The Local Historian Volume 47 Number 4 October 2017

By Alan G. Crosby

As we move into the second half of the ‘decade of centenaries’, the commemoration of specific battles in the Great War, and of the political and military milestones in the struggle in Ireland, will be paralleled by a growing consciousness of aftermath. Between 2020 and 2025 communities throughout the British Isles will be marking the anniversaries of the planning, building and unveiling of memorials to the dead, and in doing so will be drawing attention to one of the most ubiquitous of the elements which make up our cities, towns and villages. The war memorial on the green, in the market place, outside the railway station or at the head of the main street is a symbol of the totality of war and the devastating impact it had on two generations.

In September I was in south-west France, and there the memorials are no less prominent, stand in similar locations, have the same mixture of patriotism and grief, and, with differences in the emphasis of phrasing (and sometimes with quotations from ‘Le Marseillaise’) express identical sentiments. There, in fact, the losses were proportionately greater: the demographic profile of France in the post-1945 period showed a very pronounced reduction in the numbers of men in their 40s and 50s, compared with the generations before and after, and compared with women of the same age. It was deeply poignant to think of those who went from the vineyards of Bergerac and the sheep pastures of the Causses, to die in the deep mud of another, very foreign, part of their own country.

The focus on the First World War and the entwined military and political events of 1914-1923 has perhaps tended to divert attention away from other anniversaries. I mentioned in a previous editorial about the centenary next year of the first stage of the enfranchisement of women, and it’s pleasing to see that some local societies are paying attention to this very important topic. But others come to mind, some of them not easy to celebrate but worthy of our attention. For example, in my article on housing in this issue I note the great significance of the 1918-1919 expansion of council housing programmes—tracing these ambitions (and their well-nigh universal failure to be fully implemented) is a good meaty topic with political, economic and social dimensions and a major impact on the landscape or townscape of communities.

Quite different in every sense, but for everywhere a cause of panic and dread just over a hundred years ago, was the Spanish ‘flu epidemic of 1919. The last and most serious of a series of epidemic ‘crises’ in Britain which began with the cholera of 1832, it wrought havoc and produced alarming levels of civilian mortality in a weakened and traumatised population only just beginning to recover psychologically from the war. How did local communities respond to the influenza? What practical steps were taken to deal with it, and how did it affect specific places? A very great deal has been written on the cholera of 1832 and 1848, but the far more devastating influenza of 1919 receives much less attention from local historians. I’ve never researched it myself (I ought to practise what I preach, I suppose!) but I would probably begin with a look at the medical officer of health reports and other local authority records and maybe then spend a productive time putting ‘influenza’ in the search box for the on-line newspapers for my area and seeing what comes up. Worth a try, perhaps?

[Hide]

By Cherry Lewis

pp 267-282

This paper, the winner of the British Association for Local History’s 2017 David Hey Memorial Award for a long article, celebrates the bicentenary of the first-ever geological map of a country – ‘the map that changed the world’ – which was created by William Smith and published in 1815, and to which the ironmaster, David Mushet, made a small contribution. Mushet was born in 1772 at Dalkeith near Edinburgh, and in 1805 moved to Alfreton in Derbyshire where he was involved with the Riddings ironworks. Five years later he moved again, to the Forest of Dean with its many collieries and significant iron industry. Mushet knew and worked with the two leading geologists of the time: William Smith, the ‘Father’ of English Geology and John Farey, Smith’s ‘bulldog’, whose careers are outlined. His hitherto unrecognised knowledge of geology, which 200 years ago was a science still in its infancy, resulted in him compiling remarkably accurate geological sections of the Forest of Dean coalfield. With William Smith acting as his agent, they used these sections in attempts to sell Mushet’s Bixslade mine. Mushet’s early geological expertise provides an example of how the ‘word according to Smith’ spread virus-like through the community of practical men seeking coal and iron to fuel the Industrial Revolution. But this paper also demonstrates how easily the order of strata could be misinterpreted due to the lack of a standardised nomenclature and a good knowledge of fossils.

