the beginnings over 150 years ago. Much is organised around the headteachers who served the school and the many changes with which each was involved. As with many schools, the succession of headmasters has given way in recent years to female leaders. Looking at the school via the staff, governors and parents provides a human touch. Sadly, for example, three headteachers died young, while in office, a reminder that school histories should recognise that illness affected was not only the pupils but the adults as well. In the early days of the school many parents were reluctant to send their children there. They often ignored the summons of the attendance officer and the threepenny fine. Good attendance needed all kinds of incentives in the nineteenth century: medals, certificates, remission of school pence, even being able to leave a quarter of an hour early at the end of the day. The author recognises that the story cannot be adequately told without providing details of the community development, as Chorleywood grew from a rural village after the coming of the railway, into a commuter town. She quotes an early twentieth-first century survey that apparently identified Chorleywood as the happiest place in the country.

Three things might imply that Christ Church is rather untypical. The close relationship with the Church of England is one. The author has traced this through the years, and it remains strong today. It has led to tensions, largely as a result of the school’s popularity (meaning difficult decisions about who to admit). The local vicar has always been an integral part of school life. Secondly, the school seems to have had an inexhaustible supply of support and expertise. That did not simply lead to some huge amounts of funds being raised, but also means that the school has been able to draw on all kinds of influence and skills, obviously a feature of its catchment area. Parental support has been strong, although it took 16 years for a Parent Teacher Association to be formed after its first being mooted. A third distinctive feature is the school’s success, especially in recent years. The author provides plenty of evidence of what it has achieved—an Ofsted ‘outstanding’ and top of the table for Hertfordshire schools—and there are plenty of testimonies throughout the book of people who were delighted to have been taught there or to have worked there. The overarching feeling is that for much of its life everyone was pushing in the same direction, dedicated to the school ethos and the needs of children and parents. Recent headteachers have worked with the local community and have known it well.

There are inevitably some stones left unturned. I do not pretend to know the school but am well aware of the many challenges facing schools in the last decade. If this school has had an idyllic existence, it has been a very rare beast. The book clearly does not advocate local education authorities and is totally supportive of grant maintained status and academisation, as giving it its independence … but it is not clear what it was so keen to escape from. There are some ‘warts and all’ aspects but they tend to be from the earlier years, when there were large class sizes, cramped accommodation, poor ventilation, bad lighting, unsuitable temperatures and some mediocre HMI assessments. For many years the headteachers have been thoroughly decent and committed, unlike the first recorded teacher, William Roe, who ‘speedily showed incompetence both as a school master and a player of the harmonium’.

The author has been able to draw on a good range of sources including personal experience and the evidence of many people—there is an extremely long list of acknowledgements. Other records include the extensive series of log books (which initially are noted as going back to 1863 but a later chapter states that the Reverend James Aitken arrived in 1867 and started the school log books). Gillian Pugh has also used governor minutes, headteacher reports, parish magazines, photographs and press cuttings. The book is well illustrated with pictures, some in colour. It is easy to read, often joyful, carefully laid out and on good quality paper. The book largely succeeds in convincing us that this is how a good school should be—ambitious, united, at ease with itself, able to adapt to a changing world while also proud of its traditions and ethos. The school is still on the same site despite many alterations and additions, and we are reminded that ‘children are still sitting here as they did 150 years ago’.

Tim Lomas is a trustee of the BALH and a former chair. Previously he was a teacher and inspector with an interest in educational history. He is currently involved in research into education in Devon in the 1920s.

CHESTERFIELD’S REMARKABLE WOMEN by Janet Murphy (Bannister Publications 2021 v+128pp ISBN 978-1-909813-74-8) £8.50 from the author at 214 Walton Road, Chesterfield S40 3BS

This book offers brief biographies of fifty women associated with the north-east Derbyshire town of Chesterfield, arranged alphabetically, and chiefly nineteenth to late-twentieth century in date. Well-known for its radical tradition, Chesterfield produced a number of suffragettes and suffragists, some of whom had distinguished careers during and after the First World War. The first female Chesterfield Borough councillor was elected in 1925, while other local authority, religious, and charitable bodies provided opportunities for women to influence policy. Welfare reform, education, nursing, and what would now be called social services were typical areas in which they could develop both practical skills and political roles, but proficiency in aesthetic activities (by musicians, actors, and one film star) also feature in this compilation. Most information is taken from published or internet genealogical sources, rather than personal papers, but reports from local newspapers add colour and detail. Many described here were not public figures, but were role models in their private lives, becoming in various ways public benefactors. An attractive aspect of this work is that it does not focus only on the wealthy and privileged, but includes individuals who were disadvantaged, sometimes having overcome deprivation and personal tragedy.

This is a well-researched, attractively produced, and unpretentious book, rewarding to read because of inspirational and illuminating stories as well as entertaining anecdotes. In addition to business women who established careers in such male-dominated spheres as monumental masonry, there are also accounts of individuals, such as Florrie Green, daughter of a miner, who was a founder member of Chesterfield Ladies’ Football Club in 1917 and active in the sport until women’s clubs were banned in 1921; Betty Heathfield, who was prominent in the campaign Women Against Pit Closures during the miners’ strike of 1984–5; Annie King, a member from 1898 of the China Inland Mission and murdered there during the Boxer rebellion in 1900; Catherine Richardson, in 1992 first female president of the Methodist Conference; Rose Smith, a committed Marxist and National Women’s Organiser for the Communist Party of Great Britain, who became a journalist for the Daily Worker newspaper, emigrated to China in 1961 at the invitation of the Communist government and, after her death in 1985, was buried in the Revolutionary Martyrs’ Cemetery in Beijing; Minnie Wheatcroft, a labourer’s daughter who was widowed when her soldier husband died of terrible injuries on active service in 1917, but who then enlisted in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps and spent the rest of the war driving ambulances in France; Susan Shentall, a Rank starlet who never regarded her role in the 1954 film of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ as other than a one-off ‘bit of fun’, despite being considered as a replacement for the actor Grace Kelly; and Helen Wilcoxson, in 1939 the first Chesterfield member of the Civil Air Guard to qualify for her pilot’s ‘A’ certificate, but whose initial cross-country flight was hampered by the loss of her compass, forcing her to rely on the name ‘Burton’ painted on the top of Burton on Trent’s gasometer to find her way home.

This is not a book about Chesterfield the place, but it reminds us that ‘ordinary’ people can make a difference and this is what deserves to be commemorated. So, as well as providing a new feminine perspective on local personalities, it should encourage researchers elsewhere to look beyond conventional perceptions of women’s lives, and to seek to demonstrate, as in these biographies, that there is much to uncover. Moreover, this paperback also serves a charitable purpose as all proceeds from sales will go to Ashgate Hospicecare.

Margaret O’Sullivan was a former county archivist of Derbyshire, and was a past chair of the British Association for Local History. In retirement she continued to research and write about eighteenth- and nineteenth-century women associated with the Midlands. Margaret died in late September 2021.

HIGHFIELDS: A most handsome suburb by David Griffiths, with photography by Andrew Caveney (Huddersfield Civic Society 2020 92pp ISBN 978-0-9956328-2-0) £9.95+p&p

This book is a companion volume to the author’s Villas of Egerton, published in 2017, both of which extend understanding about the nature and extent of suburban growth in nineteenth-century Huddersfield. The suburb was located about half a mile north-west of the town centre and was therefore within easy reach of town centre facilities, as well as providing a more exclusive and healthier place to live than elsewhere in the town. Much of the building in the suburb took the form of ribbon development along New North Road (the present-day A629), which was established as a turnpike route between Huddersfield and Halifax during the mid-1820s. Most buildings associated with it have survived, though notable losses were incurred by the construction of part of the town’s ring road during the early 1970s. In addition to evidence provided by the buildings themselves, the author bases his study on various types of documentary sources, including historical maps, property deeds, rate books, census schedules, trade directories and building plans.

There are six chapters. With the aid of an extract from John Bradley’s 1820 map, the area prior to the development of the suburb is considered, focusing on Newhouse, a much-altered residence occupied by several generations of the Bradley family. The second chapter focuses on the early growth of the suburb during the 1820s and 1830s. The various housing types that arose along the main road and the newly-formed side streets that extended from it are noted. They included modestly-sized, two-storey terraced dwellings with ashlar frontages, front gardens and differing forms of doorway lintel decoration, as well as detached villas, of which Belgrave House, with its eight principal rooms having a fireplace, is a notable example. Chapters 3 and 4 demonstrate how the suburb continued to develop during the Victorian era. Among the key changes noted are the erection of several villa houses along New North Road by the early 1850s and the provision of non-domestic buildings, including the remarkable Huddersfield College, a symmetrical gothic-style structure displaying an impressive range of crenelations, turrets and four-centred arches. Opened in 1840 as a fee-paying Anglican school for boys, the aim of its founders, who were substantial local businessmen, was to ‘furnish facilities for securing first-rate Classical, Mathematical and Commercial Education, on the most Economical Terms’. As was the case more generally in Victorian suburbs, there was scope to introduce revived gothic styles of architecture in private houses as well as community buildings, though classical styles, portrayed in varying ways, remained dominant. Ebor Mount, a row of three gable-fronted residences situated along New North Road, provides an example.

The three remaining chapters discuss themes focusing on ways in which the suburb has developed. That dealing with religious matters traces the places of worship provided by various denominations, including the impressive Highfields Chapel, with its ‘giant Ionic columns and Tuscan pilasters’, fronted by the setts of Highfields Road. Educational developments are addressed in the following chapter, with consideration being given to provision made for girls as well as for boys. Examples are cited of the ubiquitous day ‘schools for young ladies’, which catered for boarding as well as day pupils and made use of sizeable, middle-class houses for the purpose. The final chapter considers how changes taking place during the twentieth century have impacted on the suburb, focusing on the construction of the Huddersfield ring road and the arrival of immigrant communities from various parts of the world, particularly after the Second World War.

The book’s findings draw on detailed investigation of documentary evidence relating to the dating, occupancy and ownership of the suburb’s buildings and their changing use over time. First-rate photographs of a selection of the buildings, and of the documentary material consulted, are included. So, too, are helpful outline maps that locate the buildings, along with tables that record key details about them. Comment is also made on their architectural features, in some instances with the views of contemporaries being incorporated. And taking a long-term perspective on the suburb’s history brings conservation issues into consideration, as well as the socio-economic changes that occurred.

Helpful contextual comment is incorporated in places, as in noting the Unitarian preference for revived Gothic styles of architecture. But perhaps more might have been attempted in this respect, at least in a conclusion, with a view to demonstrating how the findings from the study add to more general understanding about the nature of nineteenth-century suburban development in Britain and the varying social and economic status of suburban dwellers. Peter Burnett’s notion of ‘a tier of middle-classes’ provides guidance in this respect. Comparison with the main findings arising from the author’s equally informative and well-presented study of Huddersfield’s Edgerton suburb would have been valuable, too, maybe helping to boost the sales of both. Readers will certainly gain from undertaking the perambulation around the suburb that the author suggests, taking the opportunity to appreciate the quality of the buildings and to reflect on the aspirations of those who erected them and on the way of life of those who lived and worked in them.

Geoff Timmins has research interests which centre on the history of the built environment, especially from the eighteenth century onwards. Aspects of housing history in relation to the development of both rural and urban settlement are a particular interest.

HOW NORWICH FOUGHT AGAINST THE PLAGUE: Lessons from the past by Frank Meeres (Poppyland Publishing 2021 vi+138pp ISBN 978-1-909796-82-9) £9.95

Frank Meeres seeks to link the reactions of Norwich’s leaders to outbreaks of plague with ways in which the authorities dealt with the global pandemic of 2020-2021. His aims, clearly stated on the back cover, are intended to draw local readers into his detailed account of the period from the Black Death in 1348-1349 to the final outbreak of plague in Norwich in 1665-1666. He argues that, although expressed differently, the concepts of ‘key workers’, ‘lockdown’, ‘shielding’ and ‘social-distancing’ are not new. This review chiefly covers these aspects.

For the Black Death, which struck Norwich in early 1349, there are few explicit contemporary records and so how the population was affected has to be deduced from sources such appointments of new clergy, which parish churches subsequently fell out of use, and deaths of manorial tenants. Evidence for plague between 1349 and 1579 is also scant, although the Paston letters do provide some information for the second part of the fifteenth century. Meeres notes that by the early sixteenth century ‘people were beginning to fight back, introducing measures designed to prevent an outbreak of plague’. Some cities passed plague orders and in 1579-1580 the privy council issued a set of orders which demanded returns of numbers infected, collections to support the poor, isolation of infected households, special burial places, and burning of clothing and bedding which belonged to those dying of plague.

The 1579 Norwich outbreak was serious. The Mayor’s Court books record steps taken to try to prevent the spread of plague, and burial registers indicate clusters of deaths (though not their causes). Norwich always had a high number of incomers. Some were from the Norfolk countryside, while others (known as ‘Strangers’) were religious refugees from the Low Countries from the 1560s onwards, both Dutch speakers and French speakers (Walloons). ‘Strangers’ had their own churches and were responsible for looking after the poor within their community. In 1579 the Strangers were blamed for the outbreak of plague and specific orders were applied to them. The city authorities took steps to quantify the mortality in the city, apparently the first time that anywhere in England had attempted this. On 26 June 1579 the Mayor’s Court swore Thomas Usher to certify the names of the deceased every week: from then on the numbers (but not names) of burials were recorded (listed in appendix 2), although plague burials were not distinguished from others. On 1 July 1579 the principles of isolation and lockdown were introduced and other detailed orders were issued. Four groups of special workers were appointed at this time (Meeres aligns them with ‘key workers’): searchers, who examined the body of every person who died to decide whether death was caused by plague; bearers, who carried the body to its place of burial; keepers, who provided food and drink to the infected; and watchmen, who were to keep guard at the city gates (and later the pest houses) to ensure no unauthorised coming or going.

Parish registers indicate that there was another serious outbreak in 1603. There was a major outbreak in 1625, although numbers of deaths varied by parish, some registers noting when ‘plague began’, some marking ‘p’ or ‘peste mortis’ against victims. The Mayor’s Court books indicate measures taken and even identify individual households infected or affected. Similarly, the 1630 and 1631 plagues can be traced in the records of the Mayor’s Court. During the 1637 outbreak the Court issued a general set of regulations designed to control the plague: again isolation was ordered; infected houses were to be marked on the door; and keepers, searchers and buriers were to distinguish themselves clearly with a mark or carry a red wand to, in effect, facilitate social distancing when they were out. Pest houses, which Meeres likens to Nightingale Hospitals, were first built in Norwich in 1630.

