[Gutenberg 42887] • Cheshire

OXFORD COUNTY HISTORIES

CHESHIRE BY CHARLES E. KELSEY, M.A.

WITH TEN MAPS AND FORTY-NINE ILLUSTRATIONS

PREFACE

The aim of the present volume in the Oxford Series of County Histories for Schools is to assist the study of the progress of the English people by an examination of local antiquities, visits to ancient sites and buildings, and suggestions of big national movements from local incident. An attempt is made to foster the powers of observation in children by showing them how to connect various styles of architecture, for instance, with successive stages in the story of their county, and to construct from familiar objects the broad outlines of national history. Thus it is hoped that sooner or later the teaching of history may become, to some extent, an out-of-school subject and take its place side by side with outdoor Nature-study and Practical Geography in the curriculum of our schools.

In rural districts this end is obviously more easily attainable than in large industrial centres. In the latter the expense of moving classes of children from their schools to visit a site some miles distant would be no doubt considerable; but is it too visionary to hope that before long a motor-bus, capable of carrying a class of thirty or forty boys and girls, will be deemed by Educational Committees a necessary part of their 'apparatus'?

Apart from the educative value of such work there would, as the children grow up, arise a body of public opinion which could give valuable help in saving historic sites and buildings from loss or destruction, and preventing the removal of antiquities from their natural home. Cheshire has suffered perhaps more than her share of both these evils, and looks with sorrowful eyes at many of her treasures housed in the museums of towns beyond her borders.

CONTENTS

1\. Position and Natural Features of Cheshire

2\. The Making of Cheshire (1)

3\. The Making of Cheshire (continued) (2)

4\. Early Inhabitants of Cheshire

5\. The Romans in Cheshire (1)

6\. The Romans in Cheshire (2)

7\. Saxons and Angles come to Cheshire

8\. The Cross in Cheshire

9\. The Coming of the Northmen

10\. The Normans come to Cheshire

11\. The Norman Abbeys and Churches of Cheshire

12\. The Earls of the County Palatine

13\. The Churches of the Thirteenth Century

14\. Growth of Towns in Cheshire

15\. Edward the First and Cheshire

16\. The Coming of the Friars

17\. A Deposed King

18\. The Rival Roses

19\. Churches of the Middle Ages

20\. The Reformation and the Great Awakening

21\. Elizabethan Cheshire (1)

22\. Elizabethan Cheshire (2)

23\. The Rule of the Stuarts

24\. Civil War: (1) The Battles of Middlewich and Nantwich

25\. Civil War: (2) A Memorable Siege

26\. Civil War: (3) The Protectorate and the Restoration

27\. The Fall of the Stuarts

28\. The Eighteenth Century (1)

29\. The Eighteenth Century (1)

30\. The Industrial Revolution (1)

31\. The Industrial Revolution (2)

32\. The Railways of Cheshire

33\. Progress and Reform in the Nineteenth Century

34\. The Reign of a Great Queen

35\. Famous Men and Women of Cheshire

36\. Conclusion