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The Development of Local History Writing.
Historical writing may appear to be a more or less continuous
developmental process that is reflected in the nature of works by historians. In
reality the process is much more complex. To some extent the period that they
worked in determined the style of the work. Irrespective of the personality,
the approach to the subject demonstrates some adherence to a national pattern.
Certain major figures appear responsible for stimulating changes in style, but
are not responsible by themselves for their introduction, which is a collective
process that happens across the centuries in an inconsistent manner. Some counties and regions miss out at times
in terms of history. The earliest historians could only pass on small numbers
of copied manuscripts, and so the scope for peer influence was limited. With
the advent of printing however, there was ready access to the work of others,
and a current style of historical text was able to develop. Caxton found historical texts to be a ready
source for his printing press, and provided readily saleable material for
commercial use (laws of copyright were not established until 1709).[1] Caxton thus disseminated the works of the
earliest writers, and the process of development of historical writing was
greatly boosted. Nevertheless, many early historians were more antiquarian
collectors of documents and information than true historical writers, and this
only changed with the initiative of William Dugdale who established a style of
writing and presentation which prevailed until the twentieth century. How his work influenced others working
subsequently on their histories of various towns and counties will be examined
in some detail in the main chapters of this dissertation.
The great national historians began with Caxton, who was responsible for
taking the French “The Brut”, translating it, and publishing it as the Chronicles
of England, in 1480. Leland
(1503-1552) had great designs on completing a History of England, collected
vast amounts of materials, and made accurate descriptions on his tours, but was
unable to complete his task. Sir Thomas
More produced his great work, a History of Richard the Third, in 1543,
and as the first to produce a truly great text, has not been credited
enough. Stow wrote in 1565, A
Summarie of Englishe Chronicles. Hollinshed produced the first substantive History
of England in 1577.His narrative was dry and dull, and was the work of a
syndicate comprising also, Hooker, Stow, Harrison and Stanyhurst.[2] Bale rewrote
it, and his work has been much criticised.[3] John Speed
(1552-1629, produced his History of Great Britaine in 1611, a year after
William Camden’s Britannia was first published in English. Camden's work is considered the great
achievement of Elizabethan times.[4] It had been
written in Latin, in 1586. Dugdale
(1605-1686) followed Camden, and developed the techniques of historical
writing and presentation to a new level.
Sir Henry Spelman (1564-1641) of Narborough in Norfolk, never achieved
the same level of prominence in terms of published works, but did produce a
description of the county “Icenia Sive Norfolkiae Descriptio Topographica”, and
had an influence upon his contemporary William Dugdale, who he corresponded
with. County history writing, in
general preceded works on specific towns. Stow’s Summarie of English
Chronicles (1565) precedes his great work on London by as much as thirty
years.[5] Before that
the individual county or town history was a rarity.
The seventeenth century saw a great increase in the production of such
works, but the printing of very few. Camden led the way, and enormously
stimulated interest in county projects.
Although his manuscript existed in Latin from 1586, the published
history in was not printed until 1610. In fact county surveys began to appear
from the beginning of the century, for example, Richard Carew The Survey of
Cornwall, 1602; History of Chester 1609, by Robert then David
Rogers;[6] then came the
influential John Speed’s Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain
(1611). In Devon, following Hooker's
steps, came Sir William Pole and Thomas Westcote. These three authors all failed to get into print in their
lifetimes and much of their work was used by others and printed only centuries
later. In Huntingdon, Robert Cotton was collecting material for a history, but
even he failed to produce one, though of course the materials that he collected
were vast, and provided the basis for the British Museum. Cotton’s materials
were the basis for John Speed’s work, and Cotton wrote the piece in it on
Huntingdonshire.[7]
The eighteenth century was also a difficult time for authors, when the
book trade was heavily centred upon London, paper was scarce and expensive, and
the copyright of books was bought and sold as a commodity by a select few.[8] During this
period many historical authors had great difficulty in getting their work into
print. Those that did, often did all
the work themselves. An example of the
enterprise shown by such men was Francis Blomfield, who converted part of his
house and installed his own press. Nevertheless,
despite the difficulty he produced “one of the greatest county histories”, An
Essay Towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk
(1739).[9] Other
examples of successful publishing include T.Phillips’ History and
Antiquities of Shrewsbury (1779), and Charles Seymour in Kent, with the New
Topographical, Historical and Commercial Survey (1776). In Huntingdon there were problems for
Benjamin Hutchinson, who attempted a “Natural History and Antiquities of
Huntingdonshire” collecting the materials from about 1770 to the 1790’s, but
going mad in his attempt.[10] Often work
was passed from one historian to another.
