Search results for ""Hertfordshire Press""

David Hey (1938–2016) was one of the leading local and regional historians of our age and the author of a number of highly regarded books on the practice of local history. His work on surnames was pioneering and he was amongst the first to identify the potential of DNA in historical studies. In this collection of essays in David’s memory, friends and colleagues celebrate his commitment to the landscape, economy and society of south Yorkshire – especially Sheffield – and Derbyshire, which together make up ‘Hey country’, the area in which he grew up and to which he returned to work. This lively volume will be of interest to anyone who shares David Hey’s curiosity for the people, economies and landscapes of the part of England he made his focus. At the same time the essays will prove to be of interest to all those concerned with the workings of English local society and economy. Covering a wide range of subjects and periods, they include accounts of the early English steel industry, Sheffield cutlers, Lord William Cavendish’s canny use of his stepson’s wardship, the lost woodlands of the Peak District, First World War food production in Derbyshire, south Yorkshire deer parks and a brief history of Little Londons. Fresh research into family and placename history contributes fascinating detail to the mix. The contributors are some of the key researchers in academic local history, including Alan Crosby, Nicola Verdon, John Broad, John Beckett, Ian D. Rotherham, Melvyn Jones, Dorian Gerhold and Peter Edwards. A tribute to David Hey by Charles Phythian-Adams opens the volume.

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The decision to build a new army camp in the small market town of Colchester in 1856 was well received and helped to stimulate the local economy after a prolonged period of economic stagnation. Before long the Colchester garrison was one of the largest in the country and the town experienced an economic upturn as well as benefiting from the many social events organised by officers. But there was a downside: some of the soldiers' behaviour was highly disruptive and, since very few private soldiers were allowed to marry, prostitution flourished. As a result the number of cases of venereal disease soared. Having compiled a database of nearly 350 of Colchester's nineteenth-century prostitutes, the authors examine how they lived and operated and who their customers were. What were the routes into and out of prostitution and what was life like as a prostitute? Was it even seen by some as an acceptable way for girls and young women to boost inadequate earnings from more respectable work? How did prostitution intersect with the social life of the town, especially as this was played out in local beerhouses? This is also an investigation of how authority in its many guises - from policeman and solicitor to magistrate and lady reformer - dealt with prostitution and the many problems associated with it, bringing a great many vested interests into conflict with each other. Such large numbers of women could not be tidied away into a discreet red-light district but lived and worked all over the town. They gave the police considerable trouble, but it was routinely declared that nothing could be done about them. Prostitution itself was not illegal whilst efforts to tackle the women's criminal activity, such as soliciting, theft or assault, were largely ineffective. Under pressure from the army, Parliament passed the Contagious Diseases Acts, allowing prostitutes affected with venereal symptoms in garrison towns to be confined for treatment, but there was widespread opposition to these controversial laws. Bringing to bear considerations of class and gender, urban development, health and welfare, religion and moral reform, this is a wide-ranging, detailed and original study. As well as providing a vivid portrait of nineteenth-century Colchester, it will appeal to all those interested in the history of women's work, policing and society more widely.

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This detailed and original study of early-modern agrarian society in the Somerset Levels examines the small landholders in a group of sixteen contiguous parishes in the area known as Brent Marsh. These were farmers with lifehold tenures and a mixed agricultural production whose activities and outlook are shown to be very different from that of the small 'peasant' farmers of so many general histories. Patricia Croot challenges the idea that small farmers failed to contribute to the productivity and commercialization of the early-modern economy.

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Joan Thirsk was the leading English agrarian historian of the late 20th century. Perhaps best known for her research into regional farming, she also wrote much about rural industry, changing tastes and fashions, and innovations in the rural economy. This book is based on a conference held in her honor (following her death in 2013) that was intended not to look back but rather to identify Joan Thirsk's relevance for historians now, and to present new work that has been influenced and inspired by her.

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Between the 17th and 19th centuries, the sport of hunting was transformed: the principal prey changed from deer to fox, and the methods of pursuit were revolutionized. Questioning the traditional explanation of the hunting transition—namely that change in the landscape led to a decline of the deer population—this book explores the terrain of Northamptonshire during that time period and seeks alternative justifications. Arguing that the many changes that hunting underwent in England were directly related to the transformation of the hunting horse, this in-depth account demonstrates how the near-thoroughbred horse became the mount of choice for those who hunted in the shires. This book shows how, quite literally, the thrill of the chase drove the hunting transition.

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First published in 1944, Magdalen King-Hall's Life and Death of the Wicked Lady Skelton is a historical novel set in late-seventeenth-century England. It tells the story of Barbara Skelton, a well-born young woman trapped in a loveless marriage, who finds escape from the tedium of her life by leading a double life as a highway robber. Rich in historical detail and high on melodrama, the novel follows Barbara's infamous career of robbery, adultery and murder, without painting her entirely as a monster. Indeed, the novel's status as a bestseller owes much to King-Hall's sympathetic depiction of the frustrations of domestic life for an ambitious, intelligent woman with no means of self-expression.

