The Local Historian Volume 50 Number 3 July 2020

By Brian Hodgkinson

178-188

This paper won the David Hey Memorial Award for the long article category in the British Association for Local History Publications Awards 2020. The paper is particularly notable for its extensive use of medieval documentary sources, most of which are readily available to local historians in printed published editions. It considers the Bridge End of Holland causeway which carries the A52 road linking Grantham and Boston in the Lincolnshire Fens. The causeway, which is four miles long, extends from the hamlet of Bridge End to the small town of Donington. It is shown on an exceptional early-fifteenth century map, now in The National Archives. Brian Hodgkinson focuses on the role of the small and impoverished Gilbertine priory of St Saviour at Bridge End, which was given the remit, or bore the burden, of maintaining the western half of the causeway. He discusses the foundation of the priory and its endowments, and considers the economic circumstances of its somewhat precarious existence.

The vicissitudes of upkeep, in the face of flooding, wear and tear and general decay, are vividly described, and the vexed question of bridge tolls and their evasion is analysed using contemporary sources. The later history of the priory, during the two centuries before the Dissolution, is one of financial woe, compounded by fires and floods. The author concludes that the priory largely failed in its task of keeping the vital causeway in good repair, and that the burden was far beyond the capacity of ‘the smallest and poorest religious house in the county’. Indeed, Hodgkinson notes that the same problems continued until the causeway was turnpiked in the eighteenth century.

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By Dianne Lawrence

190-195

This innovative paper is a case-study of what was once a ubiquitous feature of towns and villages across the nation—the small independent local shop. It focuses on the confectionery and tobacconist shop that was run by Ernest Palmer and his wife Audrey in the small town of Southwold, Suffolk. The shop was opened in 1926 and the Palmers ran it together until Ernest’s death in 1979. Thereafter Audrey ran it on her own until its final closure in April 1992. The paper draws upon a private collection of archive material relating to the business and the Palmer family.

Dianne Lawrence considers the problems faced by the family, and their business, during the Second World War when, because of its location on the east coast, the majority of the population of Southwold were evacuated. The Palmers returned by the end of 1944 and, using detailed stock and purchase records, the paper discusses how the business was then restarted. It analyses the purchase of stock, the different markets for confectionery and tobacco, running the shop, growing profitability, and the daily round of hard labour which was involved in keeping the business going successfully. The final section assesses the place of the Palmers and their business within the small town community, pointing to its social role and the significance of the holiday trade, before arguing in the concluding sentence that by taking a positive perspective on the story the study avoids ‘the notion of the inevitability of decline’.

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By Kenneth C. Jackson

196-214

This important paper is in the tradition of historical geography, looking at the town of Skipton in Yorkshire from the perspective of a dynamic urban morphology. It begins with a detailed but very accessible review of the literature on the morphology of urban landscapes, using British and American publications and emphasising that the theoretical models tend to be static and therefore bear little relevance to the dynamic evolution of townscapes and urban form. A key sentence is that ‘it is important to recognise the crucial contribution of fieldwork, in combination with the perusal of estate papers, property deeds and other records of landownership, occupancy and utilisation, including local authority archives and photographic evidence’.

The paper then discusses the processes of urban development, including the decision-makers and their role, with useful summary tables of the influences upon the plan and the form of urban areas. It then moves on to demonstrate these features and processes by the case-study of Skipton, focusing on two specific urban landscapes within this industrialised market town. There is an emphasis on the components of the urban form and, within each area, the distinguishing features of the form and plan, showing the influences (such as land ownership, financial considerations, the character of land sales and purchase, and questions of amenity) which shaped the way in which these areas were developed. The paper advocates ‘a spatial approach to local history by drawing on ideas and concepts from human geography which are rarely carried across the discipline boundaries’. It suggests that researchers should examine patterns and morphologies in urban landscapes, particularly with respect to questions of uniformity or diversity, and should seek to identify and interpret the decision-making processes which underlie these.

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By Neil Wiffen

215-226

This paper was the runner up ‘long article’ in the British Association for Local History Publications Awards 2020. It focuses on the way in which – at the beginning of the Hundred Years War – the armies of Edward III were supplied with essential foodstuffs and other commodities by ‘requesting’ contributions from each county. The paper considers how the requirements were assessed and how the county allocations were made, noting that there were various options available to the Crown—to send in royal officials; the use merchants; or (as in the case considered here) to tap into the networks of local suppliers using the sheriff and his county administrative structures. Neil Wiffen then discusses the commodities which were demanded from Essex in 1337, looking at the quantities required and supplied, the sources for each, the role of individual providers, and the central part played by Sir John de Coggeshalle, the sheriff of Essex. The different sections cover wheat, malt and cheese, and the discussion then considers how and why some of the demands were not or could not be met.

This ingenious analysis naturally draws upon contemporary documentation from the records of the royal household and shows how, with care and caution, it is possible to reconstruct a remarkable amount of detail about a key aspect of England’s military history in the first half of the fourteenth century. No less important is the way in which the paper demonstrates the way in which individual communities and districts within one English county were meshed into not only national patterns and processes but also international ones. It is the very antithesis of parochialism. The notes and references give much detail about the sources used, which potentially could readily be adopted and adapted for other county case-studies.

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By Andrew Jones

227-237

Despite great advances in the study of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century sermons, there is still much that we do not know or that remains obscure. This article examines a series of sermons written and used by one clerical family from Devon. While these conform to what is apparently the norm for country parishes, they also make a considerable contribution to our understanding of that norm. In particular, the use made of the sermons and the places where they were preached enable us to see something of the parish priest at work, in a way which otherwise eludes us. Andrew Jones, the author of the paper, was vicar of Rose Ash near South Molton in Devon, and the Southcomb family whose sermons are considered here were his predecessors in that incumbency between 1782 and 1948—a longevity in one family is not a unique phenomenon but is certainly unusual.

The 278 manuscript sermons which are the subject of the paper are now in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University in America. Andrew Jones considers their provenance and the evidence they give for sermon-writing, in the context of the geographical horizons of the succession of Southcomb incumbents. He then analyses the sermons themselves—their originality or otherwise, their religious and social tone, the repetitive use of some of them, and the moral messages they impart—before considering the limited evidence for the congregational reaction and response. The conclusion, written by an ‘insider’, is that they were probably ‘over the heads’ of the listeners, and that their constant reuse over several generations was not untypical.

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By Heather Falvey

The lives and activities of the occupants of the ‘big house’ or the rectory/vicarage, and of owners of companies or members of societies, are studied by local historians because they reveal aspects of the history of their locality. If well-written and well-referenced such studies are also of value to historians of the period or topic concerned.

Margaret Sheldon (c.1510-1590) and Margaret Knollys (c.1549-1606), the two women at the heart Cathryn Enis’s study, occupied spaces on the social spectrum ‘that linked them to figures at the heart of the Elizabethan court as well as those in Warwickshire who were far less grand’. Her paper focuses not only on their activities but also on their personal connections and membership of the family network established by William Willington (died 1555), which is depicted in a family tree. The two Margarets, who are not known to have met each other, were not aristocratic, nor possessed of huge estates at birth, but their lives and their connections took them close to the heart of power. Added to this they left copious archives: in their wills (appendices 1 and 2) both referred to ‘evidences and writing’ or ‘excerpts and mynumentes’ relating to their properties. Enis unravels some fascinating connections. Margaret Sheldon (née Broke) was first married to William Whorwood (died 1545) whose daughter Anne (died 1552), Margaret’s stepdaughter, married Ambrose Dudley, son of John Dudley, duke of Northumberland. Margaret married William Sheldon on 1 November 1555; a few weeks later her own daughter Margaret Whorwood married Thomas Throckmorton, son and heir of Sir Robert Throckmorton. The Throckmorton household was ‘one of the most Catholic’ in England: by 1587 her son-in-law owed her £1740, implying that she had been lending him money to pay recusancy fines levied after 1581.

Margaret Knollys was the daughter of Sir Ambrose Cave, who was appointed to Elizabeth’s privy council in 1558 and became chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster soon after. In July 1565 Margaret married Henry Knollys, son of another privy councillor. As ‘an only child and rich’, her marriage had been arranged. Henry had ‘a taste for adventure’; indeed, he joined many military campaigns and died in the Netherlands in 1582. Margaret did not remarry and spent the rest of her life managing the complex estate that she had inherited, not only from her father but also her right to the joint estate of her husband; both were subject to complex disputes. Although, as Enis admits, the two Margarets were elite, well-educated women, and their experiences were by no means universal, ‘they can tell us much about what it meant to be a woman in the sixteenth century’. The work has numerous footnotes. The cover illustration is the magnificent memorial to Margaret and Henry Knollys.

The monument to the Reverend Doctor John Collins and his family in Illogan church (Cornwall) is the starting point of Adrian Webb’s study of the Collins family. A family tree sets out the generations from c.1533 to 1790, necessary because several family members had the name Christian name. After a discussion of some ‘arms’ of the Collins family in the church, and of pre-Reformation ‘Colyn’ and ‘Collins’ families of Cornwall, the reader is introduced to the Collins family of Illogan. Edward Collins I was instituted rector in 1533. During his incumbency clergy were permitted to marry and thus a clerical dynasty was founded (with a break between 1587 to 1601). The life of John Collins I (c.1608-1684) is much better documented than that of his forebears and his biography forms the bulk of the text. His activities and position during the Civil Wars and Commonwealth are recounted, including his ejection from the living at Illogan, during which time he practised medicine in Falmouth, keeping a diary wherein he recorded his experiences and the remedies he used. He was restored to his living in June 1660, one of only twenty restored clergy of the 72 in Cornwall who had been deprived. In 1665 he also became rector of Camborne. From the early 1660s to the 1680s John I acted as official of the archdeacon of Cornwall and presided over the archdeacon’s court. Through his nephew John II, ‘the family produced many men who served the Church of England in Cornwall’. This detailed study of one particular family would be of interest to local historians of Cornwall. Referencing is simply to a ‘small mountain of documents’.

