Interesting Local History from an Estate Agent's Account Book

Last Wednesday I gave a talk about this interesting 1850s account book to the Tring & District Local History & Museum Society and all the slides are now available at:

www.bit.ly/BrownAccountBook

You will find the menu on the left gives you access to

• A page describing the Account Book
• The Calendar - which in turn allows you to view all 283 folios
• William Brown's A-Z Customer Index
• The slides for the talk (to see additional notes press the [A] button)

Bearing in mind the recent news about the Conservative Party not properly declaring their election expenses one of the slides that cause much interest was:

The 1851 election was caused because one of the MPs was unseated because too much "bribery" money had been spent wining and dining prospective voters... 

I think all the audience were distressed that historically valuable documents relating to the history of the town had ended up on ebay, and that some key documents have ended up with unknown buyers. It is possible that other less attractive looking but historically important documents may have been rubbished. At least the account book will end up in the museum collection - and the information it contains is available to all online.

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Two areas are still being worked on. The Calendar uses the headings on every page but only some pages have a supplementary list of personal names and places and it is hoped to complete this over the next few months. In addition I have still to add supplementary notes to some of the slides.

Three further books - the minute books of the Tring Agricultural Society - will also be passed the the museum when I have provided more online information about them.

In addition only a few pages have been studied in depth, and if you are interested in following up the history behind any folio (including those relating to people and places over the boundary in Buckinghamshire) do not hesitate to contact me.

The 1850s Account Book of William Brown, of Tring

On 18th May the Tring & District Local History & Museum Society will be holding their A.G.M.in the Tring Parish Hall at 8pm - and I will be giving the talk. The official introduction reads:

William Brown's client account general ledger contains a wealth of information relating to property in and around Tring, including the sale of houses and farms, valuations for probate, etc., relating to local families. A significant part of the volume deals with the management of the Tring Park Estate. Dr. Chris Reynolds is an amateur historian and member of the Society. He has lived in Tring for over 50 years, and currently runs the "Genealogy in Hertfordshire" website. This site includes many pages on Tring including a digitised copy of William Brown's account book.

 Over the next three weeks I will be preparing the talk - which will be made available on the main web site, with supporting notes, after the event. Between now and then I will be posting some advanced "publicity" information on this blog. In addition you can go online and browser through the accounts and if there are any which particularly interest you (maybe they concern a property or individual you have been researching) add a comment below and I may be able to include a mention in the talk, or add notes to the web site after the talk.

After the talk the Account Book will be passed to the Museum for safekeeping - and will possibly appear in the document display cabinet.

Books on Tring published in 2014 (including one on WW1)

Tring

Military

During 2014 four new books have appeared on the history of Tring - and if you are looking for a Xmas present for a local historian with an interest in the town all may be purchased from the Tring Local History Museum. 

• Letters to Tring: The Great War 1914-1918 by Wendy Austin
• The Waterway comes to Tring: 1792-2013: The Grand Junction Canal, by Ian Petticrew & Wendy Austin
• A Surprising Walk in Tring Park: The Story from the Ice Age to the Present by Shelly Savage
• A Perspective on Pendley: A History of Pendley Manor , by Bob Little

For pictures of the covers, additional publication information, (and reviews when I have time to write them) see Tring Books 2014.

For details of other books on Tring (some no longer in print) see Tring Books.

Tim Amsden at Tring LHS display for Tring Xmas Festival (held on "Black Friday")
For some years Tring has has a Christmas Festival Evening on the last Friday in November when the High Street is closed to traffic. The Local History Society puts on a poster display in the Victoria Hall. For pictures of earlier Street Festivals see Events in Tring High Street.

Booklet about the Tring Home Guards (2nd World War)

It is always worth checking the local newspapers of the towns you are researching, as many of them print heritage articles.

The Military

For instance the Hemel Hempsted Gazette has a weekly Heritage page and details often appear on its web site.

This weeks offering describes the activities of the Tring Home Guard during the Second World War. It is based on an informative booklet produced by the Tring and District Local History and Museum  Society.

Vaisey & Turners (solicitors) records for Tring

Tring Solicitors Records ... Many important historically important documents come from solicitor's offices. Some time ago the Tring Local History & Museum Society discovered there a trunk of documents, which had come from the Tring solicitors Vaisey & Turner, were now with the Aylesbury Solicitors Wilkins. It appears that the documents were later passed to the Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies, and they passed documents relating to the manor of Tring to HALS. They are not yet in the online catalogue but a draft list of the documents has been produced and as our first house in Tring was in Henry Street I was interested to see the following entries which suggest a possible date for the house.

Thomas Smith Cowell to James Ball of land in Henry Street, Tring (May 1858)
Thomas Smith Cowell to William Crawley of three cottages and land in Henry Street, Tring (May 1858)

These are among the earliest documents in the collection - most being later in the 19th century. The  records refer to many hundred names and properties. When I have time I will provide more information on the Tring pages - but ask me if you have a particular interest.

I am sure that other documents, dealing with the Buckinghamshire side of the boundary, and probably some cross-boundary matters, are in the Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies, but are not yet indexed in the Access to Archives data base

What are these?

Today I visited  the Tring Local History Museum and they has a new display which had these two items.

Do you know what they are?