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This comparative study gathers together new research by local historians into aspects of welfare in Hertfordshire spanning four centuries and focusing on towns and villages across the county, including Ashwell, Cheshunt, Hertford, Pirton, and Royston, amongst many others. In so doing it makes a valuable contribution to the current debate about the spatial and chronological variation in the character of welfare regimes within single counties, let alone more widely. As well as viewing poor relief geographically and chronologically, the book also considers the treatment of particular groups such as the aged, the mad, children, and the unemployed, and shows how, within the constraints of the relevant welfare laws, each group was dealt with differently, giving a more nuanced picture than has perhaps been the case before. The overarching question that the book attempts to answer is how effectively Hertfordshire cared for those in need. With chapters on madhouses, workhouses, certified industrial schools, the Foundling Hospital, pensions, and medical care, the book covers a very broad range of topics through which a complex picture emerges. While some officials seem to have been driven by a relatively narrow sense of their obligations to the poor and vulnerable, others appear to have tailored welfare packages to their precise needs. Naturally, self-interest played a part: if the weakest citizens were well managed, vagrancy might be lessened, the spread of disease contained, and control maintained over the cost of looking after the poor and sick. It seems that Hertfordshire was relatively nimble and sensitive in discovering and treating its people's needs. Evidence is beginning to emerge, in other words, that Hertfordshire was in essence a caring county.

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At the cutting edge of 'the new social and demographic history', this book provides a detailed picture of the most comprehensive system of poor relief operated by any Elizabethan town. Well before the Poor Laws of 1598 and 1601, Hadleigh, Suffolk - a thriving woollen cloth centre with 2,500-3,000 people - offered a complex array of assistance to many of its residents who could not provide for themselves: orphaned children, married couples with more offspring than they could support or supervise, widows, people with physical or mental disabilities, some of the unemployed, and the elderly. Hadleigh's leaders also attempted to curb idleness and vagrancy and to prevent poor people who might later need relief from settling in the town. Based upon uniquely full records, this study traces 600 people who received help, including their family situation, and explores the social, religious, and economic considerations that made more prosperous people willing to run and pay for this system. Relevant to contemporary debates over assistance to the poor, the book provides a compelling picture of a network of care and control that integrated public and private forms of aid.

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By 1300, England and other West-European countries had undergone a significant degree of commercialisation. More and more communities, both urban and rural, depended on an efficient network of local markets to obtain the goods they needed, in particular for their food. Yet in spite of this, some landed lords and, most notably, monasteries and convents continued to rely on the produce of their own estates, even though there were significant costs and risks associated with the production, transportation and storage of their own food. Philip Slavin sets out to account for this puzzling situation through an in-depth study of the changing patterns and fortunes of the provisioning of Norwich Cathedral Priory between c.1260 and 1536. Close analysis of contemporary archival sources reveals that the Priory made a deliberate choice, dictated by various economic, social and environmental factors and which, altogether, made isolation from the market a profitable, and very rational, option.This is a new sort of estate study that considers questions of both production and consumption as well as health issues, including the problems of overeating and obesity occurring in late-medieval monastic populations. Particular attention is given to the production, transportation, storage and consumption by the Priory household of grain-based products. In the late-medieval period, grains were the single most important component in the daily diet, for both commoners and the higher echelons, accounting for between 50 and 80 per cent of total calorific intake. Although focusing on one specific region, this is more than just a regional study, analysing as it does a microcosm of the late-medieval English economy and society at a time of political, socio-economic and biological shocks and crises, including years of bad weather, famine, pestilence (both human and bovine), warfare and revolts. The study of the food supply of late-medieval conventual households sheds much light on the wider process of decline and eventual collapse of direct demesne management in particular, and feudalism in general, in the post-Black Death era.

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Based on oral histories and farm books, this account offers a fascinating analysis of some 300 years of hop-cultivation history in the Weald of Kent, a rural area in the South of England, and in the London Borough of Southwark. The diverse processes of hop agriculture are examined within the wider context of events, such as the advent of the railroads and the effects of war, as are changes to the working practices and technologies used and their reception and implementation in the Weald. Also examining hop trading and dealing, this comprehensive record demonstrates the impact this rural industry had upon the lives of the people engaged in it.

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The companion to Lorraine Clarke's first major UK exhibition since returning from Italy in 2000, this book explores the mysterious link between magic, medicine, and religion. Providing a full-color record of the show, it also includes a statement from the artist and an essay by medical historian Dr. Ruth Richardson. Clarke's work is an excavation of the human being, exploring the history of our bodily awareness and addressing contemporary issues.

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An exhibition catalogue to accompany mixed media show "Responses to Conflict and Loss" at University of Hertfordshire Galleries (Hatfield site).

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In this book Eileen Wallace focuses on the lives of working children in nineteenth-century Hertfordshire employed in agriculture, straw-plaiting, silk-throwing, paper and brickmaking and as chimney sweeps. In Hertfordshire, as elsewhere, children of a very young age worked long hours, received little education and endured poor housing, hunger and dreadful sanitation. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Hertfordshire was still predominantly rural. A great many children worked on the land from an early age and were expected to be able to plough from ten years old. Other families employed their young children to carry out the heaviest tasks in brickmaking. Small boys, in particular, were also much sought after to climb and sweep chimneys, a practice which continued until the last quarter of the century in spite of earlier laws intended to abolish it. Many diseases afflicted these young chimney-sweeps, although deaths and injuries to children working in other industries were all too frequent as well. It is a common assumption that, during the Industrial Revolution, factories and mills existed only in the north of England but, as this book documents, there was industry in the south of the country too, including silk-throwing and papermaking, the working conditions of which matched those in the northern manufactories. Drawing on contemporary reports and illustrations, Eileen Wallace details the contributions of the children towards their families' livelihoods in hard times and the high price they paid in terms of poor health and diet and missed opportunities for education - regular attendance at school was unusual. Whilst there were rare examples of enlightened factory-owners such as John Dickinson, an innovative papermaker who built good housing for his employees to rent, the overall picture that emerges is one of harsh conditions and gruelling labour for Hertfordshire's children during this period.