In 1843 Isambard Kingdom Brunel set up a coal-tar distillery at Crew’s Hole (Bristol) and placed a young man named William Butler (1819-1900) in charge. The authors explain why Brunel needed a coal-tar distillery (to produce creosote, with which to coat and protect railway sleepers); why it was located at Crew’s Hole—it was a major industrial location on the River Avon and subsequently had good railway links; and why he appointed Butler—he had been working for Brunel on the Bristol and Exeter Railway for about three years and must have impressed his employer. Brunel had obtained finance from Roberts & Daines, owners of the ironworks in Barton Road, St Philips. In 1863, after a fire destroyed most of the coal-tar factory, Roberts & Daines withdrew their financial support and sold the factory to Butler, who rebuilt it. The section on the production and distillation of coal tar is particularly informative, clearly explaining the various processes and products. As the tar distillation process became more refined during the second half of the nineteenth century, many more products were isolated and sold, and these formed the basis of a rapidly expanding chemical industry, which Butler’s serviced. One product of distillation is benzole which was used as a fuel for motor cars. The company played an important role in both World Wars: during the First it supplied benzole to the Royal Navy and two other products which were required for the manufacture of explosives; in the Second it came under the direct control of the government because many of its products were required for the war effort. The family tree shows six generations of Butlers, of whom the last four generations were involved with the distillery. Several sections are concerned with members of the family and their connections made through employment and/or marriage; many of those family members also played major roles in the public life of Bristol. During the twentieth century descendants of William continued to own the company even though it went through various name changes; now part of Certas Energy UK Ltd, Butler Fuels still trades from the Royal Edward Dock in Avonmouth. This well-researched study of an important local business is lightly referenced.

During the early decades of the nineteenth century several Bristol surgeons were talented amateur artists. Michael Whitfield has provided biographies of three—Francis Gold, John King and John Harrison—and considers their role in the ‘Bristol School of Artists’ and their connections with other artists. Gold (1779-1832) was an army surgeon in Egypt and then France; was imprisoned in France from 1802 to 1812; and eventually in 1821 became an assistant surgeon with the East India Company. The extent of his output is not clear but was said to ‘represent [nature] without the fashionable trickery’ used by other artists. John King (1766-1848) was born in Switzerland and moved to England where he trained in surgery; he became involved in the care of patients at the Pneumatic Medical Institute in Bristol where a cure for disease, especially tuberculosis, was being sought using gases. King was an expert engraver. John Harrison (1804-1892) was apprenticed surgeon first in Bristol and then in London. A lengthy description of his sketching outings with another Bristol artist, William Muller, has been reprinted here by Whitfield. He is best known for a ‘new mode of water colouring, being painted with starch on the back of prepared canvas used for oil painting’. The booklet is nicely illustrated with reproductions of some of these surgeon/artists’ work. There are numerous referenced though rather long quotations from reports in local newspapers including the Bristol Mercury and various letters now in Bristol Archives about their lives and paintings.

A third, much larger group of Bristol residents were members of the temperance movement, 1830-1914. Alan Clarke considers the role of this powerful force in local society and politics. A combination of factors led to the formation of societies promoting moderation in the consumption of alcohol, including evangelical and philanthropic impulses as well as fears of (perceived rather than actual) increases in crime resulting from drunkenness, especially with the growth of industrial towns. Clarke firstly traces the origins of the movement to the late 1820s in Bristol, where, over the years, many people ‘took the pledge’ and attended regular meetings. By the 1870s numerous anti-drink organisations were operating in Bristol, each with a different mission. Some were interdenominational but nonconformists, particularly Quakers, were prominent; people were frequently members of more than one group. Despite this, however, ‘public houses remained very popular with the general public’. To try to counteract this, temperance societies established two types of building: business meeting rooms, where any clubs or societies could meet as alternatives to inns and public houses; and places of accommodation and refreshment. ‘Temperance hotels’ were established where abstainers could meet and find accommodation, while coffee-houses were promoted as ‘temperance taverns’. As time went on, to attract the public to such establishments, entertainments were offered, such as musical interludes and temperance talks with lanterns shows. Two modern maps indicate where such establishments were situated. The temperance cause was, however, ‘always a minority interest’ and there were disagreements between abstainers and those who advocated prohibition. The political ramifications are discussed lightly but confidently. Various parliamentary bills were introduced, indicating the political influence of the temperance movement, the main bone of contention being licensing; however, the Liberal defeat in the 1895 general election ended the movement’s hopes of sturdy legislation. Although declining in significance in the twentieth century, many groups were still flourishing at the start of the First World War. This fascinating, fully-referenced study is the product of the author’s MA dissertation, and certainly prompted this reviewer to wonder how the movement developed locally.

TWO WARWICKSHIRE WOMEN OF CHARACTER: Margaret Sheldon (c.1510-1590) and Margaret Knollys (c.1549-1606) by Cathryn Enis (Dugdale Society Occasional Paper no.54 2018 50pp ISBN 978-0-85220-105-3) £5

ST ILLOGAN CHURCH AND THE COLLINS FAMILY RECTORS by Adrian Webb (privately published 2014 64pp no ISBN) £5+p&p from www.oldcornwall.net

THE SURGEONS AND THE BRISTOL SCHOOL OF ARTISTS by Michael Whitfield (Avon Local History & Archaeology no.28 22pp ISBN 978-1-911592-28-0) £3.50

THE BUTLERS AND THE COAL-TAR DISTILLERY AT CREW'S HOLE by Brian Vincent and Raymond Holland (Avon Local History & Archaeology no.29 2019 42pp ISBN 978-1-911592-29-7) £3.50

TAKING THE PLEDGE: the temperance movement in Bristol 1830-1914 by Alan Clarke (Avon Local History & Archaeology no.30 2019 42pp ISBN 978-1-911592-30-3) £3.50

HEATHER FALVEY is the Reviews Editor of The Local Historian.

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Edited by Honor Lewington

(Buckinghamshire Record Society vol.38 2019 281pp ISBN 978-0-901198-43-3) £30+£5 p&p

In 1866 the old parish church of St Mary, Stoke Mandeville, was abandoned, a replacement having been built nearer the residential centre of the village. The site of the former church and churchyard, where it is estimated some 2600 people were buried, is due to be redeveloped for the HS2 railway. Topographical and historical details of the site have been recorded and the rationale for this publication was to provide a more informative picture of some of the former Stoke Mandeville villagers.

Due to the vagaries of ecclesiastical probate jurisdictions and dispersal of the relevant material, Stoke Mandeville probate documents transcribed here are spread between several repositories, principally the Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies, the Oxfordshire History Centre and the National Archives. The earliest document is dated 1552 and there are a mere 134 testators for the period 1552–1853 (106 with wills only; 6 with inventories only; and 22 with both wills and inventories). This is, of course, far better than nothing but comparison with the parish of Rickmansworth (Hertfordshire), for which there are 174 surviving registered wills for the period 1417–1499 alone, highlights the extent to which the survival of probate documents varies according to, among other things, the recordkeeping practices of different probate courts. Furthermore, of the 28 inventories, 26 were made in the period 1608–1640, one in 1560 and one in 1720, with the result that it is impossible to comment on changes in material possessions over time, something for which runs of inventories are often used.

In the absence of medieval wills for Stoke Mandeville, there is very little information about the layout and furnishings of the original parish church. Just a hint comes in the will of George Ligo, who asked to be buried in the parish church between the graves of his brother Charles Ligo, gentleman, and of Thomas Jackson, gentleman, ‘in a grave three foot deep which I desire may be bricked throughout & arched over’. At least six other testators requested burial within the church, including Francis Brudenell in the chancel. At the end of each will have been added details of where the testator was buried and, for a handful, a photograph of their surviving gravestone. The appendix summarises records made from 1978 to 1986 of the (changing) remains of the monuments and gravestones in the churchyard.

As Stoke Mandeville was an agricultural parish details from both wills and inventories are discussed in the introductory section ‘Farming and the land’. Some wills give a fair amount of information about strips in the open fields and/or closes cultivated by the testator; some even provide the names of tenants of adjoining strips; most give details of crops and animals. Other useful sections in the introduction include ‘Families’, ‘The scribes of the probate documents’, and ‘Literacy and education’. Perhaps that most noticeable aspect is the paucity of bequests of particular items: most bequests are sums of money or of land, but there are some gems. Money for mourning rings was bequeathed by several testators, of whom Michael Jennings was very specific regarding the engraving of the rings, costing 20s, to be given to his siblings and their children: the rings were to have ‘M:J:’, the day and year of his burial and ‘think on death’ engraved on them. Among the particular bequests in 1642 of Edmund Brudenell esquire, who was childless, were those to his nephew, also Edmund, of ‘my sword and short hanger, my instruments of musicke ... my muskets, birding peeces, pistols and fishnets … and all other nettes and trapps which are for the killing and distroying of any vermin’. Amazingly George Ligo, gentleman, gave to his kinsman William Ligo the funeral ring with a falcon on it which had been given to Captain Ligo of Chalgrove (Oxfordshire) ‘for supporting the pall of the Right Honourable the Earl of Carnarvon who was stabbed in the wars of King Charles the first of blessed memory’: does it still exist? But it is not only the wills of the gentry that are detailed. For example, among the many specific legacies given in 1603 by William Mortimer, who seems to have been a carpenter, were those to his landlord (unnamed) ‘one chaire, my axe & my dogge & all my plankes’; to Mr Edmond Brudenell ‘my fishing nettes’; and to goodman Woster, ‘an aze [axe or adze] & three naugers [augers]’.

For historians working on wills and inventories in general this collection will serve as a useful comparator. Although living not far from the boundaries with Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Oxfordshire the Stoke Mandeville parishioners appear to have had little contact outside Buckinghamshire: only 18 mention people or places outside the county and five of those are in London. For historians of Stoke Mandeville and of Buckinghamshire a big benefit is the number of names revealed in the documents. Among the 134 testators there are only 67 family surnames, so from that perspective the same names keep cropping up: there are no less than eight testators named John Brown(e), three named Thomas Ligo(e) and two each of several other names. On the other hand, Lewington has calculated that there are over 300 other surnames of legatees, in-laws, servants or witnesses. Of course, not all were Stoke Mandeville residents but many of them were, and the documents provide evidence of a much wider population within the parish. Regarding Christian names, the earlier practice of naming children after their godparent is apparent in the will of Sibell Brudnell, widow: no fewer than 24 females with the name Sibill (and variants) received legacies. As well as the more common names, such as John, Thomas and William, Mary, Ann and Elizabeth, there are some less common Biblical names such as Jeremiah, Daniel, and Ruth. And then there is the Chrismas family, great-nieces and -nephews of Roger Hoar (will made 1773): Tabitha, Priscilla and Mary (all Biblical), William, Ashwell (perhaps a relative’s surname) and Mahershalalhashbaz (from Isaiah ch.8, meaning ‘He has made haste to the plunder’).

