LOCAL ARCHIVES
The obvious source for local history are local history libraries (which hold archives), borough or county record offices, established from the 1920s to the 1970s. Most readers will be familiar with these, for their holdings of information in a narrow number of sources which relate directly to their ancestors, for example, parish registers, local census returns, militia lists and so on. Local archives are under the jurisdiction of a local government unit, usually a county or a borough council, and are usually financed and administered by them. They are not the only source of relevant archives, as we will learn in the next chapter, but they are important and probably should be the first port of call. This is not just for the information they contain, but also because of the staff there. They will know the collections well from having worked there for some time, possibly many years, and may well have lectured on aspects of their district’s local history or even have written local history books.
Local Government
The archives in these places have accrued over many years. Their core is the records of the administration of the jurisdiction and its predecessor bodies and often date back some centuries (in the case of ancient boroughs, to the early Middle Ages). It should be noted that archives are defined by being the records created by an individual or body of people in the course of their existence; they were not created for the future use of researchers but for an immediate business need. Once their original use has passed, a decision has been taken that they be preserved for research purposes. Most records do not survive (school admission registers are a common casualty), their creators or their successors having decided to dispose of them once they have ceased to be immediately useful – though if they had done otherwise there would not be the space, the money or the staff to care for them. What does survive often does so because of luck.
Archives were often kept in the Town Clerk’s department, but as the twentieth century progressed, councils financed record office departments to house, conserve, list and make available these records for public consultation. Legislation in the 1950s and 1960s allowed local government to spend money on the preservation of their records. As time passed, these places collected other archives, those of people and organisations within the same jurisdiction as its parent body, as defined by their collection policies. By the 1970s all English counties had a record office, sometimes in one location, sometimes in more than one. Many were located in the headquarters building of the local authority, but increasingly due to the demands of additional space, for record collections are not static and records accrue over time, they were housed in purpose-built record offices.
So what records can a researcher expect to find here? Often researchers concentrate solely on a narrow range of sources, such as parish registers or other documents which list individuals, but these are only the tip of the iceberg. The parish was not just a religious body, but the basic unit of local government in England from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. They dealt with the care of the poor (under the terms of the Old Poor Law of 1601–1834), the upkeep of law and order, saw to repairs of bridges, roads and the church within the parish. It was not just a case of baptisms, marriages and burials. In the course of their business they created records as they wrote down the decisions taken at meetings.
London Borough of Hillingdon Local History Centre. (Author)
The governing body of the parish was the vestry, a group of parishioners including the vicar, who made decisions about raising and spending money and selected men to carry out their resolutions. These executive officers were the churchwardens (who cared for the church fabric), the overseer/s (who oversaw the poor law) and the constable/s. There might also be a surveyor of the highway who dealt with the roads and bridges. All these kept accounts of their expenditure in order to be reimbursed at the end of their annual term of office. Some of these accounts are simple totals of money; others are itemised, listing exactly how much was spent and on what or on whom. These are far the more valuable because they show what the officers did.
Vestry minutes record the decisions taken by the vestry members, after noting the date of the meeting and those men who attended it. Those for the meeting after Easter include setting the rate to be levied on the parish’s ratepayers and choosing the officials for the year, as well as settling the accounts of the outgoing officials. Other meetings will discuss matters of policy.
The following illustration is from the Parish of Hanwell’s Vestry Minute Books:
Friday December 27 1805
At a Vestry holden this day
Present
The Revd. Mr Glasse – Rector
Mr Fownes – Churchwardens
Mr Green
Mr Bramsgrove – Overseer
Mr Compson
Mr Williams Mr Jakell
Mr Bailey
John Whitmore applied for charity – agreed that he is a proper object for the establishment at Islington under the care of Mr Mackenzie. Agreed to allow him the sume lined, and three shillings a week during the month of January at the end of which time (if he is chargeable) agreed to send him of Mr Mackenzie’s.
Thomas Ball appeared, and stated, that he was afflicted with rheumatism and totally unable to maintain his family – that his cart and horse had been seized – that his business was at an end – and his rent beyond his ability to pay.
Agreed to put him into one of the vacant houses in the half acre – and to allow him 7s a week for the support of his family – viz. Wm. Aged 13, a cripple – James aged eleven years – Henry aged nine years, and George aged seven years.