John Ogilby’s Britannia was a three-volume work on Surrey begun in the
1670’s, but not printed until 1718 by Richard Rawlinson, who came across the
manuscript in the Ashmolean in 1714.[11] Similarly
Smyth’s and Hutchinson’s manuscripts were for sale, and acquired by John
Simmons of Paddington, who advertised them as ready for the press, but could
find no takers. They have now been
lost, and it is fortunate therefore that in Yarmouth in the same period the
work of Henry Swinden passed to John Ives who was in a position to effect
publication, for again the original manuscript has long since vanished.[12]
The nineteenth century was a period when publication was much more
easily pursued. There were many more outstanding successes. Robert Surtees’ Antiquities
of the County Palatine of Durham is a notable example, although many
counties such as Huntingdonshire, as related above, had no significant written
history prior to the Victoria County History (1926-38). In Norfolk, William
Worcester (1415-?1482) had gathered material for his itinerary in his travels
in around 1470, but again, it came to nothing in terms of a printed work, which
did not appear until the publication of Blomefield's history of the county. Nothing of substance followed in Norfolk on
a county-wide scale, but town histories such as Hillen’s King's Lynn
(1907) appeared. Likewise in Kent, although Ireland’s History of Kent
appeared in 1828, it was in large part a reproduction of Hasted’s earlier
county history, and the works of substance were the town histories, such as
Dunkin’s History and Antiquities of Dartford (1844), and Woodruff’s History
of the Town and Port of Fordwich.
In Great Yarmouth it was Charles Palmer who brought the earlier histories from
manuscript into print, and produced the exceptional work, The Perlustration
of Great Yarmouth. As many historians had before, he published his books by
public subscription, the profit being insufficient to cover the costs. As if the task of producing the work were
not enough, historians have generally had to apply themselves to financing the
enterprise, and even to do the work of the printer and publisher. The pursuit
of history has seldom reaped any reward. Historical texts, even as those texts
appear, are influenced by their contemporaries. Local examples do not always
follow an overall model, techniques develop piecemeal across the nation, and
individuals cannot alone be credited with innovation. An example here is the approach to references. Camden popularised
and spread the discipline, but was not responsible for its invention. Leland in
the early sixteenth century may well be the first well-known collector and
preserver of manuscripts and important documents, but certainly cannot be
credited with the sole idea of introducing the practice. Local figures in the regions continued and
developed this practice which especially flourished in the eighteenth century
with such exponents as Tanner, Le Neve
and Dodsworth. Collecting has never ceased to be important, even after
the great museums had taken up the work of preservation. Many manuscripts have
remained in private hands. It has
generally been the absence of an heir, as with Le Neve and Gough for instance,
that has resulted in huge additions to the museum collections. Dawson Turner continued this trend of
collecting into the nineteenth century. It was the collection of material by
one man that made it possible for others subsequently to work upon their
historical texts. Blomefield could
never have produced the History of Norfolk without Le Neve’s great collections;
Hutchinson and Surtees required the work of Dodsworth. Camden could not have
begun without the groundwork of Leland. None of these men acknowledged their
predecessors work, but that was not customary.
