The Local Historian Volume 16 Number 5 February 1985

By Christopher Dyer

'Medievalists gained a bad reputation for themselves in the past because they studied institutions rather than people and places' - Dyer in his review of the important literature on the countryside and the town in medieval England seeks to escape from this limitation, listing a wide range of titles on: i) rural society and economy; ii) England in a European context; iii) regional studies of medieval society; iv) estate histories and manorial histories; v) peasants and their lives; vi) landscape and agricultural systems; vii) the aristocracy; viii) town government and general surveys of medieval urban development; ix) historical geography; and x) as an endnote, reference to what is missing from the survey because it does not exist. The article ends with a comprehensive bibliography of all titles cited.

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By Stephen Jackson

A study of the way in which new information technologies (1985) can be used to order and analyse data - in this case, the advent of microcomputers (personal computers). The article discusses the principles involved in establishing databases, including data management; file handling; and information retrieval. It then illustrates this using the 1861 census for Bromborough Pool, Wirral, explaining in detail the creation of fields, the structure of files, and ways in which information can be sorted and ordered to provide listings according to the subject required (e.g. surname order and address order). The next stage in the discussion considers routines for sorting and selecting linked data, involving analysis of age, employment, gender and migration factors. Examples of tabulated data and sorted data are given and the article includes a discussion of further stages which might be added to the basic exercise, looking at housing types, overcrowding and, over successive censuses, the stability or mobility of the community. The clear advantages of computer storage and analysis, in contrast to earlier techniques such as card indexes and standard hard copy forms, are noted, and some other contemporary exercises of a comparable nature are indicated.

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By Allan Seaman

The abolition of metropolitan county councils under the 1985 Local Government Act threatened the survival of their newly-created archive services and in this article Seaman, County Archivist of Tyne and Wear, argues that this could leave a vacuum in archive service provision, given that the legislation was inadequate and largely ignored archive requirements. It is pointed out that the proposal to transfer metropolitan county archives to the 'appropriate' successor district was unsatisfactory and potentially would lead to many illogicalities and bizarre possibilities. It is strongly suggested that statutory provision is essential and that all who value archives should press for this to be facilitated.

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By Tony Austin

Brief note describing the field books which were prepared by the Valuation Office of the Inland Revenue following the 1910 Finance Act, which imposed land valuation duties. A survey was made of all landed properties and then, using that as a base, the valuation offices kept the records of sale or lease up-to-date. Each unit of land was listed and entered in a book with 100 such entries, and 1:2,500 scale plans were prepared by the Ordnance Survey showing every unit and individually coloured. The survey was exceptionally thorough and comprehensive and Austin concludes that it was 'the greatest and most detailed survey of property ever undertaken in this country'. He gives information about the location of the material, how to use it, and the arrangement of the information.

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By E.J. Priestley

Informal article which discusses the difficulty of confirming a variety of statements or other ostensibly factual sources derived from early records, and of finding specific evidence to support conjectures: topics noted as examples include the site of the battle of Shrewsbury, the identity and dating of an early print of Eltham Palace, ballads composed during the 1688 Glorious Revolution, the identity of an individual named on a commemorative plate, the use of rafts in the Napoleonic Wars, the genuineness or otherwise of the printed memoirs of an Indian soldier, and the true name of the artist to whom an original painting was attributed.

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By Roger Swift

Studies of crime in the context of wider consideration of social and community history are of growing significance, but Swift suggests that before the mid-19th century the sources may be difficult to find and use. Taking as his case-study the city of Exeter between 1815 and 1865, he reviews the range of sources which are available and shows how they may be exploited. The article looks at the records of quarter sessions, lists of prisoners awaiting trial, gaol calendar books, sessions papers, gaolers' reports, minutes of the Watch Committee, Home Office returns, magistrates' record books, and the reports in the local newspapers. It then considers the types of analysis which might be undertaken, including: i) statistical trends and fluctuations and possible explanations for these; ii) the nature of crimes and the significance of petty offences in the overall statistics; iii) the relationships between committal for trial, summary conviction, and discharging of offenders; iv) the relative significance of different types of crime, such as offences against property and offences against the person; v) the early-19th century criminal and the social and economic context of the offending individuals; vi) evidence for a 'criminal class'; and vii) trends in sentencing and punishment.

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By Patricia Giles

The prize-winning essay in the British Association for Local History 1984 essay competition. It begins with the background, the development of the village of Polbathic near Saltash, Cornwall, and its history to the early 1980s, and then explains the origins of the Polbathic Institute, established in 1921 by young men returned from the First World War. The essay discusses the running of the institute and the activities which were held there, including Christmas parties, a small library, newspaper reading, dances, the reception of evacuees or refugees from the bombing of Plymouth, film shows and village fetes. The essay ends with a note that, after 60 years, the Recreation Hall (as it had been renamed) was still flourishing.