The Local Historian Volume 26, Number 4 November 1996

By R.G. Blackwood

The article begins with consideration of the allegiances of Norfolk gentry during the Civil War, arguing that the great majority were probably neutral and that among the more committed the Parliamentary and Royalist factions were fairly evenly balanced. This tallies with the view of contemporaries. Parliamentarians are held to be more active as officials and administrators during the war, Cavaliers as active soldiers, the former being especially prominent on the county committees. Blackwood suggests that Royalists were notably more vigorous and determined, being prominent for their zeal and their high rank, whereas Parliamentarians were often inactive, or only committed to local issues - Norfolk Royalists, he concludes, were much more prominent outside the county. He suggests that religion was not a major issue in Norfolk (compared with, for example, its divisive role in Suffolk and Lancashire), because Puritans and Catholics were small minorities and even most Parliamentarians were not Puritan. Finally, the article discusses possible reasons for the strong Parliamentary control of Norfolk throughout the Civil War, arguing that because in the summer of 1642 they took control of the county militia the Parliamentarians had a head start. Royalist gentry, on the other hand, had little plebeian support and no aristocratic leadership.

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By Janet Brown

The Association of Northumberland Local History Societies began its war memorial project in 1987, aiming to record all memorials in the pre-1974 county. Its scope includes not only public memorials but also those to club and school members, and private memorials in churches and elsewhere. Many memorials include details of those who served, as well as those who died. The project covers statues, monuments, rolls of honour, buildings, books of remembrance, furniture, scholarships and endowments, but it does not include graves, which are listed elsewhere. The data collected include the location of the memorial, who erected it, the cost, how the money was raised, the designer and/or creator, any text including lists of names, present condition, a photographic record, and any archival or printed works relating to the memorial such as programmes or brochures for the opening ceremony. The survey is indexed and has a full bibliography. Details of the whereabouts and access to the project are included in the article.

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By Melvyn Jones

Using a wide variety of sources, including newspaper articles, the winning essay in a literary competition, an unpublished history, parish registers, chapel records, census returns and building control plans, this study reconstructs the circumstances of the establishing, growth and eventual decline of a Welsh community in the village of Carlton near Barnsley. In July 1884 a destructive flood in the colliery at Mostyn, in the parish of Whitford, Flintshire, put many people out of work and had a devastating effect on the local community. A large group of villagers moved to Carlton, where a Mostyn man had recently become colliery manager, and by 1911 the Welsh population there may have numbered up to 400. Known as 'Little Wales', it had a strong sense of separate identity and its cultural and social life is unusually well recorded. The article addresses several important theoretical issues, such as the relevance of 'push' or 'pull' in migration, the significance of chain migration in building-up communities of migrants, the role of cultural institutions and traditions in sustaining ethnic 'colonies', and factors which delay or accelerate integration and assimilation within the host community.

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By Derek Nuttall

The term 'book trade' is defined as including printers, publishers and bookbinders, as well as those involved in distribution such as booksellers, music sellers and stationers. Chester was an important centre of the book trade from the early 16th century and its gild, the Company of Stationers, was created in 1534. At the end of the 18th century and during the 19th Chester had considerable trade in printing (including many publications in Welsh), publishing and bookselling, while its oldest newspaper was founded in 1732. The trade of Chester and the county's five other principal towns is analysed up to 1850, charting the growth of places such as Stockport, Macclesfield, Congleton and the 19th century new town of Birkenhead as they developed more diverse and complex economies. The article includes a brief survey of some of the earliest book traders in urban Cheshire, including reference to smaller towns such as Knutsford, Middlewich and Nantwich. It also discusses paper-making, especially in the later 18th century, and the role of the various private 'circulating libraries' of the early 19th century. Much of the evidence is extracted from the author's Directory of the Book Trade in Cheshire to 1850 (Liverpool Bibliographical Society, 1992).