Our Editorial Board have been busy working on a wide variety of publications and projects:
Our Chairman Dr Robert Dunning has co-edited with Andrew Butcher Records of agriculture, justice, religion and trade: A Centenary Collection which is available from the Somerset Record Society.
SDNQ‘s Dorset Editor Dr Mark Forrest has been working on two volumes for the Victoria County History which will shortly appear as drafts on their website Victoria County History | Institute of Historical Research. For VCH Gloucestershire he has completed sections on the medieval and early modern topography of Cirencester and the administrative area the Seven Hundreds of Cirencester. For VCH Wiltshire he has written the descent for several of the manors of Chippenham. His work continues on Charlton Kings, by Cheltenham, in Gloucestershire and Alderbury, Maiden Bradley, Mere and Stourton in Wiltshire. Mark has also found a little time to work on Dorset, including an examination of the documentary evidence for the deserted medieval settlement at Pulston, near Charminster, published in the Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society in 2023.
Our Somerset Editor Dr Adrian Webb has published two new books: A 17th Century Scoundrel: the life and times of Thomas Spigurnell, Attorney, Clerk of Taunton Castle, 1630-1663 and with Philip Ashford An Illustrated History of Watchet and Williton, 1600-1670. Further details about both publications are available here. Adrian is now working on a book in honour of the men and women of Bath and Taunton who went to extraordinary lengths to produce millions of charts for the war effort, including for the D-Day landings.
The first part of Katherine Barker’s paper on Sherborne’s Pack Monday Fair was published in the September 2023 issue of SDNQ, with parts 2 and 3 set to appear in the March and September 2024 issues.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Dovecote Press which was founded by David Burnett in 1974 to publish books about rural life and local history, particularly in Dorset. Recent volumes published by the Dovecote Press have included David Burnett’s Lost Dorset: The Towns and Jason Tomes’ Swanage: An Illustrated History. Also available are Humphrey Stone’s Reynolds Stone: A Memoir and Tom Sharpe’s The Fossil Woman. A Life of Mary Anning. David also writes the monthly ‘Echoes of the Past’ page for the Dorset Magazine.
Dr Tim Connor is completing a book on Wolfeton House in Charminster to accompany his book about Mapperton (2021), from which there will be a short piece in the September 2024 issue of SDNQ. Tim is also researching the one-sided correspondence of young women in and around Sherborne in the 1720s.
Rachel Hassall has had an article published in The Nelson Dispatch (the journal of The Nelson Society) about the forgotten Sherborne grave of Commander Peter Craufurd RN (1780-1849) who served as a midshipman with Nelson on HMS Victory. Her article about the arrest in Sherborne in 1877 of a wealthy New Yorker who was charged with obtaining money by false pretences will appear in the next issue of the SDFHS magazine The Greenwood Tree. Meanwhile, she continues her research into the history of the Strong Women of Sherborne.
Steve Hobbs is busy researching property histories for Wiltshire Buildings Record.
Susan Moore is writing a chapter for a book on Researching with English Court Records c.1200-c.1700. Her chapter will focus on the use of the records of the Equity Courts for the history of people and place. She is also involved with the Wincanton History Day in March 2024, a great celebration of history for the whole family which takes place annually in Wincanton, Somerset. Her role is to organise the room for those offering advice on family and local history. In September Susan will be heading off to Boston, Mass., to give a paper on Chasing family matters across the Atlantic using records of the Chancery court at the 36th International Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences. The autumn will see Susan, along with Somerset editor Adrian Webb, organising a conference in Taunton on behalf of the British Association for Local History.
For the last three and a half years, Professor Steve Poole has been leading a major research project on the Reform riots of 1831 for the Economic and Social Research Council. This project, which has brought together social historians from UWE, Bristol, and social psychologists from the University of Sussex, finally comes to an end on 1 March this year. During the project’s lifespan, we have organised public talks, workshops, and guided walks in Sherborne, Blandford, Yeovil, Martock, Bath, Bristol, Newport, Canterbury, Bridport, Brighton, Worcester, and Dorchester, produced a travelling exhibition for display in public libraries and archives, worked with creative digital artists SATSYMPH to build smartphone riot soundscapes in Sherborne, Blandford, Yeovil and Bristol, and collaborated with Bristol’s M Shed museum to create a new permanent exhibition on the riots at Bristol. Steve will be giving a final research paper based on some of this work to the long eighteenth century seminar at the Institute for Historical Research, London University, on 6 March. The project time have also written a lot, and there’s more on the way: take a look at their detailed case studies and background papers on the project website Riot 1831.
Our Hon. Sec. Mrs Ann Smith is continuing to transcribe entries in the Dorchester Offenders’ Book (ref. DC-DOB/8/1) for a volume for the Dorset Record Society. Ann has recently completed the catalogue of the papers of the engraver Reynolds Stone (1909-1979) which are now searchable on the Dorset History Centre‘s online catalogue ref. D-RYS. She is now cataloguing the Dorset section of the papers of the Batten family, solicitors (ref. D-BAT).
Hon. Treasurer, Geoff Smith, is a volunteer at Dorset History Centre. His background is in engineering and he usually works on business archives and collections containing plans and maps. He has catalogued the designs of John Makepeace, the furniture maker, and the archives of Balstons of Poole, boat builders. He is currently working on the archives of Bournemouth Borough engineering department.
And don’t forget that the next issue of SDNQ will be published in March 2024. Details of how to subscribe to SDNQ can be found on our Contact and Subscription Form page. For all other enquiries please contact the Hon. Secretary.