The Local Historian Volume 40, Number 4 November 2010

By Chris Watson

This article considers the detailed application, at local level, of the Poor Law Acts of 1598 and 1601 in midLancashire. It addresses in particular a key question affecting the counties from Shropshire and Derbyshire northwards to the Scottish border, namely, what was to be the unit of local administration for Poor Law purposes. The legislation assumed that this would be the parish, the standard unit in the southern half of England, most of Wales, and much of the Midlands. But in the northern counties the township was the basic unit of local government, and the Act creates ambiguities and uncertainties about the respective role of  study, Watson investigates how townships and parishes saw their roles, the perceptions of local decision makers, and the way in which individual Poor Law cases, the demands of taxation and revenue raising, and the circumstances of disputes, were dealt with locally. The article considers the geography of administration; the sources which are available (quarter sessions documents and township records); the procedures for taxation and collection; the appointment of overseers; and the changing demand for poor relief. It assesses how the 1662 Act, which recognised the role of townships officially, impacted locally. With a wealth of examples, this is not only a major contribution to the published literature on the Poor Law in northern England, but also provides valuable evidence for wider perspectives on the local community and the issues of poverty in Stuart England.

[Hide]

By Danae Tankard

The Weald and Downland open Air Museum, at West Dean near Chichester, is one of the most important, extensive and highly-regarded such establishments in Britain. It now houses over fifty historic buildings, ranging from farmhouses and cottages, through barns and outbuildings, to workshops, a market hall and a watermill. The large and attractive site has been used to skilful effect to provide a setting for buildings (dating from the medieval period to the late nineteenth century brought from all over South East England, The buildings themselves have all been threatened with demolition and destruction, often because they stood in the way of redevelopment schemes, reservoirs and other projects. The aim, however, was not only to reconstruct and conserve the buildings, but also to interpret and place them in historical, social and architectural context in order to give a uniquely large and innovative educational resource, as well as an enjoyable place for the visitor to experience. In this article Dr Danae Tankard, the social historian based at the Museum, discusses its origins and evolution during the forty years since its foundation, explaining the philosophy behind its development and the practical issues and challenges which have been faced. She emphasises the continuities in approach, while also pointing to the way the application of policies and practical questions have changed and adapted in the light of experience.

[Hide]

By Clive D Field

In the final part of his magisterial three part investigation and survey of English nonconformity, Clive Field focuses on the occupations and social status of Methodists in the period since their growth in the mid eighteenth century. Using a wealth of statistics, presented in tables, he highlights their distinctive characteristics, with comparisons with other denominations. This section should be read in conjunction with the previous article (part 2) which appeared in the August 2010 issue of The Local Historian. He then revisits the evidence which he has presented in this series, looking at the special characteristics of the different Nonconformist denominations during the past 300 years, in terms of their gender and age profiles; their ethnicity; their social status; and their occupations. His main concern is not to make comparisons with Anglicans and Roman Catholics, but to highlight the often considerable differences within English Nonconformity, there being major variations between, for example, Quakers on the one hand and Primitive Methodists on the other. The four page conclusion provides a convenient overview of the wide themes, while any student of Nonconformity will welcome this three part series with its carefully detailed statistical presentations and analyses, providing a clear and reliable framework within which to place the experience of individual denominations in specific local studies.

[Hide]

By Jacquelene Fillmore

The quantity of local history resources available on the internet seems to increase exponentially, and their importance as a research tool becomes ever more apparent. Finding a way through the multitudes of sites, and being able to weigh up those which are reliable and worthwhile or, in contrast, those which are heavily prejudiced and cannot be regarded as authoritative, is a challenging task. They are often difficult to track down and much harder to assess. Building upon similar articles published in 2007, 2008 and 2009, and upon articles reviewing websites, this paper updates the earlier listings (with details of name and address changes, and sites no longer extant), and then identifies and provides details of some 98 new (or newly listed) sites, ranging from one devoted to the medieval Aberdeen Bestiary, and one on the 1966 Aberfan Disaster, to World War Two history and Young Immigrants to Canada. There are also references to some local place specific sites (including those published by local history societies) which are of special quality. The article will be an invaluable resource in its own right, and feedback emphasises that many local historians regard it as a major contribution to their work.
 

