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L I N C O L N S H I R E A R C H I V E S C O M M I T T E E

ARCHIVISTS’REPORT

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1st April 1967 16th March 1968

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Contents

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

CONSTITUENT AUTHORITIES :

Holland County Counciland Quarter Sessions . . . . . . . . . . . .

Lincoln, Town clerk’s papers . . . . . . . . . . . .

DEPOSITED RECORDS :

Coltman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Hospital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Larken . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Lincoln Land and Building Society . . . . . . . . .

Monson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Newton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Page & Co. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Taylor, Glover & Hill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Tweed and Peacock . . . . . . . . . . , . . . .

Other Gifts and Deposits . . . . . . . . . . . .

DRAINAGE RECORDS :

Deeping Fen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

DIOCESAN RECORDS :

Registrar’s room . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

PARISH RECORDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

RECORDS IN OTHER ,CUSTODY:

Goulding . . . , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

National Farmers’ Uni’on . . . . . . . . . . .

USE OF THE OFFICE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

PUBLICATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

FURTHER ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . . . . . . . . .

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Lincolnshire Archives Committee

Representing Lindsey County Council :Alderman Sir Weston Cracroft-Amcotts, M.C., D.L.Alderman A. W. Harrison, O.B.E.Alderman Lt. Col. J. E. Sandars, O.B.E., T.D., D.L.Councillor W. II. CrowderCouncillor A. J. Massingberd-MundyCouncillor W. E. RamsdenCouncillor A. E. Wright

Representing Kesteven County Council :Alderman the Earl of Ancaster, L.L., T.D. (chairman)Alderman Capt. H. W. N. Fane, D.L.Councillor B. L. Barker

Representing Holland County Council :Councillor J. II. DellCouncillor C. F. Ford

Representing the City of Lincoln :Alderman Sir Francis Hill, C.B.E., M.A., LLM., Litt.D., D.Litt., F.&A.

(vice-chairman)Councillor J. T. WardCouncillor G. T. Blades

TECHNICAL AND ADVISORY SUB-COMMITTEE

The Earl of Ancaster, L.L., T.D. (Custos rotulorum)The Reverend Canon P. B. G. Binnall, M.A., F.S.A. (representing the Bishop of Lincoln)The Reverend Canon N. S. Rathbone, M.A.

(representing the Dean and Chapter of Lincoln)Professor E. Miller, M.A. (representing the University of Sheffield)R. L. Storey, Esq., M.A., Ph.D. (representing the University of Nottingham)F. W. Brooks, Esq., M.A. (representing the University of Hull)G. H. Martin, Esq., D.Phil. (representing the University of Leicester)Professor K. Major, M.A., B. Litt., D. Litt. (representing the Lincoln Record Society)P. S. Scorer, Esq. (representing the Lincolnshire Law Society)G. S. Dixon, Esq., M.A., F.S.A. (representing the Lincolnshire Local History Society)H. J. J. Griffith, Esq. (Lincoln Diocesan Registrar)Miss J. S. Lumsden, M.A., F.L.A. (Kesteven County Librarian)E. H. Roberts, Esq., F.L.A. (Lindsey and Holland County Librarian)F. T. Baker, Esq., M.A., A.L.A., F.M.A., F.S.A. (Director, Lincoln Public Library)Alderman Sir Weston Cracroft-Amcotts, M.C., D.L.

(representing the Lincolnshire Archives Committee)Alderman Capt. H. W. N. Fane, D.L. (ditto)Councillor C. F. Ford (ditto)Alderman A. W. Harrison, O.B.E. (ditto)Alderman Sir Francis Hill,

C.B.E., M.A., LL.M., Litt.D., D.Litt., F.S.A:fchairman) (ditto)

OFFICERS

Clerk of the Committee : J. E. Blow, Esq., County Offices, Sleaford, Lines.Treasurer : K. R. Hounsome, Esq., F.I.M.T.A.Surveyor : A. Ronald Clark, Esq., A.R.I.B.A., A.M.T.P.I.Archivist : Mrs. J. Varley, M.A., F.S.A., Lincolnshire Archives Office, The Castle, LincolnFirst Assistant Archivist : C. M. Lloyd, Esq., B.A.Second Assistant Archivist : Miss M. E. Finch, M.A., Ph.D.Third Assistant Archivist : Miss Judith A. Cripps. B.A.

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I N T R O D U C T I O N

When a great scholar and personality dies, whose work has beenan inspiration to his own and succeeding generations and whose teachingand administrative ability has brought him into touch with most partsof the land, each place and organisation with which he has beenassociated is tempted to claim him as in some way their own. So is itwith Lincoln and Sir Frank Stenton. The Historical Association has paidits tribute at national level in History (vol. LIII no. 177, Feb. 1968)

the Lincoln Record Society is to commemorate him in the next volumeof the work which was dear to his heart (The Registrum Antiquissimumof the Cathedral Church of Lincoln) the British Records’ Association isto publish a tribute from Mrs. D. M. Owen former,assistant archivist andthe archivist in the next number of Archives. In this report it shouldbe recalled how Sir Frank’s advice was sought and valued in the settingup of the Lincoln Diocesan Record Office, from which the present officehas grown. It should also be remembered what pleasure and encourage-ment was given by his visits to the Office when attending the meetingsof the Lincoln Record Society and how he praised the work of localrecord offices in his address to the British Records’ Associati.on in 1956.

This year for the first time the number of reader visits was over2,000. More information on the use of the office by readers and corres-pondents will be found under the heading of ‘ Use of the Office ’ (p. 70).

In this report Mr. Lloyd has dealt with sections on Tweed andPeacock, the Lincoln Land and Building Society, Page and Co.,Hospital records, and papers from the Town Clerk’s office. He alsosummarized the work done by the three assistant archivists on Taylor,Glover and Hill and contributed the note of St. Paul in the Bail for theparish records section. Dr. Finch has listed and written on the Larkenpapers, some records from the Registrar’s room and Gainsborough HolyTrinity and Lincoln St. Andrew’s parishes. Miss Cripps, whose first yearin the office has amply borne out the promise of her academic distinction,has list,ed and reported on the Goulding papers on temporary deposit,the Coltman family documents and provided the parish records summary.All archivists have been concerned with work on the items summarisedin miscellaneous gifts and deposits, and in dealing with readers andenquiries. All members of the staff working in teams during the closedfortnight tackled some large scale sorting, tidying and cleaning jobswhich make a great difference to ease of production once they have beencompleted. Mrs. Bee1 and Miss Green, in addition to clerical duties, havebeen busy with photocopying and microfilming and it is hoped that thenew Apeco photocopies will make the former task more satisfactory andless time consuming. The typing of lists is reasonably well up to date.Miss %reen, whose increasingly efficient service and enterprizing dis-position was much appreciated, left the office in November and has beenreplaced by Miss Jennifer Noonan. Mr. Wilson is kept very busy withthe production of documents, a task which with more reader visits andmore documents, occupies more time, and he and Mrs. Corby continueto cope devotedly with the cleaning problems of the office and repository.Although Mrs. Playford is still in part-time service following her seriousaccident in 1966, she has done some very valuable repair work, amount-ing to 500 sheets of paper and parchment. Among the documentsrepaired are the survey of Sir William Pelham’s estates in 1587 in theEarl of Yarborough’s deposit and the Holland quarter sessions tile onapprenticeship in 1621-2 mentioned on page 7, which were too frail for

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use, and she has also repaired a box of probate inventories. During theueriod between Miss Steele’s leaving and Miss Cripps’ arrival, Miss MaryEminson who had previously worked as a volunteer, came for twomonths as a temporary assistant. She listed part of the Newton papersand the second Dawson deposit and gave ready and cheerful help withreaders and enquiries.

It is a great pleasure to record the help of volunteers in theinexhaustible tasks of the office. Mr. Denis Marlow who had retiredfrom his position as the head of the export division of the RustonBucyrus Company, offered his services and worked practically full timefrom July 1967 to mid January 1968. His kind help was given subjectto recall to work for his company but there is a lively hope of favoursstill to come. His work on the Monson correspondence is described onp. 23, and he gave enthusiastic help during the closed fortnight. Mrs.Collis who has come once a week except during a recent illness, hascompleted her work .on a section of the Kirton Manor records and isnow indexing wills in the registered copies post 1857. Miss Cave hasdone some further work on the faculty papers but unfortunately she hasdifficulty in coming as often as in former years and her help has beenmissed.. Mr. Barley has indexed the faculty papers as far as they havebeen listed. Mr. C. T. Page and Mr. N. C. Birch have made a start onsorting, listing and wrapping the deposited plans of William Wrightand Son, builders. Miss Kathryn Lee and Miss Rosemary Whitney cameto spend a week working in the office as part of their post examinationactivities from the Lincoln Christ’s Hospital Girls’ High School. Theylisted and indexed non-residence licences and helped with some sorting.

C O N S T I T U E N T AUTHORITI,ES

HOLLAND QUARTER SESSIONS

These records were, originally listed ilz situ at the County Offices,Boston (Archivists’ Report 1948-50 pages 10-13) and most of themdeposited, by agreement with the Clerk of the County Council, in 1957.Awards of drainage and enclosure and deposited plans remain at Bostonand various continuing classes of records were deposited only to anagreed date, for example sessions minutes to 1889, sessions rolls to 1898.On arrival the> records were arranged in order on shelves mainly inparcels or between boards but not fully.wrapped, and the list annotatedto show what had come and what had remained at Boston. During theclosed fortnight last October, it was decided to make one of the tasksthe checking of these deposited records, the making of a list of depositsonly and the cleaning, boxing and labelling of the imperfectly wrappeditems. In this task the archivist was assisted by Mr. Marlow and Mr.Wilson, with subsequent .help from Miss ,Cripps and Mrs. Collis.

During the checking a few items were noted that were not referredto in Archivists’ Report 1948-p. Among some fragments apparentlyfrom sessions rolls was a file, of papers relating to the administration ofsome aspects of the poor law at Spalding, 1618-22. The file wasapparently put together and sent as a kind of return to an order signedand sealed by John Camlyn, knight and Bevil Wimberley and NicholasEvington esquires, justices of the peace, to the constables, church-wardens and overseers of Spalding. This order referred to an ordermade in 1618 by Henry Hobart and Edward Bromley, justices of assize,

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at the Castle, Lincoln (a copy of which was also on file) ordering justicesof the peace to take a view in their areas of freeholders, farmers andother sufficient persons able to take apprentices and’ of all the childrenof persons unable to maintain them, to arrange for the apprenticeshipof the children and to certify to the justices of assize what they haddone. Mention was further made of the reception of the certificates and

) their transmission to the King “ Who did much applaud these firstproceedings and -gave commandment that as well the said justices ofassize as the justices of the peace should have care that these childrenshould be kept and trained in the service to which they had been put.”Defaulters either in keeping the apprentices or seeing that these childrenremained in service were ordered to be brought before the justices atSpalding. Other documents were attached to those orders. There isa list of names, apparently for investigation, arranged under districtsof the town, such as Windsover, Westclode side, Barker row, Eae side,Fen end and Churchgate, then a memorandum of “ those who haveavoyded the children put to them,” one of whom was respited andothers assigned apprentices, for example Terringham Norwood esquirewas to take John Dawson. There is a list of what poor children wereplaced as apprentices in 1618, with names of their masters, annotatedmostly ” with him still ” but one or two had died and one had goneaway and was now on a ship and one was back with his mother. Nameswere also set out of persons, taken into their homes by others, whomight become chargeable to the town, for example “ Edward Tinker,his wife and two ‘children and his father a very old man taken in byRichard Hudson ” and various other families were specified likely tobecome chargeable to the town, mentioning “ Widow Austyn hath asonne 12, at free school and a daughter 20, sickly.” Two other familieshad boys at school and one an apprentice to the bone lace man. Unfor-tunately the file is damaged by mice but it is worth noticing as a formof evidence uncommon in this county and possibly elsewhere.

Some additional work was done to make the list of records moreuseful, a parish list being made for Land Tax returns, Spalding only1743, 1780-95, and parishes in Elloe wapentake excluding Spalding,1798-1824. A parish list was made of the returns of charity accounts18.53-8. Various additions were made to the list of records not previouslynoted. Freeholders’ lists for Kirton and Skirbeck hundred of 1800 and1809 are added to those of 1812-13. Minutes of the Swineshead andFosdyk’e turnpike trustees 1842-55 were bound up with the act forobtaining returns of the turnpike trusts 1820-24. Oaths of justices ofthe peace recorded on sheets of parchment and signed have survivedfrom 1793-1827, also an account of the clerk of the peace with thejustices 1793-1827. Other records preserved by officers included com-pilations such as books with copies of charters (some in translation) ofthe borough of Boston, with extracts from assembly minutes on thebridge 1807, some notes of cases, 1833-35, regarding the borough, onevolume having Francis Thirkill’s name in, also a book of Fen brders1627-1713. There were letter books of the clerk of the peace 1885-89and a copy of a return made by the treasurer of his expenses in criminalprosecutions at quarter sessions and assizes and in the transportationof named criminals 1835-43, It should be remembered that recordsof the Spalding and Boston courts of sewers listed in Archivists’ Refort1948-50 pages 12-13, were also deposited boxed and labelled in 1957, afurther account of them appearing in Archivists’ Report 1954.5 pages4 3 - 5 2 .

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HOLLAND COUNTY COUNCIL AND POOR LAW UNION

A pile of large ledgers was deposited in 1966 from one of thetowers in the County Offices, Boston, and they also were cleaned,sorted, listed and put in order on shelves, proving to be as follows :Holland County Council : ledgers 1890-1917, 26 vols., cash b o o k

1930-I; expenditure analysis 1924-29, 3 vols., roadman’s wagesand insurance, 1935-36; ledgers, education, 1903-17, 1.5 vols.,school attendance committee, 1878-97; education committee orderson treasurer, 1912-24, 12 vols., the same payments account 1924-36,12 vols., payments, cash books, elementary education 1936-44,6 vols., higher education, 1936-44, 5 ~01s.

Boston school board ledger 1899-1903.Boston Poor Law ‘Union : general ledgers 1838-1930, 48 vols., parochial

ledgers 1874-1927, 13 ,vols., treasurers’ accounts and ledgers1913-1930, 8 VOlS., statutory financial statements 1921-30, unionfarm, sale of live and dead stock 1923-27, superannuation register1896-1906.

Boston Rural Sanitary Authority : ledgers 1873-87, 2 vols.,Sibsey Rural District Council : ledger 1895-1900.Holbeach Poor Law Union : general ledgers 1836-1930, 44 vols.,

parochial ledgers 1836, 1848-1912, 6 vols., treasurers’ accounts1926-30, 2 vols., ledger non-resident and non-settled poor, 1845-52.

Holbeach Rural Sanitary Authority : ledgers 1874-96, 3 ~01s.

LINCOLN CORPORATION

TOWN CLERK’S CORRESPONDENCE

A number of subject files of correspondence and related papers weretaken over from the Town Clerk’s Department in August 1967. It wasagreed at the time that further files would be deposited from time totime as the space became needed at the Corporation Offices. Thepresent deposit consists of files numbered from I to 262, though somenumbers are missing, and consists mainly of papers relating to the periodfrom 1912 to 1920, except occasionally where files were kept open for alonger period, and conversely where earlier documents, which wereused for reference, are found. For example, file no. 247, which relatesto the sale of the Corporation’s Buckinghamshire estate between 1918and 1922, includes a catalogue with plans relating to a sale in 1837.

No list of the files has yet been made, but a cursory glance issufficient to show that they are likely to throw light on many details ofthe life and administration of the city, especially during the war years.Many relate to purchases and sales of property, raising money bymortgage .or other means, public works and housing developments.Others refer to the approval and implementation of bye-laws and theimplementation of various Acts of Parliament and government orders,including such diverse subjects as the registration of a butter factory(227), restrictions on sales of agricultural horses (198) and coal rationing(217). A large number of files contain case papers: some of theseare prosecutions against the Council in such matters as tramway

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accidents, others relate to proceedings in cases under the Food Acts foradulterated milk and unfit meat. Of a number of more miscellaneousfiles, some help to build up a picture of the t,own in wartime, with watersupplies needed for new aerodromes at Scampton, South Carlton andWaddington (III) and heavy contractors’ traffic rumbling through thetown with materials to build them, with disastrous consequences to thecost of road-maintenance (256). Finally, there are a number of fileswhich it would be difficult to put in any category such as an unnum-bered one containing correspondence about the proposed new East Mid-lands University at Nottingham, 1918-21, and the presentation of acasket to Mr. Andrew Carnegie in 1914, in return for his gift of apublic library (32).

D E P O S I T E D R E C O R D S

COLTMAN

10 boxes of title deeds and legal papers, mainly relating to theestates of the Coltman family of Hagnaby, have been deposited byMessrs. Young, Jackson, Beard and King,Records Association. (B.R.A. 1162).

London, through the British

Hagnaby near East Kirkby is not to be confused with Hagnaby inHannah parish where before the Reformation was a small house ofPremonstratensian canons. Hagnaby itself was a gift of the founder ofRevesby Abbey, William de Roumare to the monks of the houseshortly before 1150, (Revesby Abbey Charters No. 2). The 19th centuryassumption of the name ‘ Hagnaby Priory ’ for the main residenceseems to be a romantic innovation. At the dissolution the estates ofRevesby were granted to Charles Brandon Duke of Suffolk in March1539 (L. GP. H. VIII Vol. XIV, $. 263 [jS]).

The Sidneys had intermarried with the Brandons before the meteoricrise of Charles Brandon, and the William Sidney who was grantedPenshurst by Edward VI also succeeded to part of the Revesby estatesas one of the heirs general of the Duke of Suffolk in 1551. His sonSir Henry Sidney had a Crown license in 1563 to alienate all his propertyto trustees for himself his wife and son Philip. The earliest deed amongthose deposited is a revocation of these trusts as far as they affectedthe manor of Hagnaby alias Hawneby and lands in Hagnaby andSkirbeck, dated I May, 1572. A month later the manor was sold boArchibald Barnard with 3 cottages and about 300 acres of land inHagnaby, West Keal, Steeping and Sibsey. No sum of money ismentioned in connection with the conveyance and the Sidneys reservedan annuity of &34. Archibald Barnard may have been the farmer ofHagnaby; in 1546 he was described as the servant of Katherine Duchessof Suffolk, and received a grant for life of the office of Keeper of themanor and park of Eresby and a lease of the agistment rights in thepark there saving those for 300 deer, for which he was to pay &16 p.a.(3 Ant. 8/1/3, pp. 27, 43). Four years earlier he had received lettersof denization as ‘ Archymbolde Barnarde born a subject of the king ofthe French ’ from Henry VIII at the instance of Sir Thomas Seymour.(L. G P. H. VIII, Vol. XVII, $. 266 [78]1. Of his activity between1546 and 1572 we know nothing, but he presumably found his of&ea profitable one. Immediately after purchasing Hagnaby he agreed

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to pay an annuity of 40 marks to Edward Neville of Newton St. LOO,Somerset, secured on part of the Hagnaby property, which suggests thathe had financial obligations in that direction. With the Sidney annuityalso to pay and a family of 2 sons and 7 daughters to provide for, heseems to have been hard pressed. In 1580 he received a confirmationof his artis and grant of a crest as lord of the manor of Hagnaby(Maddison : Lines. Pedigrees) but by 1590 his property there was inthe hands of Lord Burghley, who paid a consideration of &2,300. WhenArchibald Barnard died in 1595, he was described in Spilsby burialregister not as gentleman but as bailiff, presumably of Lord Willoughby.His children and grandchildren lived at Spilsby during the first half ofthe 17th century, but the best days of the Barnard family had beenshortlived. (Coltman I/ I / 1-15).

Hagnaby belonged to the Cecil family until 1708, when the trusteesof the 6th Earl of Exeter sold the property to John Holles, Duke ofNewcastle for i5,350. Shortly after the marriage of the latter’s onlydaughter and heiress Henrietta Cavendish Holles to Edward Harleylater 2nd Earl of Oxford in 1713, the Hagnaby property with otherswas invested in trustees for the benefit of Lord H&rley. In March 1716the Hagnaby estate with about 1200 acres was sold to Henry Coltmandescribed as of St. Margaret’s parish, Westminster, gent., for ;65,500.Of the founder of the Coltman family fortunes very little is knownexcept that he was born c. 1675, married in 1709 Ann, aunt of SirHenry Farnaby, Bart., and was apparently an official of the Exchequer.There is no evidence that he ever resided at Hagnaby. In 1717 therental of the Hagnaby property totalled L374 and in the same year hetook up a Crown lease for 30 years of property at Hoggesthorpe. T h r e eyears later he raised mortgages totalling ,63,000 on the property; thesewere paid off within a decade and in addition he paid ;61,700 for 70 acresin Skirbkck in 1724, and L1,040 for 120 acres in Bolingbroke in 1729,

However, his only son Henry died before his father whose willdated 7 July 1737, entailed all his Lincolnshire property on his nephewJohn subject to the life interest of his widow. He died in January 1738,and his widow before 1745.

This John Coltman who inherited Hagnaby lived in Horlicastleafter his marriage in 1740 to Mary daughter of Thomas Shaw rector ofWyberton, the baptisms of his nine children and burial of several of Ithem between 1741 and 1752 being entered in the parish registers. Hemay have lived there earlier, since the settlements made prior to hismarriage relate in part to various small properties in that town. In1755 he was associated with Shelley Pennell of Horncastle as trusteefor the execution of the will of Robert Burton of Somerby (L.B. Z/3/4).He died at Bath IQ January, 1763, and in 1766 his eldest son John, ofNewark went through the legal process for disentailing the Hagnabyestate. In the same year he was a trustee for the marriage settlementsof William and Robert Burton, the younger grandsons of Robert Burtonof Somerby (L.D. 70/6). Two years later he died and was buried atMarseilles. In 1821 there was some difficulty over family settlementsas both father and son were alleged to have died intestate, but in 1768Thomas Coltman of Derby, second surviving son of John Coltman ofHorncastle, inherited the modest Lincolnshire estate without fuss, oneof his first actions being to raise a mortgage of ,52,ooo. In 1769 hemarried Mary daughter of John Barlow of Midqebrook, Cheshire, andhis sisters seem to have made equally respectable but not ambitious

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His eldest sister Mary had married Richard Clitherow ofof the family of solicitors in 1763. In May ~774 he pur-part of the Horncastle ,property settled on the youngerJohn and Mary Coltman before their marriage in 1740.

marriages.Horncastle,chased onechildren of(T.P. 41).

Thomas Coltman Esquire was still living in Derby in 1775, buthad moved to Hagnaby before his second marriage in 1789 to MaryBurton, widow of Langhorne Burton of Somerby, the heir of RobertBurton for, whose will John Coltman had been trustee. She was theheiress of William Walker of Great HaIe and seems to have broughther second husband some much needed cash. The marriage settlementstated that the mortgage on Hagnaby would be redeemed: it was dulyreconveyed in 1791. Additionally in 1791, Thomas Coltman paidL2,400 for the manor of Stickford and 170 acres of land. He wasaccepted by the landed gentry of the county, being a J.P. and in 1800was one of the two commissioners appointed for the redemption of landtax in Lindsey. In the 1790’s he was apparently responsible for a packof hounds at Sausthorpe (Ant. 3 /8 191916). The ‘ Priory ’ in whichhe lived has now disappeared, and it is not known whether he occupiedan earlier house or, as the first resident lord of the manor sinceArchibal’d Barnard, built a more suitable residence. At the end of hislife he bought further property in Wildmore fen which was heavilymortgaged, and also some plots of land in the West Fen from the Hairbyfamily. There are few papers in this deposit relating to the Coltmanfamily subsequent to the death of Thomas in 1826. As he had nochildren, the Hagnaby property passed to his brother George and hisdescendants, the last of whom died c. 1919. ’

Summary

Title : Bolingbroke 1725-1814, 20 deeds; Hagnaby 1572-1789, 31;East Kirkby 1780-1888, 20; Kirkby on Bain 1573, I; Skirbeck1649-1766, 12; Stickford 1725-92, 16; West Fen 1817-1878, 9;Wildmore Fen 1802-24, 22 (very decayed).

Family settlements etc. 18-19 c.;Estate records, leases 17-18 c., 7;Legal papers re conveyances r8-19th c.; executorship of wills of Thomas

,Coltman 1826-9, Edmund Shaw 1828-30.

HOSPITAL RECORDS

Records of the Boston Group Management Committee of theSheffield Regional Hospital Board, were deposited in October 1967. Thegroup’s area includes Spalding, Holbeach, Boston, Spilsby and Skegness.

Summary of deposited records

Boston Cottage (later “ General “) Hospital: General Committeeminutes, 1871-1933, 2 volumes: House Committee minutes,1892-1933, 37-44, 2 ~01s.; 2 volumes containing various minutesincl. General ,Committee, 1933-48, House ‘Committee, 1945-8, andFinance Committee, 1935-48; reports (printed), 1873-1947; accountbooks, 1880-91, 1921-30, 2 ~01s.; expenditure journals, 1921-32,

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x9-44; cash books, 1935-43, 2 ~01s.; cash analysis book, 1921-38;bank book, Extension Fund accounts, 1934-g; Daily Issues book,1945-52; rules, 1932.

Skegness Cottage Hospital : House Committee minutes, 1930-34, 43-8,3 ~01s.; Executive Committee minutes, 1922-6, 43-8, 3 ~01s.;Finance minutes, 1944-8; general minutes, 1938-40; ConvalescentHomes Sub-Committee Minutes, 1922-39; Building Fund accounts,1920-48, 2 ~01s.; salaries accounts, 1922-5, 1939-44; volume ofnewspaper cuttings, 1891-1959; reports, 1909, Ig37;rules, 1944.

Spilsby, Grace Swan Memorial Cottage Hospital and Nursing Asso-ciation : general minutes, 1928-48; committee minutes, 1939-48, 2~01s.; rules, 1932; reports and balance sheets (printed), 1903-48.

Holland Joint Hospital Board minutes, 1935-48.

Title deeds retained by the Management Committee

(A copy of schedule is at L.A.O.)

