The Local Historian Volume 19 Number 2 May 1989

By Kathryn Thompson

The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, among its other aims, sought to remove the parish apprenticeship system and replace it with workhouse education, on the basis that apprenticed children were abused and neglected. Although it was never abolished, several attempts were made to restrict the scope of apprenticeship and to prevent its worst excesses. This analysis of the experience in Leicester shows that the city's Guardians of the Poor attempted to ensure that apprentices were treated fairly. Measures adopted included regular visits to employers to see the apprentices at work and the records of these visits form the basis of this article. They are analysed to show: i) patterns of apprenticeship; ii) the age of apprentices and their length of service; iii) occupational patterns; and iv) the geographical patterns apparent from data on the place of apprenticeship.

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By Edward Higgs

Brief comment on an article by June Sheppard (18 03 106-111): Higgs suggests that the 1841 census did not explicitly define the term 'house', whereas that of 1851 gave a clear definition. Care must therefore be taken in comparing the two sets of figures, especially when analysing the numbers of households which may have been present in one building.

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By W.S. Harvey

Study of community libraries, discussing specifically the Allan Ramsay Library at Leadhills, Lanarkshire, which was founded in 1741. The area, with its lead-mining industry, experienced major social and economic change in the 18th and 19th centuries and the article examines the library from the social history perspective. The author discusses the contents of the library, including numbers of books with 'social' content and the purchasing trends, as well as donations and bequests.

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By Martin Ecclestone

Study of surname diffusion using data from the International Genealogical Index (IGI), a major listing of baptism and marriage entries from the British Isles before 1900 which is created and published by the Mormons. The IGI is arranged alphabetically by surname and county, and the author explains how this data can be tabulated to show geographical distribution of surnames. He also discusses techniques for sampling and offers a qualitative evaluation of the IGI data, including the extent to which county data is comprehensive. The article suggests techniques for displaying the diffusion of surnames in visual form, using maps, and a number of cases studies are given. The model may also be transposed to a computer simulation environment.

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By Peter McNiven and Dorothy Clayton

Summary and description of the archival collections and printed material held at the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, including its extensive holdings of family and estate papers, especially from north-west England.