The volume is a testament to the hard work of Honor Lewington and her team of transcribers as well as a monument to the former parishioners of Stoke Mandeville. The stunning jacket illustration is one of the contemporary photographs by Mark King using laser beams to depict the planned HS2 route through the Chiltern landscape: here the beams cut through fallen gravestones in the old St Mary’s churchyard.

HEATHER FALVEY is the Reviews Editor for The Local Historian and secretary of the Hertfordshire Record Society.

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Edited by Barry Collett, Angela Smith and Julian Reid

(Oxford Historical Society NS XLVIII 2019 lxiii+188pp ISBN978-0-904107-28-9) £35

At the heart of this book, published as part of marking the quincentenary of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, is a transcription of the building accounts for the last year of the foundation phase of construction, during which Fellows and students began to arrive. The main building works completed during the year included the cloister, some accommodation, and the chapel. The other buildings had been finished, and the hall subsequently adapted, a few years earlier, mainly in 1513–1514, but, frustratingly, as explained in an appendix, although the accounts for those works were known and were consulted by a number of authorities during the 1930s and early 1940s, they subsequently disappeared without trace.

The accounts for 1517–1518 are in a fairly typical format for the period, recording payments for labour and materials on a fortnightly basis. The former were made to named workers (helpfully listed in another appendix), categorised according to trade and status, the number of days worked by each recorded in a simple code. It is possible through this to understand much concerning terms of employment. Wage rates are not atypical for the time, but a further appendix shows how they were supplemented by the supply of meals, taking total remuneration beyond the limits of the Artificers and Labourers Act 1514. The seasonal nature of construction is apparent both from the pattern of employment and from the purchase, in November 1517, of ferns to protect the walls from frost; and the impact on work of the many religious holidays can be seen in days lost from labour. The prices and sources of building materials are recorded––including the borrowing of materials from other Oxford colleges which had surplus stocks––along with details of transport for heavier items such as stone and timber. Particularly interesting is the evidence for the final fitting-out of the new buildings––wainscoting, window and door furniture—and, since the construction phase overlapped with the initial occupation of the buildings, the making of furniture, such as beds, tables and library desks; the equipping of the chapel; and the making and purchase of items for the kitchen.

There is much for the reader interested in how building projects were managed, or in sources of supply, in costs, and in how new buildings were fitted-out. The ready availability of the accounts will also enable future researchers easily to make comparisons at a local level with similar accounts for other Oxford projects—notably the published accounts for the All Souls College three quarters of a century earlier (Building Accounts of All Souls College, Oxford, 1438–1433, ed. by S. Walker, 2010), and the contemporary work to turn St Frideswide’s Priory into Cardinal College, subsequently Christ Church College––as well as those further afield.

The volume is, however, of significance for much more than this. An extensive introduction and further appendices (there are ten in all) place the building work in a broader context. They show, for example, how the motivation of the College’s founder, the shadowy Richard Fox, Bishop of Winchester, diplomat and Keeper of the Privy Seal, was to deploy the new Renaissance studia humanitatis—the study of the Classical languages of Greek, Hebrew and Latin—to produce men fit to serve in both ecclesiastical and royal administration. They also show how high politics––Henry VIII’s first intimations of seeking supremacy over the Church in 1515––caused Fox to adjust his plans and to focus on the education of secular clergy and professional laymen rather than on monks. There are also discussions and transcriptions of documents showing how Fox created the landed endowment of the College. Perhaps the most significant of the additional documents is an agreement made in 1513 with the monks of Winchester, in the early days of the creation not only of the College but also of Fox’s chantry in Winchester cathedral. The agreement was made as Fox was reluctantly about to leave for the wars in France, of which he openly disapproved, and was intended to ensure completion of the projects should he fail to return; it records endowments and gifts to both institutions, and contains instructions as to how the projects were to be taken forward. Taken together, the contextual material is a reminder of how the uncertainties of the times affected individuals making decisions concerning their own lives, aspirations and works, and should make the book useful not only to those interested in the specific history of Oxford and its university, but also to anyone interested in how religious, educational and charitable institutions were founded in the years immediately before the Reformation.

P.S. BARNWELL teaches architectural history at the University of Oxford.

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Edited by Andrew Watkins

(Dugdale Society in association with Shakespeare Birthplace Trust vol.51 2018 xii+608pp ISBN 978 0 85220 104 6) £35+£3 p&p from www.dugdale-society.org.uk

This edited collection of medieval documents is the fifty-first volume in the Dugdale Society’s excellent series, which is dedicated to the publication of original historical documents. As the title suggests, it features early records relating to the town and parish of Coleshill in Warwickshire, and draws together an impressive collection of almost 850 medieval documents from several archival collections. The volume is broadly split between two key sections: an extensive introduction is followed by the calendared, translated or transcribed documents. The latter section is divided by document type as follows: deeds, court rolls, wills and inventories and a final miscellaneous section, mostly comprising surveys and later medieval tax records. These two main sections are followed by a very useful glossary of terms. The deeds, dating between the twelfth and the mid-sixteenth century, have largely been calendared in English (with the exception of those predating 1200, which have been transcribed in full), comprising key information including the main details of the grant, witnesses and any topographical information contained therein. The two earliest of the sixteenth-century court rolls have been translated from the original, with the remainder based on nineteenth-century translations due to the loss of the originals. Similarly, the remaining documents have either been translated from Latin or transcribed.

The pièce de résistance of this volume is in many ways its lengthy introduction—in this instance an exemplar for edited collections of this type. That Andrew Watkins has worked with the Coleshill material for many years is evident throughout the volume, but most especially in its series of short introductory sections, and the reader certainly benefits from his erudition and extensive knowledge of Coleshill, its environs and its people. These excellent introductory sections include the history of Coleshill up to 1120 (from when the earliest of the documents dates); the history of its lordship and each successive lord’s impact on the parish through, for example, imparkment or the development of the town; its landscape history, which includes some useful, well-drawn colour maps; and its topography, with a very good discussion of the development of the settlement. Additional specialised sections focusing on the market, trade and industry and victualling are interesting and informative. Through this outstanding introduction, Watkins provides a masterclass on the usefulness of a range of post-Conquest documentary material in illuminating local history. This is extremely useful for those wishing to research their own local history, especially for those unfamiliar with the later medieval period.

There is much of interest throughout this collection, including early references to woodland clearance through, for example, minor landscape names such as le olderuding ‘the old clearing’. The many indications of early enclosure recorded within the deeds are supplemented in the court rolls by the mention of ‘hegge reeves’, who were responsible for overseeing the maintenance of enclosures, making and repairing hedges and closing gaps. There are several indications of early industry. A twelfth-century reference to Richard carbonarii ‘the collier’ is particularly exciting, but there are also references to the development of milling in Coleshill, the manufacture of pottery, cloth and leather, and a reference to quarrying. The records feature the town’s several inns, including a late-thirteenth century example of an alehouse. Coleshill’s local court is memorialised through the mention of ‘le courthoselone’ (the Courthouse Lane). The lived experience of some of Coleshill’s residents can also be reconstructed through this material. Their living arrangements are expounded within a handful of the deeds, and, of course, the inventories. A particularly fascinating example of the latter offers us a peep through the keyhole of one of Coleshill’s medieval inns. Continuing on this theme, the court rolls offer glimpses of local authority and order. In amongst the everyday transgressions dealing with short measures of ale and unlawful fishing, we learn about one local woman’s nocturnal visitors, and an enterprising shoemaker making footwear from horsehide—activities that were clearly frowned upon by some within the local community.

Throughout, the author shares his encyclopaedic knowledge of Coleshill and its environs, population, and lordship in a series of notes beneath many of the documents, each of which adds greater context. This volume will of course appeal to anyone with an interest in the early history of Warwickshire but, more than that, it will be highly beneficial to anyone interested in understanding the important role that documentary sources play in uncovering England’s medieval local history.

SUSAN KILBY is a Research Associate in the Institute for Name-Studies at the University of Nottingham. She is a medieval landscape historian, principally interested in the lower orders of medieval society and their relationship with their environment. She is also the honorary secretary of the Medieval Settlement Research Group.

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Edited by Elizabeth Gemmill

(Canterbury and York Society vol.CIX 2019 409pp ISBN 9780907239826) £35

Elizabeth Gemmill has produced an exemplary calendar edition of the earliest surviving register of the diocese of Norwich. Entries of special interest are transcribed in full with translations, and abbreviations expanded. Christian names have also been standardised. This first Norwich register spans a quarter of a century of institutions to ecclesiastical benefices and should be a fascinating, and in some cases a corrective, source for local and family historians.

John Salmon came from a family of Ely goldsmiths who made items for Ely Priory. In 1291 he became a Benedictine monk at Ely and hoped to be prior there, but was offered Norwich instead. Trying to recoup the hefty costs of purchasing a bishopric, Salmon exacted first fruits or the first year’s salary from all vacant benefices, getting papal permission for this only retrospectively. Like other bishops he was a royal servant, and was described as of ‘happy memory’ when he died at Folkestone priory in 1325 returning from a royal diplomatic mission. His Norwich tomb was venerated for a brief period after this, but never acquired cult status like Bishop Edmund Lacy of Exeter’s tomb over a century later. Salmon enlarged the bishop’s palace, installed a clock (in 1308), and built a two-storey charnel chapel of St John the Evangelist in Norwich Cathedral cemetery. While not being the wealthiest diocese, Norwich was then at the height of its ecclesiastical powers with no less than 1227 parishes in Norfolk and Suffolk under its jurisdiction in 1291-1292.

Male candidates in search of benefices were generally already priests, 25 being the normal age for priesthood, but a few younger men got dispensations, generally at age 22. Occasionally, a woman appears among the ranks of the religious, like Lady Elizabeth Folioth, nun, elected in 1306 as prioress of Bungay St Cross Priory in Suffolk. Out of county people could be priests or patrons like Richard de Cornubia, priest who was promised the living of Walsoken in Norfolk in 1312 and acquired it in the following year by gift of Ramsey Abbey.