Boston General Hospital, 1874-1954; Greyfriars Nurses’ Home,1794-1964; 142’ High S t . , 1874-1946; London Road Hospital,1847-1934; East Skirbeck House (Committee’s offices) and site fornew hospital, 1858-1964.

Freiston Hall Children’s Hospital, 1902-51.Spalding: Johnson Hospital, etc., 1873-1963.Holbeach Nurses’ Home, ig3g-50.Spilsby : The Gables Hospital, 1829-37; Grace Swan Memorial Hospital,

1901-34.Skegness : Hospital, ISSo-1952; Convalescent Homes, 1826-1961.

LARKEN

This small deposit of letters and papers, consisting of only some375 items, is one of outstanding interest for the history of the Churchin the diocese of Lincoln. Here are encountered briefly but intimatelyfour men: Edward King, bishop (d. IgIo), Henry Ramsden Bramley,priest (d. 1917)~ John Edward Hine, bishop (d. Ig34), and HubertLarken, priest (d. 1964). All four lived long and active lives in theChurch’s service, yet nonetheless these papers provide much more thandisjointed fragments for their biographies. The collection has a unityof its own: its theme is the work of establishing the Church in thediocese ,on a foundation of strong, definite Catholic principles and soundlearning in the half-century from 1885. The widely differing gifts ofeach were devoted to this end. Because they were bound to each otherby very close ties of affection and trust, their letters include frank ex-pressions of their inmost hopes and aspirations and of their trials anddifficulties. Both were shared, and there was a real sense of mutualdependence and support which may not be unconnected with the fact-that these were men who were called to a celibate ministry.

These papers had belonged to Canon Hubert Larken, and theywere deposited in the Office by his nephew, Mr. Geoffrey Larken, in1967. Canon Larken was himself the recipient of one group of lettersfrom Bishop King and of the letters from Bishop Hine. He inherited

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the small group of Larken family deeds. The important series of lettersfrom Bishop King to Canon Bramley, the various other papers of BishopKing which passed to Bramley as chaplain and adviser, and the miscel-laneous letters written to Bramley presumably passed to Larken atBramley’s death. In rgoz when Bramley suffered a complete nervousbreakdown and had to retire from the Precentorship, his friend Larkentook charge of arrangements, and it was to Nettleham, where Larkenwas then vicar, that Bramley retired.

On his appointment to the see of Lincoln in 1885, Bishop Kingimmediately invited his old friend Bramley to be one of his ExaminingChaplains. His colleagues, he told him, would be Bright and Gore andone other: “ I do not want to have a mixed body of so called ‘ repre-sentative ’ men, but simply men holding the ’ one Faith ’ “. Bramleywas in his fifty-second year and had spent his life as a don at Oxford.After taking a first in Greats, he had become a Fellow -of Magdalen in1857 and tutor the following year, holding various college officesincluding the Vice-Presidency in 1883. A meticulous scholar, his pub-lished work included, in 1874 the Regulae Pastoralis Liber of PopeGregory in Latin and English, and in 1884 an edition of Richard Rolleof Hampole’s translation and exposition of the Psalter and Canticles.He was also an accomplished musician. In conjunction with his pupilDr. (afterwards Sir John) Stainer, in 1884 he edited three books ofChristmas carols, many of them traditional songs collected from villagesingers. A Tractarian of the old school, he was a member, and for twoyears Master, of the Brotherhood of the Holy Trinity. Ready wit andhumour were combined with “ his affectionate sympathy and his unfail-in+gc;u-tesy ” (See R. D. Middleton, Magdalen Studies (Ig36), pp.

A number of Bishop King’s letters to Bramley relate to his visitsto Lincoln for ordination examinations and ordinations, . when thecandidates stayed at the Old Palace, and to the cases of individualordinands. In December 1886, when Bramley was unable to be present,the Bishop wrote “ Gore is most helpful, so simple and yet brilliant “.Bramley’s assistance was not confined to ordinations and both he andBright were frequently consulted on theological matters. Their advicewas taken about the Bishop’s visitation charge of 1886. Reading throughthe returns to the visitation questions, the Bishop summed up: “ theone overwhelming result is ‘ Dissent! Dissent! Dissent! ’ ” In the jsame year, with a view to making the Eucharist the principal service,he consulted with them about the proportional importance of Sacrificeand Adoration at the “ high celebration “. The Bishop’s trial naturally

figures in the correspondence ‘a good deal. In August 1889 the Bishopasked Bramley to read his visitation charge and especially sought hisadvice as to the propriety of making the statement which he thought ithis duty to make about the Archbishop’s judgment, so far at least asregards the early Church. I’ I am anxious that it should not be saidhereafter that the Bishop of Lincoln agreed wrth it “.

In 1885 it had been thought that Bramley would have succeededto the Presidency of Magdalen, but in fact a much younger man waselected. Bishop King wrote that he was sorry about the election“ though we may believe such things are over-ruled rightly “. Herealised that Bramley was feeling unsettled. In September 1889 Bramleyconsulted him as to whether he should consider taking a living in York-shire. In reply the Bishop told him that his domestic chaplain, B. W.

14

Randolph, was to leave and he was thinking of Bramley coming to helphim. “ I am ashamed to suggest your being Chaplain to me when therelation, humanly speaking, should be reversed “, but the real pointwas not working for him, but helping the Church in the diocese. Hefelt it would be a most restful help to have Bramley with him, butpointed out the snags for Bramley, including “ the terrible trial ofliving with another person ” and “ the uncertainty of my life andpresent position I’. This sense of uncertainty as to his physical powersand of surprise.at having been spared so long often recurs. Bramleyagreed to uproot himself from Oxford. In his next letter the Bishopenumerated six things to which attention ought especially to ‘be given :

I correspondence to be got in shape, something for the reading of theyounger clergy, definite looking up of certain parishes shown to be weakby the last visitation return, some general organized Quiet Days, themusic of the diocese, and an attempt to bring some of the upper laity totake part in diocesan work. f’ I think also, ,please God, in time wemight make a contribution of balanced doctrinal teaching, so as to handon the primitive teaching restored by the Tractarians “.

Bramley spent five years as Domestic Chaplain to Bishop King,from 1890 to 1895. He lived at 3, Lindum Terrace, which he rented.R. D. Middleton (ofi. cit. p. 278) incorrectly stated that it was not until1895, when he became Precentor of the Cathedral, that Bramley leftOxford for Lincoln. From this point therefore, letters were only writtenwhen either the Bishop or Bramley was away from Lincoln. TheBishop’s holidays were always opportunities for reflection, and someimportant letters on future. aims were the result. The position forBramley was not an easy one, in spite of his love for King. The post ofDomestic Chaplain was one normally held by a young man. Even fora young man, it was a difficult life, as C. W. Baron was to find in1891-94. In 1893 Bright wrote bluntly to Bramley of the Bishop’sincurably ‘unmethodical ways and blamed him for keeping Baron ina condition between regular work and leisure, constantly on call andinterrupted, instead of providing regular and systematic employment.Bramley encountered the same difficulties. For the Bishop he was atrusted mentor and ever-present support. He went to the Old Palaceeach morning in time for the 8 o’clock celebration of Holy Communionand stayed throughout the day until after Compline. Writing to Bramleyon 25 July 1890 the Bishop told him that his help was the greatestsupport and comfort, but he feared it must worry Bramley. It was ’difficult to make a new home, “ and, I fear, living as you do with memakes it doubly hard, as the life is so broken and made up of myfragments ‘I. A few days later he wrote that he would be glad to seeBramley’s friend Carter for a visit, but that he did not wish to attachhim t,o the Palace, partly on the grounds of expense, but also becausehe would like to keep such a place open for a nephew or someone whomhe could make his “ immediate slave “. ” I sometimes have felt latelyas if I might not be able to get on without something of the kind “. TheBishop’s trial and appeal dragging on created tension, strain, anduncertainty. Later in the same month, when Bramley had to confessto feeling “. ‘overdone ” with work, the Bishop wrote that the only way,for the present, was for him to say plainly when he was pressed andto knock off work. Until the results of the judgment were known, andthey had settled down, he did not feel able to make the new effortrequired for receiving another inmate at the Palace, “ but 1 feel that1 need to make my own inner home circle more fixed and restful than

it has been during the last year . . . I do not wish to be selfishly obstinatebut I fear I might fail altogether if my own home individuality is muchmore strained “. In July 1891 the Bishop lost the use of his right hand,the result of an attack of shingles and influenza and of the strain of thetrial, and he wrote a very sprawling scrawl. In August he consultedBramley as to whether, as a measure- for immediate relief, he shouldhave C. W. Baron to live with him, a young priest who was leaving theVice-Principalship of Burgh College. Bramley agreed to some rearrange-ment of duties.

The end of the trial brought some relief. Although the Bishop hadbeen ready to resist the Privy Council if necessary, he was thankful tohave been spared a great collision between Church and State, as hewrote on 5th August, 1892. “ I do not think the country is ready forit, and it would have split the diocese in two. Personally too I amthankful that the strain of the last three years has been removed, as itwas becoming almost too much for my strength “. He outlined thepoints gained, They had obeyed a Church Court and so removed thecharge of absolute lawlessness. The State Court had in a wonderful wayrecognized that court. The Privy Council had admitted that its owndecisions are not final. They had also gained some good pieces of ritual,and if vestments had been included, he would have been content.

Bramley’s constant support was still, however, required: “ I findmy nerves are not strong, and I do not feel equal to things alone “. In

j ~a~u;~,,~S93, the Bishop wrote of the departure of visitors from theI was very glad to have them, bm one wants a wife when

people ‘are in the house “. Writing from Zermatt in July of this year,he begged Bramley to see in what ways he could lessen the pressureof the life at Lincoln, He did not at all mind going alone to confirma-tions and other functions. Bramley’s greatest helplto him was at ordina-tion times, in looking after any printing that had to be done, and in

being available to give advice. If he could go on helping in these ways,the rest might be as Bramley pleased. ” The truth is as we get on inlife, the effort of sustaining social relations seems to me to increase, andone longs for the natural rest of family life. Still we may hope that wehave been guided: and no doubt there are difficulties and dangers in

. the, family life of a Priest or Bishop “. In August the Bishop wrote thathe understood about Bramley’s wish for more quiet in his own house,and thought he should not consider it part of his obligations to cometo the early service or breakfast, or dinner or compline. By both sayingplainly what, at their time of life, they find they need, they may beenabled to live on and work for the church together. “ For my owncomfort, I should like to have some of my relations living with me “.In another way, the tension probably became less at this time. InAugust 1893 Bishop King explained that at first he had felt that hewas bound to sink himself in others for the general furthering of thework, which had been a great strain. Now, however, he thought hemust concentrate his powers upon the work which God would give himto do, and look rather to do what he could with such help as others weregood enough to give him; “ and thus, I hope, I may be able to preservea closer sense of communion with God in my work, and obtain more ofthat restful independence which belongs to the sense of duty “.

The Rev. C. W. Baron served as Domestic Chaplain to the Bishopfrom 1891 to 1894. Early in ‘1893 he confided in the Bishop that hewanted to marry, but that the lady hoped to go to Africa as a mis-

16

sionary and so could not accept him. The doctor subsequently forbaclethis, and in August of this year Bishop King thought they would pro-bably like to marry and go to some healthy place in the mission field.“ This was quite a surprise to me, for though I advocate a marriedclergy in the abstract, I confess I felt a little confused at finding myown good Chaplain meeting his lady love at missionary meetings “.Baron had consulted Bright as to his future, and having mistaken thenature of his own standing in the Bishop’s eyes, felt he ought not toleave the Bishop utterly lost and lonely. Bright discovered the misap-prehension, which he largely blamed on the Bishop for treating a youngcleric with such familiar freedom of manners. To Bramley he entrustedthe difficult task’ of correcting the mistaken impression. Baron left forQueensland in 1894, and his place was taken by the Bishop’s youngnephew, the Rev. G.-F. Wilgress.

Details of the day to day ‘life at the Old Palace are revealed inciden-tally: The Mayor’s dinner party, the militia dinner, amusing the choirboys, the Friday evening service and talk for the servants, the housefull of the younger clergy, retreat arrangements, ordinations. AfterBramley became Precentor in 1895, he continued to help the Bishop inthe three ways in which the Bishop had said he most needed him.Evidence of his work on everything which the Bishop published is tobe found in/the various drafts corrected in his hand and in the printedproofs of sermons, prefaces to books, visitation charges, pastoral letters,and addresses to diocesan conferences. Punctilious grammarian, he dealtwith long involved sentences without punctuation, written in theBishop’s untidy scrawl. These papers include a draft in the Bishop’shand of his pamphlet ‘ Some remarks on Divorce with Special Referenceto Dean Lpckock’s ‘I History of Marriage ” ‘, a topic of which anumber of the letters treat. Two letters relate to the volume St. Hugh’sDay at Lincoln : Sermons Preached in the Minster which Bramleyedited in 1900, with a foreword by the Bishop, in commemoration ofthe 700th anniversary of the death of St. Hugh. The Bishop attachedspecial importance to his visitation charges, and consulted Bramleyon the theological sections, as he viewed them not merely as a meansof immediate communication with clergy and laity but as a record ofwhat he sought to hand on for posterity, the teaching of the Church ofEngland as transmitted to him by the Tractarians from the PrimitiveChurch. In 1901 Bramley was away on a long absence through illness,and the Bishop was longing for his return. Bright had died in this year. )“ The loss of friends, and the changes in ways of thought and life, andthe sense of advancing years, all make life a strain: but if they lead oneto look more to God and less to self, and to trust Him, then it is well

I missed you at the Litany, but I got through it somehow . . . ”Writing on December 1901 he hoped Bramley would not think of resign-ing, since he valued his support very highly, theologically, musically,and personally. But retirement became unavoidable. It had not beenaltogether a one-sided relationship. The letter the Bishop wrote toBramley on the death of his aunt in 1893 reveals something of thatamazing genius for sympathy : “ I know something of what you will befeeling. When you see the last tree fall in the familiar group in thehome garden, the loss is in itself irreparable, but thank God there is abetter Paradise above . . . . ”

A small bundle of letters written to Bramley by other persons revealhis varied interests - musical, theological and patristic, liturgical, andecumenical. One letter of 1889 is from his old Magdalen friend Walter

17

Parrott, then organist of St. George’s, Windsor. Three letters of 1890from the Rev. R. M. Blakiston, Hon. Secretary to Archbishop Benson’sMission to the Assyrian Christians, relate to the Latin preface to anedition of the liturgy of SS. Addai and Mari and the liturgies ofTheodore and Nestorius which Bramley had prepared for the mission.There are two letters from the liturgiologist, the Rev. H. A. Wilson ofMagdalen ,College, one discussing points in Bramley’s article ’ Notes onthe Proper Use of the Prayer Book Collects ‘, the proof of which isincluded. In 1893 Bright was discussing the relation of ‘Our Lord’sdivinity and humanity. Other letters are from the Cowley Father, theRev. F. W. Puller. In 1894 at his request Bramley composed a Latin

inscription for the foundation stone of the Cowley Fathers’ new churchin Oxford, laid on 10th May. He seems to have been regarded as anexpert on Latin inscriptions, and his compo%itions included that whichaccompanied the cup made from marble from the buildings of St. Hughat Lincoln which Bishop King ,presented on his visit to the GrandeChartreuse in Iago. When the new chapel of the Society of the Holy andUndivided Trinity in the Woodstock Road, Oxford, was dedicated on II

July 1894, the office for the occasion had been compiled by Bramley.The sermon which Bishop King preached is in this deposit. MarianHughes, Mother Superior of the Order and the first woman to takereligious vows in the Church of England since the Reformation, hadwritten beforehand thanking Bramley for doing the office beautifullyfor them and consulting him about possible additions, such as an ejacu-lation which Dr. Pusey gave them for the Holy Trinity.

One of the most interesting and attractive of Bramley’s friends wasthat great ecumenical figure, W. J. Birkbeck, a scholarly Norfolksquire whose life was devoted to the furthering of union between theChurch of England and the Eastern Church. He was ” a living intro-duction to the Russian people of all that was best in the Anglicantradition ” (H. R. T. Brandreth in Anglican Initiatives in ChristianUnity (S.P.C.K. 1967) p. 34). (On Birkbeck, see Birkbeck and theRussian Church . . . ed. Athelstan Riley (1917)). Three of his lettersare here preserved. In 1892, sending Bramley “ quite fresh caviare ”which had just arrived from Moscow, he wrote a very long letter dis-cussing the work of Peter the Fuller and the Orthodox doctrine of theMother of God, expressing dissatisfaction with Pusey’s method of appeal-ing to the Greek fathers. He told Bramley about the interesting corres-pondence available to him in Russia which passed between Khomiakoff,a Russian layman and theologian of the first rank, and William Palmerof Magdalen, including Khomiakoff’s treatise on the unity of the church,which he thought should be published. This was subsequently includedin Birkbeck’s Russia and the English Church during the last FiftyYears, published by the Eastern Churches Association in 1895. Inanother undated letter Birkbeck was looking forward to a visit fromBramley and to asking him all kinds of questions on Latin grammar,Greek testament and other subjects. He sent him articles about the OldCatholics which had appeared in the Russian press in the official Gazetteof the Holy Synod in consequence of an article which he himself hadtranslated in the ‘ Newbery House Magazine ‘. Birkbeck accompaniedLord Halifax to Rome in 1895 and took part in a private audience withLeo XIII in the attempt to initiate conversations between Canterburyand Rome, in which Halifax had been encouraged by his friendshipwith the Abbe Portal. On 1st June, 1895, Birkbeck wrote to Bramleyin very optimistic vein, sending him a copy of their printed

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Memorandum on the visit and the events leading to it. It was under-stood at their audience that there would be no condemnation, eitherdirect or indirect, of the validity of Anglican Orders. “ I think you mustconfess that we .didn’t quite go to Rome to no purpose “. Unfortunatelythe final results of the visit were thi: very opposite to those desired.There was a complete change in policy at Rome in 1896, and on 13September the Pope condemned Anglican Orders (See 0. Chadwick inAnglican Initiatives in Christian Unity, pp. 87-91).

Canon Hubert Larken was best known after 1933 when he becamea dignitary of Lincoln Cathedral, first .Archdeacon of Lincoln, and thenfrom 1937, Subdean. Most of the letters to him in this deposit, however,were written earlier and belong to the first thirty-five years ofhis ministry, during which he served ,as parish priest successively intwelve Lincolnshire cures.* He had been brought up at the Cantilupedhantry, a next door neighbour of BishoP King at the Old Palace. Ongoing down from Magdalen College,, Oxford in 1895 he went to theBishop’s beloved Cuddesdon, and the earliest of the letters written tohim by the Bishop were written while he was still at Cuddesdon. Mostof the letters concern cures or preferments considered or accepted byLirken, and are interspersed with invitations to visit the Bishop. Hewas ordained deacon in 1898 and priest in 1899. His first living wasCherry Willingham with Greetwell (1901-04) when the Bishop jokinglywrote “ You must be nearly pulled to pieces with two Churches and

, two parishes. Don’t kill yourself too quickly as we shall want you later“. Bishop King saw he needed more to do, and hoped he would not

g&e the diocese. “ I am sure there is so much to be done with our dearreligious dissenting Lincolnshire people. They need to be taught andshepherded lovingly, led not driven, and led by exam$e and sympathy,as well as by teaching, and I think, dear Hubert, you have the requiredgifts . . . . “. After visiting him at Nettleham in rgo5 the Bishop wroteof his pleasure at “ seeing all going on so well and happily “. In 1go6he again begged him not to leave the diocese if he could help it. Theconditions which he faced in these country parishes are clear from theBishop’s advice about beginning gently at Cowbit. “ You might beginwith one early Celebration each month ” and as there must be onepresent at least, perhaps he can go round to some likely ones and askthem. Twenty years later, in 1929, when the letters written to CanonLarken, by Bishop J. E. Hine start, Larken was vicar of Honington.In 1926 he had become Secretary of the Lincoln Diocesan Trust and IBoard of Finance, and in 1927 had been appointed Sacrist of theCathedral.

Bishop J. E. Hine was one of the great, heroic bishops of the Uni-versities’ Mission to Central Africa. Qualified as a doctor first, in 1886he: offered himself for ordination, having spent the previous year atBishop’s Hostel, Lincoln. After seven years as a medical missionarywith the U.M.C.A., he was consecrated Bishop of Likoma in 1896. Hesubsequently held the sees of Zanzibar (1901-08) and Northern Rhodesia(agog-14). (For his reminiscences, s&e J. E. Hine, Days Golze By(1924) ) . He came to the Lincoln diocese in 1918 as rector of Stoke andEaston and prebendary of Langford Eccles%. In 1920 he was appointedSuffragan Bishop of Grantham and in 1925 left Stoke for Lincoln on hisappointment as Archdeacon of Lincoln and 4th Canon of the Cathedral.In rg3o he resigned as Bishop of Grantham, but continued to work asAssistant Bishop in bhe diocese. These letters, written in his seventies,

cover the last five years of his life, and reveal Larken as his very close

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and trusted friend. A‘man of very few words, reticent, and famed forhis silences, he wrote beautiful letters, vivid, concise, and humorous.Thus although none of Canon Larken’s own letters are here preserved,these letters provide a glimpse of him as seen through Bishop Hine’seyes. In rg3o he is seen overworked with diocesan financial work, inaddition to his parish responsibilities : “ You do everything in the ofhcework so efficiently and quietly that people do not realize how much timeit consumes, and what a strain it must be to keep at it month aftermonth.” Hine thought that the office of Treasurer of the Cathedralought to be revived for Larken. In 1931, when Larken consulted himabout taking the living of W&ford, he wanted to see him instead fixedup in Minster Yard where he could do his invaluable work for Churuhand diocese. “ Wherever you go you make .a mark for good and leavea mark on the place, and you greatly merit some recognition for all thedull, dreary, mechanical labour=o necessary and yet so uninspiringwhich for many years you have done in the financial and business con-cerns of the diocese.” Reference is made to Larken’s genius for organis-ing large-scale Cathedral functions, in his capacity as Sacrist, in connec-tion with the enthronement of Bishop Nugent Hicks in 1933.. “ Themore complicated the arrangements, the happier will you be in clearingthem up and everything as usual will go by clockwork . . . Do you placethe Dean of Stamford among the Deans or among the Prebendaries? ”Bishop Hicks was able to make full use of Larken’s unique knowledge ofthe <diocese. He asked him to go to help him as his secretary, in orderto put him in touch with all diocesan affairs. This meant giving up hisliving at Wilsford with no certainty as to his future, being content toleave that to the Bishop. “ What you have to do now (and it is for thesake of the church, not.for your own advantage) is to obey the call whichhas come,” wrote Bishop Hine. The lighter side of life is also repre-sented. In 1930 Bishop Hine and Larken were mirthfully ,engaged innaming the stations and junctions on Larken’s model railway aftervarious of their clerical brethren and composing appropriate directionsto passengers. Mr. Geoffrey Larken has recently sent to the office manyof his uncle’s photographs and postcards, in part a pictorial record of hislife. Here can. be seen the legacy he left in beautiful churohes and par-sonages restored, besides more personal photographs such as those ofCanon Larken preaching on Good Friday on the bridge at Crowland.

Bishop Hine’s letters provide a fascinating picture of lhis own life atLincoln. They describe briefly and precisely his day to day activities as ’residentiary canon, archdeacon, and assistant bishop, and reveal howexceedingly hard he worked. His concise comments on parishes andincumbents visited reveal his sympathetic insight. Some of his dutieswere not particularly congenial to him, though he performed all withscrupulous zeal. The adminstration of the church’s temporal affairs didnot appeal to him, he did, not care for social functions, and he hateddiocesan conferences and the Church Assembly. He found all the busi-ness of visitation charges trying, yet devoted great care to making his ofinterest, while secretly thinking how much nicer a visitation would be ifthey could conduct it as a quiet meeting and sit in silence for an hour.Events at the Cathedral are also described: He writes of Bishop Gorepreaching in Holy Week, rgig. He describes a rehearsal for a broad-cast of evensong : “ We sang the music unaccompanied at evensongtonight: it went beautifully. Dear old Bennett pranced about like adancing bear.” He faithfully reported on the visit of the CathedralCommissioners on 24 February 1931, a proceeding not lacking elements

20

of high comedy in his eyes. A number of letters relate’ to the furnishingof St. Blaise’s chapel in the Cathedral, which Bishop Hine undertook asa memorial to members of his own family. He was able to celebrate theEucharist there in May 1931, probably, he thought, the first time sincethe Reformation. Though he was sometimes critical of the Cathedralestablishment, or moved to amusement by it, his criticism never arosefrom hostile cynicism, but was the result of intense love for it and of avision of it for which only the best was acceptable. His love for theCathedral was informed by a considerable knowledge of its historicaldevelopment. In these letters his interest in church history and churcharchitecture constantly recurs. He was President of the Architecturaland Archaeological Society, and described the service held at St. Bene-dict’s Lincoln in September 1931, the first for 77 years, preparatory torestoration. His reminiscences included such figures as Bishop Trollopeand the days when the Cathedral’s interior was yellow-washed.