[Hide]

By Michael Hughes

pp 283-297

In the introduction to this paper Michael Hughes draws attention to the new interest in the local aspects of the First World War, focusing on the Home Front and paying particular attention to the development of anti-war sentiment and on the question of conscientious objectors, their experiences and  attitudes to them. He notes that recent perspectives on conscientious objectors have been sympathetic, but observes that the question cannot be seen in isolation—it was part of wider patterns of social and political change with a strong dimension of radicalism. Hughes argues that enthusiasm for the war was not evenly spread across the country, and varied considerably between counties and between neighbouring towns. His paper examines the development of the anti-war movement in Lancashire, stating at the outset that northern industrial cities were markedly less enthusiastic about the war than, for example, London, but that—measured by statistics for recruitment in the early weeks of the conflict,  the county was significantly more enthusiastic than was Yorkshire. He identifies possible factors which could explain the variance, including the strength of nonconformity and dissent; the presence of a major regiment based in a particular town; and the influence of prominent local individuals, such as the Earl of Derby in Lancashire. The discussion of conscientious objectors highlights the sources which can be used to research the topic, and emphasises the importance of religious belief and affiliation, political allegiances, social class and employment. It analyses the treatment of COs and concludes with the view that ‘more granular studies’ looking at administrative units below county level are essential for gaining a clearer understanding of anti-war feeling.

[Hide]

By Alan G. Crosby

pp 298-316

This article follows on from an overview of housing agendas and topics which appeared in the July 2017 issue of The Local Historian. It considers the chronology of key housing types, suggesting the aspects which usefully be explored by local historians, and the problems and challenges of doing so, and identifies some of the themes which are currently of interest to historians working in the field of housing history.  The introduction emphasises the great importance of local studies, and the fact that the local experience might diverge greatly from the general, or might be very typical. The key housing types covered are: 1) Vernacular and polite housing of the pre-industrial period (in rural areas, during the industrial period); 2) The working class housing of the Industrial Revolution (circa 1770 to circa 1860); 3) The working class housing of the period of regulation: 1860s onwards; 4) The middle class and suburban housing of the period before the First World War; 5) The public sector: council housing from the 1870s to the 1970s; 6) Private housing between the wars and under the post-1947 planning system.

[Hide]

pp 317-323

This paper, which was runner-up in the British Association for Local History’s 2017 awards for a short article, examines the manuscript cookery book of Jane Loraine of Kirkharle in Northumberland. It begins with a systematic assessment of the manuscript itself, its structure and its provenance, identifying the author and setting her in the context of an upper gentry family of the 1680s. It then analyses the contents, highlighting the social network which is revealed by the names attached to many of the recipes – 41 different women (and thirteen men) are thereby referenced, providing a very convincing picture of the family, neighbour and county connections of Jane Loraine and her family. Catherine Alexander argues that this recreates for us ‘a female community or network which clearly celebrates the locality and the relationship between the wives and other female relations of estate holders’. 

[Hide]

By Tracey Jones

pp 324-334

This article is a revised version of an essay which in 2015 won the Harold Fox Prize at the Centre for English Local History, University of Leicester. Quoting John Beckett (‘History is about peeling back the layers … and for the local historian it begins where we are’) Tracey Jones argues that local history is the study of an area, spatially defined by geography and topography, and the local historian must consider ‘place’ - the landscape, street patterns and the buildings. But this has opened up to include community as a whole, so local history is more than the study of a geographic place set by boundaries; it is the study of ordinary people and how they contribute to identities and the sense of place. A constituent part of local history is ‘cultural identities’, so the study of local history is important because it emphasises ‘people’s need to feel connected, to feel they have roots’.