A study of patterns of patronage concludes the introduction. Of the 2149 institutions to benefices including churches, chapels, chantries and religious houses, 176 devolved on the bishop or were his to give. This is exactly the same number of presentations as those made by women, sometimes in partnership with men. For example, in 1306 Lady Alice de Holebrook was the patroness of Rendlesham where a graduate priest was instituted. Patronage also provides evidence of minorities among the gentry and nobility when guardians took on the rights of underage heirs. In the case of young Thomas de Hykelyngg, King Edward II presented in his place. Presentations also show the involvement of whole families as at Clenchwarton in Norfolk where the patrons in 1324 were Sir Simon de Hedersete, knight, Lady Cecily his wife and Edmund their son.

Bishops’ registers are a valuable source of personal data that deserves to be better known, and this volume provides a good way in for East Anglians. On a personal note, I was touched to see the name of my recently deceased friend, the Oxford scholar Cathy Oakes, in the acknowledgments.

JOANNA MATTINGLY has been studying medieval Cornish churches for almost 35 years. Her interests include medieval guilds, church and guild houses and the history of the tea cosy.

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Edited by William Franklin

(Cambridgeshire Records Society vol.25 2018 294pp ISBN 978 0 904323 27 6) £22.50

In 1649 parliament abolished deans and chapters and commissioned surveys of their confiscated land and property with a view to potential sale. The transcriptions in this volume are claimed to be the most complete surviving set of such surveys, consisting of 66 documents from the archive of the dean and chapter of Ely held at Cambridge University Library, and supplemented by thirteen fair copies of surveys held by Lambeth Palace Library and three manorial sale documents in The National Archives. These cover all but two of the Cambridgeshire locations where the dean and chapter of Ely held properties.

Edited by William Franklin, a local historian with publications on the landscape and agriculture of East Anglia, the volume begins by introducing the economic context of civil war military expenses and parliament’s attempts to pay off the resulting debts. Having already sold properties confiscated from the bishops in 1646, parliament extended this to the properties of deans and chapters in 1649. Franklin also explains the surveyors’ procedures for establishing the extent and tenure of relevant land and property, and summarises their findings.

The transcripts are usefully collated by location, grouping together surveyors’ working papers, fair copies, related correspondence and sale documents. These cover urban property in Ely and Cambridge, and extensive agricultural land. The urban surveys provide interesting detail not only of the size, usage and occupancy of buildings, but also of the materials used in their construction, for example whether of stone or timber, with roofs of lead, tiles, rushes, sedge or thatch. Given the main purpose of producing sale valuations, surveys elsewhere tended to give little detail on actual construction, whereas these provide a vivid picture of the built environment. The surveyors gathered information on agricultural lands largely from particulars provided by manorial courts. They also meticulously recorded the numbers and types of trees, as potentially saleable assets, and noted whether their felling would be detrimental to the value of nearby buildings. For example, at Braham Farm the surveyors personally viewed 1229 ash, elm and poplar trees of various sizes, valued at a total of around £180. This may be symptomatic of the paucity of timber available in this region, since similar surveys in more wooded areas such as Worcestershire provide far less detail. Other interesting details include a new river cut from the fenland that offered opportunities for income from fishing and ferry operations, as well as the names and lengths of service of parochial ministers, which reveal that many were long-established and had retained their livings despite the removal of their clerical superiors.

Unfortunately for a volume of this nature, typographical errors tend to cause nervousness about the accuracy of the transcriptions themselves. However, the content is very clearly laid out and indexed, making for easy and entertaining reading, and enabling the reader to appreciate the breadth of detail. Although the properties are listed in tabular form, for those unfamiliar with the county, a map of the locations and extent of the properties surveyed would have been useful. Overall, this volume will be of considerable use to local historians, as well as those with an interest in interregnum administration in general, and the parliamentary surveys in particular. In addition, the surveyors’ detailed descriptions of land and properties offer insights into the nature of the landscape, agricultural practices, manorial courts, and field and place names, as well as landholders and patterns of tenure.

TRIXIE GADD has recently completed a PhD at the University of Leicester on the prosperity of seventeenth-century Dorset clergy.

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Edited by Carole Rawcliffe

(Norfolk Record Society vol.83 2019 xi+452pp ISBN 978-0-995773-62-2) £25

The Norfolk Record Society’s latest volume presents transcripts of six chamberlains’ accounts from sixteenth-century Norwich, at that time England’s largest provincial city. The editor, Carole Rawcliffe, will be familiar as a renowned medievalist, both as Professor of Medieval History at the University of East Anglia, and as the author of a significant corpus of work broadly related to medicine, disease and human welfare in the late medieval period. At first glance, therefore, this volume on Tudor records would appear to be something of a new area for Professor Rawcliffe, but as a sizeable proportion of the accounts deal with the ongoing problem of sanitation in the city it can partly be viewed as a return to a theme she has frequently encountered in her earlier work.

The comprehensive introduction places the chamberlains’ accounts in a variety of relevant historical and administrative contexts, with care taken to consider wider perspectives: for example, the editor frequently compares practices in Norwich with those of other cities, particularly York and Winchester. She provides an extended history of the management of the civic accounts in Norwich—not only for the period covered by the transcribed documents of the volume—and then explores in some detail the various sources of income due to the city, and the wide range of expenditure. There follows a discussion of the activities and obligations of the chamberlains themselves and then a focus in greater detail on some of the topics referred to in the accounts. Although Rawcliffe has highlighted just two—the conversion of Blackfriars and the use made by the chamberlains of men and materials for the building and maintenance of civic projects—the wealth of detail contained in the accounts is such that many other topics could have been chosen (presumably word-length was constrained). The introduction concludes with an explanation of the editorial methods and two maps. The accounts are then presented in a transcribed format with comprehensive footnotes. The volume concludes with three appendices, a very comprehensive 35-page glossary, a guide to saints’ days and festivals, and a bibliography.

Without doubt, this volume will be of significant value to local historians with an interest in Norwich and Norfolk—for example, the accounts document in some detail the conversion of the Dominican friary of Blackfriars following the Dissolution and its subsequent use by the civic authorities for a variety of purposes including a free school and communal granary. The Blackfriars complex remains a significant attraction within the modern city; by contrast, the accounts record other structures which are long gone, such as Greyfriars and Carrow priory which were plundered for building materials, some of which went into the work at Blackfriars, particularly ‘freston’ and ‘marbylles’ from the Greyfriars site. There are many other references to features and buildings including the guildhall, market and city walls, all of which are meticulously recorded in a comprehensive index.

While the sixteenth century was a turbulent time for the whole nation, the city of Norwich had more than its share of challenges. On the one hand the accounts show how national events impacted on the financial management of the city, including the Dissolution, the Reformation, the French and Scottish campaigns and the debasement of the coinage. On the other they indicate the effects of significant local events, particularly Kett’s Rebellion, and also fires (which destroyed 40 per cent of the city’s housing stock) and floods. The expenses created by Kett’s rebellion are covered in an appendix which includes the chilling entry for the payment of 3s 9d ‘for the chargis of beryeng of xlix men that war hangyd at the crosse in the market, for makyng pyttes and caryeng to them’.

The accounts contain much detail that will be of interest and value to historians other than those focused on Norwich and Norfolk. They show how a city administered its resources and used them for the benefit of its citizens. Managing the urban environment in the pre-modern era was particularly challenging and throughout the accounts payments are recorded for the ‘caryeng’ of ‘mucke’ out of the streets, market and prisons, which is occasionally more fully described as ‘stynkyng fylth’ or ‘wonderfful noysfull’. This also required the ongoing maintenance of the ‘cokeys’, the eighteen streams which formed an essential part of the city’s sanitation system and which required regular repair as well as the clearing out of accumulated debris. While keeping the city free from waste was an ongoing concern, other entries illustrate that the range of duties and responsibilities undertaken by the chamberlains were considerable. In 1543-1544, for example, payments are recorded for making and erecting a new cross at Hardley Cross to mark the boundary of jurisdiction between Norwich and Great Yarmouth (it still exists, albeit heavily restored and repaired). These included 4s 3½d to the engraver Nycholas Marry for carving the cross ‘with the city arymys, with a fynyall and other antycke worke’. Shortly after these entries are others relating to the upkeep of the civic regalia including the making of a new scabbard and 15s paid for ‘blewe velvet’ bought in London. The accounts also show that the chamberlains were keen to bring some enjoyment to the lives of citizens. In 1544, money was spent on civic processions, bonfires and barrels of beer to celebrate the king’s Scottish campaign and his (ultimately short-lived) triumph at Boulogne. The chamberlains were equally keen to look after their own comfort: in 1542 a total of 22s 8d was paid for covering the benches in the council chamber with bolsters stuffed with feathers and lined with woollen cloth.

This volume is highly recommended to both local and social historians. The transcribed documents give a fascinating insight into urban government in the challenging environment of the sixteenth century, and are effectively supported by an excellent and thoroughly researched introduction, appendices and indexes.

JOANNE SEAR teaches at the Institute of Continuing Education, Cambridge, but spent many years living in and around Norwich and remains a frequent visitor to the city. Her research focuses on late medieval consumption and trade and she was particularly interested in the references to the organisation of the market, the merchant guilds and the variety of occupations in this volume.

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Edited by Peter Barlow and Martin Boothman

(Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society Gloucestershire Records Series vol.33xxxiii+413pp 2019 ISBN 978 0 900197 97 0) £30

There are few surviving vehicle registration records for the period before the First World War, so when a volume crops up transcribing and analysing such records for any county, it is an occasion for rejoicing. Seriously ... vehicle registration records are now accepted as marvellous sources of information for local and family historians, and not just the petrolhead. Peter Barlow and Martin Boothman’s very carefully edited volume brings vehicle registrations for Gloucestershire into the fold. As the editors explain, the Motor Car Act of 1903 obliged the registration of ‘light locomotives’ (those under three tons), and for Gloucestershire the marks of AD and FH were allocated, for the county and borough respectively. By the end of 1913, some 3667 county registrations had been issued, and 758 for the borough, a sure sign of the expanding motor vehicle use in the years before the War. The volume is a painstaking piecing together of hand-written records into a form which allows any one registration to be mapped against a vehicle and its owner, and to follow the life of that registration as owners and assigned vehicles changed. It has also allowed for the creation of a series of indexes, by owner’s name, occupation, make of motor car or motor cycle, or by town of registration. The indexes (particularly the occupations) are superb in their detail.