The close trading relationship between Yarmouth and Norwich meant that at times of plague steps were taken to limit contact: this was certainly the case in 1665 when there was an outbreak in Yarmouth. During the 1666 plague the Norwich Mayor’s Court laid down rules that even considered individual cases and throughout the summer its meetings were concerned with the two usual problems: how to control the spread of infection and how to pay for these measures. On 9 July schools were closed until further notice and orders were made for (in effect) shielding at the Great Hospital (a home for the elderly poor). Another precaution was to move the market out of town. The outbreak raged for more than a year, with most deaths in the summer months. Plague figures were sent to London every week and appendix 4 indicates the parts of the city worst affected—the poorest. The rich could leave for their second home or could self-isolate more easily in their larger houses.

In conclusion Meeres draws together earlier examples of ‘weapons’ used to fight the plague that were used during the Covid-19 pandemic. One key difference was that churches remained open: they were the main vehicle for communicating news as clergy read out announcements and new regulations, and presumably prayed for deliverance. Although, as Meeres notes, the rich might leave for their country homes, city magistrates had a duty to remain and try to fight the plague—indeed, about half continued to attend the court even in the worst plague years. He concludes ‘As always, there is a great deal to learn from our past’.

Such an account of the experiences of Norwich is possible because a very full archive survives from the city and its environs, in particular records generated by the Mayor’s Court and by the City Assembly. Furthermore, some of the numerous parish registers are very detailed, even giving ‘plague’ as the cause of death and noting relationships between the deceased, making it possible to trace deaths in particular families. Indeed, Norwich is perhaps the only place in England with such detailed records of its plague visitations. Meeres has written this book to catch the interest of people in and around Norwich. There are only a handful of footnotes to each chapter, even though the author has clearly drawn on a huge number of documents. A bibliography of documentary and published sources would have been useful for the general reader.

Heather Falvey is the Reviews Editor for The Local Historian.

HARRIET KETTLE: Pauper, prisoner, patient and parent in Victorian Norfolk by Andy Reid (Poppyland Publishing 2021 viii+225 ISBN 978-1-909796-84-3) £10.95

The author’s name may be familiar to long-standing members of BALH, as he published a book for us in 1994, a study guide for local historians and teachers on union workhouses. Clearly his interest in the subject has continued and this book is a study of one particular pauper, for whom there is considerably more information than most. To quote from the blurb: ‘Harriet Kettle was a rebel against authority in Victorian times. With the death of her mother [from insanity] and with her father transported to Australia, she grew up in the workhouse [at Gressenhall, now owned by Norfolk Museum Service]. Becoming a sex worker in Norwich, she got into trouble and was imprisoned several times. Diagnosed with ‘moral insanity’ she spent periods in asylums before marrying … and having four children’.

The staff at Gressenhall run a very good project using volunteers, who are transcribing the MH12 records in The National Archives relating to the Mitford and Launditch Union, and the minute books of the Board of Guardians held by the Norfolk Record Office. Harriet is mentioned multiple times in the records; she clearly had a vicious temper and was frequently taken before the magistrates. She spent time in both the Walsingham and Wymondham Houses of Correction, several spells in the county lunatic asylum just outside Norwich, and a brief period in the Criminal Lunatic Asylum, later known as the Bethlem Hospital. As well as spending much of her early life in the Gressenhall workhouse, she also died there, probably in the infirmary. She appears to have also been known as Harriet Clarke and a child of the right age is recorded under that name in the 1841 census, living in the workhouse, together with two siblings; her elder sister Matilda appears to have kept in touch with her. Her father served his sentence in Australia and remarried in 1848, but was transported again the following year, this time for 15 years, and died in Australia in 1871.

One of the best sources for Harriet’s life is the casebook of the county lunatic asylum which is quoted extensively in the book. It seems clear that she found life in the workhouse difficult, especially its ‘irksome monotony and confinement’ and the first reference to her bad behaviour was in April 1851, when she was about 13. She clashed with the schoolmistress, a pattern that would recur throughout her life, and was punished by two days of solitary confinement and a bread and water diet. Several other instances of misconduct are recorded, until she was taken before the local magistrates. She was sentenced to 14 days imprisonment with hard labour. In January 1853 there was a serious disturbance in the dining hall, which led to her spending 42 days in prison. Between 1853 and 1856 she appears to have worked as a prostitute in Norwich, and the reason for her return to the workhouse is unclear. The next incident of bad behaviour possibly included an assault on the workhouse master, and this time Harriet was sentenced to a year in prison (increased from 21 days) because she was unable to give sureties for her future good behaviour.

In July 1856 she was described as a suicidal lunatic and transferred to the county asylum, but two months later the medical officer said she was well enough to be discharged. Unfortunately, the prison was not willing to take her back and she returned to her home village and started working as a prostitute again. At some point she returned to the workhouse and in November 1858 assaulted the assistant matron and tried to set fire to the workhouse. She was sent to the Wymondham House of Correction, pending trial at Norwich Assizes for arson. The following February she was again transferred to the county asylum, where she was generally well behaved. She was finally tried at the assizes in March 1860 and apparently hoped to be transported, but was found guilty and sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment. She continued to move between prison and the county asylum, but in August 1860 was certified as sane by the asylum medical officer. Finally, she was transferred to Bethlem in March 1861, where she stayed until the following October, having served her sentence. She lived with her sister for a time, being allowed outdoor relief, but was back in the workhouse in January 1862 and was pregnant. She continued to cause trouble and apparently lost her baby. The following April she was allowed outdoor relief again and was living in East Dereham, but was readmitted to the county asylum in July 1863 having tried to commit suicide.

She was discharged on probation in May 1864, again receiving outdoor relief, and in June 1865 married William Head, an agricultural labourer with whom she had three daughters and a son. Her bad behaviour continued and in November 1876 she was taken before the magistrates for attacking the schoolmistress at her children’s school. There were similar incidents in the following years, as well as disputes with her neighbours. This pattern continued with her children and grandchildren, several of whom got into trouble for misbehaviour and bad language. Harriet died on 8 May 1916; an inquest concluded that the cause was shock following a leg fracture. Her husband outlived her, surviving until August 1927 when he too died in the workhouse.

Reid provides much useful background information on the poor law, the prison system and asylums. This is a very readable book, based on very thorough research. There are some black and white illustrations within the text and an appendix, giving a selective timeline for Harriet. There is a bibliography and index. It is most unusual to have such detail on an individual pauper, and the book is recommended for anyone interested in the New Poor Law.

Kate Thompson was formerly county archivist of Leicestershire and of Hertfordshire, and her PhD thesis is on the Leicester Poor Law Union. She is one of the volunteers indexing the minute books of the Board of Guardians referred to above.

LAND OF LEAD The story of four generations of a North Ceredigion family by Brian Davies (Y Lolfa 2021 128pp ISBN 978-1-784619-66-4) £9.99

In this beautifully illustrated volume Brian Davies has used surviving documents from his own family collection to paint a vivid picture of life in parts of Cardiganshire (now Ceredigion) and beyond, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Cardiganshire was a small county whose modest wealth came from the sea, its lead mines and its agriculture. All of them are represented in this book: the lives of the author’s ancestors are a microcosm of the county’s history.

The book is divided into four chapters (Sea, War, Mine, Train), each recounting a different family story. Chapter one deals with the life and career of Captain William James, a sea captain on sailing ships registered at the Ports of Aberystwyth. Although he married into a family with a small farm, William James yearned to be at sea, despite suffering considerable misfortune during his maritime career. His surviving correspondence and accounts provide valuable insights into the difficult life of a nineteenth century sea captain. When eventually forced to abandon his profession, James found solace from his life as a dairyman and carrier in sketching and painting views of Aberystwyth and the coast. Many of these survive in the author’s collection and the sixteen full colour reproductions will be of considerable interest to local historians and lovers of sailing vessels.

The second chapter deals with the wartime experience of Wil James, son of the sea captain. Wil joined the Cardiganshire Battery, 2nd Welsh Brigade Royal Field Artillery, in August 1914, and the author relates his progress from training in ‘Tin Town’—a camp of corrugated huts near the village of Trawsfynydd—to fighting with the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, and the defence of Jerusalem. The chapter then proceeds to the experience of the family in the Second World War, when Wil’s two daughters volunteered for the WAAF and Land Army respectively while Wil served in the 1st Cardiganshire Home Guard.

The author’s paternal grandfather was a lead miner, and chapter 3 deals with his life. Many generations tried to avoid sending their children into mining, which was always dirty, hard and dangerous work. John David Davies’ father was a lead miner from my own village, and he tried to ensure that his son became an agricultural labourer instead of a miner, but economic necessity forced John David into first lead, and then coal mining. The story is not one of unmitigated gloom, as John David’s family were able to lead a frugal but mostly happy existence as a result of his commitment to supporting them

The final chapter, ‘Train’, is a brief exploration of the history of the Vale of Rheidol narrow gauge railway seen through the eyes and career of Isaac Jenkins, the author’s grandfather. The Llein Bach (‘Little Line’) is now a popular tourist route between Aberystwyth and Devils Bridge, but it was originally built to serve the lead mines, and was subsequently used for local traffic and to carry wood. Davies quotes two short works by ‘Isaac Jenkins, Ganger’ in full, which show a keen eye for detail and a great deal of affection for the little railway.

This book is a fine piece of local history, using the private archive of one family to explore the transformation of a small county and its people. The volume covers the century which saw railways replace the sea-trade, saw cheaper imports bankrupt local mining enterprises, and saw two world wars have unimaginable effects on the communities of the county. But despite the privations to which its protagonists were subject, the book is overwhelmingly affectionate and optimistic, full of justifiable pride in the abilities of the individual and the family to overcome adversity.

Helen Palmer is the county archivist for Ceredigion and lives in the hinterland of Aberystwyth near the long-abandoned lead mines described in this volume. The collections in her care reflect the history of the county and the contents of Land of Lead; in the shipping registers, the mining records, and the parish records are thousands more family and local history narratives just waiting to be told.

DICK THE DEVIL’S BAIRNS: Breaking the Border Mafia by Jon Tait (Rough Badger 2021 2nd edn 304pp ISBN 979-8-700768-56-6) £11.99 pbk via Amazon, also available as a Kindle book

Jon Tait, author of this ambitious account of the notorious activities of the Border Reivers, is by his own admission a descendant of a reiver and a native of Northumberland – ‘the border county’. He is interested in local heritage and legend, and the place of the reivers in the history of the borders and the ‘Debateable Land’ between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries. Tait argues that much of what we think we know and understand of the Border Reivers has been blurred by romanticised ballads and folk tales so this book, his ‘very real historic account’, promises much of interest and intrigue. For the uninitiated the author provides at the outset a brief explanation of the etymology of the word ‘reiver’ and outlines their lifestyle.

The first four chapters set the tone and outline the author’s perceived similarities between reiver activities and modern organised crime. A couple of reiver families are suggested as likely candidates for the ‘bairns’ of the title and reiver associates are identified. At this early stage the reader is left in no doubt that a central aspect of the book is to outline the main aim of reiving activities—to accrue wealth (‘land, title or cold hard cash’), throughout the long period of the turbulent relationship between England and Scotland. Tait’s summing up of the reivers’ strategic use of ‘The Border’ to gain advantage is succinct and clear. Chapter 2 includes a description of the ‘March Laws of the Border’ and seeks to put the reivers into a wider geographical context. The penultimate chapter listing reiver families in the various Marches would perhaps have been better placed alongside chapter 2 and maps would have helped to locate these numerous, and often bewildering, families in their territorial March lands. Two following chapters tell the story of the lives of two named individuals, their feuds and their dealings with English kings.

The author describes in some detail the ways in which bargains were struck between factions on both sides of the border and two long chapters entitled ‘The English Pledges’ and ‘The Scottish Pledges’ include comprehensive explanations of examples relating to named reiver families. These two chapters make up almost two-thirds of the book and the system of pledges is revealed to be an important aspect of reiver life. The ‘Pledges’ chapters outline the complex inter-family ties, and several specific instances of theft, murder and general lawlessness are discussed. Raiding parties, feuds and retribution abound within these pages and the language is robust. The book concludes with an examination of the gradual disintegration of some of the more notorious families although Tait argues that ‘the tribal mentality never really left’ this region. At this point a surname and/or subject index would have been very useful!

At 300 pages this is no lightweight tome. Within the text are some personal memories and also what are clearly quotations from other documentary sources, but the author provides no bibliography or references for them: these are disappointing omissions. The book is difficult to place into one particular category, but it is written with evident passion. It certainly provides food for thought, provokes discussion and is a very lively account of this period of lawless activity along the border.

Carol Dougherty lives in Cumbria and is currently involved in archaeological excavations and surveys in her local market town and on the Westmorland Dales limestone pavements.

ZENON VANTINI: From Grand Tour to Package Holiday by Pamela Sambrook (Lutterworth Press 2021 177pp ISBN 978-0-718895-76-1) £20

Zenon Vantini was born on Elba in 1797. As a young man he was a trusted companion of the exiled Napoleon on the island and was left 20,000 francs in Napoleon’s will. He fought at Waterloo, for the French, and died in Paris in 1870 at the height of the siege. So why is Pamela Sambrook’s book about him offered for review to a journal on British local history? Read on …

I first encountered Zenon while researching the early history of Fleetwood, the new town and port created on the Lancashire coast in the early 1840s. Building a railway to Scotland through the Lake District was then unthinkable. Passengers instead would disembark at Fleetwood and take a steamer to the Clyde. The enormous, palatial North Euston Hotel was built to accommodate and entertain them. Zenon was its proprietor. Local sources rumoured he was Corsican. That was wrong but I was intrigued. A search of the invaluable digitised newspapers revealed that he was already the proprietor of two other railway termini hotels at Euston in London. He was also active in promoting the establishment of what later became Rossall School in Fleetwood. By 1843, however, Vantini had realised that Fleetwood’s role as a rail terminus for Scotland would soon be redundant. He left. Pamela Sambrook’s fascinating book explains how he took the lease on the first railway refreshment rooms at Wolverton (Milton Keynes) and the Pavilion Hotel at Folkestone, followed by involvement in refreshment rooms and a hotel in Manchester and refreshment rooms elsewhere. Here was a man who was central to development of rail travel in England, providing accommodation and refreshments up and down the country. His wife and daughters were also central to the operations of his business empire, particularly in the 1840s.