This paper outlines a tripartite system of ‘location, locale and sense of place’, suggesting that since the 1960s our understanding of ‘local’ has changed to incorporate ‘locale’ (the various functions of a place including political, economic, social and cultural processes which often exceed or overlap geographical boundaries). It assesses developments in local history relating to a ‘sense of place’ which reflects the feelings and connections the community has for a locality and argues that this is subjective, personal, and sensual. 

[Hide]

By Sarah Rose

In terms of their content, the publications in this review vary greatly: some focus on particular individuals or families while others consider whole communities or specific buildings. Collectively they represent a broad geography, from the south-east to the north-west of England, and between them cover over a thousand years of history. But what they do have in common is that they are all self-published. Choosing to publish independently can have its drawbacks, not least having to forego the marketing and editorial support that established publishing houses provide. However, it does give authors the freedom to choose their own approach and can enable books on niche topics to reach their target audience more quickly.

Self-publishing can be particularly advantageous to those wishing to disseminate original source material relating to a single locality. Those interested in the township of Newsham in North Yorkshire, for instance, will benefit from the efforts of Jon Smith and Linda Shirwood of the Barningham Local History Group, who have published the Newsham tithe apportionment of 1841. The intriguingly entitled Short Butts and Sandy Bottom (both are field-names) is a companion volume to the tithe apportionment for Barningham township (Jam Letch and Jingle Potts). Having previous experience of publishing the content of tithe apportionments is no bad thing, given the large amount of data contained within them. Though simply produced, this A5 pamphlet is packed with detail that is presented logically and gets full marks for user-friendliness. The transcribed schedule is accompanied by maps that are reproduced section by section and are clearly labelled. The A-Z of owners, occupiers and 575 properties also allows the data to be accessed in different ways.

Another mid-nineteenth century source that is being increasingly brought out in print is the 1851 religious census. John Crummett of the New Mills Local History Society has examined the census as it pertains to the parishes of northern Derbyshire. As the author freely admits, the Derbyshire Record Society already published the returns in full for the county in 1995. Crummet’s pamphlet Mothering Sunday 30th March 1851: A Window into Church-going in Northern Derbyshire also reproduces the basic data in an appendix, but is more broadly concerned with discussing the views of two local vicars who objected to the census, in addition to exploring the wider political context behind it and what the returns can tell us about attendance and religious divisions. Although covering one relatively small geographical area, commentaries of this kind are useful in terms of opening the eyes of the researcher to the potential pitfalls of using this source and what may be gleaned from it.

The potential abundance of documentary and photographic evidence relating to community life in the nineteenth century is amply demonstrated by Fownhope Beyond Memory. David M. Clark’s detailed research has resulted in a highly informative and enjoyable account of social and economic change in one Herefordshire village from the time of the Great Reform Act in 1832 to 1919. This 224-page volume is the second publication in a planned series covering the history of Fownhope from Tudor times to the year 2000. It draws on school log books, census returns, business ledgers and sales particulars, newspapers and parish records, some of which are contained in the Fownhope Local History Group Community Archive. The author has taken pains to balance academic rigour (including a bibliography and index) with the need to appeal to a wider readership. Plenty of individuals feature in this book, which will increase its usefulness to family historians. The layout is highly attractive, with more than 200 images, graphs and extracts from fully referenced original sources given in brightly coloured boxes somewhat reminiscent of a school text book. Many themes are examined over 43 chapters, all of which go beyond the bare facts to offer a sharp assessment of change over time.

Rather than focus on one period of history, Kimble’s Journey: The History of England from the Perspective of a Rural Parish devotes 243 A4 pages to the history of two rural parishes in Buckinghamshire, namely Great and Little Kimble, over several thousand years, beginning with geology and ancient history. Ambitiously, it aims to set the history of these parishes in a wider context. The relationship between the local and national picture is tenuously drawn in some places, but there are two very distinct topics of wider significance that receive full attention. One of these is the local connection with John Hampden, the seventeenth-century MP whose refusal to pay ship money in Great Kimble church, and the subsequent attempt to arrest him as one of the ‘Five Members’, contributed to the outbreak of the Civil War. A second key topic is a study of the Chequers Estate, before and after it became the country residence of the prime minister in 1921. The lack of referencing can be frustrating at times, particularly where the argument tackles conventional interpretations of the past head on. However, there’s plenty of personality here which makes for a lively read, leaving you in no doubt of the author’s enthusiasm for his subject. The appendix contains several pieces of transcribed source material and further commentary, while the text is broken up by plenty of supporting images and maps.