Vehicles were registered as a ‘motor car’ or ‘motor cycle’, and it is straightforward to differentiate in the transcript. A ‘motor cycle’ was taken to mean a vehicle under 3cwt with fewer than four wheels, and it would have been important to slip into this category as the registration fee for a motor cycle was significantly less. ‘Heavy motor cars’, recorded in records for other counties, are missing for Gloucestershire. For motor cars and motor cycles, the make, model, weight and horsepower were recorded, and for motor cars alone, the body type and colour were also given.

In addition to the transcript, occupations have been gleaned, derived from local directories and the 1901 and 1911 census records. With the warning that occupations can and do change for the same person (and that we can never be sure sometimes it even is the same person), some fascinating detail is revealed. For the county, more registrations are allocated to medics than any other occupation, suggesting that that group needed to be mobile to do their rounds. This group is followed by army officers—it was a big surprise to see them so prominent—followed by those in the cycle trade, the motor trade, and farmers. For the borough, the cycle trade people come first, then the motor trade, medics, engineers, and builders. As vehicles trickled down into the ‘pre-owned’, the point was made as to how the motor cycle (in particular) was ‘democratising’, because we learn of motor cycles registered to footmen, clerks, tailors, farm labourers, and even a sanitary inspector. Some interesting statistics emerge for the use of motor vehicles by women. For first registrations, women accounted for 5 per cent in 1904, rising to 8 per cent by 1912. Women also registered more cars than motor cycles. Where their occupations were identifiable, those in the medical professions led. The most popular motor vehicles were the French Darracq, followed by Ford, Humber, then Sunbeam; for motor cycles, Triumph, then the local make Douglas, followed by Humber, Minerva and Rex. A handful of ‘home-made’ vehicles are identified too, which was not unusual at the time.

My only gripe is with the method of presenting the information. I felt that it would be much easier to follow if new lines were used for the reissuing of a number to a different vehicle. Similarly, when a number was transferred within the same ownership, this is usefully marked by (1), (2) and so on, but again, why not use a new line for each one? That being said, this volume is a model of care and attention and I applaud the editors for their diligence and staying power in assembling this fine work.

CRAIG HORNER is senior lecturer in history at Manchester Metropolitan University. His book The Cheshire Motor Vehicle Registrations, 1904-07 was published by the Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire (vol.156) in 2019.

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Edited by Richard Oliver, Roger Kain and Todd Gray

(Devon and Cornwall Record Society extra series vol.3 2019 68pp ISBN 978-0-90185-397-4) £25

The idea for this volume came from the emergence of William Birchynshaw’s map of Exeter, or ‘A Platform of the City of Exon’, at a public auction in the city in 2018. The map was found in the attic of an elderly lady who had recently passed away but its provenance is virtually unknown. Although the original is now in a private collection its owner generously allowed it to be studied and reproduced by the Devon and Cornwall Record Society.

The book is divided into two main sections: ‘Seven maps of Exeter’ by Richard Oliver and Roger Kain, and ‘Exeter in 1743’ by Todd Gray. The first section is further divided into seven parts which examines maps of Exeter from 1587 to the 1980s. Within these seven parts are many more maps than just the headings suggest. Much has been written about maps and mapmaking in Devon and Exeter but this volume reviews and enlarges upon that significant body of scholarship. Readers are taken through not only the changing face of maps of the city but also the history of cartography. From the first map by John Hooker of 1587, through to the bus-route map of 1949, anyone interested in maps will find this section a pleasure to read. One of the most important sections in this volume is that on the Birchynshaw map itself (in part III of section 1); Birchynshaw was a pewterer and a freeman of Exeter. Very little is known about Birchynshaw’s involvement in surveying, the map-making process, the commercial side of map distribution, or for that matter what happened to his stock of maps or the original copper plate. These subjects are tackled by the authors but a frustrating lack of documentation leaves the reader wanting more answers than can be provided. Nevertheless some 33 pages are dedicated to the subject of mapping Exeter. All of this helps to set the Birchynshaw map in its correct historical setting from a cartographic perspective.

The second section is divided into five parts which examine Exeter’s topography, society, economy, government and religion, and an enlightening account of Exeter in 1743 is expertly reconstructed. This section is enhanced by the inclusion of nine very detailed views of Exeter which appear on John Rocque’s map of the city in 1744. From a wider topographic, social, economic, governmental and religious perspective the second section is an ideal bedfellow for the cartographic study. Todd Gray brings alive the world of William Birchynshaw not only by including some wonderfully detailed contemporary illustrations but also by garnering the best from a mixture of non-cartographic sources. His expertise and use of narrative sources reveals Birchynshaw’s Exeter in a very vivid and enlightening way. Drawing on accounts from the decades before the map was made it is not difficult to picture the city with its 14,000 inhabitants, described in 1724: ‘The people are industrious and courteous: the fair sex are truly so, as well as numerous; their complexions, and generally their hair likewise, fair. They are genteel, disengaged [free from obligatory connections], of easy and good mien’. Or the image of the cloth industry: ‘We went to the place where their racks stand, as they call them, for stretching and drying their serges and kersies, a commodity that prevails more here than in any city in England besides and is well worth a stranger’s sight’. In many cases Dr Gray describes what was there in 1743, when it was lost (usually during World War Two due to enemy bombing) and what is there now. He also used more mundane sources to show the number and different types of occupations of the freemen of the city, as well as the numbers of non-Anglicans in Exeter (Presbyterians, Arians, Baptists, Quakers, Roman Catholics and Jews (of whom there was only one family)). All this is thoroughly enjoyable and easy to read.

My only criticism is small: some of the images are a little dark on one side and one or two are a little blurred. However, the large format of the volume is very welcome as it allows for the publication of images at an easy-to-view size. For those who recognise the value of maps and high quality research, of the sort found in this book, this volume is a must. For a map which is over 270 years old and has spent so many years out of the gaze of local and cartographic historians, to suddenly come to light, offers much hope to others looking for such valuable works as this. There is much in this volume to offer people whose interests lie outside Devon and cartography in its widest sense. The knowledge imparted by thee three authors is invaluable. The Devon and Cornwall Record Society should be congratulated on adding such a valuable volume to a growing portfolio that has seen eleven volumes produced in the last nine years. Although a relatively slim volume by the normal standard of record society publishing, it is worth every penny of the £25 price.

ADRIAN WEBB is an independent researcher and author whose day job is head of the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office Archive. He has written two volumes on Somerset’s maps and navigational charts, and edited numerous volumes on maritime and local history subjects.

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By David Brandon and Alan Brooke

(Pen and Sword Transport 2019 416pp ISBN978 1 52670 020 9) £30

The opposition of major landowners towards railways in the middle and later decades of the nineteenth century has become almost a clichéd image, often used with little real foundation to explain why a particular line missed this or that town, or apparently took an eccentric course. The reality is far more complex, not least because the genuine opposition of one or other landowner was frequently far too ineffectual to deflect the power of a determined company with wealthy supporters. In this stimulating book many of the issues of the time are discussed and assessed, building up a more solidly-based view of opposition, the reasons for it, and the effectiveness of the protests. It is of course set against the contemporary arguments in favour of, or against, HS2, emphasising the point that opposition to such projects is not new and continues.

The book begins with the context—the nature of inland travel before the railway age—and then gives a broad overview of the development of the railway network in its various phases from 1820 to the outbreak of the First World War. An ambitious chapter then summarises the range of challenges which faced the landed aristocracy in the early railway age—the desire for privacy and seclusion (in the context of super-expensive eighteenth century landscaping schemes), the impact of industrialisation and urbanisation on fortunes and family estates, the political role of the landed gentry and aristocracy, and the effect of social mobility with the admission of the nouveaux riches. This is followed by sections on the procedures for railway promotion and the reaction of the landed aristocracy as schemes for new lines were projected.

Case-studies are given, such as the Liverpool & Manchester project, which because of opposition from Lord Derby and Lord Sefton saw the original route replaced by one which, ironically, was far more direct and much more effective despite its heavy engineering works. A particular theme in this section is the vehement opposition of midland landowners towards lines which would, or might, interfere with the sacred rights and rites of foxhunting. But the discussion of the alleged refusal of the Marquess of Exeter to allow the Great Northern Railway to pass close to his borough of Stamford makes the crucial point that although he did not like railways, the decision to go direct from Peterborough to Grantham was taken quite separately by the railway company on engineering grounds and because it was much shorter. Another example of such a myth is that of Northampton, which is even now said to have shunned the railway from London to Birmingham, with the result that it is on a loop line—but, as the authors explain, Robert Stephenson never intended to take the main line through the town in the first place.

The reasons for opposition are then further reviewed—we may be glad that an 1837 proposal to build a terminus at Magdalen Bridge in central Oxford was thwarted, just as Stamford was saved the fate of Peterborough by being bypassed. Engines and their smoke and whistles would scare horses, intrude on views, break the Sabbath, bring the great unwashed, and be a corrupting influence upon Etonian schoolboys, but it is also demonstrated that for many landowners it was not railways per se to which they objected, merely railways which impinged on their own particular estate. ‘Not in my backyard’ could be squared with the dividends from railway shares, the opening up of lucrative mineral and agricultural resources, the opportunities for new resorts and suburbs ... all very acceptable as long as they were somewhere else. And as is frequently pointed out, aristocrats and gentlemen were very numerous on the boards of the big railway companies.

Halfway through the book there is a review of other types of opposition—not necessarily from landowners, but from commercial interests and those of a nervous disposition. The horrors of the Metropolitan Line in the days of steam; the abiding fear of railway crime, a subject beloved of the popular press; the damage to heritage and antiquities; the influx of navvies with their coarse and turbulent ways; the displacement of large numbers of people to make way for railway projects; fees, fares and freight charges; the inadequacies of station buildings; the dangers of tunnels; railway safety and accidents (again, much loved by the popular press); the loathsomeness of fellow passengers; and naturally, the ghastly grimness of railway catering ... these and other causes of complaint are considered.

An imaginative chapter deals with railways as represented in art and literature, with the usual suspects of Wordsworth and Ruskin being by accompanied Dickens, Trollope, Conan Doyle, Disraeli and of course Betjeman. There is much in this chapter to demonstrate the conflicting attitudes at the time and also changing perceptions, as crude and ugly intrusions have become cherished historical and architectural masterpieces. The final chapter of the nineteenth century coverage is entitled ‘examples of support for new railways’ and is an important corrective to the perception that all schemes, and indeed railways themselves, met with universal disapproval. The twentieth and twenty-first centuries are covered in 70-odd pages which I felt were, on balance, a less successful contribution. This is definitely a popular history, not an academic one, and it is very readable, packed with examples, and has a very wide scope. The last section is too condensed and although HS2 is obviously relevant in principle, and its inclusion no doubt seemed a good ‘bookend’ for the story, I felt that finishing in 1914 would perhaps have been preferable. I enjoyed The Railway Haters. But be warned: the index is completely inadequate!