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Dynamic and unique, this history examines pantomime productions in the English provinces—particularly Birmingham, Nottingham, and Manchester—from 1860 through 1900. Arguing that pantomimes were rooted in specific expressions of local identity, this volume explores censorship as well as the relationships between theaters, their managers, authors, and audiences. This valuable contribution to the study of Victorian popular culture also demonstrates how regional pantomime theater utilized political satire to its full advantage due to its geographical and creative distance from London.

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When Lilian Baylis was badly hurt after a car accident, someone at the scene called out, 'It's Miss Baylis. Miss Baylis of the Old Vic.' In spite of her injuries, Baylis drew herself up and imperiously corrected them, 'And Sadler's Wells.' But Baylis was much more than the manager of the Old Vic And Sadler's Wells - she was also a founding mother of the British National Theatre, the Royal Ballet and the English National Opera. She gave career-changing breaks to actors such as John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier, created new roles for Alicia Markova and furthered the careers of stars in the making such as Alec Guinness, Margot Fonteyn and Joan Cross. Even Joan Littlewood desperately wanted to work for Baylis. This biography sets out to discover how Baylis was able to manage two theatres and three companies, bringing what was considered the very best of high culture to working people, and still haul her theatres into profit. Elizabeth Schafer looks beyond the famous comic anecdotes and discovers the private woman behind the public persona. Based on new and original research, the book draws extensively on Baylis autobiographical writing, detailing her early career as a musician and dancer and her love for the company of pioneering, independent and high-powered career women. It reveals how Baylis achieved so much, what it cost her, and gives a glimpse of the autobiography Baylis herself never found time to write.

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This title is an artists exhibition catalogue of digital prints on paper and fabric, by Carl Jaycock.

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Mark Freeman’s classic history of St Albans, first published in 2008, has been substantially rewritten by the author and brought fully up to date, making it an invaluable guide to more than two thousand years of St Albans’s history. From the late Iron Age, when the new oppidum of Verlamion emerged at the site of modern St Albans, to plans to develop the city’s unique ‘brand’ in the 2010s, this is a scholarly yet highly readable account of St Albans from pre-Roman times to the present day. The Roman settlement of Verulamium grew out of Verlamion soon after the Roman invasion; in 60 CE it was attacked during Boudica’s great uprising against Roman rule, along with Colchester and London. Becoming one of the most important towns in Roman Britain and the site of Britain’s first Christian martyrdom, Verulamium later took the martyr’s name as its own, the abbey dedicated to the saint among the most significant religious houses of medieval England. For many in St Albans, the long period of conflict between the abbey and the civic authorities would have cast a shadow over their lives, but the history of St Albans is also the story of political upheavals that beset all England through the centuries, as experienced by the citizens of a rapidly evolving town. Like many other places, it was touched by the Norman conquest, the Wars of the Roses and the civil wars. The emergence of urban self-government in early modern St Albans provides a case study of a process that happened throughout the country. The same is true for the account of St Albans’s suburbanisation and the emergence of a commuter population fostered by the railways in the nineteenth century, the growth and decline of the local manufacturing economy, and its participation in the growth of mass education, consumerism and democratic politics. At every point in St Albans’s history, two key themes play out: the proximity of London, and an awareness of the significance of its own history. The past is a powerful resource, helping a community to understand the events that have made it what it is. That process is exemplified in this masterful volume.

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This book investigates what a case study of a northern market town and its rural hinterland can tell us about village differentiation, exploring how and why rural communities developed in what was chiefly an industrial region and, notably, how the relationship between town and country influenced rural communities. It looks at six villages close to Doncaster - Sprotbrough, Warmsworth, Rossington, Fishlake, Stainforth and Braithwell - chosen to represent the diversity of landownership and land type of the Doncaster district. Rural communities, and more specifically the development of English villages, have proved fertile ground for historians. This book makes an original contribution to these debates. In particular, it engages with existing models of village typology, suggesting that not only are they too restrictive to account for nuanced differences, but also that they fail to acknowledge the importance of the relationships between rural communities and between town and country. Following Sarah Holland’s detailed research into different aspects of rural communities, the book offers new perspectives on how rural communities in close proximity developed, often differently, during the mid nineteenth century. Themes looked at in detail include living and working conditions, agriculture and industry, religion and education, and through these Holland considers existing theories of village typology, before setting out her ideas regarding social hierarchies, spheres of influence and agency, which combine to create complex patterns of differentiation. Communities in Contrast will appeal to all those interested in rural life and economy in the nineteenth century, the relationship between town and country, as well as the history of Yorkshire.

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There is currently much concern about our trees and woodlands. The terrible toll taken by Dutch elm disease has been followed by a string of further epidemics, most worryingly ash chalara – and there are more threats on the horizon. There is also a widely shared belief that our woods have been steadily disappearing over recent decades, either replanted with alien conifers or destroyed entirely in order to make way for farmland or development. But the present state of our trees needs to be examined critically, and from an historical as much as from a scientific perspective. For English tree populations have long been highly unnatural in character, shaped by economic and social as much as by environmental factors. In reality, the recent history of trees and woods in England is more complex and less negative than we often assume and any narrative of decline and loss is overly simplistic. The numbers of trees and the extent and character of woodland have been in a state of flux for centuries. Research leaves no doubt, moreover, that arboreal ill health is nothing new. Levels of disease are certainly increasing but this is as much a consequence of changes in the way we treat trees – especially the decline in intensive management which has occurred over the last century and a half – as it is of the arrival of new diseases. And man, not nature, has shaped the essential character of rural tree populations, ensuring their dominance by just a few indigenous species and thus rendering them peculiarly vulnerable to invasive pests and diseases. The messages from history are clear: we can and should plant our landscape with a wider palette, providing greater resilience in the face of future pathogens; and the most `unnatural’ and rigorously managed tree populations are also the healthiest. The results of an ambitious research project are here shaped into a richly detailed survey of English arboriculture over the last four centuries. Trees in England will be essential reading not only for landscape historians but also for natural scientists, foresters and all those interested in the future of the countryside. Only by understanding the essentially human history of our trees and woods can we hope to protect and enhance them.

