The Local Historian Volume 29, Number 1 February 1999

By Gillian Clark

The discovery of evidence about the everyday wear, the garments and the fabrics, of 18th century children, many of them poor, is of interest to costume and textile historians. This evidence belongs to the Thomas Coram Foundation for Children and is part of the archive of The Foundling Hospital. Between 1741 and 1760 the Hospital took 16,500 children and at reception individual items of clothing worn by each child were described on, or marked off against, a comprehensive printed list. Sometimes, as additional or alternative evidence, a piece of material was cut from a garment or a ribbon was cut and pinned to the list. This dated evidence, in single ownership since its origin in the mid-18th century, and compiled as identifiers for parents wanting to reclaim their children, demonstrates what infants could and did wear and how items were combined into outfits. It shows, too, the type and patterns of textiles used in the making of clothes. Analysis revealed the following: gender markers; the combination of white cotton and linens, patterned linens and coloured woollen outer wear; the sequence of development from swaddling clothes, via the blanket and roller, the sleeveless mantle and sleeves, and the blanket and sleeves, to the sleeved gown; and that the combination of blanket and roller continued, despite contrary medical advice, to be the choice of baby clothing for the majority. The bodice coat and barrow, worn by a minority, were nearer to the newly-designed Hospital uniform, thus suggesting the direction of the development of infant clothing which was taking place.

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By J.V. Beckett, B. Cowell, and M.E. Turner

In recent years there has been a great deal of popular interest in the preservation of one of the most distinctive features of the English countryside, the hedgerow. This has partly arisen from ongoing concern among individuals and countryside pressure groups at the rate at which hedgerows were grubbed up during the 20th century. This has been given an impetus by a high-profile legal case regarding an 18th century hedge at Flamborough in East Yorkshire, at which the resulting judgment claimed that the instruction in the Flamborough Enclosure Act of 1765 concerning the future repair and maintenance of a hedge was still good law. Recent regulatory powers emanating from the Department of the Environment regarding the future protection of hedgerows adds to concern and interest, though not without criticism of the strength of those powers. With parliamentary enclosure hedgerows specifically in mind, this article explores some of the purposes for which they were originally constructed. It includes a brief exploration of the role of enclosure commissioners, with particular regard to their duty to create effective boundaries between neighbouring properties. It is contended that modern attempts to protect individual hedgerows on the basis of a literal interpretation of 18th century laws, commendable though they are in many ways, are based on a possible misunderstanding of what the commissioners were doing in the first place. Their job was not to fossilise a landscape for all time.

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By Rex Leaver

This case study focuses on the role of some twenty men with non-landowning interests in the promotion of an enclosure bill. From an unusually rich collection of sources, insights are gained into an aspect of parliamentary enclosure normally obscured for lack of evidence. Close examination of the actions of professionals and politicians illuminates the general functioning of the 'enclosure industry' and shows how the work of local historians may complement wider studies of topics such as enclosure. The 'industry' employed land stewards, solicitors and parliamentary agents as well as the commissioners on whom attention usually focuses. Risborough's enclosure was driven by these professionals, who had vested interests different from their employers. The clear pattern evident in their work here must have existed elsewhere, even if there are few surviving documents to reveal it. Among Risborough's inhabitants, political and religious factionalism surfaced alongside economic motivations, and the social scene may have been similarly stirred when enclosure was promoted in other parishes. The article illustrates how random events might affect the success of an individual enclosure promotion, and how the rules designed to protect smaller landowners needed powerful parliamentary support to be effective. It raises two questions that cannot be answered by a single case study. Were the politicians of 1820 uncritically pushing an economic theory into a time and place where it lost validity? Were the professionals of the day needlessly extending a movement in which they had a vested interest?

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By Matthew Woollard

In this article Matthew Woollard considers the use of historical computing techniques for local historians. He expresses the opinion that all local historians should be aware of the benefits of such techniques even if they choose not to use them. He also suggests that if local historians do avail themselves of some of the methods on offer, they should not leap in without fully comprehending the potential outcomes both for themselves and for other researchers. After the argument comes the case-study - that of the Bristol Historical Database Project, established in 1993 to create machine-readable versions of historical source material relating to Bristol and its region. The article describes the history of this project, relating it to the main themes, and pointing the way to higher levels of standards among computer-using local historians.