In 1844 he applied for, and got, denizenship of Britain; clearly, he was intending to stay. Had he done so Sambrook’s research agenda would have been much simpler, but within a couple of years he was gone. By 1847 she finds him operating the Hotel des Chemins de Fer in Paris with 400 beds, elegant lounges and sitting rooms, as well as refreshment rooms at Amiens, Abbeville and Boulogne. All of these were advertised in conjunction with his Pavilion hotel in Folkestone to provide an all-in package holiday for English tourists to the city, travelling by ferry to Boulogne and being guided around Paris by English-speaking guides. All this was nearly a decade before Thomas Cook advertised his first foreign tours. Cook, indeed, must have known about Vantini since Sambrook quotes at length from a series of articles describing Vantini’s two-week package holiday under the title ‘A fortnight in France’ which appeared in no less than the Leicester Chronicle in 1847. He was the forgotten pioneer of the package holiday. From then on, despite retaining business interests in England, he would appear to have settled in Paris, enjoying mixed fortunes—the crisis of 1847 and revolution of 1848 did not help business.

As is the case with so much historical research, Pamela Sambrook’s fascination with Vantini’s career, and her subsequent research project, was a result of an unexpected discovery while investigating something entirely different—her earlier book based on the Sutherland papers of the Leveson-Gower family in Staffordshire Record Office. Vantini had been employed as their house steward between 1833 and 1840. As such he knew all about entertaining guests in style and both her books shed light on the household arrangements of the aristocracy at this time. But his correspondence with the estate’s head agent, James Loch, also contained fascinating details of the family travel arrangements between London, Staffordshire, Yorkshire and Dunrobin Castle in the north of Scotland, which reveal how Vantini acquired knowledge of the catering needs of travellers which he surmised would also apply to the emerging rail network. It is no coincidence that railways adopted the vocabulary of road transport—rail ‘roads’, ‘coaches’ and ‘carriages’. Just as roads needed hotels, so did railways. Vantini, recognising this, left to embark on a new career.

His career in England therefore sheds light on aristocratic household management, resorts like Fleetwood and Folkestone, early rail travel, hotels and refreshment rooms and pioneering package holidays. The story, as Sambrook concedes, has not been easy to piece together since Vantini left no papers to speak of but it is sufficiently detailed to provide intriguing insights into all these phenomena in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. But as a life biography Sambrook has sought to unravel the complexities of Vantini’s upbringing on Elba and, in the final chapters of the book, his extended time in Paris from the late 1840s. These elements clearly had their challenges in terms of availability of and access to sources, not helped by the arrival of Covid in early 2020 which, ironically given the international scope of this book and emphasis on travel, prevented any overseas travel. Nevertheless, they make a fascinating read, shedding light on the island’s life, on Napoleon’s own household arrangements and on Vantini’s relationship with the emperor. Sambrook also speculates that Vantini’s introduction to prominent English families may have come through meeting them when they visited Napoleon on the island but quite how, when and why he landed up in London in the early 1820s remains something of a mystery. I found the story as it unravelled absolutely intriguing.

So, how do we sum up the man and the significance of his life? He was clearly shrewd, pragmatic and single-minded. He had his faults, but also more than his fair share of bad luck in his involvements in Fleetwood and Paris. Perhaps his importance is best left to Sambrook to explain in the closing sentences of her book. He was a man who ‘helped to found a major public school at Fleetwood, who invented the guided, package holiday abroad which is so beloved by modern society today, and who pioneered the catering side of the mass tourist trade at the dawn of the railway age’. Apart from Rossall School he has left few physical legacies, but he highlights a feature of British history which has been often overlooked: the backgrounds and business careers of those involved in the early hospitality industry, which we now acknowledge to have developed to become a major component of our economy. More specifically it makes one appreciate how important immigrants like Vantini and his contemporaries were in this sector, men such as the Belgian Joseph Dethier who ran the Great Northern Railway Hotel at King’s Cross, and Frenchmen David Maurigy and James [Jacques] Edward Mivart, who ran the hotel which later became Claridges. Something to bear in mind when one next peruses the à la carte or table d’hôte menu perhaps? As for me, I think I will pop over to Fleetwood and visit the Vantini Rooms at what is still called the North Euston Hotel in Fleetwood, where apparently there is now a blue plaque on the wall commemorating his presence in the town.

Michael Winstanley lectured in regional and social history at Lancaster University between 1978 and 2010. He has published and lectured on a wide range of subjects related to the nineteenth century and the North West and continues to do so in ‘retirement’. He is currently working towards, among other things, completing an assessment of John Brownbill MA, professional antiquary and joint author of the Lancashire VCH.

THE LADIES OF LYDIARD by Frances Bevan (Hobnob Press 2021 166pp ISBN 978-1-914407-02-4) £14.95

The Ladies of Lydiard tells the story of the wives, daughters, sisters, and mothers associated with Lydiard, a country estate on the western edge of Swindon, over some eight centuries. For 500 of those years, they were members of the St John family. Of the majority of these ladies little is known, but then there are the exceptions, who make much more of an impression. They were long suffering, disappointed, or even notorious, and all were remarkable in their own way. The introduction provides a history of the house and its purchase by Swindon Corporation in 1943: had it not been for the Corporation there would probably be no house or park to provide a backdrop to The Ladies of Lydiard. It is good to be reminded of the then precarious state of the house and what could be achieved when someone with vision was on a local council. Today the Friends of Lydiard Park continue to keep that vision alive.

Perhaps the best place to start when looking at the history of the St Johns is the church of Lydiard Tregoze and its magnificent polyptych, especially if one arrives on a day when the panels are opened out. It is therefore a pity that a picture of the polyptych is not included among the illustrations. The polyptych demonstrates how the St Johns viewed themselves and their place in society. It is their interpretation of their family genealogy, and many of the ladies mentioned in the book can be found there.

Chapter 2 begins with the early ladies, for most of whom little but their name is known. Their marriages eventually brought Lydiard to the St Johns, starting with Sybil of Ewyas Harold (Herefordshire) in the twelfth century. Her marriage to Robert Tregoz gave him Lydiard and the manor its additional name. By the early fifteenth century the manor had descended to Margaret Beauchamp, who brought it to Oliver St John on their marriage and it remained in the St John family until 1943. Margaret Beauchamp married twice more and her second marriage, to John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, gave the St Johns a link to royalty. Her daughter from this marriage was Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry Tudor, who did a great deal to promote her half-siblings and extended family, although little of this is mentioned in the brief discussion of her life. This brevity might cause confusion to those unfamiliar with the history of the Wars of the Roses—we move from the death of Margaret’s husband Henry Stafford, in 1471, to her involvement in Buckingham’s rebellion in 1483. It is left to the reader to appreciate that Edward IV died in April 1483, that his son was proclaimed king Edward V, and was subsequently removed by Richard III. Attempts to restore Edward V, followed by rumours of his death at the hands of his uncle, are important in explaining Margaret’s actions in 1483 and the events which led to her son Henry becoming king in 1485. This is central to the elevation of the St Johns after 1485 and their view of themselves within society as shown on the polyptych.

Most chapters are dedicated to a century of St John women, with some described in more detail than others. There are some remarkable examples from the seventeenth century, including those who negotiated their way through the Civil War, such as Anne, Countess of Rochester, whose husband was fiercely Royalist, and Lucy Hutchinson, who wrote a biography of her husband, Colonel Hutchinson, one of the signatories to Charles I’s death warrant. As with many families the St Johns found themselves divided in their loyalties, but at the end of the day family came first and they did what they could to protect each other. There are also the notorious Barbara Villiers, Countess Castlemaine, Charles II’s mistress, and the unfortunate Henrietta, Lady Luxborough, disowned by her husband for an alleged affair. What they have in common was a determination to make their way in the world as best they could.

In covering over 800 years of history there are inevitably some generalisations and repeated myths—for example, that Sir William Craven, lord mayor of London in 1610-1611 (brother-in-law of Sir John St John, died 1648), was ‘the inspiration for the legend of Dick Whittington’. While this may appear to give the St Johns a link to a popular pantomime hero, the real Richard Whittington (died 1432) of the ‘legend’, was from Gloucestershire, and has no link to the St Johns. The book is short, and for some of the women there is much more that could be said, but each is given a similar amount of space for her story, which produces a more balanced book. The only criticism I would make is that it desperately needs a family tree of the St Johns and related families. Some of the relationships are quite complex, especially when St John cousins married.

Despite these small quibbles Frances Bevan has an easy, accessible writing style which carries the reader along and provides a good introduction to Lydiard and its ladies. Inevitably the reader is left wanting more, in which case you will need to go to the Friends of Lydiard Tregoze Reports. These were produced annually for forty years and are a mine of information on the St John family, local Lydiard families, and the history of the estate. The Friends was established by Canon Brian Carne who was rector at Lydiard, and Frank Smallwood, who was a master at Sir Walter St John’s School in Battersea. The Reports are currently being updated to include later notes and amendments made by Brian Carne, and will eventually be available on the Friends of Lydiard Park’s new website The Lydiard Archive. Meanwhile if you wish to know more about Lydiard’s ladies there are more articles by Frances Bevan, under the title ‘Good Gentlewoman’, on the Friends of Lydiard website https://www.friendsoflydiardpark.org.uk/living-history/good-gentlewoman/

Lynda Pidgeon’s main historical interest is in the late medieval period. She is a Friend of Lydiard Park and currently a volunteer on ‘Project Lydiard’, organising the transcription of wills from The National Archives which relate to people who lived at Lydiard Tregoze and Lydiard Millicent as well as members of the St John family. These will eventually be added to the Lydiard Archive at www.TheLydiardArchives.org.uk

THE WIVES OF THE BERKELEYS: families and marriage in Tudor and Stuart England by Jan Broadway (Xmera Ltd 2021 xvi+101pp ISBN 978-0-956742-81-0) £6+£2 p&p from www.xmera.co.uk/wives.html

History is so often written about men, but in The Wives of the Berkeleys Jan Broadway turns the tables and writes about the women of this influential Gloucestershire family. An early modern historian, she has turned her attention to the kinship relationships of the gentry. She writes that ‘the aristocracy and leading gentry of Tudor and Stuart England were a small, socially cohesive, heavily inter related group’: the Berkeleys married into not only the Stanhope/Townshend and Coke families but also the powerful Boleyn/Carey and Howard families. Anne Savage, Katherine Howard, Jane Stanhope and Elizabeth Carey are just four of the Berkeley wives who leap out from the pages of this book.

Anne Savage was born in around 1506, the daughter of Sir John Savage and his wife Anne. She married Thomas Berkeley in April 1533. It was a short marriage, as Thomas died within eighteen months, but one that produced two children. The couple caused much gossip among their contemporaries, who wondered how a mere gentlewoman without great wealth or beauty could secure such an advantageous marriage. However, Anne was one of the gentlewomen in attendance at the secret wedding of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn and her marriage to the very eligible Thomas Berkeley was believed to be a reward for her discretion. The Berkeley family had held Berkeley Castle since the twelfth century, however, following their marriage Thomas and Anne made their home at Yate Court, a fortified manor house refurbished by Maurice Lord Berkeley in 1517-1522 and situated some thirteen miles from Berkeley Castle. Dr Broadway cites the work of John Smyth as essential source material for her book. Smyth of Nibley was a lawyer, antiquary, and household steward to the Berkeleys, yet in his comprehensive account, The Lives of the Berkeleys, lords of the honour, castle and manor of Berkeley, in the county of Gloucester, from 1066-1618, he made little reference to the women of the family. He did, however, comment that he considered Anne Savage to be a ‘a lady of masculine spirit, over-powerfull with her husband’.

Anne’s son Henry married Katherine Howard, daughter of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey and sister of the reckless Duke of Norfolk. The Berkeleys’ connection to Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, drew them into danger during the Rising of the North in 1569, an unsuccessful rebellion to put the exiled Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots, on the English throne. Norfolk revealed that the Berkeleys had accompanied him at the hunt during the summer of that year, and in consequence they were held at Strensham, Worcestershire. Jan Broadway writes how after the execution of the Duke of Norfolk, Katherine, Lady Berkeley, ‘retired herself into her Chamber and private walks’ mourning her brother and the effect of his conviction on their wider family. Katherine suffered from dropsy, a condition that would eventually cause her death and the book describes her stoicism as she submitted to treatments, including excruciatingly painful surgery on her hand.

Following Katherine’s death in 1596 Henry, Lord Berkeley married Jane Townshend, an event which Smyth refers to as ‘this amorous humour or dotage in old men’. Jane managed to negotiate a lucrative marriage settlement and a rise in status which enabled her to control the lives of her two sons by her first marriage to Sir Roger Townshend. When her son John died, following wounds received during a duel, she bought the wardship of her young grandson along with control of his estate and the right to arrange his marriage. Jane outlived Henry by less than five years and died at her London home in January 1617/18.

Elizabeth Carey was born in 1576, the daughter of George Carey, 2nd Baron Hunsdon and great-granddaughter of Mary Boleyn. Elizabeth was well-educated, pious and possessed of a ‘sharp Wit’. She married Sir Thomas Berkeley, the son of Henry and Katherine in 1596. The couple lived at court, where keeping up appearances was expensive, and they soon accumulated huge debts. The marriage was not entirely happy, and they spent great periods of time apart. When the widowed Elizabeth, Lady Berkeley negotiated a second marriage in 1622 she insisted on retaining legal control of her own estate and wanted to see her prospective husband’s accounts before she committed herself. She demanded an immediate payment of £1000, to be repeated annually should he die, and she wanted to purchase land and property on behalf of their unborn children. Elizabeth also insisted that she would live with her husband or in her own houses as she wished, not as he commanded. As it transpired, her second husband Sir Thomas Chamberlain lived for only three years. Elizabeth died at her home in Cranford, Middlesex in 1635 and was buried in the parish church of St Dunstan. The inscription above her magnificent tomb makes reference to her relationship to the Boleyn family and Queen Elizabeth.

