Midland History最新文献

{"title":"From City of Empire to City of Diversity: A Visual Journey","authors":"S. Smith","doi":"10.1080/0047729x.2021.2024671","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0047729x.2021.2024671","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41013,"journal":{"name":"Midland History","volume":"47 1","pages":"98 - 100"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46346348","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Stories from the Herefordshire Suffrage Campaign","authors":"Maggie Andrews","doi":"10.1080/0047729x.2021.2024668","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0047729x.2021.2024668","url":null,"abstract":"anyone interested in the local history of Staffordshire and its great country estates. Perhaps appropriately for a book published by the Staffordshire Record Society, only seven pages cover Swynfen’s time representing the Dorset constituency of Bridport from 1837–41, ostensibly as a ‘reformer’ and supporter of the Whig ministry. Swynfen’s hugely embarrassing public exposé of the Whig government’s ‘whipping’ system gets ample coverage. His controversial letters in the press – defending his rebel votes against ministers or his refusal to help finance a local church – are also examined, alongside his public pledge to compensate any of his tenants if they suffered financially from the abolition of the corn laws. Clearly an oddball, Swynfen was that ultrarare creature, a landowner who had inherited vast family estates but who held extreme radical opinions. Perhaps more could have been said about the way his traumatic childhood might have shaped his politics. If, as suggested (p. 32), his upbringing influenced his decision to demolish the old family seat of Darlaston Hall, or his disposal of all the family portraits, then it might also help explain his rejection of other traditional values. Nothing is said about how or why he came to represent a shipping port. Perhaps Bridport’s reputation for venality was a factor, enabling him to simply buy the seat. More could also have been mentioned about his other political activities, such as his committee work or presentation of petitions. The main focus and merit of this volume, though, is the way it manages to reconstruct Sywnfen’s wide-ranging social, theatrical and literary pursuits and his various business roles and cultural interests, rescuing this ‘eccentric’ polymath from obscurity. The circles he and his family moved in included luminaries such as Charles Dickens, Charles Babbage, William Thackeray and Leigh Hunt. Thomas Carlyle, never one to mince his words, dismissed him as a ‘wretched dud’ and a ‘dirty little atheistic radical’ full of ‘pretentious twaddle’. The pre-Raphaelite, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, however, revered him as ‘a very cultivated scholar’. Swynfen’s lasting legacy was his Dictionary of the Language of Shakespeare, published posthumously and still in print. But as this quirky account of his life and family reveals, there was so much more to him than this.","PeriodicalId":41013,"journal":{"name":"Midland History","volume":"47 1","pages":"108 - 109"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48267716","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Broad Gate: A Ludlow House and its Inhabitants","authors":"S. Price","doi":"10.1080/0047729x.2021.2024662","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0047729x.2021.2024662","url":null,"abstract":"This beautifully presented volume is an account of a unique building – the last survivor of Ludlow’s medieval town gates which forms a distinctive feature at one end of Broad Street. Considerably extended in eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, its core comprises a pair of D-shaped stone towers either side the gateway, part of a circuit of town walls built at the end of the thirteenth century to protect the townsfolk from the Welsh. As the gate’s military function declined, Ludlow Corporation was faced with finding new uses. For a time, the space above the gate was let as a school and other parts for storage, but it was not until the end of the seventeenth century that the property was converted into a house. This volume traces the post-medieval history of the Broad Gate through to modern times. The stories of the families who have occupied the building – the Steads, Sprotts, Kinnersleys, Lloyds and Richardsons – reveal a succession of doctors, lawyers and bankers who initially leased and eventually acquired the freehold of the building. The occupants belonged to long established gentry families in the Midlands and Wales and, like others, chose to settle in Ludlow in the eighteenth century bringing ‘a more sophisticated world to provincial Shropshire.’ Valerie Thomas skilfully identifies the common themes that link these families, the source of their wealth, social status, ambition, and contribution to the structural history of the Broad Gate. Between these family stories are chapters on eighteenthand nineteenth-century Ludlow which provide a wider context to the social changes which led to the creation of an urban elite. Ludlow offered a short but fashionable season, having the essential elements to attract visitors – a theatre, racecourse and assemblies, only lacking curative waters of a spa. A hallmark of this study is the author’s adept inter-disciplinary approach bringing together all kinds of written evidence – especially deeds, family papers, diaries, and probate material – with the physical evidence of the building and material possessions. The description of the built-in eighteenth-century bureau in a first-floor closet, a room she tells us was ‘more likely to have been a private space belonging to the mistress of the house’ is enhanced by her quotes from literary references. During the house’s restoration when various small ovens in the kitchen walls were uncovered, Peter Brears, an authority on the history of cookery, advised on their significance. His carefully drawn watercolours show how these features worked. Ludlow has been well served by historians and building experts, both nationally and locally, especially the Ludlow Historical Research Group whose publication on the houses of Broad Street set new standards in presenting the results of the study of whole streets. Thomas shows how its occupants created a fashionable miniature country estate in an urban setting. The inter-disciplinary approach, combined with the author’s expertis","PeriodicalId":41013,"journal":{"name":"Midland