The Local Historian Volume 49 Number 2 April 2019

By Kate Tiller

pp. 90-107

As a drawing-together of the main themes explored in the wealth of local history and family history research and writing which was generated by the centenary of the First World War and its key episodes, this articles serves as a reminder of the historiography of the subject. It begins by considering how historians in this country and elsewhere have approached the agenda of theses and issues, pointing to (for example) ‘added perspectives such as the home front, the role of women, the lives of children, non-European dimensions and the role of the Empire; the revisiting and reappraisal of the conventional views about the conduct of the war and its military narrative; and the creation of materials for teaching on the subject. A powerful theme is commemoration and the strong desire that as real memory has faded and gone, the personal and collective memory should be sustained.

The article discusses how the historian Jay Winter has urged a ‘transnational’ approach to the subject, identifying that we are now in a fourth generation of studies of the war, placing the events in a much wider context and emphasising the combination of history and memorial, as seen in the best museums and galleries devoted to the First World War. There is a need to ensure that the history of the war and its impact should be public history, not just confined to academe and its concerns, and that it becomes a community-based and community-focused exercise. In this context the tremendous importance of local research and local studies is highlighted.

The second half of the article is a local case study of Theberton in Suffolk, which discusses commemoration (focusing on the dramatic crash of a burning zeppelin in June 1917, including contemporary reaction and reporting and the commemorative events which marked the centenary). There is a detailed discussion of the sharply contrasting but complementary stories of two local men—Alfred Button, an agricultural labourer, and Charles Doughty-Wylie, heir to the Theberton Hall estate. The final section provides an important summing-up and assessment of the centenary of the First World War, the lessons and opportunities which it brought, and the longer term debates and discussions which it has generated.

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By Michael Hughes

pp. 108-120

This article discusses the way in which the national celebration of peace, held in the summer of 1919, was manifested locally. It begins by pointing out that 1919 itself was a year of major tensions and political dangers, and that in some places the celebrations themselves saw scenes of violence and rioting. Although peace celebrations were intended as, and usually portrayed as, a focus for national and local unity and harmony, the reality was more complex and they could ‘unmask conflicting perspectives and values in communities up and down Britain’. The bulk of the article looks at the experience of Lancashire, and Michael Hughes observes that it ‘is striking, and in some ways surprising, that most disorders ... occurred in such places as Luton and Coventry rather than in the older industrial settlements of the north of England’ with their tradition of radical politics.

Extensive use is made of newspaper reporting of the Armistice, its aftermath, and the peace celebrations themselves, with close attention to the often wide discrepancies between what the government was proposing and what was acceptable to local authorities in Lancashire. A particular source of disagreement was the question of expenditure, with some councils taking the initiative, setting up special committees to plan and manage events, and voting significant sums for the funding of celebrations, but others being condemned for not spending enough. There were arguments about whether the money would be better spent on, for example, demobilised and disabled soldiers, a conflict illustrated by a vocal and passionate disagreement in the borough of Haslingden.

The article shows how the celebrations took different forms in different places – for example, whether there was a military parade or a war veterans’ parade as the centrepiece – and how in some places, such as Manchester and Liverpool, the mood was notably subdued in comparison with the joy which had greeted the November armistice. In contrast, in Bacup, St Annes and Clitheroe, among others, there was evidence of community harmony and overt enthusiasm. In many places the question of drink and its evil consequences was raised ahead of the celebrations.

Michael Hughes draws the following conclusions: 1) that there was tremendous diversity within Lancashire and more widely, and that patriotic pride could not supplant differences of class, education, community and region; 2) that time had moved on with extraordinary speed and much less than a year after the end of the war the spontaneous exhilaration at the coming of peace had long since been spent; 3) the role of organisations representing ex-servicemen was very important and, in dramatic contrast to their German equivalents, they sought an ‘official’ and ‘constitutional role; while most local councils in Lancashire worked with and for the community and these organisations (in contrast to, for example, the experience of Luton); 4) local responses to war and international politics after 1918 reflect a national discourse mediated through local circumstances, producing distinctively local characteristics; with a dearth of anti-German feeling, a desire to return to normality, and clearly without any significant questioning of the purpose or outcome of the war itself.

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By John Hinshelwood

pp. 121-132

This article takes a statistical approach to the analysis of conscientious objection in the First World War, using as its starting point the Imperial War Museum’s Conscientious Objectors Register 1914-1918 developed by Cyril Pearce, and drawing upon the work of the Haringey Frist World War Peace Forum which made use of the IWM Register. The Haringey project focused on 350 COs from the Hornsey, Tottenham and Wood Green areas of Middlesex and led to analysis of the variable incidence of conscientious objection between local authority areas. Investigation suggested that Birmingham had the highest absolute number of any local authority in the country, and that the incidence per capita was only slightly lower than in the three authorities that now make up the borough of Haringey.