Jan Broadway’s book is meticulously researched with annotations and a comprehensive index. In The Wives of the Berkeleys she takes the reader into previously uncharted land, revealing the Berkeley women as being adept at controlling their marriages and their own lives. Without exception they were forceful characters: or, as Smyth would probably complain, ‘over-powerfull’.

Frances Bevan is a local historian and writer who has researched and written about the St John wives at Lydiard House, Swindon, Wiltshire. The St John women have frequently been overlooked in the history of the family and there are many parallels in the stories of the Berkeley wives. Anne Leighton, who married Sir John St John 1st Baronet was also a great granddaughter of Mary Boleyn.

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By Kate Thompson

(Hertfordshire University Press 2020 148pp ISBN 978-1-912260-29-4) £9.99

Two common characteristics of histories of educational settings are the dedication of staff and the shortage of funds and resources. This excellent little book reveals such a picture at the Letchworth Settlement, an idea which was built on the much longer-established adult school movement and grew after the First World War. The early part of the book follows a roughly chronological approach. A Ministry of Reconstruction report in 1919 stressed the role and importance of a liberal adult education. Toynbee Hall in London is usually regarded as the first Settlement, but they developed in many places in Europe, the United States and elsewhere. The establishment of the Educational Settlement Foundation in 1920 helped galvanise the movement and by 1935 there were 32 members including Letchworth.

The fact that Letchworth has celebrated its centenary indicates that this was a successful venture, although certainly not without challenges. A major reason for the choice of Letchworth as a venue for a Settlement was the idealism associated with its pioneering role as a Garden City. The best indication of its work in providing adult education in the town and the surrounding villages is the huge range and variety of courses offered. They provide a helpful guide to interests and needs over the century in which it has operated. Chapter 6 in particular gives an admirable account of the range of courses and lectures, some award-bearing and many not. Some belonged to a specific period, such as preparing housewives for decimalisation, and there has always been a strong emphasis on music, dancing and drama, but provision extends far beyond that: industrial history, English literature, geology, public speaking, the League of Nations Union Study Circle, nature study rambles, American history, chamber concerts, modern novelists, Russian life and literature, psychology, local history, ‘the problems of the unemployed’, the evolution of French art, embroidery, weather forecasting, socialism, tariff reform, rock climbing, bookbinding, tailoring, fencing, Esperanto, lip reading, Remembering the Beatles, a Beauty Forum, pre-retirement, race relations, using an iPad, and yoga.

The Letchworth Settlement was able to attract the support and involvement of prominent people. The historian Eileen Power gave a lecture as did E.M. Forster, and George Bernard Shaw was a supporter. Some prominent lecture series were organised with speakers including Viscount Haldane, Shirley Williams, Terry Waite and Baroness Warnock. There were visits abroad, to France, Italy, Switzerland and elsewhere. The challenges were many—in the early days, finding and developing suitable accommodation, balancing the academic versus the recreational, funding, central and local government attitudes to liberal adult education, and problems with recruiting and retaining staff given the low salaries that were offered. Nor were they alone in terms of providing adult education. There was competition from community centres, while after 1944 responsibility for providing adult education was given to local education authorities and some set up rival centres. The Letchworth Settlement had to adapt to survive.

That it did so was the result of a number of factors, although Kate Thompson clearly suggests that it was a close-run thing at times. There was a reliance on fundraising, and the generosity of the Letchworth community played a key role. The Settlement took its offering to many of the villages as well as its own centre, but it relied on many other local organisations using its facilities; for example, in 1985-1986 it was estimated that fifty other organisations were doing so. Although many users could be described as middle class, the Settlement reached out to those working in local industries. By the 1930s the majority of students were from factories and offices, with a preponderance of 20-40 year olds. Local industries could be very supportive. For example, a legacy from the American Spirella Company allowed the Settlement to build a new hall. Only members could attend lectures, so membership income was important.

By 1925 the Settlement had its own accommodation and relied on gifts of furniture and equipment. It tried hard to link closely to the community. The governing body included, for example, representatives from Hertfordshire County Council, the Workers Education Association and the Women’s Co-operative Guild and Trade and Labour Council. Its relevance to its community can be exemplified by the continuation during the Second World War of a range of classes, held under blackout conditions. There were classes for those arriving in the area (including evacuees) with practical themes such as hygiene and mothercraft. The war affected the classes in the villages, as petrol rationing, blackouts, men being called up and others being on civilian duties dealt a blow to many outlying activities.

The last fifty years have witnessed continued financial and administrative challenges, such as meeting rising health and safety demands. Gaps were plugged by legacies and much voluntary work, especially with decorating. Various attempts have been made to obtain lottery funding, with limited success. At times the story is of a hand to mouth existence—for example, a telephone cable snapped in 1999 and the Settlement managed without a telephone line for a month. It was also subject to the whim of changing government priorities. In the late 1980s and early 1990s there were many pressures on non-vocational adult education. In 1993 the power to fund further education was removed from local education authorities and by the end of that year the Letchworth warden was no longer full-time. Yet the book provides hope that the lofty ideals of the early Settlement have not vanished. It remains a centre in its own right and is a venue for groups as varied as ballet, marriage guidance and Gingerbread. Kate Thompson takes the story up to the Covid pandemic—yet another hurdle but one would put one’s money on the Settlement surviving this like so much else.

The later part of the book outlines the range of lectures and courses over the years; the key personalities; and its use by other organisations. Kate Thompson has trawled a range of sources such as record books, newspapers, minutes and scrapbooks to provide a fascinating picture of a type of educational service that receives nothing like the attention of other institutions. The overall impression is of a high-quality facility serving a non-metropolitan community with dedication and fervour. That it has survived 100 years to justify this publication is a testament to the vision, passion and resilience of a band of people who deserve not to be forgotten.Tim Lomas is a former chair of BALH and a current trustee. He has an interest in educational history and is currently involved in research on education in 1920s Devon.

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By A.D. Mills

(English Place Name Society: Survey of English Place Names vol.94 2020 vii+487pp ISBN 978 1 91164002 8) £45

The English Place Name Society volumes are a unique resource for explaining and understanding the history of a county, exploring the landscape, and looking back to a time before the earliest surviving documents when many names were first adopted. A.D. Mills has researched all five Dorset volumes and brings a lifetime’s knowledge to the introduction which, as is the custom with this series, is published as the final part. In the first four Dorset volumes Mills set out the names of the hundreds and parishes with their minor settlement and field names. Here he ties together the previous work by examining the names of rivers and districts, providing notes on phonology, gazetteers of personal names and place-name elements, categories of field names and minor names, and a transcription of the Anglo-Saxon charter boundaries. There is also an index to all five volumes.

The origins of names are endlessly fascinating and not always obvious: Bucky Doo Square in Weymouth, from the early modern English bucardo, meaning prison or dungeon; Chideock from the Primitive Welsh cediog, wooded. Sometimes the differing origins of names are not apparent until the earlier forms are examined: Caundle Marsh derives from the Old French mareis, whereas Margaret Marsh is from the Old English mersc. Landscape historians and archaeologists will find evidence of former land use in place-name elements: the clearance of ancient woodland in the element leah in Leigh, West Parley and Sixpenny Handley; pot-making at Crockern Stoke, Crockerton Hill and Potterne; cloth-bleaching at Buckhouse Farm; weaving at Loomcroft. The coney/coninger/conygar that indicate the presence of rabbit warrens throughout the county are almost as numerous as the laes/leaze elements commonly found in the names of enclosed pastures close to settlements, as in Cowleaze or Eweleaze.

When the language that gave rise to a name is no longer understood explanations of their origins may run away with themselves: the parish name Piddletrenthide derives from the Old English river name Pidele, a marshy stream, combined with the Old French trente (thirty) and the Middle English hide; it was an estate assessed as thirty hides beside a marshy stream. By the sixteenth century the central element was taken to be an alternative name for the river, perhaps because it was similar to other rivers called the Trent or the Dorset river Tarrant, and thus for part of its course the River Piddle became known as the Trent, based upon this misunderstanding.

The English Place Name Society produces volumes to a tried and tested formula which serves academics and local historians alike. There are two minor criticisms: the addition of maps showing the distribution of certain elements relating to settlement, agriculture and clearance would have been welcome, and the Anglo-Saxon charter boundaries, which are only provided in Old English, are inaccessible to most researchers without translations. The EPNS volumes examine the origins of the principal place-names within each county and give a flavour of those given to smaller settlements and fields. But the editors cannot examine every manuscript and describe every name, so there is plenty of scope for the local historian to expand the catalogue by searching deeds, court rolls and estate records. Classification of these newly discovered names is greatly assisted by nearly two hundred pages set aside by Mills to discuss Dorset’s place name elements. Future generations of local historians will spend long hours entertaining themselves and discovering new research areas through his work.

Mark Forrest has recently written the useful guide Reading Early Handwriting 1500-1700 for BALH and is currently working on a guide to manorial documents.

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By Rob David

(Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society 2020 156pp ISBN 978-1-873124-85-7) £17

A County of Refuge is an important addition to the existing body of work on refugees in Britain, and will interest academics and local historians alike. Rob David focuses on the experience of those refugees who made their way to Cumbria between the years 1933 and 1941, a period when the Lake District and the surrounding area played host to refugee communities from Spain, Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia. In focusing on Cumbria, David provides a crucial history of migration which is non-metropolitan. Discussion of a rural environment is welcome and necessary. While he acknowledges that Cumbria ‘attracted few migrants’ prior to the 1930s, it is perhaps easy to overlook the experience of the refugees who did come to the county and the importance of the local communities which assisted them.

The book is divided into three parts. In the first David provides a brief but informative background of the individuals and families covered in his research. These case studies give a fascinating account of the ‘disrupted lives’ of the displaced. This is followed by discussion of Britain’s immigration policy from 1933 to 1941 and consideration of the British efforts to assist refugees from Spain, Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia. His insights on Sir John Hope Simpson, Liberal politician and international advocate of refugee issues, are particularly noteworthy and frame this work in a wider context. Part 2 examines efforts to assist refugees which occurred across Cumbria. Through six chapters David explores the work of the (mostly female) volunteers who assisted refugees in Brampton, Wigton, Carlisle, Windermere and Whitehaven. Part 3 presents an epilogue which draws together the research covered in the work and provides discussion of the integration of European refugees into British society after the War.

Rob David’s work, despite its regional focus, contributes to the wider field of refugee studies. In common with other scholars such as Kushner and Gill, he explores popular support and cultural interaction between Cumbrians and refugees, identifying the broad-based support that refugees attracted. For example, he notes that colliers, trade unionists, businesspeople, charities and churches all donated at various points to refugee communities across the county. Moreover, the inclusion of information on the popularity of folk dancing and singing by Basque refugees to raise funds offers insight into meaningful cultural exchange between British and Basque communities. As David observes, the public ‘strongly supported cultural events involving refugees’. The contribution of refugees to culture within the region appear to have been notable—Austrian and German emigres in the Lake District were involved in holding educational and artistic events. Refugees were not immune to xenophobia: common anti-migrant sentiments recorded elsewhere affected refugees in Cumbria. They were said to impact upon employment, housing and crime. For example, English forestry workers at Derwentwater complained regarding fellow workers from the Sudetenland. Nevertheless, David argues that xenophobia was not a salient feature of life for refugees in Cumbria, attributing this to the relatively short history of migration to the county.

The discussion of investment by wealthy refugees is particularly important. Cumbria had been recognised by the Special Areas Act of 1934 as economically depressed. Frank Anderson, Labour MP for Whitehaven, and John Adams, director of the West Cumberland Development Company, attracted investment to the region by Jewish émigré entrepreneurs. Dr M.A. Steiner and F.S. Hayck established Cumberland Childware Ltd to produce children’s clothing in Maryport. Throughout the Second World War garment factories and food processing centres were created by Jewish industrialists from Germany, Poland and Hungary. These factories employed refugees and local people alike. During the war some of these establishments were transformed into production centres for military uniforms and aircraft parts. Notable among the companies created by refugees was the beret manufacturer Kangol, owned by Polish-French Jew Jacques Speiregan, who established a factory in Cleator in 1937. The impact of government restrictions upon aliens forms the basis of the penultimate chapter. The introduction of Aliens’ Tribunals in 1939 and later extensions to internment affected Austrian and German passport holders already resident in Britain. While most refugees were interned for a short period, David notes that one German internee was later killed on board the Arandora Star in July 1940.

The structure of A County of Refuge to some extent conceals the significance of the research. Initial discussion of the context of the historical and political context for refugees is perhaps too brief. Moreover, a brief account of Cumbria during the interwar years would have strengthened David’s principal arguments. Nevertheless, he has undertaken an impressive level of research, spanning local archives, secondary literature and oral histories. Indeed, his use of the individual stories of refugees and volunteers is the book’s greatest strength. As Gatrell has noted, refugee voices are too often absent within historical research. The inclusion of letters, anecdotes, photographs, and paintings create an immersive account of the efforts to assist refugees in Cumbria. In the final chapter, David refers to his own father’s experience of escape from Germany and internment—following his release from the Isle of Man in December 1940, he attended Manchester University, and his expertise in chemistry assisted with the production of Ensis Fluid 256, which was used to protect electronics from sea water during the D-Day landings. Inclusion of this personal story adds to the overall significance of A County of Refuge and underlines the wider contribution of exiles to the Allied War effort. Kieran Taylor is a Scottish historian with an interest in immigration history, refugee studies and civic development. His PhD thesis examined Glasgow Corporation's relief of Belgian refugees during the First World War.

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By Ray Alder

(Hobnob Press Chippenham Studies no.5 2021 vi+298pp ISBN 978-1-914407-04-8) £19.95

Unity and Loyalty is an intriguing title for this fascinating and profusely illustrated history of Chippenham’s Red Cross Hospital which provided convalescent care for those injured in the First World War. As the author explains, these were the names of the hospital’s two principal wards and were the town’s motto. Since the hospital was located in the Town Hall and later, to expand capacity, the adjoining Neeld Hall, this seems entirely appropriate.