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Presenting the results of new research on the monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow—among the most sophisticated centers of learning and artistic culture in 7th- and 8th-century Europe, and the home of Bede—and their churches, this study examines the long-lasting effect of their buildings and estates on the surrounding region from the Anglo-Saxon period to the present day. The authors trace these relationships through time with new studies of the changing landscape, the monastery precincts, and the surviving structures themselves, detailing how the historical archaeology of the sites reveals how the churches and their communities were rooted in the landscapes of Northumbria but flourished through their links with other parts of Britain and Europe. Researchers from many different backgrounds contributed to the project, using aerial, geophysical, geoarchaeological, and palaeoenvironmental surveys and digital mapping to examine the monasteries and surrounding lands. This book reveals not only the link between the churches and the region’s political and economic history, but also demonstrates how their cultural significance for local people in northeast England has changed over time.

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Dividing the county of Hertfordshire into four broad regions—the “champion” countryside in the north, the Chiltern dip slope to the west, the fertile boulder clays of the east, and the unwelcoming London Clay in the south—this volume explains how, in the course of the middle ages, natural characteristics influenced the development of land use and settlement to create a range of distinctive landscapes. The great diversity of Hertfordshire’s landscapes makes it a particularly rewarding area of study. Variations in farming economies, in patterns of trade and communication, as well as in the extent of London’s influence, have all played a part during the course of the postmedieval centuries, and Hertfordshire’s continuing evolution is followed into the 21st century. Lavishly illustrated with maps and photographs, this authoritative work is invaluable reading for all those with an interest in the history, archaeology, and natural transformation of this fascinating county.

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1952 saw the opening of a new Technical College in Hatfield, built on land donated by Alan S Butler, Chairman of the de Havilland Aircraft Company. With its roots in Britain's pioneering aeronautical industry, the College was soon established as an innovative force in education. Having been at the forefront of developing new subjects such as Computer Science, it evolved continually, being redesignated as Hatfield Polytechnic in 1969 and becoming the University of Hertfordshire in 1992. The institution has been forged over time out of its Hertfordshire-wide constituent colleges and campuses, which were variously founded to offer training and inspiration in teaching, medicine, the arts, business, science and the humanities. Now the University of Hertfordshire has become an internationally recognised leader in both research and teaching, exemplifying what a university can achieve through embracing a broad curriculum. This is the history of the University of Hertfordshire, relating the challenges and achievements of sixty years in further and higher education. At the same time, through its focus on a single institution, the book illustrates the importance of the post-1992 higher education sector in advancing the knowledge economy and cultural life of the country. The University has both been shaped by and has informed government policy as it has developed and it now takes its place in an international context as part of the global education system. Founded on principles of widening participation in higher education, in its sixtieth year the University celebrates the life-changing experience of education and its great cultural, social and economic value. Through the stories and memories of individual students and members of staff, the book also illuminates the experience of the hundreds of thousands of students who have graduated, and the contribution of academic and professional staff in making the College, Polytechnic and University a success. Over the decades there has been continuous growth and development - and, always, a vibrant culture of learning. Looking forward, the book explores how the University of Hertfordshire is drawing upon its heritage to shape its future.

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For Ellen Terry, actress-manager Lena Ashwell (1869-1957) was 'a passionate voice'. From her first appearance on stage in 1891 to the end of her life, Ashwell was determined to make the theatre accessible and relevant to everyone, prompting G.B. Shaw to describe her as possessing an 'awakeningly truthful mind as well as an engaging personality.' An inspiring and strong woman in a rapidly changing world, she was crucial both for the advancement of women in the English theatre and for the formation of the National Theatre. She presented 'new drama' at the Kingsway and Savoy Theatres and was active in the Actresses' Franchise League, as well as being committed to the British Drama League. From the outbreak of World War 1 she initiated and raised money for thousands of concert-party troop entertainments at the Front; when peace was declared, her Lena Ashwell Players set about taking regular theatre performances into local communities throughout London and beyond. Long before educational drama and public subsidy for the arts were realities, she engaged local authorities in the provision of facilities and support for her work.Although she wrote four books about her work, her achievements have been largely unsung. Margaret Leask's book, however, skilfully presents Ashwell in the historical and cultural contexts in which she worked and which she helped to transform. Immaculately researched, abundantly illustrated and lucidly written, this biography is the first book-length treatment of its subject and will be the definitive account for many years to come.

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Honoring the memory of Professor Alan Everitt—who advanced the fruitful notion of the ""county community"" during the 17th century—this volume proposes some modifications to Everitt’s influential hypotheses in the light of the best recent scholarship. With an important reevaluation of political engagement in civil war Kent and an assessment of numerous midland and southern counties as well as Wales, this record evaluates the extraordinary impact of Everitt’s book and the debate it provoked. Comprehensive and enlightening, this collection suggests future directions for research into the relationship between the center and localities in 17th-century England.