[Hide]

By Gillian Draper

In the heady early days of the internet, many educational institutions, libraries and historical organizations placed resources online for any users, free of charge. More recently there has been a trend for such resources to be available to paying subscribers only, or for access to be limited by other terms and conditions. This is evident not only with, for example, universities, but also with projects where digitisation of material is undertaken in conjunction with profit making commercial companies. In this short but very helpful article Gillian Draper discusses some of the issues raised by this trend, specifically, that independent scholars working outside the realm of universities cannot afford the subscriptions, and cannot readily obtain access in other ways. She draws attention to a number of valuable sites which remain free of access and cost free, and also points to ways in which local historians may in particular circumstances be able to exploit the opportunities presented by the universities in their own area.

[Hide]

By Mark Curthoys

Another in an occasional series in which Mark Curthoys of theOxford dictionary of National Biography discusses key new areas covered by the DNB’s astonishing and impressive online resources (freely accessible at home or in libraries to anybody who is registered with a UK public library). He looks at some of the themes involved in local lives, and people who had an impact upon their local community. These include leading figures in county and borough police forces; the local context of politicians such as Edward Heath; practitioners of local history (including Maurice Beresford and Marie Hartley); people involved in local museums, and local collectors of note; gardeners; heroes and heroines; bishops and evangelists; and architects. An enjoyable read in itself, but it also draws our attention to the wonderful resources that the Oxford DNBrepresents and its great potential for those researching individual places and areas.

[Hide]

By George and Yanina Sheeran

In November 2009 George and Yanina Sheeran published an article in The Local Historian on the philosophy and structure of local history. Entitled No longer the 1948 show, it looked particularly at the future in the context of academic, financial and philosophical threats and challenges, from changing educational provision, through inclusivity in a multi-ethnic society, and globalisation, to the alteration in traditional patterns of popular participation. The article outlined problems and proposed new directions, including the need to survive in a world where political parties neither sympathise nor empathise with local history and comparable subjects, or with funding the practice of those subjects. In the May and August issues of 2010 readers responses were published ,  some of them supportive, others hostile. In the present article the Sheerans respond courteously to these views, under the headings of the postmodernist debate; the ageing population; the role of theory; ethnicity; the search for solutions; and the nature of local history.   

By Heather Falvey

[Hide]

By Anne F Sutton

[Hide]

By Andy Gritt

[Hide]

By William Bortrick

[Hide]

By Ken Sneath

[Hide]

By David Bates

[Hide]

By David Dymond

[Hide]

By David Dymond

HEREFORDSHIRE TAXES IN THE REIGN OF HENRY VIIIed. Michael Faraday (Woolhope Naturalists Field Club 2005 xiv+747pp ISBN 0 9505823 2 8) £17.50+£7 p&p from D. Whitehead, 60 Hafod Road, Hereford HR1 1SQ
The reign of Henry VIII was a period of heavy and innovative taxation intended to assess a much greater proportion of the population than any since the infamous poll taxes of the late fourteenth century. Thus, the assessments for these Tudor taxes list many thousands of men (and some women), ordinary people who would otherwise be invisible in the historical record since the period concerned largely precedes the institution of parish registers. This volume brings together transcripts of all surviving documents relating to the taxation of Herefordshire between 1509 to 1547, the first such resource for any county. The editor has organised the transcripts by year and then by hundred in alphabetical order (given in a key at the beginning), each township in a hundred being listed in the same order as in the original assessment. The majority of the original documents are held in the The National Archives, with just a few (ascribed to 1514) at the Herefordshire Archive Service. The archival catalogue reference is given the heading of each assessment, but the editor has allocated his own reference number for each assessment of each township, based on the year, hundred and numerical position in the assessment. This logical system comes into its own in the comprehensive index, which is organised by document rather than page number. There is a key to the references and their relevant page numbers after the index.
The lucid introduction discusses the different taxes that were assessed during the period, including the forced loans of 1522 and 1523, the returns for which have not survived. There is a series of tables, including the total amounts assessed for each tax by hundred, the rates of assessment for the various taxes, and the names of the high collectors of each hundred. Since this volume is full of names it will be useful for family historians and one-name studies; furthermore, as the assessments were made by township, they are indispensable for local historians of Herefordshire. The introduction, a model of its kind, could be used in place of Richard Hoyle’s Tudor Taxation Records (1994), now long out of print. This massive undertaking by Michael Faraday has been produced in a clear and logical format and he should be applauded for its comprehensive nature.
 