The next section deals with types of conscientious objection (emphasising that there were at least seven sub-groups) and discusses their circumstances in the context of legislation, the conscription procedures and religious motivation. There then follows an analysis of attitudes to conscription in North London and Birmingham, drawing attention to the political as well as religious affiliations of objectors and highlighting the role of five anti-conscription bodies, two political parties (Independent Labour and Socialist), and three non-political campaign groups. There is detailed discussion of the role of these various organisations and their significance in the story of COs. An appendix provides a clear and wide-ranging analysis of how statistical approaches can highlight hotbeds of objection, including absolute numbers; per capita percentage of male population; and permutations on these calculations.

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By John Buckell

pp. 133-147

John Buckell begins this article by arguing that the popular image of suffragettes is simplistic, over-focused on the London picture, and conceals many local variations. He draws largely upon press coverage to analyse the movement in Northamptonshire, beginning with the general background and then discussing the particular example of Northampton, where by 1900 suffragist arguments were already familiar. The article draws attention to the role of working women here and in nearby Leicester, suggesting that in the latter working women were prominent but that in Northampton the membership of the movement – despite the presence of large numbers of female workers in the boot and shoe industry – was largely middle and upper-middle class.

The deteriorating local relationship between the suffrage movement and the Liberal Party is discussed, in the context of the key personalities who formed and sustained the local branch of the WSPU. There is extensive coverage of the experience of the movement in others towns – notably Kettering and Wellingborough – and then the post-1911 history of the Northampton branch of the WSPU is considered, including its active techniques to spread the message, ranging from door to door canvassing and newspaper sales to public meetings and drawing room ‘at homes’. The boycott of the 1911 census is discussed, and there is analysis of the experience of the Northampton branch of the NUWSS. The final sections of the article look at the end of the campaign, and assess the social, family and political backgrounds of the Northamptonshire campaigners.

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By Harry Fairburn

pp. 148-154

In his account of the women’s suffrage movement in North Yorkshire Harry Fairburn points out that although in national terms such areas had a low profile, that does not mean that they were lacking interest in or awareness of the issue, and he traces the concern for women’s suffrage in the region back to at least the beginning of the 1870s. He uses newspapers, including the Women’s Suffrage Journal, to identify meetings and public engagements held in the area by prominent figures in the movement and shows how women such as Lydia Becker were very active in the county year after year. The divergence between the approaches and methods of the WSPU and the NUWSS are highlighted, including the latter’s use of ‘caravans’ to carry the message to rural and remote areas, typifying its work in this part of Yorkshire. Fairburn draws attention to the role of key individuals as organisers and campaigners, and includes a detailed section which assesses the local events and impact of the great 1913 pilgrimage to London.

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By Various Reviewers

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By Patricia Skillicorn

(Culture Vannin 2016 xix+245pp ISBN 978-1-5262-0498-1) £15

The number of books about the First World War published during its centenary is impressive indeed: was there really that much left to say about the conflict and were there any areas left to explore? The answer is a resounding ‘yes’, not least from those who tackle the subject through the lens of locality. In the 1960s Arthur Marwick’s ground-breaking work on the British home front opened up a new avenue for social historians to explore and took the debate far beyond its original military and logistical focus. It led to historians asking whether all areas of the country reacted in the same way, and whether different regions faced specifically local problems. Patricia Skillicorn’s book looks at the impact on the Isle of Man and is obviously of interest to those concerned with Manx history, but her book is of considerable relevance to those interested in the First World War and in twentieth century social and political history more generally.

Skillicorn writes lucidly and makes good use of a number of primary sources including official documents, local newspapers and personal diaries. Her narrative approach maintains the interest for the general reader, but the well-referenced work also satisfies the more academically minded. The opening chapters offer a useful historical context and then the book goes on to cover topics such as conscription, economic and political factors, as well as women’s war work. The latter, for example, serves to remind us that contemporary worries about the breakdown of moral codes during wartime were commonplace in Britain. Warnings in 1915 about the dangers of drink and disorderly conduct of ‘flighty girls’ in the Isle of Man were also perceived as wartime problems elsewhere, particularly in areas where women entered munitions work and received rates of pay above those of pre-war employment.

A good deal of the book tackles the Manx political situation, given that its governance—almost feudal in the eyes of its critics—came under increasing strain between 1914 and 1918. Skillicorn addresses the issues of the campaign for cheaper bread and greater political representation. Certainly in many areas local elites came under pressure from a central government whose powers to prioritise the war effort could simply override local considerations. No wonder, then, that the whole pretension of a Manx Home Rule philosophy was exposed during this period. In that sense, the fragility of local autonomy in wartime conditions exposed the contradictions of pre-war modes of local political power.

This book adds to our knowledge of how different regions of the country reacted to the tensions inevitably created by twentieth century total warfare. It is good to see that books such as Skillicorn’s can still find an outlet for publication.

Chris Brader has a PhD from the University of Warwick and is the author of Timbertown Girls: Borders Women in the First World War.