Agreed to send the boy William to the hospital, if approved by Mr Morris.
George Henry Glasse
Jno. Fownes
Thos. Green
Thos. Bramsgrove.
Apart from mentioning individuals – vestry members and those assisted – it also shows the working of the poor law in the said parish, which effects would have been known to fellow parishioners. If you can find such records for a parish at the time when your ancestor lived there, then this provides a background to their lives.
The other key body in local government at this time were the justices of the peace in the quarter sessions in the counties, and corporations headed by a mayor and aldermen in larger towns and cities. The quarter sessions was made up of justices of the peace, usually county gentlemen and clergy, who met formally in session four times a year. These were chiefly responsible for law and order, but they also dealt with the lower tier of local government, the parishes, arbitrating between them when they fell into dispute (usually over whose responsibility it was to pay poor relief to particular parties). Corporations also served to regulate trade and often provided basic infrastructure.
Both these types of organisation created records. Their core records were the minute or order books; they recorded similar types of information as the vestry minutes, but also on occasions of great pageantry and national importance.
The Oxford Corporation noted on 12 March 1702:
A proclamation of the accession of Princess Anne of Denmark as Queen of England having been received and the mayor acquainting the house that he intends the celebration to take place this day, it is agreed that for the honour of this ‘Solemnity’ a quantity of claret be spent by putting it into the conduit and running it in two pipes, eastwards and southwards, and that so many barrels of beer be spent among the freemen and such other entertainments for the Council Chamber be provided as thought fit and all expenses shall be borne by the City. For the order and solemnity it is agreed that it be on horseback: the Mayor and Recorder to ride with foot cloths, the Mayor, aldermen, thirteen bailiffs, and such others who have had been bailiffs and have gowns, to ride in their scarlet gowns, and such other members of the house who have good horses to ride in their gowns and take horse at the Guildhall; then John Moulden to ride first to make way; next the petty constables on foot with their long staves; then the trumpeters, the bailiffs’ serjeants with their maces; then the bailiffs with their white staves; then the town clerk and the macebearer with the great mace; then the Mayor, the Recorder, and the senior aldermen, then the rest of the thirteen, two and two; and all such as have been bailiffs and have scarlet gowns to ride in seniority next the thirteen, and then such members as have good horses to ride next in seniority.
The order of proclamation to be done in the places and manner following:- the proclamation is to be first made at Carfax, on the east side of the conduit, to ride thence to St. Mary’s and there do it again, thence to East Gate and then back again over to Carfax and to the South Gate, starting at the ‘Laine’s End’ and there do it again, thence through Pennyfarthing Street to West Gate and then do it again, and thence up the old Butcher Row and so over Carfax again to the North Gate and then proclaim it again and from thence back again over Carfax to the Guildhall again.
This, then, relates what happened when Oxford celebrated the accession of the new monarch, Queen Anne, when she succeeded to the throne in 1702. It is probably safe to assume that most residents would have attended, even if only to add a little colour to their otherwise humdrum lives, rather than to show their allegiance to the new monarch. It was clearly a colourful spectacle, and with drink flowing free of charge, an enjoyable one. It is probable that, if your ancestors resided in the city or were at one of the colleges at this time, they would have known about these celebrations and probably attended as spectators and had some of the free drink.
In the nineteenth century, central government demanded more and more of local government, to meet the perceived changing needs of the country, especially in the fields of public health, poverty and infrastructure. Parishes united with their neighbours to undertake some tasks, notably poor relief, following the introduction of the New Poor Law of 1834, leading to Boards of Guardians being formed to build workhouses, in which poor relief was increasingly, though by no means universally, administered (for useful background material, see www.workhouses.org.uk). Lighting and drainage and the provision of cemeteries were three major issues resulting from legislation aimed at improving the health of the country. Initially no new forms of government were introduced, but vestries established subcommittees to deal with the work required and by reading their minutes we can see how a community was changing. Additional bodies came into being to regulate lighting and burials. New legislation led to Local Boards of Health being created, with additional powers as those of the parishes were diminished. All these bodies created records of their decisions and actions.
