‘An Auspicious Beginning’, by Robert W. Dunning.
Synopsis of a paper given at the 2011 SDNQ symposium: County Connections – historic links between Somerset and Dorset, held on 1 October 2011 at Downside Abbey.
Synopsis published in SDNQ, vol.37, pp.175-176, September 2012.
In the Autumn of 1887, it ‘occurred to some Antiquaries resident in the counties of Somerset and Dorset that the time was come for the establishment of a local Notes and Queries.’ Thus begins the editorial introduction to the first volume of S.&D.N.&Q. that appeared in 1890. Such a coming together of minds had little need for an elaborate constitution, for which the current Committee is most grateful. It was all so simple and straightforward. ‘After the discussion of a few preliminaries a committee was formed, two Editors were appointed, and the experiment was set in action.’ The experiment continues well over a century later.
The committee, more than half of them clergymen, was dominated by Somerset, though Montague Guest of Savile Row must be considered among the Dorset minority. The several hundred subscribers and supporters (the distinction not at all clear) listed by 1890 reflected a far better balance, including some distinguished national figures: the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records, Bodley’s Librarian, the Chief Librarian of the British Museum, the Honorary Secretary of the Folk Lord Society, Maltravers Herald, the archaeological giant General Pitt-Rivers, the historian E.A. Freeman.
So the fame of S.&D.N.&Q. was very soon established and found subscribers among the New World establishment in the form of Boston Public Library and the New England Historical Genealogical Society; and also among what proved to be rather ephemeral contemporaries in the form of the editors of Notes and Queries for Lincolnshire, Gloucestershire, East Anglia, Northern (at Alloa) and Scotland (at Aberdeen). And also, intriguingly, from some ladies such as the authoress Mrs E. Boger of St Saviour’s Grammar School in Southwark, Mrs H.R.P. Sandford of Queen’s School, Chester, Miss Payne of 2 Westerhall Villas, Weymouth, and Miss E. Samson of Upwey. Charlotte G. Boger, also of St Saviour’s School, sent in queries.
Success in the first three years for S.&D.N.&Q., and indeed for its continued success, was clearly due to the breadth of the interests of its active subscribers: history, genealogy, archaeology, natural history, topography, folklore, customs, dialect. It became, to use a modern phrase, the search engine of choice for many scholars. A trawl through its first volume, highly recommended for an idle hour, will reveal polite controversy, trenchant criticism, obsessive enthusiasm and a vast array of information. Some subscribers used its pages to gather information for their books, some to display their scholarship, more to share their findings or encourage others to search and discover.
And you will be entertained. Where else will you learn about the terms used in talking to domestic animals, a Note contributed by Professor H. Carrington Bolton, of the University Club of New York City? Where else learn scholarly views on the introduction of Helix pomatia into Dorset? And where else read a story of family grief as is, not in Volume I but in Volume VIII (no. 137), a tale clearly so attractive that the Editors overlooked its (un)likely Devon connection?
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