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Edited by M. Tompkins

(Worcestershire Historical Society 2017 xxix+328pp ISSN 0141-4577) £28

This fine edition, expertly introduced by Christopher Dyer assisted by Julian Hunt and Michael Hall, encompasses a period of 364 years from the Middle Ages to the English Civil Wars, and represents a rare, virtually continuous, series of records for what became in effect the township of Romsley, a hamlet of Halesowen. It is characterised in the Middle Ages as a landscape of ‘scattered settlements and buildings’ and a photograph on the dust jacket illustrates the survival in the twenty-first century pastoral landscape of traces of medieval demarcations of strips of arable land, divided by ridges, referred to as selions in the manorial court rolls. Such an interface between observable landscape features supported by surviving documentary evidence exemplifies the extraordinary capacity of the medieval text to explain how parts of the rural landscape have retained the template of a bygone age, not only in their field layout but also in the survival of a pre-existing twelfth-century chapel with fourteenth and fifteenth century alterations, which is also illustrated on the cover.

As Dyer affirms, manorial court rolls rank high among the historical sources for this period used by social and local historians, providing evidence about English and European demography; challenging previous assumptions about marriage, family, fertility, mortality, life expectation and the changes (more profound in Romsley than elsewhere) resulting from the disastrous impact of the Black Death; the workings of the land market; land and livestock management, farming methods and commercial activity; peasant mentality, popular culture, the village community, housing, social structure, disputes and conflicts. These range from verbal abuse, assault, burglary, debt, hedge burning, to theft and trespass. However, the records also exemplify the social cohesion, which enabled conflicts to be resolved in the interests of community harmony. Above all, the court rolls provide rare insights into the daily lives of ordinary people, ‘mainly the better-off, middling sort’, but including occasional glimpses of ‘the cottagers and servants’ readily accessible through the English transcripts of the Latin originals.

Hence, they will attract the attention of family, local and social historians interested in the northern part of the historic county of Worcestershire, whose task will be assisted by the detailed, differentiated indices helpfully provided by the editors relating to Romsley’s 1000 plus residents throughout this period, its scattered communities and the wide variety of subjects appearing in the records. They extend from Felice de Chiselhurst fined one penny for ’encroaching on the lord’s ground with her manure’ to Roger Sparry fined for ‘taking from the lord a fish pond lying in the common’.

The abundance and wealth of detail contained in the Halesowen and Romsley records have already attracted the international attention of historians such as Zvi Razi, R.H. Hilton and R.K. Field and also the American sociologist G.C. Homans, which have made Halesowen and its hinterland ‘one of the most famous of all medieval villages’, rivalling Ladurie’s Montaillou and Beresford’s Wharram Percy. This splendid new edition is bound to extend that interest further locally, regionally, nationally and internationally.

John A. Hargreaves is editor of the Transactions of the Halifax Antiquarian Society and has edited the volume of the Wakefield court rolls for 1812-13. He is a retired teacher and currently a Visiting Research Fellow in History at the University of Huddersfield and an Associate of the Centre for Victorian Studies at Leeds Trinity University.

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By 1. Gregory Stevens Cox 2. Simon Coombe

VICTOR HUGO’S ST PETER PORT by Gregory Stevens Cox (Blue Ormer 2018 128p ISBN 9780992879174) £12.99;

JOHN WILSON - GUERNSEY’S ARCHITECT A celebration by Simon Coombe (Blue Ormer 2018 73p ISBN 9780992879181) £6.99

Those of us who regularly visit Guernsey will be very familiar of Victor Hugo’s links with the island in general, and with St Peter Port in particular. His statue in Candie Gardens and his house in Hauteville, together with a general awareness of the cultural links between Toilers of the Sea and St Peter Port, will readily provide that supportive background.

However, what Gregory Stevens Cox has done, is to explore the very substantial evidence that exists to demonstrate Victor Hugo’s life in St Peter Port between 1856 and 1870. With his guidance we are introduced to the community among whom he lived, and with whom he interacted, including the details of various tradesmen whose services he used. We also discover his radical sympathies revealed within this community, from his support for prisoners and the destitute of St Peter Port, to his hostility to the punishment of public whipping, and to his republican reluctance to acknowledge the status of the British national anthem. By the end we are fully aware of the degree to which Victor Hugo was an active member of this community, where he had taken his refuge from Napoleon III’s France.

There is plenty to encourage those who feel that they know St Peter Port well to return and investigate further. For example, the explanation as to why L’Hyreuse has become Cambridge Park brings out the issue of the continuing attempts to supplant the Norman patois and substitute more mundane labels. This will be a very useful aide memoire to residents and visitors alike, and it helps to confirm the author’s suggestion that Victor Hugo is as important to the history of St Peter Port as Shakespeare is to Stratford-upon-Avon.

John Wilson arrived in Guernsey in 1816 as a clerk of works, supervising for the British Government the permanent barracks that were being constructed in Guernsey and Alderney in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars. While he had a specific Government commission to fulfil, he also became extensively involved in architectural work throughout Guernsey. He employed a variety of styles and devices, including Greek-revival and Gothic, with particular use of what he termed ‘Roman cement’, which is what we would recognise as ‘stucco’. Having enjoyed this well-illustrated book, a further visit to the island will now enable me to appreciate his work, much of which I realise that I have hitherto observed only en passant. To quote examples, the Meat Market and Les Arcades are two of his monumental creations, with the Greek Doric evident in the former, and extensive representation of Greek Ionic in the latter. In the south west of the island, Torteval Church was one of his earliest designs: Princess Anne visited last summer to help celebrate its two-hundredth anniversary. This church warrants a special visit to enjoy its structure and design, with its round tower and semi-circular apse. It will not disappoint.

