We get a great many visitors passing through our doors, honing in on those invaluable parish registers, wills, non-conformist records etc. Some venture further, taking a look at what else the History Centre has to offer, but for many, little do they realise that they are missing out on some essential information – the contextual evidence that brings life to those ancestors they are searching so long and hard to find.

The Wiltshire Local Studies Collection is a unique resource available at the History Centre which can do just that. I have searched the shelves to give you just a taste of what is on offer if you have a little extra time to look whilst you are here. If not, many of our books are available to loan via your local library, all you need to do is put in a request.

Memoirs

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In his book ‘Snapshots of Welsh History without the boring bits’ and on his BBC Wales Blog, Phil Carradice writes about Cardiff entrepreneur, Solomon Andrews. He was a self made man who was, Phil writes, ‘Born in Trowbridge, Wiltshire in 1835, Solomon Andrews came to Cardiff equipped with just a wooden tray to sling around his neck and a stack of trinkets and sweets to sell in the street’. By 1856 he was able to lease a shop and began a bakery and confectionery business.

Longfield Trowbridge, early 20th century

Having been born in Trowbridge myself I was naturally interested in the early life of this fellow Trowbridgean. I found him on the 1841 census living in Mortimer Street, in a house built for workers in the local cloth factory in the 1820s. His mother, Charlotte, was a woollen weaver and he had 5 brothers and sisters aged between 1 and 13 years. A look in the Parish registers for the Church of St. James showed that four of the children – James ( 6yrs 7m), Caroline (4yrs 3m), Jacob (2 yrs 3m) and Solomon (3 months) were all baptised on 5 June 1835. This could well indicate that they were non-conformists which the majority of people were at that time (I later found they were Methodists), and had decided to have all their children baptised after the birth of Solomon. The parents were listed as John and Charlotte Andrews; John was a hemp and flax dresser. This was a slightly unusual occupation in Trowbridge at this time as much of the industry was the production of woollen cloth.

Had father John died recently or was he somewhere else? Solomon was in Cardiff in 1851 so had the whole family moved there by 1851? The 1851 census throws up more questions. The family, with father John, but without the 16 yr old Solomon are living in King Street, Carmarthen, and John has changed his trade and become a confectioner with his two eldest sons helping in the business. I could find no trace of Solomon on the 1851 census for England or Wales, but as he set up as a baker and confectioner 5 years later it is interesting that his father and brothers had taken that occupation. On the 1851 census John Andrews is said to have been born in Malmesbury (Malmesbury Abbey parish register states that a John Andrews, son of Thomas & Elizabeth, was baptised 24 May 1807, which would be the right age for our John), while his wife Charlotte was born in Stroud. Where was John in 1841?

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You can now follow us on twitter!

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Later last year I had the good fortune to look at a tiny tumbledown cottage of c1815 at Cloatley End, Hankerton. You might wonder why I considered this a treat, as the front wall had fallen down after several years of being abandoned, and the roof had collapsed over it, necessitating a very cautious crawl into the interior with a hard hat on to see anything of the inside. The answer is simple: The occupants of this house were so poor that very little was ever done to improve it, with the consequence that it was rich in original detail, despite its dilapidation. The present owner hopes to restore it, and put back as much of the original fabric as possible – no mean feat since the bricks of the front wall, which are hand-made odd-shaped wasters from the then local kiln up the road, now lie scattered about the site. These bricks were used to line the inside of thin rubblestone skin, much like builders do today, except the brick has been exchanged for concrete block.
 

View of the cottage

Entrance was directly into a small, unheated room containing the planked stair to the upper floor, now no more.  The inner room still had its plain hearth, the surround now gone, and old plaster lined the walls. The original floor, partition wall and roof timbers were still there, rough-hewn out of the round.

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Readers of my earlier blogs will know I am often guided by those twin pillars of research: serendipity and curiosity. It was these two trusty old friends that led me Henry Charles “inky” Stephens (1841 – 1918). While tidying my desk as part of my New Year resolution I was left with just a few paper clips and two rulers on the work surface, which reminded me of a patent I had spotted in our indexes for “the parallel ruler” (yes, sadly someone had invented this before me).  The patent seems to enable …er…two parallel lines to be drawn, more seriously it was used by navigators to draw parallel lines on charts and originally invented by Fabrizio Mordente in 1584 and others sought to improve it. But there was more, with the documents were further patents for inkstands and an adjustable pencil, plus specifications for various ink manufacture and the chemistry behind them. Of course, what I had started to look at was part of an archive relating to the Cholderton estate, once owned by the family and an individual whose single small invention arguably helped change the course of writing.