In 1888 the Local Government Act led to the creation of county councils, and from 1894, urban and rural district councils; quarter sessions were reduced to being criminal courts, as their administrative role was passed to the county councils. These new bodies were made up of elected representatives and they employed professional and permanent salaried employees (the parishes did not, on the whole, pay salaries). They were also given the responsibility for many public duties. They governed by committees, each with differing responsibilities. Likewise, in the towns, corporations became increasingly bureaucratic and professional. Throughout the twentieth century, councils took on more and more powers, such as over health, housing and education. Beneath the rural and urban district councils were parish councils (not to be confused, as in The Vicar of Dibley, with the parochial church councils, which dealt with purely religious matters), whose powers were very local and limited, and they are also creators of records to provide evidence of their activity.
The system has remained roughly the same since then, but there have been changes. Some boroughs have merged to form fewer but larger units. In 1974 the county system changed; the West Riding of Yorkshire split between the newly created West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire; the East Riding became part of the newly created Humberside; in the southwest a new county termed Avon was created, and Cumberland and Westmorland became Cumbria. Rutland was absorbed into Lincolnshire. In the 1990s, some of these county boundaries were altered yet again.
All these councils have generated an immense amount of paper, recording what they did, just as the county and quarter sessions had. Many of these public records date back centuries; those of corporations may date back to the Middle Ages; those of the parish to the sixteenth century. Yet unbroken runs of centuries of records cannot be taken for granted. Minute books usually survive, but additional papers – drafts, plans, accounts – may not always do so.
We should also reconsider traditional family history sources. Parish registers are a well-known source for family historians to track down baptisms, marriages and burials of family members. Once this has been done, they are unlikely to be reused. Yet they do have a further value. Parish registers are also a key source for the local historian, especially one interested in population history prior to the national census of 1801. They tell a great deal about aspects of a community’s history. For instance, if in one particular year there are but ten baptisms and your ancestor’s is amongst them, it suggests that the birth of a child was relatively unusual and therefore more significant than it would have been in a well-populated parish. Or if there were a large number of deaths in a plague year and your ancestors were not among them, this suggests they may have left the district temporarily or were very lucky indeed. In any case, the plague made an impact on their lives. Or were there many deaths at the same time as one of your ancestors died? If so, this puts their deaths into their local context. Clergymen often made comments about local people and events in the margins of these registers, which can give additional insights into contemporary life.
The same reasoning can be applied to poor law records which often feature significantly within parish archives as the parish dealt with the poor law from 1601 to 1834 and often beyond. If an ancestor is found to have been in receipt of poor relief, check the records to see who else received it. Were the amounts (or goods) received different? Were the payments made for different periods of time? If many men were in receipt of such benefits it suggests a local or national economic depression leading to unemployment. Or for an elderly person, it may be interesting to note how many others were in receipt of pension payments. Once an ancestor’s name has been found in parish records, look at the adjacent pages of the same source, which will tell more about the parish they lived in and ultimately more about their own lives.
The Boards of Guardians dealt with poor relief following the introduction of the New Poor Law in 1834. These were bodies made up of representatives from a number of parishes, often adjacent to one another and known as Unions. They often built workhouses in order to house the poor who were in need of relief, but they did not wholly obliterate the older tradition of outdoor relief. These bodies created records of their activities, in building the workhouses and administering them. Admission and discharge registers, creed registers and indoor relief registers are the usual sources sought after by family historians as the other sources (e.g. minutes of the Guardians’ meetings, annual reports and accounts) do not list names of inmates. Yet the minute books give an insight into conditions at the workhouse. Plans show what the workhouse looked like (especially valuable because often the original buildings are long demolished or if not are used for a wholly different purpose).
In the later nineteenth century, decisions were taken not only by the full council, but by numerous committees, made up of councillors, officials and specially picked members of the public with relevant knowledge and experience. They dealt with a great number of issues including finance, public health, public housing (these two were especially important after 1918), works (which included granting permission for construction – or not – to builders and for the erection of infrastructure such as street lighting), public libraries, parks and open spaces and many others. During the World Wars there were additional committees for the duration of the conflicts, dealing with civil defence, recruitment and so forth. Minute books note the decisions taken at these monthly or weekly meetings, of policies, proposals, action to be taken, by whom and when, expenditure to be undertaken and the progress of action already ordered.