The style of individual narratives generally does adhere to precedent
and tries to establish a contemporary norm. Bale should perhaps be credited
with the introduction of a new style of writing that persisted through the
works of such as Gibbon, who was one of very few to make a financial success of
historical authorship. Bale has not been liked, since he rewrote Hollinshed,
but the style he popularised, lasted two centuries. The collective approach and
presentation of Camden and Dugdale similarly had a lasting influence that in
Yarmouth was copied by Henry Swinden.
Elsewhere Francis Drake of York followed a similar model with his History
and Antiquities of York in 1836 Drake introduced many plates and maps, but
this might well have been Swinden’s intention in Yarmouth also, if he had not
died before publication. Blomefield used a questionnaire to enable the
collection of data from places that he would otherwise have found impossible to
visit. The practice of circulating such questionnaires was however widespread,
and not the innovation of Blomefield.
Maps in the
sixteenth century were inaccurate, but even into the nineteenth century,
historians often took them at face value, as they did with ancient manuscripts.
The possibility of a mis-representative drawing or of a forgery has not been
critically considered. Many a historian
has been misled in this way, or not been too worried about the accuracy of his
facts. Dugdale and Leland are particularly notable in this regard, and yet they
made a most irreplaceable contribution.
Likewise, Swinden and Palmer, though largely unquestioning and
uncritical, have provided us with irreplaceable material of great significance.
Only due to their groundwork are we able to revisit the period with a critical
eye. History has evolved and been
pieced together painstakingly over centuries.
It is not possible even for a team of modern historians to independently
piece together the past without the use of the texts and collected materials of
their predecessors.
Finance was perpetually a problem, as was time. Historians generally had
a profession as a lawyer or cleric, and private money and resource in general
was insufficient to produce a published work. A lifetime’s effort was able to
either produce a collection of materials, or to create a history from
materials, but seldom both. Collaboration was rare. Individuals are the authors
of history, but collaboration has taken place on a grand scale because of the
difficulties. Work handed down over generations of historians encompass
centuries of change in technique, brought about by interaction between
contemporaries and forebears. A complex of interaction has produced the end
results. Local history writing is inseparable from national history writing.
Historians are never isolated, they constantly interact with their colleagues,
and refer to the texts of others. They compete and vie for attention. They seek
to upstage each other. In the end they
all contribute to the whole, the historical process.
To next page: The Historians and Histories
[1]May McKisack, Medieval History in the Tudor Age, (Clarendon Press, Oxford; 1971), p.116.
[2]May McKisack, Medieval History in the Tudor Age, (Clarendon Press, Oxford; 1971), p.16.
[3]May McKisack, Medieval History in the Tudor Age, (Clarendon Press, Oxford; 1971), p.126.
[4] May McKisack, Medieval History in the Tudor Age, (Clarendon Press, Oxford; 1971), p.112.
[5]A. T. Thacker, in English County Histories, A Guide, ed. C. R. J. Currie and C. P. Lewis, (1994), p.73.
[6]C. P. Lewis, in English County Histories, A Guide, ed. C. R. J. Currie and C. P. Lewis, (1994), p.197
[7]Isabel Rivers (ed); Books and their readers in Eighteenth-Century England (Leicester University Press; 1982) pp.10-12.
[8]Hassell Smith and Roger Virgoe, in English County Histories, A Guide, ed. C. R. J. Currie and C. P. Lewis, (1994), p.283.
[9]C. P. Lewis, in English County Histories, A Guide, ed. C. R. J. Currie and C. P. Lewis, (1994), p.200.
[10]Beryl Board, in English County Histories, A Guide, ed. C. R. J. Currie and C. P. Lewis, (1994), p.376.
[11]Thomas Damet, “The Foundation and Antiquitye of Great Yarmouth”, Norfolk public record office, YD41/104.
[12]Henry Swinden, The History and Antiquities of the Ancient Borough of Great Yarmouth in the County of Norfolk, (John Crouse, Norwich; 1772) preface, p.9.