The Historians and Histories, chapter 5 Local History in England.htm
The Development
of Local History Writing.htm
Chapter Five
TheNinteenth Century : Charles
Palmer and Dawson Turner.
The nineteenth century writer had much more material at his fingertips,
and a much greater prospect of it reaching publication. Nevertheless it remained for the Victorians
to put into print for the first time so much that was formerly in manuscript,
and thus to ensure its survival. At the
same time style and technique was entering a new dimension. It may well be thought that extensive
referencing and notes are a modern idea. In reality it is the case that the
style of writing and the use of references is a matter of fashion. The author
is influenced by his perception of the needs and desires of his audience. The
cyclical variance of styles in the passage of time has already become apparent.
The nineteenth century histories of Yarmouth are particularly
illustrative of the type of change that occurs in historical writing. Clearly there is peer influence here, but
many writers, even those with extensive works, were not professional
historians, and therefore were influenced in their style more by what they
themselves read elsewhere and by their perception of their audience. It is plain that C.J. Palmer and before him
Henry Swinden were both writing more with posterity in mind than with an eye
upon their contemporary audience.
Although Swinden was writing in the middle of the eighteenth century, he
quoted extensively and generally in full, original documents that he regarded
as precious and liable to disappear, and his use of notes and direct references
was extensive.
Charles Palmer (1805-88) lived for many years at
no.4 South Quay, Great Yarmouth. This
house had been re-fronted in Georgian style by his father, John Danby Palmer
when he first acquired it, and the house survives in that form today. Charles
Palmer’s mother was the daughter of Charles Beart of Gorleston.[1] In due course
Charles inherited the Elizabethan mansion. The house is full of character, fine
carved fireplaces and moulded ceilings.
It is reputed to be the place where the deed of execution of Charles I
was signed. The house is now in the possession of the National Trust, having
been threatened with demolition which was only prevented by a national campaign
in The Times .[2] It seems
likely that living here, as well as the interest of his father in local
history, and then the fact of being articled as a solicitor to Robert Cory,[3] another
significant local historian, stimulated his lifelong obsession with local
history.
Charles was said to have been sickly as a child, and was at first
tutored at home by a female governess together with his sister. He later went to Mr Bowles’ school in Queen
Street in common with James Paget and other local men
of importance. Palmer later gave the opinion that he learned nothing at Bowles’
school. In a similar way, it is obvious that he held women in low regard. His extreme chauvinism comes out throughout
his writing. I am led to wonder what his governess was like. The only woman he
ever commented upon favourably was Mrs. Dawson Turner. His own wife is never
mentioned, and he generally avoids describing women altogether. He is also
evidently something of a snob. He mixed from the beginning with prominent men
in the town such as Dawson Turner and the Palgraves;
Penrice and Lord Chedworth. His
historical works are copiously full of such people, but he makes relatively
little mention of such “ordinary” people as fishermen and beatsters.[4]
Palmer’s major historical work was the three volume Perlustration of
Great Yarmouth, but his printing of Manship’s work with copious additions,
and his Continuation of Manship, unrelated as it is to the original,
were very substantial works indeed. He
retained hundreds of deeds and documents of relevance in his offices as
solicitor, and I think that he must have used his secretarial assistance to
good advantage. Palmer was a most prolific writer, and indeed the detail in his
work is so great as to be scarcely credible of research without modern aids
such as computers and copiers. Palmer
was well aware that there was no secure archive, and that many important
documents were in private hands, frequently being bought and sold by collectors
at auction. They could easily be lost or dispersed, and were very difficult to
keep track of. Documents of importance
had already passed from the locality and were in the British Museum and in the
Bodleian Library. Remarkably, although
Palmer was well aware of documents in the British Museum, he did not appreciate
that there were documents of relevance in the Bodleian Library. His list of sources, written in a
substantial notebook, only came to light in 1994, and relates to documents held
either locally or in the British Museum.[5]
Although Charles Palmer wrote about the upper classes, there is no doubt
that there were a wealth of interesting persons in the town in the skilled and
artisan trades. There were several
great characters who toured the public houses and traded in the streets. At a slightly later date this gap is filled
by the unfortunately scanty writings of John Ruffold. John was the son of “Lolly” Ruffold,[6] a most
amazing showman who toured the local hostelries with his young son John from
1880 to 1914. John was hawked around
the pubs from the age of six years. The
two sang ballads and got drunk together every night. Age was no bar to this then.
