The Local Historian Volume 9 Number 2 May 1970

By John Sheail

Review and assessment of the source material which is available for the study of rabbits, including: i) printed sources, such as natural histories and farm records; ii) parliamentary papers, including those relating to conflicts and tensions between huntsmen and farmers, and the published reports of Royal Commissions; iii) documentary material, such as diaries, farm notebooks, and medieval records of rabbit-warrens; iv) verbal evidence or oral history; and v) archaeological evidence. The article shows how these sources can be used to provide evidence about early rabbit warrens, farming techniques, the economic value of the rabbit, rabbit breeds and related themes.

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By Dorothy M. Owen

Explanation of the potential use of ecclesiastical records to extract information about the activities of the lay community, the landscape and other aspects of non-religious life. Dr Owen discusses i) bishops' act books and the documentation of visitations; ii) records of building licences; iii) returns of the numbers of families in parishes, and other household listings; iv) glebe terriers and tithe awards; v) probate inventories; vi) deeds and leases, and other documents of title; vii) records which detail local appointments, such as those for schoolmasters and doctors; and viii) records concerning dissent and nonconformity. The article concludes Dr Owen's three-part survey and description of sources and approaches to English religious history and its local manifestations (see also 07 01 17-27; 08 07 237-242; and see also Dr Owen's article with the same title 05 02 44-50).

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By A.R. Williams

Victorian literature can reveal much about the social life of the period and tells us a great deal about contemporary attitudes to issues such as poverty, children, and labour. One of the most revealing and informative writers was the novelist Elizabeth Gaskell, whose novels set in north-west England are particularly significant for their portrayal of regional and working-class subjects. The author suggests that her novels, and other contemporary fiction set in the area, can be useful in showing, or giving evidence for, local dialects; the region's resentment against Southern attitudes and an unconcerned government; depictions of poverty, industrial conditions and disease; education; and early radicalism.

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By Robin Chaplin

Analysis of early industrial sites, of the 17th and 18th centuries, which are now forgotten or lost. Many early industrial sites were in rural areas, because they were based on water power, and when they were overtaken by later technologies they disappeared very quickly and left apparently little trace. Buildings were dismantled or were converted to other uses, and the enterprises themselves produced few written records. The article looks at the example of Tern Forge near Shrewsbury, an important mid-18th century ironworks of which little structural or visible evidence remains, but Chaplin explains how there may be indicators of the former use of the site, and that painstaking documentary and cartographic research may produce valuable clues to the whereabouts, scale and longevity of these early industrial locations.

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By Robin Woodward

Freemen's rolls, as their name suggests, were the documents on which were recorded the names of freemen of towns. The precise status and privileges of freemen varied widely from place to place, but in many corporate boroughs they played a central part in civic affairs and had a very close relationship with the guild structure. In most places only freemen could trade freely and could be full guild members. Woodward uses the evidence provided by these roles to assess aspects of urban economy and society. The themes which he identifies as being particularly well exemplified by this evidence are: i) the occupational structure of towns; ii) the relative importance of the town in the context of regional trades and industries; iii) the ratio of freemen to non-freemen and the evidence for potential career paths; iv) immigration to towns, using the evidence which the rolls provide for the place of origin or birthplace of, for example, people apprenticed to freemen, and also their social status or background; and v) links between apprentices and master craftsmen. Woodward also points out some of the difficulties which might be encountered in using this source, and some of the ambiguities and potential technical deficiencies of the data.