Historic Hertfordshire Trade Directories

I have updated the pages which list the Hertfordshire Trade Directories. The most important change is to update the link to the directories digitized as part of the Historic Directories project (which covers the whole country and not just Hertfordshire). I have also listed the Hertfordshire directories which have been digitized as part of the Ancestry data base. The chief loss is of the 1811 Holden directory which was available through the Genhound web site which closed in 2015.

It is not possible for me to scan every genealogy and history web site for other online copies of Hertfordshire directories - or cases where indexed by name information is available a genealogy web site - so if you know of any that I have missed please add a comment below.

See Hertfordshire Trade Directories

The Holes brothers of Ardeley in the First World War

Five years ago I posted a note about a possible bomb being dropped somewhere near Walkern by a Zeppelin (DETAILS)  - and I am still waiting for someone to be able to tell me where it fell.

The evidence that something happened came from a postcard between members of the Holes family of Ardeley, and Nick has just contacted me to say that Albert (mentioned on the card) had been killed in the First World War. As a result I have added the following note to the bottom of the page referring to the Zeppelin raid.

Alfred's father, George Holes (1857-1914) died at Ardeley in April 1914 and Alfred married Ethel Maude Baker (1890-1956) in theSouth Stoneham area of Wiltshire in 1915, their only daughter Ivy M Holes (1916-2004?) being born in Wiltshire the following year.Alfred joined the 9th Battalion, London Regiment (419016), as a rifleman and was killed in action on 25 April, 1918, having only arrived in France on 10th April. He has no known grave and is commemorated on the Poziers Memorial. He was posthumously awarded the British War Medal and the Victory Medal

During the war three of his brothers were also involved. George joined the Machine Gun Corps (39922) in 1916. James was a Private in the Berks Yeomanry (33929) and later in the Labour Corps (360192). Bertie joined the 6th Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment (14144) and died of wounds in France 29 July 1916.

More Picture of Libury Hall (near Ware)

Libury Hall was set up as an Arbeiter-Kolonie for out of work Germans by 1902 and was used to hold elderly and infirm Germans during the First World War.

Nicholas has provided two post cards of the colony dating from about 1910.

More Information

Somme Casualty: Leonard Fisher of Redbourn

Leonard George Fisher (1892-1916) of Redbourn was one of the Hertfordshire men who died in the battle for the Somme in 1916.

Jonathan has kindly provided a biography - including details of the battles he fought in.

See Leonard FISHER

The RAMC in the Watford Area in 1914

Heather has kindly supplies a picture, taken by Harry Cull, of Watford, which used to adorn her grandfather's desk. He was Pte Vincent Lamb - and may be the man behind the horse's head.

More WW1 and other pictures by Harry Cull

Sorry for a lack of postings but I have had other things to worry about

Over the recent weeks I have been involved online, via a FutureLearn course, in extensive online debates on the recent referendum.

At a time when we are remembering the horrors of the Battle of the Somme I am saddened that so many people are distrustful of our European neighbours and have decided to up anchor and sail the United Kingdom ship out into the unknown.

Don't get me wrong - there are many things wrong with Europe - but all large organisations have problems and none are perfect. To me the threat of a third world war, fought by terrorists, is far more dangerous in the short term - and climate change will present future generations with far more serious challenges. 

What will happen next? The winning side is crowing that "Britain is strong" at a very time that our "democratic" system is presenting a soft underbelly to the world. An internal squabble in a government voted for by less than 25% of the electorate escalate the row in a way that leaves the country bitterly divided. Any government which calls a referendum which could radically change the country without having a fully prepared "Plan B" is grossly incompetent. At the same time the opposition is falling apart because of the failures of past governments to properly address the London/Rest of England divide. The captain of the ship has caste off from the shore without getting the approval of parliament (which is the body elected to make such decisions) and then falls on his sword. The captain-presumptive has been knifed in the back by his colleagues who say that it will be impossible to keep some of his promises. People who simply look life foreigners are being insulted (or worse) in the streets.

At a time when we are showing the world that we are too incompetent to govern ourselves properly we expect the rest of the world to take us seriously!!!!

A German Watchmaker in Hemel Hempstead (Update)

The ever expanding British Newspaper Archive is always coming up with vital new information. A recent email about the family reminded me that some of the early years of the Hemel Hempstead Gazette had come online since the last update. I found this advert which, for the first time links Englebert directly with the Wurtenberg Guild of Watchmakers.

Read More about this Interesting Germany Family

Stevenage pages upgraded on my Web Site

Stevenage FHS

Stevenage was on of the Hertfordshire Towns which had been rather neglected in recent years and I have completely restructured the pages to make the information about the town much more accessible. In addition I had made higher definition images of some of the pictures and added new external links, including one to the Stevenage Family History Society. 

This change will make it possible for me to add even more pictures and information in future, and I have about a dozen pictures, etc, in the queue waiting to be added.

Visit the new Stevenage Pages

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.

Policy: DNA Testing and the Genealogy in Hertfordshire Web Site

Recently I have had a few queries which involve DNA testing and this raises the question of how such matters are best handled on my web site. Your views would be welcome.

Way back in the 1980s (well before the World Wide Web came into its existence) I was involved with the problem of "data protection" and the implications of the international exchange of information about people and what they did, using email and bulletin boards. I even had one of my computer articles on the subject reprinted in a specialist legal journal!