This booklet has enormous strength and merit as an introduction to the work of John Wilson, whose private work is basically restricted to his years in Guernsey, but it is very difficult to discern at times exactly who had authored the various elements of the very interesting text.

Trevor James is the editor of The Historian and has been an adult local history tutor since 1971.

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By Stephen Banfield

(Boydell 2018 47pp ISBN 978-1-78327-273-0) £30

The title, Music in the West Country, might imply that some knowledge of musical form and vocabulary is needed to enjoy Stephen Banfield’s book but that turns out not to be the case. Although it is by no means merely an adjunct to the social history of the West Country, Professor Banfield’s telling of the region’s music-making over seven centuries never loses sight of the human element. His is a scholarly account which is also highly readable. The ‘West Country’ covered here is the western half of Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon, Cornwall and the city of Bristol. Banfield summons its changing soundscape through, for example, the poetry and prose of Thomas Hardy or from everyday observation, one account recollecting the playing in 1805 of a visiting military band which brought the inhabitants of Bedminster to their doors. The themes of state or church authority and group identity run through the book while the individual is always kept in plain view: from the waits, or ‘civic minstrels’, the church choir members and organist, band members, Victorian Glee Club and Madrigal Society singers, to the Bristol Sound musicians of the twentieth century. Two chapters are dedicated to individual musicians.

Although the book (presented as ‘the first regional history of music in England’) discusses all manner of religious and secular band and choral music; organ music; festivals and concert life; individual performers and their economic and social standing; the manufacture of, and trade in, instruments; the teaching of music; composers and their publishers, patronage and performance, its author calls it a provisional history, ‘opening the door for the real work to come’. If so, it is a work which amply fulfils its role through its immediacy and likeability. There is an intuitive, lyrical feel to Banfield’s writing. He emphasises the marvellous ubiquity and liveliness of music-making, examples of which are drawn from the smallest of West Country communities. It is this focus on the grassroots of music-making which will interest all readers, with or without musical knowledge: ‘documentation at the local level is the best way of providing the materials for [a] cultural history’ Banfield says, while lamenting the recent passing of local archives such as Exeter’s Westcountry Studies Library. Although a good deal of musical repertoire is lost, much survives and Banfield gives some manuscript examples. The book has a 43-page bibliography which will be useful to all students of the subject, and an exhaustive index. This is a delightful book.

Catherine Howe is a songwriter and historian. Her first album of songs, ‘What A Beautiful Place’, was recorded for Reflection Records in 1971, followed by two albums for RCA (‘Harry’ and ‘Silent Mother Nature’). She is an Ivor Novello award recipient for her song ‘Harry’, and is the author of books George Jacob Holyoake’s Journey of 1842, and Halifax 1842.

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By Susan T. Moore

(Pen & Sword Family History 2017 211pp ISBN 9781473891661) £14.99

Susan Moore is a professional genealogist and researcher of family and local history and she puts into this book her obvious enthusiasm for, and knowledge of, her subject. In the opening chapter she sets out, in language easily understood by a layman, how the Courts of Equity (principally the Court of Chancery) which based their decisions on principles of fairness or justice, developed from the fourteenth century as an alternative to the Courts of Common Law, whose decisions were founded on strict adherence to the letter of the law and precedent which could produce an unfair result. The book explains that the records of the Courts of Equity are written in English and are relatively easy to find, and therefore more suitable for research purposes, whereas the records of the Common Law courts are in Latin until 1733 and are not easy to navigate. However, a word of warning is given that some prior knowledge and skills are needed to research the Equity records, most obviously an ability to read handwritten documents. The copy of a handwritten record from the Court of Star Chamber, which operated from 1476 to 1641, given in the book would certainly baffle a novice, with its abbreviations and confusing capital letters which can be difficult to decipher. Midway through the book, in a short chapter which the author admits is probably less entertaining but highly useful (a fair assessment), guidance is given on how to access the records, particularly referring to The National Archives’ online catalogue Discovery, although it appears that the cataloguing of the records is an ongoing exercise, far from completed.

The bulk of the book contains extracts from many equity cases designed to show the wide range of information that can be gleaned from the records, not just about family relationships, dates, occupations, properties and such like, but also about social conditions and how life was lived in former times. In fact, many of the cases quoted would be of more interest to social or local historians rather than to people trying to trace their ancestry—for example, cases heard during the English Civil War, or those referring to the slave trade in Jamaica, or those concerning disputes about ownership of land following the dissolution of the monasteries are of general interest. Specific family-related cases invariably involve disputes over money, such as the example of six orphans accusing their uncle of cheating them out of their inheritance, or a widow in dispute with her father-in-law over her husband’s will. The extracts from the records which are quoted verbatim are not always easy to follow and it is somewhat disappointing that, having got to grips with the details of a particular case, the reader is not told what the outcome was. Perhaps the cases were settled before they came to court, but it would have been nice to know if the orphans or the widow were successful.