ALAN CROSBY is editor of The Local Historian and has a longstanding research interest in transport and the landscape.

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By Mark Forrest

(BALH 2019 87pp ISBN 978-0-9481-40-04-4) £10 non members, £8 members + £2 p+p

With increased and easier accessibility to early documents online this book is a thoroughly useful guide to reading and accurately transcribing them. It is, in effect, the third edition of Reading Tudor and Stuart Handwriting but the author, Mark Forrest, goes further in both scope and content than previous versions. He is known for his work on medieval and later documents and, having been a research assistant at both Royal Holloway and Cambridge Universities, then spent a decade as Collections Manager at the Dorset History Centre and now working as an archival consultant, he is well placed to have produced this very practical and readable guide. It contains methodical, step-by-step guidance through the complexities and irregularities of the handwriting to be found in documents spanning the years c.1490–1680. Both beginners and those with some experience in transcribing will find the comprehensive and steady, paced structure of the book to be well presented and user-friendly.

The introduction suggests a helpful process for making the initial foray into reading old documents, from examining individual letters through to eventually engaging in fuller contextualisation once much of the document has been transcribed. There are several illustrations of examples of secretary hand, court hand and other styles of individual letter forms to compare. The book is not large in size but the images are clear and well reproduced, particularly those showing handwriting on parchment backgrounds. Pages 11–13 are full of details about the practical formation of letters and this is most useful: the reader begins to understand why a letter looks the way it does and the subsequent section about the tools of the writing trade adds a further dimension.

There follow some 16 pages of advice and guidance. Documents, of course, do not only contain words. There may be dates, numbers, weights, measurements, currency, sums of money, personal names and place-names. There are helpful sections covering all of these, each containing historical details outlining these aspects, explaining their development and change in representation within documents from different periods. In fact each section is a history lesson about the pieces of the jigsaw that make up a whole document. These sections are presented in a thorough and scholarly manner, but at no time are they overwhelming.

The chapter on dates includes a table of regnal years for monarchs from Henry VII to Queen Anne. There are useful details about Easter, the Commonwealth 1649–1660, the Interregnum, the Restoration years, and finally an explanation of the early modern legal year. This is a very useful chapter and anyone who has been troubled by a confusing date in a document may well find the answer here. The chapter relating to abbreviations, ligatures and contractions is another thorough section and, here and in the chapter on rules and conventions, the author provides sound advice: the importance of, and the need for, consistency in order to make a transcription clear to a reader. There is a select bibliography and details of websites offering tutorial courses in palaeography.

The remainder of the book focuses on the variety of types of documents which local and family historians are most likely to come across, including accounts, personal letters, hearth tax returns, lay subsidies and parish registers, in addition to the more frequently accessed wills and inventories. More than twenty examples are reproduced along with associated transcripts: the layout is excellent in each case and the explanatory footnotes accompanying each document are useful and illuminating. Twelve counties are represented in the documents—my only criticism is that there is a geographical bias, with only one document from Northern England and one from Wales. The documents are arranged with a ‘reverse chronology’, an interesting approach demonstrating the development of styles of handwriting. They vary in difficulty but can all be attempted using the guidance provided, if the reader puts in some practice and has a little patience. Mark Forrest has managed to pack a huge amount of practical, straightforward guidance into this compact book. Its handy size means it can be used on a trip to an archive but equally it deserves to find a place on the bookshelves of anyone interested in getting to grips with this engrossing subject and extending their skills at their own pace.

CAROL DOUGHERTY is currently involved in transcribing early documents for a Heritage Lottery Funded project with her local archaeology group in a northern market town. She will definitely recommend this book to other members of the group who are just starting out with their own transcription skills!

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By Peter Jefferson Smith

(Clapham Society 2019 424pp ISBN 978-1-83952-078-5) £20+£3 p&p details from claphamsociety.com/clapsocpublications.html

The I’Ansons may have been a remarkably successful family of nineteenth-century surveyor-architects, but ironically the first thing that draws attention to them is their curious surname—it feels vaguely other-worldly, and indeed its origins date back to Tudor times—and then there are the names of the three individuals who made up the dynasty: Edward I’Anson, Edward I’Anson and Edward I’Anson. How the Victorians loved their little jokes. Even the surname’s initial letter is ambiguous, thereby endlessly providing, as this engaging book’s author Peter Jefferson Smith amusingly put it, ‘bafflement to compilers of indexes’. Reader, I have faced that dilemma myself.

To provide an overview of this rich, if occasionally confusing, study is no mean challenge, but the insights it gives into the complexities, determination and tensions of middle-class nineteenth-century life are legion. And it’s not just about architectural drawings and drainage either; the story surprisingly brings with it moments of unexpected drama—financial scandal, allegations of corruption and even a marriage of dubious legality (it involved the espousal of a deceased wife’s sister). Jefferson Smith’s exploration is a case study of the advance in social status of a highly focused family as it moved through the hierarchy of ‘professions’ in the construction industry. At a time of barely penetrable class barriers this was no small matter. As the patron and later partner of the first Edward I’Anson put it while sparring with counsel in a trial at Maidstone in 1819, ‘the builder ... is [merely] the machine; the architect the power that puts the machine together and sets it going’.

The first Edward was primarily a surveyor, acting for a number of large ecclesiastical and other institutional estates in Southwark and the City of London, though his influence extended beyond the coordination of building work into the infrastructure of the great metropolis as it struggled to dispose of the ordure of its citizens. Indeed, I’Anson’s attempts to patch up London’s dilapidated sewerage arrangements showed notable enterprise, and pre-date by a good fifteen years Joseph Bazalgette’s great engineering scheme to redesign the whole system.

But the real hero of the book is the second Edward. As a property manager he pioneered the lettable or speculative office in the City, ingeniously making best use of space and light in some particularly cramped plots of land. He was instrumental in the growth of south London, overseeing the construction of schools, churches, almshouses and libraries, and influencing in particular the metamorphosis of Clapham from a prosperous village into a commuter suburb. As district surveyor for Clapham and South Battersea he was responsible for enforcing increasingly tight regulations codes for new buildings, and his talent for resolving disputes was crucial at a time before twentieth-century public control, when acrimonious clashes required sensitive and personalised handling. Not that he always got things right. More than once he purchased extensive plots of land in Battersea and Clapham, but misjudged the market, so proposals for ten-room villas mutated into rows of small terraced houses, or the land simply lay vacant for years.

The third Edward was essentially an architect turning out highly distinctive Victorian public buildings, now often shabby but still a delight to behold, with their arresting skylines and tense over-decoration. The Clapham School of Art with its terracotta frieze of griffins and vases is a fine example from the end of the century. His other responsibilities included, like his predecessor, developing a number of estates, notably the massive one sited at Wandsworth and owned by Magdalen College, Oxford. But, like his father, he came up with plans that were over-optimistic, irritating the College authorities who dispensed with his services in 1894.

That then is an overview of this absorbing, densely written memoir ... at least, I think it is. Readers will need to keep their wits about them when following its narrative and I’m not sure I always kept mine, but I draw consolation from the fact that Jefferson Smith admitted similar difficulties. To ‘label’ each of the I’Ansons is tantalising complex, the data is frequently sketchy and elusive, and he writes of a long period after 1872 when ‘it is often difficult to know whether to ascribe work to father or to son’. But independent of these problems this exhaustive account powerfully evokes the spirit behind the solid confidence and sheer indefatigable energy that marked out the building world of Victorian London and its suburbs.

The back-story of the book is of interest too. Peter Jefferson Smith was a local historian whose considerable influence spread well beyond the bounds of Clapham, and he brought years of meticulous, wide-ranging research to bear in chronicling the I’Anson’s progress. He had virtually completed his text when he died. Maps, illustrations and an index were still needed but the project had to be finished. So all praise must go to the dedicated team from the Clapham Society who completed the work and steered it into print. The outcome has fully justified their effort, for it is a most attractive book with pleasing page layouts and, at £20, a reasonable price. Regrettably a sizeable number of the illustrations are frustratingly small, but I particularly admire the slightly out-of-fashion summary of topics to be covered at the start of each chapter. Together these form a set of synopses of extraordinary usefulness.

As Andrew Saint, for many years the general editor of the Survey of London, rightly remarks in his preface, writing local and architectural history is still mostly left to amateur enthusiasts, and it is reasonable to presume that Jefferson Smith’s impressive study will never be surpassed. Some might imagine it relevant only to south-London historians, but they would be wrong. For anyone filled with awe by those tirelessly confident Victorians the book is an absolute must.

NEIL ROBSON writes and speaks regularly on the cultural history of south-west London. He is the editor of the Wandsworth Historian and co-chair of the West London Local History Conference which is held annually each March. In addition, a number of articles by him have been published on the history of the British overseas territory of Tristan da Cunha.

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Edited by Mark Smith

(Oxford Record Society vol.73 2019 cvi+601pp ISBN 978 0 902509 75 7) £35

Here is another beautifully produced annual publication by the Oxford Record Society in association with Boydell and Brewer. The Society’s volumes are always absorbing, and this reviewer was captivated from the start when its editor, Mark Smith, used his acknowledgements to praise the ‘excellent coffee’ of the Oxfordshire History Centre (a thoroughly accurate observation) as well as the remarkable people who had assisted him, including Kate Tiller, who also wrote the foreword.

As Dr Tiller explains, ecclesiastical visitation returns have been frequently published; they are often the documents of choice of the local historian researching in record offices for evidence of parochial ecclesiastical and social change. However, such interest has mainly concentrated on the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Church. Victorian visitation returns, in particular, could be comprehensive. Incumbents were often asked to complete the answers to more than thirty questions (often subdivided). Subjects included patronage; residency; stipends; tithe income; parish registers; the physical state of churches and glebe houses; and church attendance figures. Towards the middle of the nineteenth century, when sacramental worship was becoming popular in the Church of England, interest developed in baptism, the regularity of holy communion and the numbers taking it. There was also enthusiasm for parochial education in church schools, even down to the minutiae of school reading-book preference. As Mark Smith’s excellent introduction makes clear, Victorian visitation returns exude purposive energy.