The number of these minute books makes their examination seem daunting, especially if the indexes are non-existent or rudimentary at best. Yet not all will be relevant; finance is unlikely to be so; likewise parks and libraries. Yet the Housing Committee minutes may be of use if your ancestors lived in the council housing which could be built from the mid-nineteenth century but which was rarely built until after 1918, and more so, after 1945. These minute books could well provide background information on the houses or flats that your ancestors inhabited. Civil defence minute books could also be useful for life in a locality during the World Wars, and are more likely to be franker than accounts in the censored local press of the time.
Civil defence archives were created during the Second World War as the responsibilities of local authorities were expanded to deal with the emergency created by war. They do not always survive, but where they do they can be very extensive. They can deal with information about air raid incidents, listing where bombs fell, what damage they did, type of bomb and details of the recovery operation. Property was requisitioned either to be used as emergency accommodation for families whose homes were destroyed in bombing, or to be used as furniture stores for damaged properties. Open land, including parks and commons, was set aside for allotments in order to help grow more food. Papers dealing with this often include plans and regulations and even names of allotment holders. Listings of public air raid shelters and correspondence about their construction and decommissioning can be found among these files. Air raid warning posts and equipment issued to workers can also be detailed in these files. As these papers were not generally public, they can include criticisms and difficulties faced on the Home Front that would not have been publicised at the time.
Both World Wars resulted in war memorials being made to commemorate the sacrifices made by the locality’s population. These can vary considerably. Not everywhere has a war memorial as such, but there was usually a committee formed to debate what should be done. Often, as well as a memorial with names, there might be more practical ways to assist the families of the fallen, such as putting aside money raised for scholarships or other educational uses for children who had lost their father.
Local authorities were also responsible for schooling from the late nineteenth century and so education archives often survive within their holdings. Often the family historian can restrict themselves to admission registers and less often punishment books. However, these records, especially the former, rarely survive, mostly because their use is apparently over when the particular intake of pupils a book covers no longer attends the school. They are only required to be kept for three years after their final date in any case and may be closed for lengthy periods due to data protection legislation.
Overlooked, though they survive in far greater quantities, are school log books. Often neglected because they very rarely mention pupils by name unless for exceptional reasons, they are an invaluable source for the history of a particular school. If you can learn which school your ancestor/s attended, perhaps through the admission registers (which give little information save the name of the pupil, their address, father’s name, date of birth and years at the school), then the log books are worth inspecting. The headteacher was obliged by law to keep a record of activity at the school, in chronological order.
The ‘Instructions by the Board of Education on keeping of a School Log Book’ read as follows:
It must be kept by the principal teacher, who is required to enter in it, from time to time, such events as the introduction of new books, apparatus or course of instruction, any plan of lessons approved by the Board, the visits of managers, absence, illness, or failure of duty, on the part of any of the school staff, or as any special circumstances affecting the school, that may, for the sake of future reference, or for any other reason, deserve to be recorded. No reflections or opinions of a general character are to be entered in the log book.
The events noted also include school inspections, with results, examinations, visits by civic and religious dignitaries, health workers and occasionally celebrities. Class visits outside the school and sports days will be noted, as well as the beginning and end of terms. Special days such as those marking the end of World Wars, or Empire Day, will be noted, as are evacuation and air raids during wartime. If many pupils are absent due to a local outbreak of illness or the needs of harvesting or bad weather, these too will be recorded. Absences of teachers and their replacement by supply teachers are included. What are not included are everyday routine events, such as lessons.
Less common are minute books of the school’s governing body; meetings of school governors or managers, or of the councillors who determined school policy and major projects. These will be even less likely to mention individual pupils, but they should deal with higher level matters which will have had an impact on a particular school/s and issues that were causing concern at particular schools. Appointment of headteachers and infrastructure is also covered in these books.
Businesses and Clubs
Local archives hold far more than the records of their parent body. Their remit, as established by their collection policy, is usually defined geographically by that of their parent body. They, therefore, collect archives of other organisations within that remit. These can include religious and political organisations, charities, clubs and societies and companies which either existed in the past and no longer do so, or perhaps still exist, and have decided to let the archives have some or all of their records in order to save them space and allow them to be used by members of the public for research purposes.