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This second volume of Hertfordshire Garden History considers how Hertfordshire’s historic parks and gardens have been influenced by, and reflect, the social and economic history of their time. Beginning with the hunting parks and Renaissance gardens of the Bacons, Cecils, and Capels in the 16th and 17th centuries—and their gradual replacement by designed landscapes—this book shows how, in Hertfordshire, individuals have long sought greater space and comfort within easy reach of the capital, London. With examples from both well-known and less-visible or vanished gardens from the past 500 years, it is sure to delight garden enthusiasts.

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Powerful and disturbing, this version of the Hamlet story is set in a modern Middle Eastern state whose leader has just died, to be replaced by his brother, a ruthless, Westernized dictator who juggles petro-dollars, arms dealers, and democratic slogans in an attempt to quell the rising tides of Islamic extremism. Presenting a composite of many Arab concerns that affect peoples from the Arabian Gulf to the Atlantic and beyond, it is a concrete and poetic formulation of an Arab viewpoint, combining aspects of the Arab oral-poetry tradition with the rhetoric of modern-day politics. It is Hamlet as pure, dangerous politics.

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This book examines the relationship between a town and its region in the late medieval period. The population, wealth, trade and markets of Cambridge and its region are studied and the changes that took place over a century of economic and social transition are detailed. Using taxation records and records of purchases made by the Cambridge colleges and other institutions, a picture of the town's trade emerges and the population and wealth of Cambridge and other towns and parishes are compared. The University expanded considerably through the fifteenth century and new colleges were founded. The extent to which trade with London stimulated the development of the malt, barley and saffron trades during the later fifteenth century is analysed. The markets and fairs of Cambridge and its region are studied as are the supply of food and fuel to the town, and the price of wheat. The land and labour markets are also examined in detail and the impact of the college building projects taken into account. A detailed picture emerges of the economic activity of a key English town and its region in the late medieval period. Contributing to an interesting debate on urban decline, the book questions assumptions that label this period as one of economic transition.

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As the third and concluding volume of the series, this work examines the persecution of the Gypsy people in Hungary, Norway, Slovakia and Yugoslavia during World War II, together with Switzerland's policy towards refugees. It also looks at the intertwined fates of the Jews and the Gypsies. Included in the coverage is an overview of the events following 1945—reparations and the postwar trials. Various methodologies associated with research and writings about the Holocaust are also discussed.

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A comparative study of the effects of local, regional, and national changes on nine parishes in Britain's Upper Eden Valley during the Victorian period, this book reveals demographic trends among the parishes of Appleby, Brough, and Kirkby Stephen and six surrounding parishes over six censuses.

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Many of London’s Victorian buildings are built of coarse-textured yellow bricks. These are ‘London stocks’, produced in very large quantities all through the nineteenth century and notable for their ability to withstand the airborne pollutants of the Victorian city. Whether visible or, as is sometimes the case, hidden behind stonework or underground, they form a major part of the fabric of the capital. Until now, little has been written about how and where they were made and the people who made them. Peter Hounsell has written a detailed history of the industry which supplied these bricks to the London market, offering a fresh perspective on the social and economic history of the city. In it he reveals the workings of a complex network of finance and labour. From landowners who saw an opportunity to profit from the clay on their land, to entrepreneurs who sought to build a business as brick manufacturers, to those who actually made the bricks, the book considers the process in detail, placing it in the context of the supply-and-demand factors that affected the numbers of bricks produced and the costs involved in equipping and running a brickworks. Transport from the brickfields to the market was crucial and Dr Hounsell conducts a full survey of the different routes by which bricks were delivered to building sites - by road, by Thames barge or canal boat, and in the second half of the century by the new railways. The companies that made the bricks employed many thousands of men, women and children and their working lives, homes and culture are looked at here, as well as the journey towards better working conditions and wages. The decline of the handmade yellow stock was eventually brought about by the arrival of the machine-made Fletton brick that competed directly with it on price. Brickmaking in the vicinity of London finally disappeared after the Second World War. Although its demise has left little evidence in the landscape, this industry influenced the development of many parts of London and the home counties, and this book provides a valuable record of it in its heyday.

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In spite of being named the first 'Garden City', Letchworth was conceived as a model industrial town built on enterprise and employment. Never intended to be merely a pleasant place to live, it needed to be large enough to encourage the mass movement of manufacturers and their employees from overcrowded cities and to function as a self-supporting new town. In this richly illustrated account, Letchworth Local History Research Group look in detail at the town's foundation in the early 1900s and the energetic organisation and administration that enabled it to get off the ground quickly and successfully. Based on new research into a wealth of source material, the book puts to rest some of the enduring myths about the garden city, revealing a nuanced picture of the founding of a working community. The collaborative efforts of First Garden City Ltd (FGC), the development company for the new town, are a key focus. Extremely well-connected, experienced and highly influential, the senior management of FGC (including Ebenezer Howard), together with a team of engineers as well as architects Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin, were able to provide key infrastructure and sites for development in keeping with a clear strategy. Naturally there were challenges and the need for capital to maintain momentum posed considerable difficulties. But strong leadership saw the fledgling town through some tough periods, including the first world war. The second part of the book comprises a detailed gazetteer of the industries that established themselves in Letchworth in its early years, with rare archive photographs showing both premises and workers. From printing and publishing, to motor manufacture, foundries, clothing and pioneering cinematic companies, the story of Letchworth's early industry is lively and unique.

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Following 18 carefully structured lessons, this Romani language primer explores the vocabulary and grammar of the Kalderash Roma in Europe, the United States, Canada, and Latin America. Designed for beginner students, this course reference begins with the basic verbs and nouns and builds through to the subtler grammatical necessities of reading and speaking the language. Quotations from native speakers, poems, songs, proverbs, and folktales add to the cultural and historical understanding of the language.

