The Local Historian Volume 14 Number 6 May 1981

By Victor Skipp

Skipp contributes a substantial pair of articles, designed to raise a series of issues which had been introduced, or touched upon, by the recent Blake Report and in public meetings. He discusses the definitions of local history which had been put forward over the previous decade, and assesses their relevance and accuracy. He then goes on to consider the ways in which individual researchers and others approach local history and its relationship with a wide variety of other disciplines or elements within other disciplines. Types of study are described and an 'ostensive model' of local history is provided. He finishes this section by noting how definitions are always under attack, and how that which was put forward over a decade earlier by the Leicester School was now subject to considerable controversy (see also 14 07 392-399).

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By Rosalin Barker

A case study of the demographic and social impact of plague in the parish of Great Oakley, Essex, in 1666. The article describes the available evidence for the demographic history of the parish in the 17th century, and other sources with which plague material can be cross-referenced. There is a brief note about plague itself and then a detailed description using parish register evidence of the outbreak, progress and eventual decline and disappearance of the pestilence between August and December 1666. Factors such as family linkages, the incidence of plague in the neighbouring parish of Wix, and the demographic impact of the outbreak are then considered, with extracts from parish registers and tables of relationships. Age ranges and the occupational and social status of the victims are also noted, and the writer suggests that the availability of further comparably detailed local profiles of plague or other epidemic outbreaks would add greatly to our understanding of the subject.

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By Rosa Young

General description of the history and development of stage-coach services in late 17th and 18th century England, covering briefly such themes as the role of tolls and turnpike roads; the introduction of regular timetabled services; sources for the history of services (and particularly the value of directories); mail coaches; coaching inns; the mythology and traditions of highway robbery; and a short bibliography of works on the subject.

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By Ian Mitchell

The article begins with a brief account of recent investigations into retailing activity and the sources which have been used, and then describes a little-used source, the Shop Tax which was imposed between 1785 and 1789 and which involved a sliding scale levied on retail premises according to their rental value. The returns (in the Public Record Office) can give valuable information about the numbers, size and geographical distribution of shops, and Mitchell uses those for the county of Cheshire as a case-study. This reveals important information about the scale of retailing trading activity, with industrial towns such as Stockport, Congleton, and Macclesfield already demonstrating a major role - but it is noted that one ward of the city of Chester paid as much as these three towns put together, highlighting Chester's regional pre-eminence. The article suggests that this source, used in conjunction with directories, newspapers and probate records, has much potential in building up a clear local and regional perspective of developing retail activity at a crucial period in its evolution.

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By Frank Sharman

Personal view of landscape and landscape history from the perspective of a practising solicitor from Wolverhampton, identifying key areas of landscape development and change in which a legal process has been experienced. Attention is given to the creation of enclosure landscapes in Midland England and to the manorial and other legal systems which underlay both the previous landscape and the new landscape.