The book is divided into four parts. In the first, covering the years leading up to the outbreak of the War, the approach is primarily chronological, although themes to the fore include the fear of invasion; the scheme of voluntary aid and registration of voluntary aid detachments; the role of organisations, including the Red Cross and the Order of St John of Jerusalem Ambulance Association; and the identification of buildings that could be used as rest stations and temporary hospitals in the event of hostilities. In each case, close attention is given to the impact of these on Chippenham and elsewhere in north Wiltshire. This approach is continued in Part 2, with the course of the war and the implications of what was happening on the front line for the local area in general, and the Hospital (following its opening in October 1915) in particular, being examined in considerable detail. As evidenced, the war touched many aspects of daily life. The third part is primarily thematic, with chapters on the care provided in the hospital; its discipline and routines; entertainment for the patients, including sporting events; the raising of funds; ambulances; and outings and friendships, including romances some of which resulted in matrimony. The final part covers the period between the armistice of November 1918 and the hospital’s closure in October 1919. Attention is also given to what might be described as its legacy. There are two appendices, the first of which provides brief pen portraits of the many women and small number of men who contributed to the running of the hospital and its ancillary services. This will be of particular value to family historians. The second consists of lists of those who comprised Red Cross working parties in the Chippenham Division. There is also a bibliography and an index which is of considerable value for a publication of this length.

Overall, the book brings out very clearly the interplay between an event of global significance and its impact on the life of a local community. One of the most poignant examples of this was the fact that Mrs Helena Jane Wilson (1858-1934), who served as the Hospital’s exemplary commandant and was awarded the OBE, lost all three of her sons during the conflict. Two other examples were the conversion of the premises of the local railway signalling company of Saxby and Farmer into a munitions factory, and the enlisting of schoolchildren to work on the allotments when food was in scarce supply. There were also the challenges involved in establishing a hospital almost from scratch, with considerable attention being given to practical issues including the recruitment of a wide variety of staff, from nurses to cooks and from kitchen-maids to clerks; cleaning arrangements and the provision of laundry facilities; transportation of the injured; and finance.

Applied to the research which underpins Unity and Loyalty, the cliché ‘no stone has been left unturned’ is entirely apposite. Ray Alder is to be commended for the wide range of sources he was able to access with his extensive list of acknowledgments and the range and variety of references speaking for themselves. In addition, he is to be applauded for amassing such a wonderfully evocative and diverse collection of photographs as illustrations. These greatly enhance the text and assist in capturing something of the atmosphere in the hospital and aspects of life in the local community and surrounding area. They also help to show that despite the gravity of the War there were also opportunities for relaxation and enjoyment, such as ‘Patients in Pierrot costumes, an act at a Chippenham variety show’; ‘Fun Day at the Saxby and Farmer sports ground’; and ‘Patients in fancy dress at the Red Cross Fete’. In addition, there are some amusing cartoons, such as one showing the badly-fitting blue uniform patients were required to wear: ‘The men were easily recognised in their uniform, known as hospital (or convalescent) blues. The uniform jacket and trousers were made of blue flannel and worn with a white shirt and red tie … [They were] designed without pockets and in just a few sizes. This standardisation, although saving money, meant that suits were generally a poor fit and men complained that trousers were either too long or too short and sleeves had to be turned up’. Another feature is the testimony of patients praising the high quality of the care and the many kindnesses they received. Indeed ‘The Final Word’ is a letter from Vincent Boreham, an Australian who served in France, in which he expresses appreciation of his ‘happy memories of Chippenham during the War’.

As the author explains, the catalyst for the book was an exhibition held at Chippenham Museum to commemorate the centenary of the First World War, and ‘the fact that the town had its own temporary Red Cross Hospital’. Thus, the resulting publication can be thoroughly recommended for anyone interested in not only the First World War but also what may be broadly described as international history mediated through experiences at the grassroots. How Chippenham and its inhabitants rose to the challenge of contributing to the war effort on the home front lies at the very heart of this book. But it is to be hoped that it will appeal to a wider readership than simply the residents of Chippenham and its environs. Certainly this reviewer, who is not familiar with the area, found it to be an enjoyable, enlightening and, on occasions, affecting read.

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 Christopher French

(Borough of Twickenham Local History Society 2021 140pp ISBN 978-1-911145-05-9) £6.50

In his earlier book on the growth of Fulwell between 1870 and 1939 Dr French documented the time during which Fulwell became a fully-built environment with community facilities and a fairly stable population. This new book describes the regeneration of Fulwell from 1939 to 2020, using a wealth of photographs, contemporary documents, plans, drawings and memorabilia. Most of his detailed research was carried out during the pandemic but, thanks to the internet, was largely unimpeded. The book includes recollections by local people of the communities in which they lived and meticulously records the changes in the built environment that brought Fulwell into ‘renewed existence’.

The opening chapter covers the effects of the Second World War on Fulwell and includes entries from official Air Raid Diaries and personal descriptions of the damage caused by the bombing. One ARP warden received a medal for locating a family trapped in their house: he ‘scrambled over debris … and supported the weight of the falling debris upon his shoulder until help came’. There are vivid accounts of evacuations to Cornwall during the V1 and V2 aerial bombings in 1944 and of school life. Fulwell golf course was taken over for food production and pig bins were attached to lamp posts for collecting animal feed.

Dr French then looks in detail at housing, shops and places of work after 1945, as well as community facilities. Although a relatively few new houses and a greater number of flats have been built since 1939, he describes, with reference to detailed plans, the creation of some new residential roads, the rebuilding of damaged buildings, the ‘gentrification’ of the existing houses and the advent of social housing. Changing patterns of ownership are also traced and the extraordinary rise in house values from an average of £4949 in January 1970 to £79,909 in January 1990.

Perhaps unusually, Fulwell has lost few of its small shops but changes in type over the period are remarkable—from predominantly food, drink, newspapers and tobacco, and services such as chemists, to nail and beauty spas, tattoo parlours, restaurants, wine bars, cafés and takeaways, showrooms and fashion. A baker’s and a hairdresser’s however have survived unscathed from 1939. Locals recall one hairdresser who ‘came in with the Boston haircut when it became popular’ and a toy shop that ‘held a Yo-Yo exhibition outside … with an expert doing tricks’. Pearce Duff’s Custard premises gave way to eight light industrial units and the site is now becoming residential. The most significant place of work however is still the Fulwell bus garage which opened in 1902, evolving from trolley buses to double- and then single-decker buses. Two sisters recorded their work as ‘clippies’: ‘I loved it because I was in charge of the driver’. The loss of its social club and sporting facilities, and with it the cup-winning Fulwell Garage Football Team, is regretted.

The final chapter describes the changes in schools, youth centres, churches and public houses. The evolution of the education system was reflected in the alterations to the schools during this period, but school journeys are still remembered fondly. One pupil recalled a trip to Gloucester where ‘they visited a coal mine, ruined abbeys and castles and climbed a high hill called Lord Hereford’s Knob … It was wonderful!’. Teachers are also recalled with varying degrees of affection. Of one a pupil wrote, ‘It was woe betide me when Miss Inkpen was riding her bike home and caught me swinging the beret around!’. One school caught fire in 1967 and a local resident remembers: ‘The night of the fire we were awoken by the sound of loud gunfire at 3am, by then the sky was lit up with flames and the gunfire turned out to be the roof tiles exploding’. Teddington Youth Centre, situated in Fulwell and opened in 1969, was a popular centre for quizzes, table tennis and trips, together with lessons in judo and self-defence but is now the home of the first after-school care providers in the area, which was established in 1991. The churches in Fulwell have also suffered mixed fates. One experienced such a decline in parishioners that it was closed in 2001 and allowed to deteriorate (losing a richly carved reredos); however, in 2010 it was listed and is now the home of a new congregation. A new Catholic church was opened in 1966, building on a century of local missionary work, but the Fulwell Evangelical Free Church has also closed. The public houses are also centres of the community: one has been in business for 150 years but a wine bar opened in 1970 only lasted until 2002. Finally, mention is made of the two long-established Fulwell landmarks: the golf club and the garden centre, although in 2002 their combined land was subject to a local task force report into possible irregularities.

Dr French concludes that despite many changes it is still possible to identify a real sense of community in Fulwell and the book ends appositely with two pictures of street parties—one being the York Road Coronation Street Party in 1952 and one recorded recently on Facebook.

Rachel Barnes has lived in Twickenham for over 40 years but, despite its proximity to Fulwell, she has hitherto only been familiar with the bus garage, the garden centre and Stanley Road. This book repairs that gap in her knowledge and has introduced her to some fascinating Second World War history as well as giving a detailed account of the changes in community life in Fulwell up to the present day.

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By Marsha O’Mahony

(Logaston Press 2021 x+262pp ISBN 978-1-910839-44-7) £15

There is a significant difference between ale and beer—ale relies on malt for its flavour, while hops add flavour and other properties to beer. Hops are thought to have been introduced to this country in the sixteenth century, and their cultivation was one of Thomas Tusser’s Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie (1557). The first woodcut of a hop, by C. Plantin, appeared in 1581, showing, incorrectly, the hop-bine climbing anti-clockwise, whereas it climbs clockwise. The gradual shift from ale to beer had a consequent effect on the cultivation of hops, which became widespread. In the nineteenth century commercial hop-growing became centred on the West Midlands and Kent areas, the latter in that period having a rather greater acreage. Both areas had labour resources nearby, London in the case of Kent, and the West Midlands conurbation for the hop-growing area in the south-west of the region—essentially the area between the Severn and Wye, mostly in Herefordshire, but overlapping into Shropshire and rather more into Worcestershire.

It has always been assumed that the arrival of the railways in the 1850s was a prime factor in stimulating the annual invasion of the hop-pickers in September and October, but there are indications that this had already begun, and was expedited by the coming of the railways. So, for instance, on 20 October 1855, the Hereford Times reported, under a Worcester by-line, that the picking had almost closed, and the hop-pickers were returning to the manufacturing districts, and had ‘made a pretty good purse, which enables them to travel northward by rail, instead on foot as here[to]fore’. At this time the only station in Worcester was Shrub Hill, which had been opened in 1850, thus giving a terminus pre quem for this migration. Hop-pickers also came to the area from South Wales, and the hop-harvest was one of the destinations of the Romany gypsies on their regular travels in search of work.

The annual hop-picking holiday in the West Midlands was a feature of the industry until its decline in the 1940s and ‘50s, but for many who participated, particularly as children, this holiday in the hop-yards was a highlight of the year. Consequently, when the Bromyard and District Local History Society produced a book entitled A Pocketful of Hops in 1988, following appeals to former hop-pickers in the West Midlands newspapers, there was no shortage of written responses. An updated version of the book, which covers a six-mile radius about Bromyard, was published in 2007, and there have been other publications such as Christine Faulkner’s Hops and Hop-Pickers, undated but post-1989, which gives a Dudley perspective on hop-picking.

The Bromyard Local History Society book told the history of hop-picking in the area and used the material sent in to amplify and illustrate this, unlike The Scratch of the Hop in which the main thrust is the oral testimony. While it is stated to be the story of hop-picking, it covers all aspects of the production of hops, and brings it up to the present, so that hop-picking itself occupies only about a quarter of the text. Such a book lends itself to illustration, and it is remarkable how many photographs survive of the various activities associated with hop-growing. This volume has numerous photographs, although these are not listed at the front, and while earlier photographs are in black and white, the most recent are printed in colour. A number of the images were taken in the past by professional photographers, and these are some of the most striking in the book. Some show the Romany gypsies who regularly helped with the hop-picking, whose ancestors may well have been the first casual workers employed in this task.

In the late 1940s local authorities began to clamp down on children missing school to go hop-picking. This coincided with the gradual introduction of hop-picking machines, which very much reduced the demand for casual labour, and essentially the annual migration was finished by the end of the 1950s. Inevitably, therefore, those who were interviewed for this book about hop-picking itself would have been very young at the time, and a different perspective would perhaps have been given by their parents. It is also difficult to establish the views of local residents about the annual influx—on occasion this might not have been too welcoming. As an example, I am aware that at hop-picking time the public house at Burley Gate, not far from Ullingswick, where my wife’s grandfather grew hops at Lower Court, banned hop-pickers from entry: they had to consume their drinks in a corrugated iron shed which was used as a changing room for a local youth football team. Locals had to knock to be admitted to the Burley Gate Inn. On the other hand, it is clear that in many cases there were bonds between the hop-pickers and the farmer. Certainly, the same families of hop-pickers worked at Lower Court, Ullingswick, over a long period, until the farm was sold up in 1955 and hop-growing ceased: many years later my mother-in-law could still remember the names of those families, and when my wife and I lived in the farmhouse those names were still pencilled on a sliding door at the base of the hop kiln.

Inevitably there are a few niggles. In the introduction it would have been helpful to state how the various reminiscences were collected: presumably from interviews, but how were the subjects found or chosen? There is no real mention of the Kentish hop-gardens, and at least a comparison would be useful. There are few statistics, to give an idea of the size of the industry in previous times and now. I accept that this is a book on oral history, but these are necessary to set the context. There are also some mistakes in the names, only obvious to those with local knowledge, and for a couple of earlier reminiscences the source is not immediately identifiable. That said, the book gives a readable, and up-to-date account of the current hop industry in the West Midlands, much information being provided by prominent local growers, and paints a good picture of the past in living memory. It should be used as a starting point in the study of this industry, rather than as an end in itself.

John C. Eisel FSA is an active member of the Woolhope Club in Hereford, and has published many papers on nineteenth-century Hereford in the Club’s Transactions. Co-author of a number of books on Herefordshire, as a bell-ringer he writes extensively on the history of change-ringing and is a contributor to the ODNB. He is recognised as a national authority on the development of medieval and seventeenth-century bell frames.

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By Gillian Pugh

(Rickmansworth Historical Society 2021 156pp ISBN 978-0-9544583-4-8) £12+p&p from gillian.pugh@gmail.com

‘Labour of love’ is overused as a term, but it surely applies to this book. Dame Gillian Pugh has had a long and industrious career, including being the chief executive of Coram, and has frequently espoused causes related to vulnerable children. In this capacity she has advised governments and many others. One of her other educational activities has been as a former chair of governors at this Chorleywood school. That she is proud of this school is something of an understatement. There is no question that it has been successful, and a good part of the book is an account of its many achievements in recent decades. It stops short of the pandemic—but many school histories give only thin coverage to the most recent decade. This book illustrates well how much has happened in terms of organisation—the pastoral side as well as the curriculum, inspection, the relationship with parents and community and finance. For those outside the world of education it can be a bewildering array of changes and challenges. It is as well that the author has been at the heart of many of these changes (and acronyms), for she explains everything clearly.