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Lady Anne Bacon was a highly educated woman who lived through the political and religious transitions of five reigns, embedded at the Tudor court. Drawing on her forthright letters and other sources, this deeply researched and compellingly readable book reveals her extraordinary part in shaping the public story of Tudor history.

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During the second half of the nineteenth century, Moseley, a small hamlet just south of Birmingham, developed into a flourishing middleclass suburb. Drawing on a wealth of primary sources, Janet Berry’s ambitious research asks why and how this particular suburb grew and who was instrumental in its development. What influenced the types of houses that were built and the styles of their gardens? How did residents experience life in the new suburb? How did they create a community? In analysing an extraordinary quantity of records, Dr Berry builds a notably nuanced portrait of a place and its people that goes beyond stereotypical images of the Victorians. The suburb was a physical, social, cultural, and psychological space where people conveyed messages about their identity; relationships, lived experiences, and responses to change are all revealed. The economics of buying or renting accommodation in Moseley are addressed, showing what was involved in setting up a single-family home, the key marker of belonging to the middle class. Aspects of this, such as how the interiors of homes were demarcated, decorated and furnished, have not previously been considered in the context of suburban studies to any extent. Additionally, this book has a particular focus on the suburban middle-class woman, her achievements and opportunities, roles and responsibilities, both inside and outside the home. By the first decades of the twentieth century Moseley had become part of the metropolis of Birmingham. This engaging account of the process from village to fully integrated suburb will be of particular interest to urban historians.

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Although the history of orchards and fruit varieties is of great popular interest, there have been few academic treatments of the subject. This book presents results from a three-year project, 'Orchards East', investigating the history and ecology of orchards in the east of England. Together, the eastern counties of Hertfordshire, Essex, Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire, Bedfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk have a tradition of fruit cultivation comparable in scale to that of the better-known west of England. Drawing on far-reaching archival research, an extensive survey of surviving orchards and biodiversity surveys, the authors tell the fascinating story of orchards in the east since the late Middle Ages. Orchards were ubiquitous features of the medieval and early modern landscape. Planted for the most part for practical reasons, they were also appreciated for their aesthetic qualities. By the seventeenth century some districts had begun to specialise in fruit production - most notably west Hertfordshire and the Fens around Wisbech. But it was only in the 'orchard century', beginning in the 1850s, that commercial production really took off, fuelled by the growth of large urban markets and new transport systems that could take the fruit to them with relative ease. By the 1960s orchards were extensive in many districts but, since then, they have largely disappeared, with significant impacts on landscape character and biodiversity. For well over a century now, orchards have been romanticised as nostalgic elements of a timeless yet disappearing rural world. Even before that, they were embedded in myths of lost Edens, or golden ages of effortless plenty. A key aim of this book is to challenge some of these myths by grounding orchards within a wider range of historical and environmental contexts. Orchards are not timeless, and in some ways our relationship with orchards is a classic example of the 'invention of tradition'. What do our attitudes to this aspect of our heritage tell us about our wider engagement with the past, with nature, and with place?

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Studies of child labour have examined the experiences of child workers in agriculture, mining and textile mills, yet surprisingly little research has focused on child labour in manufacturing towns. This book investigates the extent and nature of child labour in Birmingham and the West Midlands, from the mid-eighteenth century to the end of the nineteenth century. It considers the economic contributions of child workers under the age of 14 and the impact of early work on their health and education. Child labour in the region was not a short-lived stage of the early Industrial Revolution but an integral part of industry throughout the nineteenth century. Parents regarded their children as potentially valuable contributors to the family economy, encouraging families to migrate from rural areas so that their children could work from an early age in the manufacture of pins, nails, buttons, glass, locks and guns as well as tin-plating, carpet-weaving, brass-casting and other industries. The demand for young workers in Birmingham was greater than that for adults; in Mary Nejedly's detailed analysis the importance of children's earnings to the family economy becomes clear, as well as the role played by child workers in industrialisation itself. In view of the economic benefit of children's labour to families as well as employers, both children's education and health could and did suffer. As well as working at harmful processes that produced dangerous fumes and dust or exposed them to poisonous substances, children also suffered injuries in the workplace, mainly to the head, eyes and fingers, and were often subjected to ill-treatment from adult workers. The wide gulf in economic circumstances that existed between the families of skilled workers and those of unskilled workers, unemployed workers or single-parent families also becomes evident. Attitudes towards childhood changed over the course of the period, however, with a greater emphasis being placed on the role of education for all children as a means of reducing pauperism and dependence on the poor rate. Concerns about health also gradually emerged, together with laws to limit work for children both by age and hours worked. Mary Nejedly's clear-eyed research sheds fresh light on the life of working children and increases our knowledge of an important aspect of social and economic history.

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The growth of nineteenth-century London was unprecedented, swallowing up once remote villages, commons and open fields around the metropolitan fringe in largely uncontrolled housing development. In the mid-Victorian period widespread opposition to this unbridled growth coalesced into a movement that campaigned to preserve the London commons. The history of this campaign is usually presented as having been fought by members of the metropolitan upper middle class, who appointed themselves as spokespeople for all Londoners and played out their battles mainly in parliament and the law courts. In this fascinating book Mark Gorman tells a different story – of the key role played by popular protest in the campaigns to preserve Epping Forest and other open spaces in and near London. He shows how throughout the nineteenth century such places were venues for both radical politics and popular leisure, helping to create a sense of public right of access, even ‘ownership’. At the same time, London’s suburban growth was partly a response to the rising aspirations of an artisan and lower middle class who increasingly wanted direct access to open space. This not only created the conditions for the mid-Victorian commons preservation movement, but also gave impetus to distinctive popular protest by proletarian Londoners. In comparing the campaign for Epping Forest with other struggles for London’s commons, the book highlights influences which ranged from the role of charismatic leaders to widely held beliefs regarding the land, in which the rights of freeborn Englishmen had been plundered by the aristocracy since the Norman conquest. Mark Gorman reveals a largely hidden history, since ordinary Londoners left few records behind, but his new research clearly reveals how their protests influenced the actions of the more visible elite groups who appeared in parliament or in court.