History","volume":"47 1","pages":"102 - 102"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42625107","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Writing Regional Identities in Medieval England: From the Gesta Herwardi to Richard Coer de Lyon","authors":"K. Sykes","doi":"10.1080/0047729x.2021.2024661","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0047729x.2021.2024661","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41013,"journal":{"name":"Midland History","volume":"47 1","pages":"101 - 101"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42651221","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Anatomy of a Duel in Jacobean England: Gentry Honour, Violence and the Law","authors":"Andrew Hopper","doi":"10.1080/0047729X.2021.2024664","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0047729X.2021.2024664","url":null,"abstract":"It is difficult to separate the history and development of the country house from the fabric of social, economic and political history. Through his meticulous research Gareth Williams has managed to capture this amalgam in The Country Houses of Shropshire. This impressive book is a tour de force, an illustrated survey of 347 houses of varying significance from the thirteenthcentury Stokesay Castle to the 2019 Regency-style mansion The Mount in Oswestry. Unlike other country house guides such as Phillimore’s 1988 Cheshire Country House or Geoffrey Tyack’s 1994 Warwickshire Country Houses, Williams’s volume will appeal to a far wider readership. The architecture is certainly there, at times beautifully described. Much of the text, however, concentrates on the inhabitants and their connections. Williams reveals the stories of those who inhabited the houses across time and their successes and failures which ultimately dictated the fate of their houses. Among many examples is a 1776 lottery win for the new owner of Lythwood Hall, which enabled him to commission the landscape architect William Emes and the Scottish architect George Steuart to remodel the grounds and build a new house. The book contains accounts of the most obvious candidates such as Attingham Park, Hawkstone Hall and Dudmaston. What I particularly enjoyed was the inclusion of some lesser-known country houses which would make excellent subjects for further research. These properties are often overlooked and it is refreshing to see them represented in this publication. Ample footnotes provide the potential researcher with plenty of sources to which to refer. The incorporation of architecturally quirky garden buildings is a bonus, from the charming little mid-eighteenth century octagonal Chinoiserie gazebo at Orleton to the classical rotunda in the grounds of Millichope Park. Many of the houses boast an affiliation with national architects such as John Nash, George Steuart and Robert Adam as well as one of the leading Midland architects Francis Smith of Warwick. However, the author rightly showcases the home-grown talent of architects like Thomas Farnolls Pritchard and other gifted craftsmen and artisans who embellished the houses we see today. Time has not been kind to many country houses and therefore the inclusion of demolished properties like Sundorne Castle, Adderley Hall and Park Hall serves as a reminder of not only what has been lost but should also motivate us to protect the houses we still have for future generations. At 760 pages this is quite a tome, it has an easy to navigate alphabetical format with a wide range of illustrations with architectural commentary including some marvellous interior features. As a lover of maps, I would have liked to have seen the inclusion of a location map of the houses, similar to the Phillimore publications, because these types of illustrations tell a story in themselves. A remarkable achievement from Williams, it is by no means the last word o","PeriodicalId":41013,"journal":{"name":"Midland History","volume":"47 1","pages":"104 - 104"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46260964","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Church, Land and People: Essays presented to John Beckett","authors":"R. Cust","doi":"10.1080/0047729x.2021.2024666","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0047729x.2021.2024666","url":null,"abstract":"glebe terriers were no longer compiled; visitation and its records ceased; consistory courts were abolished; parish registers often exhibit notable gaps, and their format was meant to change from 1653. One theme of these essays, therefore, is how new sources and those little exploited for the religious history of the 1650s, can be used to explore church history. Alex Craven examines the church surveys of the 1650s – found in Lambeth Palace Library and among the Chancery papers of the National Archives. Fiona McCall looks at quarter sessions records to analyse how the policing of many religious offences such as pew disputes, swearing, and Sabbath observance, was taken on by justices of the peace. Rosalind Johnson uses churchwardens’ accounts to consider continuities from pre-1640 customs such as festal communion. Rebecca Warren analyses Oliver Cromwell’s ecclesiastical patronage from the records of the Triers, finding that not only was he the ‘single most powerful ecclesiastical patron in the history of the post-Reformation English Church’ (p. 65), he also promoted a broad range of godly ministers, two-thirds of whom continued to serve in parishes after 1660, thereby helping to shape the character of the Restoration Church of England. If an overall picture of 1650s religion emerges from these ten essays, it is of diversity, what Capp here calls a ‘bewildering patchwork’ (p. 14). In exploring new and little-used sources, and in modelling local, regional, or countybased studies of 1650s religion, the volume offers inspiration to regional and local historians of the Midlands. That is particularly the case for Andrew Foster’s essay, a self-conscious call to arms to local historians, with a series of questions from what happened to parish records (including parish registers and churchwardens’ accounts), to the fate of parish clergy and officials, and how disruptive the institutional, liturgical, and personnel changes were for ordinary parishioners. It is a challenge that could be further explored across the Midlands.","PeriodicalId":41013,"journal":{"name":"Midland History","volume":"47 1","pages":"106 - 107"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43917223","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Scratch