The final chapter details a case involving relatives of Jane Austen, originally researched in the hope of finding a reference to the novelist, but being disappointing in this respect. The book also contains some description of the physical appearance of the records, and the author is honest in saying that they can be intimidating and, because of their size, unmanageable. The book guides a would-be researcher through the various types of document, e.g. ‘Bill of Complaint’, ‘Answer’, ‘Interrogatories’, ‘Affidavit’, ‘Master’s Report’, clearly explaining the legal terms, and there is also a useful glossary at the end for quick reference. In her preface Susan Moore says that for most of the records it is necessary to travel in person to The National Archives in Kew or to employ the services of a specialist such as herself. The overall impression which this interesting book gives is that unless you are an experienced and dedicated researcher your best bet is to engage a professional.

Kerry Osbourne is a retired solicitor.

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By Philip Nanney Williams

(Llwyn Estates, Manafon, Welshpool 2016 vii+393pp ISBN 978-0-9955337-0-7) £30

This handsome, lavishly-illustrated volume outlines the history of the historic mansion of Nannau, located two miles north-east of the town of Dolgellau, in Merioneth, and its ownership over a period of nearly nine centuries by the inter-related Nannau and Vaughan families. The personal background of the author ensured that he was admirably equipped as author of this volume, as an enclosed family tree traces his descent from Bleddyn ap Cynfyn who, killed in 1075, was described as ‘the seed of the Nannau family, a proud and formidable King of Gwynedd and Powys’, with his grandson Madog ap Cadwgan, identified as the first ‘lord of Nannau, living 1118-21’.

Direct descendants tended to co-operate with the royal administration following the death of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, Prince of Wales, in 1282. Ynyr Fychan, the sixth lord of Nannau, claimed to have captured in 1295 Madog ap Llywelyn, leader of the rebellion against what is described as ‘the oppressive English rule in Wales’. Hywel Sele, Ynyr's great-grandson, continued the family tradition of local government service, and was captured and then slain by the Welsh leader, Owain Glyn Dŵr in c. 1401: an intriguing account is presented of his body being placed in an oak tree where it remained for approximately 40 years.

Howel Nanney, the first person to use the family surname, succeeded in acquiring considerable lands in the early-sixteenth century, and his grandson Huw Nanney Hên [the Elder] further expanded his estate with the family by now firmly-established members of the Tudor gentry. He served as sheriff, justice of the peace and deputy lieutenant, but was also able to ignore the law by cutting down a forest of 30,000 oak trees growing on Crown land in the nearby Ganllwyd valley.

The volume is a most attractive production, enhanced by 436 illustrations, many in full colour, which contribute most effectively to the presentation of the text. High-quality reproductions of portraits of several owners of Nannau represent a significant contribution to the visual appeal of the volume, with one of the earliest being Randle Willcocke’s 1695 portrait of Colonel Huw Nanney, whose death in 1703 resulted in the end of the male line of Nannau which had continued for over 600 years. His widow Catherine, an astute business woman, arranged the marriage of her daughter Catherine to her first cousin William Vaughan, of Corsygedol.

A reproduction of William Vaughan’s portrait by James Fellowes is provided, as also are portraits by the Welsh artist William Parry: Sir Robert Howel Vaughan, having evaded punishment for his participation in the Jacobite rebellion of 1745, was created a baronet in 1791 for political services; and his son Sir Robert Williames Vaughan, the second baronet, completed the work initiated by his father of rebuilding Nannau. He also spent considerable sums of money on improving his estate with the construction of lodges, gates, arches and carriage drives; rebuilding of estate farmhouses and cottages; extensive planting of trees, and reconstruction of the town centre of Dolgellau, resulting in ‘the magnificent legacy of buildings and structures in the landscape he so carefully nurtured’.

Photographs of ten Nannau estate houses and five carriage drive arches dating from the second baronet's tenure in the early nineteenth century, form part of the wide range of illustrative material. Detailed genealogical tables are presented throughout the volume and numerous maps and plans include the detailed plan of the three floors of Nannau, dated c.1950: a full-colour double-page reproduction of the watercolour illustration of Nannau by Charles M. Evans in the same period forms the volume's very attractive dustjacket. Increasing maintenance costs forced Brigadier Charles Hilary Vaughan Prichard, a notable military figure, to place the mansion on the market in 1965: the whole estate was sold in 1975, ending its occupation by the family. A final epilogue described the dilapidated condition of the present day structure: ‘a gutted shell - a sad reminder of the once illustrious house’, which being in ‘a time warp [is] becoming another grim statistic in Wales's register of lost heritage’.'

D. Huw Owen is a former Keeper of Pictures and Maps at the National Library of Wales, His publications include Settlement and Society in Wales (editor and contributor, 1989); The Chapels of Wales (2012); and Searching for Family and Community History in Wales (joint-editor and contributor, 2014).