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While the Edwardian castles of Conwy, Beaumaris, Harlech and Caernarfon are rightly hailed as outstanding examples of castle architecture, the castles of the native Welsh princes are far more enigmatic. Where some dominate their surroundings as completely as any castle of Edward I, others are concealed in the depths of forests, or tucked away in the corners of valleys, their relationship with the landscape of which they are a part far more difficult to discern than their English counterparts. This ground-breaking book seeks to analyse the castle-building activities of the native princes of Wales in the thirteenth century. Whereas early castles were built to delimit territory and as an expression of Llywelyn I ab Iorwerth’s will to power following his violent assumption of the throne of Gwynedd in the 1190s, by the time of his grandson Llywelyn II ap Gruffudd’s later reign in the 1260s and 1270s, the castles’ prestige value had been superseded in importance by an understanding of the need to make the polity he created - the Principality of Wales - defensible. Employing a probing analysis of the topographical settings and defensive dispositions of almost a dozen native Welsh masonry castles, Craig Owen Jones interrogates the long-held theory that the native princes’ approach to castle-building in medieval Wales was characterised by ignorance of basic architectural principles, disregard for the castle’s relationship to the landscape, and whimsy, in order to arrive at a new understanding of the castles’ significance in Welsh society. Previous interpretations argue that the native Welsh castles were created as part of a single defensive policy, but close inspection of the documentary and architectural evidence reveals that this policy varied considerably from prince to prince, and even within a prince’s reign. Taking advantage of recent ground-breaking archaeological investigations at several important castle sites, Jones offers a timely corrective to perceptions of these castles as poorly sited and weakly defended: theories of construction and siting appropriate to Anglo-Norman castles are not applicable to the native Welsh example without some major revisions. Princely Ambition also advances a timeline that synthesises various strands of evidence to arrive at a chronology of native Welsh castle-building. This exciting new account fills a crucial gap in scholarship on Wales’ built heritage prior to the Edwardian conquest and establishes a nuanced understanding of important military sites in the context of native Welsh politics.

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This book investigates what a case study of a northern market town and its rural hinterland can tell us about village differentiation, exploring how and why rural communities developed in what was chiefly an industrial region and, notably, how the relationship between town and country influenced rural communities. It looks at six villages close to Doncaster - Sprotbrough, Warmsworth, Rossington, Fishlake, Stainforth and Braithwell - chosen to represent the diversity of landownership and land type of the Doncaster district. Rural communities, and more specifically the development of English villages, have proved fertile ground for historians. This book makes an original contribution to these debates. In particular, it engages with existing models of village typology, suggesting that not only are they too restrictive to account for nuanced differences, but also that they fail to acknowledge the importance of the relationships between rural communities and between town and country. Following Sarah Holland’s detailed research into different aspects of rural communities, the book offers new perspectives on how rural communities in close proximity developed, often differently, during the mid-nineteenth century. Themes looked at in detail include living and working conditions, agriculture and industry, religion and education, and through these Holland considers existing theories of village typology, before setting out her ideas regarding social hierarchies, spheres of influence and agency, which combine to create complex patterns of differentiation. Communities in Contrast will appeal to all those interested in rural life and economy in the nineteenth century, the relationship between town and country, as well as the history of Yorkshire.

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Very little is known of the first workhouse in Birmingham, which was located in Lichfield Street. Even the assumed date of its building, given as 1733 by William Hutton, Birmingham’s first historian, is wrong. This book is the first attempt to write a history of the workhouse and the ancillary welfare provision for Birmingham, frequently referred to as the `Old Poor Law’. The first workhouse remained in operation until 1852 when a new building with its infamous `arch of tears’ was constructed in Winson Green and the original building’s history has been overlooked as a result of the association of the word `workhouse’ with Nassau Senior and Edwin Chadwick’s `New’ Poor Law, implemented in 1834. This study of welfare in Birmingham in the century before the Poor Law Amendment Act reveals some surprising facts which fly in the face of the scholarly consensus that the old system was incompetently administered and inadequately organised. A workhouse infirmary opened in the 1740s, long before the General Infirmary in Summer Lane. The Overseers of the Poor built a well organised `Asylum for the Infant Poor’ before the end of the eighteenth century. Work was found for the able-bodied. The insane were housed separately in specialist facilities. Food, although dreary, was certainly adequate. The records of the Overseers and the Poor Law Guardians reveal a complex balancing act between maintaining standards of care and controlling spending. Although there was mismanagement, most famously in 1818 when George Edmonds exposed embezzlement by workhouse officials, the picture which emerges will be familiar to our age when welfare services struggle to meet public needs with limited budgets.