Bishop Hine’s letters complement and complete the account of hisearlier life which he himself wrote. His time in Africa was one of immenseactivity in which his iron constitution enabled him to perform incrediblefeats of endurance and exertion. In the last two years of his life helearned the lesson of passivity. In the summer of 1932 he underwent aserious operation, and though never free from pain continued to write thesame lucid letters to Larken from hospital in London. His mind waswrestling with the problem of pain: “ Passus est perhaps is the key tothe mystery “; though his thoughts were frequently returning to Lincoln:“ Poor Cathedral has indeed been deserted-reduced to one priest vicar.I wonder if that has happened before on Sunday.” He recovered slowlyand returned to Lincoln in time for the arrival of the new bishop. At thebeginning of 1933, however, he was told that he was incurably ill. Thenext fifteen months, ending in his death on 9th April 1934, were a periodof constantly increasing pain. He resigned as Archdeacon in the summerof ig33, and was succeeded by Larken. He wrote his last letter toLarken, away at the Church Assembly, on 7th February 1934. “ Thereis nothing to report at this end. A little weaker-and a greater langingfor the great peace is the chief thing.” In the Holy Week before he died,he gave several addresses on pain and death: “ delivered from a chair inthe Choir of Lincoln Cathedral under great physical pain and discom-fort ” according to Canon Larken’s note. The very brief notes for them,written on minute scraps of papers, are preserved: There is also themanuscript of his “ sermon on the Holy Trinity, preached in a villagechurch ” which belongs to the period 1918-25 and was subsequentlyprinted in the Diocesa+z Magazine (June 1948). Writing to CanonLarken in April 1934 Bishop Swayne said that when he looked back overhis time at Lincoln, he accounted it among the chiefest of his privilegesthat he was able to know Bishop Hine. “ Dear Bishop Hine ! He wasa Saint, and a character, a personality ! ”

Summary

Early deeds of the Larken family, 1646-1715, 18 items.~ Miscellaneous letters to Canon H. R. Bramley, 1855, 1882, r88g-1902,

36 items.Letters to Canon Bradley from Bishop King, 1863, r885-1902, 126.Working papers of Bishop King, in the possession of Canon Bramley:

ms. sermons, drafts of pastoral letters, visitation charges, addresses

21

to Diocesan Conference, prefaces etc., 1889-98, 19; various lettersand papers, with printed copies of pastoral letters etc., 1884-99, 24.

Letters to Canon H. Larken: from Bishop King, r8g6-Igog, 46; fromBishop Swayne and others, 1925-38, 14; from Bishop J. E. Hine, _1929-34, with a sermon and address notes by Bishop Hine, 91. ’

Miscellaneous: the information of Aelred, abbot of Rievaulx, to his sister,being enclosed, a middle English treatise, transcript, 19th c.

(Note : there are some restrictions on the use of the letters after1925) *

LINCOLN LAND AND BUILDING SOCIETY

In contrast to the Horncastle societies, whose records are describedon pp. 31-2 below, this was a permanent society which merged finally withthe Leicester Permanent Building Society in 1960. Messrs. Streets andCo., chartered accountants, of Lincoln were in charge of winding up theaffairs of the society and they made the present deposit. Unfortunatelyno minute books survive except the last one and only a small amountof correspondence. Most of the documents deposited are title deeds tosome of the society’s properties. The original numbering of these packetsof deeds has been retained although there are many gaps in the series.

The Lincoln Land and Building Society seems to have been formedbetween 1867, when it does not appear in the city directory, and 1872,the date at which it first acquires property in the deposited records.Among its objects, according to the rules as amended in 1898 (the onlycopy surviving), were to “ carry on the industries, trades and businessesof builders and contractors, producers, manufacturers and dealers inany of the materials employed in the construction of buildings, and ofthe buying and selling of land, and of banking ” (L.L.B.S. 2/29A).

The pattern shown by the documents is of the society buying land,building houses and selling them individually for a deposit followed bymonthly payments. Sometimes they bought houses already erected bya speculative builder; occasionally they bought older houses. The rulesalso envisage members buying houses or buying plots and having housesbuilt with a mortgage to the society, but there is no evidence among thedeposited records of this taking place in the nineteenth century and thefirst few years of the twentieth. This, however, may be a proof of thefragmentary nature of the records rather than of the absence of thepractice. Still, it is obvious that in a great number of cases membersbought their houses ready built from the building society, no doubt ata cheaper rate than if they had bought their own plots and employedbuilders individually. This bulk purchasing by the society was financedby members’ subscriptions and repayments and by frequent mortgagesof properties by the society itself. There are a whole series of suchmortgages, usually endorsed with a later reconveyance, in L.L.B.S. 3and many individual ones among the title deeds in L.L.B.S. 2.

The bundles of title deeds will be a very valuable source of infor-mation relating to the development of Lincoln in the late nineteenthcentury. Apart from conveyances to the building society there areearlier deeds, abstracts of title and sometimes plans and sale cataIoguesrelating to a much larger area than, the final conveyance. Thus it is

D

22

possible to tell not ‘only where housing development was taking placehut also how the land was becoming available and who, through goodfortune or sound business sense, were profiting. Three of the main areasin which the Lincoln Land and Building Society was interested werealong High Street to the South, from West Parade up to Burton Roadon the North West, and on the slopes above Monks Road on the East.

* A good example of the way in which the title deeds for a smallproperty illustrate the development of a much larger area is a bundlerelating to four houses in Scorer Street, off High Street (L.L.B.S.2 /2gA). They show that in 1856 Rev. Francis Swan of Sausthorpebought a close of nearly 4 ‘acres in the parish of St. Peter at Gowts for~2,000. On 1st July 1882 the Rev. C. T. Swan sold 2,545 square yardsto David Taylor of Lincoln, builder for LI,423 5s. od. This includedthe whole length of Trollope Street and also frontages on Portland Streetand Chelmsford Street. On 14th April 1883 Taylor sold 436 squareyards, with four houses fronting Sibthorp Street, which he had built onthe plot, to the building society for k830. The Swans of Sausthorpeowned a good deal of the land developed in the Southern part of thecity. Their names crop up quite frequently in the society’s deeds. (Fordetails of the family’s connection with the new church of St. Andrewsee p. 56 below) and for further material re their Lincoln property seeArchivists’ Re$ort 7, pp. 31-3).

Various sections of the Dean and Chapter’s estate, which came onthe market from time to time, were bought for housing development. InMay 1878 the Ecclesiastical Commissioners sold Vine and Cheviot Closes,IO acres above Monks Road next to the cattle market, to F. J. Clarkeof Lincoln, chemist, for Q4,ooo. There is a plan dated July showingthe area laid out in streets and building lots. In July and October 1879two plots of 1,443 and 1,521 square yards were conveyed to the L.L.B.S.for ;61,075 10s. od. and A1,140 respectively. The ‘agreement for sale isdated March and already in April plans for houses to be built on thesite by the Society were approved by the City Council’s Building Com-mittee and signed by F. J. Clarke as mayor. (L.L.B.S. 2/32). In March1880 Clarke sold the remainder of the land (area unspecified but saidto. include ‘ inter alia ’ 8,000 and 4,600 square yards) to J. T. Tweedfor ~9,000. Development seems to have proceeded rather slowly for inAugust rgo5 there was still land available for the society to buy 2,215square yards between Cheviot Street and Arboretum Avenue forLg4r 7s. 6d. (2/2).

It would appear that the two main requisites for investing profitablyin huilding development were capital and patience. The initial purchaseof land might cost several thousand pounds, money on which there wasno guarantee of a large return for many years. Most of the largerinvestors must have looked on their land purchases as a long term affairrather than a source of speedy ,profit. A final example illustrates thispoint once more. In 1875 Theodore Trotter of Stones Place, Skelling-thorpe bought 2 acres from David Middleton of Burton for j61,1oo. Inthe following year he bought 21 .acres from the Ecclesiastical ,Com-missioners for’~6,ooo (218). All the land lay between what is now WestParade and Burton Road. Plans drawn up in the 1880s show most ofthe property laid out in streets and building lots ready for sale but itwas at least 25 years from the date of Trotter’s purchase, and after hisdeath, that all the land was sold. ‘The building society bought at leastthree plots, 2,000 square yards for j6710 in 1881 (2/56), 1,360 square

23

yards for 4475 6s. od. in r8go (z/70) and a large area bounded byYarborough Road, Carline Road, the grounds of the Union workhouseand the Penitent Females Home for L1,6oo in rgor (2/8).

Summary _

Minute book, 1941-60; record book of members’ attendance at meetings,1941-60.

Correspondence re borrowing powers of the society, 1923-6, 1939.Bundles of title deeds (also include plans, sale catalogues etc.), r75o-1929;

45 bundles.Mortgages with reconveyances, r874-1915, 37 bundles or single items.

MONSON

account was given of someIn Report 17 pages 30-34. a generalMonson correspondence from about 1850 only recently examined, andof more detailed work on some of its bundles. This collection of corres-pondence is so large that the prospect of any reasonable calendars ofthe various sections seemed remote. When Mr. Marlow most generouslyoffered his services to the Office on retirement, work on these letters wasone of the possibilities offered to him. Mr. Marlow embarked, on thework and has pursued it with much intelligence and enthusiasm. Whatfollows regarding the nature of the correspondence calendared by himis entirely based on his work.

The account of the correspondence given in Report 17 shows thedifficulty experienced in knowing how best to arrange and list it. Itwas decided to keep intact bundles carefully arranged and labelled bythe sixth lord Monson and his eldest son later Viscount Oxenbridge andto follow out whatever seemed to be a principle of arrangement whereit existed. The defects of this system, it was hoped, would be removedeventually by cross reference. Mr. Marlow began work on a series ofletters to the sixth lord, some with draft replies attached, which relatemainly to the Lincolnshire estates during the period r84g-1862. Owingto the preservation, no doubt at the direct instigation of the sixth lordand Viscount Oxenbridge, of both sides of some items of correspondence,related subject matter for this period should be found among the lettersof the sixth lord to his eldest son, among other letters to the sixth lordarranged separately by him or his eldest son and among letters to DavidMiddleton the steward at Burton, filed by him. It must’ be rememberedalso that the sixth lord inherited the estates in 1841, and that lettersrelating to the Lincolnshire estates before 1849 are to be found in someof the series enumerated above and also in a packet of letters from thesixth lord, 1842-5, which were found or placed with documents relatingto travel as they were written to his legal advisers during his residenceon the continent (Mon. 15 DI). It was felt, therefore, that these letterscalendared by Mr. Marlow should be treated of now, both as of interestin themselves and also as throwing light on the possibilities in otherMonson letters of their period.

The chief letter writers in the series for Lincolnshire estates 1849-62were Harvey Gem (who, with Samuel Ball of Lincoln’s Inn had #lookedafter the sixth lord’s affairs during his absence on the continent 1842-5)~James Pooley, who was concerned with the legal aspects of estate

s

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business, William Brown the agent, a tenant farmer at South Carlton,and David Middleton the steward at Burton. In 1857 Robert Toynbeewas appointed agent in place of Brown but to act more as generaladviser and rent collector, the farming supervision being carried out by

Middleton (Mon. 25,/13/10/g/22-3; IO/Z% 25-6, 36, 41). Other corres-pondents include incumbents of benefices in which Lord Monson was’concerned as patron or lessee. Sometimes tenants or tradesmen corres-ponded directly with Lord Monson but the general rule was that they Ishould deal with the agent or steward. Filed with these letters also aresome from fellow landowners, for example Sir Charles Anderson of Lea.Among the incumbents who corresponded with the sixth lord was theRevd. Edmund Roberts Larken of Burton who deserves special men-tion. As brother-in-law of the sixth lord his relationship was hardly thatof the normal incumbent. He is one of the correspondents on politicalmatters mentioned in Refiort 17. His advanced social views (there is anote on his advocacy of co-operation and factory reform, and his involve-ment in the publication The Leader in ‘ James Hole and Social Reform ’Publications of the Thoresby Society, Monographs III, 1954) earnedhim the condemnation of Harvey Gem (Mon. 25/13/10/2/103). Heand his wife were relied on to keep Lord Monson in touch with villagelife at Burton and the ‘Carltons. Larken had’hopes of further prefermentto support his family, and lord Monson, on several~occasions but unsuc-cessfully, wrote to the Prime Minister on his behalf, Much of this corres-pondence was due to the limited time spent at Burton by lord Monsonwho stayed at Gatton for part of the year and also in the later years ofhis life at Torquay. In part it was also due to Lord Monson’s industryand attention to estate business and perhaps also to “ the grievousinfirmity of deafness ” on account of which he apologised to the bishopof Lincoln for writing to him in regard to the Burgh estate instead ofgoing to see him (ibid. 81116). Whatever be the causes, the effectsmake a rich harvest for the social and economic historian.

The years 1849-50 seem to mark a culminating point in farmingdistress locally and nationally owing to the fall in agricultural prices.Various views were expressed as to what part was played in this byfarming methods and still more as to how the farmers might best behelped. Lord Monson’s tenants signed a petition for rent reduction,for free tiles for drainage and for permission to plough up poor grassland (ibid. I /41). Lord Monson’s reply to the tenants criticising theirmethods and lack of capital equipment caused resentment. Many letterspassed between Lord Monson and Harvey Gem on this topic. WilliamBrown tended to support the tenants. Lord Monson and Harvey Gem,although admitting some of the tenants’ claims, did not agree with alltheir suggestions, particularly in regard to the ploughing up of grassland.Reference was made to a letter of Sir Robert Peel to his tenants thatwould justify some of lord Monson’s views (ibid. 1/58). Sir CharlesAnderson, of Lea, who was consulted, was not opposed to more plough-ing up, thought there was not enough consultation with tenants and wasagainst too much capital expenditure by the landlord as it was notpossible to get a return on it. He thought the Foss dyke was a realobstacle to efficient drainage (ibid. 2 /62) Maximilian D. D. Dalison ofHampt’ons wrote that in Kent farmers were in despair and enquired whatsteps were being taken in Lincolnshire (ibid. 2/52). It appears that in theend some abatement of rent was conceded to tenants not in arrears(ibid. 2/82) but they were reminded that there had already been ageneral reduction of rents some three or, four years earlier. By 1853

25

there was a general improvement in the farming situation, “ The farmersare no doubt now doing well ” (ibid. 4/53) and f,or the rest of the periodcorrespondence concerning tenants is concerned with individual failuresor changes in tenancy not related to any general distress.

The general policy of estate improvement advocated by Gem andapproved by lord Monson was made more difficult by problems set tolandlords by current church policy. The Church Commissioners havingtaken over the management and redistribution of estates of bishops andchapters, wished not to renew long leases but to sell properties outright.Letters also were exchanged on the timing of a policy of dealing withadvowsons or the sale of next presentations to livings. In the mean-time there was correspondence with incumbents of parishes in lordMonson’s gift. The Revd. W. Williams of Croft sent a yearly report onthe Croft school and clothing club, sometimes commenting on the generalwelfare of the parish as in 1850 “ it is impossible not to observe theanxiety of the poorer sort arising from the uncertain relation thatexists . . . . between the prices of labour and provisions ” (ibid. 2/141).Throughout the period there are letters from the incumbent of Doningtonon Bain, the Revd. Conrad M. Wimberley who wished lord Monson toallow him to exchange the living, having quarrelled with his parishioners(ibid. 5 19 etc.). The Revd. Edmund Larken wrote to lord Monson onthe subject ‘of the school at South Carlton supported by the Monsonfamily, thinking it was ho eless to worry about farmers employing boysof school age, that after alfwas part of a boy’s education, but he wishedit could be combined with more mental training (ibid. 7/7). . HarveyGem who showed an appreciation of the need for more science and skillin farming (ibid. 2/69) thought that for the better education of villagechildren school committees should consist of landowners and others ofthe gentlemen class. There was a tendency for schools to be administeredby men of no educational background. “ In our parish of Wolverley

the uneducated majority . . . . of the school feoffees . . . . . arefor ‘extinguishing education and keeping the poor in innocent ignorancelest they should cut their fingers with the sharp tools of knowledge ”(ibid. 7135).

Various appeals for support of many causes were made to LordMonson. It is to be noted that he gave Ic;2 towards the appeal forimprovement of the Lincoln Methodist chapel in 1855 (ibid. 716) whereashe refused to contribute to the appeal for the restoration of Swineshead Ichurch when the incumbent sought to prove some false historical connectionbetween the Monson family and his parish (ibid. 7/94). The Revd.W. F. J. Kaye, then curate of South Carlton, wrote to lord Monson in1860 concerning the restoration of the church, in which, for doctrinalreasons, he wished to move the rood screen “ as advantage is taken ofthem ” i.e. screens, “ to assimilate our services to those of the churchof Rome ” (ibid. 12/75). His idea was to place the screen between thechancel and the Monson aisle. The antiquary John R,oss visited thechurch and gave lord Monson details of the progress of the work (ibid.12/81-2) and the screen was allowed to remain in its original position.

There are occasional references to politics, David Middleton wrotethat he intended to go to a Protection meeting in the Corn Exchange atLincoln t’o which all the farmers were said to be going from all overthe county (ibid. 1/44). He reported the day after the meeting 18 Dec.1849, that he had never been at such a meeting in his life “ they evengot to blows, indeed there was a complete uproar ” (ibid. 1148). William

26

Brown referred to a very large county meeting 25 January, 1850, “ andas no opposition was given to the Free Traders expressing their senti-ments it went off . . . . very quietly ” (ibid. 2/ 17). This meetingwas held in the Castle Yard and David Middleton had anticipated “ agreat noise and uproar . . . . and that suits Lincoln people ” (ibid.z/1,1). A letter from Sir Montagu Cholmely on the subject of bearingthe charge and care of electoral registration after the election of 1851,which he thought should be a matter for the association rather than thecandidate (ibid. 6/4g), seems rather to belong with letters described inReport 17 as does a draft letter in .1854 from William Monson to G. F.Heneage on the subject of presenting a petition for Reform (ibid. 6/g3).

Harvey Gem gave lord Monson some observations on the subjectof Eton and his reluctance to send his son Samuel there. In 1849 hewrote of his fears of bullying ” a boy at Eton seems to fit the old simileof a toad under the harrow ” also there was a trend towards Puseyism,,“ flexions and genuflexions “‘ (ibid. i /6).. Although somewhat appeasedby his son’s intellectual progress there he was of the opinion that“ indolence and ignorance are no disgrace and are quite redeemed byskill in games or personal strength “. (ibid. z/106).

These instances must suffice as a selection from the letters of whichthere are 1,895 in fourteen bundles.

NEWTON PAPERS

In last year’s annual report reference was made to some Newtonfamily papers, deposited by Mrs. Christopher Blackie, daughter of thelate Brigadier General R. L. Adlercron, formerly of Culverthorpe Hall,of which two boxes were given to General A,dlercron because theyrelated to Culverthorpe. These documents have now been calendared.

An account of the Newton family and their deeds and papersforming part of the Monson deposit was given in Archivists’ Report1951-2, pp. 20-24. The Newton papers now under consideration containmany items related to these papers and in many cases parts of the sameseries. The papers of this family, lovingly preserved down to everyscrap of paper, fell into sad days when in the middle of the last century,many of them were sold by dealers in a state of confusion from whichonly the most comprehensive cross reference and collation can sort them.Nonetheless there is some cohesion perceptible.

These present papers are mainly letters either to Sir John Newtonof Barrs Court, 2nd baronet, nephew of Richard Hickson of Gonerby,member of parliament for Grantham 1661-89, or to his eldest son Johnlater 3rd baronet, and a few to his son Sir Michael. They are a mixtureof letters on family matters, for example John Newton’s second marriageto Susanna Lady Bright 1690-1, (nos. 28-46), the illness of Sir John in1699 (103-109) of letters from members of the immediate family alsofrom some Stringer and Sacheverall relatives, of letters regarding estatematters from a succession of employees, of which the bulk concernCulverthorpe with a few for Bristol, Harptree, and Susanna Newton’sYorkshire estates, and here and there of a few on political matters.

The John Newton who succeeeded to the baronetcy in 1699 obviouslyspent some of his time at Culverthorpe which seems to have been madeover to him in his father’s lifetime. There are references to the pavingof the alley, to Mr. Richardson’s design for a palissado with notes on the

27

progress of the work, and on the making of a melon garden duringx690-92 (3r-70 passim) . Mr. Richardson also worked on the churchdoor and pulpit, presumably at Haydor (32). There were laterreferences for example to Lewis Hauduroy’s painting at Culverthorpe,in 1704, pictures of Psyche on the ceiling with gold in bas relief roundthe sides (118)) and about a year later 250 feet of Corinthian cornice and40 yards of ‘ floated creting ’ were ordered. In 1735 a chimney piecewas being sent by sea to Boston for Culverthorpe and a small drawingof it is included (205). A letter from Pontefract mentions the new millon the river Don with black stones from Germany, a new lodge,outhouses and a new ferry boat in 1706 (122). Many of the Lincolnshireagents’ letters relate to the collection of rents, the lettings to tenants andother agricultural topics.

.

As to politics, there is a draft letter of John Newton in April 1668mentioning the impeachment of Sir William Penn and the expulsion ofHenry Brouncker, giving his opinion that he thought parliament wouldsit beyond 4th May to get the supply bill passed, also to get thecomprehension bill at the end of the session when the house was thin,but mentioning the rumours of dissolution to get a parliament willingto pass money bills more quickly (8). There are two pages of anunidentified political memorandum including relations with Franceapparently by a supporter of James duke of York, 1673-5 (266) andGervase, John’s brother, gave his father Sir John a detailed summaryof parliamentary news in November 1689 (27) presumably based onconversation with others as he was not a member of parliament. Theseare just a few examples of these letters of which there are 340, with thereference Misc. Dep. 197. With those of the Monson deposit they forma valuable source for the reconstruction of the life of a family from themid 17th to the mid 18th century.

PAGE AND CO.

When Messrs. Page and Co, solicitors of Lincoln were moving theiroffices from Bank Street to Lindum Road, the archivists were called into examine documents remaining at the old office. The resulting deposithas not yet been fully sorted and po list has yet been made. Until suchtime as this is available the followmg summary wili give some idea of thecontents.

Title deeds: Lincoln (including Dawber title to various public houses)and many other Lines. parishes, about 30 Iboxes.

Bracebridge *Mental I-Iospital : minutes (printed), 1936-47; ,reports(printed) c. 1920-40; building contract, 1850; more contracts, 20thcent., I box; corresp. etc. subject files, c. 1920-40, 2 boxes.

Lincoln Corporation (W. T. Page was Deputy Town Clerk): papers rewater and electricity supply, case with Staveley Coal and Iron Co.,printed Acts of Parliament, late xgth/early 20th cent.

Executorships etc. including : Dawber of Lincoln, catalogues corresp.etc. re sales of brewery and public houses, c. 1905; ICharles Pearsof Scopwick Grange, farming and household accounts and vouchers,1850s and 6os, 3 boxes; Robinson of Lincoln, incl. papers re Gresley

Wood and &adlinoote Colliery Co’., Derbs., c. 1860-80; accountbook of Allenby’s Ttist, 1839-82; and other misc. executorshippapers.

Other records : papers of Hughes, later Page, agents for ImperialInsurance Co., Newark and Lincoln area, c. 1850 onwards; recordsof Lincoln and Sutton Bridge Corn Co., early 20th century; articlesof association etc. of Tobin’s Patent Ventilation Co., 1876; casepapers, Market Rasen Water Co. vs. Marriott, 1881; articles ofpartnership, Wm. Foster & Co., engineers, 1916; case papers, Baxter ‘-vs. Midland Rly., 1914; copy of will of John Angerstein, 1854;agreement and plans for alterations to Saracen’s Head, Lincoln,1927.

TAYLOR, GLOVER AND HILL

Documents belonging to’Messrs. Taylor, Glover and Hill of Epworthwere deposited in February 1967. A short list has now been completed.The deposit can be divided into three main sections: title deeds, clients’bundles and manorial records of Epworth and Westwoodside. Since the

. firm for many years had offices at Doncaster as well as Epworth it isnot surprising to find many records relating to parts of Yorkshire andNottinghamshire as well as Lincolnshire, though the latter, especiallythe Isle of Axholme, predominates.

\ No detailed description of the title deeds can be given as they haveonly been sorted in alphabetical order of place. They appear to date

j entirely from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. A list of placesfor which there are deeds, with$he number of boxes or bundles for each,will be found in the summary below.

The records of the manors of Epworth and Westwoodside do notcontain any of the main series of court rolls or court books. They consistmainly of annual bundles, from 1755 to Igog, each containing copies ofadmissions and surrenders and sometimes lists of jurors, juries’ verdictsand drafts of court rolls.

The clients’ bundles on the whole cover the same subjects as dosimilar sections of other solicitors’ deposits: late nineteenth centuryexecutorships, trusteeships, bankruptcies and litigation about property,or debts are the subjects of a vast proportion of the bundles. Anunusually large number of documents can in one way or another beclassed as ‘I business archives ‘#, including account books and otherrecords of two butchers, a chemist, a brickmaker, a grocer, a seedmerchant and a stone-haulier. More unusual among the records of aLincolnshire solicitor are papers relating to colliery business. This musthave originated from -the firm’s Doncaster connection like the papersrelating to the incorporation of the Doncaster Turkish Bath Company,1896-7 (T.H.G. 2/D Box 3).

The largest group of business archives, however, relate to Morris,Little and Company of Doncaster,fertilisers and sheep dips.

manufacturers of agriculturalAlthough originating in Doncaster their main

factory, by the 18gos, seems to have been at West Stockwith, on theNottinghamshire bank of the Trent near Gainsborough, and they alsohad branches at New York and Melbourne. Whether by litigiousnessor sheer misfortune, this company seems to have been involved in anunusually large number of law-suits towards the end of the nineteenth

29

century: as a result many interesting records have survived which wouldprobably otherwise have disappeared. Some of the cases relate tobreaches of contract as when M. Sanceay of Versailles sued the firm in1885 for failing to carry out an agreement to use his manufacturingprocess (T.H.G. 2/5 Box 4). Others relate to disputes with foreigncustomers over the condition of goods on arrival or alleged slowness indelivery.

In the 1860s Morris and Co. had an agent in Morocco who dealtwith sales and also with the export of bones for manufacturing fertilisers.One agent proved highly unsatisfactory and was sued, unsuccessfully,in the Vice ‘Consular court at Safi. He was succeeded by more reliablemen, but in 1868 and 1869 they write continually of the difficulties putin their way when they tried to collect debts owed by Moroccan subjects.They ascribe this to ill feeling against British business interests causedabove all by unwarranted interference by consular officials in the’ internalaffairs of the country. For months on end cargoes of bones could notbe shipped out because of delay in getting permission to export them.Worse still many of the debts had to be written off as it was impossibleto collect them. The firm’s agents complained’bitterly of the attitudeof the Vice Consuls at Safi and Mogador as well as the Consul General

’ at Tangier, Sir John Drummond Hay. There is a copy of a petitionto the Foreign Secretary in which these complaints are stated at length;perhaps it was never sent, or if sent ignored, for there is no corres-pondence to follow it up. (T.H.G. 2/M).