But the book is not solely about recent years—it adopts a predominantly chronological approach from the beginnings over 150 years ago. Much is organised around the headteachers who served the school and the many changes with which each was involved. As with many schools, the succession of headmasters has given way in recent years to female leaders. Looking at the school via the staff, governors and parents provides a human touch. Sadly, for example, three headteachers died young, while in office, a reminder that school histories should recognise that illness affected was not only the pupils but the adults as well. In the early days of the school many parents were reluctant to send their children there. They often ignored the summons of the attendance officer and the threepenny fine. Good attendance needed all kinds of incentives in the nineteenth century: medals, certificates, remission of school pence, even being able to leave a quarter of an hour early at the end of the day. The author recognises that the story cannot be adequately told without providing details of the community development, as Chorleywood grew from a rural village after the coming of the railway, into a commuter town. She quotes an early twentieth-first century survey that apparently identified Chorleywood as the happiest place in the country.

Three things might imply that Christ Church is rather untypical. The close relationship with the Church of England is one. The author has traced this through the years, and it remains strong today. It has led to tensions, largely as a result of the school’s popularity (meaning difficult decisions about who to admit). The local vicar has always been an integral part of school life. Secondly, the school seems to have had an inexhaustible supply of support and expertise. That did not simply lead to some huge amounts of funds being raised, but also means that the school has been able to draw on all kinds of influence and skills, obviously a feature of its catchment area. Parental support has been strong, although it took 16 years for a Parent Teacher Association to be formed after its first being mooted. A third distinctive feature is the school’s success, especially in recent years. The author provides plenty of evidence of what it has achieved—an Ofsted ‘outstanding’ and top of the table for Hertfordshire schools—and there are plenty of testimonies throughout the book of people who were delighted to have been taught there or to have worked there. The overarching feeling is that for much of its life everyone was pushing in the same direction, dedicated to the school ethos and the needs of children and parents. Recent headteachers have worked with the local community and have known it well.

There are inevitably some stones left unturned. I do not pretend to know the school but am well aware of the many challenges facing schools in the last decade. If this school has had an idyllic existence, it has been a very rare beast. The book clearly does not advocate local education authorities and is totally supportive of grant maintained status and academisation, as giving it its independence … but it is not clear what it was so keen to escape from. There are some ‘warts and all’ aspects but they tend to be from the earlier years, when there were large class sizes, cramped accommodation, poor ventilation, bad lighting, unsuitable temperatures and some mediocre HMI assessments. For many years the headteachers have been thoroughly decent and committed, unlike the first recorded teacher, William Roe, who ‘speedily showed incompetence both as a school master and a player of the harmonium’.

The author has been able to draw on a good range of sources including personal experience and the evidence of many people—there is an extremely long list of acknowledgements. Other records include the extensive series of log books (which initially are noted as going back to 1863 but a later chapter states that the Reverend James Aitken arrived in 1867 and started the school log books). Gillian Pugh has also used governor minutes, headteacher reports, parish magazines, photographs and press cuttings. The book is well illustrated with pictures, some in colour. It is easy to read, often joyful, carefully laid out and on good quality paper. The book largely succeeds in convincing us that this is how a good school should be—ambitious, united, at ease with itself, able to adapt to a changing world while also proud of its traditions and ethos. The school is still on the same site despite many alterations and additions, and we are reminded that ‘children are still sitting here as they did 150 years ago’.

Tim Lomas is a trustee of the BALH and a former chair. Previously he was a teacher and inspector with an interest in educational history. He is currently involved in research into education in Devon in the 1920s.

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By Janet Murphy

(Bannister Publications 2021 v+128pp ISBN 978-1-909813-74-8) £8.50 from the author at 214 Walton Road, Chesterfield S40 3BS

This book offers brief biographies of fifty women associated with the north-east Derbyshire town of Chesterfield, arranged alphabetically, and chiefly nineteenth to late-twentieth century in date. Well-known for its radical tradition, Chesterfield produced a number of suffragettes and suffragists, some of whom had distinguished careers during and after the First World War. The first female Chesterfield Borough councillor was elected in 1925, while other local authority, religious, and charitable bodies provided opportunities for women to influence policy. Welfare reform, education, nursing, and what would now be called social services were typical areas in which they could develop both practical skills and political roles, but proficiency in aesthetic activities (by musicians, actors, and one film star) also feature in this compilation. Most information is taken from published or internet genealogical sources, rather than personal papers, but reports from local newspapers add colour and detail. Many described here were not public figures, but were role models in their private lives, becoming in various ways public benefactors. An attractive aspect of this work is that it does not focus only on the wealthy and privileged, but includes individuals who were disadvantaged, sometimes having overcome deprivation and personal tragedy.

This is a well-researched, attractively produced, and unpretentious book, rewarding to read because of inspirational and illuminating stories as well as entertaining anecdotes. In addition to business women who established careers in such male-dominated spheres as monumental masonry, there are also accounts of individuals, such as Florrie Green, daughter of a miner, who was a founder member of Chesterfield Ladies’ Football Club in 1917 and active in the sport until women’s clubs were banned in 1921; Betty Heathfield, who was prominent in the campaign Women Against Pit Closures during the miners’ strike of 1984–5; Annie King, a member from 1898 of the China Inland Mission and murdered there during the Boxer rebellion in 1900; Catherine Richardson, in 1992 first female president of the Methodist Conference; Rose Smith, a committed Marxist and National Women’s Organiser for the Communist Party of Great Britain, who became a journalist for the Daily Worker newspaper, emigrated to China in 1961 at the invitation of the Communist government and, after her death in 1985, was buried in the Revolutionary Martyrs’ Cemetery in Beijing; Minnie Wheatcroft, a labourer’s daughter who was widowed when her soldier husband died of terrible injuries on active service in 1917, but who then enlisted in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps and spent the rest of the war driving ambulances in France; Susan Shentall, a Rank starlet who never regarded her role in the 1954 film of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ as other than a one-off ‘bit of fun’, despite being considered as a replacement for the actor Grace Kelly; and Helen Wilcoxson, in 1939 the first Chesterfield member of the Civil Air Guard to qualify for her pilot’s ‘A’ certificate, but whose initial cross-country flight was hampered by the loss of her compass, forcing her to rely on the name ‘Burton’ painted on the top of Burton on Trent’s gasometer to find her way home.

This is not a book about Chesterfield the place, but it reminds us that ‘ordinary’ people can make a difference and this is what deserves to be commemorated. So, as well as providing a new feminine perspective on local personalities, it should encourage researchers elsewhere to look beyond conventional perceptions of women’s lives, and to seek to demonstrate, as in these biographies, that there is much to uncover. Moreover, this paperback also serves a charitable purpose as all proceeds from sales will go to Ashgate Hospicecare.

Margaret O’Sullivan was a former county archivist of Derbyshire, and was a past chair of the British Association for Local History. In retirement she continued to research and write about eighteenth- and nineteenth-century women associated with the Midlands. Margaret died in late September 2021.

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By David Griffiths

with photography by Andrew Caveney (Huddersfield Civic Society 2020 92pp ISBN 978-0-9956328-2-0) £9.95+p&p

This book is a companion volume to the author’s Villas of Egerton, published in 2017, both of which extend understanding about the nature and extent of suburban growth in nineteenth-century Huddersfield. The suburb was located about half a mile north-west of the town centre and was therefore within easy reach of town centre facilities, as well as providing a more exclusive and healthier place to live than elsewhere in the town. Much of the building in the suburb took the form of ribbon development along New North Road (the present-day A629), which was established as a turnpike route between Huddersfield and Halifax during the mid-1820s. Most buildings associated with it have survived, though notable losses were incurred by the construction of part of the town’s ring road during the early 1970s. In addition to evidence provided by the buildings themselves, the author bases his study on various types of documentary sources, including historical maps, property deeds, rate books, census schedules, trade directories and building plans.

There are six chapters. With the aid of an extract from John Bradley’s 1820 map, the area prior to the development of the suburb is considered, focusing on Newhouse, a much-altered residence occupied by several generations of the Bradley family. The second chapter focuses on the early growth of the suburb during the 1820s and 1830s. The various housing types that arose along the main road and the newly-formed side streets that extended from it are noted. They included modestly-sized, two-storey terraced dwellings with ashlar frontages, front gardens and differing forms of doorway lintel decoration, as well as detached villas, of which Belgrave House, with its eight principal rooms having a fireplace, is a notable example. Chapters 3 and 4 demonstrate how the suburb continued to develop during the Victorian era. Among the key changes noted are the erection of several villa houses along New North Road by the early 1850s and the provision of non-domestic buildings, including the remarkable Huddersfield College, a symmetrical gothic-style structure displaying an impressive range of crenelations, turrets and four-centred arches. Opened in 1840 as a fee-paying Anglican school for boys, the aim of its founders, who were substantial local businessmen, was to ‘furnish facilities for securing first-rate Classical, Mathematical and Commercial Education, on the most Economical Terms’. As was the case more generally in Victorian suburbs, there was scope to introduce revived gothic styles of architecture in private houses as well as community buildings, though classical styles, portrayed in varying ways, remained dominant. Ebor Mount, a row of three gable-fronted residences situated along New North Road, provides an example.

The three remaining chapters discuss themes focusing on ways in which the suburb has developed. That dealing with religious matters traces the places of worship provided by various denominations, including the impressive Highfields Chapel, with its ‘giant Ionic columns and Tuscan pilasters’, fronted by the setts of Highfields Road. Educational developments are addressed in the following chapter, with consideration being given to provision made for girls as well as for boys. Examples are cited of the ubiquitous day ‘schools for young ladies’, which catered for boarding as well as day pupils and made use of sizeable, middle-class houses for the purpose. The final chapter considers how changes taking place during the twentieth century have impacted on the suburb, focusing on the construction of the Huddersfield ring road and the arrival of immigrant communities from various parts of the world, particularly after the Second World War.

The book’s findings draw on detailed investigation of documentary evidence relating to the dating, occupancy and ownership of the suburb’s buildings and their changing use over time. First-rate photographs of a selection of the buildings, and of the documentary material consulted, are included. So, too, are helpful outline maps that locate the buildings, along with tables that record key details about them. Comment is also made on their architectural features, in some instances with the views of contemporaries being incorporated. And taking a long-term perspective on the suburb’s history brings conservation issues into consideration, as well as the socio-economic changes that occurred.

Helpful contextual comment is incorporated in places, as in noting the Unitarian preference for revived Gothic styles of architecture. But perhaps more might have been attempted in this respect, at least in a conclusion, with a view to demonstrating how the findings from the study add to more general understanding about the nature of nineteenth-century suburban development in Britain and the varying social and economic status of suburban dwellers. Peter Burnett’s notion of ‘a tier of middle-classes’ provides guidance in this respect. Comparison with the main findings arising from the author’s equally informative and well-presented study of Huddersfield’s Edgerton suburb would have been valuable, too, maybe helping to boost the sales of both. Readers will certainly gain from undertaking the perambulation around the suburb that the author suggests, taking the opportunity to appreciate the quality of the buildings and to reflect on the aspirations of those who erected them and on the way of life of those who lived and worked in them.

Geoff Timmins has research interests which centre on the history of the built environment, especially from the eighteenth century onwards. Aspects of housing history in relation to the development of both rural and urban settlement are a particular interest.

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By Frank Meeres

(Poppyland Publishing 2021 vi+138pp ISBN 978-1-909796-82-9) £9.95

Frank Meeres seeks to link the reactions of Norwich’s leaders to outbreaks of plague with ways in which the authorities dealt with the global pandemic of 2020-2021. His aims, clearly stated on the back cover, are intended to draw local readers into his detailed account of the period from the Black Death in 1348-1349 to the final outbreak of plague in Norwich in 1665-1666. He argues that, although expressed differently, the concepts of ‘key workers’, ‘lockdown’, ‘shielding’ and ‘social-distancing’ are not new. This review chiefly covers these aspects.

For the Black Death, which struck Norwich in early 1349, there are few explicit contemporary records and so how the population was affected has to be deduced from sources such appointments of new clergy, which parish churches subsequently fell out of use, and deaths of manorial tenants. Evidence for plague between 1349 and 1579 is also scant, although the Paston letters do provide some information for the second part of the fifteenth century. Meeres notes that by the early sixteenth century ‘people were beginning to fight back, introducing measures designed to prevent an outbreak of plague’. Some cities passed plague orders and in 1579-1580 the privy council issued a set of orders which demanded returns of numbers infected, collections to support the poor, isolation of infected households, special burial places, and burning of clothing and bedding which belonged to those dying of plague.

The 1579 Norwich outbreak was serious. The Mayor’s Court books record steps taken to try to prevent the spread of plague, and burial registers indicate clusters of deaths (though not their causes). Norwich always had a high number of incomers. Some were from the Norfolk countryside, while others (known as ‘Strangers’) were religious refugees from the Low Countries from the 1560s onwards, both Dutch speakers and French speakers (Walloons). ‘Strangers’ had their own churches and were responsible for looking after the poor within their community. In 1579 the Strangers were blamed for the outbreak of plague and specific orders were applied to them. The city authorities took steps to quantify the mortality in the city, apparently the first time that anywhere in England had attempted this. On 26 June 1579 the Mayor’s Court swore Thomas Usher to certify the names of the deceased every week: from then on the numbers (but not names) of burials were recorded (listed in appendix 2), although plague burials were not distinguished from others. On 1 July 1579 the principles of isolation and lockdown were introduced and other detailed orders were issued. Four groups of special workers were appointed at this time (Meeres aligns them with ‘key workers’): searchers, who examined the body of every person who died to decide whether death was caused by plague; bearers, who carried the body to its place of burial; keepers, who provided food and drink to the infected; and watchmen, who were to keep guard at the city gates (and later the pest houses) to ensure no unauthorised coming or going.

Parish registers indicate that there was another serious outbreak in 1603. There was a major outbreak in 1625, although numbers of deaths varied by parish, some registers noting when ‘plague began’, some marking ‘p’ or ‘peste mortis’ against victims. The Mayor’s Court books indicate measures taken and even identify individual households infected or affected. Similarly, the 1630 and 1631 plagues can be traced in the records of the Mayor’s Court. During the 1637 outbreak the Court issued a general set of regulations designed to control the plague: again isolation was ordered; infected houses were to be marked on the door; and keepers, searchers and buriers were to distinguish themselves clearly with a mark or carry a red wand to, in effect, facilitate social distancing when they were out. Pest houses, which Meeres likens to Nightingale Hospitals, were first built in Norwich in 1630.