However, rather than choosing to revisit those well-mined visitation returns, he has broken new ground by selecting the Oxfordshire visitation returns of Charles Gore from two First World War years, 1914 and 1918: a most suitable selection for a publication marking the end of the decade that included the centenary of the war as well as the founding of the Oxford Record Society. While the contents allow us to observe continuity between Victorian visitation returns and those of the second decade of the twentieth century, their importance also lies in the noting of differences between responses at the beginning of the war and near its end. Though there were fewer questions in war-time questionnaires compared with their Victorian counterparts, some (on sacramental ministry and religious education) were highly similar, but others, such as on mission overseas and lay representation on church councils, were different. They no longer included questions on the size of congregations. Some 226 parishes responded to the 1914 survey, giving a picture of parochial life in what Smith terms ‘the last unclouded summer before the war’: a picture that was in many senses very similar to that of the late-Victorian parish. The 1918 survey, sent out in March when the war seemed never-ending, was different. There were only eleven queries contained in six questions, two of which asked for untrammelled clerical comment rather than statistics, the aim being to discover change and innovation under wartime conditions. Perhaps the most significant question from the local historian’s viewpoint, asked, ‘What can you report as to the moral and spiritual effect of the different classes in your parish: a, of war time, b, of the National Mission?’ Other questions concerned changes in worship patterns and clerical methods as a result of the war; lay representatives to parochial church councils; and reforms in religious education. There were 229 returns.

One advantage of consulting visitation returns is the mining of specific facts and figures to create statistics through which findings may be compared, either between parishes or over time. When additional research tools are used, the results gain added weight. Mark Smith’s use of the 1911 census and various diocesan records is a good example of this technique. His helpful graphs and charts are testimony to its success, revealing at a glance statistical information on the age of the clergy; their educational background; how long they waited to secure an incumbency; their preference for sacramental worship; the number of Church schools; and much more. But, as he remarks, analysis of the returns is actually more complex, the clergy demonstrating many different views, ‘produced at least as much by differences in character as by their parochial experience’. Such complexities appear in the questions which required discursive replies, resulting, for instance, in differing opinions on whether immoral conduct was caused by the war, and on the efficacy of the National Mission of Repentance and Hope of 1916. The National Mission was the Church of England’s major response to the war. It asked people to consider whether wars were caused by corporate and individual sin, and urged them to respond through repentance and increased Christian worship. Messengers were sent to preach in cities and towns, and special services and prayers took place throughout the country. Historians have frequently considered the National Mission to have been a failure, but Smith’s analysis of the Oxfordshire replies reveals positive as well as negative results. Nevertheless, the discursive nature of the replies, clerical ‘differences of character’, and the fact that Bishop Gore was particularly keen on the Mission, all suggest that the responses should be viewed with a degree of scepticism. Readers might wish to analyse the results for themselves, in conjunction with local newspaper reports, parish magazines and parochial records, and come to their own conclusions. Indeed, one of the joys of The Parish in Wartime is its potential influence on local historians to encourage them to examine and compare the visitation returns of their own diocese, and perhaps engage with groups elsewhere to compare and contrast results nationally.

Mark Smith’s eventual conclusion is that the parochial efforts of the Church of England during the First World War had a decided impact on those who were already regular churchgoers, but that others were hardly touched, leading him to suggest that, during the twentieth century, the National Church would slowly become a gathered Church. It is to be hoped that others will emulate him by asking questions of twentieth century bishops’ visitation returns in their own dioceses, and that they will share their findings with others.

JANE PLATT is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and an archivist at the Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History, Oxford Brookes University. She is the author of Subscribing to Faith? The Anglican Parish Magazine 1859-1929 (2015), editor of The Diocese of Carlisle 1814-1855: Chancellor Walter Fletcher’s ‘Diocesan Book’ (2015), and author of Making their Mark: Learning to read and write in nineteenth-century Cumberland (2019). She is currently editing the six volumes of late-seventeenth century notes on the history of Westmorland written by the antiquarian clergyman, Thomas Machell.

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Edited by Richard Batten

(Devon and Cornwall Record Society /Boydell 2018 xiii+267pp ISBN 978-0-901853-61-5) £30

Hugh Fortescue (1854-1932) became the fourth Earl Fortescue in 1905 on his father’s death. He was based at Castle Hill, near South Molton, in North Devon, and from 1881 to 1892 was a Liberal MP but retired because of ill health. He was an active member of the Devonshire elite and became heavily involved in local affairs as lord lieutenant from 1904 to 1928, chairman of the county council from 1904 to 1916 and chairman of the County Territorial Association. In those roles he played an important role on the Devon home front in the First World War. Included in this volume are a number of papers from his archive: ‘Typescript of Work of Lord Fortescue During First World War’ (25pp), which he wrote in 1924, looking back on his contribution; his personal diary from August 1914 to November 1918 (124 pp); and documents from the family archive dealing with army recruitment, charities, refugees, the Red Cross, food production and agriculture (62 pp). Richard Batten provides an introduction which covers Fortescue’s personal background and his activities during the war, comments on the historical value of the writings, and assesses his influence on Devon’s mobilisation for war and the conduct of the home front.

Fortescue’s ‘Typescript’ emphasises his efforts at the outbreak of war to ensure that Territorial Army units were properly supplied with uniforms and equipment, that financial support was available for soldiers’ families, and that vulnerable points on the rail network were protected in the event of invasion. He also supported soldiers’ welfare as chairman of the national Canteen and Mess Society, one of the antecedents of the NAAFI, until it was taken over by the government. Fortescue comments on the difficult charitable work to support Belgian refugees in the county and on the activities of the local Red Cross branch, of which his wife was president. He was keen to support recruiting for the army but found this frustrating because of the reluctance of men to enlist from rural areas. From the autumn of 1915, he became chairman of the County War Agricultural Committee, which had the remit to increase food production by ploughing up pasture. This proved time-consuming and difficult because of the shortage of labour and horses. Nonetheless, the land under corn in Devon increased by almost a quarter in 1917. Perhaps the most difficult task was to find another 1000 men for the army after the disasters suffered during the German Spring Offensives of 1918 at the same time as maintaining or increasing food production. This meant ‘combing out’ men from the lists of those employed on each of the county’s 12,000 farms. The documents collected in the final section of the book provide valuable detail which supports the account in Fortescue’s ‘Typescript’.

The diary has been carefully edited so that the personal shorthand is, more or less, comprehensible. Most of the daily entries are terse references to his movements and meetings, although a few give some insight into what went on. It is clear that he continued his interests in stag-hunting and shooting as well as the business of managing his estate. These often occasioned the longer diary entries. He recorded the views of some of those he met on the course of the war, showing the way that stories—of varying degrees of accuracy—circulated among the upper classes. Fortescue was a frequent visitor to London for business at the House of Lords and with various Government departments. Unfortunately, the diary gives little clue about the details of what he did there. The documents collected in this volume are an important resource for researchers interested in the home front in Devon during the First World War. Fortescue was an influential figure at the time and his ‘Typescript’ in particular provides valuable insights into the priorities and concerns of the county’s elite. Richard Batten is to be congratulated on his careful editing and helpful introduction.

BRIAN THOMSON is a retired civil servant and member of Rickmansworth Historical Society. He has a particular interest in the role of local people on the Home Front 1914–1918 and is the author of Croxley Green in the First World War.

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Edited by Cyril Pearce

(Huddersfield Local History Society 2019 160pp ISBN 978-0-9929841-2-0) £6.95

Local societies, bringing together ‘amateurs’ and ‘professionals’ in a common love of their location and their past, are the backbone of historical studies across the country. This collection of essays is the latest of many local publications to emerge from the Huddersfield LHS, but it is also much more. It is a tribute to one of the most influential and inspirational of local history tutors, George Redmonds, who died in August 2018. He, along with Jennifer Stead and Cyril Pearce—the editor of this collection and current chairman of the Huddersfield LHS—launched the periodical publication Old West Riding in 1981, as an outlet for those local and often mature students from Redmonds’ WEA classes and elsewhere whose researches deserved being read by the public at large. Cyril Pearce has made his selection to reflect the diversity of topics covered by Old West Riding in its 23 editions, published between 1981 and 1995, though he has also been influenced by the natural desire to reprint essays on topics close to Huddersfield. The work of eight authors is included here, although Pearce’s two co-founders were responsible for eight of the fourteen essays which are grouped under six sub-headings.

The first group, in recognition of George Redmonds’ pioneering work, is on ‘Language and Local Topography’, commencing with an essay on Huddersfield and local dialect by Stanley Ellis which sets out those fine distinctions in dialect pronunciation even between adjacent local communities. There then follow two pieces by Redmonds himself: one on surnames and settlement, showing the derivations of (and sometimes false assumptions about) surnames common to the area; the other is about turf pits, turbary rights, and occasional turf wars on the moorlands surrounding Huddersfield. Then Jennifer Stead is given two articles on the local custom of ‘Ringing Adam Bells’, which is described as a ‘naughty game’ played by adults from an age before the Victorians taught young (and not-so-young) ladies that indecent exposure was improper. Well might this section have been linked with the final one in which John Addy extracts the (im)moral record from Archbishop Neile’s primary visitation of 1633. A section on the textile industry is inevitable for a study of these Pennine communities. Marsden at the head of the Colne Valley was home to some of those early factories which took (and mistreated) child apprentices from London workhouses at the end of the eighteenth century: Philip Charlesworth investigates. Jennifer Stead and Arthur Saul then look at that most valuable natural commodity, urine—used as a strong alkali in wool scouring, as a medicine (sometimes effective), as soap and a cosmetic, a garden fertiliser and much more. Its industrial uses extended beyond the textile and chemical industries to engineering, iron and steel production, tanning and the manufacture of gunpowder; it could also be used as a shampoo and hair dye, to put out the fire at night, in alchemy and in witchcraft. To read about the collection and distribution of this now-neglected resource is both informative and entertaining.