Another field in which the company had bad fortune was the Russianmarket. An agent, H. Lassen, was sent to Odessa in 1896 to try to workup a market there for Morris’s sheep dip. He had to cope, not onlywith the firm hold which a rival company had on the sheep-dip tradein that area but also with the government officials, “ conscienceless,unscrupulous and autocratic whose sole object is to get as many roublesas possible “, who had to be bribed and cajoled into fixing a reasonablerate of import duty. When Morris, Little and Co. finally decided thattheir chances of finding a profitable market for their goods in the areawere small they withdrew their agent and did not offer him furtheremployment. His correspondence was preserved as evidence when hethreatened proceedings for wrongful dismissal. (T.H.G. 2/L Box 2).

Some materials remain relating to the local government and politicsof the Isle of Axholme. The,firm were Conservative local agents in thelate nineteenth century and many documents relate to their activitiesin getting all, supporters registered and in arranging the canvassing ofthe district at general elections. There are also a number of examplesof the election posters and broadsheets of the Conservative candidates.The first County Council election at Epworth produced a law suit, onecandidate accusing the other of bribery and corruption. Since all thatwas complained of was the treating of some half dozen voters with pintsof beer at various times beforehand and the invitation of one and all toa lavish party afterwards, the case fell to the ground. (T.H.G. 2/SBox 3).

Summary

Title deeds : Lines. : Althorpe, 3 bundles; Belton in Axholme, 13 boxes;Burnham, 4 bundles: Burringham, incl. plan and survey of parish,1823, 2 boxes: Butterwick, 3 boxes; Crowle, I box; Eastoft, Ibundle; Epworth, 5 boxes; Hatcliffe, I bundle; Haxey, 2 boxes;

E’

30

Luddington, I bundle; Owston, 2 bundles: Lines. and Notts.:Misson, 3 boxes: Yorks. : Conisborough, I deed; Doncaster, 2bundles; Hatfield etc., 3 boxes,

Clients’ bundles, arranged alphabetically under name of client, C .1840-1910, 70 boxes, including: Axholme Light Railway landpurchases; proposed formation of Axholme local government union,1887-94; Bawtry and Trent Railway and Dock Abandonment, 1885;Crowle advowson, 1867-8; A. Clough, butcher’s accounts, c. 1875-80;incorporation of Doncaster Turkish Bath Co., 1896-7; Epworth CornRents, 1847: R. G. Fosdick colliery business: T. A. Goodall,Epworth chemist, accounts, c. 1871-5; public enquiry re Haxeyschools, 1899; case re roads in Haxey and Owston, 1878; casepapers, Hatfield Chase, 1869; various cases re Morris, Little andCo.; Alfred Parkin, Epworth brickyard accounts, 189o-19o7; Smith

vs. Barnard re treating at Epworth ‘County Council election, 1889;Taylor. of ‘Gringley, Notts., butcher’s accounts, 1860-70.

Manorial records of Epworth and Westwoodside: yearly bundles ofadmissions, surrenders, etc., 1755-1909, 35 boxes; other bundlesof similar material, covering a number of years, 16991916, 4 boxes.

Parliamentary elections: papers re registration and canvassing for Con-servative party, 1867-1900 (mainly 1881, 1885, 1886, 1890, 1892and 1895 elections).

Local government: Isle of Axholme Highway District, cash books,1879-83, 1887-92, contract book, 1894-8, Gang Masters’ LicenseBook (only one filled in), 1896; applications for surveyorship ofAxholme R.D.C., rgor.

The firm’s records: Letter books, 1889, ISg8-1906, 13 volumes.

Miscellaneous : unidentified account books of a grocer, 1877, 1874-85,a seed merchant, 1867-80, and a stone haulier, 1836-65; plans ofButterwick labelled “ Isle Common Drainage “; 3 ms. volumes ofchoral music labelled “ St. Mary’s Church, Epworth “.

TWEED AND PEACOCK

Second and Third Deposits

The first major deposit of documents by Messrs. Tweed and’peacock,solicitors, of Horncastle is described in the Refiort for 1954-5’ (No. 6) pp.12-15. This was supplemented from time to time with additional bundlesof title deeds’until in March 1965 a second large deposit arrived. It wasonly possible to .give a very brief summary of the contents at that time(Refiort No. 17, p. 42) and the listing was not finished when a thirdlarge collection of documents came in November 1967. The lists of boththe second and third deposits are now complete and some account can begiven of their contents.

The main bulk of the records consists of working papers andcorrespondence relating to the firm’s dealings with its clients. A largenumber of boxes of varying sizes each contained material relating to atrust, an executorship or a bankruptcy, mostly of the late nineteenthcentury. Among them a certain amount of business archives are to be

,

31

found, such as accounts and vouchers of the Horncastle Steam LaundryCompany for the early years of the present century (3 T.P. 3). It isdifficult to ,explain the presence in Horncastle of two agreements dated1802 and 1804, between 33 parishes, from Immingham in the North toWest Rasen in the South, entering into union for the joint administrationof the Poor Law (3 T.P. 13/3).

Four secti’ons stand out as needing further comment : records ofHorncastle railway, grammar school and building societies in the seconddeposit, and of the Lighting and Watching Inspectors in the third deposit.

Some records of H,orncastle Grammar School were included in thefirst deposit and are described in Report No. 6. The present collection(2 T.P. I) consists mainly of correspondence of the second half of thenineteenth century, some of it with the Charity Commissioners relatingto new schemes for the administration of the school, some of it withparents, local clergy and others about the type of education most suitedto the needs of the area. There are also a large number of letters fromcandidates for the headmastership at several vacancies. A surprise itemamong all this nineteenth century material is the minute book of theschool governors from about 1599 (the last figure is obliterated) to 1759(2 T.P. I/I) . Some extracts from this volume are given in R. Jalland’sThe Free Grammar School of Queen Elizabeth in Horncastle (Horncastle,1894) which also quotes from later minute books, not deposited here.

The majority of entries relate to the management of the propertyand finances of the school and to the appointments of governors andmasters. They bear witness to some vicissitudes in the school’s fortunes,‘which were apparently at a low ebb during the Commonwealth period.In August 1656 the governors had to contribute LI each to repair theschool house roof, “ like to fall, and not haveinge money in banke torepaire the same “. There is also evidence two years earlier of a fallin attendance when it was agreed that the headmaster should have theusher’s salary until ‘: the Schoole should be full for ,an Usher to teache ”(24 Jan. 1653/4). The most colourful character among seventeenthcentury headmasters seems to have been Francis Bonner, appointed in1671, against whom several complaints are recorded in August 1675,“more especially in the severe beatinge and inuryinge and ill useinge ofhis schollers by meanes whereof diverse Schollers have deserted and leftthe said Schoole.” He had also challenged the Governors’ authoritysaying that they had no power to remove him from office. He was underdischarge at one time but finally died in office in 1684 when theGovernors, perhaps learning by experience were in no haste to appointa permanent successor. The treasurer was asked to procure someneighbouring minister to supply the place until they should choose aheadmaster (IO Apr. 1684).

The Horncastle Benefit Building Societies (2 T.P. 2) were“ terminating ” societies, i.e. they were not permanent, but lasted onlyuntil their original purpose was carried out. The deposit containsrecords of five’ ‘of these societies, the first being f,ormed in 1849, the lastterminating in 1887. Succeeding societies started up long before theend of their predecessors, so for a long period there were usually twoflourishing together.

The origin of a building society, as regulated by act of parliament(6 & 7 William IV, cap. 32), lay in a group of people agreeing to paymonthly subscriptions (not more than 20/-) for a share which was tohave a final value, when all subscriptions were paid, of not more than

32

&5o. As money accumulated in the society’s funds, sums equal to thefinal value of their shares were advanced to members for the purchaseof approved properties, which were mortgaged as securities. There werevarious methods. of deciding in what order to pay out. The SecondHorncastle Society held periodic “ auctions ” in which members offereda “ bonus ” of not less than 4% of the value of the share or shares tobe advanced to them. The advance then went to the highest bidder.The Third Society discarded this rule and made its advances in strictorder of application.

The act for the regulation of building societies says that they havebeen established “ principally among the industrious classes . . . . . toassist the members thereof in obtaining a small freehold or leaseholdproperty.” However the Horncastle societies, at least,, seem to havecatered for a more exalted. section of the community: many of thebetter-off tradesmen and professional people were members and thesubscription of 5/-- a m’onth for one share would have been a consider-able sum for most wage earners. There is some evidence, however,that, by the time the Fifth Society same into being in 1875, more of thesmaller tradesmen and artisans could afford membership: at least thisis the impression given by the number of members whose names arenot to be found in Lincolnshire directories. Further research mightshow more clearly how these societies worked and who made use ofthem. All the necessary material for such research, as far as Horn-castle is concerned is available here.

In the first half of the nineteenth century all Horncastle’s tradecame and went by road, or by canal to the Witham at Tattershall.It is natural that, by the middle of the century, the idea of a railwayto the Kirkstead Station of the Great Northern Railway, only 74 milesaway, should appeal to many townspeople.‘ They were fortunate inhaving the wholehearte’d support of most of the landowners over whoseproperty the line would have to go, notably Sir Henry Dymoke, whoseestates accounted for 5 of the 7+ miles, and who was willing to sell hisland at an “ agricultural price.” A provisional committee was formed,with Dymoke in the chair, .‘and their prospectus in November 1853called for a share capital of ,C;48,000 on which a return of at least 5%was confidently predicted. Negotiations, it said, had been carried onwith the G.N.R. who were willing to work and maintain the line inreturn for half the gross profits (2 T.P. ~/I/I).

Opposition to the proposed railway was quick to take shape anda short but brisk pamphlet-war ensued. Three opposition advertise-ments in the “ Stamford Mercury ” were reprinted as broadsheets andcopies of these and of the committee’s reply are included with the pros-pectus (2 T.P. ~/I/I). The first opponent was “ Behind the Scene ”whose main point was to minimise the possible profits. The reply bythe committee gave more details to back up their estimates, pointingout at the same time that “ Behind the Scene ” was a very largeshareholder in the Canal Company. Then appeared “ Fairplay ” and“ No. 2 Reliind the Scene,” both still very dubious as to the return onshareholders’ capital. The former estimated it at little more than 1%even if “ the Canal is shut up and turned into fishponds for the benefitof your two good dinner-loving Lawyers ” (Babington and Sketchley).He. also tried to frighten the shopkeepers of the town by suggestingthat the railway would encourage the inhabitants to desert their mediocreestablishments for the shops of Lincoln and Boston. This last remark

33

did the railway more good than harm: a meeting of tradespeople onDecember 6th condemned both “ Fairplay ” and “ Behind the Scene ”and expressed confidence in the benefits the town would receive fromthe proposed line (“Stamford Mercury” 9 Dec. 1853). All was nowplain sailing l’ocally. The Horncastle and Kirkstead Junction RailwayBill passed through Parliament and the line was constructed. The mainbulk of the railway material consists of bundles of papers produced bythe clerk at the half yearly meetings of the company, down to 1886, in-cluding an almost complete set of printed reports. Altogether there issufficient evidence to give a full picture of the formation of the railwayand of its fortunes in the nineteenth century.

The Lighting and Watching Act (3 and 4 William IV cap. 90),which repealed a similar act of George IV, gave powers to any parishor part of parish to adopt its provisions for the lighting and watching (oronly one of them) of the town. The necessary rate for finances was tobe voted annually by a parish meeting. Inspectors, qualified by resi-dence and the ownership of property in the town worth Ic[15 a year, wereto be elected. These inspectors were to meet at last once a month andwere empowered to ‘I appoint and employ such number of able-bodiedwatch-house keepers, serjeants of the watch, watchmen, patrols, street-keepers, and other persons as they shall think sufficient for the properprotection of the inhabitants houses and property.” For Horncastle asfor most towns in England the adoption of this section of the act wasthe beginning of a professional police force. Other powers which couldbe adopted were for gas-lighting the streets and providing a fire-engine.At Horncastle the act was adopted in full.

For the thirty years following the adoption of the act in 1838 thereare materials to study the working of the system in Horncastle in con-siderable ‘detail. Apart from a complete series of the Inspectors’ minutebooks and accounts (3 T.P. I/I and z), there are many bundles ofcorrespondence, vouchers and other papers (3 T.P. 1/4) and, perhapsmost interesting of all, two note-books containing the reports made bythe police to the Inspectors, 1838-40 and 1846-53 (3 T.P. 1/3). Analtogether fascinating picture emerges from these records of the life(particularly the low life) of the town in the early Victorian period.

To cope with the forces of lawlessness and immorality a policeforce of two, later increased to three men was appointed. The hoursof service were 9 a.m. to IO p.m. and 6 p.m. to 4 a.m. for the nightand day men respectively. Their wages were 16/- and r4/- per week.This force was supplemented by a number of supernumeraries who werecalled on as required. The Inspectors hoped at first to get a man fromeither the Metropolitan or Hull police force, but the minimum salaryof 30/- which these forces considered needful for a sufficientlyexperienced man was considered too much. However the two local menappointed did not prove entirely satisfactory: one was dismissed aftera year’s service and the other, after surviving complaints in 1840 as tohis soft dealing with drunkards from the higher classes, lost his job thefollowing year after being seen on several occasions taking customersto a house of ill-fame.outsider :

After this the head policeman was usually anseveral of them came from the Metropolitan Police. The

turnover was rather fast at times as in 1852 when one man came toHorncastle from London and immediately fell sick and another, afterdisplaying interest in the job, departed for the Cape of Good Hopein pursuit of a fraudulent bankrupt (3 T.P. I /4/17).

.

The main scourges with which the police force had to deal weredrunkenness and prostitution with their attendant evils. There was. agood deal of etty larceny but not, on the whole, much organised majorcrime. In, I 45, h’owever, a man was seconded from the MetropolitanBPolice to deal with an outbreak of frequent and systematic robberies.It was suggested that he should come at the height of the Fair, disguisedas a horse dealer,‘lest ‘the robbers should be put on their guard by thesudden appearance of a London policeman (1/4/12). Liaison withthe police forces of neighbouring towns helped to keep an eye open forcertain types of criminal, who were constantly on the move from townto town.

There were an enormous number of public houses and beer shopsand drunkenness was very common. Such entries as “ About 6 o’clockas the inhabitants was going to church & chapel Saint Paul [a tailor]was in the Streets beastly drunk ” are frequent in the police note books(I /3 /2, 8 July 1849). It was very difficult to enforce the closure ofpublic houses at the legal hours - a task not made easier by the exis-tence of a certain faction in the town who considered that all laws onthe subject were for the lower orders, not for them. When on M a y25th 1850 the police pointed out to the company in the Bull CoffeeRoom that it was past midnight . . . . . “ H. Craft thought it a verygreat insult them fellows coming into the room: he did not mind somuch about himself but it hurt him very much to see his friends sogrossly insulted ” (I / 3 /2). The position of the police must have beenvery delicate with, on the one hand, H. Craft and his, no doubt, in-fluential friends and, on the other hand, a number of people who wereever ready to accuse them of dealing more leniently with the rich thanthe poor. Others referred to them as “ Parish Paupers ” (1/3/2, 3 Apr.1848), or threatened to have their blood, or merely swore and threwbrickbats. Actual assaults on the policemen were by no means unknown,generally as a result of their intervention in one of the many drunkenbrawls which occurred.

Prostitution was another,‘ apparently ineradicable, evil, in spite ofoccasional prosecution and .even circular letters to the owners of rentedhouses, letting them know what their properties were being used for.Occasional entries suggest that it was on the increase, at least in theperiod covered by the first police note book (I/~/I), for example, onMay 30th 1840, “ Many prostitutes have lately come to the town from jLouth and other places.” Prostitution, drunkenness, and fights seemto have gone hand in hand as on Aug. 14th 1839 when there was a“ tremendous row in Dog Kennel Yard, 2 women fighting, several men‘of bad character and 5 prostitutes . . . . . Such a row was never heardin Horncastle before ” (I /3 /I) . Most of the women in the trade seemto have led a singularly miserable life: many were almost constantlyincapable from drink, some were subject to fits, at least one tried tocommit suicide. Many of them supplemented their earnings by pickingthe pockets of their clients, few of whom could be persuaded to prosecute.

The middle of August brought Horncastle’s annual Horse Fair, oneof the biggest in England (“ in the World ” says White’s Directory,1842)~ when strangers flocked to Horncastle, some to buy and sell; someto pick-pockets and engage in other criminal pursuits. It was the busiesttime for the police force (even busier than November 5th) and all super-numeraries were called up to assist. Some of the horse dealers seem tohave been a rough lot: on one ‘occasion “ 6 or 8 prigs followed an old

35

man down Mr. Gilliatt’s yard and tried to get his mare away from himoffered him l4 and it cost him &14 ” (11311, Ig Aug. 1840). At

the’same time there was an attempted highway robbery just outside the\ town.

With so much to deal with, the activities of the police seem on oc-casions to have been directed at singularly harmless occupations suchas the wearing of masks in public and Punch and Judy shows : (“ thespersons caus a great number of people to get together and obstruct thePublick Thoroughfare ” (1/3/z, IO Apr. 1847). Great efforts were alsomade to suppress gambling, spurred on by the complaints of tradesmenthat many people spent on gambling money with which they should bepaying their debts. A skittle alley was a great source of disturbance,while the “ Fleece ” catered for “ Cards, Puff and Dart, The DevilAmong the Tailors, Ringing the Bull, &c. . . . . and a number of ap-prentice lads go there continually to play them ” (I/~/I, May 1840).

Vagrants, surprisingly enough, do not figure largely in the policerecords. They are ‘occasionally mentioned as being sent on their way drtaken to the Union. Some entries are to be found in the note booksrelating to cases of great distress, treated with all possible kindness. Onetells of an old drover, on his way from Market Rasen to Sleaford, foundlying as if dead: “Had not slept for two nights & had very little toeat. Got him to bed at Mrs. Blakey’s, paid for his bed and visited ,theold man in the morning and gave him his breakfast ” (I/~/I, 13 Oct.1839). Reimbursements for this sort of expense form a small, but con-tinuing, item in the accounts.

‘After 1857, when the Lincolnshire Constabulary took over the town’spolice, the records of the Lighting and Watching Inspectors relate entirelyto th’e lighting of the town and the provision of a fire service. For theseservices, and for the police, some records exist relating to mosttowns in the county. Minutes of Lighting and Watching commissionersor inspectors are not uncommon. What makes Horncastle unusual (atleast as far as records deposited at or known to this office are concerned)is the detailed information available on the work of the police,and theirorganisation and methods in the note books and correspondence. Thepicture ‘of the life of the town in the early Victorian period is exactlythe same as the one we have of all towns at the same period fromsuch sources as court records and newspapers. These records for Horn-castle do not produce a different picture, only a clearer one than wehave for many other places.

.summary

2 Tweed and PeacockHorncastle Grammar School : governors’ minute book ? 1599-1759;

treasurer’s account book, 1833-59; letter books, 18gg-1905, 1go8-II;correspondence and other papers, c. IS5o-1920, 5 boxes.

Horncastle Building Societies : First Society: bank book and vouchers,1849-63: Second Society: minute book, 1854-68; ledger, 1854-68;cash books, bank book, vouchers etc. : Third Society: minute book,ledger and cash book, 1863-75; rules, bank book, reports, vouchers,correspondence etc. : Fourth Society: minute book and cash books,1872-84; rules, reports, meetirigs files, etc. : Fifth Society: minutebook and account books, 1875-87; correspondence, reports etc.

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Horncastle and Kirkstead Junction Railway Company : half-yearlyreports and meetings files, 1855-86, 3 boxes; prospectus of Company,opposition broadsheets, forms for assent and dissent of landowners,evidence etc. re Parliamentary Bill, calculation of cost, negotiationswith G.N.R. for working the line, 1853-4, c. 120ritems; draft bookof reference etc. re purchase of land, 1853-5, c. 30 items: papersre issue of shares, c. 1853-6, c. IOO items; accounts <of solicitors andparliamentary agents, re Parliamentary Bill and conveyancing, c.1853-8, c. 70 items; traffic account book, 1855-70; also othercorrespondence and working papers, mainly re transfers of shares,

\, c. 1855-90, I b o x .Executorships, trusts etc. : (Apart from any items specifically mentioned

these normally include wills, drafts and other working papers resales, c’orrespondence, papers re payment of legacy duties, and

, papers re investments); Rawnsley of Halton Holgate, c. 184o-1900,3 boxes: Burcham of Ewerby Thorpe, 1864-c.rgoo, 2 boxes:Armstrong of Horncastle, r7g2-c.rgro1 including ledger of ThomasArmstrong, corn, seed and coal merchant, 1860-67, accounts ofThomas Bryan, 1841-2, title deeds of messuage and granaries andcottage in Far Street, with plan of coal yard, 1792-1869, 4 boxesin all : Watson of Horncastle, 1873-c.1910, 3 boxes: Burman ofHorncastle, butcher and farmer, c. 1877-91, I box: Panton ofHorncastle, bank manager, c. 18go-qo5, I box: Sharp of Horn-castle, c. 1850-90 (including account book, farming etc., c. 1850-67) :Maddison of High Toynton, sale of deceased’s estate for creditors,1886-7 (with earlier abstracts of title), I box: Swannack of Kirk-stead, c. 1859’81, I box: Boulton of Horncastle, 1861-71 (abstractof title from 1784), I box: Carter of Horncastle, c. 1876-92, I box .

Bankruptcy of R. S. Betts of Holbeach Lodge, wool-merchant, farmerand grazier, correspondence, case papers, dividend warrants, salecatalogues, draft conveyances and plans, mainly 1880-81.

Title deeds, North Kyme, 1788-1917.Acts of Parliament re drainage and enclosure of Wildmore and East and

West Fens, 1801-12, bound in one volume.

3 T w e e d a n d P e a c o c kHorncastle Lighting and Watching Inspectors : minute books, 1838-66;

account books, 1839-66; police wages books, 1838-57; police note ’books, 1838-40, 1846-53; correspondence, vouchers, meetings papersetc., 1838-65, 45 bundles.

Henry Sellwood, Horncastle solicitor : book of precipes, 1829-34; accountbook with firm of Sellwood and Conington 1842-6; documents resale of business to Samuel Sketchley and arrangements followingthe latter’s bankruptcy, 1848-57, c. 25 items.

Horncastle Steam Laundry: correspondence, accounts and some pub-licity material etc., rgo7-12, I box.

Horncastle Railway : dividend lists, 1913-23, I volume: correspondence,etc., 1919-25.

Executorships, trusteeships etc. : Jeffery .of Horncastle and Scrivelsby,c. 1870-90, I box: Elmhirst of West Ashby, incl. W. Ashby titledeeds, c. 1846-rgro, 4 boxes: Griffin of West Ashby, incl. titledeeds, 19th cent., and farming accounts, 1847-52, c. 184o-rgoo, 5boxes : Cracroft of Hackthorn, incl. title deeds, Normanby by Spital,

37

r&rgth century, leases of Harrington Hall etc., early 19th cent.,rentals, accounts papers re sales and other estate business, c.1825-60, wills and settlements c. 1850-1900; correspondence betweenCracroft and Henry Sellwood, c. 1838-50, IO boxes in all: Hotchkinof Woodhall Spa, mainly draft leases and other estate material,c. 188o-1920, 3 boxes: Sir Francis and Lady Hartwell, estate atRotighton., rental, 1899-1924, papers re sales etc., c. 1910-24, 2boxes : Dennis of Greetham, c. 186o-Igoo, also incl. papers reGreetham Corn Rents, I&36-rgoo, 3 boxes in all: Boulton family,also including other smaller clients’ bundles, late Igjh-early 20thcent., I box: Elsey executorships, 1844, c. 1875-90.

Title deeds: Hemingby, 1760-1885, also Fletcher executorship, c.1860-85; Market Place, Horncastle (with plan), 1807-44, 16 items.

Sale catalogues and plans (printed), c. IS&-1960, c. ‘70 items. ’The Firm’s business: letter books; Fred W. Tweed, 1859-60, 1889-91;

Reginald F. Boulton, 1888-93, 1896-8; Charles Dee, 1889-94,1896-8: account books; Tweed, 1882-1902, 8 ~01s.; Dee, I8g2-1901.

Miscellaneous :’ agreement of Ig parishes in Caistor area to form a unionfor Poor Law purposes, 1802; agreement adding 14 more parishesto the union, 1804; rental of Horncastle tithe rents, 1889-1933; ditto,Langton, x925-34.

MISCELLANEOUS GIFTS AND DEPOSITS

The following are acknowledged with much gratitude:The executors of Mrs. F. L. Baker: a number of files and notkbooks

with material used for her histories of Fulletby, Nettleham, Rise-holme and Scothern (Baker).

Dr. D. M. Barratt: deed re Waddington, Igo (Misc. Don. 260, 3A).British Records Association: on behalf of Messrs. Boodle, Hatfield

and Co. Marriage settlement, the Hon. Geo. Irby & Miss RachelIves Drake, 1801 (B.R.A. 1407); on behalf of Messrs. Collyer,Bristow and Co., re the estate of George Skipworth, I85o-1930(B.R.A. 1489).

J. Broughton, esq. : papers re the administration of the estate of RobertClark of Kirton Lindsey, 1882-84 (Misc. Don. 280).

Digby F. G. Came, esq.: album of newspaper cuttitigs,~ some generalsome re Woodhall Spa, 1893-1917 (Misc. Don. 2o6).

Church Commissioners : deeds re Buckden, Lincoln bishopric estate,1793-99 (3) (C-C. 71.)

Frank Dawson, esq.: deeds re Dalby, farm of 142 acres, formerly ofJohn Bourne of Dalby, includes recitals or extracts of settlementand agreement re dower, with mortgage, 1801-47, John Bourne andMary his wife, formerly Mary Mather, mortgagees in turn JohnPhilips Mather of Liverpool and Frederick Jackson Rhodes ofAlford; will of John Bourne, 1850; trustees Charles Tennyson

D’Eyncourt and John Henry Bourne, includes also sale particulars,1855, plan of John Bourne’s estates 1841, and copy enclosure plan1839 Dalby and Dexthorpe, 1839-56 (3 Daw.).