The choice between breadth or depth in a single publication is not always easy and may well be influenced by several practical considerations, including the costs involved. A selection of essays on different topics is one way of reaching a compromise. Cowbridge and Llanblethian: A Historical Medley certainly lives up to its title, with fourteen articles of varying length offering historical snapshots of the town and its surrounding parish. Several of these essays are reprinted from the Cowbridge Local History Society newsletter or public talks, which perhaps explains the over-simplified exploration of some issues. Yet this recycling ensures that local research is disseminated beyond the society membership and with less effort than trying to write a book from scratch. Separate essays also allow for a collaborative approach without trying to achieve a single voice. Amply illustrated and fully indexed, this is a good-quality publication that illuminates some key aspects of the history and archaeology of this planned medieval town. A similar approach has been taken by the Bewdley Historical Research Group, whose Bewdley Miscellany must also be praised for its high quality. Formed from a collection of short essays covering some 500 years of local history, the emphasis of this attractive book is the local inhabitants, including a witch and highway robbers as well as soldiers and tradesmen. Numerous well-chosen extracts from local sources and photographs help to give a flavour of daily life, while some of the essays offer a commentary on the actual source material. A non-chronological history might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but this is very easy to dip in and out of.

Settlement growth and urbanisation is a key issue within several of the publications mentioned here, but is the particular focus of Roehampton Village, a recent offering from the prolific Dorian Gerhold, former chairman of Wandsworth Historical Society. Meticulously researched, this publication traces the development of Roehampton, which comprised just a few cottages in the seventeenth century before being transformed into a London suburb in the nineteenth. As the current village lies largely on the former common, the story is particularly interesting in terms of enclosure and the human cost of such development through law suits and evictions. Several key documents have enabled the reconstruction of the village in 1617 and 1708, the result of which revises received wisdom on the issue. The maps illustrating these changes are a welcome accompaniment to the text.

Moving further into the centre of London, On the City’s Edge: A History of Fann Street, London utilises parish registers, land tax records and directories among other records to reconstruct a single street over two centuries prior to its destruction by bombs in 1940. This devastation has presumably contributed to a lack of images, which means that this publication is rather text-heavy. That said, the excellence of the research is not in doubt. An overview chapter covers social topics, such as health and the displacement of the poor, as well as discussing the complexities of jurisdiction given the street’s position on the very edge of the City’s northern boundary. This is followed by a detailed look at specific buildings where a variety of trades were once practised. Indeed, the post-war redevelopment of the site for residential purposes belies the hive of activity that Fann Street once was.

Several of the publications included in this review seek to enhance the profile of our built heritage. To this end, Barnet Museum has produced Barnet Physic Well: The Tourist Attraction That Never Quite Made It, which provides a seemingly thorough, albeit unreferenced account of the seventeenth century well site. Had Barnet made it as a spa-town, this A4-sized and fully illustrated publication would have undoubtedly warranted more than eight pages; but the story of the well’s failure is still an interesting one. Although the site was visited by the likes of Camden, Samuel Pepys and Celia Fiennes, it did not have any royal visitors—the crucial ingredient for success, it seems. And yet the well still had a viable role within the local community, with proceeds from visitors at one time been given to the poor. Lacking visits from the well-to do, the site was not marked in any significant way until it was surrounded by a new council housing estate and covered by a mock-Tudor building in the 1930s. Happily, after years of neglect, Barnet Museum volunteers have organised public openings of the well for the past few years in order to promote knowledge of the site.