These records can include the club’s constitution/rules, minute books, treasurer’s papers and account books, annual reports/AGM agendas and minutes, membership lists, papers relating to the events that an organisation promoted. For a sports club these might include annual fixture lists of matches and social events. There might be correspondence files with possible and actual sponsors. Magazines and pamphlets produced might also feature therein. There may be photographs and memorabilia. There might even be a club history if the organisation was a long-lasting one, as well as, if the organisation no longer exists, papers about its dissolution.
Business records can include archives about production, sales, employees, shares, order book, advertising and promotional material, journals, accounts and minutes. There might be a company history.
These archives will vary in quantity. There might be relatively long and unbroken runs of minutes and other documentation, or they may be patchy. Although it is possible that these records may refer directly to ancestors, especially if they were strongly involved, perhaps as a senior committee member who played an important part in the life of the organisation, the only record might be your ancestor’s name and address and start/finishing dates of their membership/employment.
This information will only merit a line in your family history notes and so the archive itself might seem to be of very minimal value. But its value is that it will help you understand about an aspect of their life. Reading the documents which correspond with your ancestor’s association with the organisation will give insights into their time there, with an idea of the activities of the organisation with which they were probably involved. Of course, care needs to be taken here. Just because there was a dinner dance at the club pavilion on a certain date, it does not necessarily mean that your ancestor attended. They may well have done, but perhaps they were unwell or had another engagement elsewhere or were unable to attend.
Personal Archives
The personal records of individuals can also be found in some local archives. These can include correspondence, diaries and, very commonly, deeds to properties. Correspondence and diaries often contain very personal information which may be of little interest to anyone else. For instance, Henry St John who boarded at Acacia Road in Acton in the 1950s obsessively recorded the trivia of his existence, such as having lost his toothbrush, bemoaning his landlady’s culinary shortcomings and being annoyed at a fellow lodger having his TV set on at a loud volume at night time. Not very interesting perhaps, unless one takes the view that one’s own ancestor who was in lodgings might have had similar problems.
Alexander Kay Goodlet wrote in his diary on 13 February 1935:
Made a poor start and after breakfast returned to bed, so was not much help in the house till a late hour. The fact is I have a very bad cold and a damned sore chest, and that makes one a little slow.
Miss Heath and Joan and Thomasina were here to tea. Afterward I went up to Hanger Lane bridge and saw the ‘Cheltenham Flyer’ go through, the first time for months. Incidentally, was horrified to find large blocks of flats erected close to the District Railway; they must have gone up astonishingly quickly.
Later went to the Aunts’ and to Ealing. Met Peggy M. on the way back. Went to dinner with Kidd and Joan and spent a most pleasant evening. Kidd and I discussed yachting rules exhaustively.
I see that the U.S. Navy airship ‘Macon’ is wrecked in the Pacific. Two lives lost out of 83.
Very informative about the life of the diarist, but not very useful for the history of the wider community.
No, the real interest in such private papers is the light they show on wider issues that confronted a locality or a nation at the time in question. Samuel Pepys’s diary entries for 1666 give a unique insight into the experience of Londoners during the Great Fire, for instance. It is always worth finding out if any diaries or letters for a particular district coincide with your ancestor’s life there, and if so they are worth reading. They are of even greater value if that diarist/correspondent has points in common with your ancestor, the same politics/religion/age/occupation/social class/sex and so on, because they may have had a similar outlook to that of your ancestor. Not necessarily of course; not everyone who is working class votes Labour, for instance and not all Catholics rigidly adhere to the doctrines of their church.
Attitudes expressed in diaries and letters are not necessarily those shared universally. Diaries and letters written during the Second World War show a variety of emotions. There is fear, there is stoicism and bravery and there is anger. Alexander Goodlet, the Ealing diarist in the 1930s just quoted, notes his dismay at the appeasement policies of the Chamberlain government at Munich in 1938. Yet this was not a popular position in Britain at that time, with most relieved (in the short term) of the need to face imminent death and destruction by bombing raids (as highlighted in the local press at the time).