G. S. Dixon, esq.: additional papers, Reginald Dudding (Dudd.).

38

F. East, esq..- records of a builder, bill books, notes of materials andhours, specifications and bye-laws, two plans, Heighington and dis-trict, 1904-58; copies contracts, plans and papers, water supply,North Kesteven R.D.C. 193x-34; pig club, list of contributors,minutes, papers, Bull and Butcher, Heighington, 18821956; printeditems, sale particulars Garrett charity land 1915, scheme for Garrett’scharity 1918, scheme for Heighington School 1921 (East).

Capt. J. Elwes: photocopy, accounts of John Horne Tooke (D.N.B.1736-1812) with Cary Elwes esq. (1718-82) for acting as a travel-ling companion to his son Cary (1744-81). Very detailed accountsshowing payment for accommodation, dinners and suppers, wineand liqu urs, other specified foods for breakfasts etc., wages, tips,travel, s&‘ght-seeing, repair and cleaning of chaise, clothes andtheir repair and washings, barbers, powder, wash bills etc. fortoilet, candles, fire, sword belt and repair of sword, newspapersincluding the North Briton, violin and case, tuition in French and

’ music, apothecary, books, visits to (the play, recovering items soldby his pupil & paying for his damage; 1763, Calais, Boulogne,Montreuil, Blois, Paris, Amiens, St. Just, Paris, Estampes, 5-13April: Blois 14 April-17 Nov.: Tours 17-27 Nov.; Montbazon,Chatebrant, 28-9 Nov.: Poitiers, 30 Nov.-13 April 1764; La Rochelle,Rochfort, Saintes, Niort, Bordeaux 8-14 July; Castres, Ager,Montaubon, Cahors 15 July-4 August: Brives, Limoges, Montrolles,Vierzun, Orleans, Estampes, Paris, Peronne, Arras, St. Omer,Calais, 5-13 August: Dover, London, 13-19 Aug. Typescript, tran-script from telediphone recording Talks/General Division, B.B.C.Lady Massingberd (‘ I remember ’ 22 March 1962); similar docu-ment, Henry Treece ‘ My County ‘, Ig Aug. 1951.Additional family papers: Fielding family two books of ex ractsmid 19th cent., diary probably Francis Fielding 1875, 1880; alenjrtine Cary Elwes letters to his second wife 1865-71, diaries 1883-1907,book of extracts, also one made by his first wife Henrietta Lane,1851; Ellen, sister of Valentine, letters to her I85o-go; GervaseElwes diary 1887, copies of will, codicils, correspondence, case andopinion, accounts 1914-21; Valentine A. D. Elwes, ,diary of servicewith navy 1914; Capt. Rudolph Philip Elwes, misc. letters &papers; ms. pedigree Elwes family of Stoke co. Suffolk & Throckingco. Hert. to 1793, later annotations.

Messrs. Gabb and co., via the Monmouthshire county archivist: plansof Bratoft, Croft and Orby 1813, of Burgh le Marsh 1819, estatesof Charles White esq. also undated plan of estate of C. J. Guthriein Burgh le Marsh, abstracts of title from 1746, settlements 1846 and1870, and deeds 1816-70, Guthrie family (Misc. Dep. 208).

Gloucester County Record Office, the archivist for Messrs. Ticehurst,Wyatt and Co. : papers re the estate of the Rev. A. Boulton atMoulton and Whaplode, including copy rental 1815, abstracts from1710-1832 (Misc. Dep. 203).

Hastings Museum and Art Gallery, the curator: deeds re cottages andland, Tetford, 1813-1833 (Misc. Don. 2.78).

Sir Francis Hill: a bundle of papers, dealing with the effort to definethe bounds of the Bail and the property of the duchy of Lancaster,to collect arrears of rent and to deal with encroachments, including

: the house of Peter de Wint, for which it is suggested either com-pensation should be paid or a lease prepared. Some of these docu-

39

ments were copied, sent to Wm. Forbes, and are included in thevolume of extracts relating to the duchy of Lancaster among therecords of the County Committee mentioned in Archivists’ Reportx950-1, p. 16,’ r7g3-I8y (Hill 26) title deeds, mainly Lincoln cityr8th-19th cent. (Hill 27 and zg).

Holland County Council, the chief education officer: School log booksas follows : Gedney Dyke Primary 1875-1967, evening continua-tion, 1895-8 (at one end schemes of: work for children 1951-2);Holbeach §t. Luke, Board Council School, 1872-1967, with punish-ment book 1901-48, evening continuation 1896-1905.

Hounslow Public Library, librarian-archivist: deed re the grange orcapital messuage in Little Grimsby, with named closes, 1675; state-ment under oath re John Disney as commissioner for sequestrations,1661; deed re messuage and 80 acres in Swarby, 1710; deed re twocottages in Pettycoat Lane, Boston, 1759; lease from the king for31 years, small properties in Great Carlton, Cowbit, and Spalding,Kirton Lindsey inc. site of manor, water and wind mill, tolls ofmills markets and fairs, 1662; cottage in Glamford Brigg, 1614(Misc, Don. 287).

R. W. Hunt, esq.: photograph of Lincoln Cathedral, c. 1870 (Misc.Don. 286).

Lancashire County Record Office,, the archivist: book containing act for .making a road from Gainsborough to East Retford, 1787, lists oftrustees for the same, 1787-94; act for building a bridge at Gains-borough 1787, lists of subscribers (Misc. Dep. 205).

i Lincoln,, the Lord Bishop : confirmations 1966.Lincoln Cathedral Library, the librarian: papers of the Revd. C. F.

Brotherton, vicar of Barnetby le Wold from 1892, two books ofhistorical notes, one re Yarborough wapentake; copies of documentsre Barnetby le Wold enclosure award, 1768, no plan, conveyancein trust of land and farm, profits to go to the education of poorchildren there, 1860, particulars of manor and estate, plan, 1831 orpost, plan of glebe farm, 1922 (Misc. Dep. 204).

Lincoln City Library, the director: tailors’ bills Winter and Willows,Lucy Tower Street, Lincoln (Misc. Don. 281).

Lincoln City Museum, the director on behalf of Mr. N. Blades: agree-ment to let a close in Brickyard Lane, Lincoln St. Mary le Wigford,1859 (Misc. Don. 279) sheriffs’ quittance, Lincoln city, 1725-6 ,(L.C.M. 6).

Lincoln Co-operative Society : deeds relating to property in HeatonStreet, Gainsborough, including the ,former Lamb Inn on the

’ Market Place, with yard and workshops, later used as a bakery,includes abstract of title of 1852 setting out properties, includingthe Lamb Inn, owned by E. W. R. Rudgard of Lincoln, who wasin arrears for malt duty, including capital messuage in Newlandformerly of A. S. Melville with two pews in St. Martin’s Church,Lincoln, a brewery in St. Swithin’s parish, Lincoln, and numerousproperties, inns and beer houses in Lincoln and elsewhere in thecounty, includes plans of 1880-2 showing the formation of HeatonStreet X773-1943 (2 L.C.S.).

Lincoln Diocesan registrar : additional deposits, faculties, institutions,benefice papers etc. to c. 1959.

40

Lincoln Mint Street Baptist Church, additional: accounts and agree-ments for new chapel and school 1871, lease of old chapel at Wad-dington to Salvation Army 1884, a few other misc. papers ISgr-1912(I Baqt. g-13).

Lincolnshire Museum of Rural Life: estate plan of Westborough andDoddington, 1812 (I M.L.L.).

Lincolnshire branch, National Farmers’ Union, Brigg: a collection ofagricultural press cuttings, mainly Lincolnshire papers, Feb. 1966-Jan. 1967 (N.F.U. Brigg).

Lindsey, Association for the care of the elderly: essays submitted forcompetition 1967.

Lindsey County Council, the clerk: additional voters’ lists to 1939.

Lindsey County Library, the librarian, on behalf of Mr. Shipton ofSutton-on-Sea : abstract of title and valuation of estates 1833,devised by the will of Mary Holland, 1810, of many of the proper-ties for which the following deeds exist ; Alford, the market place1765-1861 ; Asterby, messuage, closes and 2 oxgangs in Goulceby,1685-1746 ; Bolingbroke, copyhold messuage and lands, 1810-56 ;Boston, White Horse Inn in Furden Lane, ‘the west side of thewater, 1715-60 ; Burgh-le-Marsh, farm and closes, 1862 ; Dogdyke,mortgage of Thomas Cartwright Mayfield’s estate, 1826-60 ; Frisk-ney, a close of land, 1841 ; Grasby, various properties with fieldnames etc. including agreement 1649, for division and enclosure ofthe west low field to which Edward Rossiter of Somerby was aparty along with 8 others, mostly yeomen, 1636-1754 ; Hogsthorpe,two closes, 1670-1861 ; Huttoft, messuage and lands, parsonage(leasehold), a close, 1713-1868 ; Ingoldmells and Addlethorpe,‘closes, originally described as messuage and pasture called Lincolnlands, 1642-1856 ; Kirton in Lindsey, cottage on South Green,1738-1823 ; Leake, will of John Good&on, labourer, 1833 ; Mable-thorpe, misc. mortgages 1843-69 ; Maltby-le-Marsh, cottages andcloses, 1796-1837, Fen allotment 1860 ; Martin by Horncastle, deedre accommodation works, plan, 1855 ; Mumby chapel, a cottageand its former site, rSo3-rg ; Saltfleetby, abstract of title, JohnHairby, 1778-1856 ; Skendleby, manor and lands, includingabstract of title and extract from enclosure agreement 1723, 1723-1861 ; Sloothby, messuage and closes,. r7o4-r8go I Spittlegate,messuage in Commercial road, 1837 ; Great Steepmg, lease ofarable and pasture, 1867 ; Strubby, mortgages, 1836-53 ; Sutterton,lease of Rose and Crown public house, 1856 .; Sutton in the Marsh,with Huttoft, mortgages of farms, 1851-78 1 Swaby, wind cornmill, 1852 ; Thorpe by Wainfleet, closes in the Dales and Renni-sons three acres, 1813-27 ; Ulceby, 2a. in pasture, 1825-60 ; Wad-dingham, various including lands allotted in enclosure by Chancerydecree 1700, Maudson v. Burnett, also estates at Hogsthorpe,1685-1861 ; Wigtoft and Bicker, cottage and lands;1783 ; in Cum-berland, Great Salkeld, several small properties, 1785-1861 ; inWestmoreland, Temple Sowerby, dwelling house and Sga., alsoHall’s great house and lands in Culgarth, Cumberland, 1748-64(Misc. Don. 275).Two boxes of documents, apparently from the late Canon C. W.Foster’s collection, overlooked when the library was moved, notyet listed (F.L. manuscripts).

41

Lindsey, Director of Education : C.E. School log books, Asterby, _Acham’s School, 1946-58 ; Fulletby 1909-59 ; Horkstow 1870-1967 ; Moorby 1926-59 (S.R.).

Louth borough, the town clerk: records as set out in Archivist$ Report1950-51, pp. 57-8, and Archivists’ Report 18, pp. 75, with the

exception of the royal charters and a few other items.

Leonard Marshall, esq. : three additional manuscript notebooks of HenryWinn of Fulletby (see Report 18, pp. 55-7).

Bought from Mrs. .M. E. Morris: five letters from Thomas Cooper tothe Revd. Arthur O’Neill, 1875-1890 (Misc. Don. 282).

Messrs. Mossop and Bowser: additional deposit of deeds, unlisted(H.D. 72); records of the South Holland drainage district, includingminutes, accounts rate books from the 1780s and a minute book ofthe Spalding Commissioners, of Sewers 1709-32.

Mrs. B. Mumford: Found in the attic rafters of the Old Rectory, WestTorrington, family letters, Mossman and Wimberley, c. 1827-54(Misc. Don. 209).

Nottingham County Record Office, the archivist: Biscathorpe, enclosureact 1731, copy, plan of the lordship 1716 amended to 1738 (Misc.Don. 277).

Councillor J. G. Ruddock : records re printing and book selling, partner-ship accounts 1885-98, wages accounts 1884-1902, 1906-09, 1926-44,1958-62, p.a.y.e. 1947-63 ; cash books 1905-34, 1939-64, accountswith publishers 1907-18, valuation of plant 1884, or.ders and specifi-cations 1908-20, publicity leaflets 1926, catalogues of Christmasgifts 1903-13, set of Artists’ Series, coloured postcards, 1902-13,for the firm now J. Ruddock Ltd., Lincoln ; also with the above,ledger, Matthew Dymoke Lister of Hagworthingham, turner, 1795-8,re-used by a printer, stationer and bookseller, probably the Druryfamily, 1799-1831 (Ruddock).

T. S. Scadding, esq., by the good offices of E. Gillett, esq.: accountsfor the building of Scunthorpe church, I889-91 (Misc. Dep. 207).

Somerset Record Office, the archivist, for Messrs. Thorne and Thorne:lease of the ferry over the Trent called Kinnard’s Ferry, 1708 ;final concord re the ferry, messuage and land in Owston, alsomessuages and lands in Worksop, 1775 (Misc. Dep. 202).

Messrs. Stanton and Ringrose: manor of Bourne Abbotts, court books1644-1927, some gaps (Bourne manorial).

Dr. II. J. M. Stratton: letter of a curate’s son of Owmby to Lady Wray,early 19th cent. (Misc. Don 284).

Mrs. Joyce Sutton: Letters to Mr. Thomas Tye, Market Rasen, 1735(Misc. Don 285).

Bought from H. H. G. Vorley, esq. with the good offices of the GreaterLondon (Middlesex) Record Office: Common recoveries re estateat Holbeach, 1769, 1774 ; sale particulars, land at West Ashby,Woodhall and Wildmore Fen, 1857-94 (3); indictment from quartersessions roll 1652, re robbery at Bourne (Misc. Don. 283).

Mrs. E. Wade-Martins: Keadby manor, title deeds, settlements etc.1723-51, Dunn family copies of wills, 1786-1880, court books 1747-1929, compensation agreements 1930-5.

4 2

G. W. Walshaw, esq.: commonplace book of the Revd. E. M. Weigall,begun at Rossall College, 1852, continued when vicar of Froding-ham, r85g-Igo8 (Misc. Dep. 200).

James L. Watson, esq.: field reeve’s book, for Withern with Wood-thorpe, recording proceedings and regulations of common under theCommon Field Act, 1772, with disbursements of the field reeve,1791-1808 ; dikereeves accounts, Withern, 1817-44 (Misc. Dep. 199).

Women’s Institutes, scrap books for 1965: Ancaster, BracebridgeHeath, Billingborough, Boothby Graffoe, Brant Broughton andStragglethorpe, Caythorpe, Claypole, Coleby, Colsterworth,Coningsby and Tattershall, Dyke, Folkingham, Heckington,Helpringham, Hungerton with Wyville, North Hykeham, Leg-bourne and Little Cawthorpe, Manthorpe, Pickworth, Sleaford,Waddington.

Worcester County Record Office, the archivist for Messrs. Hemingway,Macey and Sons: draft will for Mary Fowler, Chapel St. Leonard,1897 (Misc. Dep. 201).

Messrs. Wright and,Son: large quantity of building plans, from c. rgzo(Wright).

Yorkshire North Riding County Record Office, the archivist: a terrierof lands of %Robert Osney, West Torrington, 1622 (Misc. Don. 276).

D R A I N A G E R E C O R D S

2 DEEPING FEN

In Archivists’ Report 9, x957-8, p. 59, anaccount was given of thefirst deposit of documents made by Mr. W. H. Martin, Clerk of theDeeping Fen Internal Drainage Board. This deposit consisted of therecords of proceedings of the various drainage trusts in his custody, ofminutes, accounts, registers of conveyances and mortgages, and letterbooks. In 1965 Mr. Martin made a further deposit consisting this timeof some of the filed documents and working papers of the clerks, Thesewere infiltrated into the first .deposit and added to the list. Since thentwo further and more extensive deposits of documents have beenreceived, and it was decided to list them as a separate series, a summaryof which is given below. The archivists are grateful to Mr. Martin forhis kind co-operation.

In her account of the first deposit, Mrs. Owen, then assistantarchivist, drew especial attention to the activities of the families involvedas adventurers or undertakers of drainage in the 17th and 18th centuriesand to the position and influence of John Grundy as their clerk andsurveyor. The supplementary and second deposits help to amplify thefirst deposit in making apparent the legal complexities attending thework of the adminstration of drainage in the Deeping Fen area, whento the Adventurers of the 17th and 18th centuries were added furthergroups of trustees under act of parliament and award. Under the actof 1801 for drainage and enclosure of the commons of the fen in Deeping,Langtoft, Boston, Spalding, Pinchbeck and Cowbit, Crowland Commonand certain lands in the parishes of Bourne and Thurlby adjoining theriver Glen, and the consequent awards of its commissioners 1819, thework of the adventurers was supplemented by that of the commissioners

43

themselves until their award was made, then by that of the trustees forthe Deeping Fen general works of drainage together with trustees forsix districts into which the area was divided and by the trustees for theriver Glen. Records of the f,ourth district are not included in the deposits.The minutes for the first, second and third drainage districts survivefrom 1817, those for the river Glen trust from 1820 and those of thefifth and sixth districts from I&O. In 1847 following a meeting Of pro-prietors and the promotion of an act, the. Crowland and Cowbit drainagetrustees began their operations. Some simplification was afforded by themerger of the adventurers and general trustees, also of all the districttrusts but the 4th, under the act of 1856, but this did not deal with allthe overlap of work and function. To the above bodies must be addedthose operating in neighbouring regions but on portions of some of thesame rivers or waterways such as the commissioners under acts ofparliament from 1765 onwards for draining and improving marsh andfen lands between Boston Haven and Bourne, the Black Sluice level, andfor improving navigation through these lands, trustees under variousacts for the Bourne South Fen and Thurlby Fen and there were alsothe special responsibilities of Sir ,Gilbert Heathcote in the area. Oldestof all, were the residual rights and duties of the commissroners of sewers.It is clear that the cautious and limited nature of these acts was to com-bine the regulation of parliament (no taxation without representation)with the spontaneous initiative of local proprietors in their efforts toimprove their own properties and those of others in their areas. Thelater stages by which the confused state of the drainage activities wassimplified for the whole county are given in Archivists’ Report 16, p. 45,when discussing the records of the Lincolnshire River Authority. Furtherdetails of the history of the Deeping Fen drainage are given in A Historyof the Fens of South Lincolnshire, W. H. Wheeler, second edition 1896.What remains now t’o be done is to give some insight into the natureof the deposited documents by some selected examples.

The confusion of areas, duties and powers gave rise to much seekingof counsel’s opinion and to litigation some of which was by agreementbetween parties to endeavour to get authoritative verdicts. In an opinionon a case put regarding the respective duties of the adventurers, com-missioners of sewers and Deeping Fen trustees in the matter of themaking of tunnels to irrigate in time of drought and to relieve pressureon banks, John Lens of Hockham, Norfolk, wrote “It does not appearto me that the Trustees appointed under 41 Geo. III can be considered ’as having now the exclusive jurisdiction so as to supersede all power inthe Commissioners Of Sewers or the Adventurers. If they have a con-current jurisdiction the difficulty of carrying into effect such a powerto be exercised jointly with two other parties who are already at varianceas to their separate rights is so great that it can hardly be removed byany other means than the authority of parliament interposing newregulations where three parties. appear to claim independent powersand if they have only a concurrent authority there seems so little possi-bility of their acting in unison” (2 Deeping Fen z/2/4). Cold comfortindeed for the trustees only two years after the award of commissionersin 1819 to put into effect the act of parliament of 1801. Cases were

,

stated and instruction sought as to how to proceed in King’s Bench witha view to deciding the responsibility for roading the river Glen, that isof cutting and cleaning weeds (2 Deeping Fen 212 15, 1&6), followedby an action of trespass on the case in that court which was referred tothe Lincoln assizes, where a verdict of jurors was given for the trustees

.

4 4

against the adventurers subject to the opinion of King’s Bench on aspecial case in which Mr. Justice Bayley gave judgment confirming thatverdict, and damages were assessed (2 Deeping Fen 2/2/7, 1827-29).Both parties seem to have made this a joint attempt at an authoritativeverdict to justify their respective positions. It was nearly 30 years laterthat the authority of parliament was brought in to merge their powers.There were still the Black Sluice commissioners to disagree with theDeeping Fen trustees, also those for the river Glen. In 1872 the clerkfor the Black Sluice sent to the latter a resolution of the commissionersdrawing attention of the conservators of the river to the need for im-provement of the Glen outfall sluice into the. Welland (2 Deeping FenI /7/3). In 1898 the Deeping Fen trustees printed correspondencerelating to the river Glen in an endeavour to co-ordinate the efforts ofthemselves, the river Glen trustees and the Black Sluice commissioners,but ending negatively with an allegation that none of the trusts hadscope or powers for the work waiting to be done, and with the opinionof the Deeping Fen trustees that “ the policy which the Black Sluicecommissioners so strongly deprecated of building up the banks of theriver one trust against the other appears to have been re-inauguratedby them ” (2 Deeping Fen I/I/IO). A further act relating to the rivdrGlen improvement was not passed until 1915 (2 Deeping Fen 2/ ~/‘g-73).Cases were put, opinions sought and actions launched in the painfulmatter of the collection of drainage rates for the river Glen. At King’sBench in r823, where the defendant counterclaimed because his horsehad been taken as distress (2 Deeping 2/2/6) in 1876-83 at CommonPleas, when liability to pay on lands in Baston had been disclaimed(2 Deeping Fen 2/2/11) and in the County Court at Bourn-e in 1884when Aquila Peasgood, farmer, having paid no rates since 1850, com-pounded for payment of the last two rates, costs being borne by theplaintiffs (2 Deeping Fen 2/2/12).

These examples of legal problems in. drainage work in the 19thcentury no doubt account for the importance of the office of clerk, heldby a qualified solicitor, and now separated from the office of surveyor.Such clerks as Charles Foster Bonner for the river Glen trustees andJames Torkington for those of Crowland and Cowbit, advised theirtrustees, handled their affairs, represented them in correspondence andsometimes also in litigation. James Torkington kept his draft bill ofcosts for an action on the backs of printed accounts and notices of theStamford cricket club of which he was treasurer, whence it is knownthat the last match of the season in 1856 was between Married andSingle, to begin at IO a.m. on 9th September followed by dinner atthe George Hotel, Stamford, at 6 p.m. (Deeping Fen 3/2/3). Many ofthe trustees, however, were also notable characters. Sir John Trollopeof the Crowland and Cowbit trust and who had backed the bill for it,was asked to arbitrate as to what case should be presented at Queen’sBench ,on allotments roads and herbage, 1854-8 (ibid.). The office ofsurveyor was not combined with that of clerk as in the days of JohnGrundy (Archivists’ Report 9, p. 59). Some surveyors or advisers wrotespecial authoritative reports, many of which are noted by Wheeler(op. cit.) but Alfred Harrison, surveyor to the river Glen trustees,appears as a loyal and humbler servant. The trustees’ accounts mightperhaps reveal what he was paid in commission, but in March 1884~after years of bad flooding and anxiety, he reminded the trustees thathe had been six years without any salary at all (2 Deeping Fen 2 /5 / II).Later he appears to have served both the river Glen and the Deeping

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Fen trustees, and in a supplementary letter to one of his reports in 1904he enlarged on his services, having saved the banks, improved theriver, served both trusts at the smallest expense, floods being shorn oftheir former terrors. He had “left his mark on the records of the lastcentury in the river Glen. Can the trustees allow him some slightrecognition? ” (2 Deeping Fen 2 /5 /24). His reports, 1877-1904, showa great devotion to his work and bring a feeling of the open air. Thegreen banks and the difficulties of preserving their size and shape, thecarriage of earth from the slipes or flat land between water courses, thedevastations of moles (2,000 caught last year), the infestation of thistles,the bank shrinkage in drought, the breaches in heavy rain and flood, theinspections by boat, the need of a light railway which was supplied, aretopics on which he wrote with a relative economy and simplicity ofwords and a passionate sincerity. The series of reports was continueduntil 1917 by H. Bain (2 Deeping Fen 2/5/2-32).

Trustees sometimes engaged in unsuspected activities such as thegranting of a 99-year lease by the Deeping Fen trustees for a nationalschool at Pinchbeck St. Matthew in 1865 (2 Deeping Fen I/~/II)appointing a road surveyor for the north township of Deeping St.Nicholas but doubting their powers to make carriage ways, 1864-5(2 Deeping Fen 1/S/4-11) and leasing fishing rights. R. Wyche ofStamford who, in 1887, with others, had a lease of fishing rights in allrivers and drains in Crowland and Cowbit washes, wrote a letter in1913 on behalf of his angling association and the need for a moderaterental as many members were poor. He referred to earlier days whenthere was a turn out of poachers, at midnight on 15th June when theclose season ended. This was harmful as the river was cleared--by thedragging of nets, and was not profitable to the poachers as the fish, inpoor condition after spawning, were only sold for manure. This wasthe state of affairs existing before he had been concerned with fishingrights. (2 Deeping Fen 3/4/1-2).

’

There is a iset of plans and drawings in the deposit, one in manu-script by Jos. Featherstone, whose plan of the whole fen was engravedin 1763, showing the plan of the new drain from the present Vernatsto the outfall near the junction of Welland and Glen, 1774 (2 DeepingFen I /5/3). Some drawings and sketches, as for a bridge and sluicesat Pode Hall, before 1810 (ibid. 5-6) the designs for a drawbridge atSpalding, 1836 and_ 1842 (ibid. 13-14) and a plan of the adventurers’land showing a toll bar on the turnpike road from Spalding, before 1856(ibid. 17) might interest the industrial archaeologist.

Summary

Deeping Fen adventurers and trustees: acts of parliament and relatedpapers sometimes without copies of the acts, 1780-1930; case papers,1809-93; conveyances, leases and agreements, 1788-1912; plans,1763-1893; reports and surveys, 1820-1917; misc. letters and papers1849-1949; papers re Deeping St. Nicholas north township,1859-1904.

