The need of local historians to share ideas and network with a wide range of people from other localities with similar interests has brought together in Winchester an unrivalled gathering of those telling the story of the county, writes Barry Shurlock…

 

PUT a crowd of local historians in the same space and they will soon start swapping stories – about amazing incidents from the past that happened in their community and have lain hidden in the archives.

Like all enthusiasts, they will also show off their latest publication and discuss adventures in the digital world – the growing number of sources, opportunities for self-publishing, Facebook and other platforms, as well as plans to digitize their archives, currently taking up space in “the spare room”.

Add this to time-tested visits to the huge collections of the Southampton Archives and the Hampshire Record Office and elsewhere, as well as networking with people with personal stores of documents and photographs, and you have an unrivalled formula for recording and studying the county history.

Such issues were highlighted last Saturday at one of the most important gatherings of local historians in the county for many years.  This was organized by the Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society in concert with the Winchester Heritage Open Days and held in the Elizabeth II building of the Hampshire County Council.

On the menu were tips for pitching articles to a wider specialist audience, via such outlets as Hampshire Studies, Southern History and Hampshire Papers, from former HFC president Dick Selwood and Professor Michael Hicks. In an age when “publication” can be instant, the need for peer review may be annoying and slow things down. And some editors can be ‘very picky’. But hopefully all in the interests of a better end product

More than an estimated 200 people from all corners of the county – family historians, local historians and the plain curious - came to find the latest news on an activity which is occupying more and more people from all walks of life. They came from all points of the compass - Hayling Island, Petersfield, Kingclere, Romsey – and elsewhere – to explore an exhibition with 17 stalls and nine talks given by experts. There were impressive displays from Eastleigh and Bishopstoke, Alresford, Titchfield, Bitterne, Micheldever, the Worthys and the Sombornes.

Local history, which was once only “for the elite”, has now become universally accessible, Dr Roger Ottewill reminded the meeting, charting its popularisation in newspapers and elsewhere. The digitisation of old photographs and other visual material – widely posted online – as well as recordings, is creating what he called “blended history”.

An exhibit by the Southampton Records Series highlighted the fact that the city has one of the most important collections of records of life “in all its diversity”. The current series of 50 volumes (an earlier series ran from 1905 until it came to an end in 1940) started in 1951 with an account of Italian Merchants and Shipping in Southampton over the period 1260-1600. Most recently it published the Remembrance Book of three men in the 16th century by Dr Cheryl Butler. 

Cheryl used the source to tell the story of William Ghost, a Southampton mariner, lodging housekeeper, privateer and tippler (seller of drink). She brought to life a time when the sea lapped at the city walls and men (yes, all men) lived a life on the edge, with perilous voyages to the fisheries of Newfoundland and plundering foreign vessels.

Ghost started crewing on vessels owned by others, such as Dennis Rowse, a Guernseyman, a member of the French Protestant church in the city, often witness to the troubled world of the 16th century. There are tales of his son, who got the “French pox” from molesting a servant girl, a miller found guilty of mixing sand with wheat and the sad case of a boy “dismembered by a lunatic”.

Eventually Ghost was able to buy his own vessel. Forensic examination of the archives shows that he probably did so by keeping a prize of “600 ducats”, rather than sharing it with others. The records also mention a “blackamoor” lodging with the Ghost family, who apparently gained his freedom from enslavement in the Caribbean by working a voyage to Southampton.

On display were Victoria County History “shorts”, small books on particular communities (currently all around Basingstoke) that are a stage on the path to a new edition of the “red books”, with a greater emphasis on a wide view of history, covering socioeconomic factors and other aspects (available from: jeanmorrin@btinternet.com).

Other county-wide organisations at the event included the Hampshire Industrial Archaeology Society, the Hampshire Archives Trust, and the Hampshire Genealogical Society. Fiona Roper, an HGA trustee and professional genealogist spoke about “digging up” ancestors.

A good start for any family historian is “asking the family” and making use of what is readily available – the sort of stuff that easily gets thrown out – letters and postcard, old passports, medical records, newspaper cutting, photographs, medals (especially the details engraved around the edge), as well as BMD certificates.

Online sources are, of course, are invaluable, but Fiona highlighted the important differences between the various documents, which record different sets of data, sometimes scanned from the originals but also transcribed, with the consequent risk of errors. Free sources, with various caveats, include freebmd.org.uk. freecen.org.uk and freereg.org.uk.

The Romsey Local History Society, which is one of the few groups to have its own dedicated premises, displayed the huge number of low-cost publications it has produced over the years. Amongst its ongoing projects is an encyclopaedic Survey of Romsey and a comprehensive trawling of the Romsey Advertiser during the years of WWII.

This is being carried out by Phoebe Merrick, who told the meeting that the war brought tank traps to Middlebridge Street, there was feud between the Women’s Voluntary Service and the local WI about supervision of evacuation, and thousands of pounds were raised by schemes such as “Salute the Soldier” and “Attack with Savings”.

This novel project is bringing to light the realities of life in the town, how children evacuated from Portsmouth and Gosport were lined up to be “selected” by the people they were to stay with – and how many of them preferred to go back home!

The meeting showed once more the sheer scope of subjects that any historian in the county can cover. Author Erica Wheeler, editor of Worthy History, picked through some of the nuggets brought together in her Little Book of Hampshire, published by The History Press.

In late 1770s a major front-page story was the attempt by Jack the Painter to set fire to Portsmouth Dockyard for which he was hanged. A century later, before fingerprints and DNA, the county was enthralled by the drama of the Tichborne Trial, when a butcher from Wapping claimed inheritance of the family fortune. 

Amongst the many other stories that Erica covers in the book is the collapsible lifeboat invented by Romsey cleric the Rev Edward Berthon (the name continues in a boatyard in Lymington), the School of Ballooning and the aviation pioneer Samuel Cody, the artist George Marston born in Southsea who accompanied Shackleton on two expeditions to Antartica, the 1940s film star Belita Jepson-Turner, born in Nether Wallop and much much else.

The meeting also heard the latest research on the Captain Swing Riots and plans to mark the bicentenary in 2030 from Edward Fennell and Professor Bill Lucas, which will be covered on this page in later articles.

 

CAPTIONS

 

 

Dr Cheryl Butler, author of recent addition to Southampton Records Series

 

Wealth of reading from Titchfield History Society

 

Wrapt attention at Somborne & District Society stall

 

Hampshire History Trust, supporters of the event and organisers of the Winchester HODs

 

Packed audience in the Ashburton Hall

 

 

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