Spring Issue of Herts Past and Present

The Spring 2017 issue of Herts Past and Present has just been published by the Hertfordshire Association for Local History.

As always it contains an interesting collection of articles

Hertfordshire men at Passchendale, 1917, by John Cox
In search of "My Lord" Salisbury, by Nicky Webster (about researching and publishing the life of James Gascoyne-Cecil, 2nd Marquis of Salisbury)
William Cecil, 2nd Earl of Salisbury - The Education of a nobleman, by Alan Thomson
'Plenty of Punch and Good Company' - Bringing local history to life about a theatrical production dramatizing the life of John Carrington, farmer of Bramfield
The Enclosure of the Manor of Barnet, 1818, by Susan Flood
Local History Essay Competition - with details of essays on Knebworth, Lemsford and Croxley Green
Report of the 2016 HALH Symposium on Hertfordshire at war through the centuries.
Book Reviews: Watford : A History, by Mary Forsyth; St Albans: Life on the Home Front, 1914-18, edited by Jonathan Mein, Anne Wares and Sue Mann; On Hertford and its Environs: A Portrait in verse of Hertford and the Surrounding Countryside, by Thomas Green (1719-91), edited by Jean Purkis and Philip Sheail.

Dates for the Diary

13 May  - HALH Spring Meeting and AGM, Ware

24 June - Summer Visit, Benington Lordship, Benington

11 November - Symposium: Women of Hertfordshire, Hitchin

Hertfs Past & Present - Spring 2016

This has just been published by the Hertfordshire Association for Local History and contains the following items which will interest local historians:

Entrepreneurs and Rebels looks at the people who lived in Ware in the 14th century. Such research is greatly aided by the amount of information on web sites such as www.medievalgenealogy.org.uk 

Robert the Mason and his legacy looks at what is known about the man who rebuilt the original Saxon church at St Albans. As a result of his work St Albans is the only major church in England with a great crossing tower of the 11th century still standing.

Benn's Club of Aldermen is the name pf a painting, dated 1752, in the Goldsmith's Hall, in London. This article examines hoe a grocer's boy from Puckeridge ended up in such exalted company.

Vincent van Gough's sister in Welwyn tells of the search to find which house the sister of the prominent painter lived for a short time during the 1870s.

Herts Past and Present - Contents of Issue 15

Herts Past & Present

September 2010

Issue No 15

Contents

Brief Guide to Sources: Churchwardens Accounts 

The Hertford Primrose League in 1901

Merchant Taylors School at Ashwell, 1669-2001: The good, the bad and the absent

The Landed Gentry

More Information

Herts Past & Present - Contents of Issue No 16

Herts Past & Present

Autumn 2010

Issue No 16

Contents

Brief Guide to Sources: Apprenticeship Indentures

Lydia Hope's inventory of paintings and Charles I's art collection (St Albans)

Some of Hertfordshire's Special Trees

The Great Bed of Ware: A Literary History

Property ownership in twelve Hertfordshire parishes in the nineteenth century (Hitchin area)

More Information

Herts Past and Present - Contents of Issue No 17

Herts Past & Present

Spring 2011

No 17

Contents

Brief Guide to Sources: Hearth Tax Returns

The grain crisis of the 1630s and malting in Hertfordshire

The Radcliffes in the Levant: An examination of the Delmé-Radcliffe Business Papers ( 1706-1767)

Admiral Henry Killigrew - Politics, Marriage and Family Life

Hertfordshire Rail Excursions in the Nineteenth Century

More Information

Latest Issue of Herts Past & Present

Hertfordshire Association
 for Local History

The Spring 2013 Issue of Herts Past and Present has now been published and the articles in this issue are

• Brief Guide to Sources: Vestry Minutes - by David Short
• King Aethelred's land grant of 1 hide at Flamstead to St Albans monastry, 1005: Bounds centred upon Lybury Lane, Redbourn, by Victor S. White
• Traditional Woodland Management in South-East Hertfordshire, by Peter Austin
• The Role of the St Albans City Military Service Tribunal in the First World War, by Jonathan Mein and Anne Wares
• Golf in Hertfordshire, 1890-1912, by Julie Moore

Herts Past & Present - Autumn 2012 - No 20

The Autumn Issue of Herts Past and Present (published by the Hertfordshire Association for Local History) is out and the following description of the three main papers is based on the editorial.

The poor are always with us. In Begging Letters from Hertfordshire paupers living away from home the poor from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries speak to us in a particularly vivid way, through their letters written in desperation to Hertfordshire parish overseers. Carla Herrmann's study of fifty such begging letters reveals a range o' causes of their destitution: from disease, violent insanity, to injury caused by accidents at work. Widows with dependent children had a particularly hard time of it. Grace Pryor, whose husband had died after falling down a well in Royston leaving her with three children, got short shrift from the Royston overseer in 1783. He sent her back to Heydon in Essex, whence she had originated. Then as now it was economic interests that counted in the decision whether or not to offer support. If you couldn't prove your worth to the parish you had a struggle to claim benefit. "Supportive attitudes appear to have been comparatively rare" is the author's conclusion so far. 