River Glen trustees : acts of parliament and related papers 1801-1916;case papers 1805-1916; extracts from minutes etc. 1894-1921; con-tracts, conveyances and agreements 1873-1915; reports, 1877-1917;misc. financial records and memoranda 1816-post 1930.

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Crowland and Cowbit Wash: papers relating to the obtaining of theact of 1847 (no copy of the bill or act with them): case papers1848-1911; contracts, 1847-1925; leases, particulars etc. 1831-1919;bundle re mortgage of drainage rates 1893-1907; rate books 1847;vouchers 1932-38, receivers’ account 1939.

DIOCE.SAN R E C O R D S

RECORDS FROM THE REGISTRAR’S OFFICE

A number of account books belonging to the Registrar’s Office atLincoln which had remained in the Exchequer Gate for a century, sincethe firm of Swan had their offices there, have been sorted, listed, andnumbered (reference R/AC.) i Into this series have been incorporatedthe miscellaneous accounts listed on pp.. 80-81 of the Handlist, whichhave been renumbered, preserving, however, a record of their previousreferences. At the same time a file of letters written to the DeputyRegistrar in the period 1784-90, which came to light after the rest ofthe Registrar’s correspondence was listed, has been calendared and addedto that series with the reference Cor. R. 8.

The business transacted in the registrar’s ofice at Lincoln was thatrelating to the Principal Registrarship of the diocese, to the registrarships Iunder the Bishop’s Commissaries in the Archdeacon&s of Lincoln andStow, and to the registrarships of the Archdeacons in these arch-deaconries. The bulk of the records belong to a period extending fromthe third decade of the 18th century to the 1860’s. Until 1829 the officialwho transacted the business of the office was known as ‘ Deputy Regis-trar,’ since, with the exception of the registrarship of the Archdeaconof Stow, which he held by patent immediately from the Archdeacon, hehad received deputations from the persons who held the various patentoffices of registrar to act in their stead. The registrars took no part inthe business, confining themselves to the receipt of their share of theprofits, usually two-thirds, allowing to the deputy the other third. Thesame deputies also acted for the Chapter Clerk, Anthony Reynolds, inthe period 1757-1809, which explains the presence of certain records ofthe Dean and Chapter with these books.

In 1732 it was stated that the same deputy registrar had for many *years been appointed to execute the offices of deputy both to the Prlnci-

pal Registrar and Registrar under the Bishop’s Commissaries of Lincolnand Stow and to the Rsegistrar of the Archdeacon of Lincoln, “ and allthe business is despatched in one and the same office, to prevent themany inconveniences which would attend the public in case the saidoffices should be executed separately ” (R.Ac.312). Thomas Howsonwas the deputy at this date, and he was succeeded by John Bradleybetween 1736 and 1739. John Bradley held office until his death in 1783.These accounts show, however, that during the period 1759-70 the Regis-trar of the Archdeacon of Lincoln had a separate deputy, WilliamJepson. This arrangement which ended in 1770, was perhaps alreadyin existence in 1742, as several references to Francis Bernard as a DeputyRegistrar occur in the period 1742-51 (see Sir Francis Hill, GeorgianLincoln, pp. 82-83). In 1783 John Fardell succeeded John Bradley, inwhose office he had been trained up from his youth. In 1793 Fardellreceived the additional appointments of Clerk of the Fabric and Clerk

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of the Common and Receiver General of the Dean and Chapter. OnFardell’s death in 1805 his place was taken by his son and namesake.John Fardell the younger retired from his offices in 1821, when he soldthem to Robert Swan, son of the Lincoln surgeon and Alderman, HenrySwan. Swan subsequently received the necessary deputations. How-ever the days of ecclesiastical officials enriched by profits from officesexercised on their behalf entirely by deputies were now numbered. In1810, ,after the death of Anthony Reynolds, Fardell the younger hadreceived a patent as Chapter Clerk, and he was succeeded by RobertSwan. In 1829 Swan received a patent, jointly with Richard Smith,formerly the Bishop’s legal Secretary at Buckden, as Principal Registrarof the diocese. In 1855 Robert Swan and John Swan were appointedRegistrars to the Archdeacon of Lincoln. The removal of testamentaryjurisdiction from the church courts in 1857 reduced the Registrar’sfunctions. As compensation, however, Robert Swan received a yearlypension of i1,500 and his second son, John, was appointed districtregistrar for ‘the new Court of Probate.

The accounts are not confined to the fees due to the registrars,which are recorded in their ‘ Office accounts.’ In the Consistory Courtfees were also payable to the Chancellor and on some occasions to theApparitor., In the Archdeacon’s Court fees were due to Archdeacon,Official, Registrar, and sometimes to Apparitor. The table of fees duein the Consistory Court and the Court of the Archdeacon of Lincoln, asreturned in 1732-3~ to the Royal Commission to survey the Officers ofthe Courts of Justice,and to enquire into their fees, is copied into one ofthe books of Office accounts (R.Ac.3/2). The sums received by Chan-cellors .and Officials are recorded in the Seal books.

The system of accounting whereby the receipts from fees weredivided equally between the officials of the Bishop and of the Arch- ’deacon is to be explained by the concurrent jurisdiction exercised b ythem. In 1782 Bradley wrote to the new Chancellor, Dr. Bever, t oexplain why his receipts included fees for inductions, but not’ the fullfees for sequestrations. “ It has been the practice within the Arch-deaconries of Lincoln arrd Stow for the Archdeacons or their Officialsto exercise a concurrent jurisdiction with the Chancellor or Commissaryin granting sequestrations, founded upon the antient usages of’ thediocese before the Reformation . . . . About the year 1739 some disputes jarose between the Bishop’s Commissary of the Archdeaconries of Lincolnand Stow and the Archdeacons and their officers respecting, the juris-diction and fees. The matter was brought before the Lord Chancellorand about fifteen hundred pounds had been expended to no purpose.The dispute was compromised, and ever since the Commissaries of theBishop and Officials of the Archdeacons and their Registers have dividedthe profits between them, and this is thought to be as equal as possible;for, if for instance the Commissary should claim and receive all the feesfor sequestrations, the Official would claim all the fees for inductions

; but, as the number of sequestrations and inductions are, if notprec’isely very nearly equal, and the fees for each being exactly alike,this division was found to be equitable, and more convenient, as it pre-served unanimity in the offices and prevented their endeavours atgrasping at business and (sic) supplant each other ” (Draft among lettersand papers of deputy registrars in Box 77). The Seal books reveal thedivision of proceeds between Chancellor and Official. The Office accountsshow, however, that besides the registrars’ account in concurrency, which

48

was equally divided, separate accounts were kept of the Archdeacon’sRegistrar’s fees for inductions, and of the Principal Registrar’s fees forsequestrations, dissenters’ certificates, searches and copies.

Many of the series of accounts are obviously very incomplete,though it is possible that some of the subsidiary accounts, such as thoseof business done at visitations, may not always have been kept separate.The attendance of the Deputy Registrar at visitations was as essentialas was his presence in court at Lincoln, and it was then that he receivedthe returns from the surrogates of the business they had transacted andfees they had received. The types of account kept changed somewhatover the period. The advent of the Swans was marked by the intro-duction of large, comprehensive ledgers, some of which also containedaccounts of their other non-ecclesiastical business. A variety ofextraneous accounts _are included in the first Seal book (R.Ac.B/I).Among its miscellaneous contents are accounts of the Provost of theVicars Choral, 1707, William Jepson’s accounts with several preben-daries, with Subdean .Dowbiggin and Bishop Green, 1769-72, and rentalsand accounts of the Spital Hospital, 1762-90. Apart from the insertionof non-registry business into the registry accounts, there have been pre-served with these records a number of other account books, acquiredthrough the private practice of these attorneys, together with variousofficial records belonging to the Swan firm as clerks to the magistrates.

The file of lett’ers of 1784-90, addressed to John Fardell, DeputyRegistrar at Lincoln, consists of ninety-seven letters from John Hodgson,Secretary to the Bishop of Lincoln, and ten each from Bishop Thurlowan,d Bishop Pretyman. Though they reflect some of Fardell’s businessesas Deputy, they are chiefly of interest in throwing light on the activitiesand life of the able and lively ecclesiastical lawyer John Hodgson, Sec-retary successively to Bishops Green, Thurlow and Pretyman-Tomline.

Bishop Green referred to fiodgson as “ our secretary ” in 1772, inthe patent by which he appointed him Apparitor General. As early as1766, however, Hodgson is found signing the Bishop’s Registers in hiscapacity as Secretary, and he continued to do so until 1820 when heretired on Bishop Tomline’s translation to Winchester. In 1768 he hadbeen avpointed joint Principal Registrar of the diocese and Registrarunder the Commissary of Lincoln and Stow, but he resigned the followingyear on the death of his fellow patentee. He became Official of the Arch-deacon of Huntingdon in 1794 and Commissary of the Bishop in theArchdeaconry of Leicester in 1798.

Hodgson’s ofhce was more than that of.a secretary since some of hisfunctions, especially the dispatching of institutions, rightly belonged tothe office of registrar. While some registry business could be transactedat Lincoln, far from the Bishop, other matters required the Bishop’s per-sonal attendance, and these were in Hodgson’s hands. His patent fromthe Bishop, quoted by him in one of these letters was ” to transact andexpedite all such businesses and other matters as shall immediately comebefore the Lord Bishop ” and to be ” Keeper of the records and othermuniments remaining in the Register Office within the Episcopal Palaceat Buckden.” The Bishop was living at Buckden for much of the sum-mer, and each year Hodgson moved his household and family into thecountry. Bishops Thurlow and Pretyman were both Deans of St. Paul’sand went into residence at the Deanery in the winter. Hodgson then re-turned to Bartlet’s Buildings, Holborn, which was both his home andoffice.

49

The letters revealed Hodgson busily engaged with ordinations, in-stitutions, collations to prebends, sequestrations, leases of the bishopricestate, patents of office, visitation plans of the bishop, the, issue of formsof prayer, and a multitude of other tasks. He and Fardell co-operated inthe closest way, each acting for the other and making and receiving payments on behalf of the other as was most convenient. The letters containan interesting discussion about the drawing up of new deputations to Far-dell in 1786, on the issue of new patents as Principal Registrars to JohnGreen and the Bishop’s infant son, Edward Thurlow,~and as Registrarsunder the Commissary of Lincoln and Stow to John Green and SamuelWatkins Green.

In 1787 when Bishop Thurlow was translated to Durham through theinfluence of his brother, the Lord Chancellor, Hodgson expected to ac-company him. When the move was first rumoured, he had written “ Iown I should be sorry entirely t,q quit a diocese where I have been sol,ong planted, and shall therefore in justice to my family endeavor tokeep and get all I can.” A few days later, he thought he would eitherhave Lincoln or half of Durham, or have Durham entirely; and in eithercase his emoluments would be benefited, without losing the friendship ofDr. Thurlow. In fact he seems to have kept both appointments, spendinglong periods at Durham. Back at Buckden in August 1787, he confessed .to being happier in his cottage with his family than when feasting withlords and squires upon all the luxuries of the North. By February 1788,

he thought it impossible to carry on in this way, and believed he mustgive up Lincoln. On 28th July 1788, writing from Auckland Castleabout arrangements for institutions in the diocese of Lincoln duringBishop Pretyman’s summer holiday, he described “a busy bustling time”with Assizes, Visitations, and other businesses. The Bishop of Carlisle,under whom he held a similar legal appointment, was expecting him atRose Castle on 16th August to his ordination and three days Visitation,and he was to meet the Bishop of Bristol, yet another employer, atShaftesbury on the 27th. He must then return to Auckland again, as Mrs.Thurlow meant “ to lie in ” there in September or October. Still atBuckden on 26th September, he was trying to delay the evil day of return-ing to Auckland, and horrified at the BishopLof Durham’s determinationof staying there until March. “ What is to become of my family, mybusiness and connections in the mean time, I am not able to determine,though I can now . . . . declare to you that I wish I never had had any-thing to do with Durham “. By the end of March 1789 he had success-fully reduced his commitments. He had freed himself entirely from allattendance upon the Bishop of Durham in the country, and probablythereby from transacting his London business, as being incompatible withLincoln and his “ other more trifling connections in smaller dioceses “.His family, he knew, must have been broken up and his business ruinedhad he spent eight or ten months a year at Bishop Auckland and left hissouthern connections in the care of a clerk.

In London Hodgson’s duties did not lack variety. The Bishop ofCarlisle was also Dean of Windsor, where Hodgson attended on him.On 9th April 1789, he wrote that he had spent Sunday and Monday atWindsor and seen the King, George III, in perfect health at Chapel andon the terrace. Hodgson was acquainted with Dr. Willis, who had ef-fected this recovery, and refers to him in these letters. On 24th April,’ ina letter in which he asked Fardell for a copy of a Mareham on the Hillterrier because of difficulties between the Bishop of Carlisle and his lessee,he described the thanksgiving service for the King’s recovery which he

50

had attended at St, Paul’s the day before. He had the opportunity ofseating the peeresses and going into any part of the church, before, duringand after the service, except where the King and Lords actually sat. Assoon as the King, Queen, and royal family came near the dome, the ’martial music ceased, and 5,000 children sang Psalm IOO. The King,Queen, and Princesses all shed tears, but the King soon rallied and wentthrough the service with much composure, and on returning in processiontalked much to “ our Bishop ” as Dean.

The dry legal’ businesses discussed are interspersed with referencesto. the families of the two correspondents. Often it is news of the ever-recurring pregnancies and conilnements of Hodgson’s dear Sally. “Onmy arrival in the Buildings this even, I found the knocker tied up andthat Madam got (her bed with a thumping lad.at six this morn “. Thedate was 17 May 1785. By September 1786, sending congratulations onMrs. Fardell’s safe delivery of a daughter, the Hodgsons, having hadlive lads in succession, were looking forward to a girl. Hodgson reportedthe birth of a daughter on 2nd January, 1787, and again on 28 July1788, and of a son in April 1790’. There, was anguish and tragedy forboth young families. The Fardells lost two children, in June 1786 andFebruary 1790. Hodgson’s “ dear little fellow ” was dangerously illwhen he wrote on 18th June, 1786, and he reported his death on rzthJuly. In May 1789 he lost both his eldest son Charles and his youngestdaughter from the measles, and he himself was reduced to a nervousfever brought on by his endeavours at comforting his wife. The Hodgsonchildren included Christopher who followed in his father’s professionand became Chapter Clerk to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s, andSecretary to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York,and the Bishop of London. In 1822, the year of his father’s death, hebecame Secretary to Queen Anne’s Bounty, to which the office ofTreasurer was joined in 1831. A “ remorselessly industrious man “, hemade the Bounty Office his “ private empire ” which he reigned overuntil 1871 (See G. F. A. Best, Temporal Pillars (1964), pp. 224-28).

Summary

Accounts from the Registrar’s Office, Lincoln

Registrar’s day books: 1751-74, 1787-93, 1826-27, 6 ~01s.” Seal books ” : Archdeaconry of Lincoln : receipts for Commissary

and Official, 1723-27; Chancellor and Official, 1752-68; Official, 1768-1834, 2 ~01s.; Chancellor, 1802-55, 3 vols., including Official,1836-60; drafts, Chancellor and Official, 1790-1833.Archdeaconry of Stow: Chancellor and Official, 1769-1860, 2 ~01s.

“ Office accounts ” : 1747-51, I vol.: Registrar of Archdeacon of

Bill

’ .’ .-Lincoln only, 1759-70, mcluding list of fees payable in ConsistoryCourt 1732 and Lincoln Archdeaconfy Court 1733, with descriptionof business, I vol.; 1763-71, 1780-1813, 1821-24, 5 ~01s. (Registrarunder Commissary of Lincoln throughout, Principal Registrar up to1793, Registrar of Archdeacon of Lincoln from 1770) ; Registrar ofArchdeacon of Stow, 1753-83, 2 ~01s.books : 1741-95, 5 ~01s.; 1802-23, 3 ~01s.: 1831-47, I vol., includingbusiness as Clerk of Magistrates and general attorney.

51 ,

Accounts of costs of registry business, arranged in tabular form showingallocation of fees, andL other costs, 1821-22, 1824-43, 4 ~01s.

Stamp accounts : 1826-49, 3 ~01s. ,Accounts of business done at Visitations : 1681-17oI, 1723-36, 1740-47,

I752, 1856-58, IO ~01s.,Accounts with Apparitors, Stow Archdeaconry : 1763-77, 1847-52, 1856,

4 vols.Accounts with Surrogates : 1744-1810, with gaps, 5 items.Dean and Chapter of Lincoln, various accounts : account of John Brad-

ley, deputy, with Anthony Reynolds, Chapter Clerk, 1765-73; rentreceipt book, mainly Lincoln, 1783-88; receipts and payments,rough, 1823-24 and undated; rent receipts and arrears, septisms, andpensions, second half 18th c.; “ lease book “, account of fines andfees for renewal of leases, I812-27; accounts with prebendaries forsermons, vicars’ stalls, and septisms, 1821-25.

Various ledgers : miscellaneous legal business, not all ecclesiastical, 1812-25, I vol.; summaries of accounts when transferred to new ledger inI824, I vol.; general ledgers (registrarship, Dean and Chapter,y;;k;hip to Magistrates, Witham Navigation Company), 1824-55,

.Miscellaneous books relating to Registry : a collection of miscellaneous

accounts, I6th-19th c.; rough day book of registry receipts, 1746-48; ledger of sequestration accounts, including R. Swan’s accountswith Smith, Ellison and Co. and with John Swan, and account ofsubscriptions to Midland Institute for the Blind, 1855-57; draft byRichard Smith of entries for Bishop’s Register, 1820-27; bankaccount Messrs. Smith, Ellison and Co. in account with RobertSwan, 1822; account of wills and administrations transmitted to theRegistry Office 1821-37; account of legacy and annuity receipts sentto Stamp Office, 1829-59; accounts of payments for searches andcopies and for dissenters’ certificates, 1824, 1831-52, 3 items; post-age book, 1859-60; rough notes of fees due in cases in ConsistoryCourt, 1832-33; scribbling diary, registry and other business, 1865;draft bill book, 1854-57; register probably of return of parish registertranscripts, 1852-62; rough accounts for registry’business, 1807.

Miscellaneous books unrelated ta Registry : 4 accounts of John Fardellas executor to John Bradley, 1783-85; account book, building andletting of 6 houses in the Bail of Lincoln, belonging to Hugh Castle-man (J. Fardell attorney), 1777-84; rent receipts and disbursements,prebends of Corringham and Stow (J. Fardell receiver), 1752-83;account book of governors of Sunday School (John Swan agovernor : Lincoln or Ollerton, Notts.?), 1786-1802; bill book of ,W. Burnett, attorney, 1709-19, with his executorship accounts (Lin-coln, Thurlby, Scopwick, Firsby, Waddingham, Lissington, Han-worth) 1720-23; account of the Rev. Jeremiah Ellis as executor ofMrs. Jane Bromhead (lands at Corringham, Stow, Boston), 1730-45; account book of John Dawson of Donington in Holland, cornand coal merchant, in 1807 bankrupt, 1802-07; register of bills of

’ exchange (? Swan firm), 1815-57; ledger of merchant, probablyof Gainsborough, a nephew of Richard West of Lea, 1688-1702;

account of receipts and disbursements of a merchant, a cousin ofEdward Gibson, 1717-32; estate accounts of William Turner, cousinof Edward Gibson (Preston and Ridlington, Rut]., Wrestlingworth,

52

Beds., Buckminster, Leics., and Stamford), 1735-84; account of Wil-liam Turner, executor and nephew of Mrs. Kath. Darby, 1741-52;account of rent receipts and disbursements by William Turner forEdward and George Gibson, houses in par. St. Bride, Fleet Street,1744-71.

Various sessions records acquired by the firm of Swan as clerks to themagistrates for the petty sessional division of the Bail and Close ofLincoln and to the magistrates of the parts of Lindsey, 1820-75.

P A R I S H

GAINSBOROUGH, HOLY TRINITY

Two deposits of records from urban parishes, from Holy Trinity,Gainsborough, and St, Andrew’s, Lincoln, illustrate the Church’s taskin providing for the needs of the population who came to the towns towork in the new engineering industries.

The church of Holy Trinity, Gainsborough, was begun in 1841and opened in 1843, and part of the huge ancient parish of Gains-borough was assigned to it as district in 1844. It was not until the 1860showever, that there was’ a rapid increase in population. First came aperiod of depression after the creation of Hull’s railway communicationshad diverted from Gainsborough most of the wharf business which hadformerly made it an inland port for Hull. Conditions only began toimprove after the small nucleus of the Britannia Works of the engineer-ing firm of Messrs. Marshall, Sons and Co. was established in HolyTrinity parish in 1855. The rapid development of Marshall’s workswas reflected in the increase in the population of the parish from 2,436in 1861 to 6,245 in 1881.

The Church generally lost the allegiance of the country labourerwhen he became a town labourer. Village life was based on a traditionof corporate responsibility ‘of the parishioners, and the community as awhole accepted responsibility for the church as for most other aspectsof village life, expressed for example in church rates and the old poorlaw. The new urban parishes started with no such sense of community.The working classes took no part in the provision of their church andfelt no responsibility for it: Holy Trinity had been provided by thecontributions of the neighbouring gentry, plus a grant from the ChurchBuilding Society, on a site granted by the vicar of Gainsborough.

It was the achievement of the Rev. ‘G. L. Hodgkinson, vicar of HolyTrinity from 1867 to 1891, to create from the foundrymen and theirfamilies a community based on a true Christian fellowship’and embracingevery aspect of social life. Himself a ’ product of Harrow and Oxford, .the possessed remarkable qualities of leadership and *organising efficiency,but most important, he had a unique capacity for comradeship (see hisobituary notice, Diocesan Magazine, March 1915). Every activity andwork was undertaken with the full co-operation of the parishioners whoplayed an active part and accepted responsibility for it. Hodgkinson.compiled his own record of his ministry in the parish in a volume entitled“ Parochialia,” a compendium of information of all sorts relating to thechurch. It includes lists of incumbents, assistant curates, churchwardensand sidesmen, a description of property belonging to the living and

53

accounts of the income of the living +868-go, a list of alterations andimprovements to the church, and names of recipients of charities,Among many loose papers included in the volume is the draft of theaccount of his incumbency which Hodgkinson wrote for Fifty YearsChurch Work in a Working Men’s Parish, being a History of HolyTrinity, Gainsborough (Gainsborough, 1894). In “ Parochialia ” arethe statistics and information on which he based his account, lists ofpersons confirmed, average numbers of communicants, annual totals ofoffertory collected, and parish accounts. Most interesting are the rulesof the guilds and other organizations which he esta’blished, and a collec-tion of printed notices, handbills, pastoral letters, and newspaper cuttingsabout church services and other parish affairs.

Among the papers included in “ Parochialia ” are the programmefor laying the foundation stone and the notice of consecration of thechurch of St. John the Divine, Gainsborough. In 1879, in view of thecontinuing growth of population, Hodgkinson asked Sir HickmanBeckett Bacon ‘to reserve a small piece of land on which a mission roommight be erected. His response was an offer of a site to be held bytrustees, on which should be built a church, schools, and vicarage, andof half the cost of the buildings. The church was opened on 4 May1882 as a chapel of ease of Holy Trinity, but it became a separateparish in the autumn of the same year, and was consecrated, free fromall- debt, on All Saints’ day, 1882.

Hodgkinson was a Tractarian, and the Holy Eucharist was thecentre of the life of the parish. During the first four years of his in-cumbency, communicants averaged 25 on each Sunday in the year,between 1877 and 1882 the average had risen to 73, and, in spite of theopening of St. John’s in 1882, from 1887 to 1891 the average was 76.A daily celebration was begun in 1876. The men’s guild, describedby Hodgkinson as “ always the backbone of our work ” was a guildof communicants established in 1868. Its rules, office, and- “ standardof daily life ” are preserved. Besides the duty of daily prayer andattendance at a monthly meeting for prayer and devotional study, eachmember was required to undertake at least one good work in connectionwith the parish: thus was fostered the idea of personal responsibilityfor the church’s work. “ Nothing was ever originated in the parishwithout being first talked over at a meeting of the Men’s Guild.” Theguild which started with twelve members numbered more than a hundred +in 1882. From its beginnings in Gainsborough the movement for theformation of parochial guilds of communicants spread through thediocese, and Canon Hodgkinson later helped Bishop King in compilinga manual for the diocesan union of guilds.

One of the original members of the Men’s Guild was G. W. Danks,manager of the Nottingham Bank in %ainsborough. In 1868 he becamea lay reader, and he and other members of the guild for several yearsconducted classes and services in a wretched little mission room inBridge Street, which were “ the real beginning of the work amongworking men.” The object of weekly classes on Saturday eveningswas preparation for Sunday Communion an’d instruction in church his-tory, faith, and ritual, resulting in animated discussion. Danks wasordained in 1872 and for eight years served as curate in the parish.A new mission room was erected in 1888. Here members of the guildconducted a children’s service on Sunday evenings.

54 ’

The Church Institution, founded in 1868, was designed to providegeneral education and social amenities for young men. The rules showthat for’ a quarterly subscription of IS. 6d. a member enjoyed the usof the reading room and a weekly discussion, lecture, or concert.Finally a building of its own was erected for the Institution in TrinityStreet, and was opened in 1879. ” It has been indeed a home for manya young fellow who has come into the town as a stranger and who butfor its shelter might have been lost to the church ” wrote two of theparishioners (Fifty Years Chz.mk Work . . . p. 43). The lively interestin the Church’s work taken by the foundrymen led to the celebratedChurch Conference of Working Men, held in 1873 and presided overby Bishop Wordsworth; at which working men read papers on thereasons for the Church’s loss of influence on workmg,men, and how itcould be regained., After reading a report of this conference, the menof St. Alban’s Holborn organ&d themselves into a Society from whicheventually developed the Church of England Working Men’s Society(ibi&. p. 41).