John had a most colourful life.[7]
Palmer had access to a multitude of sources, yet made less of the
contents of the council archive than may commonly have been supposed. He had two additional sources of which he
made extremely fine use. Firstly, property deeds.[8] These
inevitably related the succession of ownership of the buildings within the
town, and so were readily described as he perambulated (metaphorically) on his
‘perlustrations’.[9] The latter
was his finest work, being an entirely original idea. Thought by many to be the finest description of any town, it
contains descriptions of many of the inhabitants, combined with a description
of the streets and rows, the whole being described as though taking a walk
around the town. Although as a result
it is often rambling, and in no sense chronological, it presents the reader
with an extraordinarily in-depth survey of the town, many trades are mentioned,
and descriptions are given of the finer buildings, in association with their
ownership and the family connections of the owners. It includes considerable detail of the political aspects of the
town, concerning the various councilmen, Mayors, Burgesses, Members of
Parliament, clergymen and merchants of the town. This does often leave a gap with respect to the common man, his
life generally being considered by Palmer to be rather beneath a detailed
description of this kind. Nevertheless
this criticism should not be taken too seriously.
Palmer’s The Perlustration of Great Yarmouth is probably
unique. It follows several works of a
very different style that in the main process or reprint old manuscripts and
documents and present information but do not break new ground. Palmer follows such substantial historians
as Robert Surtees, born in 1779, whose first volume of the History and
Antiquities of the County Palatine of
Durham, was reviewed in the quarterly review by Robert Southey. Southey was quite in favour of the work,
describing it as a “farrago in folio”.[10] Surtees’ work
ran to four volumes, printed in 1816, 1820, 1823, and 1840. He had used his predecessors work
substantially. Durham history began to
be written in 1573-4 by Christopher Watson, a four volume work, now in the
Cottonian mss.[11] The first book is an abstract of the lives
of the Bishops, the second is a Saxon history, the third and fourth are both
poetry and ecclesiastical matters. When
Palmer wrote, ecclesiastical items were still very much in vogue. He writes several chapters on the work and
family histories of various ministers in Yarmouth. His bibliographical notes suggest that he might have thought of
taking such an approach to an even greater depth, since he has included
substantial lists of sermons and local ecclesiastical publications. In Durham, history continued in the hands of
William Claxton of Winyard, who in 1575 assisted Stowe and Camden. Then Roger Dodsworth was employed by Lord
Fairfax and collected one hundred and sixty volumes of papers that are now in
the Bodleian. Likewise a Durham
barrister, James Mickleton, collected 50 volumes of items. Others continued to transcribe, such as John
Rudd, Thomas Rudd, George Smith, Dr.Christopher Hunter, the Rev. Thomas Randal, Thomas Lyll and George Allan.
In 1785, Hutchinson published the first of four volumes of his History of
Durham . William Hutchinson
(1732-1814) was an attorney at Bamard Castle. He first wrote An Excursion to
the Lakes in Westmorland and Cumberland. and in 1776, A Tour through part
of the Northern Counties in the years 1773 and 1774. Richard Gough dismissed the latter as “a
hasty crude performance with little information, and in a quaint style”. Palmer in Yarmouth had similar antecedents,
collectors of copious materials followed by a similar spread, if rather less a
number of historical authors. Palmer
brought together an enormous mass of material, perhaps inspired by such as
Dugdale, and with many authors attempting likewise in other shires, he strove
to be their equal, or to surpass them.
His description of the town and its occupants in the Perlustration
is exceptional. Many other authors,
like Hutchinson in Durham, had written tours of a county or greater areas of
the country. The attempt at such a
detailed and complete tour within a single town, appears to be unique.
A contemporary and friend of Palmer was Dawson Turner (1775-1858). Dawson was the Grandson of the Rev. Francis Turner, master of the Hospital
School and minister at St. George’s Chapel, and born accidentally at 40
Middlegate Street in 1775, where his mother was visiting her husband’s uncle.
Turner’s bank had been started by his father James at what had been the
“Three Cranes” public house further down the Quay
between rows one hundred and six and one hundred and eight. The business moved
to Hall Quay, where the upper floors were used by Dawson Turner as his private
residence. At one time Dawson Turner also owned a brewery business and public
houses in conjunction with Samuel Paget, father of Sir
James, the world-famous physician. I suspect that Turner had no difficulty in
predicting the ruin of his friend Paget.
