The Local Historian Volume 33, Number 3 August 2003

By David Dymond

An affectionate tribute to Michael Cowan, who retired from his post as BALH Administrator and General Secretary at the beginning of March 2003. The article highlights Mike's sterling service not only to the organisation but also to British local history as a whole, and shows how crucial his work has been to the development of BALH and its work for the past 13 years. It also includes an admirable picture of the young Cowan tent-pegging in the Trucial Oman Scouts in 1963, and a very fine photograph of Mike as he will be familiar to many BALH members, with a wry smile and a steely glint in the eye!

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By Russell Grigg

This article focuses on the school strikes which spread across South Wales in the early autumn of 1911, looking at contemporary comment and descriptions of events and using sources such as national and local newspapers and the records of schools and education authorities to reconstruct the sequence of developments during the period. The events are placed in the context of contemporary educational issues, such as the level of, and forms of, punishment, the nature of school discipline, the role of parents, and the perceptions of outsiders. There is detailed discussion of the similarities, accidental or otherwise, between these strikes and those which were affecting several key industries including coal and metalworking n the years before the First World War. Russell Grigg also analyses the conflict of values apparent in much of the educational world at the time, as the pressure for conformity, discipline and formality was challenged by more radical ideas and by higher expectations. The response of the educational authorities to the strikes, and examples of action from elsewhere and at later periods, are considered. The concluding paragraphs place the strikes in a wider context, of the nature of schooling, the role of class issues, and the evidence that they afford for the unsatisfactory state of some aspects of education in the Edwardian period. The notes and references include a useful bibliography of general published sources and case studies.

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By Tom Arkell

A major article by a leading expert in the field of hearth tax studies. The premise of the work is that the hearth tax has frequently been misunderstood and misused by historians who have used its evidence incorrectly as a surrogate measure for the levels of, and geographical distribution of, poverty. This is based on a simple linking of number of hearths with levels of wealth, and levels of exemption with levels of poverty. Tom Arkell demonstrates, with a series of very comprehensive statistical tables based on original research and calculation not hitherto published, that these linkages are either false or unreliable, and that therefore different approaches must be sought. In an important preliminary section he discusses the mechanics of hearth tax collection, the often contradictory and confusing legislative and administrative background, and the nature of the paperwork and documents which the tax generated. The article then considers ways in which the returns may be analysed and have been used by earlier historians; the national coverage and regional variations; and the vital issue of levels of evasion and under-recording. Arkell then presents a full survey of the rural sub-regions, including a map of England and Wales which delineates the sub-regions identified from his statistical analysis. He uses as his key measure the percentage of houses with three or more hearths, the reasons for this measure being clearly explained. A further section considers whether the same criteria and principles may be applied to urban areas, and three major cities - Norwich, Exeter and Coventry - are used as illustrative studies. The article concludes with an exceptionally detailed and comprehensive set of notes, references and bibliographical data, including full references to all the numerous original documents used in the preparation of the data printed here.

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By Shirley Durgan

In this analysis of the protracted process whereby the Essex borough of Chelmsford provided its first council houses, Shirley Durgan draws particular attention to the way that the principle of intervention in the housing market was the subject of major debate and disagreement among the councillors, many of whom clearly had strong vested interests one way or another. She analyses the arguments and the moves towards implementing the policy against the background of a fast-changing economic and demographic structure within the borough, as light industry encouraged expansion. The political issues involved, together with the problems which the council encountered in seeking to obtain land for building, are discussed. The problem of housing overcrowding and the lack of affordable accommodation for the working man were key themes identified in the local press, which is extensively employed as a source set against the formal record of the decisions of council recorded in its minutes. The article includes consideration of the implementation of the first housing scheme, in 1913-1914, its impact and the response to the housing from tenants. The final section seeks to place the experience of Chelmsford in the more theoretical context of different perspectives on housing policy adopted by historians and researchers it being argued that Chelmsford's was essentially a pragmatic, not an ideological, policy.