Also seeking to attract visitors is Parrox Hall in Lancashire. The Hall, which claims to be the oldest in Lancashire still in the occupation by the same family, is the subject of an attractive and extensively illustrated book by local historian and trustee of the Parrox Hall Preservation Trust, Gordon Heald. Parrox Hall: The Best Kept Secret of Over Wyre briefly tells the story of the Hall and its surroundings from the tenth century onwards. The house itself was first referred to in 1456 and phases of subsequent building and their historical context are duly traced. Continuous occupation by one family means that the visitor can expect a unique collection of paintings and objects. In serving as a guidebook, the text is necessarily light on detail in places and focuses on key episodes, but the content is all drawn from more in-depth research. The book will be a useful companion for visitors and will help raise awareness of this little-known gem.

In sharp contrast to the continuity and success enjoyed by Parrox Hall, Thurnby Court in Leicestershire had a lifespan of just 46 years. Demolished by dynamite in 1916, Thurnby is one of fifty lost houses in the county. However, Brian Screaton, the author of Thurnby Court: The Story of an Extravagant but Short-Lived Leicestershire Mansion, has still managed to provide a vivid and eminently readable reconstruction of life in this enormous mansion. Built by the wealthy Jackson family and described by Pevsner as ‘large and lavish in a coarse renaissance style’, the house contained many modern conveniences, including an indoor bathing pool. Constructing the history of a house that no longer exists is no mean feat, but photographic evidence, including postcards, has played an important role. The author has also been able to trace the detailed financial transactions involved in slowly building up a country estate from scratch, and has even located some of the surviving artefacts that were stripped from the house before its demolition and have been incorporated into other local buildings.

Images of a location—two paintings to be exact—provided the inspiration for Nigel Ian Cameron of Solihull Local History Circle to research the history of The Paytons of Solihull. The book is intended to shed light on this prominent local family, after a descendant gifted two nineteenth-century paintings of Solihull and the reminiscences of local schoolboy Charles Payton (1891-1949) to the society. These same reminiscences are reproduced in the book, supported by an overview chapter about the community in which the Paytons prospered. The main body of the publication is given over to a comprehensive genealogical study, with short biographies of family members and the people in their lives, including teachers, friends and neighbours, local worthies and business partners. This yields all sorts of details, including information about local properties and family business interests that stretched as far afield as Spain, Portugal and South America. The detailed information has been clearly laid-out and fully indexed, while the text is supported by several colour images, including the two donated paintings themselves.

The subject of art brings us to the final publication in this review. Some books do far more than their titles let on and Nigel Surry’s The Elusive Mr Beare and Other Essays is just one example. The eponymous Mr Beare was the artist George Beare, who died in his twenties in 1749, his parentage and place of birth unknown. His life and career are the topic of the first chapter only, serving as a case study of sorts. As well as writing Beare’s ODNB entry, Surry is also the author of A Portsmouth Canvas: The Art of the City and the Sea 1770-1970 (2008), which the ‘Other Essays’ serve to expand upon. The central chapters examine the relationship between artists, patrons and the public in Georgian Hampshire, particularly comparing the intellectual and cultural life of Portsmouth and Plymouth. They begin with the difficulties journeymen painters had in finding employment in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, before examining the opportunities that came in the later Georgian period thanks to the increasing popularity of watercolours, the advertising and sale of prints through collaborations with booksellers, and public exhibitions. These chapters perhaps have the greatest relevance to the local historian in drawing attention to the important social differences that existed between the Portsmouth and Plymouth at this time, as revealed through the differing experiences of Joshua Reynolds and James Northcote. While both of these towns boasted new assembly rooms and theatres, each offered painters differing clientele: Plymouth was dominated by the established gentry, while Portsmouth, with its Royal Naval Academy, featured an emerging middle class of military men, professionals and trades people. The final chapters are more distinctive given their respective foci on the war artist Richard Eurich (1903-1992) and portrayals of Portsmouth in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Helpfully, there is a bibliography of relevant material published since 2008, and the depth of knowledge gives it a scholarly feel without being too dense for the general reader.