The close trading relationship between Yarmouth and Norwich meant that at times of plague steps were taken to limit contact: this was certainly the case in 1665 when there was an outbreak in Yarmouth. During the 1666 plague the Norwich Mayor’s Court laid down rules that even considered individual cases and throughout the summer its meetings were concerned with the two usual problems: how to control the spread of infection and how to pay for these measures. On 9 July schools were closed until further notice and orders were made for (in effect) shielding at the Great Hospital (a home for the elderly poor). Another precaution was to move the market out of town. The outbreak raged for more than a year, with most deaths in the summer months. Plague figures were sent to London every week and appendix 4 indicates the parts of the city worst affected—the poorest. The rich could leave for their second home or could self-isolate more easily in their larger houses.

In conclusion Meeres draws together earlier examples of ‘weapons’ used to fight the plague that were used during the Covid-19 pandemic. One key difference was that churches remained open: they were the main vehicle for communicating news as clergy read out announcements and new regulations, and presumably prayed for deliverance. Although, as Meeres notes, the rich might leave for their country homes, city magistrates had a duty to remain and try to fight the plague—indeed, about half continued to attend the court even in the worst plague years. He concludes ‘As always, there is a great deal to learn from our past’.

Such an account of the experiences of Norwich is possible because a very full archive survives from the city and its environs, in particular records generated by the Mayor’s Court and by the City Assembly. Furthermore, some of the numerous parish registers are very detailed, even giving ‘plague’ as the cause of death and noting relationships between the deceased, making it possible to trace deaths in particular families. Indeed, Norwich is perhaps the only place in England with such detailed records of its plague visitations. Meeres has written this book to catch the interest of people in and around Norwich. There are only a handful of footnotes to each chapter, even though the author has clearly drawn on a huge number of documents. A bibliography of documentary and published sources would have been useful for the general reader.

Heather Falvey is the Reviews Editor for The Local Historian.

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By Andy Reid

(Poppyland Publishing 2021 viii+225 ISBN 978-1-909796-84-3) £10.95

The author’s name may be familiar to long-standing members of BALH, as he published a book for us in 1994, a study guide for local historians and teachers on union workhouses. Clearly his interest in the subject has continued and this book is a study of one particular pauper, for whom there is considerably more information than most. To quote from the blurb: ‘Harriet Kettle was a rebel against authority in Victorian times. With the death of her mother [from insanity] and with her father transported to Australia, she grew up in the workhouse [at Gressenhall, now owned by Norfolk Museum Service]. Becoming a sex worker in Norwich, she got into trouble and was imprisoned several times. Diagnosed with ‘moral insanity’ she spent periods in asylums before marrying … and having four children’.

The staff at Gressenhall run a very good project using volunteers, who are transcribing the MH12 records in The National Archives relating to the Mitford and Launditch Union, and the minute books of the Board of Guardians held by the Norfolk Record Office. Harriet is mentioned multiple times in the records; she clearly had a vicious temper and was frequently taken before the magistrates. She spent time in both the Walsingham and Wymondham Houses of Correction, several spells in the county lunatic asylum just outside Norwich, and a brief period in the Criminal Lunatic Asylum, later known as the Bethlem Hospital. As well as spending much of her early life in the Gressenhall workhouse, she also died there, probably in the infirmary. She appears to have also been known as Harriet Clarke and a child of the right age is recorded under that name in the 1841 census, living in the workhouse, together with two siblings; her elder sister Matilda appears to have kept in touch with her. Her father served his sentence in Australia and remarried in 1848, but was transported again the following year, this time for 15 years, and died in Australia in 1871.

One of the best sources for Harriet’s life is the casebook of the county lunatic asylum which is quoted extensively in the book. It seems clear that she found life in the workhouse difficult, especially its ‘irksome monotony and confinement’ and the first reference to her bad behaviour was in April 1851, when she was about 13. She clashed with the schoolmistress, a pattern that would recur throughout her life, and was punished by two days of solitary confinement and a bread and water diet. Several other instances of misconduct are recorded, until she was taken before the local magistrates. She was sentenced to 14 days imprisonment with hard labour. In January 1853 there was a serious disturbance in the dining hall, which led to her spending 42 days in prison. Between 1853 and 1856 she appears to have worked as a prostitute in Norwich, and the reason for her return to the workhouse is unclear. The next incident of bad behaviour possibly included an assault on the workhouse master, and this time Harriet was sentenced to a year in prison (increased from 21 days) because she was unable to give sureties for her future good behaviour.

In July 1856 she was described as a suicidal lunatic and transferred to the county asylum, but two months later the medical officer said she was well enough to be discharged. Unfortunately, the prison was not willing to take her back and she returned to her home village and started working as a prostitute again. At some point she returned to the workhouse and in November 1858 assaulted the assistant matron and tried to set fire to the workhouse. She was sent to the Wymondham House of Correction, pending trial at Norwich Assizes for arson. The following February she was again transferred to the county asylum, where she was generally well behaved. She was finally tried at the assizes in March 1860 and apparently hoped to be transported, but was found guilty and sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment. She continued to move between prison and the county asylum, but in August 1860 was certified as sane by the asylum medical officer. Finally, she was transferred to Bethlem in March 1861, where she stayed until the following October, having served her sentence. She lived with her sister for a time, being allowed outdoor relief, but was back in the workhouse in January 1862 and was pregnant. She continued to cause trouble and apparently lost her baby. The following April she was allowed outdoor relief again and was living in East Dereham, but was readmitted to the county asylum in July 1863 having tried to commit suicide.

She was discharged on probation in May 1864, again receiving outdoor relief, and in June 1865 married William Head, an agricultural labourer with whom she had three daughters and a son. Her bad behaviour continued and in November 1876 she was taken before the magistrates for attacking the schoolmistress at her children’s school. There were similar incidents in the following years, as well as disputes with her neighbours. This pattern continued with her children and grandchildren, several of whom got into trouble for misbehaviour and bad language. Harriet died on 8 May 1916; an inquest concluded that the cause was shock following a leg fracture. Her husband outlived her, surviving until August 1927 when he too died in the workhouse.

Reid provides much useful background information on the poor law, the prison system and asylums. This is a very readable book, based on very thorough research. There are some black and white illustrations within the text and an appendix, giving a selective timeline for Harriet. There is a bibliography and index. It is most unusual to have such detail on an individual pauper, and the book is recommended for anyone interested in the New Poor Law.

Kate Thompson was formerly county archivist of Leicestershire and of Hertfordshire, and her PhD thesis is on the Leicester Poor Law Union. She is one of the volunteers indexing the minute books of the Board of Guardians referred to above.

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By Brian Davies

(Y Lolfa 2021 128pp ISBN 978-1-784619-66-4) £9.99

In this beautifully illustrated volume Brian Davies has used surviving documents from his own family collection to paint a vivid picture of life in parts of Cardiganshire (now Ceredigion) and beyond, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Cardiganshire was a small county whose modest wealth came from the sea, its lead mines and its agriculture. All of them are represented in this book: the lives of the author’s ancestors are a microcosm of the county’s history.

The book is divided into four chapters (Sea, War, Mine, Train), each recounting a different family story. Chapter one deals with the life and career of Captain William James, a sea captain on sailing ships registered at the Ports of Aberystwyth. Although he married into a family with a small farm, William James yearned to be at sea, despite suffering considerable misfortune during his maritime career. His surviving correspondence and accounts provide valuable insights into the difficult life of a nineteenth century sea captain. When eventually forced to abandon his profession, James found solace from his life as a dairyman and carrier in sketching and painting views of Aberystwyth and the coast. Many of these survive in the author’s collection and the sixteen full colour reproductions will be of considerable interest to local historians and lovers of sailing vessels.

The second chapter deals with the wartime experience of Wil James, son of the sea captain. Wil joined the Cardiganshire Battery, 2nd Welsh Brigade Royal Field Artillery, in August 1914, and the author relates his progress from training in ‘Tin Town’—a camp of corrugated huts near the village of Trawsfynydd—to fighting with the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, and the defence of Jerusalem. The chapter then proceeds to the experience of the family in the Second World War, when Wil’s two daughters volunteered for the WAAF and Land Army respectively while Wil served in the 1st Cardiganshire Home Guard.

The author’s paternal grandfather was a lead miner, and chapter 3 deals with his life. Many generations tried to avoid sending their children into mining, which was always dirty, hard and dangerous work. John David Davies’ father was a lead miner from my own village, and he tried to ensure that his son became an agricultural labourer instead of a miner, but economic necessity forced John David into first lead, and then coal mining. The story is not one of unmitigated gloom, as John David’s family were able to lead a frugal but mostly happy existence as a result of his commitment to supporting them

The final chapter, ‘Train’, is a brief exploration of the history of the Vale of Rheidol narrow gauge railway seen through the eyes and career of Isaac Jenkins, the author’s grandfather. The Llein Bach (‘Little Line’) is now a popular tourist route between Aberystwyth and Devils Bridge, but it was originally built to serve the lead mines, and was subsequently used for local traffic and to carry wood. Davies quotes two short works by ‘Isaac Jenkins, Ganger’ in full, which show a keen eye for detail and a great deal of affection for the little railway.

This book is a fine piece of local history, using the private archive of one family to explore the transformation of a small county and its people. The volume covers the century which saw railways replace the sea-trade, saw cheaper imports bankrupt local mining enterprises, and saw two world wars have unimaginable effects on the communities of the county. But despite the privations to which its protagonists were subject, the book is overwhelmingly affectionate and optimistic, full of justifiable pride in the abilities of the individual and the family to overcome adversity.

Helen Palmer is the county archivist for Ceredigion and lives in the hinterland of Aberystwyth near the long-abandoned lead mines described in this volume. The collections in her care reflect the history of the county and the contents of Land of Lead; in the shipping registers, the mining records, and the parish records are thousands more family and local history narratives just waiting to be told.

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By Jon Tait

(Rough Badger 2021 2nd edn 304pp ISBN 979-8-700768-56-6) £11.99 pbk via Amazon, also available as a Kindle book

Jon Tait, author of this ambitious account of the notorious activities of the Border Reivers, is by his own admission a descendant of a reiver and a native of Northumberland – ‘the border county’. He is interested in local heritage and legend, and the place of the reivers in the history of the borders and the ‘Debateable Land’ between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries. Tait argues that much of what we think we know and understand of the Border Reivers has been blurred by romanticised ballads and folk tales so this book, his ‘very real historic account’, promises much of interest and intrigue. For the uninitiated the author provides at the outset a brief explanation of the etymology of the word ‘reiver’ and outlines their lifestyle.

The first four chapters set the tone and outline the author’s perceived similarities between reiver activities and modern organised crime. A couple of reiver families are suggested as likely candidates for the ‘bairns’ of the title and reiver associates are identified. At this early stage the reader is left in no doubt that a central aspect of the book is to outline the main aim of reiving activities—to accrue wealth (‘land, title or cold hard cash’), throughout the long period of the turbulent relationship between England and Scotland. Tait’s summing up of the reivers’ strategic use of ‘The Border’ to gain advantage is succinct and clear. Chapter 2 includes a description of the ‘March Laws of the Border’ and seeks to put the reivers into a wider geographical context. The penultimate chapter listing reiver families in the various Marches would perhaps have been better placed alongside chapter 2 and maps would have helped to locate these numerous, and often bewildering, families in their territorial March lands. Two following chapters tell the story of the lives of two named individuals, their feuds and their dealings with English kings.

The author describes in some detail the ways in which bargains were struck between factions on both sides of the border and two long chapters entitled ‘The English Pledges’ and ‘The Scottish Pledges’ include comprehensive explanations of examples relating to named reiver families. These two chapters make up almost two-thirds of the book and the system of pledges is revealed to be an important aspect of reiver life. The ‘Pledges’ chapters outline the complex inter-family ties, and several specific instances of theft, murder and general lawlessness are discussed. Raiding parties, feuds and retribution abound within these pages and the language is robust. The book concludes with an examination of the gradual disintegration of some of the more notorious families although Tait argues that ‘the tribal mentality never really left’ this region. At this point a surname and/or subject index would have been very useful!

At 300 pages this is no lightweight tome. Within the text are some personal memories and also what are clearly quotations from other documentary sources, but the author provides no bibliography or references for them: these are disappointing omissions. The book is difficult to place into one particular category, but it is written with evident passion. It certainly provides food for thought, provokes discussion and is a very lively account of this period of lawless activity along the border.

Carol Dougherty lives in Cumbria and is currently involved in archaeological excavations and surveys in her local market town and on the Westmorland Dales limestone pavements.

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By Pamela Sambrook

(Lutterworth Press 2021 177pp ISBN 978-0-718895-76-1) £20

Zenon Vantini was born on Elba in 1797. As a young man he was a trusted companion of the exiled Napoleon on the island and was left 20,000 francs in Napoleon’s will. He fought at Waterloo, for the French, and died in Paris in 1870 at the height of the siege. So why is Pamela Sambrook’s book about him offered for review to a journal on British local history? Read on …

I first encountered Zenon while researching the early history of Fleetwood, the new town and port created on the Lancashire coast in the early 1840s. Building a railway to Scotland through the Lake District was then unthinkable. Passengers instead would disembark at Fleetwood and take a steamer to the Clyde. The enormous, palatial North Euston Hotel was built to accommodate and entertain them. Zenon was its proprietor. Local sources rumoured he was Corsican. That was wrong but I was intrigued. A search of the invaluable digitised newspapers revealed that he was already the proprietor of two other railway termini hotels at Euston in London. He was also active in promoting the establishment of what later became Rossall School in Fleetwood. By 1843, however, Vantini had realised that Fleetwood’s role as a rail terminus for Scotland would soon be redundant. He left. Pamela Sambrook’s fascinating book explains how he took the lease on the first railway refreshment rooms at Wolverton (Milton Keynes) and the Pavilion Hotel at Folkestone, followed by involvement in refreshment rooms and a hotel in Manchester and refreshment rooms elsewhere. Here was a man who was central to development of rail travel in England, providing accommodation and refreshments up and down the country. His wife and daughters were also central to the operations of his business empire, particularly in the 1840s.