HEATHER FALVEY
 
HeatherFalvey teaches palaeography and local history for the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education and also Oxford University Department of Continuing Education. She is secretary of the Hertfordshire Record Society and has recently co-edited a volume of fifteenth-century wills for the Suffolk Record Society.
 
 

[Hide]

By Keith Vernon

THE CITY OF WESTMINSTER Part I: Landownership and religious history (Victoria History of the County of Middlesex vol.13 ed. Patricia E.C. Croot with Alan Thacker and Elizabeth Williamson (Institute of Historical Research/Boydell and Brewer 2009 . xviii+254 pages ISBN 978-1-90435-622-6) £95
The appearance of another volume of the VCH is always an event. There are still too many counties and towns which have not had the foresight or civic piety to fund their own volumes. Six volumes on Middlesex have been completed and those concerning Westminster cover the most complex area of this well populated county, increasingly built upon since the tenth century. This volume covers topography, early settlement, landownership and religious history, providing a general introduction to matters to be studied in later volumes, such as the royal palaces, government offices and legal inns. It explains how the area developed around its islands and watercourses, the gradual increase of settlement along the roads (such as Lundenwic round Aldwych), and the dominant influences of Westminster Abbey and the king. En route, it explains in exemplary fashion such matters as the almost forgotten vill of Eye, the manor of Ebury or the abbots house at Neat, the churches of St Martin and the Holy Innocents, the liberty of the Savoy, the soke of Leicester, and the broken cross, to pick out a few. The growth of bureaucracy is sketched, the need to house the king’s servants (48 grades of clerks in the fourteenth century chancery) meant a proliferation of ecclesiastical inns and the great houses of secular lords. The greed of Henry VIII is frequently mentioned: he was seizing land for his new palaces and parks of Whitehall and St James even before the Dissolution offered him even more scope. The Reformation allowed secular landowners to take a dominant role, and little land was undeveloped outside the parks by 1800. The introduction ends with the film industry and Chinese community of Soho taking over from the earlier French and Italians.
In the section on landowners, the characteristic VCH format is clear: short but comprehensive summaries of the descent of properties, some amazingly complex and some unsurprisingly infested by citizens of London. Curiosities and pleasing juxtapositions occur: the larger part of Westminster Abbeys Covent Garden passed via the dukes of Bedford, who built the great piazza in the 1630s, to Beechams Pills and then to owners with more discreet names. The religious history is dominated by Westminster Abbey and the medieval parishes until the eighteenth century. Thereafter new parishes proliferated (53 of them), increased by a large number of non-conformist communities and many missions; the last religion recorded (in 2008) is the Buddhists. The more ancient and larger institutions receive a more detailed treatment.
There is the good assortment of maps and illustrations expected of the VCH, many from the Guildhall Library and the collections built up by the long involvement of the Corporation of London in the preservation of the history of London. A short review cannot do justice to the scope and usefulness of this work, just to mention all the estates would take more than the word allowance. The value of the volume is summarised in its index which opens its riches to those interested in the history of London, of which Westminster may consider itself to be the best part.
 
ANNE F. SUTTON
 
Anne F Sutton is author of The Mercery of London: Trade, Goods and People 1130-1578 (Ashgate, Aldershot 2005 and several articles on medieval London.
 

[Hide]