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By Jennifer Brown

(Jennifer Brown, 352 Cromwell Tower, Barbican, London ECY 8NB 2016 x+483pp ISBN 978-0-9955599-0-5) £24.99

Tracing the history of one’s own house has become an increasingly popular activity, and can also lead those who pursue such research into a wider appreciation of the possibilities of local history and history in general. House history can lead to family history, to street history, and eventually to community history, for example. It is particularly valuable if undertaken within the broader context of time and place so that the micro-history of one house can illuminate such macro-themes as house building, architecture and design; home ownership and finance; land use and the legal framework; and that all-important concept of community. Houses built between 1815 and 1914 are ideal vehicles for this type of historical questioning, particularly because so many of them have survived both the bombing of the Second World War and the post-1945 quest by town and country planners to replace the old with the new. The increasing availability of relevant sources—especially via the internet—has also facilitated the growing popularity of local historical research, including the history of individual houses.

Jennifer Brown’s Front Door to the Past is a good example of the various strands and benefits of the type of historical enquiry outlined above. Even more, this particular ‘Front Door’ takes the reader into a multi-layered history, spread over a long timescale, of one particular area of North London and beyond. The book’s subtitle admirably sets out what the author plans to achieve: ‘How an exploration of the history and ownership of a single Victorian London house and its surroundings leads back to the 16th century, uncovering a most surprising web of people and other places and events linked by their connection to the land’. The house in question is no.54 Vartry Road in the South Tottenham area, built in 1897 and where Jennifer Brown lived between 1984 and 2014. Writing the history of the house was clearly a labour of love which took the author many years and down many historical byways, some more interesting than others. For example, in what she calls ‘The Shackleton connection’ we learn of the explorer Ernest Shackleton’s marriage into the Dorman family—major property owners in the area which included Vartry Road—and that Ernest Shackleton’s expedition to the South Pole could partly have been financed by resulting rents and property sales. Other notable twentieth century personalities who were connected to the area included the band leader Ambrose and the film director Alfred Hitchcock. However, the major focus of the book’s early chapters, which make up Part One, is on the developers who submitted building plans for houses in the area, those who owned many of the houses and other residents who lived there. The connections built up between these players and their extended families are also traced in some detail which, it must be said, require much attention in following. Community facilities such as churches and schools and the legal and financial underpinning which such property development involved are also included in the discussion.

As with so many projects which turned fields into houses before 1914, the sale of an estate initiated the developmental process—in this case the sale between 1872 and 1882 of the 41-acre Woodberry Lodge Estate, ‘situated at Hanger Lane and Seven Sisters Road, near to Stamford Hill and Green Lanes, in the Parish of Tottenham’. OS Maps for 1864 and for 1894/96 (by which time Hanger Lane had become St. Ann’s Road) provide clear evidence of the rapid development of the area, with two families, the Candlers and the Dormans, being particularly closely involved. For example, George Candler, who lived at no.54 from at least 1899 until his death in 1929, submitted the building plans for a significant number of houses on the estate, many of which he continued to own and to rent out. Charles Dorman and other family members owned the freehold of the land where the houses were built and were also extensive property owners before 1914. In the 1901 census George Chandler described his occupation as ‘a house agent working on his own account’ and, according to Jennifer Brown, ‘he may have been acting as an estate agent for Kingsford, Dorman & Co’, a firm of solicitors heavily involved in the property market. Networking was an important strategy in the pre-1914 housing sector.

Having established the context and the family connections within which no.54 Vartry Road and its neighbourhood evolved, the author goes back in time to consider, in Part Two, the land connected to the Woodberry Lodge Estate over three time periods: before 1721; 1721 to 1798; and 1799 to 1952. Based on a vast amount of meticulous research into both national and local archives and scrutinising, for example, Exchequer records, Chancery records, probate records, manor court rolls, calendars of state papers, the Middlesex Deeds Registry, leases, ratebooks, electoral registers and much, much more, Jennifer Brown explores questions of land and property ownership, wealth, political, social and family connections, marine and commercial activity, road and rail building and the many families involved in these activities. The analysis takes the reader far beyond the immediate Tottenham area into the City of London, parts of Kent, Surrey and Essex and even to New England in the seventeenth century.

In many ways, this is a remarkable book. At nearly 500 pages it is also a long book, including not only the main text but also five valuable appendices which provide transcripts of deeds relating to South Tottenham between 1859 and 1936, further deeds and documents covering Hanger Lane, and three tables listing owners of houses and flats on Woodberry Lodge Estate between 1900 and 1913, the numbers of houses and flats in 2014, and finally ownership of land covered in the narrative between 1152 and 1952. A full list of the sources employed emphasises the voluminous nature of the research on which the book is based although at times the sheer volume of information somewhat overwhelms the reader. As such, it seems perverse to suggest more, but more visual evidence would be welcome. Such statements in the text as ‘some early photographs of the street’; ‘The plan was marked in pink to show the Tottenham part’; and ‘A drawing of the site’ leave the reader wanting to see such photographs and plans along with some examples of available building plans. A more substantial conclusion (in addition to the very useful four-page ‘Summary and Conclusion Regarding Land Ownership’) would also be valuable. Minor points are that the Great Exhibition was held in 1851 and not 1850, and the cricketer mentioned on p.118 was W.G. Grace not W.C. Grace.