The spirit of mutual support and sympathy was further fostered bythe Holy Trinity Burial Guild, founded in 1870, which also aimed athaving burials conducted in a manner more in accord with the Churah’sfaith. All members were communicants and paid IS, entrance fee anda subscription on the death of any member or his dependant. Theguild provided the cofhn and conducted the funeral. Not every cor-porate venture met with success. The book includes rules for a Mothers’Meeting, begun, in 1869, to help mothers with three or more childrenby furnishing them with materials for their children’s clothes at areduced price and helping them to work on them at weekly meetings.This project was abandoned in 1871 “ because the women did notseem to value it sufficiently.” Hodgkinson’s custom of writing pastoralletters to his parishioners further fostered the sense of corporate respon-sibility. These reveal that by 1870 he had started the ,practice of holdingannual meetings of all church helpers, enlarged m 1871 to all com-municants. Other functions shared increased that sense: the annualsupper of the men of the congregation, the Sunday School Feast, andthe various entertainments whose details are recorded on handbills ornotices,

A good deal of information about the services held and the sub-jects of sermons and instructions is contained in the handbills andnotices. An impressive array of solid, thorough teaching was pro- _vided. In Lent 1872 on Sunday mornings there were sermons on Christin Isaiah and ,Christ in ‘the Pentateuch, on Sunday evenings on sin,repentance, and forgiveness, while instructions after evensong on Sun-days and Fridays covered the sacraments and occasional offices of the ”church. Advent posters for 1882 show not only two sermons on Sundaysand one on Fridays on the Lord’s Coming and related subjects, butfour lectures on Monday evenings on The Day of Judgment. There arenotices about Good Friday services when the Stations of the Cross werepreached in the yards and streets of the parish. Leaving ” Parochialia,”further information about church services is to be found in the Registersof Services, which cover the period 1867~1955 except for a gap between1876 and 1893. They show the times of Communion and numbers ofcommunicants, the amount and object of the offertory, and the preacher’sname, though they provide no information as to the size of the con-gregation at other services, beyond the amount of the offertory. Theirstatistics would repay careful study by the historian of the last hundred

55’

vears of church life in the Church of England, and are certainly a morereliable guide than those of the rehgious census of 1851.

Canon Hodgkinson wrote that the mechanics and labourers of HolyTrinity gave liberally and ‘that he never asked tnem for any moneywithout getting what was needed. The offertory rose from ;6153 in 1867to L260 in 1881. Besides the summaries of parish accounts in‘ ’ Parochialia, ” there are churchwardens’ accounts covering the period1854-1927. There are also accounts of pew rents, 1843-x915. Thechurch was built with 360 seats to be let, their rents providing part ofthe clergy stipends, and 540 free seats. The accounts show the gradualprocess of freeing more and more of the seats. Hodgkinson had created“ an ideal working men’s parish,” according to The Church T&es. Astudy of the later records in this deposit will indicate how far the parishwas able to retain that character.

summary

Registers, 1844-1925 (marriages to 1910, burials to 1894 only), 7 ~01s.Papers dealing with the benefice and its finances: deed of consent from

Queen Anne’s Bounty to accept ,6I,ooo for investment for incum-bent, 1843; copy of Order in Councils assigning a chapelry district,1844; copy of Order in Council granting l47 p.a., '1844; account offees received by incumbent, 1893-1916; account .book, assistantclergy fund, 1914-3I, with missionary contributions 1932-41.

Churchwardens’ accounts: 1859-1927, 2 ~01s.accounts of pew rents, 1843-1915, 2 VOIS.,

including some accounts re fabric 1854-64 and churchwardens’accounts x854-59.

Documents concerning fabric of .church : plan of church and churchyardshowing sewer, n.d.

Registers Of Services, 1867-76, 1893-1955, 7 VOlS.Records of Parochial Church Council: minute book 1914-27; cones-

pendence and accounts 1927-42, 2 files.Miscellaneous : “ Parochialia,” a vohrme of miscellaneous information

compiled by the Rev. G. L. Hodgkinson; incumbent’s accountbook, 1926-31; parish ,magazine, Sept. 1941; accounts of receiptsand expenditure, Sunday SchooI, 1940-57.

LINCOLN ST. ANDREW’S

The history of St. Andrew’s church is one aspect of the lateindustrial revolution which resulted in an increase of 27,600 in thepopulation of Lincoln between I841 and 1891. It was built to pro-vide for the workers in the new engineering works which were foundedin the decade after the coming of the railway in 1846. The develop-ment of these works rapidly crowded the area east of the Sincil dikeand south of the railway with artisans’ dwellings. St. Andrew’s wasbuilt in 1875-78 as a chapel of ease in the parish of St. Peter at Gowts 1and became the church of a separate ecclesiastical parish in 1884. Thepopulation of the parish rose from 3,000 in 1884 to 7,560 in IgII.Thereafter a slow decline began and by 1965, as a result of the develop-

.

56\

ment of new housing estates, the population had fallen to 4,100. Fromrg6o the benefice was held in plurality with that of St. Swithin, Lin-coln, and in 1967, faced with the need for extensive Yepairs, it wasdecided to close the church.

The movement for building the church had been headed by BishopWordsworth who contributed LI,OOO and the materials from the oldSt. Martin’s church and became chairman of the building committee(See J. E. Truman, Chzcrch of St. Andrew, Lincoln : A Record of its‘Growth and Development, 1870-1910 (1910)). The Swan familyowned much of the land in the parish and the Bishop persuaded theRev. Francis Swan (1787-I@@, then nearing the age of ninety, togive his support. He provided the site and La,ooo. The Swans hadachieved advancement through the medical profession, as surgebns.They had settled at Swinderby in humble circumstances in the early18th century and in the course of the century had moved to Lincolnand acquired property there. One line produced solicitors and eccle-siastical lawyers: Robert Swan the Registrar and Chapter Clerk wasa causin of the Rev. Francis Swan. Another line produced threegenerations of Lincolnshire clergymen, of which this Francis Swanwas the second. A fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, from 1810to 1824, in 1819 be bought the rectory of Sausthorpe and was institutedto the living. On his father’s retirement from the Prebend of Dun-holme in Lincoln Cathedral in 1825, he succeeded him. In 1838, for,621,ooo he bought the manor and estate of Sausthorpe. ‘Ihe New Hall“ a handsome mansion with an embattled parapet . . . . beautifullysituated in a park containing 30 acres ” became his residence. In 1844he rebuilt Sausthorpe church, at a cost of ,63,000 (White’s Directory).He was gradually acquiring a landed estate in the county, includingthe manor and 687 acres in Aswardby in 1844, and also adding to hislands in the city of Lincoln. Papers concerning his estates, preservedby his solicitors (Burton Scorer deposit V passim) include records ofhis sales of land in Lincoln to the railway companies for constructionof their lines, and accounts of his sales of building lots in the streetsadjoining the site of St. Andrew’s church in the years 1868-77. Hisson the Rev. C. T. Swan succeeded him at Sausthorpe Hall in 1878,and he paid for the decoration of the chancel of St. Andrew’s and itsstained glass, and gave the sites for the four church schools (1883-rgoo) and for the vicarage. The Rev. C. T. Swan’s son, Colonel C.A. Swan, gave the land for the parish room in 1913. Another bene- Ifactor was a rich young curate, the Rev. P. R. Lloyd, who spent thelater part of his life, without cure, living in Rome. He was ordainedto a title at the church in 1894 and served as curate until Igoo. In1894 he paid for the church heating and for the completion and dedora-tion, of the side chapel, and he rented a field which he converted intoa sports ground. With some help from the Swans, he paid the salaryof the second assistant ,priest until at the beginning of the first worldwar he found himself no longer able to sustain this charge.

Spiritually St. Andrew’s was an offspring of the church of Snein-ton in the slums of Nottingham where Canon Vernon Hutton was vicarfrom 1868 to 1884. He was a man of great holiness of life and anoutstanding parish priest and Sneinton became one of the earliestchurches of the Catholic revival iti Nottingham. Walter Wanstall,first vicar of St. Andrew’s, was’ curate of Sneinton from 1870 to 1881,when he was appointed vicar of St. Peter-at-&wts, Lincoln. Uponthe division of the parish in 1884, he chose to take charge of the

57

daughter parish of St. Andrew’s He played a unique part in providingfor Lincoln’s expanding population, for in 1904, as vicar of St.Swithin’s, he repeated the process of dividing his parish, when thechurch of All Saints.was built for the population of the eastern suburb,and he again took charge of the daughter church and became firstvicar (see his obituary, Diocesan Magazine, Jan. 1919). At St.Andrew’s Canon Wanstall was succeeded in 1896 by the Rev. J. E.Truman, who had been curate there since 1885. As a partner in a firmof architects and surveyors in Nottingham, he had come under CanonHutton’s influence at Sneinton and in 1882 gave up his professionalwork to train for the ministry. His whole ministerial life was spentat St. Andrew’s, where he died in 1917 (see Diocesan Magazine, Feb.1917). When a paralytic stroke caused Canon Hutton to retire fromSneinton in his early forties, in 1884, he moved to Lincoln and forthe remaining three years of his life used to help at St. Andrew’s. I n1890 the side chapel was added in his memory, embellished with thetext of the last sermon he preached.

The story of the early years of the church emerges vividly fromthree types of record: a book of churchwardens’ accounts, 1884-1907,registers of services from 1878, the one record of which an unbrokenseries has been preserved, and parish magazines. In spite of theunremitting labours of devoted priests, progress was always slow. Itwas not difficult to fill the church with a congregation of 500 on Sundayevening, but only a few of this number could be induced to becomecommunicants or even to contribute to the offertory. Offertories wereoften inadequate to meet church expenses. “ Surely there are fewwho cannot give at least a penny ” wrote the vicar in September 1886,Several curates served without remuneration. “ The financing of newchurches was not easy ” writes Professor Chadwick. “ It was easierto build the church than to keep it going ” (The Victorian’ Church,P. 329). In the period 1883-1900, however, St. Andrew’s built fourchurch schools with accommodation for 1,200 children, and themanagers’ minutes from 1882-1914 are preserved. Difficulties wereencountered from the fabric of the church from the start: perhapsit had been too cheap at J6,ooo. In 1886 the heating system was.already a complete failure, and the lack of ventilation in the chancelsoon began to impair the decorations. In spite of improvements andfurther expenditure, in 1907 the “ nauseous atmosphere ” in the chancel , ,was still the problem.

Some events stand out in the church’s brief history. There is a‘vivid picture of the Sunday School annual treat in the early years ofthis century, when it was held in the grounds of Canwick Hall. Abouteight in the summer evening the procession slowly made its returnfrom the green hill down into the parish, the young children ridingon carts, to the musical accompaniment of the Excelsior Band. Theday ended with all singing the National Anthem standing round theoutside of the church. The typhoid epidemic of 1905 was a time oftrial for the parish. One letter of this period is from the schoolmasterat Middle Rasen who sent to the vicar 500 eggs which the school-children had collected for the typhoid patients. t Another is fromBishop King, abroad on holiday, who wrote characteristically to oon-dole with the vicar on the death from typhoid of James Knights, amember of the choir and pillar of the church. ” The presence of sucha man is a help upon the earth . . . But it was a nice day for the dear

58

man to depart! A Sunday and the Feast of the Transfiguration “.Thanksgiving services for the end of the epidemic were held on 9thJuly 1915 at which the names of seventy persons who had recoveredwere read out. St. Andrew’s day was always observed as a day ofintercession for foreign, missions, and in 1904 the vicar could writethat from 8 a.m. to 7.30 p.m. the church was never without three orfour people present. Other events of importance were the parochialretreat from r6th-18th October 1897, conducted by a Cowley Father,and the mission taken by three priests of the Community of theResurrection which lasted from the 15th to 28th February, 1908.Missi,on expenses included “ resolution cards ” and “ self examinationpapers. ’ * The church responded to the First World War by startinga daily communion service and an evening intercession service on fourdays a week. It is unfortunate that the parish magazines for theperiod 191~57 have not been preserved. The earlier ones revealmuch not only of the church’s doctrine and practice, but also of theparish’s social activities including such subjects as the parish nurse,the parish library, the clothing club, the football clubs and the cyclingclub. A book of minutes and accounts of the St. Andrew’s Institutefrom 1895 begins as an evening institute and debating society butfrom about 1908 onwards seems to develop mainly into clubs forcricket and other sports.

The registers of services covering the whole of the church’s lifeare a source of the greatest value. No one has used their statistics orworked out average numbers of Sunday communicants as did CanonHodgkinson for Holy Trinity, Gainsborough. Though communicantsrose from 33 on the church’s first Easter day to 404 on Easter day1910, numbers on ordinary Sundays rose only slowly. The lowestfigures were in the first decade of then church’s existence and in theperiod 1918-50. From 1888, to 1914 and from’ about rg5o onwardscommunicants on ordinary Sundays probably averaged at least ,40.Habits of devotion and of churchgoing, as well as times of services,were changing over this period. To communicate weekly was at firstvery rare, whereas it later became the norm, and in addition therewere daily celebrations. Thus, though total numbers of communicantswere possibly higher in the 1950s than at any other time, the churchwas in fact ministering in some degree to’ a much larger proportion ofthe population in Victorian days than the figures of communicantsmight suggest. The church’s closure in 1967 may be viewed as one ofthe agonizing results of the movement of urban population, necessi-tating new churches in new suburbs, combined with the shortage ofclergy. That sense of corporate responsibility, active and even militant,which distinguished the congregation of Holy Trinity, Gainsborough,under Canon Hodgkinson was not, it would appear, particularlycharacteristic of St. Andrew’s and the absence of such a traditionperhaps facilitated the church’s decease.

Papers dealing with the benefice: copy of surrender of patronage, vicarof St. Peter at Gowts to Bishop of Lincoln, 1883 ; copy of Order

in Council assigning a district chapelry, 1883 ; letters from Eccle-siastical Commissioners, 1885-86, 4 ; draft description of pro-posed parish boundaries, 1937 ; notice of scheme for alteringboundaries, 1964.

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Churchwardens’ accounts, 1884-1907, prefaced by accolint of originand early history of chutch to 1884.

Documents relating to, @rish hall: vouchers, 1949-62 ; papers recontract for licence with Performing Right Society, 1932-41.

Documents concerning fabric of church: faculties, 1930, 1933, 1956.Documents relating to church schools: copies of conveyances of land

from the Rev.. C. T. Swan, 1882, 1895, 1899 ; managers’ minutebooks , 1882-1914, 3 ~01s.; miscellaneoues papers , Igog-5x.

Registers of services, 1878-1965, 14 ~01s.Parish magazines,, 1886-91, 1893, IS@-1915, 1958-60.

Miscellaneous : volume containing account of laying of foundationstone and other occasions 1875 to 1881 ; minute and account bookof St. Andrew’s Institute, including cricket club, 1895-1919 ; listof anthems, St. Andrew’s choir, rgr5 ; letters and papeis, x893-1955, II items, including two letters from Bishop King.

LINCOLN ST. PAUL IN THE BAIL

This church has now been closed and the parish records weredeposited by the Reverend David Griffiths. The present church is a latenineteenth century, building, replacing one built a hundred years earlier.The minute book and plans of the new church 1875-81, are among thedeposited records (9). The new church was only decided upon after aproposal to unite the parish with that of St. Mary Magdalene had cometo nothing. An iron church was first suggested, but many subscribersthreatened to withdraw their donations if this was proceeded with.

The earliest parish registers have not survived: the first one beginsin 1695. It is interesting in that the occupations of persons named arefrequently given.

The most interesting records are certainly the churchwardens’ andoverseers’ accounts, beginning in 1756 (7 and 13) and the vestry minutes,beginning in 1824 (IO). Some earlier vestry business is also recorded inthe overseers’ accounts before 1824. Down to 1825 not only were theoffices of churchwarden and overseer of the poor held by the samepersons, but also rates for both purposes were raised as one and jointaccounts kept. Thus, payments for communion wine and the relief ofpaupers appear side by side. This is not unique but it was far from theusual practise. One very useful feature of the accounts is the goodseries of rate lists, the earliest 1775 (13’/1),, the latest 1853 (7/2). St.Paul’s parish includes the West side of Bailgate and many ancient Deanand #Chapter properties: these rate lists, together with the leases, rentalsand title deeds among the cathedral records, may play a part in illumi-nating the topography of the area at a much earlier period.

Behind Bailgate the parish stretched, geographically if not jurisdic-tionally, into the Castle Dykings, an abode of undesirables because ofthe historical accident which put it outside the power of all the localauthorities. This area must have been a constant sburce of annoyanceto the parishioners, not only on account of the thieves and prostituteswho haunted it, but also because, apparently, no parish rates could belevied. In December 1831 there is a decision of the Select Vestry that

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“ enquiry is to be made among the oldest parishioners if ever theDykings at the North West corner of the castle are rated to the Parish ”(IO/I).

Workhouse accommodation for the poor of the parish was a problemfor which several stop-gap solutions were found in the 1820s and 1830s. .In spite of the proximity of the Lincoln House of Industry its servicesdo not seem to have been used: several approaches were made butterms could not be agreed. Joseph Pearson, governor of a house ofindustry at Nettleham, contracted to deal with the poor in the yearbeginning October 1826. The following July an approach was made toSt. Mary Magdalene’s parish suggesting dealing jointly with the problem.Later St. Paul’s had its own house and contracted with the parishes ofSt. Mary and South Carlton for the reception of their poor (IO/I and 2).

The vestry books from which the above information comes containminutes both of the occasional general parish meetings and of the electedselect vestry who, at frequent meetings, dealt with individual cases,allotted weekly doles and attended to such miscellaneous problems asthe defilement of the church yard by a parishioner’s hens. The case ofJoseph Lion caused them much trouble. In 1824 he was one of theoverseers of the poor and absconded, owing the parish LIZ 2s. ogd.Haled back from Derby, at great expense, by the parish constable, hewas imprisoned until he agreed to pay back the money he owed plusexpenses. We hear no *more of Lion but a great deal of his wife andfamily, who received parish relief for several years.

The next vestry book (IO/Z) provides evidence for an, apparentlyamicable, discontinuation of the church rates, four years before the actof Parliament of 1868 made them illegal. In 1863 a rate of 3d. in the ;Gwas granted, yielding Ic;17 7s. 5.&d. Next year a rate ‘of 2d. was proposedbut an amendment, “ that this question shall be considered this daytwelvemonth “, was carried. We hear no more of church rates; theirplace is taken in the churchwardens’ accounts by ‘I voluntary contri-butions ” and later by offertory receipts. (7/2).

SLlmmary

Registers of baptisms, 1695-1914, burials, 1695-1889, marriages1695-1913; banns books,, 1824-1949; service registers, 1878-1958(also ditto for Riseholme, 18g3-1913* South Carlton, 1905-q); Ichurchwardens’ and overseers’ accounts, combined, 1756-1825,churchwardens’, r825-1954, overseers’, 1825-37; vestry minutes,r824-1921; minute book and plans re building new church, 1875-91;faculties, 1875-1954; papers relating to glebe and rectory, 1742-1929.

OTHER P A R I S H D E P O S I T S,

Summary

Belchford: poor law rate books 1832-1874; receipts for payment andstatements of account 1837-70; collector’s accounts 1851-6; valua-tions 1862, 1866-70; settlement certificates and examinations as tosettlement, 1770-1827; bastardy papers 1727-1834; removal orders1775-1857; register of apprentices 1804-11; claims to vote 1840-1;highway rate books 1838, 1857; assessments 1857-67; weekly labour

61

accounts 1864-9; accounts 1894-5; Neave’s charity papers 1844-1911;vestry minutes 1870-94; financial papers of parish council 1895-1939;declarations of councillors 1907-37; treasurer’s bonds 1905, 1922;clerk’s papers re Horncastle R.D.C. and Lindsey CC., 1901-40;govt. circulars 1887-1938. Deposited by the Clerk of the ParishCouncil.

Caythorpe : registers 1663-1842; inventory c. 1930; tithe redemptioncertificates 1920’s; correspondence re dilapidations 1901-35; church-wardens’ vouchers 1740-80, and late Igth-early 20th c.; accountsand correspondence re addition to churchyard 1903-4; faculties forfabric 1893, 1900, 1937; cancelled mortgage of parish rates 1860;summonses to parish meetings, early 19th c.; receipts for briefs18th c.; forms of prayer 1814, 1817; constable’s account 1776; over-seers’ vouchers 1740-90; highway vouchers and accounts 1.745-84;list of rectors; table of fees and correspondence 1902. Deposited bythe Rector.

Dunholme (addnl.) : declarations of councillors 1910-1937; allOiXnentS‘accounts 1933-1944; street lighting committee minute book 1948-9etc. Deposited by the Clerk of the Parish Counci:.

Fillingham (addnl.) : treasurer’s accounts 1955-66; correspondence rechurch restoration 1962-5. Deposited by the Vicar of Ingham.

Ingham (addnl.): treasurer’s book 1950-66. Deposited by the Vicar.

Laceby (addnl.) : registers 1813-73; transcripts, of registers 1538-1878,of misc. parochial accounts 1605-1757. Deposited by the Rector.

Newton by Toft: registers 1592-1834; certificate of redemption of landtax on rectory 1810; grant of procurations 1879: faculty (furnish-ings) 1920; notice of transfer of patronage 1945; order for re-arrange-ment of districts in Lindsey 1936; overseers’ receipt and paymentbook 1869-1912. Deposited by Rector of Spridlington.

Rasen, Middle (addnl.) : minute books, of vestry 1883-94, parish meeting1895-1932, parish council 1894-1948, Deposited by the Vicar.

Scothern: declarations of enclosure commissioners 1768; poor rate book1871; rural sanitary authority rate book 1886; special expenses rate’book 1899: receipt book 191234; letter book 1928-34; letting accountbook 1856-95; accounts of Diamond Jubilee tea 1897; corres-pondence re parish land Ig-20th c.; financial statements 1944-1953.Deposited by the Clerk of the Parish Council.

Scatter : registers 1561-1876; banns 1823-1911; terrier 1746; church-wardens’ accounts 1824-1933; vestry minutes 1681-1865; overseers’accounts and poor law memoranda 1783-1832; highway accounts1812-34; enclosure award (with plan) 1820. Deposited by theRector.

Sutton St. James: registers 1570-1702. Deposited by the Rector.

Walesby: registers I561-1918; poor law accounts 1828-36; copy of censusreturn 1831. Deposited by the Rector.

Willoughton : service registers 1909-1946; churchwardens’ accounts1896-1942; accounts of trustees of Old Church School 1929-44; noteson church affairs 1886-1925. Deposited by the Rector of Caythorpe.

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Listed-but not deposited

Asgarby by Spilsby : registers x595-1963; banns 1828-1956.Brinkhill (see also Harrington) : registers 1561-1967; correspondence etc.

re school 18g7-1905, 1952.Calceby : register 1622-1723.Driby : registers x622-1967; banns 1825-1928.Edenham : registers 1654-1967; banns 1823-1967; service registers

1896-1966; inventory c. 1950; notices of augmentation 20th c.;churchwardens’ accounts 1692-1699, 17r7-1930; correspondence reownership of graveyard 18gg-Igoz, 1940-I; faculties for memorials20th c.; guarantee for upkeep of bell 1722: papers re installation oflighting 20th c.; vestry minute book 1863-1960; P.C.C. minutebook Igz3-1931; overseers’ account 1652-1700, 1752-1789; settle-ment and bastardy papers 18th and 19th centuries: accounts ofPell’s charity 1749-1899; charity papers 20th c.; marriage licenses1754-1958; certificates of burial in woollen 1724, 1739; misc. his-torical notes, Edenham and district; arithmetic book of John Parkerof Edenham, 1734.

Enderby, Bag : registers 1563-1967; banns 1825-1967; service register1929-60.

Enderby, Mavis : registers 157g-Ig67; poor law, accounts 1753-1856,rate books 1848-1866; highway, accounts 1825-1849, rate book1837-1852; vestry books 1721-1787, 1816-1845; faculty for restora-tion 1877.

Farforth cum Maidenwell : registers 1784-1961.Hagworthingham :

churchwardens’registers 1562-1967; service registers 18921959;

accounts 1777-1856, vouchers 19th c.; minutebooks, of vestry 1845-1877, parish council 18g4-Igr1, P.C.C.Igzr-41; poor law accounts 1752-1799, 1818-1833, rate books1838-1855, settlement certificates 18th-19th cs.; constable’s accounts1781-1808; highway accounts 1836-1877, rate books 1837-1853;gravel pit accounts 1841-3; oath of enclosure commissioners 1795;school governors’ minute book 1882Igog.

Harrington : registers 1695-1967; terrier 1707.-(and Brinkhill): service registers Igz8-1955; terriers 1822, 1864; non

residence license 1814; conveyance of churchyard IgzI etc.Bough on the Hill: registers 1646-1967; banns IgI7-rg67; confirmation

registers 19521967; churchwardens’ accounts 1768-1952; vestrybook 1836, 1843-1862; school accounts 1881-1898.

Hougham : registers 1562-1967; banns 1825-1888; service registersIgo5-1922; churchwardens’ accounts 1741-1932; terriers 1709, 1734,1822; overseers’ accounts 1671-1796; constables’ accounts 1766-1834;highway accounts 1770-1836; charity papers 18th and 19th cs.;faculty for tower restoration 1938; book of homilies 1713.

Lusby : registers 16go-1967; service register 18921896; churchwardens’accounts 1786-1922; parish council minutes 18g4-rgo7; constables’accounts x786-1793; restoration plans n.d.

Marston : registers 1707-1967; service register 18gg-1922; confirmationregister 1932-1967; churchwardens’ accounts I7zo-Igzz; charityaccounts I7zg-1931; book of homilies 1766.

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Ormsby, South : registers 1561-1967; banns 1823-1965.Oxcombe: registers 1813-1967; tithe award (with plan) 1842: certificate

of tithe redemption 1921; inventory 1914.Raithby by Spilsby : registers 1558-1967; banns 1824-1940; service

register rgo5-1933; churchwardens’ accounts 1794-1896; poor lawaccounts 1779-1855, rate book 1850-1854; enclosure award (withplan) 1777; exemplification of chancery proceedings 1685-8.

Roxby : registers 1689-1967; banns 1875-1952; service register x927-39;tithe award (with map) 1841. (Listed by I. S. Beckwith.)

