Book: The Peaceful Path- Building Garden Cities and New Towns

When the Genealogy in Hertfordshire web site started the idea was not to cover the more recent history of Hertfordshire - concentrating on the 1901 census and earlier. This automatically excluded any serious look at the history of Letchworth Garden City and the later development of new towns in Hertfordshire. 

Time moves on and the site now covers to the end of the First World War and before the site finally goes into "archive mode" I felt it would be useful to include some links to books which deal with the very significant changes which affected significant parts of Hertfordshire. The book The Peaceful Path, by Stephen V Ward provides an excellent introduction as is strongly recommended. It was published in 2014 by Hertfordshire Publications, and is still available.

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My Letchworth Page

This is one of my Hertfordshire History Books for Christmas

Herts at War Exhibition. Last chance to visit it at Letchworth

Herts at War

Dan Hill reports:  This coming week is the final week [in Letchworth] of what has been a fantastic year and one that the entire team are incredibly proud of. Over this last year we have welcomed over 10,000 visitors to the exhibition, led outreach sessions for thousands of students, researched over 700 Hertfordshire servicemen for family members and attended many events reaching members of the public across the county. With the support of our key project partners at the Heritage Lottery Fund and Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation we feel that the task that we set out to achieve in 2013; raising awareness of the Great War locally and remembering those who fought 100 years ago, had been a real success. 

For anyone wishing to visit the exhibition this week before we prepare for our September 9th launch in Sawbridgeworth; We will be open from 10am - 4pm on Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 12/14 The Arcade, Letchworth Garden City, Herts, SG6 3ET.

[I will post details of the arrangements at Sawbridgeworth next month]

Evacustes Phipson (1854-1931) Watercolour Artist & Anarchist

St Peter's Green, St Albans, 1917

Some years ago I published a page about the Hertfordshire watercolour paintings of E. A. Phipson and recently I have had several emails about him, and the Phipson family.

I decided to investigate further and discovered that he had strong socialist views and was involved in new ways of living - including an unsuccessful colony in Australia, and a proposed new town in Mexico which did not use money. He was also connected with the pioneering new town in Hertfordshire - Letchworth Garden City - although it was not socialist enough for him.

I felt he deserved a more extensive biography and have started work on it. There are a number of leads that need to be followed up so I have posted the first part of the biography, dealing with his family, on the main web site together with outline notes and a time line of his travels around England and the world. The idea is to update the pages as more information comes in. If you can help fill in the gaps I will be very grateful.

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Herts at War Lecture Programme Jan-July 2015

Herts at War

Herts at War are running a series of talks on the First Wold War

Clive Harris  The Greater Game (January)

Peter Hart Gallipoli 1915 (February)

Richard Grayson - Neuve Chapelle 1915 (March)

Terry Cox Herts Police in The Great War (April)

Chris Baker 'Blood Money' 1914 - 1918 (May)

Taff Gillingham Remembrance and The Great War (June)

Dan Hill 'The Herts Guards' (July)

The talks are being held on the second Thursday of the month at The Theatre, St Christopher School, Barrington Road, Letchworth Garden City, Herts, SG6 3JZ, arrival at 7pm with the talk commencing at 7.30.

Herts at War Exhibition at Letchworth

Exhibition in The Arcade, Letchworth

A week ago I visited Letchworth Garden City and was very interested to see the Herts at War Exhibition.

CLICK HERE for detailed report and many more pictures.

First World War Exhibition at Letchworth

Landed Families of Hertfordshire (and elsewhere)

Ayot House in 1905
(Later became a silk mill)

I have just discovered the excellent Landed Families of Britain and Ireland blog run by Nick Kingsley. 

Current posts with detailed references of pictures and information of houses in the Hertfordshire are:

Alington of Little Barford Manor House and Letchworth Hall

Ames of Bristol (and other places including Ayot House)

Altham of Mark Hall, Oxhey Place and Timbercombe

In addition there is extensive genealogical information on the selected family that lived there for a time. In addition many families which were mainly based elsewhere have links to Hertfordshire. For instance I found this engraving of Pishobury House in the information on the Alston of Odell Castle page.

Pishiobury House from Neale's Views of Seats, 1821

More about Willian (now part of Letchworth Garden City)

Places

Willian

Graham has kindly pointed out an error on the Willian page relating to the different ways the name has been spelt in the past - and I have used the opportunity to improve the quality of the above early picture of the church, and to add another description of the village from the 1930s.