All in all, the author has written a substantial, interesting and thought-provoking book which is excellently produced, reflects the breadth and depth of her research and certainly fulfils the promise set out in its subtitle.

Christopher French is Emeritus Reader in History and Honorary Research Fellow at Kingston University. He is currently completing a book to be published by the Borough of Twickenham Local History Society in 2019 entitled ‘The Hidden Area of Teddington’. The Growth of Fulwell, 1870-1939. This is a companion volume to a previous book on ‘A Suburb of Contrasts’. The Udney Park Estate, Teddington 1870-1939 (BOTLHS, 2015).

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Edited by Michael Zell and Heather Falvey

(Hertfordshire Record Publications vol. 34 2018 241 pages ISBN 9780950174105) £22

The latest volume from the Hertfordshire Record Society provides the full text of a 1616 manuscript by an ambitious cloth producer with a dream of eradicating poverty. Walter Morrell was not a Hertfordshire man; he was probably born in Exeter, and entered the cloth trade there before moving to London to engage in ‘marchandize’. Like many under-financed projectors, he petitioned wealthy patrons to seek support and, remarkably, caught the attention of Secretary of State Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury and lord-lieutenant of Hertfordshire. In 1608 Cecil backed Morrell to the tune of £100 per year to establish at Hatfield a manufactory for ‘New Drapery’, to make lightweight cloth, dyed blue or green, for export to France and the Low Countries.

Pitched to Salisbury as a philanthropic enterprise to save the poor from ‘idleness’, Morrell’s project was a hard-nosed enterprise in which poor boys were to taught to comb wool, spin yarn and weave fabric in premises provided by the earl. For the short period of training the boys’ living costs and materials were covered by the enterprise; thereafter they were paid a daily wage and their places at the manufactory were taken by others. Morrell’s role was to supervise the operation, to recruit experienced men to train the boys, and to arrange the dyeing, milling and sale of the cloth. He also had to raise the cash to finance all expenses in excess of £100, which eventually carried him deep into debt.

For a few years, the project went according to plan. When Salisbury died in 1612, the second earl continued the annual payment. Morrell lobbied hard to expand the scheme: his vision was to see it rolled out to all forty counties in England that did not make cloth. Such a vast undertaking could only be possible if supported by King James himself, so Morrell’s plan encompassed a state-supported monopoly, with funding and recruitment provided by the churchwardens of each parish, and regulations enforced by the magnates and magistrates of each county, who would also be obliged to invest. The 100-page manuscript edited here, written when Morrell was on the verge of extending the scheme across Hertfordshire, recites every stage of his campaign, provides optimistic financial projections and focuses on his key arguments: that the scheme could provide employment for thousands, reduce the need for poor relief, and increase the flow of customs revenue into the royal exchequer.

The editors have augmented Morrell’s manuscript with a lucid two-part introduction, a glossary, map and forty additional documents including the royal charter of 1617 licensing ‘the Company of Drapers of the Art, Trade and Mystery of the New Drapery of Hatfield’, the vehicle by which Morrell hoped to roll out the scheme to other towns in Hertfordshire. This was the high-water mark of his fortunes. Other documents reveal the dark side of the story: the caution and evasions of James’s advisers and the resistance of the Hertfordshire gentry, which ultimately spelt the end of Morrell’s dream. For there were far bigger forces in play. Morrell had ignored the real challenges of selling into volatile overseas markets, insisting his cloths would sell if only the quality was good. In 1618 demand collapsed due to fierce competition and the outbreak of the Thirty Years War. Thousands of English cloth-workers were soon deprived of work. In 1624 a Hertfordshire grand jury reported that of 1526 Hertfordshire children apprenticed in 1619 most had ‘returned home to live idly.’ For readers interested in social and economic history, this attractively produced volume provides an unusually detailed example of how to play the Jacobean system—and how not to run a business.

John Gaisford is the author of ‘Capital in the Countryside: Social Change in West Wiltshire, 1530-1675’ (Birkbeck, University of London, PhD thesis, 2015.

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A SHOP ASSISTANT IN WARTIME The Dewsbury Diary of Kathleen Hey 1941-1945 edited by Patricia and Robert Malcolmson (Boydell/Yorkshire Archaeological and Historical Society 2018 231pp ISBN 9780993238383) £50;

A VICAR’S WIFE IN OXFORD 1938-1943 edited by Patricia & Robert Malcolmson (Boydell/Oxfordshire Record Society 2018 ISBN 978090902509740) £25;

SURREY KILLING FIELDS The wartime journal of a Chipstead schoolboy friend of a gamekeeper edited by Brian Lancaster (Croydon Natural History and Scientific Society 2018 ISBN 9780906047330) £5.99