Property Records
Deeds often exist in local repositories in great numbers. Until the late twentieth century it was necessary to produce deeds in great number in order to proceed with a property transaction and so individuals and solicitors often retained every deed relating to a property, often going back decades or even centuries. This is no longer necessary and so many deed collections have been passed by solicitors and others to record repositories (many have been destroyed or sold, however). Deeds mention individuals, of course, chiefly the buyer/tenant and seller/landlord, with their addresses and possibly occupations, along with other parties, such as spouses or family members or business partners.
Letter relating to a purchase of an estate, 1765. (Paul Lang)
Their real value lies in the details they give of a property, which may no longer be in existence. If your ancestors were involved in this property in whatever capacity (perhaps by renting it), they are of obvious interest. The deed will usually recount exactly what is in the property, house and grounds or flat, usually with dimensions and possibly a block plan. It should also recount the previous deeds to the property and so give the reader a brief history of the property and its changing hands over the years.
Deeds only exist for a minority of properties. But if your ancestors lived in London, Middlesex or Yorkshire from the early eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries, there are registries of deeds held at the London Metropolitan Archives, Wakefield Archives (for the West Riding of Yorkshire, what has been since 1974 West and South Yorkshire) and North Yorkshire Record Office for the North Riding). These provide abstracts of deeds and can be accessed by indexes, usually organised by year and then by the name of the seller.
Religious Archives
Religious bodies are also important even after the role of the Anglican Church in local government and testamentary administration faded away in the nineteenth century. Parish vestries had less work to do, but were still active in administering parish charities and acting as an advisory body and as a public forum on local issues. By the early twentieth century, they had been replaced by parochial church councils (not to be confused with parish councils, which are wholly secular bodies), whose sole remit was church affairs. Record of churches’ Sunday Schools, youth clubs and women’s fellowships can be also of great interest in recording the life of the church and its people. We should also remember that each parish is part of a large diocese, which also creates records, including visitation records which are inspections of activity in each parish.
Protestant nonconformist and Catholic churches were not part of the Anglican administrative hierarchy of the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. Yet they were churches which had loyal congregations. And more importantly, they kept records. Catholic churches belong to dioceses, just as Anglican ones do, but nonconformity was variously organised. Methodist chapels are organised into circuits of chapels and were run by trustees. Their records include those of trustees, leaders, youth groups, treasurers and building, and can include minutes, plans, deeds, AGM records and many more which give an insight into the operation of these institutions.
Archives can be located by using the very useful Discovery website (once access to archives) hosted by the invaluable The National Archives website. This is a database of archives in English and Welsh archives, including the contents of The National Archives, which is annually updated. Searches can be made by name of organisation and can be further defined by geographical location and/or by name of repository. Archives are listed by type of record and date ranges for each one, down to item level (a term meaning an individual document, such as a minute book or a file of correspondence). Repositories often have their collections catalogued by archives software such as CALM and these are usually available online, on the archive’s website. Searching by organisation as well as name can save much time by highlighting the whereabouts of potentially relevant information.
They should also note any restrictions on the accessibility of the said archives. Relatively recent material, anything from the early twentieth century onwards, may be closed due to concerns about the confidentiality of information contained therein. Court registers from the 1950s, for instance, are usually closed at present. Or documents might be closed because they are too fragile and need (often expensive) conservation work. Or they may be temporarily inaccessible due to storage issues. It is always worth enquiring about these items in case they can be made accessible at some stage in the future. A Freedom of Information request may also bear fruit.
Finally, do not forget that many archives, often dating back to the nineteenth century and beyond, are still held by the institution or organisation which created them. Schools and churches have often deposited their archives in a recognised place of deposit, but many have not done so, and so it is always worth contacting a place to see whether they have the archives sought and whether they can be viewed.
Exterior of an eighteenth-century letter. (Paul Lang)
Archives are unique. Whereas many copies of a newspaper, a map, a book or a postcard are created, there will only be one minute book for the Blankshire Public Health Committee for 1920–4. So the information contained therein will be found nowhere else. Archives have their limitations due to imperfect knowledge and bias. Yet they were written at the time of events or very shortly afterwards by those immediately involved in them. So a reaction to a particular event may well be more accurate than in a memoir or account written years later, often with posterity in mind and with the benefit of hindsight. The contents of local repositories are essential to any passing study of local and family history.