Edward Law then brings us back to the more familiar with a study of two families and their houses: the Bradleys of Newhouse, on the outskirts of Huddersfield, and the Kayes of Woodsome. The latter is explored in exemplary fashion through the correspondence of William Emsall, the local agent to Lady Anne Kaye, widow of Arthur, the third and last Baronet (died 1726) whose son-in-law and subsequent successor was the second Earl of Dartmouth. Local history, though, need not be narrow history, and the next section illustrates this through three essays entitled ‘Going to America’. The very first issue of Old West Riding contained George Redmonds’ essay on ‘West Riding Emigrants 1843’. This is a short piece on emigration as experienced by Joseph Scafe (1829-1902), son of Miles Scafe of Kirkburton who emigrated together in 1843; the story is told largely as relayed by Joseph to his son, Charles (d. 1952). Other members of the family followed, with one brother settling in Canada. The Scafes were weavers originally, but young Joseph headed overland for California in 1850, later returning east by sea via Nicaragua and Cuba. The Scott and Woodhead family and friends were from Armitage Bridge near Huddersfield. Their story is edited by Jennifer Stead from materials lent by Evadne Scott Beebe and Joan Lockwood. They left for North America in 1842, clothiers and, like the Scafes, fleeing the terrible depression of the early 1840s. They were also teetotallers. The hazards of the voyage through the Great Lakes, and the harsh conditions of settler life in Wisconsin and later, Iowa, are graphically described in their letters, but they survived. Less fortunate were the Broadbents, earlier emigrants who left Dalton near Huddersfield for the USA in 1824. In 1855 the Broadbent brothers, former weavers John and Alexander, joined ‘The Vegetarian Settlement Company’ and went to Kansas where they died the following year in ‘one of the most unusual and ill-fated ventures ever attempted in Kansas’. This reality of pioneering life is ably told by a descendant of the family, Helen Broadbent.

The essays are all short but illustrate how well Old West Riding served its purpose of setting out the rich fruits of local historical research about that part of the country for a wider readership. In republishing this selection, the Huddersfield Local History Society has done the even wider community of local historians throughout the country a great service, as well as paying a worthy tribute to the life and influence of George Redmonds.

EDWARD ROYLE is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of York. Apart from his general interest in British social and political history since the mid-eighteenth century, he has written several works on the local history of his native Yorkshire and is currently editing a collection of essays entitled Power in the Land, 1542-1920, to mark the centenary of the Ramsden family selling their Huddersfield estate to the borough Corporation in 1920.

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By Geoff Timmins

(British Association for Local History 2018 ISBN 9780948140037) £10 (£8 to members)

This is an in-depth and very useful guide for teachers, exploring a wide variety of practical examples which would give primary and secondary teachers an excellent foundation for planning lessons or aiding students’ research. It is divided into two parts. The first focuses on the main issues that arise when teaching local history, and convincingly justifies why the subject should be taught in schools. The guide has plenty of examples from across key stages 1–3 to help teachers provide practical material, and makes clear links to the required National Curriculum objectives that involve local history. Many of the examples are illustrated with clear photographs, maps or diagrams or have links to relevant and up to date websites, saving much valuable time. If these URL addresses could be replaced by QR codes in future editions, this would cut the amount of time required to type in the URL and increase their utility even more.

This section then covers a wide variety of the different types of readily-accessible source material, both secondary and primary; the benefits of each are reviewed, encouraging teachers to make judgments on which would be most appropriate for their particular situation. Crucially, non-written sources are included, such as maps, photographs, films and most significantly oral testimony and physical evidence. The latter two are often difficult to acquire or access but Geoff Timmins gives details of digital oral testimonies available online and suggests how to gain access to artefacts and other physical evidence such as buildings, of which teachers might not have been aware. The initial section concludes with planning considerations, to help teachers deliver the crucial information to the class in the most efficient way possible. A particularly valuable part of this section is advice on how best to prepare classroom resources to support the material being delivered—sometimes the main issue is that staff have a clear idea of the curriculum objectives but lack the creative ‘jumpstart’ to turn this into reality in the classroom. These pages give insightful examples of what can be done as teachers use and adapt to their own circumstances and topic.

The second part of the book consists of several case studies to be used as a starting point, covering school life in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; naming local children in the Tudor period; early Victorian road travellers; family life in the 1950s; and changes in Victorian terraced houses. Each case study explores and puts into practice different techniques discussed in the first part of the book. This is a very practical way of showing how teachers can adopt the ideas and approaches previously described into their own planning. Furthermore, because they cover different periods there is something that everyone could modify for themselves. Each case study has resources which can be used, detailed information about the topic being studied and examples, hint, tips and suggestions from other practitioners as to how they can be adapted further. The final case study examines how potsherds can be used to teach about local history, providing a very useful set of questions that can be adapted for pupils to examine other artefacts. As artefacts are often very difficult to access for schools this case study allows teachers to maximise learning for students in the limited time that the materials may be in their possession.

The final gift for teachers is the extensive bibliography of relevant publications, divided into those providing contextual help for the local history topics and more general teaching and learning resources. This will save much time in following up the topics and theory raised in the book. Overall, Exploring Local History is a very useful ‘one stop shop’ collection of ideas for teachers of all levels of experience to resource and evolve their local history modules. Local history is often overlooked in schools, falling behind some of the better-known world history topics, but Geoff Timmins has produced a thorough exploration of how to redress this imbalance. It should give teaching staff the confidence to show that events on a local level can be just as significant, and make some of the global events more relevant to students by showing how their local environment was affected by them.

PHIL DUCKWORTH worked as a primary teacher for four years in Lancashire schools (KS1 and KS2) and then moved to Winstanley College in Wigan where he has been since 2005. He is the Head of History and Earth Sciences, a Senior Leader in Education (SLE), a history examiner with AQA and a member of the Regional Heritage Centre advisory board at Lancaster University.

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By Simon Cotton

(Suffolk Institute of Archaeology & History 2019 x+128pp ISBN 978-0-9521390-8-9) £13.50

The book’s attractive cover will immediately appeal to lovers of Suffolk's many mediaeval churches. Its precise purpose is made clear in the opening sentence: ‘to set out the documentary evidence for the building of late medieval churches in Suffolk’. Simon Cotton has extracted written evidence from wills made between c.1370 and 1550, supplemented by other sources such as churchwardens’ accounts and the occasional grant or inscription. A keen enthusiast for forty years, he has combined visits to East Anglian parish churches with detailed study of the late medieval wills of Norfolk and Suffolk. Following a series of journal articles, this book is a labour of love, acknowledging many who have assisted his research, and dedicated to the memory of John Blatchly and Peter Northeast.

His aim is indeed achieved. The most readable section is the 19-page ‘Prelude’. Community involvement in the building and refurbishment of parish churches included fund-raising ‘church ales’, although surviving evidence in churchwardens’ accounts is sparse. Wills, however, provide a wealth of information, with most testators leaving bequests to parish churches for prayers or masses for their souls, and occasionally for rebuilding, repair or ornamentation. Since some projects are not mentioned in wills, the author observes that their financing might already have been agreed during the benefactor’s lifetime.

The particular purpose of many bequests is discussed and compared in sub-sections including ‘Towers and Porches’, ‘Commemorative Inscriptions’, ‘Roofs’ and ‘Looking beyond the Parish’. Perhaps space precluded the inclusion of additional sections covering, for example, windows or rood screens: readers interested in these significant focal points in a medieval church need to search through each entry in the gazetteer to identify relevant references. Some bequests were non-specific, leaving funds simply to the ‘fabric’ of a particular church, while others specifying the ‘reparation’ of a church or part thereof were often intended to fund a new building project. This term was used between 1453 and 1469 at Eye, when the church tower was still referred to as ‘new’, and in the same year money was left for the ‘reparation’ of a ‘new’ bell. The newness of the tower is confirmed by the author’s note that dendrochronology dates the felling of the belfry floor timbers to between 1466 and 1470.

In the section describing commemorative inscriptions, Cotton can often link these with relevant will. ‘Pray for The Sowle of roger Tillot’ is incised on the parapet of Rougham church tower: in 1458 Roger Tyllot had bequeathed 50 marks to its construction. Numerous inscriptions survive both within and outside Long Melford church, including requests for prayers for the family of John Clopton over the north porch and around the Lady Chapel. Turning to the entry for Long Melford in the gazetteer we read that in 1496 John Clopton requested burial in ‘the lytell chapel in Melforde Churche there my grave is redy made even by my wif’, together with the spending of 100 marks ‘on the garnysshynge of oure Lady chapel and of the cloister ther abowte that the saide John Clopton hathe done new made in Melford churcheyard’.' While many of Long Melford’s mediaeval memorial windows survive, the only reference to these in wills quoted for this parish is the bequest of John Brooke in 1502 ‘for a glass window in the chapel of the Blessed Lady in Melford’.

Roughly two thirds of this book comprises the gazetteer, with entries listing bequests from wills, plus other sources. Entry lengths vary considerably, depending on the wealth or population of each parish. Well-known surviving mediaeval features, such as the Wenhaston Doom or Blythburgh’s angel roof, often lack mention since no bequests are recorded. This can leave an incomplete impression of each building, not helped by the book’s format. For example, the prelude section discussing towers describes an interesting contract of 1425 specifying construction dates and building materials for Walberswick’s new church tower. The gazetteer entry for Walberswick, 100 pages later, draws on churchwardens’ accounts from 1450-1499 concerning rebuilding the church a mile from the old one which was then demolished. Payments were made for ‘carting off stone’, purchasing materials and constructing a new porch, aisle, roof, battlements and windows: presumably the tower for the new church was the one completed before 1450. Within the same paragraph, these notes switch from the churchwardens’ accounts to extracts from wills, including in 1512 fifteen marks towards the roof and £5 13s 4d ‘towards the making of the chauncell’. Reading in wills how much parishioners had valued their new church, it is sad to discover that most of this impressive building had been demolished by 1696.

While there are many guidebooks to Suffolk churches, and the excellent website http://www.suffolkchurches.co.uk/, this book is a valuable resource for local historians interested in discovering how the late mediaeval churches were funded and built. With a helpful glossary, beautiful colour photographs, bibliography and index, it offers documentary evidence of people whose religious faith and worldly legacies built up and beautified each church. Simon Cotton’s dedicated achievement has allowed their names to survive and voices to be heard, across half a millennium, through quotations from their wills.

As well as working with a Mersea Island Museum group transcribing local documents of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, SUE HOWLETT is a member of an online project transcribing wills from the Milles Register of PCC Wills 1487-1491. This has stimulated a particular interest in the religious bequests of testators in late mediaeval Colchester and its hinterland.

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