Sarah Lloyd's intriguing article "Tickets Please!" Survivals from eighteenth-century Hertfordshire tells us what tickets can tell us about social history and is a summary of our Lionel Munby lecture at the AGM in May. It shows just what can be read into these most ephemeral of items. That old ticket found under a floorboard tells a story offering a window into many varied aspects of eighteenth-century life. 

Researchers into The Manors of Watford will find the list of sources suggested by Gordon Cox most helpful. The Victoria County History is recognised as no longer adequate to the task. Ranging further afield the quest could take you as far afield as Reading, Woking, Chester and California. Not to mention London, Oxford and Cambridge. Why can't records stay put?

Was your ancestor baptised by a translator of the King James Bible?

Issue 18 of Herts Part and Present includes an article The Hertfordshire men who translated the King James Bible by Richard N W Lambert. The abstract reads:

This series of mini biographies of the Hertfordshire men who worked on the translations for the King James Bible takes us back to Jacobean Hertfordshire and the lives of eight scholarly priests. Jeremiah Radcliffe, Richard Fairclough and WilIiam Dakins were Hertfordshire born and five others, John Layfield, Francis Burleigh, John Spencer, John Overall, and Samuel Ward had links with Hertfordshire towns and villages. Learned men who shared in the work of translating from the Latin, Hebrew and Greek, many combined distinguished academic careers with a plethora of priestly appointments. One died after being imprisoned in his Cambridge college during the Civil Wars and one sailed to the New World as chaplain to the Earl of Cumberland.

It is quite possible that several of them held a pastoral appointment in Hertfordshire and if you ancestor was baptised in the right parish at the right dates they could have been baptised by one of the translators. John Layfield was rector at Graveley from 1606-1613. Francis Burley was rector of St James the Great, Thorley,  between 1594 and his death in 1619 and was also rector of Bishop's Stortford between 1590 and 1604. Jon Spencer was vicar of St Augustine's, Broxbourne, between 1592 and 1599. John Overall was rector at Clothall between 1603  and 1615 and nearby Therfield between 1605 and 1614. Samuel Ward was rector at Great Munden between 1616 and 1636.

Unfortunately the fact that your ancestor was baptised in one of these parishes at an appropriate date does not automatically mean that they were baptised by one of the translators of the best know English language bible. Often rectors did not even live in the parish, having appointed a curate to minister to the population. This is highlighted by case of Jerimiah Radcliffe who was simultaneously vicar at Shudy Camps, Cambridgeshire, Trumpington, Cambridgeshire, Eaton Bray, Bedfordshire, and Heversham, Westmorland.

A celebration dinner, the very rich, carts and the railway

The Spring 2012  issue of Herts Past & Present contains four interesting articles. The abstracts and main heading are given here - and the purpose of this review (below the fold) is to explain how reading the articles can help give you ideas for doing local and family history research.

An Important Index of Historical Hertfordshire Articles

Jon has drawn my attention to the fact that the St Albans & Hertfordshire Architectural and Archaeological Society have produced a title index (available to download from their web site) which cover a range of publications, including the following:

• The Society's own Transactions (1883-1961) - some now available online
• East Herts Archaeological Society Newsletter (1949-1979)
• Herts Archaeology (1968-2009)
• Herts Genealogist & Antiquary (1895-1899)
• Herts Illustrated Review (1893-4)
• Home Counties Magazine (1899-1912)
• Past and Present (1960-2011) - all three series.

Their web site contains many more goodies relevant to Hertfordshire - and particularly to the St Albans area.

Herts Past & Present - Review Policy

Herts Past and Present is the name of the current journal, published in the Spring and Autumn for members of the Hertfordshire Association of Local History (who also sell back issues). The current series was started in 2003, and there were earlier series. The articles are written by serious historians and will typically look at a single topic - sich as an old diary - or the effects of a particular law on the people of Hertfordshire. It is very much a metter of luck whether a particular article includes a mention of your ancestors, the place where they lived, or their occupations, and if you main interest in getting as many skeletons as possible pinned on your ancestral tree the journal is not for you.

However, if you are interested in trying to imaging how your ancestor lived, and the factors that affected his life, there is much of relevance. An article may not mention him, or even where he lived, but it could throw light on the relevant social conditions at the time, and the kinds of documentary sources that were used to write the article. As a result you may, in some cases, be able to say - now I know why my ancestor fell on hard times and, for example, decided to emigrate.

For each issue I will list the key articles, their abstracts, and the main titles - and then write a blog describing why the articles may be of interest to the family historian. Pages giving details of issue 1 (Spring 2003), issue 13 (Spring 2009) and issue 14 (Autumn 2009) have been online for some time - and have now been upgraded to contain the basic information. I will be posting the information on issue 19 next week, including the assessment on the Newsletter, and earlier issues will appear at intervals in reverse order.