Patent for an adjustible pencil point, designed by Henry Stephens, 1852
Ref: 1340/76

It was actually “Inky’s” father, Dr Henry Stephens of Redbourne, Hertfordshire, who in 1832  invented the  famous 'Blue-Black Writing Fluid', or Stephens writing ink as it became known,  a "carbonaceous black writing fluid, which will accomplish the so long-desired and apparently hopeless task of rendering the manuscript as durable and as indelible as the printed record". It is the forerunner of the waterproof inks we use today and literally at a stroke became the Archivist’s friend, ensuring better survival of some of our precious written heritage (though for obvious reasons we don’t recommend its use by our researchers, please stick with pencils!). The government made it the mandatory ink for legal documents and ships' log books, and saved businesses and organisations time and money, where much time previously had been spent mixing inks and cleaning nibs. His son, Henry Charles, took the process forward, ultimately building a factory and research laboratory in Finchley, creating new processes and manufacturing ink and wood stains on a large scale. “Inky” was also an MP for Hornsey (1887-1900), a chemist and a philanthropist, with an interest in subjects such as public health and agriculture. He purchased the Cholderton estate in the late nineteenth century and its archive shows the range of interests he had, which included setting up the first and only private water company in England, the Cholderton and District Water Company in 1904. On his death his house in Finchley was left for the use of the public and is now a museum.

“But about other Wiltshire inventors?” I hear you say. A perfect companion for “inky” Stephens would surely have been Sir Isaac Pitman (1813-1897), born in Trowbridge and inventor of stenographic sound-hand or, as we know it, Pitman shorthand. But our greatest Victorian inventor surely was William Henry Fox Talbot (1800 – 1877) who’s inventions and innovations in photography, including the first negative process, are world famous. He was also interested in other sciences and his work included patents for “gilding and silvering” metals and “obtaining motive power, and improvements in atmospheric engines.”

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 Archaeologists from Thames Valley Archaeological Services (TVAS) unearthed the grave of a warrior in 2008, who died at around the time of the Roman conquest in AD43.

Excavations, led by Andy Taylor of TVAS, have been taking place in advance of a new housing development on behalf of Berkeley Homes (Southern) Limited and Persimmon Homes (South Coast) Limited.  The archaeological work is took place as a requirement of the planning process with the archaeological officer (Mark Taylor) of West Sussex County Council advising the District Council as to what is required.

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In August 2011 Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre applied to the Heritage Lottery Fund for just over £500,000 to help acquire, catalogue and make available the archives of the Lacock Abbey estate, which have been on deposit with Wiltshire and Swindon Archives since 1991. The owner needs to sell the collection and the Archives are their preferred purchaser. This extensive archive, occupying 100 boxes on 35 metres of shelving, documents the Talbot, Davenport and Feilding families and their estates from the 12^th-20^th centuries. It includes estate records, personal papers, naval records, and material relating to the East India Company, amongst others.
Map of Lacock, 1764
Ref: 2664

These records are very important for local history, and the family history of those who were tenants of the estate, as well as for the history of the owners themselves. Lacock itself is a very special village which has remained virtually unchanged for decades, thanks to the generous gift of the village by the Talbot family, to the National Trust. Since family connections and interests rarely remain within one county, the range of this collection extends to other parts of the country, including Shropshire and Worcestershire, and, even, overseas. However, material within a collection is often so inextricably linked it is not always feasible or appropriate to split it up among archive repositories. Any large estate or family archive is like a complex jigsaw puzzle – the pieces of it interlink and it is vitally important to keep this collection in public hands and to ensure it is not split up at auction and its historical value diminished.

This month (December 2011) we have just heard that our application has gone through to the next stage, where it will be developed into a detailed project. This is very good news – it means the HLF believe this is a worthwhile project – however there is still a lot of work to be done. The aim of the project is to make this wonderful collection more accessible to the public by cataloguing it, repairing any fragile material, and finding innovative ways to promote its use. One way of doing this will be through the creation of a website optimised for mobile phone use, which will not just include information about the archives but also images and oral history recordings of reminiscences by local residents. There will be a range of community participation activities to support the creation of content and to promote the collection’s use. There will also be separate on-line material specially designed for schools to use. The project will need full community support and lots of volunteer time if it is to be successful.

If you would like to get involved we would love to hear from you – all are welcome to attend  a public meeting on Thursday 26 January 2012, at 4 pm, at Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, Cocklebury Road, Chippenham SN15 3QN.

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As this is the time of year that we are allowed to ‘eat, drink and be merry’, here we take a look at some culinary delights...!

Taken from theWiltshire Times,
13th December, 1930 

Tim Woodman compiled a collection of old recipes and remedies in 1988, taken from around Wiltshire over the previous 25 years. Most have been handed down through generations.

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I regularly mention the fantastic objects that you can find in Wiltshire’s museums but did you know that they also hold impressive art collections?

Museums of all sizes have paintings and prints depicting local scenes or created by artists who lived in the area. Not all of these will be household names, but they are still a valuable part of the story of life in Wiltshire which museums tell.

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Following the death in October of David Croft, co-creator of the much loved classic TV series Dad’s Army which was based on his own experiences as a member of the Home Guard, I was interested to find out how the Home Guard operated in Wiltshire.

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