Ruckland : registers X757-1947; banns 1813-1835.Somerby : registers 1573-1967.Tetford : registers 1760-1967; banns X823-1967; churchwardens’ accounts

1723-1875; vestry book 1864-1895; overseers’ ’ accounts 1797-1839:plans of church 1875, rgro and restoration plans; faculties etc.20th c.

Worlaby : register (baptisms) 187o-196x.

R E C O R D S I N O T H E R C U S T O D Y

GOULDING

The personal papers of Richard Goulding, the antiquary of Louthwho died in 1929, were bequeathed to the Lindsey County Council, andwere deposited for listing at the Lincolnshire Archives Office in June1967. Some bundles of letters remained to show that R. W. Gouldinghad kept them in order but in the forty years since his death the papershave been moved several times, and had become completely disordered.A start was made in rough sorting them during the closed fortnight, anda list and partial calendar have now been made.

John William Goulding the antiquary’s father was born at LongSutton in 1844, the son of a tailor, and was apprenticed there to JohnSwain printer and bookbinder in 1857 or 9. His father had died in 1855,and his mother married Thomas Sidgwick a cabinet maker of Louth; onfinishing his apprenticeship in 1866 John moved to Louth also. For 20years he was assistant to Thomas Burdett, printer and bookseller. InFebruary 1868 he married Sarah Ashton daughter of a Louth farmer,and Richard William Goulding was born in November. His sistersGertrude and Annie were born in 1875 and 1878. (3/A/4).

After five years at the British National School R. W. Gouldingin 1880 won a scholarship to Louth Grammar School. He was an aptpupil reaching the sixth in 1883 and was head of the school for sometime before leaving in 1886. His father had by now purchased thepremises and stock of Mr. Tupholme, bookseller, at 20 Mercer Row, andRichard Goulding settled down to learn the business of the firm. For thenext 15 years he remained in Louth, his spare time fully occupied in thepursuit of historical records of the town and neighbourhood. Threevolumes of his diary are preserved, and the notes written into the firstof these beginning in 1893 show the young man preserving the reminis-cences of the oldest inhabitants, including Richard Wakelin aged 78, theTown Crier. He took an obvious delight in the narrow rectory at

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Fotherby, visited for the purpose of transcribing the registers, where theeccentric Dr. Freeth was almost crowded out by his books, each neatlywrapped in brown paper. (~/A/I).

While still at school Goulding had been a founder member of LouthNaturalists’ Society, which in 1887 joined forces with the longer estab-lished Antiquarian Society. From this time he began to be well knownto the clergymen and others in the district who shared his tastes. Thepapers which he produced for the Society, of which he was joint secre-tary from 1893 until his death, established his reputation locally forscholarship. In 1891 Louth Old Corgmation Records brought favourablereviews from a wider circle. Whebher he would have been content to re-main a Louth printer and bookseller all his life is difficult to know. InIgo he became librarian to the 6th Duke of Portland, apparentlythrough the good offices of the Reverend James Foster of Tathwell, afriend of Goulding and of Mrs. Dallas-Yorke of Walmsgate, mother ofthe Duchess of Portland. On an earlier’ occasion Goulding had refusedthe offer. However he spent the rest of his life in the Duke’s service,apparently finding his work congenial if not the whole atmosphere of theEdwardian country house. His diary, which survives up to 1920, mightbe expected to cast light on his work; unfortunately the greater part, asof the working papers in general, are in shorthand. No attempt has yet

been made to transcribe -these portions.

Welbeck then housed a vast accumulation of private papers, of theCavendish Holles, the Harley and Bentinck families, and of protCgCs ofthe quality of Mathew Prior and Humphrey Wanley. His diary for thefirst months of Igo4 records with what glee Goulding, aided and abettedby the Duke’s daughter and her governess sorted five large packing casesof miscellaneous records, the first dip producing letters of HumphreyWanley to the 2nd Earl of Oxford, the second William Bentinckrs patentas ambassador tom France 1698. (~/A/I; 7 March 1904). The Duke’s

collection of portraits stimulated him in new directions, and in the courseof a few years he came to be recognised as an expert on English por-traiture of the 17th century, and his expertise was at the service ofmusuems in London and Paris (3/E). In 1917 he was elected a Fellowof the society of Antiquaries.

Louth remained the first love of his life, and papers on church andtown continued to slip from his pen. From Igo he was on the committeefor the Victoria County History of Lincolnshire. Towards the end of hislife his thoughts turned towards writing a history of Louth, and there aresketches for chapters based on the court rolls and on the civil war period(5/r; 5 /10/18). In the summer of 1929 he fell ill, and returned to Louthfor a rest, but growing worse, died early in November.

Correspondence :

Goulding kept in close touch with his family while at Welbeck, andpreserved the letters written by his father and. sisters, each of whomwrote at least once a week. He was clearly no sleeping partner, and wasclosely consulted on the family business. Although mainly concernedwith the affairs of family and friends, they throw light ,on the town andits activities in the early 2?th century. Inevitably they are on& sided.

Goulding kept letters from a total of 256 cortespondents, and thesehave been sorted alphabetically into two series, consisting of letters offriends, and professional (i.e. historical) correspondence. This system

65

was adopted during the rough sort, and when listed the two categorieswere found to overlap to some extent. In many cases there are one ortwo letters, thanks for Goulding’s papers, or requests for information.More interesting are the letters of a handful of correspondents with whomGoulding felt on common ground; as when discussing literary and his-torical problems with the Rev. James Foster of Tathwell and the Rev. E.Hall Jackson of Louth. In the latter case Goulding preserved carbons ofmany of the letters, and he dealt tactfully with the sometimes crotchetyBaptist minister. He also coped manfully with the verses which the Rev.W. H. Mills, once his English master at the Grammar School, mailed fromretirement in California. From Joseph Larder, a contemporary at schooland near neighbour in Mercer Row, who was from 1907 to his death in1923, joint Secretary with Goulding of the Louth Naturalists’, Literaryand Antiquarian Society, there is a series of letters in rgog-ro keepingGoulding at Welbeck in touch with the development of Louth MuseumAppeal fund and the erection of the Museum to house the society’s col-lections. Goulding was obviously responsible for obtaining the supportand contributions of antiquarians outside Louth, and he also wrote a shorthistory of the society since the beginnings of the Louth Naturalists’Society in a garden shed off Aswell Lane in 1884. There are several ac-counts of the severe flooding in Louth at the end of May 1920, .notably byRev. E. Hall Jackson. James Wilson of Sheffield in r8gg put at Gould-ing’s disposal his recollections of the Rev. R. S. Bayley (author ofNot&e Lzldae) as founder of the ‘ Sheffield People’s College ’ during the184os, which he claimed as the inspiration of F. D. Maurice’s ‘ WorkingMens’ College ‘. (3/D/216).

Collected material :

Goulding’s collection of manuscript material is a very mixed bag.Much of it relates to Louth and includes the compotus of Ralph Caly-strope, dean of the Guild of the Holy Trinity, for 1422-3. This recordsnot only the yearly income of the Guild from rents and entrance fees, butalso considerable disbursements for a house in gospull gate, includingIS/- for timber, 3s. 6d. for wainscot timbers, and rod. for 3 pairs ofbolts. There is also a payment totalling 32/- for ’ le poll ’ which in-cludes 12s. 4d. for painting and f,or work on banners. This suggests somekind of float, and the money was contributed by the guild members,judging by the amounts from 4d. to 4/- recorded as outstanding from9 individuals at the end of the roll. (4 1 A 1 I 12 / I).

A small quart0 book, containing entries of the election of wardensand town justices 1720-1774 and recognisances 1721-28, is obviously acontinuation of Ms. E. in Goulding’s Louth Old Corporation Records. Itseems to be one of those lost since Bayley used the Corporation Recordsto compile his list of wardens in 1834 but where Goulding found it isunknown. A very few minutes of the Warden and Assistants have beenentered, and to the resolution that the vicarage ‘of Louth be not con-solidated with the vicarage ‘of Tathwell or any other vicarage, 16 Decem-ber 1730, the corporation seal has been affixed (4/A/ I 13 /I).

A bundle of papers reveal that in 1824 the Vestry of Louth was pre-pared to spend ;62,500 on repairing the tower and spire, borrowing themoney from the Exchequer Bill Exchange Office (4 /A/7). There are noreferences to work actually being carried out at this date. The Accountbook of Cannon St. Independent Chapel Louth 1822-93 shows that thetotal cost of the new Chapel at the same date was ;61,1oo (4/A/1/8). In

a few cases Goulding noted the provenance of items, thus the minute bookof the committee to raise subscriptions for the rebuilding of Louth Gram-mar School 1864-8, was, given him by James William Wilson, the com-mittee’s secretary, in 1890. (4/A/1/6/4). J. W. Wilson also gave hima bundle of legal correspondence relating to a legacy to Captain Jolland’sheirs in 1833-5. (~/A/I/ 10/13). A petition to the High Sheriff to sum-mon a county meeting in order to petition Parliament about agriculturaldistress in 1822, was purchased from a dealer in 1918. (4/A/ I/IO/ ~1).

Of wider interest are two bundles of letters. A note with the 23letters of Jane, Countess of Portland to her nephew William Flower, fromthe years c. 1702-10, 1729-38, shows that they were purchased from adealer in 1925. Lady Portland was born c. 1672 the 6th daughter of SirJohn Temple of East Sheen, and sister of the first Viscount Palmerston.She married Hans Willem Bentinck, first Earl of Portland, as his secondwife in 1700, being left a widow with 6 young children in 1709. WilliamFlower 1685-1746 was the son of her elder sister Mary, and was M.P. forCounty Kilkenny and Portarlington 1715-33; in the latter year he wascreated Baron Castle Durrow in the Peerage of Ireland.

While throwing no new light on the politics and society of the periodthe letters do convey a picture of a lively family circle. Flower appearsto have spent his youth under the guardianship of his uncles Temple andPalmerston, and the first letters, of uncertain date but before the Earl ofPortland’s death, are addressed to him in Holland. On one occasion hewas left in charge of his small cousins, being requested ‘ to make Bettymore orderly before she goes to sea,’ and some twenty years later LadyPortland reminded him of another minor domestic incident, when givingthe news of one granddaughter’s birth she writes ‘ here is a little LadySophia that gives hopes of being as lively as her mama was so that youmay like to carry her in your arms as you did her mother but I hopenever fall down stairs with her’. She felt compelled to give him muchadvice on the bringing up of his children, and reports increasinglyfavourably on his daughter who paid two long visits to her great auntand aristocratic cousins. The Countess of Portland was governess to thedaughters of George II, but Court politics rarely intrude into this groupof letters though in November 1734 she attributed Lady Suffolk’s leav-ing the Court to her companionship at Bath with Bolingbroke andChesterfield. (4/A/2/1).

In February rgo4 the Rev. W. H. Mills sent to Goulding a packet ’of letters from William Austin, the protege of Caroline of Brunswick,George IV’s ill-used wife, to his mother, asking whether he would look atthem and say whether they were worth keeping. Goulding clearly didthink so, though it appears that he, like Mills, never wrote about them.The 49 letters of a dutiful son cover the period from 1810, when Austinwould have been about 6 years old to 1821, just after Queen Caroline’sdeath. If they tell us lamentably little about the milieu in which hemoved, for Austin was the constant companion of the Princess of Walesin her peregrinations, they. do testify to a serious desire to keep in touchwith his real family, which must reflect the encouragement of his royalguardian who also occasionally gave money to the family. William wasmindful of his duty to his less fortunate brothers, writing in May 1815,that he has many old dresses to send, but .fears they will get lost. Amonth later he writes that he ‘has received only eight of her letters andhas answered them all. In October 1816 he begs his new sister to &,christened Caroline, but is maddeningly brief on the pilgrimage to Jeru-

salem, observing only that ‘ we have made the finest voyage possible ‘.Once back in England, William appears to have found life at Branden-burg House, Hammersmith somewhat irksome; at least he made frequentassignments to meet his mother in London, and was prepared to write on29 December I820 that if he did not come to town to see her he wouldnever stir from Brandenburg House. After the Queen’s death in AugustI&I, William Austin accompanied her remains to Brunswick and wroteto his mother from Dover on his return, 14 September, that he hoped tosee her in a few days. Here the letters cease, and since Austin is said tohave spent much of the rest of his life on the continent, his income deriv-ing from the Queen’s English estate, it is interesting to speculate whetherthe desire to keep in touch with his family ceased with the death of hisguardian. (4/A/2/2).

A few autograph letters include one from Vincent Novello to C.Kramer, suggesting the performance of Purcell’s Anthem for theCoronation of James II, suitably adapted for a modern orchestra, at theCoronation of William IV. (4/A/2/4/1).

Transcripts and historical notes :

The fruits of youthful industry remain in assorted transcriptsincluding those of Louth manor court rolls 1392-1509, of the first bookof Churchwardens’ accounts and of the earliest parish registers. Thereare also drafts and correspondence relating to The Louth GrammarSchool Register, the compilation of which progressed graduallythroughout Goulding’s life. Notes and manuscripts for many of hispublished papers, have also been preserved.

Natural History :

Goulding was a keen naturalist all his life, and more interesting thanthe small amount of correspondence relating to the business of the LouthNaturalists’ and Antiquarian Society and the Lincolnshire Naturalists’Union, are the lists and collections which he made at various dates,

,’ notably of the alien pla,nts which appeared somewhat mysteriously atWelbeck during the First World War.

Business Records :

No records of the booksellers who had been at 20 Mercer Rowsince the mid 19th century, are found earlier than a few cash books forGoulding’s firm for the 1920’s. However J. W. Goulding had, as executorfor Mrs. Fox in 1886, taken over a bundle of papers relating to thebusiness of her brother, William Edwards, who was a printer andbookseller in Louth 1833-79. These include a valuation 1833, estimatesfor printing costs 1836 and a newspaper order book 1871-9.

Summary

Papers of R. W. Goulding : School reports 1880-6; diary 1893-1920;notes on Goulding family, commonplace books, catalogues ofpaintings etc., notebooks, accounts etc.: Welbeck library accounts1902-29, index of letters 1917-20 etc.

Cor respondence : With J. W., G. and A. Goulding 18951929;correspondents include A. Fieldsend, Rev. J. Foster, N. Hallward,Rev. E. H.’ Jackson, H. W. Kew, J. Larder, H. W. Mills,

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Rev. E. A. Woodruffe-Peacock, R. Ranshaw, J. Rogers-Rees,T. Sadleir, E. F. Ward, A. R. Yeoman, Sir C. Anderson,Sir H. Bacon, Sir G. Clausen, Rev. S. Baring-Gould, Rev. C. W.Foster, A. Gibbons, Rev. J. Clare Hudson, Bp. King, A. R. Leach,Rev. J. Longley, Rev. A. R. Maddison, Rev. W. 0. Massingberd,J. Morley, P. Morrell, J. H. Round, W. W. Skeat, P. Toynbee.

Collections : Louth and Lincolnshire Deeds including deeds relating toWright’s Coal Charity 1574-1826; Compotus of dean of Guild ofHoly Trinity 1422-3; Court Rolls, of Covenham 1417-23, of Louth1429-30; Election book 1720-74; oath roll of Louth J.P.s 1770-1802;gaol calendar 1824; Poor Law Assessment Book, Louth, 1749; ,Listsof scholars, Louth G.S. ISog-rg, .1826-x9; minutes of L.G.S.Subscription Committee 1864-8; papers re Louth Spire 1824: A/c.book, Cannon Street Independent Chapel 1822-93; miscellaneouslegal papers I8-19th centuries.

Letters of’Jane Countess of Portland to Wm. Flower, 1705-10, 1729-38;of Wm. Austin to Mrs. Austin, 1810-21; of Mrs. Dallas-Yorke toCanon J. Foster c. 1898-1912 and miscellaneous autograph letters.

Transcripts : Court Rolls, Louth 1392-1509; First Churchwarden’s Book(by subject); Parish Registers 1588-81; Journal of C. F. Esberger1764 (part); Drafts and notes for papers 1890-1927.

Natural history : Specimens 1920’s; lists of plants (Louth and Welbeck)1885, 1918-29; of insects 1885: Correspondence and papers -1885,1897-1928.

Legal papers: Executorships of William Edwards 1881, Frances Fox1886.

Business Records: J. W. ‘Goulding & Son, cash and & expenditure .books1919-28; Subscriptions, for Lo&h Old Corporation Records 1891,for T. W. Wallis’ Adobiography, 1895-6.

NATTONAL FARMERS UNION

As the parent branch of the National Farmers’ Union, the recordsof the Lincolnshire Branch have a particular interest. It was at theHarmston Agricultural Show and Dog Walking in August 1904 that ninefarmers agreed that a union should be formed and each put down asovereign on the table. They called a meeting at the Albion Hotel,Lincoln, on September 2nd where the Lincoln Farmers’ Union wasformed and 95 members joined forthwith. Edward William Howard wasappointed Secretary and Chairman, pro tern. From these beginningsthe N.F.U. has grown. An envelope on which the decision to form aunion was written and a notebook containing the minutes of the firstmeeting at Lincoln are framed in the office of Mr. Newton Loynes, theCounty Secretary, at Agriculture House, Woodhall Spa.

Staff of the archives office made two rather widely spaced visits toWoodhall in 1966 and 1967 to look at the records there. We are indebtedto Mr. Loynes not only for permission to inspect the records but alsofor a fascinating exposition of the history, organisation and functionsof the N.F.U. As can be seen from the summary below, the records forthe early years of the Union are by no means complete, apart frommembership subscription lists, but for the last forty to fifty years there

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is a mass of material including what appear to be a complete series ofminutes of the many committees and a vast amount of correspondence.Conditions in the store room were somewhat cramped, older recordsoften being buried under or behind more recent ones, so we cannot becertain that nothing of importance escaped our notice. Obviously sucha series of records relating to the county’s major industry, are of greathistorical interest, and will become more so when more detailed researchis ‘done into the agricultural history of the present century. It is to behoped, therefore, that some arrangement can be made for the permanentpreservation of at least the more important series of documents.

Summary

Minutes: Annual General Meetings, from zgzr; Executive Committeeand other committees (e.g. subjects such as Corn, Meat and MilkProduction, Legislation, etc.), from Igzz

Correspondence: subject and date files, from rgzos.Registers of members and records of subscriptions from rgo4 (subscrip-

tion receipt books record acreages on which subscriptions are paid).Miscellaneous records, including circulars, periodicals, posters and very

extensive records over the last 20 years in the’ above, and other,categories.

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U S E O F T H E O F F I C E

The number of reader visits, as reported on p. 5, was for thefirst time over 2,000, the total being 2,126. The number of separatepersons involved was 480. In making a return to a pilot survey onrecord offices initiated by the East Midland Region of the Society ofArchivists it was estimated that about 12% were university staff orstudents, 17% teachers, 18% genealogical searchers and 2% officialusers, also that the remaining 51% were either in other categories orwere persons for whom we had insufficient information. Other cate-gories include a certain number of school .children, also local historiansor industrial archaeologists coming sometimes through their W.E.A.groups or sometimes on their own initiative. In view of the newspaperreport on the opinions of the Library Association on historical docu-ments as invisible exports it may be of interest to note that readersincluded 9, for various periods, from American Universities and 19others identified as being from America. As in previous years, thenew search room for groups working together has been used by partiesfrom the Bishop Grosseteste and Stoke Rochford Colleges of Education,and it was also used once each by parties from the Frederick GoughGrammar School, Scunthorpe, and the Rosemary Secondary School,Lincoln. Mr. Lloyd has taken a class on English handwriting and theuse of documents which met at the office for part of the course. Visitorsto see round the office totalled 211 including parties, who also haddocuments exhibited for them, from the Bishop Grossteste, Coventryand Kirkby Fields Colleges of Education, Springhill and Boultham MoorSecondary Schools, Kirton Lindsey, Rauceby and Roxby W.E.A.classes, the Horncastle Local History Society, the Mint Street BaptistChurch and the Belper Townswomen’s Guild. It has also been apleasure to show the office to the new professor of Medieval History inthe University of Nottingham, to one of his colleagues, to the newCathedral Librarian and to one of the staff of Lincoln’s new planningdepartment. Enquiries and short searches to the number of 415 weredealt with, also 1,334 sheets of photocopying and 2,925 frames-of micro-film were supplied. Talks out of the office have been given to theSoroptimist Club of Grimsby, the Scunthorpe Museum Society, theAubourn Women’s Institute, the Spalding Gentlemen’s Society and theLouth Naturalists Antiquarian and Literary Society, also to the Book-worm Club at the Ermine Estate Library.

The office is open IO a.m. to I p.m., 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Mondaysto Fridays, IO a.m. to I p.m. on Saturdays except Bank Holidays.The office will be closed to readers from October 7th to rgth, 1968.

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P U B L I C A T I O N S

In An Episcopal Court Book 151&m (Lincoln Record Society vol.61, Ig67), and The Secular Clergy in the Diocese of Lincoln Iqoj-I520,Cambridge, 1968, Mrs. Margaret Bowker has made available the diffi-cult text of a diocesan archive and has produced a penetrating studyof the clergy in the huge diocese of Lincoln some 50 years before theReformation, for which she made full use of all surviving records indiocesan and capitular sources for the period of Bishops Atwater andSmith. Some use of records in the office has been made for variousshorter publications. Mr. Ian Beckwith has produced the first Lincoln-shire Archives Teaching unit, on parliamentary enclosure, for the LindseyCounty Council, consisting of notes and illustrative material fromthe Johnson family muniments and other sources. His ‘ Re-modellingof a Common field system ’ (The Agricultural History Review, vol.XV, pt. 2, rg67), and ‘ The River Trade of Gainsborough 1500-1850 ’(Lincolnshire History and Archaeology, no. 2, 1967) make use ofdocuments from a number of different sources including the Anderson,Bacon, Whichcot and Monson muniments. Another of his publications,Victorian Village, is based on census material, records in local handsand local memoirs contributed by members of a W.E.A. class atRoxby. Mr. R. C. Russell’s fourth part of his History of Schools andEducation in Lindsey, ‘ Methodism and the Provision of Day Schools ’is largely based on Wesleyan and newspaper sources but he also usedsome diocesan returns on schools. Mr. Russell has also producedEast Halton, Methodism and the Village with his W.E.A. Class. Workon diocesan records has contributed to the publication of guides tochurches at Hackthorn, by Sir Weston Cracroft Amcotts and atOwston by Mr. P. J. Hills and Miss J. Veale. Mr. J. D. Fleemanidentified a Latin prayer, in the handwriting of Dr. Samuel Johnson,among the miscellaneous papers in the Langton deposit and it islisted in the Oxford Bibliographical Society’s occasional publicationno. 2, 1967, A Preliminary Handlist of Documents and Manuscrifits ofSamuel Johnson. For information it should be recorded that ProfessorH. J. Habakkuk has kindly sent ‘ The Parliamentary Army and theCrown Lands ’ an offprint from The Welsh History Review vol. 3, no.4, part of which deals with the prominent part played by some Lincoln-shire men, in particular John Nelthorpe, in the organisation of thepurchase of crown lands during the aftermath of the Civil War, tobe set against arrears of pay of the soldiers of Twistleton’s regiment,raised in Lincolnshire and is based on Chancery and Exchequer recordsat the Public Record Office. Records in private and parish custodyhave been used by Mrs. E. Farmery in ’ Craftsmen of Croft ’ andthose of the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel for Mr.David Neave’s edition of ‘ Letters of Edward Steere ’ a bishop whowas at one time a curate at Skegness, both articles being included inLincolnshire and Archaeology, no. 2, 1967. In the same publicationMr. T. A. M. Bishop includes a note on ‘ Lincoln Cathedral Ms. 182 ‘,Bede’s Sermons on the Gospels.

Reports of this office, 1948-50, then annually up to the presentone are available at 2s. 6d. a copy, plus postage ; standing ordersfor them may be placed. The Index to Archivists’ Reports rg48-58,is available at 20s. plus postage.

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F U R T H E R A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S

Gifts of books, off-prints, pamphlets, reports, note on or lists ofdocuments have been received with much gratitude from Sir WestonCracroft Amcotts, Mr. I. S. Beckwith, Mrs. Margaret Bowker, M. J. P.Chapuisat, Mr. J. N. Clarke, the Revd. Dr. C. Clubley, Mr. B. C.Duddles, the Revd. G. A. A. Finch, M I. J. D. Fleeman, Dr. D. B.Grigg, Messrs. Groomes, brothers, Spalding, Mr. P. J. Hills, Mr. B. A.Holderness, the Revd. B. B. Humphrey, the Revd. D. Lunn, the Revd.Canon F. R. Money, Miss F. A. R. Murray, Mrs. D. M. Owen, Mr. E. J.Redshaw, Mr. D. N. Robinson, Dr. A. Rogers, Mr. R. C. Russell, Mr.C. W. F. Skrimshire, Mr. David Smith, Mr. A. R. Tailby, Mr. L. A.Teather, also from the Cambridge Group for Population Studies, theGainsborough Public Library, the Lincoln Cathedral Library, the LincolnCity Library, the Lincolnshire Association, the Lincolnshire LocalHistory Society, the Lindsey Education Committee, the NationalRegister of Archives, the Pilgrim Trust, the Scunthorpe MuseumSociety, the Spalding Gentlemen’s Society, the West Riding of York-shire Northern and Southern Sections of the National Register ofArchives. Reports have been received by gift or exchange from theCounty archivists of Bedford, Berkshire, Caernarvon, Cambridge,Devon, Durham, Glamorgan, Greater London, Hertford, Lancaster,Leicester, Northampton, Nottingham, West Suffolk, Wiltshire andWorcester, also from the archivist of the Borthwick Institute ofHistorical Research, the House of Lords, the Lambeth Palace Library,the city of Nottingham, and the Southampton Civic Record Office.

The archivists wish to acknowledge gratefully, the gifts anddeposits of documents recorded in this report and the kind help ofvolunteers.

JOAN VARLEY,Archivist.

C. M. LLOYD,First Assistant Archivist.

MARY E. FINCH,Second Assistant Archivist.

JUDITH A. CRIPPS,Third Assistant Archivist.