of the Hop: Hop picking in Herefordshire, Worcestershire & Shropshire","authors":"G. Mainwaring","doi":"10.1080/0047729x.2021.2024669","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0047729x.2021.2024669","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41013,"journal":{"name":"Midland History","volume":"47 1","pages":"109 - 110"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44320304","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"In Pursuit of Provenance: J. M. W. Turner’s 1830 Midland Journey and His Dudley, Worcestershire Watercolour","authors":"B. Clifford","doi":"10.1080/0047729x.2021.2024657","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0047729x.2021.2024657","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) toured the English Midlands in summer 1830. An outcome of the journey was a watercolour now in the collection of the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Wirral, entitled Dudley, Worcestershire (Figure 1). A version of the same scene attributed to Turner entitled Lime Kilns with Dudley Castle (Figure 2) was bequeathed to the Dudley Art Gallery in 1947 by Henry Pearman Bagott (1861–1946), a Dudley solicitor. The provenance of the watercolours is considered in the light of questions posed by the re-discovery of a catalogue of the collection of Dr George Charles Williamson (1858–1942), a previous owner of the latter version. The catalogue links Turner’s relationship with the Birmingham-born artist, David Cox (1783–1859) to the involvement of the Wolverhampton industrialist, Laurence William Hodson (1864–1933), and forms the basis for possible further research on the provenance of the versions of Turner’s watercolours of Dudley.","PeriodicalId":41013,"journal":{"name":"Midland History","volume":"47 1","pages":"57 - 76"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43673818","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"‘Where England’s Sorrows Began’: A Reassessment of the Battle of Powick Bridge, 1642","authors":"J. Spiller","doi":"10.1080/0047729X.2021.2024659","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0047729X.2021.2024659","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article seeks to provide a comprehensive reassessment of the battle of Powick Bridge by focusing on all surviving eye-witness testimonies, unlike previous accounts, and by examining the engagement in its own right, rather than simply as a prelude or sideshow to the events at Edgehill a month later. Particular attention is given to the theory that some sort of false message was sent by the Royalist leader Prince Rupert to the Parliamentarian troops to lure them into a trap, which has been generally overlooked or dismissed by many writers, while the problems with the Earl of Clarendon’s narrative of events and his legacy regarding source interpretation, are also considered carefully. The article concludes that the action at Powick Bridge was far from being the chance-encounter of minor significance which secondary accounts have broadly maintained it was, and that the battle therefore merits more attention than it has previously been given.","PeriodicalId":41013,"journal":{"name":"Midland History","volume":"47 1","pages":"21 - 37"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41907421","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Thoroton Society at 125","authors":"J. Beckett","doi":"10.1080/0047729x.2021.2024672","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0047729x.2021.2024672","url":null,"abstract":"The Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire was founded in June 1897 with the intention of promoting the study of the local history, archaeology and antiquities of the county. The Society is named in honour of Dr Robert Thoroton who published the first history of Nottinghamshire in 1677. The Society’s aims are simple: to promote knowledge, understanding and appreciation of the history, archaeology and antiquities of the county and to support local research and conservation. The Society was a latecomer to a familiar Victorian format. Almost every county in the Midlands had, by the 1890s, promoted a Society, which, in turn, organised excursions and published the results of their work in annual volumes of Proceedings or in the case of the Thoroton Society, Transactions. Although the county gentry turned out for the initial meeting of the Society, the actual work of setting it up was left to local business and professional people. The two key figures were W. P. W. Phillimore and Rev. John Standish. Phillimore was a local man, born and bred in Nottingham, but he subsequently set himself up as a solicitor with rooms in Chancery Lane. His name came to be associated nationally with the publication of parish registers. Standish, joint secretary with Phillimore, was a clergyman, one of the several who were prominent in directing the affairs of the Society in its early years. The modern Thoroton Society has winter lectures from October to March and summer excursions (a programme rather disrupted by the pandemic). Social events include an annual lunch in November and a Spring Meeting (which includes the Annual Meeting) in late April. The Spring Meeting is held in a different venue within the county each year and is usually held in the village hall prior to afternoon tea and a guided walk around the village. The Society also has a Response Group, which is proactive in protecting buildings and the local environment. Unlike some counties, the Record Section (which publishes editions of original texts) is part of the main Society and has now produced more than 50 volumes. Research is also fostered through an informal Research Group, meeting twice a year, as well as by the Society’s online Heritage Gateway, which includes articles on a range of people, places and subjects. The Society published the first major bibliography of the county more than twenty years ago; today, it is maintained and updated digitally by the Society’s webmaster and contains over 15,000 items. Although, as in other counties, there are often challenges in recruiting members to take on officer roles and to sit on the Society’s Council, there are more than 400 members, including institutional members, from across the globe. During lockdown","PeriodicalId":41013,"journal":{"name":"Midland History","volume":"47 1","pages":"96 - 97"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49611713","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}