The first two volumes under review here are diaries written during the Second World War by very different women. They were similar in age—Madge Martin was born in 1899 and Kathleen Hey in 1906—but otherwise their experiences were poles apart. Martin, married to a vicar, was a housewife and lived in Oxford. Hey was unmarried and, with her mother, lived with her sister and brother-in-law, working as an assistant in their grocery shop in Dewsbury. Martin was able regularly to enjoy walks in the Oxfordshire countryside, trips to London and holidays. Hey paid visits to the cinema and enjoyed a rare holiday in Blackpool (which was spoiled by rain). These, then, are the contrasting experiences of a middle class woman and a working class woman. Martin had begun writing a diary when she was sixteen, and a number of her pre-war diaries have survived. Hey responded to an appeal from Mass Observation for people to write diaries. Both women were avid readers. It should be said immediately that the reader gets to know them very well: discovering their responses to the war, their escapes from the pressures they faced, their personal relationships and their leisure activities, leaves one with a great liking for both. Hey knew that her diary would read by others; Martin did not. In these thoroughly-edited volumes, with introductions, extensive footnotes and appendices, we now know the ins-and-outs of their lives during the most difficult times they encountered.

Kathleen Hey’s diary runs from July 1941 until August 1945 and is reproduced in its entirety. Hers was an arduous existence, almost every day spent serving customers. There was often moaning to put up with. In the very first entry in her diary Hey mentions ‘the odious Mrs J … who kicked up a fuss because the extra sugar ration was not yet available’. Later the reader meets Mrs H. who complained about not getting her fair share of oranges. ‘It didn’t matter about us old ‘uns … We shall only be fit for t’ tannery’, Hey recorded her grumbling customer observing, adding, ‘And a tough bit of leather you’ll make, I thought’. Truculent customers were not her only problem: bags of potatoes delivered to the shop contained a large amount of soil and, on one occasion, ‘the peas had a huge stone planted in the middle that couldn’t have got there by accident’. In the evenings Hey sought to escape the drudgery by listening to the wireless—not always successfully as her programme choices provoked arguments with her brother-in-law. Reading, some of it quite heavyweight, provided her with her greatest enjoyment. Hey provides us with all sorts of fascinating detail. We learn, for example, what a wartime Christmas lunch entailed for a working class family: in 1941 it consisted of tinned chicken, watercress and apple jelly followed by jelly and tinned cream. When the war began, Hey writes that ‘I cried for twelve months to the disgust of my family’. As the end drew near, she noted that ‘Of all the amazing and unbelievable things that have happened in this war, the sight of Jerry taking to his heels is the most unbelievable’. Yet the peace brought her no personal peace. ‘Another day of Peace Celebrations and I shall be in a mental home’, she confessed. Kathleen Hey never married and died, the only surviving member of her immediate family, in 1984. The editors hope ‘that after the war she may at least have made a few like-minded friends’.

Madge Martin’s diary runs from September 1938 until December 1943 and, because of its length, only selections from it appear here. The writer was married, at the age of seventeen, to Robert Martin, at the time an army officer and from 1927 vicar of St. Michael at the North Gate. The couple had no children and Martin lived a quiet life, particularly enjoying walks and pub lunches in the countryside with her husband. She also formed a strong friendship with a man twelve years younger, called John Hall; it was, the editors suggest, a relationship largely motivated by maternal feelings but he often upset her. ‘I was glad to see him go’, Martin wrote in July 1941 when a period of leave from the RAF for Hall ended. ‘I didn’t mean to complain but he certainly has made a convenience of me … and I, as usual, have been foolish enough to accommodate him … Our parting was almost acrimonious’. The early entries in this diary chart, amid reports of a great deal of shopping and many rural walks, the slow progress towards the declaration of war. Martin describes living ‘a nightmare life … too horrible to contemplate’ and finds herself going shopping with her gas mask, ‘trembling’ when the air raid siren went off and unable to sleep. Throughout the diary the ‘frightful dream’ she finds herself in is frequently contrasted with ‘lovely weather … one can sit and bask in hot sunshine’. There are snippets of war news—the RAF are recorded as ‘doing simply wonderfully’ in August 1940—but mostly this diary is concerned with the writer’s domestic and family life. Oxford was not heavily bombed, but, on the way back from holiday in September 1940, Martin recorded that she and her husband ‘saw the result of German bombs at Birmingham’.

Of these two diarists, it is fair to say that Madge Martin had the ‘easier’ war. Though progress of the fighting enters her thoughts, she is able to record a life of country walks, theatre visits and trips away from home, all founded on a strong bond with her husband. Kathleen Hey meanwhile offers a powerful testimony of the experiences of an unmarried working class woman, faced with the daily monotony of shop work, argumentative customers and at times strained family relations.

The final publication considered here is the complete diary of Bruce Larcombe, written between January 1942 and November 1943. In his teens, Larcombe accompanied a gamekeeper through the countryside. Though there are occasional references to the war—for example, of army tractors filling bomb craters—the entries are mainly concerned with what he learns about the rural way of life and the wildlife he encounters. There are many delightful references to the birds he sees and the first appearances of crocuses, bluebells and other flowers. The publication, however, is aptly-titled: many of the jays, pigeons and rabbits who appear in these pages are trapped or shot.

Stephen Roberts is Honorary Associate Professor in the Research School of Humanities and the Arts at the Australian National University. He is the Reviews Editor of The Local Historian.

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