In 1844 he applied for, and got, denizenship of Britain; clearly, he was intending to stay. Had he done so Sambrook’s research agenda would have been much simpler, but within a couple of years he was gone. By 1847 she finds him operating the Hotel des Chemins de Fer in Paris with 400 beds, elegant lounges and sitting rooms, as well as refreshment rooms at Amiens, Abbeville and Boulogne. All of these were advertised in conjunction with his Pavilion hotel in Folkestone to provide an all-in package holiday for English tourists to the city, travelling by ferry to Boulogne and being guided around Paris by English-speaking guides. All this was nearly a decade before Thomas Cook advertised his first foreign tours. Cook, indeed, must have known about Vantini since Sambrook quotes at length from a series of articles describing Vantini’s two-week package holiday under the title ‘A fortnight in France’ which appeared in no less than the Leicester Chronicle in 1847. He was the forgotten pioneer of the package holiday. From then on, despite retaining business interests in England, he would appear to have settled in Paris, enjoying mixed fortunes—the crisis of 1847 and revolution of 1848 did not help business.

As is the case with so much historical research, Pamela Sambrook’s fascination with Vantini’s career, and her subsequent research project, was a result of an unexpected discovery while investigating something entirely different—her earlier book based on the Sutherland papers of the Leveson-Gower family in Staffordshire Record Office. Vantini had been employed as their house steward between 1833 and 1840. As such he knew all about entertaining guests in style and both her books shed light on the household arrangements of the aristocracy at this time. But his correspondence with the estate’s head agent, James Loch, also contained fascinating details of the family travel arrangements between London, Staffordshire, Yorkshire and Dunrobin Castle in the north of Scotland, which reveal how Vantini acquired knowledge of the catering needs of travellers which he surmised would also apply to the emerging rail network. It is no coincidence that railways adopted the vocabulary of road transport—rail ‘roads’, ‘coaches’ and ‘carriages’. Just as roads needed hotels, so did railways. Vantini, recognising this, left to embark on a new career.

His career in England therefore sheds light on aristocratic household management, resorts like Fleetwood and Folkestone, early rail travel, hotels and refreshment rooms and pioneering package holidays. The story, as Sambrook concedes, has not been easy to piece together since Vantini left no papers to speak of but it is sufficiently detailed to provide intriguing insights into all these phenomena in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. But as a life biography Sambrook has sought to unravel the complexities of Vantini’s upbringing on Elba and, in the final chapters of the book, his extended time in Paris from the late 1840s. These elements clearly had their challenges in terms of availability of and access to sources, not helped by the arrival of Covid in early 2020 which, ironically given the international scope of this book and emphasis on travel, prevented any overseas travel. Nevertheless, they make a fascinating read, shedding light on the island’s life, on Napoleon’s own household arrangements and on Vantini’s relationship with the emperor. Sambrook also speculates that Vantini’s introduction to prominent English families may have come through meeting them when they visited Napoleon on the island but quite how, when and why he landed up in London in the early 1820s remains something of a mystery. I found the story as it unravelled absolutely intriguing.

So, how do we sum up the man and the significance of his life? He was clearly shrewd, pragmatic and single-minded. He had his faults, but also more than his fair share of bad luck in his involvements in Fleetwood and Paris. Perhaps his importance is best left to Sambrook to explain in the closing sentences of her book. He was a man who ‘helped to found a major public school at Fleetwood, who invented the guided, package holiday abroad which is so beloved by modern society today, and who pioneered the catering side of the mass tourist trade at the dawn of the railway age’. Apart from Rossall School he has left few physical legacies, but he highlights a feature of British history which has been often overlooked: the backgrounds and business careers of those involved in the early hospitality industry, which we now acknowledge to have developed to become a major component of our economy. More specifically it makes one appreciate how important immigrants like Vantini and his contemporaries were in this sector, men such as the Belgian Joseph Dethier who ran the Great Northern Railway Hotel at King’s Cross, and Frenchmen David Maurigy and James [Jacques] Edward Mivart, who ran the hotel which later became Claridges. Something to bear in mind when one next peruses the à la carte or table d’hôte menu perhaps? As for me, I think I will pop over to Fleetwood and visit the Vantini Rooms at what is still called the North Euston Hotel in Fleetwood, where apparently there is now a blue plaque on the wall commemorating his presence in the town.

Michael Winstanley lectured in regional and social history at Lancaster University between 1978 and 2010. He has published and lectured on a wide range of subjects related to the nineteenth century and the North West and continues to do so in ‘retirement’. He is currently working towards, among other things, completing an assessment of John Brownbill MA, professional antiquary and joint author of the Lancashire VCH.

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By Frances Bevan

(Hobnob Press 2021 166pp ISBN 978-1-914407-02-4) £14.95

The Ladies of Lydiard tells the story of the wives, daughters, sisters, and mothers associated with Lydiard, a country estate on the western edge of Swindon, over some eight centuries. For 500 of those years, they were members of the St John family. Of the majority of these ladies little is known, but then there are the exceptions, who make much more of an impression. They were long suffering, disappointed, or even notorious, and all were remarkable in their own way. The introduction provides a history of the house and its purchase by Swindon Corporation in 1943: had it not been for the Corporation there would probably be no house or park to provide a backdrop to The Ladies of Lydiard. It is good to be reminded of the then precarious state of the house and what could be achieved when someone with vision was on a local council. Today the Friends of Lydiard Park continue to keep that vision alive.

Perhaps the best place to start when looking at the history of the St Johns is the church of Lydiard Tregoze and its magnificent polyptych, especially if one arrives on a day when the panels are opened out. It is therefore a pity that a picture of the polyptych is not included among the illustrations. The polyptych demonstrates how the St Johns viewed themselves and their place in society. It is their interpretation of their family genealogy, and many of the ladies mentioned in the book can be found there.

Chapter 2 begins with the early ladies, for most of whom little but their name is known. Their marriages eventually brought Lydiard to the St Johns, starting with Sybil of Ewyas Harold (Herefordshire) in the twelfth century. Her marriage to Robert Tregoz gave him Lydiard and the manor its additional name. By the early fifteenth century the manor had descended to Margaret Beauchamp, who brought it to Oliver St John on their marriage and it remained in the St John family until 1943. Margaret Beauchamp married twice more and her second marriage, to John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, gave the St Johns a link to royalty. Her daughter from this marriage was Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry Tudor, who did a great deal to promote her half-siblings and extended family, although little of this is mentioned in the brief discussion of her life. This brevity might cause confusion to those unfamiliar with the history of the Wars of the Roses—we move from the death of Margaret’s husband Henry Stafford, in 1471, to her involvement in Buckingham’s rebellion in 1483. It is left to the reader to appreciate that Edward IV died in April 1483, that his son was proclaimed king Edward V, and was subsequently removed by Richard III. Attempts to restore Edward V, followed by rumours of his death at the hands of his uncle, are important in explaining Margaret’s actions in 1483 and the events which led to her son Henry becoming king in 1485. This is central to the elevation of the St Johns after 1485 and their view of themselves within society as shown on the polyptych.

Most chapters are dedicated to a century of St John women, with some described in more detail than others. There are some remarkable examples from the seventeenth century, including those who negotiated their way through the Civil War, such as Anne, Countess of Rochester, whose husband was fiercely Royalist, and Lucy Hutchinson, who wrote a biography of her husband, Colonel Hutchinson, one of the signatories to Charles I’s death warrant. As with many families the St Johns found themselves divided in their loyalties, but at the end of the day family came first and they did what they could to protect each other. There are also the notorious Barbara Villiers, Countess Castlemaine, Charles II’s mistress, and the unfortunate Henrietta, Lady Luxborough, disowned by her husband for an alleged affair. What they have in common was a determination to make their way in the world as best they could.

In covering over 800 years of history there are inevitably some generalisations and repeated myths—for example, that Sir William Craven, lord mayor of London in 1610-1611 (brother-in-law of Sir John St John, died 1648), was ‘the inspiration for the legend of Dick Whittington’. While this may appear to give the St Johns a link to a popular pantomime hero, the real Richard Whittington (died 1432) of the ‘legend’, was from Gloucestershire, and has no link to the St Johns. The book is short, and for some of the women there is much more that could be said, but each is given a similar amount of space for her story, which produces a more balanced book. The only criticism I would make is that it desperately needs a family tree of the St Johns and related families. Some of the relationships are quite complex, especially when St John cousins married.

Despite these small quibbles Frances Bevan has an easy, accessible writing style which carries the reader along and provides a good introduction to Lydiard and its ladies. Inevitably the reader is left wanting more, in which case you will need to go to the Friends of Lydiard Tregoze Reports. These were produced annually for forty years and are a mine of information on the St John family, local Lydiard families, and the history of the estate. The Friends was established by Canon Brian Carne who was rector at Lydiard, and Frank Smallwood, who was a master at Sir Walter St John’s School in Battersea. The Reports are currently being updated to include later notes and amendments made by Brian Carne, and will eventually be available on the Friends of Lydiard Park’s new website The Lydiard Archive. Meanwhile if you wish to know more about Lydiard’s ladies there are more articles by Frances Bevan, under the title ‘Good Gentlewoman’, on the Friends of Lydiard website https://www.friendsoflydiardpark.org.uk/living-history/good-gentlewoman/

Lynda Pidgeon’s main historical interest is in the late medieval period. She is a Friend of Lydiard Park and currently a volunteer on ‘Project Lydiard’, organising the transcription of wills from The National Archives which relate to people who lived at Lydiard Tregoze and Lydiard Millicent as well as members of the St John family. These will eventually be added to the Lydiard Archive at www.TheLydiardArchives.org.uk

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By Jan Broadway

(Xmera Ltd 2021 xvi+101pp ISBN 978-0-956742-81-0) £6+£2 p&p from www.xmera.co.uk/wives.html

History is so often written about men, but in The Wives of the Berkeleys Jan Broadway turns the tables and writes about the women of this influential Gloucestershire family. An early modern historian, she has turned her attention to the kinship relationships of the gentry. She writes that ‘the aristocracy and leading gentry of Tudor and Stuart England were a small, socially cohesive, heavily inter related group’: the Berkeleys married into not only the Stanhope/Townshend and Coke families but also the powerful Boleyn/Carey and Howard families. Anne Savage, Katherine Howard, Jane Stanhope and Elizabeth Carey are just four of the Berkeley wives who leap out from the pages of this book.

Anne Savage was born in around 1506, the daughter of Sir John Savage and his wife Anne. She married Thomas Berkeley in April 1533. It was a short marriage, as Thomas died within eighteen months, but one that produced two children. The couple caused much gossip among their contemporaries, who wondered how a mere gentlewoman without great wealth or beauty could secure such an advantageous marriage. However, Anne was one of the gentlewomen in attendance at the secret wedding of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn and her marriage to the very eligible Thomas Berkeley was believed to be a reward for her discretion. The Berkeley family had held Berkeley Castle since the twelfth century, however, following their marriage Thomas and Anne made their home at Yate Court, a fortified manor house refurbished by Maurice Lord Berkeley in 1517-1522 and situated some thirteen miles from Berkeley Castle. Dr Broadway cites the work of John Smyth as essential source material for her book. Smyth of Nibley was a lawyer, antiquary, and household steward to the Berkeleys, yet in his comprehensive account, The Lives of the Berkeleys, lords of the honour, castle and manor of Berkeley, in the county of Gloucester, from 1066-1618, he made little reference to the women of the family. He did, however, comment that he considered Anne Savage to be a ‘a lady of masculine spirit, over-powerfull with her husband’.

Anne’s son Henry married Katherine Howard, daughter of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey and sister of the reckless Duke of Norfolk. The Berkeleys’ connection to Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, drew them into danger during the Rising of the North in 1569, an unsuccessful rebellion to put the exiled Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots, on the English throne. Norfolk revealed that the Berkeleys had accompanied him at the hunt during the summer of that year, and in consequence they were held at Strensham, Worcestershire. Jan Broadway writes how after the execution of the Duke of Norfolk, Katherine, Lady Berkeley, ‘retired herself into her Chamber and private walks’ mourning her brother and the effect of his conviction on their wider family. Katherine suffered from dropsy, a condition that would eventually cause her death and the book describes her stoicism as she submitted to treatments, including excruciatingly painful surgery on her hand.

Following Katherine’s death in 1596 Henry, Lord Berkeley married Jane Townshend, an event which Smyth refers to as ‘this amorous humour or dotage in old men’. Jane managed to negotiate a lucrative marriage settlement and a rise in status which enabled her to control the lives of her two sons by her first marriage to Sir Roger Townshend. When her son John died, following wounds received during a duel, she bought the wardship of her young grandson along with control of his estate and the right to arrange his marriage. Jane outlived Henry by less than five years and died at her London home in January 1617/18.

Elizabeth Carey was born in 1576, the daughter of George Carey, 2nd Baron Hunsdon and great-granddaughter of Mary Boleyn. Elizabeth was well-educated, pious and possessed of a ‘sharp Wit’. She married Sir Thomas Berkeley, the son of Henry and Katherine in 1596. The couple lived at court, where keeping up appearances was expensive, and they soon accumulated huge debts. The marriage was not entirely happy, and they spent great periods of time apart. When the widowed Elizabeth, Lady Berkeley negotiated a second marriage in 1622 she insisted on retaining legal control of her own estate and wanted to see her prospective husband’s accounts before she committed herself. She demanded an immediate payment of £1000, to be repeated annually should he die, and she wanted to purchase land and property on behalf of their unborn children. Elizabeth also insisted that she would live with her husband or in her own houses as she wished, not as he commanded. As it transpired, her second husband Sir Thomas Chamberlain lived for only three years. Elizabeth died at her home in Cranford, Middlesex in 1635 and was buried in the parish church of St Dunstan. The inscription above her magnificent tomb makes reference to her relationship to the Boleyn family and Queen Elizabeth.

Jan Broadway’s book is meticulously researched with annotations and a comprehensive index. In The Wives of the Berkeleys she takes the reader into previously uncharted land, revealing the Berkeley women as being adept at controlling their marriages and their own lives. Without exception they were forceful characters: or, as Smyth would probably complain, ‘over-powerfull’.

Frances Bevan is a local historian and writer who has researched and written about the St John wives at Lydiard House, Swindon, Wiltshire. The St John women have frequently been overlooked in the history of the family and there are many parallels in the stories of the Berkeley wives. Anne Leighton, who married Sir John St John 1st Baronet was also a great granddaughter of Mary Boleyn

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