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Käthe Buchler (1876–1930) was a pioneering woman photographer whose exceptional photographs offer very personal insights into Germany during World War One, with a particular focus on the home front and the lives of women and children. Born Katharina von Rhamm in Braunschweig, Germany, and from a wealthy and privileged background, she was taught painting as a girl; many of her photographs have a notably painterly quality. She went on to study photography at Berlin’s Lette Academy which, unusually for the time, admitted women. Like many women of the upper middle class, family life with her husband and children was Käthe Buchler’s focus and became the central theme of her photography in the years before the First World War. During the war itself, in the most public phase of her career, her leading role in local institutions, including the Red Cross, gave her largely unrestricted access to the city’s war effort and she produced unexpectedly intimate photographs of daily life in Braunschweig, in the city’s military hospitals, as well as in the revealing series `Women in Men’s Jobs’. As a result, she offers us a distinctive vision, raising the intriguing possibility of presenting the conflict from the perspective of women and children.Surprisingly, Buchler’s work remained unknown outside its immediate locality, but it was exhibited in the United Kingdom for the first time between October 2017 and May 2018, allowing the process of placing it within its proper international context to begin. This catalogue, marking the exhibition Beyond the Battlefields, contains a wide selection of Buchler’s work, including some of her exquisite Autochromes (using the world’s first commercially available colour photographic process). The accompanying essays introduce the artist and address, amongst other things, the role of amateur photography in documenting war. In depicting the minutiae of daily life against the backdrop of war and its aftermath, Buchler’s remarkable photographs speak to us across the intervening century, disrupting national stereotypes and opening up fresh perspectives on the Great War.

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This book forms a continuation of the research published in Medieval Parks, Anne Rowe's highly regarded volume of 2009. Now she turns her attention to the deer parks that existed in Hertfordshire during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Drawing on the earliest county maps, most notably those produced by Saxton in 1577 and Norden in 1598, and both State papers and estate records, Anne Rowe builds a detailed picture of Hertfordshire's Tudor and Early Stuart parks. At least 60 parks existed in Hertfordshire at various times between 1485 and 1642, but for only 46 of those parks is there evidence that they contained deer at some point during the period. These confirmed or probable deer parks form the focus of this study. Of course not all of them were sixteenth-century creations: less than one-third were `new' parks, the remainder had been in existence for much longer, in one or two cases being recorded in Domesday Book. In the first part of the book detailed evidence for who created and owned the county's parks and how they were used and managed is given. The dawning of design in Hertfordshire's park landscapes is also explored. Part 2 gives an account of the presence of the Tudor and early Stuart monarchy in Hertfordshire. Several monarchs and members of their immediate families spent significant periods in Hertfordshire and played a notable part in the history of its parkland; indeed, by 1540 Henry VIII held about 70 per cent of the parkland in the county. Part 3 is a gazetteer in which each entry brings together the documentary, cartographic and occasional field evidence available for a park, with a map showing its probable extent in the period covered. At this time hunting continued to be the most popular leisure activity, as it had been for centuries. Wealthy landowners enjoyed a range of hunting activities essentially unchanged from the medieval period, including deer- and hare-coursing on foot, falconry, fishing and wild-fowling. But the pursuit of a stag or buck on horseback accompanied by a pack of hounds was considered the noblest hunting experience. Based, like the first volume, on an enormous amount of original work, this meticulously researched book opens a window onto Tudor and early Stuart Hertfordshire and once again illuminates a significant aspect of the county's landscape history.

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This detailed and original study of early-modern agrarian society in the Somerset Levels examines the small landholders in a group of sixteen contiguous parishes in the area known as Brent Marsh. These were farmers with lifehold tenures and a mixed agricultural production whose activities and outlook are shown to be very different from that of the small 'peasant' farmers of so many general histories. Patricia Croot challenges the idea that small farmers failed to contribute to the productivity and commercialization of the early-modern economy.

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Much has been written about the men who left to fight in the First World War but what was life really like for those left behind on the Home Front? A bustling market town profoundly touched by the war, St Albans is the perfect place of which to ask this question, thanks in part to the survival of exceptionally rich archives of records from the period.This book explores the immediate challenges the townspeople faced during the war as well as the longer-term effects on the city. When the war finally ended, could life ever return to 'normal' as some 3,000 soldiers returned home?

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Celebrating the rich heritage of archaeology and of archaeological research in Hertfordshire, the 15 papers collected in this work focus on various aspects of the region, including the Neolithic to the post-Medieval periods, and include a report on the important excavations at the formative henge at Norton. Several chapters focus new attention on the Iron Age and Roman periods, both from a landscape perspective and through detailed studies of artefacts, while a discussion of the rare early Saxon material recently excavated at Watton at Stone makes a vital contribution to the existing corpus of knowledge about this little-understood period. All of the papers in the volume focus on the local scene with an understanding of wider issues in each period and as a result, the papers are of importance beyond the boundaries of the county and will be of interest to scholars with wide-ranging interests.

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At the cutting edge of new social and demographic history, this book provides a detailed picture of the most comprehensive system of poor relief operated by any Elizabethan town. Well before the Poor Laws of 1598 and 1601, Hadleigh, Suffolk—a thriving woolen cloth center with a population of roughly 3,000—offered a complex array of assistance to many of its residents who could not provide for themselves: orphaned children, married couples with more offspring than they could support or supervise, widows, people with physical or mental disabilities, some of the unemployed, and the elderly. Hadleigh's leaders also attempted to curb idleness and vagrancy and to prevent poor people who might later need relief from settling in the town. Based upon uniquely full records, this study traces 600 people who received help and explores the social, religious, and economic considerations that made more prosperous people willing to run and pay for this system. Relevant to contemporary debates over assistance to the poor, the book provides a compelling picture of a network of care and control that resulted in the integration of public and private forms of aid.

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