SHORT BUTTS AND SANDY BOTTOM: The Newsham Tithe Apportionment of 1841 by Jon Smith and Linda Sherwood (Barningham Local History Group no.17 2017 no ISBN) £10+£1.50 p&p from Barningham Local History Group tel. 01833 621374 email jonxxsmith@gmail.com

MOTHERING SUNDAY 30th MARCH 1851: A Window into Church-Going in Northern Derbyshire by John Crummett (New Mills Local History Society 2016) £2 + p&p from Rob Weston, New Mill Local History Society, The Thorns, Laneside Road, New Mills, High Peak SK22 4LU www.newmillshistory.org.uk

FOWNHOPE BEYOND MEMORY: Change in a Herefordshire Village 1832-1919 by David M Clark (Fownhope Local History Group 2016 ISBN 978 0 9557867 1 6) £12+£3 p&p from Fownhope Local History Group, c/o Pippins, Calper Lane, Fownhope, Hereford HR1 4PJ

KIMBLE’S JOURNEY: The History of England from the Perspective of a Rural Parish by Roger Howgate (Bookham House 2015 ISBN 978 0 9934408 0 9) £20

COWBRIDGE AND LLANBLETHIAN: An Historical Medley edited by Brian James (Cowbridge History Society 2016 ISBN 0 9537029 8 7) £10 available from Dick Tonkin, Stallcourt Mews, Llanblethian, Cowbridge CF71 7JU tel 01446 772704 chsoc@hotmail.co.uk

BEWDLEY MISCELLANY Bewdley Historical Research Group (Bewdley Historical Research Group 2015 ISBN 978 0 9518164 9 3) £9.95 from bewdleyhistory@btinternet.com tel 01299 403582

ROEHAMPTON VILLAGE by Dorian Gerhold (Wandsworth Historical Society Paper 29 2016 ISBN 978 0 905121 38 3) £5+£1.50 p&p contact Neil Robson ngrobson@tiscali.co.uk

ON THE CITY’S EDGE: A History of Fann Street London by Anthony Camp (2016 ISBN 978 0 9503308 3 9) £9

BARNET PHYSIC WELL: the tourist attraction that never quite made it Carla Herrmann (Barnet Museum and Local History Society 2017 ISBN 978 1 910003 01 5) £2.75+£2 p&p from Barnet Museum Shop Barnet Museum, 31 Wood Street, Barnet EN5 4BE cheques to ‘Barnet Museum’

PARROX HALL: The Best Kept Secret of Over Wyre by Gordon Heald (Parrox Hall Preservation Trust 2016) £9.50 to visitors to Parrox Hall, Park Lane, Preesall, Poulton le Fylde FY6 ONW

THURNBY COURT by Brian Screaton (2016 no ISBN) £7.95+£2 p&p from www.thrunbycourt.blogspot.co.uk

THE PAYTONS OF SOLIHULL by Nigel Ian Cameron (Solihull Local History Circle 2016 no ISBN) £9.50 inc p&p from Solihull Local History Circle, 7 Wilford Grove, Solihull B91 3FP

THE ELUSIVE MR BEARE AND OTHER ESSAYS Nigel Surry (Fortune Press 2015 ISBN 978 0 9559118 1 1) £5+£2 p&p cheques to the author 177 Melford Road, Sudbury CO10 1JU

By Christopher French

[Hide]

By Angus J. L. Winchester

[Hide]

By John Rhodes

[Hide]

By Carl Chinn and Malcolm Dick

[Hide]

By T.L. Richardson

[Hide]

By Paul Rabbitts

[Hide]

By Robert Fyson

[Hide]