In the deeds of no 68 King Street, I found details of Paget’s business,
and details of the mortgage that he held with Dawson Turner.[12] Business
however went into a steep decline, and in 1831 Paget was paying Gurney, Turner
and Brightwen the sum of £6,000 per annum in interest upon a loan of £60,000
with all of Paget’s properties mortgaged to them.
Dawson Turner’s first education was at North
Walsham Grammar School, after which he was tutored privately by the Rev. Forby
at Barton. In 1793 he went to Pembroke College, Cambridge, where his uncle, the
Rev. Joseph Turner was Master. His
father died only a year later, so that he was forced to leave and take up his
profession as a banker, although he did return to Cambridge to take his M.A. at
a later date. Dawson Turner wrote on
botanical and antiquarian subjects, and collected antiquarian objects,
including 40,000 letters, and 4,000 original drawings by members of his and
Cotman’s family (the artist). He was
elected a member of the Linnean Society in 1797, in 1802 was a member of the
Royal Society, became a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1803 and the
Royal Society of Literature in 1824.
Although the author of many literary works, the main one relating to
Yarmouth was his enormous “Norfolk History”, in seventy volumes. It contains approximately four thousand
original drawings. There is one
complete volume on Yarmouth.[13] In this are many
interesting items, including a picture and plans of the foundations of
stone-walled buildings and a tower between rows sixty three and sixty three and
a half. A century later, these same
ruins, nearer to King Street but clearly the same site, were described by
another local historian, P. E. Rumbelow when they were uncovered by a
bomb. Other items recorded in these
books include the ceiling of Robert Cory’s house, the bosses in the church
roof, the doorway of the Priory, and the paintings by Landseer owned by his
banking partner John Brightwen. Dawson
Turner also compiled a book of Cotman’s sepulchral brasses. This contains notes in his own handwriting,
correspondence, and portraits of himself and of Cotman. Turner published a treatise upon Caister Castle.[14] Turner was a close friend of Palmer, his
interests were more diverse than Palmer’s, he was more a collector than writer,
but they frequently dined together, and Turner was very encouraging of Palmer’s
local historical writing, although Palmer did not commence his most important
work, the Perlustration, until after his friend’s death at the age of 83 in
1858.[15]
Conclusion
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, as we have seen. 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. Although some counties
and regions miss out at times in terms of historical texts, when those texts
appear, they then 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.
The Development of Local History Writing.htm
[1]Yarmouth Mercury, (30th. September 1882), reprinted in Frederick Danby Palmer, Leaves from the Journal of the late Charles J. Palmer, F. S. A., (Buckle, Great Yarmouth; 1892), p.13.
[2]The Times, September 7th 1947.
[3]Cory transcribed a number of important works, aside from his copy of Manships history, and including council minutes. Yarmouth Central Library, L1604.
[4] “Beatsters” were net repairers.
[5] C. J. Palmer MS “bibliography”, in P. G. Trett’s library at 80 Victoria road, Great Yarmouth.
[6]Called “Lolly” because he bought sugar from his proceeds in the rag and bone trade, which he boiled to make lollipops for sale to children in the pubs.
[7] James Gellatly, Rags and Bones and Ballads (Trophy series, Campfield Press, St Albans; circa 1925).
[8]Palmer also borrowed documents and papers from another solicitor, James Cobb- see preface to C. J. Palmer, Manships History, Continuation of (Buckle, Great Yarmouth; 1856) p6.
[9] ‘Perlustrate’. An obsolete word dating from (at least) 1535, Per Lustrare = wander through; Lustrate = to pass or go through, to view, survey; Perlustrate = to wander through and survey thoroughly. (The Shorter Oxford Dictionary on Historical Principles, 1988).
[10] Quarterly Review, (1829) xxxix, p.41.
[11]Nigel J. Trimingham, in English County Histories, a Guide, Ed. C. J. Currie and C. P. Lewis, 1994, p.132.
[12]In a unique 53 page abstract dated 1861, amongst the property deeds of/at 68 King Street Great Yarmouth, relating to transactions from 2nd July 1831 to 24th April 1847.
[13]British Library, Dawson Turner’s Norfolk Collections, MS Add.23062.
[14] Dawson Turner, Sketch of the History of Caister Castle (1843).
[15] Dawson Turner Died at Brompton aged 83 in 1858, and his library was sold in 725 lots, BL Add. 23012.